Page 131 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas
Matt’s mum called them in for tea and they clambered down fromtheir perches. Kate had gone to run on ahead, but Matt caught hold of her hand and pulled her behind the pear tree and kissed her full on the lips.
She’d kissed a lot of boys since then. Hell, she’d kissed a lot of boys this month. But still, nothing ever quite matched that first stolen kiss behind the pear tree.
Kate put the pictures, with their memories and their old stories, back in the bag, unwrapped. Maybe she would leave them on Matt’s doorstep as a peace offering when she left. Mac was right. It was stupid to leave on an argument.
She needed a distraction from her thoughts. She slipped into her wellies and coat, grabbed her camera, and went off in search of inspiration. Invariably she found herself in Potters Copse.
The Knitting Sex Kittens had been there; strings of crochet stars in gold-flecked wool crisscrossed above Kate’s head, the ends tied to branches high up in the trees. Pompom baubles joined the myriad decorations that bespangled twigs, dangled from ivy-clad bushes, and bejeweled the spiky holly tree.
Kate’s camera clicked over and over. A knitted wreath adorned with knitted snowmen, robins, and Christmas trees had been tacked onto a tree trunk. Another hung from a knotty bough; knitted toadstools and hedgehogs nestled in soft green knitted leaves.
Already Kate’s mind was whirring with ideas for next year’s fabrics. And she determined to show the Liberty buyers the Sex Kittens’ handiwork; there was a place for these wreaths at Liberty, she was sure.
She had just zoomed her lens in on a set of glittery salt dough gingerbread women when the sounds of a commotion drifted into the copse. It was coming from the green.
Curious, Kate left the copse and stopped at the edge of the green. It looked as though half the village was in the square. There were yelpsand screeches of fear and laughter as people tried to round up a flock of flapping, squawking birds.
A truck with its back fallen open, after what looked like a run-in with a postbox, was parked askew across the green. Several people were trying to heave it back onto the road. The crates from which the birds had escaped lay scattered on the ground.
Kate moved closer. She caught Andy’s eye as he lumbered two long pieces of timber toward the van. He dropped them at the driver’s feet and as the other men began to position them behind the back wheels, Andy dusted off his hands and walked over to Kate.
“Stupid arse got lost on his way to the manor,” said Andy. “Thought this was a shortcut,” he said. “Hadn’t banked on the snow being quite so thick up here.”
At that moment there was a shout:
“There’s a partridge in the Pear Tree!”
There came a great flapping of arms and coats and whoops and shouts from the café, and the headache-inducing scrape and grind of forty-five chairs being scraped urgently across the floor.
The Pear Tree customers, who had been safely watching the kerfuffle from behind the café windows, burst out of the door like they’d been ejected from a cannon and spilled out on to the green.
The green had become a sort of live poultry circus as fifty escapee partridges danced among men, women, and children in wellies and bobble hats.
Kate’s mind instantly turned to Matt. She scanned the crowd of coats and brown feathers but saw no sign of him. She began to wade across the green, through snow and birds and people.
“Has anyone seen Matt?” she called as she went.
Nobody had.
Kate walked into the deserted café. The floor was muddy. Chairshad been upturned in the rush to escape and the tables were pushed crooked. A cup lay tipped onto its side, dripping latte onto the floor.
“Matt?” Kate called quietly.
No reply.
“Matt?” she hissed. “Are you in here?”
This time she caught a whisper of an answer, coming from behind the counter. Kate parted the plates of shortbread and mince pies and leaned over the counter.
There, crouched beneath the coffee machine and wedged between a giant bucket of hot chocolate powder and a box of takeaway cups, was Matt. He was pale. Paler even than usual.
He looked up at Kate pleadingly and nodded infinitesimally toward the shelf beneath the till, where a partridge was happily tucking into a piece of tiffin that Carla had stashed to nibble on while she worked. The partridge clucked contentedly.
Kate unzipped her coat as quietly as she could and slipped out of it. She walked gingerly around the counter, conscious of the squelch her wellies made, until she stood facing Matt. He was pressed hard against some shelves. If he could have fitted into one of them he would have. The till and the partridge sat directly to her left.
Kate held her coat open wide out in front of her, like a Spanish matador, and in one swift movement, she ducked down and threw the coat over the partridge and its tiffin and scooped them up.
She felt the bird flap as she hugged her coat gently to her, and her heart raced. Very carefully she walked out of the café and laid her coat on the ground, letting it flap open for the bemused partridge to escape. Then she stepped back into the café and closed the door.
