Trisha Ashley - Twelve Days of Christmas

‘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.’

Seeing she was looking wistfully at my slice of fruit cake I said, ‘Can I get you both some tea and perhaps a slice of cake? Mine has gone cold because your nephew just rang again, so I was going to make a fresh pot anyway.’

‘Oh, Jude got through?’ he asked. ‘What a pity we were not here in time to speak to him.’

‘I’m afraid he simply had to go. But I expect he’ll phone you back later.’

‘Very likely. . but we don’t want to disturb you if you are busy,’ he said, with a look at the pile of papers next to the easy chair.

‘Not at all, I was only going to look at some notes for a recipe book I’m compiling — Cooking for House-Parties . I’ve been collecting recipes and tips for years, but now I’m finally hoping to get it ready to send out to publishers in the New Year.’

‘Do people have large house-parties any more? I remember them as a young man, and jolly good fun they were, too!’ said Noël a little wistfully.

‘Oh yes, you’d be surprised — but probably they’re very different from the ones you knew.’

‘I know Becca still gets invited to shooting and fishing ones,’ he said. ‘And the family have always gathered here at Old Place between Christmas and Twelfth Night, so that is a house-party too, I suppose.’

‘I think your book needs a less boring title than Cooking for House-Parties , Jess said frankly.

‘That’s just the working title, but if you can think of a better one, let me know.’

‘I’m writing a vampire book, with lots of blood,’ she confided.

‘I expect there would be in a vampire book.’

‘There wasn’t a great deal, as I recall, in Bram Stoker’s Dracula ,’ her grandfather said doubtfully.

‘There will be in mine. I’m going to kill off all the girls at school I don’t like — horribly .’

‘Good idea — that sounds immensely satisfying,’ I said.

Noël settled comfortably on the sofa in front of the fire. Jess came through to the kitchen with me and, while I brewed a fresh pot of tea and laid the tray with cups and saucers and the remains of my fast-vanishing fruit cake, fetched a carton of long-life orange juice from the lavish supply in the larder and opened it.

‘Jude likes this with his breakfast.’

‘Going by the ready meals in the freezer, he doesn’t do much cooking, does he? There’s lots of other food in there, but most of it looks as if it’s been there for ages, especially the game.’

‘I think he forgets to cook half the time, apart from breakfast. It’s Aunt Becca who puts all the game and trout and stuff in the freezers — she’s forever visiting friends and coming back with more than she knows what to do with. She gives it to Granny, too. Do you like rabbit?’

‘When it’s cooked properly.’

‘I don’t. I can’t help thinking about how harmless and nice rabbits are.’

‘Well, no-one’s going to force you to eat one, are they?’ I said with a smile. ‘I could make you a rabbit you would like one day though — a chocolate blancmange one! There’s a lovely Victorian glass mould in one of the cupboards and I’m dying to try it. You could come to tea, if your grandparents say it’s all right.’

‘Oh, they won’t mind. What’s blancmange?’

‘A kind of flavoured milk jelly.’

‘Is it like Angel Delight? Granny has some of that in the cupboard.’

‘Sort of. You know, someone ought to eat up the game in the freezer, it’s such a waste otherwise.’

‘As long as it isn’t me. Though actually, your cooking might be better than Granny’s — her food is all a bit weird.’

‘I expect she just cooks like she did early in her career and tastes have changed,’ I said tactfully. ‘By the way, the black stuff in those pinwheel sandwiches she gave me for lunch. . I don’t suppose you know what that was?’

‘It’s a heavily guarded secret. I call it minced rancid car tyre.’

‘That’s a pretty fair description,’ I admitted.

‘I know Granny carries on as if she does all the cooking herself, but actually Edwina does most of it really,’ Jess confided. ‘That’s the real reason why they always move into Old Place when she goes off to her relatives for Christmas and New Year. Goodness knows what Christmas dinner will be like this time!’

I felt another inconvenient pang of conscience, though why I should I can’t imagine, since it’s Jude Martland who ought to be having them, not me!

‘You can help her with the cooking,’ I suggested. ‘I used to help my gran, that’s what started me off thinking I wanted to become a chef.’

‘She’s very bossy and says she doesn’t want little girls in the kitchen under her feet when she’s busy, even though I’m nearly thirteen and way taller than she is! I help Grandpa with the washing up, instead.’

The tea was ready and I carried the tray into the sitting room, finding Noël half-asleep before the fire, though he woke up the instant the crockery rattled.

‘Lovely to see the fire lit in here again,’ he said, ‘it seemed so cold and unwelcoming without it.’