Last Christmas

Cat rang back the school, mollified the secretary, and went back to her meeting with relief. It was hard enough juggling work and home commitments without disasters like that befalling her. Thank goodness it was so rare, otherwise she’d really be in trouble.

‘Glad to see you’re more cheerful.’ Pippa walked into Gabriel’s kitchen pushing Lucy’s buggy, followed by Stephen and her two boys, Nathan and George. She’d offered to return his favour from the morning and pick the kids up from school. Gabriel had accepted gratefully as he’d spent the morning fence-mending and had got seriously behind on his domestic chores.

Gabriel paused from whistling ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ and realised with a jolt that since his meeting with Ralph Nicholas that morning he had been feeling a lot more chipper. He’d gone to work with a will and being out in the fresh frosty air had invigorated him. Even coming back to an untidy, silent house hadn’t caused him as much internal wrestling as it normally did. He’d got down to tracking down the socks that always mysteriously vanished under Stephen’s bed with an enthusiasm he hadn’t felt for ages. Maybe Ralph was right. He just needed to focus on the stuff he could do.

‘Good day at school?’ he asked his son, who nodded his assent before running off to watch TV with his cousins.

‘Cup of tea?’ he asked his cousin. ‘You look tuckered out.’

‘I am a bit,’ said Pippa. ‘Lucy’s a lot better now, but we did have a bad night with her.’

‘I don’t know how you cope with three of them,’ said Gabriel.

‘Well, what else am I going to do?’ said Pippa laughing. ‘Slit my wrists? By the way, have you seen this?’

She shoved a leaflet in his hand.

STOP POST OFFICE CLOSURES NOW!!

SAVE OUR VILLAGE!!

PUBLIC MEETING THURSDAY 7.30pm

‘Oh, that’s what he was talking about,’ exclaimed Gabriel.

‘Who?’

‘Ralph Nicholas,’ he replied. ‘I met him this morning and he was wittering on that I should try and do something about the things I can do something about, not get hung up on trying to help Eve.’

‘He’s right,’ said Pippa. ‘I’m going to the meeting. Poor old Vera’s beside herself. They want to close her down and move the postal services to Ludlow.’

‘But that will be a disaster,’ said Gabriel. ‘How will people get there? There’s only one bus a day.’

‘Exactly. You should have heard Miss Woods going on about it today. They could probably hear her in Ludlow.’

Gabriel laughed. Pippa was such good company. It did him good to be around her.

‘So, what do you think? I could get Mum to come and babysit for my lot and Stephen could stay over if you like?’

‘We-ell…’

‘Oh, come on, Gabe, it’s hardly like you’ve got a busy hectic social calendar now, is it?’ teased his cousin. ‘You need to get stuck into something else for a change. It’d help take you out of yourself. Plus it is important. Just think how this place will change without its post office.’

Gabriel stared out of his kitchen window at the bird table Eve had been insistent they’d bought. It had started off, like so many of her interests, as a burning enthusiasm and she went out every day for several weeks to show Stephen the different varieties of birds that were attracted to the garden. But, after a while, she lost interest, and though Gabriel still left food out, it was as if the birds knew she wasn’t there any longer. Apart from a lone robin who was pecking at some crumbs, very few of them now came to the garden. But it was time he stopped dwelling on stuff like this and got on with the business of living. Ralph and Pippa were both right. He needed an outside interest.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘you’ve twisted my arm. Where do I need to go?’

‘Noel, you haven’t forgotten your mum’s coming on Sunday, have you?’ Catherine said before yelling up the stairs to Mel: ‘I haven’t finished talking to you, young lady!’

Noel walked in on Wednesday evening to the usual chaos. The little ones were arguing over the DVD control, Magda was sobbing hysterically in the corner because Sergei had ditched her—again—James was hardwired into his Playstation and looked like he wasn’t going anywhere any day soon, and, as Noel opened the door, he’d heard the telltale thumping of feet on the stairs and slamming of a bedroom door that indicated that Mel was in another of her moods. Though, as Cat often said to him, when wasn’t she these days? He couldn’t remember the advent of going to secondary school causing the amount of trauma it was evidently causing his eldest but, as his wife frequently pointed out to him, It’s Different Now.

