The Little Christmas Kitchen (35 page)
Read The Little Christmas Kitchen Online
Authors: Jenny Oliver
He took another step forward.
‘Are you going to kiss me?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Ok.’
Ella felt his hand move to the back of her neck, warm and strong and confident, felt him draw her slightly forward so that her body just touched his and she could smell his skin and his aftershave and see all the different greens in his eyes. But just as he was leaning forward, just as she thought his lips were about to meet hers, a bell suddenly sounded, frenzied in its tinkling.
‘What the hell is that?’ he asked, straightening up.
‘I don’t know.’ Ella said, looking round startled, wishing that the noise would stop so he would just get on and kiss her. Then it occurred to her, ‘Oh god it’s a fish!’ she said, looking out to where her float was being thrashed about in the water.
‘I think it’s a pretty big fish, Ella.’ Dimitri moved past her to untie the line from the jetty post.
‘Well, do something with it. I don’t want to touch it. Don’t kill it.’
‘That’s the whole point of fishing.’ he said, looking back at her incredulous.
‘No I don’t want to kill it. That wouldn’t be romantic at all. They were just meant to be for show, you said you never caught anything.’
Dimitri was drawing the line in between his fingers, struggling against the flapping fish on the other end. ‘I didn’t catch anything. You did.’
Ella watched as he leant over the end of the jetty and pulled a great silver fish out of the sea, its skin sparkling iridescent in the sunlight.
‘Let it go.’ she said.
‘No, we can have it for dinner.’
‘No please, I don’t want it. Please let it go.’
She saw his whole body stiffen, like it was against everything inside him to chuck this fish back. But then she watched as he gently unhooked the line, held the fish tight against his body to stop the wriggling, and then chucked it back in the water. ‘Go. Enjoy yourself.’ he said, watching the fish dart away into the darkness.
‘Thank you.’ Ella went over and stood next to him.
He looked down at her and shrugged a smile.
They stood there side by side for a moment or two in silence. The clouds drifted slowly across the sky, leaving behind just a wide expanse of blue. As Ella watched the sun swoop low over the horizon, a million shades of red and pink rippling on the surface of the water, she felt the back of Dimitri’s knuckles graze against hers, and then his fingers moved round and hooked onto her little finger.
When his palm met hers and he held her hand tight in his, she leaned her head against his shoulder and thought,
this is where I fit
.
Then when he turned his head and kissed her she didn’t think about anything at all.
ELLA
It seemed only fitting that, as no one had really had a proper Christmas, they had another one to make up for the fact.
After rummaging around in the linen cupboard Sophie appeared with the old Christmas tablecloth embroidered with candles and poinsettias and trimmed with frilly ribbon. It was a bit stained and there were a couple of candle wax burns but Maddy insisted they could hide them with table decorations and went off up the hill to pick some foliage.
Ella sloped in like a teenager after spending the night at Dimitri’s and got all embarrassed and rosy cheeked when her granddad sat up from his chair and said, ‘Well look what the cat dragged in.’
When Sophie batted him on the shoulder with a tea-towel he sat back sniggering to himself.
‘Can I do anything to help?’ Ella asked, avoiding eye contact with anyone and going over to the fridge to get some juice.
‘Yes, you can pour the champagne and tell us all the gossip.’ her mum said with a wry smile, and pulled over a high stool for Ella to perch on next to where she was working.
The dinner was amazing. They had smoked salmon canapés with little dollops of caviar followed by turkey and sage and onion stuffing, chipolata sausages wrapped with bacon, cranberry sauce and brussel sprouts that Ella had brought over with her in her suitcase. Ella made a toast to her mum and Maddy for cooking it all so beautifully and when she leant back from chinking glasses Dimitri’s arm was draped along the back of her chair, his fingers toying with the fabric of her top.
When Sophie came back from the pantry carrying a tray of baklava, Maddy nipped up to her room and reappeared holding a bottle of
Christmas Spirit
. ‘Here’s something that’ll probably remind you of the war, granddad.’ she said, sloshing some into a glass. ‘Either that or it’ll kill you,’ she laughed.
‘I can’t think of a better way to go.’ he said, and downed the shot in one. When he’d finished coughing all he could mutter was, ‘Christ alive, that’s some liquor.’
By evening they were all fairly merry but Dimitri and her granddad had taken it one stage further and the resulting
Christmas Spirit
competition had got the better of them both. Her granddad was asleep in his chair while Dimitri was passed out on the sofa in the living room. The rest of them ate mince pies and had a cup of tea.
When her gran yawned and Maddy went upstairs to bed, Sophie insisted that they clear up in the morning but Ella said she would do it now. When she stubbornly started to tidy her mum rolled her eyes and stayed to help, refusing to leave her to it.
