The Magic of Christmas

He frowned down at me. ‘I sent you a card from Jamaica.’

‘That was ages ago, and a recipe for conch fritters isn’t exactly the most useful thing to have in the middle of Lancashire – the fishmongers don’t stock them. Anyway, what are you doing here at this time of the morning? Have you driven straight up from London?’

‘Yes, I’m looking for Tom,’ he said shortly, checking me over with eyes the dark grey-purple of wet Welsh slate, as though he wasn’t sure quite what species I was, or what sauce to serve me with. ‘What have you done to your face?’

I flushed and touched the bruise on my cheek with the tips of my fingers. ‘This? Oh, a plate got dropped and one of the pieces bounced up and hit me,’ I said lamely; it was almost the truth.

His brows knitted into a thick, black bar as he tried to imagine a plate that explosive.

‘It looks worse than it is, now it’s gone all blue and yellow – it’ll have vanished in a day or two. And Tom’s away,’ I added. Thank goodness!

From the way Nick was looking at me I thought I’d said that aloud for a minute, but finally he asked, ‘Oh? Any idea when he’ll be back?’

‘No, but he’s been gone since Monday, so I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t turn up today.’

He raised one dark eyebrow. ‘And do you know where he’s gone?’

‘He didn’t say and there is no point in ringing his mobile because he never answers or gets back to me.’ I shrugged, casually. ‘You know what he’s like. He might be off delivering a surfboard. I’m pretty sure he’s not doing a gig with the Mummers, they don’t usually go that far from home.’

‘A gig – with the what?’

‘The Mummers of Invention: you know, that sort of folk-rock group he started with three local friends?’

‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘I’m glad to say I don’t.’

‘You must do because one of them’s that drippy female Unks rents an estate cottage to – she sells handmade smocks at historical re-enactment fairs. And if you ever came up for the Mystery Play any more, you would have seen them – they provide the musical interludes. Tom played Lazarus as well, last year. He stepped in at the last minute and the parish magazine review said he brought a whole new meaning to the role.’

‘I can imagine – and I do intend being here for the next performance.’

‘I thought Leila couldn’t leave her restaurant over Christmas?’

‘She can’t; I can,’ he snapped, and I wondered if their marriage was finally dragging its sorry carcass to the parting of the ways, like mine. ‘So, you’ve no idea where Tom is, or when he’ll be back?’

‘Probably Cornwall, that’s where he mostly ends up, and if so, he’s likely to be staying with that friend of his Tom Collinge, the weird one who runs a wife and harem in one cottage.’

‘I suppose he may be there by now, but he was in London on Monday night, Lizzy. I ran into him at Leila’s restaurant, but he left in a hurry – without paying the bill.’

‘He did?’ I frowned. ‘That’s odd. I wonder what he was doing in London?’

‘Well, it evidently wasn’t me he’d gone to see, since he bolted as soon as I arrived.’ He looked at me intently, as though he’d asked me a question.

‘Oh?’ I said slowly, trying to remember whether Tom had actually ever said which of his friends he stayed with when he was in London.

‘Still, you know Tom,’ I tried to laugh. ‘He probably just found himself near the restaurant and dropped in.’

‘Then just took it into his head to shoot off without paying when I turned up unexpectedly? Leila said she didn’t want to charge him for the meal anyway, since he’s a sort of relative.’

‘That’s kind of her,’ I said, amazed, because it wouldn’t surprise me if she gives even Nick a bill when he eats there!

‘Yes, wasn’t it just?’ he said drily. ‘And one of the staff let slip that he’d stayed in her apartment the previous night, too – the staff seemed to know him pretty well. But I told Leila, business is business and she’d never let sentiment of any kind come before making money before, so I would just drop the bill in on my way up to the Hall. Here it is.’

I looked at his closed, dark face again and suddenly wondered if he suspected that Tom and Leila had something going on. Surely not. It would be totally ridiculous! I knew that Tom had been having a serious affair for the last few years, of course, but not who it was with, although I assumed it was someone down in Cornwall where he spent so much time. It couldn’t be Leila … could it?

My mind working furiously, I took the offered bill and glanced down at it, then gasped, distracted by the staggering sum. ‘You must be absolutely rolling in it, charging these prices!’

‘Not me – Leila. And the prices aren’t anything out of the ordinary for a restaurant of that standard. She’s just got a Michelin star.’

