The Magic of Christmas (31 page)

The dankness of early November set in and the children had been collecting firewood for Friday’s Bonfire Night for the last week or so. I thought Jasper might come home for that, but he said he was too busy, though busy with
what
, he didn’t inform me, and it was probably better not to ask.

Still, he seemed to have settled down very happily at university and was enjoying his lectures. He told me what had been discovered about the Vikings’ dietary habits, from excavating their cesspits at York, at more length than I really wanted to know. It’s quite amazing what passes through the digestive tract more or less whole, isn’t it?

Marian brought the latest issue of the
Mosses Messenger
and pointed out the announcement about my involvement in cooking the Senior Citizens’ Christmas dinner. It was a
fait accompli
, because once it had been proclaimed in the parish magazine, there was no getting out of it … unless they were to forget about my helping by then? It
was
almost a month away.

Saying I never wanted to see another apple again was obviously tempting fate, for Marian then asked me to make toffee apples for Bonfire Night — she runs a little refreshment table with the proceeds going to charity. As usual, Miss Pym would provide a tray of treacle toffee, Annie gingerbread pigs for the children and Faye would bake parkin. There was usually someone roasting chestnuts too and I absolutely adored those.

Marian had yet
more
apples in her car to give me, but I didn’t mind really, especially after I thought up a variant, Treacle Toffee Apples, and added it to my
Just Desserts
collection. Then it occurred to me that the Bonfire Night celebrations in Middlemoss would make a whole chapter of the next
Chronicles
, if I included a few other interesting snippets of information, like the fact that we always burned an effigy of Oliver Cromwell, warts and all, and
not
Guy Fawkes like everyone else.

It was not so much that the villagers were all staunch Royalists in the Mosses, just that they knew how to enjoy themselves and deeply resented the Puritans, or anyone else, trying to put a damper on their fun, and especially the Mystery Play.

And speaking of the Mystery Play, the Tuesday rehearsal went very well … and in my experience, if the November rehearsals go well, then the final dress rehearsal is a total disaster! But the performance itself on Boxing Day would go down wonderfully, whatever happens, because everyone would be well oiled with mulled wine and marinated in anticipation by then.

But on Tuesday even Nick had cut out the innuendo from his interpretation of Adam and played it straight. Sombrely, even. He appeared to be still sulking, though I wasn’t sure what about, and he went off again straight afterwards. There was no Ritch in the pub, either, so I played gooseberry with Annie and Gareth for a while, then went back home, where I ate two toffee apples. Just as well I’d made a lot.

I sent Jasper some of the treacle toffee left over from the apples, which I’d moulded into a square and then broken up, plus a rawhide bone for Ginny — might as well blunt her teeth before he brought her back for Christmas. I was missing him so much. It seemed to hurt more as time went on, though part of me was also, of course, happy that he was having a good time at university.

The toffee and treacle-toffee apples were all wrapped in circles of Cellophane and piled back into the empty apple box by Thursday, when Marian collected them after the second Mystery Play rehearsal of the week. Apparently that one had also gone swimmingly, so we were both now convinced that the dress rehearsals were doomed to some kind of disaster.

Bonfire Night, the following day, was likely to be freezing, and I felt increasingly sure my guess about another cold, snowy winter would be right: the amazing number of berries on everything was a dead giveaway.

Annie never went out on Bonfire Night, staying in to comfort Trinny, who clearly associated loud firework bangs with some unimaginable terror from her past and became a shivering heap. She said Gareth would show his face at the event, before joining her to roast chestnuts over the fire and watch the home videos Annie’s parents had sent her of their VSO work in Africa.

I expect there will be at least a chaste foot of sofa between them.

Unks was away and Juno wouldn’t bring Mimi down for the bonfire, since she got much too excited, but instead would treat her to a short private display of Emerald Cascades and Glittering Fountains in the walled garden before cocoa and an early night.

What Nick was doing I had no idea, and nor was I even remotely interested, so I set out on my own at seven, torch in hand, my innards warmed by a strong slug — or maybe two — of Miss Pym’s rightly famed damson gin: last year’s had been an excellent vintage, but I was down to the last couple of bottles.

