Last Christmas (13 page)

‘What’s that bloody girl doing now?’ Noel growled.

‘How the hell should I know?’ said Cat. ‘I’m not her keeper.’

Noel strode into the lounge and flung open the door to tell Magda to turn the music down.

‘Oh my God—’

Magda was splayed across the sofa, and Noel was mesmerised by the sight of Sergei’s firm buttocks bouncing up and down on top of her.

Cat moved swiftly to the CD player and turned Amy Winehouse off.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Magda sat up and for once had the grace to look rather sheepish.

‘I did not know you would be back so soon,’ she said. She pulled her satin slip up to cover the bits Cat would rather she hadn’t seen, while Sergei hurriedly zipped up his trousers. Without a word he pushed past Noel and ran out of the front door.

‘It’s immaterial what time we got back,’ said Cat, trying with great restraint to keep her voice steady. ‘You shouldn’t have been shagging Sergei here anyway.’

Magda rapidly went into an orgy of explanation, which went something along the lines of how difficult it was for her and Sergei to find any privacy now he had nowhere to live. Cat felt tired and fed up. Her evening out with Noel had been an utter disaster and now this. Magda was now sulkily getting dressed and Cat got another flash of her silk camisole, which looked remarkably like one of Cat’s…

‘What gave you the right to steal my clothes?’ The bloody cheek of the girl. She’d pinched Cat’s underwear! God knows what else she was wearing that belonged to Cat.

‘You have so many nice things,’ whined Magda. ‘I am poor. You do not understand.’

‘I understand you’re a thief and a liar, and not to be trusted,’ said Cat. ‘I shall be calling the agency in the morning. And I want you out of here by the afternoon. Is that understood?’

At this Magda let out a great wail.

‘But I have nowhere to go. And now I don’t have Sergei. He will finish with me for sure. And I need money for my sick mother. Please, you can’t sack me.’

Cat felt herself relenting. Magda was after all very young. Perhaps, if she’d been in the same situation in her early twenties she might have taken similar advantage. (No you wouldn’t have, her inner voice admonished sternly.) Besides, if she got rid of Magda tomorrow there’d be no back-up plan. She’d be left without childcare. And she had a busy week ahead of her.

Cat looked at Noel, who was still standing in stunned silence.

‘Well?’ she said.

‘Your call,’ said Noel. ‘But if she really is down on her luck…’

Lord, he was such a soft touch, although of course that was one of his most endearing qualities.

Cat turned to Magda.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘This is your very last chance. You can count tonight as a verbal
and
written warning. I shall be ringing the agency to tell them what has happened, and if there is any repeat of this, I mean ANY at all, you’ll be out on your ear.’

‘Oh, thank you, Cat-er-ine, thank you,’ said Magda effusively, the tears on her face miraculously drying. ‘I promise it won’t happen again.’

‘You bet it won’t,’ said Noel with feeling.

Magda gathered her things and disappeared up to her room, while Cat busied herself putting the room to rights.

‘Fancy a nightcap?’ said Noel.

‘I think I need a triple after that,’ said Cat. ‘I also feel the need to fumigate the room. Honestly, it could only happen to us.’

She looked at Noel and they both burst out laughing, the tension of the evening dissipating as if by magic.

‘Give you something to blog about,’ said Noel, as they made their way down to the kitchen.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Cat. ‘I’m sure the Happy Homemaker’s au pair would
never
behave like that.’

The rain was still coming down in sheets as Gabriel strode across his land. There’d been a storm earlier in the week and one of his fences had come down. It shouldn’t take him long to mend, but he was soaked through and just wanted to get home and dry. He’d never known a wetter spring. Gabriel had hoped that if the weather improved he’d be able to get the lambs back out on the hillside, but they were still too small to withstand this onslaught. In fact, though Gabriel was quite hardened to the weather conditions, even he felt like curling up in front of the fire toasting marshmallows and drinking hot chocolate with Stephen while they watched CBBC together. He’d been most envious of Pippa who’d offered to take Stephen for him again, and was busy making hot chocolate as he left.

