Last Christmas

‘Davy Chambers has copped it.’ Matt drew a finger underneath his throat, with barely concealed glee.

Shit. Dave Chambers was going? Dave was part of the furniture at GRB. If he was going, no one was safe.

Noel shivered. January seemed to have set in both chill and drear. He had a feeling a cold wind was blowing over the horizon.

So, Christmas over, turkey stuffed, cooked and eaten, house full of plastic toys—mainly broken—children back at school. It’s time for a spring clean. Yes, I know, technically we’re still in winter, but post-Christmas, full of New Year’s Resolutions, is as good a time as any to clear out the rubbish and it’s always good to start the year as you mean to go on…

Catherine stopped typing and looked idly out from her eyrie-like study at the top of the house as a half-starved crow flapped and flopped its way across the frosty attic roof. Bloody blog. Bloody Happy Homemaker. Some days she wished she’d never started it. It had begun as a piece of fun, posted between Ruby’s feeds, something to keep her sane while she worked out what to do about her career.

Catherine,whose idea of domesticity involved the minimum amount of cleaning compatible with reasonable hygiene requirements, had struck on the idea of an ironic take on the life of the twenty-first-century housewife—or homemaker, a term Catherine utterly loathed. She’d sat down and typed sarcastically:

So, here you are, once a busy, successful businesswoman,tied to the home with a squawling baby and a stroppy toddler. Is it possible to be a twenty-first-century homemaker and survive, sanity intact? By applying the same management skills to your home life that you did to your work, I believe that not only can you survive, but that you can actually embrace the challenges being at home throws you. A happy home is one organised with military precision, which is why every Sunday evening we sit down as a family and work out our timetable for the week. A colour-coded copy sits on the freezer, so I can keep track of Kumon lessons and French club and when the baby needs her next set of jabs. I’ve even perfected my own clocking-in system. It works for me. It can work for you.

So had the Happy Homemaker been born and, to her astonishment, had been an instant hit. Unfortunately a lot of her readers failed to get the irony and took her far too seriously. Somehow she had stumbled into some kind of zeitgeisty thing where women appeared to be sitting at home with their offspring, willing to be lectured at by a complete stranger about how to run their homes. Soon she was getting several hundred hits a day, and achieving a massive following. Her blog became so popular it even got mentioned in the broadsheets, much to Cat’s wry amusement.

Before she knew it, she was doling out domestic advice on a near daily basis, and soon the Happy Homemaker was attracting attention in the wider world, not least from Bev, her old boss from Citygirl magazine, where she’d been features editor till the arrival of Ruby had finally convinced her that her home/work balance was all wrong. Bev rang her one day and offered her a regular feature at Happy Homes magazine, which involved both time in the office and at home. Coming as it had at a moment when Catherine had been worn out with the demands of a toddler and going stir crazy on the school run, she had jumped at the chance. She’d organised herself an au pair, an office at the top of the house, and had looked forward to reclaiming part of her old life.

If only things were that simple. No one else at Happy Homes, including Bev, had the domestic ties she did. A couple of the girls had one kid certainly, but four? No one she knew apart from her and Noel had four children. They must have been quite insane.

Initially Cat had thought that going back to work now that the kids were older was going to be a piece of cake. But as the success of the Happy Homemaker grew, so did the pressures. She was constantly in demand in the media, writing articles for the broadsheets, appearing on radio shows, and even making the odd TV appearance. If she had no domestic ties this wouldn’t matter. But while she enjoyed the attention her newfound success was bringing her, not to mention the cash, particularly after years of feeling like a second-class citizen who got pocket money, Cat was struggling with balancing it against her family responsibilities, and was particularly conscious that she was giving Noel a lot less attention than he deserved.

And although the kids were older now, they seemed to need her more than ever, particularly Mel, who was struggling to make the transition from primary to secondary school, and Ruby who had started her first day at school without her mum holding her hand—that bloody Christmas edition photo shoot had put paid to that. Catherine had always managed to take her children on the first day of school, but in Ruby’s case she’d failed. In fact, she felt she was failing Ruby a great deal. She never had time to read with her (though, thankfully, Paige was a good substitute) and she’d only just scraped into her (admittedly dreadful) Nativity just before Christmas. When she worked late, she missed Ruby’s bedtime. Her children were growing up and, at the moment, it felt like they were doing it without her.

And in the meantime she lectured others on how to run their homes, bring up their children and generally cope with day-to-day living. How ironic that she couldn’t manage to retain the slightest bit of control over her own situation…

Gabriel held Stephen’s hand as they walked down the frosty lane on a crisp clear January morning.