The fire was well alight when I got there and the first of the fireworks were going off, under the direction of Clive Potter. There was quite a crowd about and the refreshment table was doing a roaring trade. I didn’t buy one of my own toffee apples, but I did purchase a plastic cup of mulled wine.

Looking round the faces brightly lit by the fire I spotted many familiar ones, though some, like Polly Darke and her friends, were not so welcome. On the other side of the bonfire I could see Jojo, Mick, and almost the entire Mysteries cast. In fact, most of the Mosses residents had turned out as always, though I expect the event wasn’t sophisticated enough for Ritch and his crowd.

From time to time, one or two of the more rebellious teenagers sneaked off into the darkness outside the firelight to set off explosive fireworks, and were yelled at for their trouble: it was all much as usual.

I sat on a log and peeled hot chestnuts out of a paper cup, then got another tumbler of punch and began to feel a lot happier. ‘This is fun, isn’t it?’ I said, finding myself standing next to Ophelia, who was swathed head to foot in a Tolkien-style woollen cloak with a tasselled hood. It looked pretty weird by firelight, but probably not as odd as the full-length knitted coat that I was wearing, a labour of love presented to me by Annie last Christmas. It had lots of little hanging daggy bits like a raddled sheep, and the strident colour combination meant I could only wear it in the dark.

Ophelia’s white face was upturned and rapt, watching a sunburst of stars. ‘Oh … it’s sooo beautiful!’ she sighed rapturously. ‘Beautiful, beautiful stars. Stars …’

Then as the firework flickered and went out she turned to me and said excitedly, ‘
Star!
Of course! I’ll call the baby Star!’

‘Star Locke?’ I said doubtfully, though of course it might by then be a Star Naylor. ‘If it’s a boy, it might sound a bit odd.’

‘No, no … beautiful!’ she murmured, and another firework shot up into the sky and exploded into a galaxy of pinprick lights. ‘Better than Rambo …’

‘That’s very true,’ I agreed, beginning to feel a bit muzzy and wondering if my earlier shots of damson gin hadn’t been such a good idea. Or perhaps the punch was stronger than usual. Whichever it was, I had the feeling the chestnuts were sloshing about in an awful lot of liquid, and it was probably about time to call it a day and go home … especially since Nick had suddenly materialised out of the shadows nearby like the Prince of Darkness.

He was looking at me with what appeared to be acute disapproval: so nothing new there, then.

‘Must find Caz and tell him about stars,’ Ophelia said, looking around her vaguely, though you’d need ESP to find our chameleon of Middlemoss if he didn’t want to be found.

She wandered off and I too turned to go, but had only taken a step or two away from the firelight when something landed with a thud just where we’d been standing and immediately exploded with a horrendous bang and a shower of bright sparks.

I put my hands over my ears and staggered, almost falling — and then was suddenly knocked flat by someone large and heavy. He landed on top of me and rolled me over and over and even winded, shocked and with my face pressed into icy mud, I somehow
knew
it was Nick. After what seemed like ages his weight was removed and urgent hands ripped my woolly coat off.

There was a smell of singed wool, and also, possibly, singed me.

I turned over slowly, dazed and winded, then sat up in time to watch him jumping up and down on my coat. I knew it was ghastly, but it didn’t quite merit
that
treatment.

‘Lizzy, are you all right?’ Marian cried, running over and trying to haul me to my feet, only my knees seemed to have given up and I was a dead weight.

‘I’m fine,’ I gasped, reinflating my lungs and trying to wipe the mud and grass from my face.

Clive appeared out of the darkness and declared vengefully, ‘I don’t know who threw that firework, but if I find him, he’ll wish he hadn’t!’

‘No one would be stupid enough to throw it in this direction on purpose. It must have been an accident, Clive,’ Marian said. ‘Those boys just wouldn’t be told!’

I looked around suddenly. ‘Ophelia? Is
she
all right? Only we were talking together just before the firework went off.’

‘Don’t you worry about her, she was well out of range and that Caz’s with her,’ Marian said soothingly. ‘You were closest: did it burn you anywhere?’

Nick picked up my mangled coat and examined the limp and ruined remains with satisfaction. ‘There, that’s out. Only just caught it, though.’ Then he bent down and hauled me effortlessly to my feet, though he had to keep one arm around me to stop me falling over again.

