Page 90 of The Secret Christmas Library
‘Out!’ said Esme, opening the door, and letting the full force of the wind in. It wrenched the door open, smashing it all theway around against the wall. In the commotion, Jamie dropped his end of the duck, which took immediate advantage of the situation, pecked Bonnie hard on the arm and flapped out into the dark snowy sky.
They sat around the table.
‘The thing is,’ said Bonnie, ‘it took me half an hour to get hold of that duck. And now it will fly back and warn the others and they’ll all be in a flap.’
‘You are so pathetic,’ said Esme to Jamie.
‘I know,’ said Jamie.
‘If you can’t catch it or kill it, you shouldn’t eat it.’
‘That wouldn’t work for Jamie,’ said Bonnie. ‘He thinks plants get upset when you pick them.’
Jamie went red. ‘Shut up,’ he said.
‘Well, anyway, that was our Christmas Eve supper,’ said Bonnie. ‘I’ll have a look in the morning, but I’m not going out there again tonight.’
‘Quite right,’ said Theo, who had joined them and was finally looking rather better.
‘I’ll cook supper,’ said Jamie, suddenly. ‘I’m sure there’s stuff in the larder.’
‘Well, yes, obviously,’ said Bonnie. ‘We’re managing fine without refrigeration, amazingly.’ She bustled out; Jamie got up and headed over to the larder and returned, as the others settled around the Aga, and Mirren filled them in on the letters.
Esme, as predicted, was not happy about it.
‘Run towards joy?’ she said, sceptically. ‘That sounds like something someone would have on the wall of their new-build in Slough!’ She shivered.
‘You are such a snob!’ said Mirren, whose mum hadLive Laugh Loveup and Mirren didn’t mind it in the slightest.
‘Yes,’ said Esme. ‘Thank God somebody is, or we’d all be sitting round here eating Super Noodles.’
Jamie was chopping garlic, rather efficiently, on a very old board.
‘What does it even mean?’ said Esme. ‘If I ran towards Tiffany’s, they’d catch me and then they’d say, thanks, Lady Esme, we’d like some money now please. This is a really bad show, Grampa.’ She frowned and leafed through the letters again. ‘Thanks for your legacy of total failure.’
Jamie added a little butter to a huge old pan, heated it, and let the garlic sizzle into it. The smell was instantly intoxicating. Mirren remembered she was absolutely as hungry as she had ever been in her life. Starving, in fact.
Bonnie pushed open the door.
‘Time for gin and tonics?’ she said, carrying a tray.
‘Oh, God, yes. YES. Can I have one so strong that it will basically make me pass out?’ said Esme.
‘You want a tonic-flavoured Martini?’
‘That is exactly what I want.’
Bonnie smiled indulgently. She even had ice cubes.
She had also baked some little cheese puffs, warm from the oven and light and delicious as clouds. Despite their dead end, Mirren couldn’t help being delighted. Jamie had chopped a bunch of misshapen tomatoes that had obviously been grown in the grounds, and added them gently to the garlic with a sprinkling of ground chilli, and Mirren’s stomach growled. The wind howled round the house and there was a crashing noise. Mirren, who had been feeling woozy, and Theo, who was making good headway with his G and T, both started. Nobody else moved at all.
‘What the hell was that?’ said Mirren.
‘Another tile off the roof,’ said the others, almost at the same time.
‘The snow weighs them down,’ said Jamie, looking up.
‘I know I didn’t come here to do quantity surveying,’ said Mirren, ‘but this place really is falling down, you know. We’d probably condemn it.’
