The Christmas Angel (3 page)

If they were surprised they showed no sign of it. Warmly, courteously, they gave her the freedom of the caravan and outlined her duties, which are simple: to keep the house clean and the washing and ironing done; and, if necessary, to sit with Sister Nichola who, at ninety-two, is failing.

‘We used to be completely self-sufficient,’ Mother Magda told Janna rather sadly. ‘Inside and out. But there were many more of us then, and we were young. We always had a couple in the Lodge that helped us, but the husband died and his wife went to live with her daughter. Now we have Clem, who is a true blessing.’

‘And Jakey,’ Sister Emily added, twinkling.

‘I’m not certain,’ Sister Ruth said, rather coolly, ‘that Jakey is a great help to us.’

‘He makes us feel young again.’ Mother Magda spoke firmly. ‘And he understands reverence.’

Now, Janna passes beneath the apple trees and crosses the yard, the pretty little bantams, soft grey and warm gold, scattering and running before her. The Coach House is empty; no guests this week. She is glad. It is good just to be themselves. She loves it when they are just family; the family for which she’s always longed. Mother Magda, Father Pascal, Sisters Emily, Ruth and Nichola; and Clem and Jakey and Dossie. How strange it is to find them here, unexpectedly, in this high, tiny valley that tips and tumbles its way down to the sea. She goes in through the back door and into the kitchen.

In the chapel the Sisters are at Morning Prayer. Sister Nichola sits with her eyes fixed on the mullioned window and the bare, frost-rimed branches of the lilac tree beyond it. Her thoughts are not always clear and she fancies that if she were to breathe in she might smell the heady scent of the lilac blossom drifting in through the open window; and she will hear the blackbird’s song as he perches amongst its branches. This morning the window is closed against the winter’s chill and the spring is yet some way off. Beside her, Sister Ruth stands up to go out to the lectern; Sister Nichola watches the tall, spare figure, trying to remember her name. She looks around the chapel, seeing long-gone faces and quiet, attentive forms sitting in the empty stalls, observing Mother Magda’s thin, fine-drawn face and serene blue eyes, and Sister Emily’s intelligent, direct look and her
half
-smiling mouth. They are watching Sister Ruth – yes; that’s her name; Sister Nichola gives a delighted little nod as she remembers it – who is now opening the Bible and is beginning to read.

‘“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”’

Isaiah: Epiphany. The familiarity of the Church year, turning and turning in its endless dance, comforts Sister Nichola. This remains whilst so many other things fall away from her. Her head droops a little but she does not sleep.

Clem arrives in the kitchen before Janna, emptying some vegetables from a basket onto a newspaper on the big, scrubbed table. A pan containing stock simmers on the Aga but there is no sign of Penny, who comes up from the village to cook. Janna and Clem smile at one another. In the few months that she’s been at the convent Janna has learned to move softly, to speak very quietly: the nuns value silence although here, in the kitchen, quiet conversation is allowed. To Clem silence comes naturally. She and Penny, however, often have to muffle cries of irritation or bursts of laughter as they prepare and cook food, getting in each other’s way, burning a saucepan or dropping a plate. Often Sister Emily, gliding in behind them, smiles but Sister Ruth is less sympathetic to such outbursts. Her pale, level glance restores them to order very quickly, whilst Emily’s dark eyes crinkle with fellow feeling.

On her afternoons off, Sister Emily often makes her way through the orchard to the caravan for a cup of tea. Janna loves these ‘moments’; for they are of that order of celebration of which Dossie approves. Sister Emily has a passion for life that, at eighty-two, is unexpected: her brown eyes sparkling
at
the sight of a special cake or at the variety of Janna’s fruit teas.

‘Echinacea and raspberry,’ she murmurs. ‘Camomile and lemon
and
mint. How delicious. Now which shall I choose?’

For the first time for years Janna is living among women who own even less than she does: she no longer needs to justify her lack of belongings. It even seems to be a virtue. She showed Sister Emily her small store of treasures: the Peter Rabbit mug and the Roger Hargreaves
Little Miss Sunshine
book, and the threadbare Indian silk shawl.

‘My mum gave them to me when I was little,’ she said almost defensively. ‘She loved me, see, even if she had to give me up. She bought me stuff; called me her Little Miss Sunshine. She didn’t want to let me go but she was really ill.’

The older woman looked at the treasures, nodding her understanding, her eyes thoughtful. Then she smiled at Janna.