When he realised I was trembling violently from a mixture of shock and cold, he shrugged out of his leather jacket and wrapped it around me, the silk lining warm and slithery.

‘I think Lizzy may have singed the back of her legs a bit, Nick,’ Marian pointed out worriedly. ‘Her jeans are charred in a couple of places.’

‘Yes, and I can’t seem to stand up,’ I said weakly.

‘Shock,’ Marian said. ‘Stand back, everyone, and let her get some air!’

Until that moment I hadn’t even realised that the ring of spectators was pressing close, watching avidly, including Polly Darke, a half-smile on her lips like a slightly warped Mona Lisa. Then her eyes shifted sideways to Nick and she slowly took first one step back, then another, until she vanished into the darkness.

I blinked. Maybe I’d imagined her …

‘Drink’s more likely than shock, the way she was knocking the punch back,’ Nick was saying unsympathetically. ‘I don’t think there’s much harm done, but I’ll take her home.’

‘Perhaps you should bring her to the post office first and Marian can see if she’s burned?’ suggested Clive. ‘It might be bad enough for Accident and Emergency.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Nick said, ‘but if it looks worse than I think it is when I’ve got her home, I’ll phone the doctor.’

‘You do that,’ Marian agreed.

‘Your voices sound strange,’ I commented, and so did my voice, too — frail and far away. And then everything seemed to be shifting dizzyingly …

‘I expect the blast deafened you a bit,’ Clive suggested.

‘No, I think I’m going to—’ I began, and then the darkness closed over my head like water.

I woke in Perseverance Cottage lying on my own sofa in front of the glowing fire, with Nick wiping the mud from my face with a wet flannel. A
cold
wet flannel: I expect that’s what brought me round.

His face, concerned and intent, was very close to mine. ‘At last!’ he said with relief when he saw my eyes open muzzily. ‘I was starting to get worried.’

‘What … happened?’

‘You fainted.’

‘I
never
faint!’

‘Then maybe my first guess was right, and you passed out from all that punch you were knocking back, then,’ he said.

‘I didn’t have that much, and there’s usually very little alcohol in it,’ I said, attempting to sit up and feeling strangely disconnected.

‘How do you feel now?’

‘All right — a bit shaky.’

‘I expect that’ll go off. There are two small burns on your leg. I’ve put some antiseptic and dressings on them, but I don’t think they’re much to worry about.’

Actually, I was more worried by the sudden realisation that he’d removed my jeans! Under a concealing blanket, all I was wearing on my lower half were my sensible cotton pants.

My face burned and I sat up straighter and primly tucked the blanket around my legs. ‘I think I ought to thank you for — well, for putting me out. That’s why you threw yourself on top of me, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, and I’m sorry about that, but I could see your coat was catching and it was the quickest way of smothering the flames.’ He got up and came back holding the sad remains of my coat. ‘I’m afraid I’ve made a bit of a mess of it.’

‘You certainly have — and Annie knitted it for me. Now I expect she’ll make me another even more hideous one, because I told her I loved it.’

Then I had an evil thought: perhaps I should tell her he jumped on it because he was jealous, and then she might knit
him
one, too? She whips them up in no time, on giant needles.

‘You ought to go to bed. Do you want me to carry you up?’ he offered.

‘No, I don’t,’ I said firmly, shivering again. ‘But I’d like you to fetch the bottle of damson gin from the kitchen and then lock the door behind you when you go.’

‘I don’t think you should drink any more alcohol! You’re in shock and would be better trying to go to sleep, and you don’t have to be nervous, because I’ll stay here tonight on the sofa. Go to bed and I’ll make you some cocoa.’

‘I’m not nervous, I don’t need you to stay here with me, and I don’t want cocoa — I want gin. And if you aren’t going to get it for me, then I’ll get it myself,’ I said, attempting to rise from a tangle of blanket on slightly wobbly legs.

Nick sighed and got up. ‘OK, but don’t blame me if you feel terrible in the morning.’

My hand trembled so much that the glass rattled against my teeth, so he had to sit down with his arm around me and hold it. But it did the trick and I soon began to stop shaking and calm down — or maybe ‘go comatose’ is a better description. The warmth of the fire and the soft pink light from the table lamp were very soothing …