A Merry Little Christmas Read online

  She allowed the make-up girl to touch up her face, and stood in front of the shiny hot plates on which she was about to demonstrate making her twist on a traditional Shropshire stew.

  ‘Hello and welcome to Cat’s Country Kitchen, where I’ll be showing you recipes old and new from Shropshire, the food capital of Great Britain,’ she said, trying with all her might to forget about errant daughters and concentrate instead on cooking. After all, that’s what she got paid for.

  Chapter Two

  ‘And, cut.’ Eventually Len was satisfied. It seemed to have taken ages to get the exact shots he’d wanted, and Cat had been itching to get off the premises for the last half hour. As soon as she decently could, Cat made her excuses and, heart hammering, dashed to the door. She switched her phone back on, to one text message from Noel: Got her. Thank God for that. Cat felt herself unwind slightly. At least Mel wasn’t in danger. But now she knew they were going to have the sort of confrontation Cat always dreaded, with Mel screaming in their faces and her losing her rag. She tried to stay as calm as Noel somehow managed to, but Cat found herself bewildered by their daughter’s unreasonable behaviour. Mel had everything she wanted, why did she have to put them through the mill like this?

  Noel was always saying she should try and see it from Mel’s side more. Mel would no doubt say that she had everything but her mum’s time, Cat reflected. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Her default position. They’d left London so Cat could spend more time with the family, so how was it she seemed to spend less? And now there was more guilt, when she discovered Noel had had to leave an important meeting with Ralph Nicholas’ nephew, who had just joined the firm. If it had been Ralph, Noel was sure he would have understood, but Michael Nicholas was still an unknown quantity according to Noel, and while he hadn’t said anything, Noel had felt awkward about curtailing the meeting to deal with an absconding teenager.

  ‘Next time, it’s your shout,’ said Noel. ‘I can’t keep doing this.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Cat, thinking well, I can’t either. The trouble was she had been so busy filming over the last few months she had dropped lots of balls into Noel’s lap, from dental appointments to meetings with Mel’s teachers. She sighed and wished more than ever Louise hadn’t become ill. Life in Hope Christmas with Louise on hand to help out would have been perfect.

  ‘So where was she?’ asked Cat while rooting around in her bag for her keys.

  ‘I found her in the café,’ said Noel. ‘They were a bit dim, really. It wasn’t hard to track them down.’

  ‘And where’s Mel now?’ said Cat.

  ‘In her room, sulking,’ said Noel.

  ‘Oh joy,’ sighed Cat. ‘I’ll be home soon.’

  She got in the car and put her foot down, and soon found herself escaping the gloom of Birmingham’s high rises for the snow-capped hills of her adopted county.

  ‘Blue remembered hills indeed,’ she murmured, as she drove down the main road towards Hope Christmas, seeing the hills she and Noel loved to walk on looming in the distance. It was a grey winter’s day, and shafts of light streamed out underneath the louring clouds, as she sped her way home.

  Snow had started to fall as she finally drove into the large gravel driveway in front of their oak-beamed house. Their home in Hope Christmas was so different from their London abode – a converted farmhouse with a fabulous kitchen, its gleaming modern steel apparatus still managing to retain a traditional feel when married to grey flagstones and marble-topped work surfaces; creaking stairs, wooden beams, and a huge wood burning stove in the middle giving it a cosy aspect, particularly on a gloomy January day, like today.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Cat as she walked through the door, into their lounge, where the fire was already lit and the sweet smell of wood smoke filled the room, ‘I just couldn’t get away.’

  ‘No worries,’ said Noel, looking vaguely up from his laptop. He pushed his glasses up his nose in an absentminded gesture and smiled in a way that still made her go weak at the knees. ‘At least I found her.’

  ‘Did she say why she did it?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Noel with a sigh, rifling his fingers through his greying hair. ‘I read the riot act, and all that did was produce floods of tears. I couldn’t get her to say a word about what she’s been up to. So I’ve just left her to stew on it. Now might be a good time for some softly softly.’

