Page 41 of The Twelve Dates of Christmas
“I will call you,” he said.
“Make sure you do,” said Kate.
He closed her door and waited while she carefully maneuvered out of the snowy parking space. Kate looked back in her rearview mirror and was happy to see him still standing there watching as she pulled out onto the road.
The roads were better than Kate had expected. Apart from the quieter side roads, the gritting lorries had been out in force. Kate was tired, but the Mini’s heating system was nowhere as effective as the one in Richard’s SUV, and the chill kept her awake as she negotiated the icy roads.
She wished it weren’t so late; she couldn’t wait to tell Laura about meeting Richard. What were the chances? She smiled to herself.Laura is going to love this!
As Blexford hill came into view, it was clear the gritters hadn’t been there yet. There was no way the Mini would make it up in the snow.Bugger!she thought. She parked at the bottom of the hill and wrapped the tartan blanket around her shoulders like a shawl.
Her phone blipped. It was a text from Matt. The time was from much earlier in the evening; she must have been out of signal range.
Hey dancing queen, don’t forget I need the brownies first thing in the morning for that breakfast party! Hope you had a great night. M xxx
“Bugger and shit!” said Kate out loud. A passing cat meowed mournfully at her in response and padded off through the drifting snow. She’d been so engrossed in her work earlier that she’d completely forgotten Matt had asked for a double batch of brownies for the morning. The Blexford Primary PTA booked a breakfast meeting once amonth at the Pear Tree and they always, always had breakfast pudding.Women after my own heart,thought Kate.
Blexford hill was steep, almost vertical steep. It was not for the fainthearted. There was a bench halfway up on either side, and with good reason. Luckily Kate’s love of hiking stood her in good stead, but even so, she was glad when she finally made it to the top of the first bend, where the incline lessened marginally enough to allow shallower breathing.
Blexford was asleep. Even Barry’s light above the pub was off. The snow fell fat and white and silent, secretly cloaking the land while it slumbered, a secret only Kate was privy to: Kate and the owls and the foxes with whom she shared this night. The world would wake to a winter wonderland, but only Kate would watch the spell being woven.
Despite the time and her tiredness, Kate slowed her pace. She let the peace of Blexford at rest soak into her as though by osmosis. The stars were like silver studs in the black leather sky. The strings of lights draped over the old fir tree blinked lazily as the snow dappled them.
Pictures began to form behind her eyes: black cotton, a snowy owl on the wing, a sleeping chocolate-box cottage with a white roof and a fox investigating the garden, clouds parting to reveal a bulbous moon and winking stars. Kate shoved her hand into her pocket.Dammit, she thought; she’d left her pocket sketchbook in her other coat. She picked up her pace. She needed to get the essence of the idea roughed out; by morning the feeling would be diluted by sleep and dreams, and the jobs she had to do for the day ahead.
With frozen fingers she negotiated the key in the lock and pushed the front door closed and leaned back against it. She sighed. The grandfather clock in the hall showed that it was almost three thirty a.m. She desperately wanted to fall into bed. But she had to get her sketches down and she had brownies to bake. With another sigh she shuffled into the kitchen and switched on the oven.
Kate fixed herself a hot chocolate and as the warmth from the oven began to seep into the room, she grabbed her sketchbook and began to draw. An hour and a half later, with the brownies cooling on the rack and her late-night scribblings safely contained for posterity, she climbed wearily into bed.
THE SIXTH DATE OF CHRISTMAS
•••••
Dates with Mates and Heartbreaks
The snow squeaked as it gave way under Kate’s boots. A good three inches had fallen overnight, and Kate wasn’t altogether convinced she’d be able to get her car up the hill today.
Drew had texted her to thank her for a lovely evening. He complained that his shins were aching and his hips were stiff. Kate told him about her car adventure. Drew texted her back immediately:
Why in God’s name didn’t you text me?
What could you have done?Kate texted back.Caught the train back and given me a piggyback?
That is the kind of facetious attitude that finds you sans a man!Drew wrote.
Harsh but fair,messaged Kate.Although I did get a date out of it.
Playing the damsel-in-distress card,Drew texted.How very sexist of you. Keep me posted on the man front, sexy mama. x
It was almost nine as Kate, laden with brownies, tramped through Potters Copse, a cut through from her house to the village square. She needed coffee. She’d had coffee, but she needed more. She’d set her radio alarm for eight a.m. If it hadn’t been playing “Fairytale of New York”—her favorite Christmas song—she might have thrown a shoe at it.
Someone had taken it upon themselves to decorate a hawthorn tree in the copse with baubles and fairy lights, and the idea had apparently taken off. Now several trees, including a boisterous holly bush and a rowan tree, were bejeweled in Christmas apparel, and with snow adorning the branches and blanketing the ground, the place felt enchanted. Kate expected at any moment to spy a little wooden cabin with smoke curling out of the chimney and a jolly white bearded fellow busily working within.
She would come back later and take photographs for next Christmas’s mood board. This year’s Christmas fabric had been on sale since the beginning of November. She had submitted her final designs by September; she’d been sketching in earnest since July and gathering ideas before that.
The Christmas fabric was Kate’s baby. There was a thrill to be had in each season’s designs, an organic, slow-burning accumulation of inspirations and feelings, which drove each design to fruition. But it was the Christmas fabric that really excited her; there was something about it that fed her soul and warmed her bones from within.
When she’d first started at Liberty as apprentice to the art director, she’d bombarded him with so many Christmas design ideas that he’d let her design the festive paper napkins just to shut her up. They sold like a dream and the following year, he let her loose on the fabrics.