Still, sooner looked at, sooner sorted, as his dad always said. He put his head against the wind and rain and soldiered on, wishing his parents hadn’t chosen this particular time in his life to go and find themselves. He missed his father’s wisdom and his mother’s comfort. Sometimes, even with all the help Pippa gave him, he felt horribly alone.

It was pretty bleak on the hillside today, so Gabriel was
surprised to see a figure coming towards him. Who on earth would be mad enough to be out in this?

As the person approached he realised it was Marianne. Her cheeks were flushed from the exercise and her dark hair curled softly under her woolly hat. She managed to look lovely even in all-weather gear.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘What brings you out in this dreadful weather? I don’t need any assistance lambing today, you know.’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Marianne cheerfully, who looked if anything even wetter and muddier then he did. ‘Unless it’s a ridiculous subconscious desire to end up with pneumonia. It wasn’t that bad when I left.’

‘Where are you headed?’ said Gabriel.

‘Well, I was going to nip round to the next valley and then back home,’ said Marianne, pointing to the path that stretched behind Gabriel and up the hillside. If you could call it a path—it was more of a boggy stream at present. ‘I just wanted to make the most of my last day here before I disappear for a fortnight but, judging by that horrendously muddy path, I think I may just call it a day and go home.’

‘You’re going away?’ Gabriel felt a pang of regret. He’d got used to seeing Marianne about the place.

‘Only for Easter,’ she said. ‘I’m going down to this demo at the Post Office, and then on to my parents’ for the Easter weekend. I’ll probably visit friends in London as well, but I may come back sooner if I’m bored.’

She smiled at him and his heart gave a sudden lurch. Good lord, could he possibly be feeling what he thought he was feeling? A stab of guilt shot through him. Technically he wasn’t free, he shouldn’t even be thinking about anyone other than Eve, wherever she was. But Eve wasn’t here and Marianne was.

‘I’ll miss you,’ he said simply, and realised for the first
time the truth of it. He would miss her. Marianne was fast becoming a necessary part of his life.

Marianne clambered onto the coach a little breathless and late. She’d overslept, having had a restless night. She couldn’t put her finger on why. Part of it was to do with going home for the first time since Luke had dumped her—she’d been putting off dealing with her mother’s over-solicitousness—and part of it, she had no doubt, had been to do with her rather unsettling encounter with Gabriel on the hillside yesterday.

Marianne had gone for a walk to blow away the cobwebs, having been cooped up all day with a bunch of over-excited reception children who’d eaten far too many chocolate eggs and been made doubly hyper by being kept in for play by the wet. She’d gone out for one of her usual hikes, setting off in a light drizzle that swiftly became a torrent, and she was soon soaked through. Somehow she didn’t mind though. There would be plenty of time to stay indoors in London; right now, right here, she felt elemental, and close to nature. It felt fabulous.

Marianne had been lost in her thoughts when she’d run into Gabriel. He’d appeared over the brow of the hill, looking for all the world like some kind of dashing hero. Mr Rochester, eat your heart out. She’d always preferred him to Darcy.

It was with a jolt that Marianne had realised that just meeting Gabriel like that was having a funny effect on her. Her back had felt all tingly and her legs had turned to jelly. And when he said he’d miss her in that lovely Shropshire burr, her heart had given a springlike leap of joy. Suddenly she’d realised she was going to miss him too.

‘Penny for ’em?’ Pippa had squeezed into the seat next to Marianne and was doling out food to the children.

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Marianne, ‘just thinking.’ She daren’t
mention Gabriel to Pippa. Dearly as she loved her friend, it was obvious that Pippa was itching for the chance to play matchmaker.