‘Yes, I had actually. Damn, can’t we put her off ?’

Cat gave him a withering look.

‘You know we can’t. I’ve been making excuses to her since Christmas.’

‘Oh, bugger,’ grumbled Noel.

‘It would be nice if you talked to her for once in a while,’ said Cat. ‘She is your mother, not mine.’

‘Yeah, well, you got the lucky straw in that department,’ said Noel, unknotting his tie. ‘I’d trade Granny Dreamboat for Granny Nightmare any day of the week.’

‘Hmm.I’m not so sure of that,’said Cat.‘Granny Dreamboat didn’t pick up the children from school today.’

‘You’re joking,’ Noel was stunned. His mother-in-law was always so reliable.

‘I’m not,’ said Catherine. ‘She got the dates mixed up apparently.’

‘That’s not like her,’ said Noel.

‘No, it isn’t,’ said Catherine, frowning slightly. ‘Oh, well, no harm done, I suppose.’

A sudden crash from the playroom and a wail had them scurrying.

‘That damned bookshelf—’ Every week Noel mended the bookshelf and every week someone managed to make it collapse again.

‘Can you deal with that?’ Cat asked. ‘I need to sort Mel out.’

‘Oh?’

‘Girl talk,’ said Cat firmly.

‘Right,’ said Noel. ‘Yes. Bookshelves it is.’

Of late Mel had spent a lot of time huddled with her mother having sobbing fits. It always seemed to be related to women’s things. Noel didn’t like to ask, or think about that. To him, Mel was still his little girl. The thought that she might be growing up made him very uneasy. His daughter was becoming a woman, and he was feeling tired and old. Sometimes it felt as though the best part of his life was over.

Marianne ducked into the back of the village hall, panting a little. One of the things that had annoyed Luke about her when they were together was how she never managed to get anywhere on time. He did have a point. Since she’d arrived in Hope Christmas, Marianne found it nigh on impossible to walk down the High Street without finding someone to chat to, so she was generally late everywhere. She felt a smidgeon of guilt when she saw Pippa already in the front row. How did she do that? There she was with her three children and much more frantic life than Marianne had, and she was never late. Marianne felt a familiar downturn in her emotions. Luke had had a way of criticising her that made her feel pathetic and useless. Could she never get anything right?

There were two empty seats at the back, so she sat down on one of them and hoped that the formidable Miss Woods and Diana Carew wouldn’t be taking notes as to who was there or not. Diana Carew, who had of course taken charge, her reading glasses hung about her neck and perched on top of her enormous bosoms, was booming down the microphone about the need to fight back for the sake of their community. Vera, looking more than ever like a frightened mole, got up to speak while Mr Edwards (did anyone ever call him by his first name?) shot her encouraging looks.

‘Thank you all so much for coming,’ Vera squeaked. ‘I’ve been looking into our options and it seems that we might be able to take our case to the courts and try and stall things for a while. We could also try and diversify. That seems to have worked well in other communities. They’ve combined their pub with the village shop and post office. That’s something we could consider. Thanks to Mr Edwards—’ Vera blushed, ‘we now have a website, which you can find at www.soshopechristmaspostoffice.com, and I believe he’s also set up a petition on the Number 10 Downing Street website, so please do tell all your friends. Miss Woods has kindly drafted us a letter that you can send both to our local MP, the council and the Post Office. We have copies at the front here, or you can download them from the website.’

Vera sat down to a roar of applause, before Diana threw things open to the floor and a lively debate ensued.

‘I’m not sure that we really need to go chain ourselves outside the Houses of Parliament—’ Diana was saying to a rather enthusiastic teenager, who’d clearly just learnt about the suffragette movement, when the door opened and someone sidled in and grabbed the seat next to Marianne.

‘Is this seat taken?’