The Magic of Christmas (28 page)

There wasn’t any sign of Ritch after the rehearsals, but he was already in the pub, the centre of an admiring circle. I expect he was telling
them
all about his cameo film role, too. I sat quietly in the corner with Gareth and Annie for a while, then left early and fairly abruptly when I spotted Polly coming in, wearing a wrapover dress that made her breasts look like a giant pair of loosely packaged white puddings.

I pounced on her near the door, grabbing her sinewy arm. ‘I want to talk to you! I know what you’ve done, Polly.’

She went the colour of clotted cream and stared at me through a spidery inch of clogged mascara. ‘I don’t know what you mean!’

‘Those tricks you’ve been playing — the jars of jam and tomatoes made to look like mine, the ARG harassment, the poisonous fungi in the mushrooms, even the lies you’ve been telling the Barilloses! And I’m warning you, if there’s any more of it, I’ll go to the police.’

Her colour came back in a rush. ‘Tell them, then, and see if they believe you!’ she hissed, then wrenched her arm away with surprising strength and shoved her way through the crowd towards the bar.

There was no point in following her, but Ritch caught me up outside.

‘Wait for me! I said I’d run you home tonight — you look exhausted.’

‘It’s been quite a day,’ I agreed wearily, though it just goes to show that you shouldn’t misjudge people: he might have seemed totally self-absorbed in the pub, but he’d still noticed I wasn’t exactly a sparkling little star in the firmament tonight.

So when we pulled up outside Perseverance Cottage I didn’t resist when he put his arm around me and kissed me: apart from suddenly feeling too exhausted to move, I needed comfort.

He tasted only of minty mouthwash. Now, that
was
a relief.

After a couple of minutes he must have detected a certain lack of enthusiastic cooperation because he sat back again. ‘OK, I know when I’m flogging a dead horse. You don’t really fancy me, do you?’

‘I wouldn’t exactly say that,’ I replied honestly, ‘but …well, to be frank, I find the thought of your morning pee-drinking sessions a bit off-putting!’

‘Really? You know, you’re the second woman to say that — though it’s perfectly natural, you know — everyone is doing it.’

‘Not round here they’re not!’

‘Well anyway, I’ve given it up, now. I get crates of Elyxr delivered instead.’

‘What kind of elixir?’ I asked curiously.

‘Oh, Elyxr is the name they’ve given to a
very
special and expensive ionised mineral water. It comes from a secret source high in the Himalayas, where everyone’s over a hundred and the local men all father children into their nineties and beyond. What do you think?’

‘I think you’ve got more money than sense. What’s ionised water?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ he confessed. ‘But anyway, now you know I’ve given the other thing up, does that make a difference?’ he asked hopefully.

‘Not really, because it’s pointless — I’m simply not harem material.’

‘You can be chief concubine,’ he offered, cheekily.

‘Thanks, but no thanks. And you’d better watch your step with Kylie, too. Did you know she has a very tough boyfriend, in the army?’

He grinned unrepentantly. ‘In the army
and
in another country, though. Anyway, she’s not serious and neither am I; it’s just a bit of fun. But you and I could be serious …’

‘No we couldn’t, don’t be daft! There isn’t a serious bone in your body,’ I said severely, fending him off, then gasped as a spectrally pale face appeared at the window.

‘
What
the hell …?’ began Ritch explosively, letting me go just as the door on my side was pulled open.

‘Hens,’ Caz Naylor said succinctly, with a jerk of his head.

‘Oh God!’ I scrambled hastily out. ‘I entirely forgot to lock them up for the night before I left, and there’s been a fox about. Good night, Ritch, thanks for the lift!’

‘But, Lizzy—’ he began to protest, though when I ignored him and started across the yard towards the henhouse he gave up and drove off.

‘I’ve done ’em,’ Caz said from behind me, stopping me in my tracks, and then he turned and loped silently off into the darkness.

Men.

