The Christmas Surprise Page 17

  Past the school, its Christmas paper chains hanging from every available wall space, and great sheaves of holly round the door, looking less like decoration and more like the head teacher was trying to ward off evil spirits, the jolly shining berries protection against the darkness of the very depths of the year. Sprinkled above, like fairy threads, was light, delicate mistletoe.

  ‘Good luck to witches trying to get in there,’ observed Rosie.

  ‘It’ll keep Lady Lipton out,’ grumbled Tina.

  Rosie craned her neck to see if she could see Stephen, his large head bent over, marking exercise books as he often did in the evening, unwilling to clutter up their little home or bring work into the cottage when he would rather be lying on his back rubbing Apostil’s sturdy little shoulders and being licked by Mr Dog. He wasn’t there.

  Past the pretty steepled church with its kissing gate, and rainbow paintings by children in the information case, which made Lilian sniff and declare that a few more parish meetings and a few fewer rainbows might actually be a bit more useful. No lights burned in the vestry, so the vicar was probably out and about on his rounds (‘Biscuit-scrounging more like,’ Lilian would growl, before lauding the austere habits of the Pope once again).

  They were coming to the end of the village now, past the curve of the churchyard – there was a small graveyard on the other side of the road too – then down past the farm tracks where Lilian had once whizzed on her bicycle and out on to the old road, where in amongst the woods at the top of an overgrown path stood the ramshackle wooden hut that had once hosted dances and parties, town meetings and rallies.

  As people’s expectations of nights out had changed somewhat and it became more acceptable for women to drink in the bar at the Red Lion, the hut had gradually fallen out of use. Tonight, however, it was lit up in the icy gloom, and from inside came the sound of small feet crashing up and down and harshly shouted orders.

  Rosie and Tina swapped glances.

  ‘It’s kind of falling-down,’ whispered Tina.

  ‘Listen,’ said Rosie. ‘With some posh fairy lights and a couple of gas heaters and some tinsel and those funny chairs with ribbons on the back, it’ll be transformed. Like when Ross married Emily on Friends, remember?’

  ‘I remember that not turning out so well,’ said Tina.

  The noise from the old hut showed no sign of stopping.

  ‘I wonder who runs it,’ said Rosie. ‘We know it’s not the vicar; it involves physical exercise. Anyway, they’ll know who owns the hut.’

  ‘Do you think …’ Tina’s eyes were bright. ‘Do you think they’d let us have our wedding here?’

  ‘I can’t imagine why not,’ said Rosie. ‘Who in the village could possibly not wish you and Jake every happiness and success? Except my mother-in-law-to-be, and let’s assume she’s got nothing to do with it.’

  She walked up to the hut and knocked confidently on the door. There was silence inside, a few scuffles, then the door was thrown open, and there, looking not at all happy to be disturbed, was Roy Blaine.

  Rosie could never think of Roy Blaine without reminding herself that there were loads of dentists she knew who were absolute salt-of-the-earth types: gentle, thoughtful, kind to children, and who didn’t treat the occasional dental issue as a moral failing.

  Roy was not like that. He was the opposite of that. He seemed to have taken his attitude towards his job from a terrifying children’s book. In fact she had no idea why he was mixing with children at all. He hated the blighters.

  Now he blinked at her behind his unpleasant frameless glasses, then showed his horrifically white tombstone teeth in one of his wide, insincere grins.

  ‘Miss Hopkins,’ he said. He inclined his head. ‘And your new …’

  He seemed to run out of words here and flapped his hands. Rosie gasped at his rudeness.

  ‘This is my baby Apostil,’ she said. But Roy ignored her and turned to Tina.

  ‘And Miss Ferrers,’ he said. ‘Have you made a decision about young Emily’s brace yet? If you don’t do it soon, I’ll have to dislocate her jaw or she’ll be disfigured for life.’

  ‘She’s only nine,’ gasped Tina. ‘And it’s so expensive.’

  ‘Too expensive to avoid lifelong disfigurement? Oh well. That is a shame.’

  ‘Why are you running the Boys’ Brigade?’ asked Rosie in some shock.

