Last Christmas Read online

There were two empty seats at the back, so she sat down on one of them and hoped that the formidable Miss Woods and Diana Carew wouldn’t be taking notes as to who was there or not. Diana Carew, who had of course taken charge, her reading glasses hung about her neck and perched on top of her enormous bosoms, was booming down the microphone about the need to fight back for the sake of their community. Vera, looking more than ever like a frightened mole, got up to speak while Mr Edwards (did anyone ever call him by his first name?) shot her encouraging looks.

  ‘Thank you all so much for coming,’ Vera squeaked. ‘I’ve been looking into our options and it seems that we might be able to take our case to the courts and try and stall things for a while. We could also try and diversify. That seems to have worked well in other communities. They’ve combined their pub with the village shop and post office. That’s something we could consider. Thanks to Mr Edwards—’ Vera blushed, ‘we now have a website, which you can find at www.soshopechristmaspostoffice.com, and I believe he’s also set up a petition on the Number 10 Downing Street website, so please do tell all your friends. Miss Woods has kindly drafted us a letter that you can send both to our local MP, the council and the Post Office. We have copies at the front here, or you can download them from the website.’

  Vera sat down to a roar of applause, before Diana threw things open to the floor and a lively debate ensued.

  ‘I’m not sure that we really need to go chain ourselves outside the Houses of Parliament—’ Diana was saying to a rather enthusiastic teenager, who’d clearly just learnt about the suffragette movement, when the door opened and someone sidled in and grabbed the seat next to Marianne.

  ‘Is this seat taken?’

  Of all the seats in the room, why did he have to pick the one next to hers? Marianne stared up into the eyes of the very same stranger whose feet she’d been sick on at New Year.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Have I missed anything?’ Gabriel whispered. He felt incredibly awkward. He knew the new reception teacher from school, of course he did, but he’d barely spoken to her till New Year’s Eve. When first she’d flirted with him, and then she’d thrown up on his feet. He could only imagine how mortified she must be feeling right now. Probably best if he didn’t mention any of that.

  ‘Not much,’ Marianne whispered back, blushing a little. On their previous encounter he hadn’t noticed how pretty she was. Her dark curls fell down her back and her bright blue eyes were alive with intelligence. He felt a pinprick of interest in her, which took him by surprise. ‘They’ve set up a website now and have asked us all to write letters to our MP and the Post Office and so on. That’s about it. And now we’re getting to the point in the evening where we enter a circular debate in which nothing gets resolved.’

  Gabriel sat back to listen and had to conclude that Marianne was right. There seemed to be a division already forming between one group—led by a rather forthright Miss Woods—who seemed to think direct action was called for—‘I’ll travel down the motorway on my scooter if I have to!’ she declared—and another led by Diana Carew, who felt that it would be unseemly to be campaigning in such a public way. ‘We don’t want Hope Christmas to become synonymous with thugs,’ she kept saying, which elicited a harrumphing response from Miss Woods.

  Seeing things seemed to be getting out of control, Mr Edwards took the opportunity to leap to his feet and announce that that wrapped it up for now, but that a steering committee was being formed to tackle the issues head on and anyone who wanted to join it was welcome to sign up.

  The meeting ended in noisy confusion as people broke off to chat in animated groups.

  ‘So, are you going to join up?’ Gabriel nodded towards the front of the hall where a small crowd, including Pippa and Dan, had gathered.

  ‘Not sure,’ said Marianne, who looked ill at ease. ‘I’m not much of a committee person…’

  ‘You shouldn’t have chosen to come to live in a village like Hope Christmas then,’ said Gabriel, grinning.

  ‘That was clearly my first mistake,’ said Marianne, smiling.

  She was relieved to see Pippa come bounding up to them both. ‘Come on you two, we need some voices of reason on this committee if it’s not going to develop into a mad bunfight between Diana and Miss Woods.’

  ‘Pippa, you are a bugger,’ said Gabriel. ‘I said I’d come along, I didn’t say I’d get involved.’

  ‘Now you know that’s not the attitude, cousin of mine,’ cajoled Pippa.

  ‘Oh my God. You two are related?’ Marianne was utterly mortified.