She stared out of the coach window as it left Hope Christmas and everyone cheered. When she’d come here she’d been so much in love with Luke. And then he’d broken her heart. But over the last few months she’d come to love Hope Christmas and the people in it more than she’d ever loved Luke. She wondered how much she could let that include Gabriel. Could she think about a relationship just yet? And more importantly, should she? Gabriel had a lot of baggage, even if he were interested: she wasn’t sure it would be wise to get involved. But, then again, Marianne thought, as the coach pulled away from the Shropshire hills and the sun broke out through the clouds, what had wisdom got to do with love?

Noel was cutting through Mount Pleasant on his way back to work after rather more of a liquid lunch than he’d intended with an old school friend, when a demonstration caught his eye. There was a TV crew and a bunch of people holding banners. They appeared to be protesting against post office closures and, weirdly, when he got up close he realised they were holding banners saying ‘KEEP HOPE CHRISTMAS ALIVE! HANDS OFF OUR POST OFFICE!’

‘That’s such a coincidence,’ he said out loud.

‘No such thing as coincidence.’

To his surprise, Ralph Nicholas was standing to one side of the group, looking on with a mischievous gleam in his eye.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Can’t have my local post office closing down, can I now?’ said Ralph. ‘It’s bad enough that my beloved grandson and your chums are seeking to destroy what remains of our
local environment with their wretched eco town schemes. If the post office goes, Hope Christmas will surely die.’

Noel thought back to the pretty village in which he’d stayed on his various site visits. Every time he went up to Shropshire he’d fallen a little bit more in love. He’d even started fantasising about living there. If only Cat could be persuaded to leave London. If only he could find himself a job up there. If only the grass were greener and there were gold at the end of the rainbow.

‘That’s a great pity,’said Noel. ‘It looks a lovely place to live.’

‘It is,’ said Ralph. ‘You should come and stay properly. See for yourself. Then maybe persuade your company not to get involved in my grandson’s harebrained schemes.’

‘If I had my way, we wouldn’t be building the eco town,’ said Noel. ‘But sadly my clout isn’t what it was. No one wants to listen to me anymore.’

He felt maudlin when he said it. He was approaching his mid forties, washed up, his career going nowhere, his wife paying him little attention. What was there left?

‘There’s plenty left,’ Ralph said briskly, as if somehow he’d read Noel’s mind. ‘If you do ever decide to come to the country, you can always give me a call. My company could do with a decent engineer.’

‘Oh, thanks,’ said Noel. He rather liked this eccentric old man. ‘Good luck with your campaign by the way.’

‘Don’t forget to sign our petition,’ said Ralph, tipping his hat at Noel before going off to engage the manager sent out by the Post Office to discuss the situation with him.

Noel did as he was asked and then walked back to the office.

Move to Hope Christmas? Get a new job as Ralph’s engineer? It was a fantasy and he knew it. Let’s face it, he had no more chance of moving than of flying to the moon.

‘Okay, peeps, listen up.’ Beverley had gathered the troops together for the bi-monthly forward planning meeting. ‘I know we’re all in Easter Bunny land right now, but it’s time to give some thought to the Christmas issue.’

There was a collective groan round the table. Every year, agreeing upon the contents of the Christmas issue seemed to get harder than ever.

‘Now, now, folks, that’s not what I expect,’ said Bev. ‘Come on, let’s do some brainstorming. I’ve ordered sandwiches for lunch so we can keep going as long as possible.’

‘I could do top ten make-up tips for the party season,’ offered Abi, the new fashion editor, who looked to Cat both depressingly young and even more depressingly thin.

‘Hmm, we’ve done that every year since forever,’ said Bev, ‘as has every other mag out there. Can you come up with a twist?’

‘Well, I suppose I could funk it up a little,’ said Abi. ‘Maybe how to be a Christmas fashion victim with a difference? Marrying clothes and colours you wouldn’t normally expect. Your little black dress with some glitz and sparkle perhaps?’

‘Now you’re talking,’ said Bev.

Was she? Really? Cat for the life of her couldn’t see the appeal. The more Abi talked about the strange things she
wanted to join up together, the more Cat had a vision of what Melanie was likely to wear to the next school disco—Meland all her friends tending to go for a mix-and-match approach. Still, maybe Abi was right and that’s what the fashion brigade were after these days. Presumably, being twenty-something, she was far more in the know than Cat.

