The Magic of Christmas (4 page)

It was also listing drunkenly on one seriously flat tyre.

Tossing the last of the feed to the hens, I stuck my head inside the cottage door.

‘Jasper?’ I called loudly up the steep stairs, expecting him to be still asleep. By nature, teenagers are intended to be nocturnal, so it felt cruel to have to drag him out of his lair under the eaves each morning.

Instead, he loomed out of the doorway next to me, making me jump. ‘I’m here, Mum. What’s up?’

‘Flat tyre. You have your breakfast and get ready while I change it. I hope it’s a mendable puncture — the spare’s not that brilliant and if I have to buy a new one it’ll be worth more than the rest of the car put together.’

One of the Leghorns had followed me into the flagged hallway (a Myrtle: all the white hens are called that; and the browns, Honey) and I shooed it out again. There’s something terribly cement-like about hen droppings when they set hard.

‘I’ll change it,’ he offered. ‘Or I can cycle over.’

‘No, I’ll have it done by the time you’ve had breakfast, and you’ll be late otherwise.’

The medieval dig he was working at was only a few miles away, but the lanes between the site and us were narrow and twisty, so I worried about his safety. Annie calls it ‘mother hen with one chick’ syndrome, but she is just as dotty about Trinity, her rescued dog. And if I hadn’t been an anxious mother, then maybe I wouldn’t have demanded the right treatment for Jasper’s meningitis that time he was rushed into hospital, even before the tests came back positive … It didn’t bear thinking about.

Jasper wandered out again a few minutes later holding a piece of toast at least an inch thick, not counting the bramble jelly and butter, removed the wheel brace from my hand (giving me the toast to hold in exchange), and unscrewed the last nut.

‘Thanks, that was stiff. You’d think if I’d tightened it up in the first place, I’d be able to undo it easily, wouldn’t you?’

‘Dad not back yet?’ Jasper asked, glancing across at the large, ramshackle wooden shed Tom used as his workshop, with the ‘Board Rigid: Customised Surfboards’ sign over it.

‘No.’

‘Well, remember that time you asked him to go and buy a couple of pints of milk, and you didn’t hear from him for a week?’ he said, clearly with the intention of comforting me should I need it. But actually, I was sure he shared my feeling that his father’s increasing number of absences were a blessing, even though I was usually the one on the receiving end of Tom’s viciously sarcastic outbursts.

He couldn’t help but have noticed the way Tom had estranged himself from both of us, behaving more like a lodger than a husband and father.

Just let me get him safely off to university in October, then I can sort my life out — somehow,
I prayed silently.

Jasper said nothing more, but retrieved his toast and went back into the house.

The first golden glow of the morning was fading, much as my love for Tom had quickly vanished once I’d grasped what kind of man I’d married: the mercurial type, an erratic moon orbiting my Mother Earth solidity. For years I’d thought that deep down he loved and needed me, and he’d always managed to sweet-talk me into forgiving him for anything and everything, although my exasperation levels had slowly risen as my son matured and my husband remained as irresponsible as ever. Have you ever imagined what it would be like to be married to Peter Pan once the novelty wore off? A Peter Pan with a dark side he kept just for me … like a sweet chocolate soufflé with something hard at its centre on which you could break your teeth — or your heart.

His cousin Nick, whose Mercedes sports car was slowly bumping down the rutted track towards me, scattering hens, wasn’t any kind of soufflé — more like one of his own devilishly hot curried dishes. He does cook like an angel, though, and he’s an expert on all aspects of food and cooking, writes books and articles and has a page in a Sunday newspaper colour supplement.

The Pharamonds didn’t seem to do marriage terribly well and he’d had a volatile, semidetached relationship with Leila for years. She’s another chef, which was at least one too many cooks on the home front, by my reckoning. I was glad to see she wasn’t with him that day, because Leila is a lemon tart. Or maybe, since she’s French, that should be
tarte au citron
?

Miaou.

I resolved not to be catty about her, even if every time we met she contrived to make me feel like a lumbering great carthorse. She’s an immaculately chic, petite, blue-eyed blonde, while I am tall and broad-shouldered, with green eyes flecked with hazel, fine light brown hair in a permanent tangle, and the sort of manicure you get from digging vegetable beds without gloves on.