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ said Pippa. ‘I thought you two knew each other. Marianne, my cousin, Gabriel. Gabe, this is Marianne, she teaches reception at the school.’

  ‘We’ve met,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘Have you?’ Pippa looked puzzled.

  Marianne was now the colour of a tomato.

  ‘New Year’s Eve, your house,’ she muttered. ‘I was sick on Gabriel’s feet.’

  Pippa roared with laughter. ‘Oh my God. Gabe, you never said!’

  Gabriel felt almost as embarrassed as Marianne. ‘I didn’t think it was polite to, and I think you’re embarrassing your friend.’

  ‘Oh, Marianne, I didn’t mean to offend you. Come on. Let’s go to the pub, so you two can get to know each other properly. Honestly, he doesn’t bite.’

  It’s a kind of magic…That’s what I always think about baking. You take four simple ingredients, flour, eggs, butter, sugar, and look what you can achieve with them, anything from fancy cakes to shortbread. And when I was a kid, watching my mother bake was also somehow quite magical…

  Catherine paused from what she was typing and sighed. How was it that the words in her head, which seemed so magnificent, always seemed so dull when transferred to the page? Maybe it would be better if she wrote the recipes first and added the linking bits in later? She pulled a sheaf of material out. Granny Dreamboat’s Perfect Victoria Sponge, Auntie Eileen’s Fabulous Fairy Cakes…she’d stolen recipes from around the family and planned them all for this book, which was meant to be a celebration of basic good, honest home-baked cooking, aimed at the generation of women who’d always been too busy for the kitchen.

  It was also in part meant to be a homage to her own mother, a way of saying thank you for all the help and support. Ever since she was tiny, Cat could remember her mum cooking in the kitchen, and following her round, eager to learn how to cook herself. It had only been the two of them, when Cat was growing up, and they had bound their love in the kitchen preparing pastry and roast dinners. So it had seemed appropriate to write a cookbook based on her mother’s recipes. Catherine paused for a moment. Was it her imagination, or was Mum being rather tetchy of late? It was unlike her to make mistakes, and she’d been quite vociferous in blaming Cat about the day she hadn’t picked the kids up. Yet when Cat had sneakily peeked in Mum’s calendar she saw Mum had written the right day down. Cat had also spotted a pile of unpaid bills in the kitchen, but, when pressed, Mum had insisted she was up to date on all that stuff. The episode had left her with a slight feeling of unease.

  She was probably worrying unnecessarily. Noel certainly thought she was. Maybe Mum had just got a bit behind with her bills. Catherine turned back to the screen, her mind utterly blank. Funny that. It was always so easy writing a blog post or an article for Happy Homes. But this? This was like panning for gold in a river where you knew you were only ever going to find lead.

  It didn’t help that she’d only come up here to start working at nine, and she was absolutely knackered. Mel and James needed to be chased into bed so much later now. She’d practically had to prise them away from watching Dave. Magda, who had reluctantly agreed she was fit enough to cope with childcare duties once more, was out with the boyfriend—the bust-up as usual only lasting as long as it took to send a reconciliatory text message. Noel was out at yet another leaving do. From what he was saying about work, which wasn’t much, there seemed to be an awful lot of redundancies at the moment.
Reading between the lines, Catherine could tell he was worried. She wished he’d talk to her about it, but he seemed unwilling to, and she didn’t like to push it.

  Sometimes it felt as if a vast chasm was growing between them. Cat worried that Noel didn’t seem to be as pleased with her success as she might have hoped. She even thought he might resent it slightly. But then he’d come home, muck about with the kids, give her a hand with the tea and it was as if there was no division at all. Maybe it was like that for everyone when they had kids, but sometimes (and she felt guilty for even thinking it) Cat longed for the days before they’d had children, when they only had themselves to please. Life had seemed so much simpler then.

  Nowadays she was so exhausted coping with the various needs of the children, the demands of Magda, and the difficulties of her job, she had very little left to give Noel. He deserved better from her, she knew that. But it was so hard to give of yourself, when you had nothing left to give.