‘We could do a piece on what celebs are getting up to at Christmas,’ said Rosie, the entertainment writer. ‘You know, Angelina and Brad are going for the traditional roasting chestnuts round the fire approach, you could do the same.’

‘Hmm, might work, depends on the calibre of the celebrities, I guess,’ said Bev.

‘What about an article on Christmas bling?’ offered Abi. ‘You know, Swarovksi crystals, black Christmas trees—that kind of thing.’

‘Didn’t you do something similar last year?’ Bev asked Cat.

‘I’m afraid I did,’ said Cat, still groaning at the memory of having to extol the virtues of glass Santas perched atop a snowy table decoration for the reasonable price of £40. ‘But I could do a credit crunch version if you like. Can’t afford Swarovski, but still want your Christmas to bling? How about a cheaper alternative?’

‘That’s a possibility, I suppose, depends how tacky cheap bling is,’ said Bev. ‘Keep working, people.’

After an hour there were a dozen or more ideas on the table, but nobody felt inspired by any of them.

‘It all feels a bit old hat,’ said Bev, looking critically through the list. ‘We’ve got our usual fashion list, our usual celebs list, our usual what to buy your husband for Christmas list. It doesn’t feel fresh. I want fresh. And different. Cat. We haven’t heard much from you today. What’s the Happy Homemaker’s take on Christmas?’

Cat thought back to her own last disastrous festive season
and repressed a shudder. ‘You probably don’t want to know,’ she said. ‘Only, I was thinking…Nah. Forget it. It’s probably a stupid idea.’

‘Forget what?’

‘It’s just, well, I guess we all remember the Christmases of our childhood, and I don’t know…they seemed simpler somehow. Look at all the stuff we’ve got down here. Five different ways to stuff a turkey; fill your home with festive garlands; bring some sparkle to your Christmas table. Doesn’t it seem, I don’t know, a bit too much? Why do we need a brand new Christmas tablecloth and matching napkins each year?

‘Since when has Christmas been spoilt because we couldn’t get the requisite number of baubles on the tree? And do the kids really need every single electronic gizmo going? When I was a kid you were just as happy with a board game and a book and a satsuma in your stocking. Why does Christmas have to be such a frenzy of consumerism?

‘Couldn’t we turn it around and go for a simpler approach? What with us being now officially in recession and all, and people not having so much money to spend, why not get back to the true spirit of Christmas?’

‘What, like
A Christmas Carol
type of thing?’ smirked Rosie.

‘Well, yes, a bit, I suppose,’ said Cat. ‘I could do a piece on how to do Christmas lunch on a budget, Abi could do one on reviving fashions of yesteryear. Rosie, your celeb piece could be about celebs who keep it simple, maybe?’

‘It could work, I suppose,’ said Bev. ‘Yes, I’m beginning to like this. What else could we have?’

‘Could we give something away to the family who achieved the simplest Christmas?’ said Abi.

‘Or donate some money to charity?’ offered Clare, Bev’s assistant.

‘What about finding the perfect Nativity?’ said Cat. ‘God knows I’ve been to some dire ones in my time. Last year, all I wanted to hear was a decent carol. Maybe we could give a prize to the school or parish that comes up with the Nativity play that is closest to the spirit of the season?’

‘That’s a brilliant idea,’ said Bev. ‘We’ll put it on the front cover. Were you planning a break over the summer holiday? If so, cancel it!’

‘What do we want?’

‘To save our Post Office!’

‘When do we want it?’

‘Now!!!’

Diana was doing such a good job directing the action, Marianne felt that the rest of them might as well not be there. She was darting about, geeing everyone up, thrusting leaflets into the faces of every beleaguered soul who was going in or out of Mount Pleasant. Unfortunately, though a representative had come out to politely take their petition, there hadn’t been too much interest. The TV crew that had pitched up as they arrived had interviewed Vera (much to Diana’s chagrin, Marianne had noticed with amusement), but had pushed off, having received a tip-off that someone famous was about to leave The Ivy.