  Okay, time to gird her loins. Cat made her way to the top of the house, and to Mel’s low-beamed bedroom where she spent a huge amount of time in splendid teenage isolation. She disappeared up there for hours, plugged into either her iPod, her phone, or her laptop. (Cat was vaguely aware Mel had an anonymous blog, but she had no idea what it was called and despite her massive curiosity about it, at Noel’s suggestion had kept away – ‘Give her some space,’ Noel was always saying, ‘if you read her blog, it will be the equivalent of your mum reading your diary.’ Except she’d never written anything worth hiding from her mum in her diary. At fifteen, Louise had known all Cat’s secrets.) Mel was only secretive as far as Cat was concerned, hiding anything dodgy on Facebook, and chatting to God knows who on BBM, and for all Cat knew making a bunch of unsuitable friends.

  It had been so different when they’d first got to Hope Christmas, four years earlier. Having been bullied at her old school, Mel had been happy to fall in with a bunch of self-confessed geeks, and not felt the need to worry about it. But in the last year Mel had drifted away from them, becoming close to a girl called Karen whose entire raison d’être seemed to be going out and getting as drunk as possible. She hadn’t been a very good influence in Cat’s opinion – but she didn’t dare say so. The more Cat and Noel criticised Karen, the more intransigent Mel got.

  ‘May I come in?’ Cat poked her head round the door. Mel was lying on her bed looking moody, listening to her iPod.

  ‘Suppose,’ was the ungracious response. ‘But if you’re going to give me a lecture, it’s okay; Dad’s already done the third degree. And now I’m like, grounded, forever.’

  ‘Mel, what did you expect?’ said Cat, her hackles rising. ‘You weren’t at school and we were worried about you. You can’t just bunk off because you don’t feel like going in.’

  ‘I was okay,’ said Mel.

  ‘Yes, but we didn’t know that,’ said Cat trying to keep her voice level. ‘And besides, until you’re sixteen you have to go to school every day, like it or not.’

  Mel just grunted, and shifted awkwardly on the bed.

  ‘So who’s this boy then?’ said Cat after a pause.

  ‘A mate,’ said Mel.

  ‘Does his mum know he’s been bunking off, too?’

  ‘He’s not at school,’ said Mel.

  ‘Christ, how old is he?’ Mel was still only fifteen. Cat had visions of her dating a twenty-one-year-old.

  ‘Nineteen,’ said Mel sulkily. ‘And before you go off on one, he’s got a job.’

  ‘So why wasn’t he at work?’ said Cat.

  ‘Day off,’ said Mel.

  ‘And what does he do?’

  ‘Farm labourer,’ said Mel. ‘He works for Pippa sometimes.’

  At least that was something, Cat supposed, making a mental note to quiz Pippa about him later.

  ‘Well, I can’t say I’m impressed that you’ve found yourself a boyfriend who’s encouraged you to bunk off,’ said Cat. ‘Tomorrow, I want you to go into school and write a letter of apology to Mrs Carter. And I shall be taking you into school for the rest of the week to make sure you get there.’

  ‘But, Mum,’ wailed Mel. ‘I’m not a kid anymore.’

  ‘But Mum, nothing,’ said Cat. ‘I’ll treat you like a grown-up when you learn to behave like one.’

  ‘That’s so unfair,’ said Mel.

  ‘That’s as maybe,’ said Cat, ‘but it’s still what’s happening.’

  She left Mel still in a strop, no doubt texting the whole world to complain about her lot in life, and made her way downstairs with a heavy heart. Sometimes she felt like her
daughter was an alien from another planet. When Mel was little Cat had never imagined that she would ever think it, but life had been so much easier when she was five.

  Pippa had just parked on the village square, outside Hope Christmas Community shop – known locally as Vera’s (in tribute to Vera Edwards who ran it with her husband Albert) – to deliver her baking, when she saw Marianne’s slight form struggling with her double buggy in the doorway. Like a lot of buildings in Hope Christmas, it was quaint and old, but not terribly baby friendly. Pippa put down her boxes of cakes and ran over to help. Marianne smiled her thanks as she pushed the twins into the dark interior of the shop. Her dark curls were held up in a loose ponytail, and her blue eyes looked pale and tired.

  ‘You look done in,’ said Pippa, following her in with the cakes.