  How she wished her life was as easy and straightforward as the Happy Homemaker’s. She wouldn’t be reduced to trying to write a cookery book late at night, when the children were in bed. Oh no. The sodding Happy Homemaker would have been up at six to do the housework or prepare that day’s dinner. She’d have sorted out reliable childcare so she wouldn’t spend her days fretting about arrangements she wasn’t sure would be met. She’d be able to effortlessly organise her work life so it didn’t impinge on her home life, and no doubt she’d always be up for dynamic sex in exciting new positions with her husband at any time of the day or night.

  There were times when Catherine really hated her creation, and increasingly she was becoming drawn to the idea that she should actually kill the Happy Homemaker off. The only thing stopping her was the financial reward that her alter ego brought them. If Noel’s job was in jeopardy, Cat couldn’t really do her in. Even if, as Cat sometimes suspected from the bitchy comments that occasionally got left on her blog by people who clearly didn’t get the joke, thousands of women up and down the country would rejoice to know the true state of affairs chez the Happy Homemaker…

  Marianne settled down in the corner of the Hopesay Arms feeling completely idiotic. How come she hadn’t picked up that Gabriel was Pippa’s cousin? She’d been so embarrassed about what had happened on New Year’s Eve she hadn’t told anyone about it. She rather liked the fact that Gabriel hadn’t told anyone either. Well, she would like it once she got over the embarrassment. In the meantime, she was squeezed at the end of a large table, feeling out of place and awkward, listening to Vera talking to Mr Edwards in a pink and enthusiastic manner. It was so crashingly obvious that Mr Edwards had the hots for her as well. Marianne had never seen a couple so well suited and yet so shy of each other. She felt almost voyeuristic. But she’d rather be cramped down here than sitting anywhere near Gabriel, whose mere presence made her feel like a prat.

  ‘You are so not going to hide in the corner.’ Pippa came marching over and dragged Marianne up to their end of the table. Marianne was about to protest but, realising that Vera and Mr Edwards were oblivious to her departure, decided there was no point.

  ‘I can’t talk to Gabriel,’ protested Marianne. ‘I was sick all over his feet.’

  ‘I wondered what had happened to you on New Year’s Eve,’ said Pippa. ‘The trouble was, I was so pissed by the end of the night, I couldn’t remember anything about it. Though I do recall Gabe saying something about having sick on his shoes, I just thought it was his.’

  ‘Yes, well, now you know,’ said Marianne, ‘and you’ve embarrassed me enough for one evening. So I think I need to go home right now.’

  ‘What you need,’ said Pippa, ‘is to lighten up and meet new people. Coincidentally, my lovely cousin needs to do exactly the same thing. So you are going to get to know him and find out that he isn’t at all ogrish, and thinks it’s quite funny that you threw up on him.’

  Pippa pushed Marianne into the seat next to Gabriel before disappearing to the bar. This was excruciatingly awful.

  ‘I’m sorry about this,’ Marianne said, thinking it couldn’t get any more awkward. ‘I had no idea Pippa was so bossy. She seems to have decided we need to bond or something. But it’s quite all right, we don’t. After the last time we met, I can quite see that you wouldn’t be at all interested in talking to me, so I’ll just finish my drink and head on home.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ Gabriel said. He looked at her with those lovely brown eyes and Marianne had to swallow hard. ‘I once went back to a girl’s room and did the very same thing. We’ve all done something silly under the influence.’

  ‘In my defence,’ said Marianne. ‘It was a bit of an intense night. I hadn’t meant to get so drunk, and I certainly didn’t mean to come on to you like that. I was on the rebound.’

  ‘I’ll try not to take that as an insult,’ laughed Gabriel.

  ‘Oh God, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,’ gabbled Marianne. ‘It’s not that you’re not attractive or anything—’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ said Gabriel with a grin.

  ‘—but I was feeling a bit desperate and so was behaving quite out of character. It’s just not me to be like that.’

  ‘I know,’ said Gabriel. ‘And I do understand. I’ve been there too. I’m sorry to hear about you and Luke Nicholas.’

  Marianne suddenly glimpsed the pain she’d seen in his eyes at Christmas. She wasn’t one for village gossip but she had picked up that Stephen’s mum had left them. She felt a burst of solidarity with him. Things hadn’t worked out the way they’d hoped for either of them.