‘When you no longer need them, then you will be free,’ she said. She said it encouragingly, almost exultantly, as if it were towards this exciting and rewarding goal that Janna must naturally be working, and the words took her by surprise. She was used to people being gently consoling, telling her they could believe how important these symbols were, but Sister Emily seems to be travelling a different road. Janna thinks about it quite often. Sister Emily’s responses are often unexpected.

Clem is drawing her attention to a small piece of paper lying on the bread board. A note. Janna smiles involuntarily: the Sisters use notes to communicate so many things. Small hoarded pieces of paper torn from letters, backs of used envelopes, receipts; nothing is wasted: folded messages pushed under doors, left on beds and in stalls in the chapel. They read the note together, Clem peering over her shoulder.

‘Penny is unwell,’ is written in Mother Magda’s scrawling handwriting. ‘I have started the soup. Can you possibly manage, Janna dear?’

It must be hard, reflects Janna, to be so dependent where once they were so self-sufficient.

‘Vegetable soup?’ murmurs Clem in her ear, nodding towards his offerings: carrots, onions, potatoes, some leeks.

She nods, smiling her thanks, and he goes back to his work whilst she carries the vegetables to the sink and begins to wash them under the tap.

A week later, out in the Western Approaches, heavy grey clouds begin to pile and mass. Towering and spilling, they race in towards the coast, driven by wild winds that batter the peninsula. Ice melts, turns to water and begins to drip. The sun grows pale, a lemon disc behind the advancing veils of thin cloud, and is quenched at last. Deeply rutted tracks, which have been hard as concrete, quickly soften into thick, heavy mud; rivers and streams fill, roaring and rushing in their rocky beds.

The windows of the Lodge rattle in the gale and the trees creak and toss, bending bare wintry branches above its chimneypots. Jakey, eating his tea at the kitchen table, looks out into the dark, drenched garden. The curtains are not yet drawn and the bright scene within is reflected in the streaming black glass. He feels safe and warm, here in the kitchen, with Daddy sitting at the other end of the table with his laptop open.

Jakey carefully balances some more baked beans onto his fork and puts them into his mouth: Stripey Bunny sits beside his plate in attendance. Sometimes Daddy raises his head and says, ‘OK, Jakes?’ and he nods; he likes these times when
Daddy
is with him but busy with something else, and Stripey Bunny is just within reach. He feels safe but free, too; free to think about things and to listen to the sounds. There are lots of sounds: long fingers of rain drumming on the window; the low hum of the laptop; the droning of the fridge; the gurgle in the radiator.

In a minute Daddy will stand up and take the plates to put in the dishwasher. He’ll open the big heavy door and the dishwasher’s bad breath will belch out into the kitchen. Dossie says that Daddy ought to rinse the plates first, especially if they’re fishy, and Daddy says that if he were to do that, then having a dishwasher would be utterly pointless. Then Dossie rolls her eyes and gives a big sigh and Daddy simply carries on with what he is doing with a particular look on his face. Jakey picks up a piece of toast and wipes it round his plate in the beans’ thick tomatoey juice, thinking about that look. It’s the look Daddy has sometimes when he, Jakey, is being naughty and Daddy says, ‘Don’t push it, Jakes,’ and then it’s best to stop being silly. Jakey eats his toast happily, wondering what he might be allowed as a pudding if he eats everything on his plate.

Clem closes his laptop.

‘All finished?’ he asks. ‘Well done.’ He takes Jakey’s plate and puts it in the dishwasher. ‘Now what about a Petits Filous? Would you like one of those? Or some grapes?’

‘Petits Filous
and
glapes,’ Jakey says firmly. ‘And a biscuit.’

‘We’ll see about the biscuit,’ says Clem. Dossie, and the nanny who looked after Jakey in London, have trained him well in the matter of his small son’s diet though sometimes he allows the rules to be bent a little. He reaches across the sink to draw the curtains. Janna has bought pots of cyclamen, which stand on the white-painted sill. Unobtrusively
she
introduces pretty, quirky, gentler things into their masculine world and Clem is grateful for it. He and she have quickly fallen into an easy, undemanding relationship; her naturalness infiltrates and warms his austerity. She makes him laugh, and Jakey loves her.

‘We’re the two Jays,’ she says to him. ‘We’re a team: high five, partner,’ and Jakey stands on tiptoe, reaching up high to strike his small palm against Janna’s.

Even as Clem thinks about her, there is a quick little tattoo on the door and she comes in, scattering raindrops, her face screwed up against the wind and rain.