‘Look, Daddy, a robin!’ said Stephen excitedly. Their breath blew hot and steamy in the cold sharp air. It was a shock to the system to emerge from the warm cocoon of family and friends that Pippa and Dan had been providing him with for the last fortnight. He would have been lost without them. Gabriel’s parents, who were his default support network when trouble brewed with Eve, had set off on a much anticipated round-the-world trip to celebrate their retirement. Ironically their retiring had been what had brought him back to Hope Christmas, to take over the farm and try to expand the business with Dan and Pippa who were setting up a service to provide organic farm produce. And it was coming to live in Hope Christmas that appeared to have triggered Eve’s latest depression.

Gabriel sighed. He still didn’t know how he was going to face the future, but he supposed it was a good thing to be forced back into the real world now that Christmas was finally over. Not that sheep were always that accommodating about the Christmas season. He and Stephen had spent a large proportion of the previous week checking on the pregnant ewes. Luckily Stephen saw going out in the snow as an adventure, and being busy had given Gabriel less time to brood.

Gabriel sincerely hoped that going back to school would be a good thing. Eve hadn’t contacted them now for nearly a fortnight and, though Stephen had stopped mentioning it, he knew by the way that he would sigh sometimes, or wander off in the middle of a game, that his son was hurting deeply. He only wished there was something he could do beyond the practical to make it better.

‘He’s got you,’ Pippa had said. ‘And us. He knows his mother isn’t steady, but he also knows you are. So long as you can provide security and love, he’ll be fine.’

Wise, wonderful Pippa, with more than enough troubles of her own to cope with, but always there to catch you when you fell. Gabriel would have cracked under the strain if it hadn’t been for the support of his favourite cousin. Although Pippa was more like a sibling than a cousin, growing up as they had on neighbouring farms, spending a blissful childhood scrumping and fighting and fording streams together. Pippa, a year older, had always been the grown-up, there to bandage his wounds or salve his wounded pride when he’d come off the worse in a playground fight. And she was still doing the same thing. He’d be lost without her.

The robin hopped away and Stephen ran on ahead down the lane, pretending he was an aeroplane. It was good to see him so carefree for once. He was far too solemn usually, and Gabriel continually worried about the effect that events would have on him. Whatever Pippa said, it wasn’t going to be easy for him coping without his mother. Flaky and all as Eve was, she did love Stephen, and it was clear that he missed her badly.

As indeed Gabriel did. He felt a sudden constriction in his throat. If only he could have done more for her. If only she’d let him. If only…But one of the things he was coming to realise with painful clarity was that, however much he loved her, it wasn’t enough, it was never going to be enough. Eve’s problems were too big for him to mend. Sometimes if you loved someone, you just had to let them go.

Chapter Two (#ulink_77302b5c-0c53-55f8-80cf-b5ac9347cb6a)

The Saturday before school had started, Marianne walked with a heavy heart from the little cottage she rented at the south end of the village, down Hope Christmas High Street. Even passing Diana Carew’s house wasn’t enough to cheer her up. Diana’s garden was filled with a huge plastic Santa and several gnomes, and her house was a blaze of flashing reindeer even during the daytime. Marianne turned the letter in her hand over and over again. It was the means by which she could flee Hope Christmas, go back to her old life. A life that didn’t include Luke. Was that what she wanted? Could she really bear that? Once she left, there would be no turning back. But the thought of never seeing him, never touching him, never hearing him laugh or seeing him turn on that dazzling smile that had made her feel like a million dollars. Never to do any of that again. How could she stay here and be reminded every day of what she’d lost?

Part of her wanted to run home to her mum and escape the pain of walking down the High Street every day and risking bumping into Luke or running into his mother on the rare occasions she strayed into Hope Christmas to visit the beauty salon. All Marianne had to do was post this job application to the primary school in Hendon, where a teaching friend from her London days assured her they were crying out for good staff, and then she could look forward to being back home where she belonged. She had to accept it. Luke had been a mistake. Moving to Hope Christmas an even bigger one.

It was a grey dull day. The clear skies of late December had given way to a glowering gloomy January, with dark snow clouds obscuring the hills for most of the day completely, in keeping with her mood. Marianne had never felt so cold in her life. It was a cold that sapped her strength and seemed to reach somewhere into the core of her being. Even the sight of Miss Woods, the erstwhile head of Hope Christmas primary, whizzing precariously down the High Street on her mobile scooter, flag flapping in the breeze, failed to amuse. Although watching Miss Woods hit a corner too fast and oversteer to compensate, causing the large plastic canopy that covered her mean machine to wobble alarmingly, did draw a small smile. There would be things to miss in Hope Christmas, and the eccentricity of characters like Miss Woods was one of them.