‘Do you feel better now?’ Sophie asked when the kitchen was sparkling.
Ella nodded. ‘I just like things tidy.’
Her mum raised a brow. ‘Yes but there’s no hurry. You’re going to have relax into island life at some point, you know?’
‘Yeah that might take me a while.’ Ella made a face.
Sophie laughed, ‘I think you’ll get there sooner than you think.’
Ella looked over at her mum, ‘Thanks.’
‘What for?’
‘For this–’ Ella pointed round the room, to the fibre optic angel and the nativity, the champagne flutes dripping on the draining board, the plate of mince pies covered in cling film. ‘For Christmas.’
‘You’re more than welcome.’ Sophie smiled then picking up her mug of camomile tea asked, ‘Am I allowed to go to bed now?’
‘Yes.’ Ella nodded.
‘Thank you. Good night.’
Ella stood for a second on her own, glanced around the kitchen, dried up the glasses and put them away in the cupboard, then went to check on Dimitri. He was lying on his back snoring away. She sat down on the edge of the sofa and leant over to put her cheek next to his, felt the roughness of his stubble against her skin, took a breath in and inhaled the scent of him, then pulling the blanket up so it was almost touching his chin she went upstairs to sleep in the spare bed in Maddy’s room.
MADDY
‘Hang on, I’m in the bath.’ Maddy called as Ella pushed open the door to the en suite.
‘Oh sorry.’
‘That’s ok. Come in if you want. I’m covered in bubbles.’
Maddy waited to see what Ella would do, assumed she’d close the door and go and use another bathroom. But she didn’t. Instead she walked in and squeezing some toothpaste on her toothbrush sat down on the tiled floor next to the bath.
‘I’ve got the new Grazia in my bag if you want it?’ Ella said, her toothbrush sticking out of her mouth.
‘Thanks.’ Maddy nodded. ‘I’ll read it in bed.’
‘Ok.’
The curtain was open in the bathroom and through the window Maddy could see the stars. Millions of them like pinpricks in the sky.
‘So?’ she asked, looking from the view back towards her sister.
‘So what?’ Ella frowned.
‘Is he a good kisser?’
Ella blushed. ‘Yeah he’s ok.’
‘Only ok?’
‘No.’ Ella shook her head, ‘Not only ok. He’s amazing.’
Maddy smiled, glanced back to the stars. ‘Don’t break his heart.’
‘Unlikely!’ Ella laughed.
‘He won’t break yours, don’t worry.’
Ella nodded.
Maddy watched her as she cleaned her teeth.
‘I can’t believe you made friends with all my neighbours?’ Ella said, standing up to rinse out her mouth.
‘They’re lovely.’
Ella made a face. ‘They’re all a bit odd.’
Maddy laughed. ‘You’re a bit odd.’
‘I’m not odd.’
‘Ella, we’re all odd. That’s the beauty of it.’
Ella paused as she wiped her face on the white fluffy hand towel, considered the possibility.
‘Do you want a Quality Street?’ Maddy asked. ‘I’ve got some in my bag. They were giving them out at the airport.’
‘I’ve just cleaned my teeth.’
‘So? Clean them again later. It’s Christmas.’
Maddy watched Ella think about it, weigh up the pros and cons, remembered stealing the shiny-wrapped chocolates out of the tin when they were little and shovelling them into their mouths as they giggled under the duvet. Remembered standing side by side at the village carol singing and Ella reaching into her pocket and sneakily pulling out a handful, then silently arguing about who would get which one. Remembered coming downstairs in the morning and discovering that their dad had eaten all their favourites.
Maddy watched from the bath as Ella’s mouth stretched into a smile and grinned when she said, ‘Have you got any of the purple ones?’
If you loved
The Little Christmas Kitchen
then turn the page for an exclusive extract from Jenny Oliver's’ exciting new bestseller:
Four Weddings and a White Christmas
Chapter One
Hannah walked into chaos.
When Annie White had said to meet her at The Dandelion Café on Christmas Eve, she had been expecting something more sedate. Perhaps involving a quick coffee and a slice of cherry pie as it snowed outside. Instead it was bucketing it down with rain, water dripping down the collar of Hannah’s duffle coat as she’d run to shelter under the café awning. And it certainly didn’t look like anyone was relaxing with coffees. Everywhere she looked there was someone doing something. Annie was up a ladder fixing garlands of miniature baubles to the ceiling in artful loops while calling orders to a sullen-looking teenager with red headphones on who was lining hot-pink fake Christmas trees up along the windowsill. A man who she recognised as the husband-to-be, Matt, from a photograph she’d seen, was trying to fix a light-up reindeer to the wall, swearing loudly when it wouldn’t do what he wanted, while a black-haired guy sat in a booth seat holding a tiny baby and, opposite, someone else had their head on the table fast asleep. There were boxes piled high on chairs and some that had toppled over scattering ornaments and tinsel to the floor. Pictures were leaning precariously against walls waiting to be hung while, at the back of the café, a stack of real Christmas trees lay in their white netting alongside tangled mounds of fairy lights.