Nick was still away, but very early one morning a postcard of Penzance arrived, with a recipe scrawled on the back for a dessert consisting mostly of Cornish clotted cream. It appeared to have travelled the length of the country before coming home to roost, possibly because the front was tacky so it had stuck to other mail. I had to sponge and dry it before adding it to the album. I expect he wrote it in a restaurant over a lush dinner, probably in the company of some equally lush Poldarkian beauty.

I was about to embark on my daily larder-filling (Lizzy the human squirrel), gardening and pet-sitting activities, though guiltily feeling that I should instead make a proper start on the
Just Desserts
book, when — speak of the devil — Senga rang me.

‘I thought you might like to know that Polly Darke and I have parted company,’ she told me crisply. ‘She rang me up hysterically demanding I drop you as my client, or she would leave me. So I told her to take her business elsewhere.’

I nearly dropped the telephone. ‘But, Senga, she earns
much
more than I do!’

‘Perhaps, but she’s ten times the trouble and I’m not having one of my authors telling me who else I can or can’t represent. Anyway, if she carries on like she’s doing, pestering her publishers and doing a prima donna act all over the place, they will drop her, too.’

While I was grateful that Senga decided to keep me and ditch Polly, it does give Polly one more thing to hate me for. But now she knows that I know she did all those spiteful things, surely she wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything else?

‘Crange and Snicket want to know how
Just Desserts
is coming along,’ Senga said. ‘And so do I.’

‘I’m collecting recipes,’ I assured her hastily.

‘Don’t forget that you can use old stuff from all the
Chronicles
, though you need at least fifty per cent new material or your readers will feel cheated.’

‘I will, and I’m picking Nick Pharamond’s brains, too, only his recipes tend to be pretty sophisticated and I have to dumb them down to my level.’

‘I’d forgotten he was some kind of relation of your husband’s — that’s lucky. And he’s really attractive as well, isn’t he?’

‘Lots of women seem to think so. He’s in the middle of getting divorced — shall I put in a good word for you?’

‘God, yes!’ she said enthusiastically.

In the afternoon Jasper returned and I needn’t have worried about what he was going to spend Unks’ holiday money on, because he came back laden with stuff to take to university with him: his own kettle, mugs and crockery, plus tons of archaeology books because he’d struck a rich vein in a second-hand bookshop.

He also sported a strange haircut and lots of new clothes, including some oddly worded T-shirts that probably meant something a mother shouldn’t know about: I didn’t ask for a translation.

Ginny sported a new collar. Jasper tried to persuade me that she was pleased to see me on her return, citing the fact that she hadn’t yet nipped my ankles as evidence, but I wasn’t convinced. I think she is a one-man bitch.

I went out early next morning to clean out the cage of a rather vicious African Grey parrot, leaving Jasper getting his stuff ready to go to university the following day.

When I got back he said Nick had phoned. ‘He wanted to wish me good luck for university.’

‘That was kind. Where is he?’

‘Back in London, but he’s coming home soon. He has to do something about the divorce first — go to the solicitor’s maybe, and sign something? He said he and Leila were getting on better now they were divorcing than they ever had while they were married,’ he added.

‘How lovely. I’m
so
happy for them.’

Jasper grinned. ‘He said he was sorry to miss you, and had you managed to make a decent apple pie yet.’

‘Ha, ha!’ I said sourly. My shortcrust pastry is so light it practically floats off the plate, so I still can’t see why the judges at the fête gave Nick the gold prize!

After a quick lunch we set off to the museum and botanical gardens near Southport, which was one of Jasper’s favourite trips out as a small boy. He seemed to enjoy the outing as much as I did, though I expect he was just humouring his old mum again. I did let him drive the Land Rover, though, so that might have had something to do with it.

When we got home he brought down all his boxes and bags of stuff, and stacked them in the hall, while I cooked his favourite dinner of roast chicken with crinkly, thick-cut chips, followed by little pots of rich, dark chocolate mousse.

It had been a lovely day and, even if I was sad to see Jasper leave home, I was also happy for him too, because this was how it should be.

So there I was next day, about to leave my beloved offspring, bag and baggage, marooned in a strange place to start a part of his life that I would only peripherally be involved in.

