Trisha Ashley - Twelve Days of Christmas

‘Come on, Merlin,’ I said, gathering up my books and stuff for downstairs, and he uncoiled himself from the little braided rug at the end of the bed and followed me.

I dumped everything in the kitchen then checked out the cellar, where I was happy to see a whole wall of dry logs and kindling for the sitting-room fire and the boiler burbling quietly away. The wine cellar door was locked of course, but funnily enough, Jude Martland seemed to have overlooked the drinks cabinet with its decanters of spirits and bottles of liqueur in the dining room, so if the urge did uncharacteristically take me to render myself drunk and disorderly, the means were freely to hand.

But this was unlikely: I like to be in control way too much!

By the time we emerged back up into the kitchen, Merlin had begun to heave long-suffering sighs, so I put some dog biscuits from an open packet into his bowl and had a lunch of bread, cheese and rich, chunky apricot chutney from a jar I’d brought with me, before checking up on the provisions.

The kitchen cupboards were well stocked, though some of the food looked as if it hadn’t been touched for months. The tall fridge contained butter, eggs, bacon and an awful lot of cheese left by Mo and Jim, plus the few perishable items I’d brought with me. Mo and Jim obviously liked to go the whole hog at Christmas, because as well as the gigantic turkey and a ham joint in the freezer, there was a pudding the size of a small planet, jars and jars of mincemeat and even some of those expensive Chocolate Wishes (like a delicious fortune cookie) that are made in Sticklepond, a village near where I live.

The biggest freezer was packed with game, meat and fish, and the other contained an array of bread, pizza, chilli and a whole stack of instant meals of a sustaining nature: these probably formed the owner’s staple diet, in which case gourmet he was not. What with those and a very plentiful supply of tea bags, coffee, longlife milk and orange juice, I was starting to get the hang of what Jude Martland lived on when he was home!

I noted down anything I thought I might run out of, which the village shop could probably supply, but I was unlikely to starve to death any time soon.

Merlin, bored, was now fast asleep in his basket by the Aga — sweet!

I chopped up a carrot and took it out to Lady, dropping a bit down for Billy, who was scrabbling at the fence with frantic greed. Lady has lips like softest velvet and, although her coat is snowy white, oddly enough the skin under it is black.

When the carrot had all gone, she and her odoriferous little friend wandered back up the paddock and I went to check the level of oil in the huge tank in the outbuilding (satisfyingly full), and had a look at the generator. This was a dauntingly large piece of machinery but apparently should switch itself on if the mains electricity fails, then back off again when it returns. The Homebodies folder did mention that if it didn’t turn on automatically, you had to come out here and do it manually. .

I was just leaning over it, examining the switches, when a voice suddenly rasped behind me, ‘You don’t want to mess with that there bit of machinery, gurl!’

I whipped round, startled, to find I had company in the shape of an elderly man, small and thin, with long limp wisps of snuff-coloured hair on either side of his cadaverous face. He was holding a bulging sack in one hand and a slightly threateningly raised stick in the other. I have seen more prepossessing old men.

‘Women shouldn’t meddle with what they don’t understand.’

‘You wouldn’t be Henry, would you?’

He nodded. ‘My daughter ran me up to fetch a few taters and carrots. And you’re the gurl has come to look after the place, instead of Jim and Mo?’

The tone of his voice left me in no doubt that this was not, in his opinion, a good exchange. In fact, I was beginning to find Jim and Mo Chirk a hard act to follow: they seemed to have made themselves very popular with everyone in previous visits!

‘I haven’t been described as a girl for years,’ I said pleasantly, ‘and I’m actually one of Homebodies’ most experienced house-sitters.’

‘You’re a grand, strapping lass, I’ll allow that,’ he conceded, ‘but all the same, you shouldn’t meddle with the generator. I showed Jim the way of it, but I’m not having it messed about by any Tom, Dick or Harry.’

‘Thomasina, Richenda or Harriet?’ I suggested and he looked at me blankly. ‘If the electricity goes off and it doesn’t switch itself on, then I’ll have to know how to do it, won’t I?’

‘Nay, you leave it to them as knows what they’re doing.’

‘Meaning you?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But you might not be around when I need to switch it on — perhaps we’ll get snowed in, and then what would I do? But don’t worry, Mr Martland left instructions and it looks perfectly simple.’

‘You don’t want to tinker with it,’ he insisted obstinately.

We seemed to have reached an impasse. I said calmly and perfectly politely, ‘I’m sorry, but it’s part of my job to keep the place in good running order, so if I have to run the generator, I will: after all, I can’t be expected to sit in the dark in a cold house over the Christmas holidays, can I?’

He gave me a look of deep disfavour, but seemed eventually, after much rumination, to accept the logic of my argument. ‘I can see you’re a stubborn, determined creature, just like Jude, who always thinks he knows best. . Well, I suppose I’d better show you the way of it, then, but you’re not to touch it unless you can’t get hold of me, mind?’

‘Certainly,’ I agreed, and we shook hands on it, though since he spat into his palm first, it was possibly the most disgusting thing I have ever had to do while maintaining a polite expression.

I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about really with the generator, it was quite simple. Then Henry said his daughter was waiting and hobbled off with his sack of booty and I went indoors and washed my hands with bacteria-busting hand gel.