‘Yeuch!’ she exclaims. ‘What a night! Nice and warm in here, though. Shopping!’ She heaves two large bags onto the table and Jakey pushes himself up higher in his chair to peer inside.

‘Thanks, Janna.’ Clem takes a Petits Filous from the fridge and gives it to Jakey. ‘Honestly, I’m really grateful.’

‘I was going anyway. I just hope I remembered everything.’

Clem begins to take out packages: fish fingers, sausages, yoghurt.

‘Good job your mum’s a cook and stocks the freezer up for you with proper food,’ observes Janna.

‘I can cook,’ says Clem, unperturbed. ‘Jakey and I happen to like sausages and fish fingers.’

‘I love sausages,’ announces Jakey. ‘Sausages are my favoulites.’ He bounces in his chair, beaming at Janna, flourishing his spoon, showing off.

Clem puts a small bowl of grapes in front of him. ‘Eat properly or you’ll get a tummy-ache. Tea, Janna?’

‘Love some.’ She sits down beside Jakey. Clem switches on the kettle and begins to pile the tins and packets into the cupboard. Janna looks at Jakey; gives him a tiny wink.

‘So what have you had for supper, my lover?’ she asks. ‘Don’t tell me. Beans on toast with sausage.’

‘He likes beans on toast with sausage.’ Clem shuts the cupboard door. ‘It’s very nourishing. He gets a good lunch at school and Dossie’s here often enough to make sure he has a balanced diet.’

Jakey knows that Janna is teasing Daddy and that Daddy doesn’t mind; he’s smiling as he puts a tea bag into the mug. Jakey eats some grapes. He wrinkles his nose and wriggles. He is deciding whether to demand Janna’s attention: ask her to play with him or read him a story. But a bit of him knows that when other people come and talk to Daddy, then this is a good time to ask if he can watch the television. Usually, he’ll be allowed some extra watching time while the grownups talk. He finishes his grapes and picks up Stripey Bunny.

‘Can I get down, Daddy? Can I watch television?’

‘“
May
I get down?” OK, yes. Just for a bit. Hang on a sec; let me wipe your face.’ The kettle boils. Clem makes Janna’s tea, puts the mug beside her and goes with Jakey into the sitting-room. She can hear them arguing about who should press which buttons, and what and for how long Jakey will be allowed to watch. Presently Clem comes back and sits down at the table. He pushes the laptop to one side and picks up his half-drunk, nearly cold coffee.

‘It’s keeping one step ahead that’s so exhausting,’ he says. ‘I had no idea that the mind of a four-year-old was so devious. He can argue for hours and the scary thing is that his arguments are very logical. I get to a point where I want to shout, “Just because I say so!” but I’d feel he’d outwitted me. It’s like living with Henry Kissinger. Dossie’s better at reasoning with him than I am.’

‘She had all those years of practice with you. Anyway, she’s
a
woman. She’s more devious than Jakey can ever hope to be.’

They sit together companionably, talking over the day. Janna has a second mug of tea.

‘There was a chap round earlier,’ she says. ‘Funny bloke. Just wandering about. Did you see him?’

Clem shakes his head. ‘I’ve been decorating the little West Room. No chance of getting anything done outside this last couple of days, and there are no guests in at the moment. When you say “funny” what do you mean exactly?’

Janna frowns. ‘He seemed a bit shifty when he saw me. I was going down to the village the back way and he must have come up that way because he was round the back of the Coach House, just peering around. So I asked if he wanted anything and he said no, and that he hadn’t realized that the lane led straight into the grounds. “So this is the convent?” he said, all bright and interested. And I said that it was. And he said something about it being rather smart having your own private road into the village. Then he said, “But then, of course, they owned the village too in the old days, didn’t they?” After he’d said that he looked awkward and I didn’t know what he was talking about so I just left him to it. I didn’t want to walk down with him, see. I felt uncomfortable with him. Afterwards I wondered if it had been right to leave him but he didn’t look rough or anything like that. He was quite smartly dressed. What did he mean about owning the village?’

‘Before it became a convent, Chi-Meur and Peneglos, the church and all the farmland around here belonged to the Bosanko family. When Elizabeth Bosanko willed Chi-Meur to a small community of nuns, the village and most of the farms were sold off. Obviously this fellow has been studying
the
local history but even so I’d have thought he would’ve seen the notice at the back entrance that says “Private”.’