  ‘And I’m sorry to hear about your wife,’ she replied.

  ‘Probably for the best,’ mumbled Gabriel.

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ said Marianne. ‘As a fellow member of the Lonely Hearts Club, I can tell you’re lying.’

  ‘And you’d be right,’ said Gabriel. He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to being friends and Lonely Hearts together.’

  ‘To friends and Lonely Hearts,’ echoed Marianne and clinked her glass against his. ‘To never falling in love again and a pox on heartbreakers everywhere.’

  Noel put his key in the lock, and turned it. Damn. Didn’t seem to be working. He blinked myopically down at his keyring, which mysteriously had found itself a twin. Oh. Hang on.

  ‘Wrong key,’ Noel slurred. ‘That’s it.’ He stood swaying on the doorstep, got the key in the lock, turned, and hey presto.

  ‘Ssssh,’ he said to the wall as he fell against it. ‘Mustn’t wake everyone up.’ Cat had been most insistent on that point, after he’d come home from someone’s leaving do the previous week and sung ‘Pinball Wizard’ so that the whole house had heard. He couldn’t help it if the DJ had been a Tommy fan.

  Noel reached out for the light but the bulb popped. Bugger. He fumbled his way down the corridor towards the stairs that led down to the kitchen. There was usually a stash of new bulbs in one of the kitchen drawers.

  As he got there he heard a noise. He paused at the top of the stairs.

  There was a bang and a muffled shout.

  There was definitely someone down there.

  Noel crept back to the family room and rooted round in the dark for a suitable implement. He grabbed something long and hard. That would do.

  Taking a deep breath and feeling emboldened by the alcohol firing through his veins, he crept back down the stairs again.

  Nothing. There was no one there. He must have imagined it.

  Noel was about to head upstairs again when he heard the dustbins crash outside. Noel paused, his heart in his mouth. Now what was he supposed to do? It was all very well coming over all Neanderthal and protecting your family in theory. He wasn’t quite so sure that he’d really like to put it into practice. Particularly now, when he’d started sobering up rather fast.

  He crouched tensely in the dark. There were muffled sounds coming from outside. It clearly wasn’t a cat. Then he heard the kitchen window opening. Feeling sick to the pit of his stomach, Noe
l flung himself into the larder. Some hero he’d turned out to be.

  Suddenly there was a loud crash and lots of shouting.

  Noel came roaring out of the cupboard with his weapon held aloft.

  Light flooded the kitchen.

  Cat was standing sleepily in the doorway. ‘What the—?’

  Noel sheepishly put down his weapon—a plastic cricket bat—to see Magda and her boyfriend sitting helplessly on the floor.

  Chapter Five

  ‘What the bloody hell is going on?’ Catherine stood in her dressing gown feeling a combination of bewilderment, fury and embarrassment. Sergei and Magda were arguing frantically in Russian and Noel was standing waving a plastic cricket bat in the air.

  ‘I thought we were being burgled,’ said Noel.

  ‘I sorry, Cat-er-ine,’—God, that singsong whine again, how Cat hated it—‘I forget key. I not want to disturb. So Sergei say, climb in through window.’

  ‘Did he now,’ muttered Cat.

  Sergei was looking as apologetic as a wannabe Russian mafioso would allow himself to look. ‘It was my fault,’ he said. He flashed Cat a smile that was clearly meant to be winning, but which reminded her so much of Vladimir Putin, she felt utterly repulsed. ‘I didn’t want to make Magda trouble.’

  Repressing the comment that Magda could make trouble all by herself, Cat grudgingly accepted his apology.

  ‘It’s very late,’ she said. ‘So, Sergei, I think it’s time you went home.’

  ‘Oh,’ Magda looked stricken. Oh God. That Look.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Cat. She glanced at Noel who clearly was having the same horrified thought she was.

  ‘Sergei, he have nowhere to go,’ said Magda. ‘He fight with landlord, and now he homeless.’

  ‘Well, he can’t stay here,’ said Noel. They’d always been very strict with their au pairs—they could do what they wanted outside the house, so long as they respected Cat and Noel’s rules within it.