It all looked momentarily too hectic. And instead of pushing the door open, Hannah took a step back into the shadow of one of the surrounding cherry trees, still under the shelter of the awning, and took a moment to collect her thoughts. To give herself a little pep talk.
Two months ago her life had been exactly as it had always been.
Two months ago her main memories of Cherry Pie Island were school games afternoons, when they’d all traipsed over for rowing, canoeing and summer swimming in the outdoor pool, usually shivering on the sidelines as the clouds closed overhead.
Two months ago she’d just completed her degree and was celebrating the fact she would no longer be referred to as a
mature
student.
Two months ago Annie White had bumped into her mum in the vegetable section of Sainsbury’s and when she’d asked how Hannah was, her mum had proudly produced the newspaper clipping that featured Hannah’s degree show dress.
And suddenly Hannah was sitting in Annie’s living room, sipping on Earl Grey tea, nodding as calmly as she could as Annie pointed to a huge frothy white wedding dress and said things like, ‘Just go for it, Hannah’ and ‘I want it exactly like however you want to do it. Cut it up, chop it in half, whatever. I’m handing all design detail over to you, which for me is a huge thing. But I’ve got this dress here, and it was my mum’s and I’ve wanted to use it but I’ve basically been procrastinating for months about what to do. And then your mum showed me the picture, of the dress you made, and I swear to god, Hannah, I have never seen a dress as amazing as that. It literally popped out at me. Pop. Out from the page. The real question is, I suppose, whether you can do something with this one in only two months.’
Could she do it? Hannah had wondered as she’d reached for a chocolate digestive, trying to hide the nervous shaking of her hand.
She’d thought about what she had coming up. Her work got manic this time of year with orders needing fulfilling before Christmas, but then hadn’t she worked practically every night to get this degree in order not to have to do that job any more? And then there was Christmas. Presents. Trees. Decorations. Nativities. Last Christmas when she’d been frantically putting her degree collection together she had been sure that this Christmas would be different. Would be like the Christmases she grew up with. That she would be all serene and calm, icing a chocolate cake while sipping eggnog.
‘The theme is Christmas kitsch, by the way,’ Annie had added, pulling a box of glitter-strewn, sparkling, gaudy Christmas decorations from behind the sofa for Hannah to look at. ‘And I don’t want it to be white. Other than that, it would be up to you, I promise.’
Hannah had peered into the box and seen the hot-pink fronds of fake Christmas trees lying like umbrellas waiting to be opened. The cherry-red cheeks of skating Santa Claus models. There were plastic peacocks with giant tail feathers, stacks of concertinaed Santa Clauses and tiny plastic nativities covered in glitter.
She had looked from the tacky box of decorations across to Annie’s pleading face and then back to the hideous white puffy dress.
Could she do it?
Her brain had already started to chop away the layers of netting underneath the dress’s silk skirt to take out the weight. To cut off the sleeves and construct a hot-pink overlay embroidered with peacock feathers that cinched in tight at the waist and fanned out over the chest. To maybe add some detailing to the skirt, something to make it more couture, more grand. The idea of it made her stomach fizz. Made her want to screw her face up and punch the air. Made her see possibilities – a little shop, maybe, with her name above the window and a display that made people stop and stare.
She had bitten her lip.
Annie had been poised, waiting for her answer.
Two months. It would be a lot of work. A lot of late nights. There would probably be tears. There would be no serene icing of Christmas cake, that was for sure.
And now here she was, Christmas Eve, standing on the threshold of Annie’s Dandelion Café, the dress bag clutched to her chest, her heart fluttering with nerves, feeling like she was teetering on the cusp of a whole new chapter.
‘Hello?’ Hannah said, pushing open the turquoise front door, the little bell ringing to announce her entrance as crooning Christmas music escaped out into the rain. ‘Annie?’
‘Oh my goodness.’ Annie nearly slipped from her ladder in her hurry to get down. The guy holding the baby glanced up with vague interest. The teenager lounged back against a booth with his hands in his pockets. ‘Everyone leave!’ Annie shouted. ‘Leave. Matt, go!’ she said, shooing Matt and then the sullen teenager in the direction of the back door. ‘The dress is here.’