Unks — Great-uncle Roly — didn’t like her either. He said if it weren’t for her refusing to stop working all hours in her restaurant in London and settle down, there would have been lots of little Pharamond heirs by then. But he couldn’t have thought this through properly, because if they were a combination of the scarier bits of Nick and Leila, that would be quite alarming indeed.

Leila was married before and was fiercely independent, with her own swish apartment above her restaurant; while Nick had a small flat in Camden. And considering he spent at least half his time at Pharamond Hall, which Leila rarely visited, you’d wonder when they ever saw each other.

I
certainly hadn’t seen Nick for ages. He always phoned up for any eggs, fruit or vegetables he needed when staying at the Hall and working on recipes, but I just dropped them off with Unks’ cook, Mrs Gumball.

Yet here he was, deigning to pay me a visit. As his Mercedes pulled up I removed the jack and then slung the punctured tyre in the back of the car, where Jasper’s bike already reposed. You can get anything in a 2CV, if you don’t mind being exposed to the weather.

Nick got out. He was wearing dark trousers and an open-necked soft white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the glossy, thick black plumage of his hair spikily feathering his head. His strong face, with its impressively bumpy nose, can look very attractive when he smiles, though the last time he’d wasted any of his charm on me was in the hospital when Jasper had meningitis. And after the way I’d bared my soul to him in the night hours, I could only feel profoundly grateful that I hadn’t seen much of him since then.

I distinctly remember telling him how I hoped that once Jasper was at university, things would get better between me and Tom — and instead, from that very moment they’d rapidly got worse and worse …

I became aware that Nick was waving his hands slowly in front of my face, like a baffled stage hypnotist.

‘Planet Earth to Lizzy: are you receiving me?’

‘Oh, hi, Nick — long time, no recipe,’ I said, wiping my filthy hands up the sides of my jeans — they were work ones, so it wasn’t going to make a lot of difference. I only hoped I hadn’t run them through my hair first, though since I didn’t remember brushing it this morning, a bit of grease would at least hold the tangles down.

He frowned down at me. ‘I sent you a card from Jamaica.’

‘That was ages ago, and a recipe for conch fritters isn’t exactly the most useful thing to have in the middle of Lancashire — the fishmongers don’t stock them. Anyway, what are you doing here at this time of the morning? Have you driven straight up from London?’

‘Yes, I’m looking for Tom,’ he said shortly, checking me over with eyes the dark grey-purple of wet Welsh slate, as though he wasn’t sure quite what species I was, or what sauce to serve me with. ‘What have you done to your face?’

I flushed and touched the bruise on my cheek with the tips of my fingers. ‘This? Oh, a plate got dropped and one of the pieces bounced up and hit me,’ I said lamely; it was
almost
the truth.

His brows knitted into a thick, black bar as he tried to imagine a plate that explosive.

‘It looks worse than it is, now it’s gone all blue and yellow — it’ll have vanished in a day or two. And Tom’s away,’ I added.
Thank goodness!

From the way Nick was looking at me I thought I’d said that aloud for a minute, but finally he asked, ‘Oh? Any idea when he’ll be back?’

‘No, but he’s been gone since Monday, so I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t turn up today.’

He raised one dark eyebrow. ‘And do you know
where
he’s gone?’

‘He didn’t say and there is no point in ringing his mobile because he never answers or gets back to me.’ I shrugged, casually. ‘You know what he’s like. He might be off delivering a surfboard. I’m pretty sure he’s not doing a gig with the Mummers, they don’t usually go that far from home.’

‘A gig — with the
what
?’

‘The Mummers of Invention: you know, that sort of folk-rock group he started with three local friends?’

‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘I’m glad to say I don’t.’

‘You must do because one of them’s that drippy female Unks rents an estate cottage to — she sells handmade smocks at historical re-enactment fairs. And if you ever came up for the Mystery Play any more, you
would
have seen them — they provide the musical interludes. Tom played Lazarus as well, last year. He stepped in at the last minute and the parish magazine review said he brought a whole new meaning to the role.’

‘I can imagine — and I
do
intend being here for the next performance.’

‘I thought Leila couldn’t leave her restaurant over Christmas?’

‘
She
can’t;
I
can,’ he snapped, and I wondered if their marriage was finally dragging its sorry carcass to the parting of the ways, like mine. ‘So, you’ve no idea where Tom is, or when he’ll be back?’