People were beginning to mill around aimlessly in the street, not knowing quite what to do.

‘I think we should chain ourselves to the Post Office building,’said Miss Woods.‘Someone must have a strawberry-thingy with them to send a message to that film crew, to get them back here again.’

‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,’ began Vera tactfully, before being swept out of the way by a self-important Diana, her bosoms going before her like a magnificent ship, clearly enjoying herself hugely.

‘Right, come on now.’ Diana bustled up clapping her hands. ‘It’s time we were moving on. Next stop Downing Street.’

Within seconds the crowd had been marshalled and cajoled into order. You had to hand it to Diana, Marianne thought. She and her enormous bosoms did manage to get things done.

Marianne and Pippa made their way back to the coach, trying to stop the boys making bunny ears behind Diana, though they were both hard pressed not to dissolve into laughter.

‘How lovely to see you looking so cheerful,’ Ralph Nicholas said, as Marianne waited to board the bus.

‘Well, I can’t sit around feeling sorry for myself for the rest of my life, can I?’ replied Marianne.

‘True,’ nodded Ralph. ‘I’m pleased to see you getting so involved as well. Much better than festering at home.’

‘Well, it’s all down to you I’m here,’ said Marianne. ‘I’m glad you suggested it. And that you persuaded me to stay in Hope Christmas. It’s not quite how I planned things, but it’s not as bad as I feared.’

‘Ah well, as one door closes another one opens,’ said Ralph. ‘You never know what the future holds, which I always find rather exciting, don’t you?’

‘I’ve never looked at it like that before,’ confessed Marianne, climbing on the bus. ‘But you know, I think you could be right.’

Noel was sitting at his desk looking at the mountain of paperwork he had to deal with, contemplating whether he should commit a slow hara-kiri, when Julie came in looking sombre.

‘Gerry wants to see you,’ she said.

‘Oh?’ Noel felt his stomach drop to his boots. The cull
at GRB had been going on for months. He knew his days were numbered—surely the only reason that he hadn’t gone by now was his ability to cover up Matt’s inadequacies. Presumably now that the eco town was well under way, Matt was going to leave him out in the cold, and it was his turn to discover that GRB were going to dispense with his services. Feeling like a condemned man, and aware that ten pairs of eyes were fixed firmly on his back, Noel got up and took the long walk down the corridor towards Gerry Cowley’s office. Noel wasn’t given much to empathy, but he knew exactly what all the other buggers were thinking. First off it would be a gleam of sympathy for his plight, rapidly replaced with guilty relief that it wasn’t them having to face the music.

He knocked on Gerry’s door, feeling like a guilty schoolboy. Crikey, he was forty-four. Far too old to be feeling like this.

‘Ah, Neil, sit down, sit down,’ Gerry said expansively as Noel walked in.

‘It’s Noel,’ said Noel. How many times over the years had he had to say that? All the bloody work he’d put into this company. All those years. He was a good engineer. Damned good. One of the best GRB had ever had. And now he was being put on the scrap heap. He’d been in the same job for fifteen years. Noel had forgotten how to even look for a job. He didn’t even have a CV anymore. What on earth was he going to do?

‘As you know, these are difficult economical times,’ said Gerry.

Noel felt sick. He’d allowed himself a brief flash of hope when Gerry had invited him to sit down—previous redundancy victims had all reported not being allowed to sit—but the mention of the economy was a sure sign of what was coming next.

‘And in these challenging times we all have to cut our cloth to fit,’ continued Gerry. He paused. Noel felt like screaming, this was excruciating. ‘We have to make sacrifices. Some of them painful.’

Go on, Noel felt like saying, just spit it out, but he remained silent.

‘You’re our best engineer,’Gerry said abruptly. ‘And, from what young Matt says, you’re doing a grand job on the eco town.’

