The Little Christmas Kitchen: A wonderfully festive, feel-good read

Max paused in his shaking out of the Christmas tree branches. ‘What do you mean, you’re going to Greece? You can’t. You hate Greece. And it’s Christmas. What will I tell everyone?’ He was holding his hair back from his face with his hand, looking like a teenager, his eyebrows pulled into a frown. Max who wasn’t used to not getting his own way.

She rolled her lips together, swallowed, then said quietly, ‘You can tell them you went to Prague with another man’s wife.’

She could tell it hit him by the expression on his face.

Oh god, it was all suddenly real.

She turned away to go back to the bedroom and get her case, presuming that he would follow her, but Max was struggling to prop the tree up against the bookshelf. So instead she dragged her suitcase from the bedroom and into the hall but the wheels caught in the thick carpet and made her stumble. This wasn’t going at all as she’d hoped. She had wanted some weeping melodrama but then a huge hug, reassurance and a swanky anniversary dinner. Not some farcical double act – her tripping in her heels, him balancing a ten foot tree on his shoulder. And certainly not her going to Greece.

‘At least let’s talk about this,’ he pleaded as he fumbled with the giant fir. ‘It’s not what it seems.’

‘Really?’ She raised her brows, disbelieving but inside her mind was still chanting quietly, He’s going to have a good reason. I’m going to be wrong. It’s going to be ok.

But then the tree slipped and crashed to the ground, the trunk smashing up against his precious smoked glass coffee table and shattering the right-hand corner. Max swore at the sound, then walked over and ran his hand along the crack. ‘Shit look was it’s done. Bollocks!’

Ever since he’d bought it at auction for a huge sum of money without consulting with her, Ella had hated that table and he knew it. It was a monstrosity that wasn’t at all in keeping with their interior designer’s scheme. Now, the way he sat down on the arm of the grey velvet sofa it was as if it was the table and him against the world. As if she had started this in order to ruin the table. As if suddenly Max was the wronged party.

She heard him sigh, saw his shoulders slump, the tree lay sprawled across the carpet like a whale. Max kicked the trunk with his foot and it flopped off the smoked glass to the floor with a thump. ‘You’ve never trusted me.’

No. She didn’t want to hear this.

‘I suppose I just…’

She wanted to quickly rewind to him cutting the netting and trying to impress her.

‘It was only once.’

Why had she even asked him? Why had she started this?

It was too late to realise she could have turned a blind eye.

What was she with no Max?

‘I don’t know, maybe I just did what was expected of me.’

No. No. No.

The taxi beeped again.

‘That’s your cab.’ he said, looking up at her through thick, blond lashes. The ball was suddenly back in her court without her realising quite how.

Walking out the front door seemed the only possible option. Like she had to trust that in this game they were playing he was going to come after her.

Outside it was still raining – tipping it down, and the grey sky almost melted into the grey pavements. She paused on the step, waiting for him to come running outside to stop her. To grab her arm again and pull her inside, drop to his knees and tell her that he’d made a mistake and she was the only one for him.

But as the seconds ticked by and the heavy door to the apartment block slammed shut behind her there was no sign of him.

Her hair was getting wet in the rain. Come on Max. Come on. We’re Maxella. We’re us.

‘Can I take that for you?’ A man in a suit had got out of the taxi and was holding an umbrella over her and leaning forward to take her bag.

‘Yep, just one minute.’ She held up a hand, he looked a little confused but waited next to her with the umbrella.

The door still didn’t open.

‘Shall we er–’ The taxi driver nodded his head towards the car hesitantly.

Ella turned back to look into the communal hallway of the block. And for a moment her heart raced when she thought she saw someone but then realised it was just the Christmas tree that the caretaker had put up that morning.

‘Ma’am?’

‘Ok. Yes.’ She nodded. ‘Yes. Let’s go.’

The driver held the door for her and she sank into the plush leather of the Mercedes. This was the company her work used, executive cars, no shabby old taxi with a tree air-freshener and a string of tinsel. The airport madam? Shit, yes, hang on, let me ring them. Shall I go? Yes, yes go. Googling Dial a Flight while hoping Max might be texting – I’d like to book a flight. For now. Greece please. From Heathrow, I’m on my way there.

Switching it to silent she threw her Blackberry into her bag and with her arms outstretched across the back of the seats she let her head sink back into the plush cream leather and felt the beat of her heart pound in her head.

God this was actually real.

CHAPTER 4 (#uf7fb221c-a86c-573f-af6c-b81296a8345f)

MADDY

The repairs to the yacht were going to cost all her savings.

‘I just don’t understand why you’d take someone else’s boat out into a storm?’ Maddy’s mum, Sophie, was rolling out filo into wafer thin sheets, refusing to look up at her and taking her frustration out on the pastry. ‘What would possess you to do such a thing. With little kids on board. Jesus Maddy. It’s Christmas. Imagine… imagine if one of them had gone overboard.’

‘But they didn’t.’ Maddy said, unable to hold back the sulky tone to her voice. She leaned against the table top and traced the pattern of the old wood with her fingertip.

‘But they could have.’ Sophie said, exasperated, slamming the rolling pin down on the stainless steel surface of the island unit in the middle of the room where she worked. ‘They could have, Maddy.’

‘But they didn’t.’ she said again. ‘You can’t live with “could haves” all the time.’

Her mum didn’t reply and after a pause said, ‘Can you get me the bowl of feta from the fridge?’

Maddy sloped out into the storeroom at the back of the kitchen that was piled high with vegetables, tins of beans and jars packed with lentils, flours, rices and rows and rows of herbs and spices. Along the back wall were three fridges, glowing fluorescent with see-through doors. Maddy loved the fridges, she loved that you could see inside and stare at the bowls of cucumber flecked tzatziki, pale pink taramasalata, tubs of tiny anchovies and plates of garlic covered prawns. See all the new creations her mum had made and the great trays of moussaka and pastitsio that they would have a wedge out of for dinner. As she opened the door and pulled out the big glass bowl of feta, she saw on the bottom shelf the rows of tiny mince pies that her mum had started to make for Christmas and closed her eyes for a second. Annoyingly she could picture herself eating them, standing with everyone on Christmas morning and popping a couple into her mouth – no longer London bound for the holiday season. No longer the possibility of her family toasting a picture of her with their champagne and wishing she was with them. Who knew that mince pies could depress her so completely?

‘Maddy – the feta!’ her mum called.

Back in the kitchen she slid the bowl over to her mum and looked up to see that Dimitri had sauntered in along with her grandparents and her mum’s friend Agatha who waited tables when they were packed but was so moody with the customers her mum always tried to play down their busyness.

‘So how much is it going to cost you, Maddy?’ Dimitri asked as he picked a handful of carrot sticks off the countertop and popped them one by one into his mouth.

‘I just chopped those.’ Maddy’s mum leant over and slapped his hand when he went for some more.

‘Sorry Sophie.’ He winked.

‘I’ll bet you are.’ She shook her head, attempted unsuccessfully to hold back a smile, and then pushing her hair behind her ear with the back of her flour-covered hand, said, ‘So yes, Maddy, how much is it going to cost? I can’t pay for it, you know that don’t you?’