Page 125 of One More Christmas at the Castle
‘Mr Melling really didn’t want to go out, did he?’ I said toNancy, who was helping clear away the last of the breakfast things in the kitchen. ‘But they all do what Mrs Powys tells them!’
‘You must call them Frank and Olive. I’ve told them we’re an informal party and all on first-name terms,’ Nancy told me.
‘That’s nice,’ I said. ‘But I think I’d rather stick to more formal terms with Mrs Powys and I’m sure she’d prefer that, too.’
‘Such nonsense!’ Nancy said, smiling, then took the tray of tea I’d prepared through to the sitting room, where Sabine and Olive were to have their little tête-à-tête, and told them we were off.
We left Plum in the kitchen, with a biscuit and the door to the staff sitting room open, so he could go to sleep on the sofa. I didn’t think he’d miss us.
It actually felt odd to be leaving the Castle grounds, rather like a snail winkled out of its shell … but on the other hand, it was nice to be sitting next to Xan as he drove down the narrow lane to the village, the snow banked up on either side and Nancy happily chatting in the back seat.
We arrived to find there were cars parked all around the Green and up the side roads, but squeezed into a spot beyond the church.
We detoured across the grass for a quick look at the Janus stone, the weather-worn faces back to back, one grimacing horribly and the other wearing a complacent smile, then paid a pound each to go into the village hall.
I thought this was a bit steep till I discovered it included a cup of tea or coffee and a slice of cake.
There were stalls all around three sides of the large room and also up the middle, not to mention the refreshment table, with its steaming urns, piles of thick white china crockery and plates of cake.
There was a small stage at the further end of the hall, where Nigel, a very creditable Santa in a big white beard, hooded red coat and black boots, was being besieged by small children and their harassed-looking parents.
Every few minutes you could hear him roar: ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ as if he had an intermittently faulty battery.
When the proceeds of something like this are going to a good cause – this one apparently was the local hospice – I always decide how much I can afford to spend and then just enter any competitions, or buy odds and ends I don’t want till I’m spent up.
When I emerged from the throng some twenty minutes later, I was carrying a large cotton shopping bag printed with a black and white image of the church. Inside was a random selection of the type of home-made goods so dear to the heart of workers for good causes: lurid knitted scarves, mittens and toilet roll covers shaped like hats, dolls or poodles, peg bags disguised as tiny dresses on coat hangers, pebbles painted with flowers by Lucy’s friend Daphne, and, of course, Lucy’s pinked and tasselled bookmarks.
I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d got in the bag, though Iwasentirely certain that the packet of brightly coloured bath crystals I’d won in the tombola would give me a mega allergic reaction, should I be mad enough to use it.
Dom and Henry were standing by the refreshment table, eating chocolate fudge cake, when I got there and both had bulging tote bags, just like mine.
‘Ilovethose poodle toilet roll covers,’ Henry said. ‘And look, Dom’s bought me a peg bag.’
This one was shaped like a black dinner jacket over a white shirt and tiny red bow tie.
‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve spent up now, though. I wonder where Nancy and Xan have got to.’
‘I don’t know, but there’s Simon,’ Henry said, as his familiar figure approached us. He was carrying a large traybake in a foil container and had a pink and magenta scarf wrapped around his neck.
‘Hi, Simon,’ Henry said, and introduced him to Dom. ‘Nice scarf.’
‘I’d no intention of buying it, but before I knew where I was, it was draped around my neck and they were waiting for the money,’ he said.
‘You can put it into the next jumble sale,’ I suggested, laughing. ‘I wouldn’t have thought this was your kind of thing, though, Simon.’
‘It isn’t, really, but my boiler’s now totally bust and the plumber says he can’t do anything with it until the day after Boxing Day, so I thought it would be warmer here, and then afterwards I could have lunch in the pub.’
‘Oh, what a nuisance about the boiler!’ I commiserated. ‘You’re going to be freezing over Christmas, though at least you’re spending Christmas Day at the Castle, so you can thaw out a bit then.’
‘Yes, and I’m looking forward to more of your wonderful cooking, too,’ he said, with that sweet and strangely heart-breaking smile.
‘I pull out all the stops for Christmas dinner,’ I assured him. ‘Here’s Xan,’ I added, as his tall and elegantly willowy figure emerged from a scrum of pensioners, like a giraffe from a herd of stampeding wildebeest.
We told him about Simon’s boiler and then Xan handed me a large, emerald-green velvet beanbag frog.
‘For you! I’m not sure what it would turn into if you kissed it, though – it’s really hideous.’
‘Thank you – I think,’ I said dubiously, taking it.
