Trisha Ashley - Twelve Days of Christmas

I turned round and snapped, ‘If you think being a healthy weight is fat, then you’re sick! In any case, I’d rather be fat than so skinny I rattled when I walked! Excuse me: if no-one’s leaving, I’d better go and do something about lunch.’

I went out to the kitchen since clearly I hadn’t got much option but to stay, unless the roads miraculously cleared and this now seemed unlikely. Lunch was only going to be soup and sandwiches and I would lay it in the sitting room. I was getting tired of having so many people underfoot in my kitchen. There were some nice pale blue two-handled soup cups with saucers and stacks of paper napkins. I’d found a stash of real linen ones in the downstairs cupboard, but as far as I was concerned they could stay there until Jude had managed to find a handy skivvy willing to wash and iron them for her lord and master after use.

A few minutes later Jude followed me in and closed the door, then stood there with his arms folded, looking at me in a frowning, puzzled sort of way. I ignored him, as much as you could ignore something that size glowering at you, while I put the soup on the stove and got out some little oval tins of expensive game pâté I’d discovered in one of the cupboards. The use-by date was the end of December, so they needed eating.

‘I wish you’d sit down and stop looming about,’ I snapped eventually. ‘Cooking isn’t a spectator sport, you know.’

He pulled out the sturdiest of the wheelback chairs and sat on it and it protested, but weakly: I think it knew its place.

‘My mother liked to cook and I loved to watch her,’ he said unexpectedly.

‘I envy you that, because I never knew mine: she died when I was born. Gran told me lots about her, but it’s not the same thing,’ I said, softened by this picture of him as a child, hard though it was to imagine now. ‘Perhaps some of the cookery books on the shelf are hers?’

‘I expect they are, but she was just an amateur, while you, as you told me on the phone, are a highly-paid cook.’

‘Chef.’

‘Whatever.’ He fixed his treacle-dark eyes on me and I noticed for the first time that they had disconcertingly mesmerising flecks of gold in them. .

I wrenched my gaze away with an effort and carried on with what I was doing and he said, ‘Look, Holly, I don’t understand what game you’re playing, though it’s pretty clear you’re up to something; but since we need your help over Christmas, I’ll pay you whatever you want. It seems as if you’re going to be stuck here with us, anyway.’

‘Unless I go and stay in the lodge? But I’m not up to anything and nor did I offer to look after your family for money. I did it because I felt sorry you’d spoilt their Christmas — and also, I really like them.’

‘So, are you saying you were just winding me up when you told me your charges were astronomical and that I couldn’t afford them?’ He scowled blackly at me.

‘My cooking charges are astronomical, but I didn’t actually say I was going to bill you for them at any point, did I? I told Ellen not to.’

‘You let me assume you were!’

‘Only because you annoyed me by assuming I was totally mercenary.’

‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you — I got on fine with Jim and Mo! And surely you can’t be this rude to all your clients?’

‘I only give back as good as I get! In fact, I’m a perfectly calm, competent and reasonable person.’

‘Oh yes, perfectly reasonable: after all, you only implied I’d neglected my elderly relatives and then got me so worried that you wouldn’t look after them properly that I got on the first plane back from America. Then I found you’d filled my house full of people.’

‘I filled your house? Whose family, ghastly ex-fiancée, free-loading brother and refugee actor are they anyway, may I ask?’ I demanded. ‘And did anyone ask me if I wanted to double the number of people I was cooking for? Or offer to help me — apart from Michael, who isn’t part of your family at all!’

We glared at each other. He was looking a bit rough, which was probably equal parts bad temper and jet lag. . or maybe he always looked like that?

‘If your uncle and aunt wouldn’t mind, perhaps it would be best if I removed myself down to the lodge,’ I said after a minute. ‘I’ll leave you detailed instructions for cooking dinner tomorrow and tonight’s is really quite simple. I can show you the menu plans and Tilda will tell you—’

‘Just stop right there!’ he snarled, then wearily rubbed a hand across his tired face and gave a long sigh. ‘Look, Holly, I think perhaps we’ve simply got off on the wrong foot. Couldn’t we put the past behind us and start again? If I apologise in fifteen different positions and not mention money, will you please stay over Christmas and do the cooking?’

There was a slight element of gritted teeth about this apology and proposal and I said suspiciously, ‘What, as general skivvy?’

‘As a house guest who has kindly offered to do the cooking.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ I said, ‘perhaps you are right, and we should let bygones be bygones and start over again. But meanwhile, if your vacuous ex-fiancée demands another egg-white omelette, I might just oblige and then rub her silly face in it.’

He grinned suddenly with genuine amusement and I blinked at the transformation: he looked younger — perhaps not much older than me — and if he wasn’t handsome, he was still interestingly attractive. . if you liked the strong-featured, hard-jawed type, that is.

‘She has elderly parents who’ve spoiled her rotten, but she’s not usually quite this bad.’ He paused and added, ‘Was it my imagination or was she turning the charm on me at breakfast?’

‘Only in a general way, I think,’ I said, considering this. ‘She’s all over Michael like a rash, of course, but then, he’s apparently a well-known actor and she’s met him before, so it isn’t really surprising.’

‘I got the impression he was just soothing her down, because it’s you he seems to be getting on with like a house on fire. In fact, if you’ve been snogging George as well, you seem to have managed to get off with two total strangers in no time at all.’

‘I wasn’t snogging George and I haven’t “got off”, as you put it, with either of them,’ I said with dignity. ‘They’re just both very nice men.’