Noel grimaced. Was this a good moment to say that the eco town was being built in exactly the wrong place? Five years ago when his stock was high at GRB, he could probably have got away with it, but now? He contented himself with a muttered thank you.

‘Well, I’d better not beat around the bush any longer,’ said Gerry. ‘While I appreciate everything you’ve done for the company…’

‘You’re going to have to let me go,’ finished Noel. Considering how many redundancies Gerry must have doled out this year, he seemed remarkably inept at dishing out the bad news.

‘Oh.’Gerry looked surprised.‘Well,I’m not exactly letting you go. But I have to be honest, Neil, we are going to have to make some sacrifices.’

‘What kind of sacrifices?’ muttered Noel.

‘The thing is, though, old boy,’ Gerry continued in a conspiratorial manner, as if he was doing Noel a huge favour, ‘you cost us too much money. Young Matt isn’t a patch on you as an engineer, but he’s much much cheaper. We don’t want to lose you, naturally, but in order to keep you, I’m afraid to say you’re going to have to take a substantial drop in salary.’

Noel went cold all over.

‘How substantial?’ he said.

Gerry named a figure that left Noel reeling. He resisted the impulse to say he was sorry that his mortgage company couldn’t generously offer to lower his mortgage to accommodate GRB’s needs, but then Gerry dangled the inevitable carrot.

‘Of course, if you do a good job on the eco town, things will probably look very different. Hopesay Holdings have considerable interests around the country and abroad. If this project goes well, GRB could be on to a winner. So, if you deliver, Neil, who knows—there might be a big fat Christmas bonus with your name on it.’

Noel left Gerry’s office feeling curiously lightheaded. He’d spent months anticipating losing his job, but what Gerry was offering was worse. He didn’t even have golden handcuffs anymore, just very tarnished brass ones. The trouble was, with the job market so uncertain, Noel wasn’t in any position to bargain and Gerry knew it. The drop in salary couldn’t have come at a worse time for them, with their mortgage rate being fixed while interest rates were tumbling. But at least he was still in a job. For now at least.

‘Daddy, Daddy, I think one of the ewes is ill.’ Stephen came bursting out of the sheep barn as Gabriel walked up with a barrel of food for his flock. He’d left Stephen there looking at the new lamb who’d been born last night. The mother had seemed a little feverish afterwards, but she had seemed more settled this morning. He hoped so. He couldn’t really afford the vet’s bill at the moment.

Gabriel followed his son back into the barn, where he saw the mother lying listlessly on her side while her lamb forlornly tried to suckle from her. Gabriel leant down and stroked the sheep. ‘There there, old girl,’ he said, reaching for a pulse. It was faint, and unsteady. He had a bad feeling
about this. Even if the mother recovered, she clearly couldn’t feed her lamb at the moment.

‘Is she going to be all right?’ Stephen looked anxious.

‘I don’t know.’ Gabriel was trying to dress it up as best he could, but growing up with animals had left Stephen no stranger to what could happen to them. There was no point pretending the ewe was going to get better if she wasn’t. He felt in his fleece for his mobile. ‘I need to call the vet.’

‘Daddy, look.’ Stephen grabbed Gabriel’s arm.

Oh no.

The sheep, who had been breathing erratically and in a laboured way, gave a sudden wheezy gasp, and then her head flopped to the floor. Her lamb, whose distinctive black tail made it instantly recognisable, baaed pitifully, its little wobbly legs making it seem more vulnerable than ever.

‘Is she…?’

Gabriel put the phone down. He’d need to ring the vet later, but for now there was nothing more he could do for the ewe.

‘I’m sorry, Stephen, but I think she is,’ said Gabriel.

Stephen flung himself into Gabriel’s arms, sobbing hysterically.

‘Woah.’ Gabriel held his son tight. How strange, when the boy scarcely mentioned his mother now, that watching the ewe die had caused so much distress.

‘Can we look after the lamb?’ Stephen raised a tearstained face to his father. ‘Can we?’