  ‘I am a bit,’ said Marianne. ‘The twins are teething and they keep taking it in turns to wake up. Thank God I’m not teaching today. Otherwise I would have been a zombie.’

  ‘Have you time for a coffee?’ Vera’s was not only a thriving village shop and post office, but it also housed a café run by volunteers which was the hub of the local community. Thanks to their help, Vera had been able to keep her post office going when it was under threat of closure.

  ‘That would be great, thanks,’ said Marianne, settling herself down at a creaky table by the window overlooking the village square, which allowed enough room for her to fit the buggy in. Luckily the twins appeared to have dozed off.

  ‘I’ll just give the cakes to Vera,’ said Pippa, ‘back in a minute.’

  She went over to the counter, handed over her cakes and ordered their drinks at the same time, before going back to join Marianne.

  ‘How are things?’ said Marianne. ‘Sorry I haven’t seen much of you since I’ve been back from London. As soon as I’m back in work mode, I don’t know what happens to the days. And yet when I’m home with the twins I couldn’t tell you what I do all day.’

  ‘I remember that feeling very well,’ laughed Pippa. ‘The upside of the kids getting bigger is that I do have a bit more time.’

  ‘Oh, and thanks for looking after Gabe when I was away,’ added Marianne. ‘He and Steven would probably have lived on baked beans if you hadn’t fed them every other night.’

  ‘Looking after Gabriel is my default position,’ laughed Pippa. ‘I’ve been doing it since he was a baby.’

  Though Pippa and Gabriel were cousins, having been brought up on neighbouring farms, they were closer than many siblings. Now that their respective parents had retired, Pippa and Dan ran one farm, and Gabriel the other, and each helped the other out when they could.

  ‘Have you heard any more about Lucy’s respite care?’ said Marianne. ‘I know you were waiting for a call before I went away.’

  Pippa pulled a face. ‘She’s only going to get monthly help instead of fortnightly, but at least they haven’t cancelled it altogether. For the moment the Sunshine Trust is still guaranteeing its respite care, but it’s only a matter of time. It’s a small independent centre which is mainly funded by charitable donations, and the respite care is funded by Social Services. With all the cuts I can see them pulling the plug.’

  ‘But that’s outrageous,’ said Marianne. ‘What will happen to all those families?’

  ‘I know,’ said Pippa. ‘It makes me so angry, but what can I do?’

  ‘Can you get together and find some private support?’

  ‘In this day and age?’ said Pippa. ‘No one has any money. But if the money could be found to support the respite care package, then maybe the Trust can still provide it. I’m thinking of starting a campaign, but I’m not sure it will make any difference.’

  ‘That’s not like you,’ said Marianne. ‘Come on, you’re the campaign queen. Look at this place – it wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your help.’

  Pippa looked around at the busy shop, bursting with produce from local farms – hers included – and the café, packed as it was with a combination of local mums and the occasional brave winter walker. It was true that without Pippa, the campaign to help save Vera’s livelihood wouldn’t have happened. But that had been four years ago, and there had been a lot of water under the bridge since then.

  ‘I know,’ said Pippa. ‘But I’m so tired. I’ve been fighting and fighting for every scrap of help I can ever since Lucy’s been born. I’m not sure I have the energy to fight anymore.’

  ‘Well, let us help you, then,’ said Marianne. ‘Come on, you can’t give up on Lucy now.’

  ‘Your friend’s right,’ a leather-clad man sitting at the next table suddenly butted in. He was good looking, with dark tousled hair and deep blue eyes, and a captivating voice. Pippa thought she spotted tattoos on his knuckles; not the usual sort you got in Hope Christmas. ‘You owe it to your daughter to keep on fighting.’

  ‘And what do you know about it?’ Pippa bristled. How dare this stranger tell her what to do?

  ‘More than you’d think,’ said the stranger, touching his nose and giving her a wink. He got up to go. ‘I’d say nothing’s impossible till you’ve tried it.’

  And with that, he was gone.

  ‘Well of all the–’ said Pippa in disbelief. ‘What business was it of his, the cheeky sod?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Marianne, ‘but he did have a point.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Pippa gruffly.

