Trisha Ashley - The Magic of Christmas

It was accepted by a publisher and when we moved back to Lancashire I simply renamed the new cottage after the old and carried on — and so, luckily, did those readers who had bought the first book.

My self-imposed quota of four daily handwritten pages completed (which Jasper would type up later on the laptop computer Unks bought him, for extra pocket money), I closed the fat A4 writing pad and turned to my postcard album, as to an old friend. This was an impressively weighty tome containing all the cards sent to me over the years by Nick stuck in picture-side down, since interesting recipes were scribbled onto every bit of space on the back in tiny, spiky handwriting.

He still sent them, though I hadn’t seen very much of him in person, other than the occasional Sunday lunch up at Pharamond Hall, since the time Jasper was ill in hospital. And actually I was profoundly grateful about that, what with having poured my heart out to him in that embarrassing way, not to mention Tom suddenly getting the wrong idea when he arrived and found Nick comforting me …

And speak of the devil, just as I found the card I wanted, a dark shape suddenly blocked the open doorway to the yard and Tom’s voice said, ‘Reading your love letters?’

He was quite mad — that or the demon weed and too much alcohol had pickled his brain over the years! The album was always on the kitchen bookshelf for anyone to read, so he knew there was nothing personal about the cards — unless he thought that addressing them to ‘The Queen of Puddings’ was lover-like, rather than a sarcastic reference to one of my major preoccupations.

Mind you, Tom was not much of a reader, though luckily that meant he had never, to my knowledge, even opened one of my Perseverance Chronicles .

‘No, Tom, I’m looking for a particular marzipan petit four recipe for the Christmas Pudding Circle to try,’ I said patiently. ‘The only love letters I’ve got are a couple of short notes from you, and they’re so old the ink’s faded.’

‘So you say, but I don’t find you poring over them all the time, like you do over Nick’s precious postcards,’ he said, going to wash his hands at the kitchen sink.

I dished out some of the casserole that was simmering gently on the stove and put it on a tray, together with a chunk of home-made bread, since he now preferred to take all his meals alone in the sitting room in front of his giant TV. Jasper and I had the old set in the kitchen and tended to leave him in sole possession.

He picked up the bowl of stew now and stared into it like a sibylline oracle, but the only message he was likely to read was ‘Eat this or go hungry.’

‘What are these black things, decayed sheep’s eyeballs?’

‘Prunes. It’s Moroccan lamb tagine.’

From his expression you would have thought I’d offered him a dish of lightly seasoned bat entrails.

‘And I suppose Nick gave you the recipe. What else has he given you lately?’ he said, with a wealth of unpleasant innuendo. ‘Don’t think I haven’t noticed that your son looks more like him every day!’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t start on that again!’ I snapped, adding recklessly, ‘You know very well why Jasper looks like Nick, just as you look like Great-uncle Roly: your mother must have been having an affair with Leo Pharamond while she was still married to her first husband! Why don’t you ask her?’

It was certainly obvious to everyone else, since those slaty purple-grey eyes and raven-black hair marked out all the Pharamonds instantly. But Tom went livid and hissed like a Mafia villain in a bad film, ‘Never ever malign my mother’s name again like that — do you hear me?’

Then he followed this up by hurling the plate of hot casserole at the wall with enormous force, shattering it and sending fragments of bowl and spatters of food everywhere. He’d never been physically violent (I wouldn’t have stood for it for one second) so I don’t think he was particularly aiming at me, but a substantial chunk of green-glazed Denby pottery hit my cheekbone and fell at my feet.

It was a shock, though, and I stood there transfixed and staring at him, one hand to my face, in a silence broken only by the occasional slither and plop of a descending prune. Suddenly finding myself released from thrall, I turned and walked out of the door, dabbing lamb tagine off my face with the hem of my pale green T-shirt as I went, then headed towards the village.

I must have looked a mess, but luckily it was early evening and few people were about, for the Pied Piper of TV dinners had called them all away, using the theme tune of the popular soap series Cotton Common as lure.

I didn’t have far to go for refuge. Annie’s father used to be the vicar here, but now that he and his wife are alleviating the boredom of retirement by doing VSO work in Africa, Annie has a tiny Victorian red-brick terraced cottage in the main street of Middlemoss.

‘Lizzy!’ she exclaimed, looking horrified at discovering me stained and spattered on her doorstep. ‘Is that dried blood on your face and T-shirt? What on earth has happened?’

‘I think it’s only prune juice and gravy, actually,’ I reassured her, touching my cheek cautiously. ‘A bit of plate did hit me, but it must have had a round edge.’

‘Plate?’ she repeated blankly, drawing me in and closing the front door.

‘Yes, one of those lovely green Denby soup bowls we had as a wedding present from your parents.’

‘Look, come into the kitchen and I’ll clean you up with warm water and lint while you tell me all about it,’ she said soothingly.

The lint sounded very Gone With the Wind — but then, she has all the Girl Guide badges and I don’t suppose the First Aid one has changed for years. So I followed her in and sank down on the nearest rush-bottomed chair, my legs suddenly going wobbly. Trinity (Trinny, for short), Annie’s three-legged mutt, regarded me lambently from her basket, tail thumping.

‘There’s nothing much to tell, really,’ I said. ‘Tom flew into one of his rages and lobbed his dinner at the wall.’

‘Oh, Lizzy!’

‘I said something that made him angry and he just totally lost it this time. I don’t think he was actually aiming at me, though it’s hard to tell since he’s such a rotten shot and — ouch!’ I added, as she dabbed my face with the warm, damp lint.

‘The skin isn’t cut, but I think you might get a bruise on your cheek,’ she said, wringing the cloth out. ‘I could put some arnica ointment on it.’

‘I don’t think I could live with that smell so close to my nose, Annie,’ I said dubiously, but her next suggestion, that we break out the bottle of Remy Martin, which she keeps in stock because her father always swore by it in times of crisis, met with a better reception.

‘I think you really ought to leave Tom right away, Lizzy,’ Annie suggested worriedly. ‘He’s been so increasingly horrible to you that it’s practically verbal abuse — and now this !’

‘I’m just glad Jasper wasn’t there,’ I said, topping my glass up and feeling much better. ‘He’s gone straight from the archaeological dig to a friend’s house, and won’t be back till about ten.’

‘His exam results should be here any time now, shouldn’t they?’

‘Yes, only a couple more days.’ I sipped my brandy and sighed. ‘Even though I’ll miss him, it’ll be such a relief to have him safely off to university in October, because I live in dread that Tom will suddenly tell him to his face that he doesn’t think he’s really his son. That would be even more hurtful than ignoring him, the way he’s been doing the last couple of years.’