I fully intended raiding his vegetable plot myself, but I would be scrubbing everything well before cooking it, because I wouldn’t put it past him to pee on the compost heap like a lot of old gardeners — if not worse.

Once I’d thawed out, I cleaned out the hearth in the sitting room and laid a fire, fetching up kindling and logs from the cellar in an ancient-looking wicker basket. I only hoped the chimney had been recently swept, because setting the place on fire would probably be the end of my home-sitting career. But luckily the smoke drew upwards, rather than billowed out, and no clouds of soot descended.

Once it was going well I set the brass fireguard in front of it, then opened all the unlocked doors in the house to let the warm air circulate through — old houses could quickly get musty if you didn’t keep them aired.

I settled down for a nice rest in front of the sitting-room fire once I’d done that, with a good, strong pot of tea and another slice of my slightly depleted fruit cake to hand.

I felt I deserved a break: there was quite a bit to do at Old Place compared to some other house-sits, though I was sure I’d soon fall into a routine with the animals now I’d got the hang of it. Then the rest of the time would be my own. . except that I really would have to clean this lovely room if I intended spending much time in here!

I’d been half-expecting Jude Martland to ring again much later in the day, but it was typical of the man I was beginning to know that he should instead call just as I’d finally sat down for a rest! The phone in here was on a round table by the window, too, with only a hard chair next to it.

This time he was fractionally more conciliatory, presumably because he’d read my glowing references from satisfied clients, and I was determined to keep my cool.

‘Miss Brown, I don’t think I thanked you yesterday for stepping into the breach at such short notice,’ he began stiffly.

‘Mrs — and of course I understood that you were concerned that your house and animals were being taken care of by a total stranger. But you can rest easy: everything is perfectly under control and your Aunt Becca came here and gave me some excellent advice about Lady, as well as her phone number, should anything crop up.’

‘Oh good!’ He sounded relieved. ‘You did put Lady’s medicine in her warm mash last night, didn’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘And kept Billy away from it until she’d eaten it?’

‘Naturally,’ I said, though it had been quite a tussle to stop Billy diving into the bucket before Lady was finished. ‘Lady’s fine. And your gardener, Henry, helpfully showed me what to do if the electricity goes off and the generator doesn’t come on automatically.’

‘Henry told you?’ he repeated incredulously.

‘Of course! He could see the necessity, in case he wasn’t available to come to Old Place and deal with it himself. And I mean to walk into Little Mumming tomorrow, so I’ll call in to see your aunt and uncle at the lodge to ask them if they need any shopping. So you see, you’ve nothing to worry about and can enjoy your holiday,’ I finished kindly.

‘It’s not entirely a holiday: there was a ceremony to unveil one of my sculptures yesterday.’

‘Oh yes, I’ve seen that horse you did up on a hill near Manchester and it’s very nice.’

‘Nice? Do try not to sound too impressed,’ he said, seeming a bit miffed. ‘I’m supposed to be off to the Hamptons to stay with friends for Christmas tomorrow, but I don’t see how I can possibly relax and enjoy it when I know you’re alone at Old Place looking after everything — the weather can be bad up there, you know, Little Mumming is often cut off in winter.’

‘So I’ve already been told — and really, the dimmest person would be able to appreciate that if the steep hill down from the village was icy, it would be impassable. But don’t worry, I’ve often been snowed in up Scotland and it’s not a problem.’

‘You don’t mind isolation then?’

‘No. In fact, I enjoy it. I have some work I want to finish off too — a book of house-party recipes I’m compiling.’

‘Yes, you said you were a cook,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Look, I know you said you didn’t celebrate Christmas, but I really think you might reconsider—’

I could see he was about to ask me to cook the family Christmas dinner all over again, probably due to a suddenly guilty conscience, so I interrupted him quite firmly before he got going.

‘Mr Martland, I try to ignore Christmas as much as I can and also I recently lost the grandmother who brought me up. She was a Strange Baptist, so I wasn’t raised to think the worldly trappings of the season of importance in any case.’

‘What was strange about her being a Baptist?’ he asked, diverted.

‘Nothing. Strange Baptists were a breakaway sect at the turn of the century, though there aren’t that many of them left.’ I glanced out of the window. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, your uncle and niece have just arrived in a golf buggy, so I’d better go and let them in, there’s a biting wind out there.’

‘No, wait,’ he ordered, ‘go and fetch him to the phone, so I can speak to him. I—’

‘Call him yourself later, if you want to,’ I interrupted and put the receiver down. Cut off in his prime again. This was getting to be a habit — but he was proving to be a most irritating man, especially that deep, rumbling voice: it was as disturbing as distant thunder!

‘We thought we would call in and see how you were getting on,’ Noël explained, ‘though Becca stopped briefly on her way home and said you were doing fine. But I wanted to return some books to the library in any case. Jude doesn’t mind my popping in and out, I’ve always had the run of the place. And Mo and Jim said they didn’t mind in the least, either.’

‘Of course, it’s your family home, so you must come and go as you please,’ I assured him.

‘Thank you, m’dear,’ he said, with his attractively lopsided smile, ‘only of course, now I have had to give up driving the car, the golf buggy is very chilly and really not up to winter weather conditions.’

‘I drove Grandpa up,’ Jess said. ‘I was bored and I like driving the buggy; only I’m not allowed to do it on my own.’