Not that Jasper was entirely among strangers, of course, since not only was Ginny present, but also his friend Stu and another friend’s elder brother were among the students sharing the terraced house.

Jasper’s bedroom was on the ground floor in what had once been the morning room, so at least if there was a fire he could get out fast … And even after half an hour I was still sitting quivering on the bed from the effect of having driven through the Liverpool traffic system, trying to find the place.

Jasper had somehow managed to fit all his stuff in the Land Rover, but now it had exploded to four times its original bulk, like popcorn in a microwave.

‘When I went to London to do my cookery course with Annie,’ I remarked, looking at it all with amazement, ‘we had—’

‘Just one rucksack and a sleeping bag each,’ he finished for me, ripping the tape off a cardboard box and delving inside for coffee and mugs. He had his own little sink in the corner of the room, which was handy. ‘I know, Mum, you’ve told me.’

‘
And
I had a guitar.’

He frowned. ‘I don’t think you ever mentioned the guitar. And you can’t play a guitar.’

‘No, so I swapped it with someone in the first week for that glass pig with the three little pigs inside it.’

‘Oh, yeah, cannibal pig.’ He plugged in his brand-new kettle and switched it on. I was ready for a cup of coffee by then.

‘You don’t have to stay any longer, you know, Mum,’ he said kindly, looking up. ‘It’ll be dark before you get home if you don’t get off soon. Besides, no one’s going to come in here while my mother’s hanging about. I can hear them talking in the kitchen, so I’ll go and take my food and stuff through in a minute when you’ve gone.’

‘It’ll be dark anyway by the time I get home,’ I pointed out, feeling slightly hurt. ‘But perhaps I had better go and leave you to get on with it. I only hope I can find my way back out of Liverpool again.’

‘It’ll be easier finding your way home than getting here, because you’ll know where you are once you’re out of the city. Come on, I’ll see you off.’

‘I’ll phone you tonight, just to make sure everything’s all right, shall I?’

‘Well, I might be out somewhere too noisy to hear it,’ he said dubiously, ‘but you could leave a message.’

‘No, that’s OK — you call me when you feel like a chat,’ I suggested, with a brightness I certainly didn’t feel. ‘I’d love to know how you’re getting on.’

Out on the pavement I gave him a hug, which he suffered with saintly resignation, then got into my now empty Land Rover.

He leaned in at the open passenger door and said, ‘Now, Mum, remember what I said, and don’t try changing any plugs!’

‘I only melted one once!’ I replied indignantly.

‘And switch the light off
before
you change a light bulb. Don’t mess about with the timer on the boiler — and if the flame goes out again, ask Unks to send Joe down to do it, or Uncle Nick.’

‘Now look here, Jasper, I’m not completely helpless, you know! I may not have an affinity with anything electric but—’

‘Actually, you’re the kiss of death to anything electric,’ he interrupted firmly. ‘Anyway, I expect I’ll come home for the odd weekend before Christmas, so you can save anything that wants doing until then, if you like.’

Hold on, I thought, shouldn’t this be
me
giving out the instructions? And not about electricity either, but drugs, safe sex and eating properly (though the eating bit wasn’t so pressing since I’d packed enough food and drink to last him for about ten years).

‘I expect I’ll survive,’ I said, then looked at him — tall, skinny, his dark hair whipping about in the brisk breeze — and swallowed hard.

‘Goodbye then, darling. Hope you settle in quickly,’ I said slightly huskily, though I did manage a smile, before starting the engine and heading in the direction I hoped would take me home.

The sun was sinking in a clear sky, but just like the song, it was raining, raining in my heart.

Annie had kindly been to the cottage to shut up all the Myrtles and Honeys, and left me a pineapple upside-down cake with a nice note telling me to ring her if I wanted to, though ten to one Gareth was there, or she was out doing something godly and good with him.

The cottage looked desolate and empty, which was exactly how
I
felt. Jasper had been the centre of my universe for over eighteen years: what was I going to revolve around now?

Then Unks called to ask me how Jasper had settled in and I told him how he’d turned the tables on me in the good advice stakes, which made him laugh.