‘Congratulations,’ I said absently, staring at the bill, the total of which would have fed the average family of four for about a year. More, if they grew most of their food themselves, like I do. ‘But I’m sorry, I don’t have that kind of money on the proceeds of my produce sales – and in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve scaled that side of things down drastically in the last eighteen months.’

‘Come on, you must get good advances for your “how I tried to be self-sufficient and failed dismally” books. You can’t plead poverty,’ he looked distastefully down at the mess he was standing in, ‘whatever it looks like here!’

‘You should have looked before you got out of the car,’ I said coldly. ‘The ducks have been up. And one small book every two or three years doesn’t exactly rake in the cash. I only get a couple of thousand for them. I’m lucky to still have a publisher! My agent says it’s only because my faithful band of readers can’t wait to see what else goes pear-shaped every time. And they like all the recipes.’

‘Ah yes, the Queen of Puddings!’ He wrinkled his nose slightly.

‘What?’ I said indignantly. ‘Just because it’s wholesome, everyday stuff, it doesn’t mean it isn’t good food! At least my recipes don’t need ninety-six exotic ingredients, four servile minions and a catering-sized oven to produce.’

He grinned, as though glad to have got a rise out of me, and I began to remember why our boy-girl romance never got off the ground: an interest in food is the only thing we’ve ever had in common, whatever Annie says, and he never tires of reminding me that mine is not gourmet, and it’s largely focused on sweets and desserts.

‘And this is not my bill, so you’ll have to come back and speak to Tom about it later,’ I added, sincerely hoping that that was all he wanted to talk to Tom about. Clearly he was harbouring suspicions … But no, whoever Tom was having an affair with, it couldn’t be Leila, his own cousin’s brittle little acid drop of a wife, however strange the circumstances might look!

‘If I can catch him,’ Nick said, the grin vanishing. He abruptly changed the subject. ‘Jasper had his results yet?’

‘Oh, yes!’ I said, happily diverted. ‘Yesterday and they were just what he needed for Liverpool University, to read Archaeology and History. He’s having breakfast at the moment – why don’t you come in and talk to him? He hasn’t thanked you for that Roman cookery book you sent him, yet.’

Jasper’s keenly interested in food and drink too, but only from a purely historical perspective. Delving about in medieval cesspits and middens, which was what he seemed to be spending his days doing at the dig, suited him down to the ground.

Nick looked at his watch. ‘I haven’t time today, so congratulate him for me, won’t you? I’d better be off. I’m doing some articles on eating out in the North-West – out-of-the-way restaurants and hotels – so I need to drop my stuff off up at the Hall and get on with it. Breakfast awaits, then lunch and dinner …’

‘Lucky you,’ I said politely, though sitting in restaurants isn’t my favourite thing. I’d rather pig out at home than eat prettily arranged tiny portions consisting of a splat, a dribble and a leaf, in public.

He was frowning down at me again. ‘You know, Lizzy, two thousand is peanuts compared to what I get for my books. No wonder you’re living in a hovel – especially with Tom spending his earnings as fast as he makes them.’ He gestured at the giant satellite dish, incongruously attached to the side of the cottage.

‘We don’t need a huge amount of money and Perseverance Cottage is not a hovel,’ I began crossly. ‘Uncle Roly had all the mod cons installed before we moved in, and it’s exactly how I like it. I’ve got everything I want.’

‘Have you? Or perhaps you’ve got more than you bargained for,’ he said drily, his eyes again resting speculatively on my bruised cheek.

I hoped he didn’t think Tom had taken to physical violence – or that I would have stayed to be a punchbag if he had! I was just about to disabuse his mind of any suspicions in that quarter when he turned round to survey my domain and remarked suavely: ‘I wouldn’t say the family have come a long way from the heady days of Pharamond’s Butterflake Biscuits, but they have certainly diverged in their interests.’

Then, before I could point out that he at least was still vaguely in the bakery line, he got back into his car and reversed away in a cloud of dust. A lot of gritted chickens shot out from under it.

‘Wasn’t that Uncle Nick?’ Jasper asked, coming out ready for the off.

‘Yes, but he couldn’t stay. He had an urgent appointment with breakfast, though he did send you his congratulations on the exam results. Get in. I’ll just wash my hands and we’ll go.’

‘Can I drive?’ he asked hopefully. He’d recently passed his test, lessons courtesy of a lucky win on the gees at Haydock by Great-uncle Roly.

‘OK. Turn it round while I get ready.’