  ‘And did you see how good looking he was?’ grinned Marianne. ‘Ladies of Hope Christmas, beware! Trouble’s coming!’

  Pippa laughed. For some reason, she suddenly felt better, as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders for a while.

  ‘Okay, then,’ she said, ‘what do you think my plan of action should be?’

  ‘We’re off for a stroll up the hill,’ said Gabriel brightly, to Steven who was crouched over his Nintendo DS. ‘Care to join us?’

  ‘Do I have to?’ whined Steven. ‘It’s cold out there.’

  ‘It will be refreshing and good for you,’ said Gabriel. ‘We should make the most of the moment. We haven’t had many opportunities to get out recently.’

  ‘Come on, Steven,’ said Marianne. ‘It’s been ages since all of us have done anything together.’

  ‘We can’t do anything with babies,’ grumbled Steven, but Marianne sensed he was weakening. Steven loved his baby siblings, and it was rare for him to moan about them. ‘They don’t do anything.’

  ‘So, we need you to keep us company,’ cajoled Marianne, she was always careful to make sure Steven knew how important he still was, and that the twins hadn’t replaced him. ‘The twins can’t tell us interesting facts they’ve discovered.’

  One of the joys of being in Steven’s company was that he had an encyclopaedic brain and could trot out all manner of fascinating information about anything from astronomy to what really happened to the dinosaurs. But more and more of late he had retreated into himself and wouldn’t tell them anything.

  ‘Go on,’ said Gabriel. ‘You never know, you might even enjoy it. Plus Patch needs you too. You could bring your sledge, and take it down the valley if you like.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ muttered Steven, going off to get ready, while Marianne and Gabriel went to wrap the twins up warmly and put them in their backpacks. It took forever to get sorted, but eventually they set off up the lane.

  Having the twins with them meant they couldn’t take the more difficult paths, so they kept to the lower slopes, which had the advantage of meaning Steven didn’t moan quite as much as he might have done if they’d made him climb up the really steep bits.

  But Marianne thought wistfully of the walks she used to take before the twins arrived. Then she hadn’t thought twice about heading off up to the top, walking on her own among the heather and the sheep for several hours. She wouldn’t be without the twins for a minute, but she was taken aback sometimes at the feelings of resentment that sometimes came from nowhere. It seemed to have got worse since she’d gone back to work. She had naively thought she’d just slot
back into being a teacher, just the way she had done before. No one had told Marianne that it wasn’t that straightforward; no one had prepared her for the feelings of been split in two, feeling she was neither doing the job she loved well, nor wholeheartedly enjoying her babies. She hadn’t figured on feeling that resentful about the loss of her freedom when she was pregnant, and she felt guilty for it. And for the first time Marianne appreciated Eve, Gabriel’s first wife, who, woefully unsuited as she had been to life as a farmer’s wife, had been trapped by being a mother. Marianne loved her country existence, but at times felt stifled by the twins. Thank God for Gabe’s mum, Jean. Without her help, Marianne would have gone nuts by now. And she also felt guilty about Steven, aware she was giving him less attention since the twins arrived. No wonder he was stroppy with them.

  Only not today. They arrived at the end of the path that led onto a large slope which led them straight back down into the town. Steven whooped when he saw that it had become pretty much like an ice rink. Luckily for Gabe and Marianne there were steps and a banister to hold on to so they could get down safely, while Steven leapt on his sledge and went hurtling down to the bottom of the hill. He was in his element, his face flushed with exertion, his eyes bright and sparkling. Particularly when Pippa’s husband Dan showed up with Steven’s cousins, Nathan and George.

  ‘That was brill!’ he said running over to them, with an enthusiasm they hadn’t seen in months. He gave Gabe a hug and ran straight back up the hill with his sledge.

  ‘I feel exhausted just watching him,’ said Gabriel with a grin.

  ‘See,’ said Marianne squeezing his hand. ‘He is still ours. He’s just growing up and we need to give him some space.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ said Gabe, and together they watched Steven having fun as the sun set on a snow-filled field, while the twins slept cosily in their backpacks behind them.

  Being a mum was definitely tough, Marianne thought, and it required huge sacrifices, but moments like this made it all worthwhile.