Vera Campion at the post office was another. Always there with a ready smile behind the counter, offering hope and cheer to all the inhabitants of the village, especially the elderly, her shy kindly nature—not to mention her short-sightedness—reminded Marianne of a mole. One who was a force of great good for the whole village.

‘Marianne, how lovely to see you,’ Vera greeted her, but her smile didn’t look quite as genuine as normal. ‘What can I do for you today?’

‘A book of first-class stamps, please, Vera.’ Marianne handed over the money and looked at Vera again. She seemed very agitated. Marianne wasn’t normally one to interfere in other people’s lives, but Vera had been immensely kind to her since she’d come to Hope Christmas, and Marianne didn’t like to see her like this. ‘Vera, I hope you don’t mind me prying, but are you okay?’

‘Oh dear,’ said Vera. ‘Is it that obvious? I’ve just heard that they want to close me down. It’s a government initiative, they say. We’re not profitable enough apparently. From the summer all postal services are to be moved to Ludlow.’

‘But that’s terrible!’ exclaimed Marianne. ‘How will all your old folk get their pensions?’

Vera’s ‘old folk’ formed the core of her customers, and she protected their interests with the fierceness of a mother hen.

‘Exactly,’ replied Vera. ‘And what about the village as a whole? Along with the pub, the post office is the centre of our community. Without it we’ll be lost. But they say that with the building of the eco town, which is nearer to Ludlow, people won’t want to come here for their post, they’ll just get in their cars and drive instead.’

‘Very eco friendly,’ remarked Marianne. ‘Isn’t there anything you can do?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Vera. ‘But I do know I’m not going down without a fight. Mr Edwards said I should start a campaign.’

Vera blushed at the mention of Mr Edwards. It was not a very well kept secret in Hope Christmas that she nurtured feelings for the church organist but whether he was the only person in the village not to know, or whether he was too shy to approach her, so far Vera’s passion remained unrequited.

‘That’s a great idea,’ said Marianne.

‘Perhaps you could help?’

‘Oh, I’d love to,’ stammered Marianne. ‘But I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be here.’

‘Are you leaving us then?’ Vera looked disappointed and Marianne felt a pang that someone actually cared. Despite what had happened with Luke, she had started to put down roots here. Luke hadn’t been the only draw for coming to the country. From the moment Marianne had first come to Hope Christmas she’d fallen in love. The village, with its quaint high street with pretty little shops full of knickknacks and fabulous old-fashioned bookshop, its square complete with farmers’ market, and its tumbledown workers’ cottages was everything she’d hoped for from living in the country. The friendliness, the warmth of the school she taught in, the kids she taught—and Pippa, she would miss Pippa. And the longer she’d stayed the more she loved it. It would be hard to tear herself away.

‘Maybe,’ said Marianne, trying to sound vague. The post office wasn’t just the hub of the village, it was the main source of gossip. She didn’t really want the whole world to be discussing her business.

Making a hurried excuse, Marianne rushed out of the shop, meaning to march straight to the post box and post her well-worn envelope.

‘Oh—’ Someone was coming in as she was coming out. And they got rather entangled.

‘Marianne, my dear, how lovely to see you.’

Oh lord. Did Luke’s grandfather have to walk by just now? A reminder that getting out of Hope Christmas was going to be essential for her sanity if she was ever to get over Luke.

‘Er, hello.’ Marianne still hadn’t quite figured out how she should address her erstwhile grandfather-in-law—wasn’t he a lord or something?—and now they weren’t to be related by marriage, she felt even more awkward.

‘How are you, my dear?’ The kindness in Ralph Nicholas’ voice took her by surprise.

‘Not too bad, thanks,’ said Marianne.

‘If it’s any consolation, which I know it won’t be,’ Ralph continued, ‘I think my grandson is an utter fool for letting you go, and I’ve said so.’

‘Erm, thanks.’ Blimey. That was unexpected. Luke’s mum, who had always looked as though she were sucking lemons when she met Marianne, couldn’t have appeared more relieved by the turn of events if she’d tried.

‘I hope the actions of one Nicholas won’t be enough to drive you out of town,’ Ralph was continuing. ‘I think the school would struggle to replace such a talented teacher as you. I thought that you wanted to make a difference.’