‘Well, my brother isn’t and he seemed to be eyeing you up a bit, too.’

‘What, saying I was beautiful?’ I laughed. ‘Oh, that’s silly, he was just winding Coco up. I think he’s being a bit cruel to her, because he must have led her on to think they were going to get married, or she wouldn’t have sent off the announcement and told her parents, would she?’

‘You’ve met her now: you tell me.’ He got up, narrowly missing the lamp suspended over the kitchen table. ‘So, do we have an agreement? You’ll stay and do the cooking?’

‘I suppose so,’ I agreed reluctantly. ‘But I’m doing it for Jess, Noël, Tilda and Becca — and for Old Nan and Richard.’

‘Richard?’ He raised a thick dark eyebrow. ‘Another man you’re on first-name terms with already?’

‘Don’t be so daft, you great streak of nowt,’ I said crisply, which had been one of my grandmother’s favourite put-downs to uppity men, and he grinned again and got up, clearly taking my agreement for granted.

But by then I’d realised that flouncing off to the lodge and being a hermit really wasn’t an option anyway, not when there was a Christmas dinner to cook, and people I was fond of who would be disappointed if it wasn’t right.

‘I’ll stay until after Boxing Day, at least, then see what the roads are like. But until then, this is my kitchen and I won’t have any interference with my cooking — is that understood?’

‘I can’t guarantee that from Tilda,’ he said dubiously.

‘That’s all right, she doesn’t interfere, just suggests.’

‘Then it’s a bargain,’ he said gravely and offered me a shapely, long-fingered hand the size of a bunch of bananas. At least, unlike Henry, he didn’t spit in his palm first.

After lunch it was pretty clear that the weather wasn’t going to change: in fact, the sky was ominously pewter-coloured again. Coco still didn’t seem to grasp that some way couldn’t be found to get her home and in the end said that if no-one would help her, then she was going to walk to the village and possibly even down to the main road, where her phone would work and she could summon help.

‘Who from?’ asked Guy interestedly.

‘The AA? The police? Someone to take me back to civilisation!’ ‘Look, it’s not going to happen, much though we wish it would,’ Jude said impatiently.

‘No, nothing short of a helicopter could do the trick, I’m afraid,’ Noël told her. ‘But I’m sure we will all have a fun Christmas together,’ he added optimistically.

‘A helicopter!’ She seized on the idea avidly. ‘The air-sea rescue people could—’

‘Oh, don’t be so stupid,’ Jude snapped. ‘You can’t ask the emergency services to helicopter you out, just because you want to go home!’

‘I don’t think there’s really anywhere flat enough for them to land anyway,’ Noël said, considering it. ‘Only the green, and the houses are all a bit too close to that. Of course, they can winch people up.’

‘Well then, Jude could take me down to the main road where there is bound to be somewhere flat enough. I can phone Mummy and Daddy and get them to arrange something. Or you can lend your Land Rover to Guy and we could both—’

‘Nothing doing,’ said Guy. ‘Give it up.’

‘You’re all so horrible to me, except Noël and Michael! I want to talk to Mummy and Daddy,’ she whined.

‘If you start that howling again, I’m going to slap you,’ Becca said uncompromisingly, which seemed to work just as well as threatening her with a drenching.

‘Look, Coco,’ said Michael kindly, ‘I ought to phone my friends and let them know what’s happened to me, so why don’t you and I walk down towards the village together until we can get mobile signals? It’ll give us a chance to see what conditions are really like, too.’

‘All right,’ she agreed sulkily, ‘but if I can find someone who can get me out of here, I’m not coming back!’

‘We’d better find you both something more practical to wear before you set out, then,’ Tilda observed. ‘You won’t get very far dressed like that.’

Becca rooted out old wellingtons and waxed coats that more or less fitted and they set off down the drive, Coco’s rather Dr Zhivago white fur hat striking a strange note. They walked through the virgin snow at the side of the drive, so where the tractor had ploughed must have been too slippery.

‘I hope they’re going to be all right and Coco doesn’t do anything stupid,’ I said, watching them from the sitting-room window until they disappeared into the pine trees above the lodge.

‘Michael seems a sensible chap, so I’ll be surprised if they go very far,’ Jude said, ‘and even Coco will be able to see that it’s impossible to get out. Not that I want her or Guy here, of course, but I’m prepared to put up with them under the circumstances.’

‘Thanks,’ said Guy dryly.

Jude looked measuringly at his brother. ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten how you behaved last Christmas, though, and how much it all upset Father, when he was so ill,’ he said evenly.

Guy looked slightly shamefaced. ‘No, well — look, I’m really sorry about that! It’s just that as soon as I set eyes on Coco I fell madly in love — she’s so stunningly pretty.’

‘You did? I thought you just took her away because she was my fiancée!’

‘No,’ Guy said wryly, ‘I fell for her, hook, line and sinker. But then I fell out of love with her quite suddenly, just after she sent that engagement notice to the papers. It was quite a wake-up call. What about you?’

‘Me?’ Jude said. ‘Oh, the minute I saw her again. In fact, in retrospect, you might have done me a favour by breaking up our engagement, because I don’t think I’d grasped before quite how silly she is! I must have been blinded by her looks.’

‘Me too,’ agreed Guy. ‘It’s strange how when I thought I was in love with her, everything she said seemed funny and endearing, whereas now it’s intensely irritating.’