‘Probably Cornwall, that’s where he mostly ends up, and if so, he’s likely to be staying with that friend of his Tom Collinge, the weird one who runs a wife and harem in one cottage.’

‘I suppose he may be there by now, but he was in London on Monday night, Lizzy. I ran into him at Leila’s restaurant, but he left in a hurry — without paying the bill.’

‘He did?’ I frowned. ‘That’s odd. I wonder what he was doing in London?’

‘Well, it evidently wasn’t me he’d gone to see, since he bolted as soon as I arrived.’ He looked at me intently, as though he’d asked me a question.

‘Oh?’ I said slowly, trying to remember whether Tom had actually ever said which of his friends he stayed with when he was in London.

‘Still, you know Tom,’ I tried to laugh. ‘He probably just found himself near the restaurant and dropped in.’

‘Then just took it into his head to shoot off without paying when I turned up unexpectedly? Leila said she didn’t want to charge him for the meal anyway, since he’s a sort of relative.’

‘That’s kind of her,’ I said, amazed, because it wouldn’t surprise me if she gives even Nick a bill when he eats there!

‘Yes, wasn’t it just?’ he said drily. ‘And one of the staff let slip that he’d stayed in her apartment the previous night, too — the staff seemed to know him pretty well. But I told Leila, business is business and she’d never let sentiment of any kind come before making money before, so I would just drop the bill in on my way up to the Hall. Here it is.’

I looked at his closed, dark face again and suddenly wondered if he suspected that Tom and Leila had something going on. Surely not. It would be totally ridiculous! I knew that Tom had been having a serious affair for the last few years, of course, but not who it was with, although I assumed it was someone down in Cornwall where he spent so much time. It couldn’t be Leila … could it?

My mind working furiously, I took the offered bill and glanced down at it, then gasped, distracted by the staggering sum. ‘You must be absolutely rolling in it, charging these prices!’

‘Not me — Leila. And the prices aren’t anything out of the ordinary for a restaurant of that standard. She’s just got a Michelin star.’

‘Congratulations,’ I said absently, staring at the bill, the total of which would have fed the average family of four for about a year. More, if they grew most of their food themselves, like I do. ‘But I’m sorry,
I
don’t have that kind of money on the proceeds of my produce sales — and in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve scaled that side of things down drastically in the last eighteen months.’

‘Come on, you must get good advances for your “how I tried to be self-sufficient and failed dismally” books. You can’t plead poverty,’ he looked distastefully down at the mess he was standing in, ‘whatever it looks like here!’

‘You should have looked before you got out of the car,’ I said coldly. ‘The ducks have been up. And one small book every two or three years doesn’t exactly rake in the cash. I only get a couple of thousand for them. I’m lucky to still have a publisher! My agent says it’s only because my faithful band of readers can’t wait to see what else goes pear-shaped every time. And they like all the recipes.’

‘Ah yes, the Queen of Puddings!’ He wrinkled his nose slightly.

‘What?’ I said indignantly. ‘Just because it’s wholesome, everyday stuff, it doesn’t mean it isn’t good food! At least
my
recipes don’t need ninety-six exotic ingredients, four servile minions and a catering-sized oven to produce.’

He grinned, as though glad to have got a rise out of me, and I began to remember why our boy-girl romance never got off the ground: an interest in food is the only thing we’ve
ever
had in common, whatever Annie says, and he never tires of reminding me that mine is not gourmet, and it’s largely focused on sweets and desserts.

‘And this is not my bill, so you’ll have to come back and speak to Tom about it later,’ I added, sincerely hoping that that was
all
he wanted to talk to Tom about. Clearly he was harbouring suspicions … But no, whoever Tom was having an affair with, it couldn’t be Leila, his own cousin’s brittle little acid drop of a wife, however strange the circumstances might look!

‘If I can catch him,’ Nick said, the grin vanishing. He abruptly changed the subject. ‘Jasper had his results yet?’

‘Oh, yes!’ I said, happily diverted. ‘Yesterday and they were just what he needed for Liverpool University, to read Archaeology and History. He’s having breakfast at the moment — why don’t you come in and talk to him? He hasn’t thanked you for that Roman cookery book you sent him, yet.’