Page 56 of The Christmas Invitation
‘That looked like one of Den’s marmalade cakes with lemon icing,’ she said, appreciatively. ‘Did you lot leave me any soup?’
Clara vanished back into her study after lunch and Henry went off with Lass. Tottie offered to show me the conservatory and I fetched my iPad and sketchbook from the studio and met her there.
A warm, damp and deliciously earthy smell enveloped me as I followed Tottie along the paths that led through the rampant foliage, though after meandering to and fro for a while, I realized that they all met in the middle, under a sort ofcupola, where there was a paved area with wicker basket chairs and a low table.
‘Henry and Clara like to sit in here occasionally. They love the heat, though of course I keep the air moist, too, because most of my plants are from the tropics.’
She’d proudly displayed her exotic, carefully nurtured charges: pineapples, bananas, lichees, kumquats, lemons and small oranges, among other things,anda coconut palm in the biggest pot I’d ever seen. The only thing I felt it lacked was a couple of chattering monkeys and some gaudy parrots.
‘Please don’t show this to River when he visits, because it’ll give him ideas!’ I begged her. ‘I don’t think the solar power is enough to heat something this size as well as everything else.’
‘It does cost a lot to heat, Henry says,’ she admitted. ‘I couldn’t afford it when I was here on my own, but Clara and Henry wanted to restore the whole house to its former glory and we had lots of fun planning what we’d have in here.’
‘I can imagine – like making your own little corner of Paradise! River would so love it. He does manage to grow peaches and nectarines under glass, and keeps trying grapevines, though Oshan thinks we’re too high up for it to be worth it.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, he might manage it with the right vine. Come and look at mine.’
She set off down a small path I didn’t think we’d taken before and stopped under a leafy canopy.
‘Table grapes – we get loads of the black ones, but the green are less prolific in the fruiting. They can also sometimes be a little sharp and acidic.’
I felt an immediate affinity with the sharp and acidic green grapes: my sweetness had all been crushed out by recent events.
I’d taken lots of photos as we went round and now I asked Tottie if she wouldn’t mind posing for one, and perhaps I could do a quick sketch?
‘It’ll only take ten minutes max,’ I said persuasively, but she was looking flattered and agreed instantly. I pulled up a wicker chair and had her stand in front of one of the pineapples that grew in a raised bed, reaching up as if to pick an almost-ripe fruit, though from the angle I was at, the pineapple appeared to be resting on her head, with the curved, serrated spikes of the foliage forming a green crown around it.
When I showed her the iPad, she said she looked like Carmen Miranda and I should go for it, so I drew her like that … and perhaps, if I had time, I’d ask her if I could paint her too …
19
Snakes and Ladders
I googled Carmen Miranda when I was back in the studio and found lots of pictures and old film clips of an exotic-looking lady, sometimes wearing nothing much except a lot of fruit on her head. I was tempted to add a pair of cherry earrings and a banana or two to Tottie’s ensemble. And it would be lovely if she was holding something like a basket … or a cornucopia overflowing with produce.
Rollo had left a couple of messages on my phone, which I deleted unread: I’d just keep deleting him out of my life until he gave up.
I’d missed a call from Oshan, though, so I rang him back.
‘Pop’s wondering what to bring his hosts as a thank you, for inviting him to stay for the Solstice,’ he said.
Oshan was the only person who didn’t call River by his name, but by the irreverent Pop, which he’d done since he was a small boy and a visiting American had asked him where his pop was. We’d both thought this was hilariously funny at the time.
I thought about what River might bring. ‘Not anything fruit or vegetable, because Tottie – one of the household – is an ace gardener and she’s got all that sewn up. In fact, she’s justbeen showing me round the conservatory, which is huge and heated and full of things like bananas and pineapples!’
‘I hope to God it doesn’t give Pop ideas!’ he said. ‘The solar power isn’t going to stretch to it.’
‘That’s exactly what I thought. We’ll just have to hope for the best.’
‘Back to the question of the gift: he wondered about some of his medicinal mead.’
‘Tottie also keeps bees and makes mead too. Don’t tell River, but I think hers is much more delicious, like golden nectar.’
‘Maybe I’d better head him off the mead idea too, then.’
I ran my mind over the various things the craftworkers made in the barn, or sold in the shop.
‘One of those big Cellophane bags of crisp gingerbread stars, pierced for hanging on the Christmas tree, that Maj sells in the café would go down well,’ I suggested. ‘They’re big on Christmas here and there’s the most enormous tree in the hall.’