  ‘Because, Miss Hopkins, thanks to you and your fellow sugar-pushers, the children of this village are WEAK. Lily-livered, pathetic mewling milquetoasts.’

  Edison, still wearing his oddly tilted beret, had marched up to the door.

  ‘Hello, Miss Rosie!’ he said, beaming. Roy shot him a look and he instantly stiffened.

  ‘They need backbone. Sinew.’

  Edison nodded vigorously.

  ‘We’re weak, Miss Rosie.’

  Rosie couldn’t exactly argue with that, but her brow furrowed.

  ‘But what’s in it for you?’

  ‘The satisfaction of building healthy young bodies and minds, rather than poisoning them with sugar as you do.’

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘Sixty-four more laps of the hut, please!’

  Rosie narrowed her eyes at him. She didn’t buy this for a second. Tina coughed, and she remembered why she was there. She tried to make her voice more conciliatory.

  ‘The thing is, we need to borrow the hut. In two weeks.’

  ‘There isn’t a town council meeting until the new year,’ said Roy. ‘So no.’

  ‘But,’ said Tina desperately, ‘it’s for my wedding.’

  ‘You’re supposed to plan these things more than a couple of weeks in advance,’ said Roy. There was a Mrs Blaine – Rosie had seen her, a pinched, terrified-looking woman called Laura, who never came into the shop – but Rosie found the concept of Roy Blaine proposing marriage terrifying in the extreme.

  Tina burst into noisy tears.

  ‘Ssssh,’ said Rosie. ‘I’m sure Mr Blaine will do the right, kind thing and change his mind.’

  ‘I’ll do the right thing and send it through the proper council channels,’ said Roy. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I have drill.’

  He turned back into the room of slightly terrified-looking little boys and shouted, ‘Atten-HUT!’ and they all leapt to attention.

  Rosie took Tina for a drink in the Red Lion. Les, the lugubrious landlord, didn’t realise Apostil was there till he was handing over their white wines.

  ‘No kids in ’ere,’ he said, his moustache drooping into the lines that ran down from his nose.

  ‘I haven’t … Oh,’ said Rosie, remembering. She had been so caught up in wondering what to do about Tina’s wedding, she had completely forgotten the baby was there. ‘Oh, dammit, he’ll never sleep tonight. We’ll just have to sit up and watch I’m a Celebrity.’

  She turned round and, to her horror, caught the eye of Joy, the social worker, who was sitting at a corner table with a cup of tea, marking something up on her omnipresent iPad.

  ‘Oh Lord,’ said Rosie. ‘It’s just one thing after another.’ She gave a weak wave. Joy got up and stalked over.

  ‘You know you’re not allowed to bring Baby to the pub?’

  Well, if there was a Starbucks in Lipton we’d probably have gone there and parked our buggy right in everybody’s way, like all those ‘good mothers’, was what Rosie wanted to say, but she didn’t dare, just hung her head.

  ‘Sorry, I just popped in … my friend was a bit upset.’

  ‘Now,’ said Joy, in a sing-song voice that was supposed to be soothing but was actually quite the opposite, ‘I realise you’re a first-time mother, and that Apostil is an adopted child …’

  Mentally Rosie rolled her eyes.

  ‘But we don’t consider “the pub”’ – she made air quotation marks – ‘to be the safest or best environment for Baby.’

  ‘Um. Yes. Thank you,’ said Rosie, feeling rebellious inside. She was tempted to order a double whisky, even though she’d
never ordered whisky in her life because she hated the taste of the stuff. ‘I was just going,’ she said instead.

  ‘Don’t you want your wine?’ said Tina.

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Rosie, forcing herself. ‘I would never drink wine in front of … Baby.’

  Joy gave her a patronising smile as Rosie, feeling absolutely red hot, slowly got up and walked across the pub, leaving behind the full glass of wine on the table. She was watched by an agonisingly embarrassed Tina and a smug-looking Joy, as well as a full complement of locals. It would be all over the village by the next morning.

  Standing up woke Apostil, who greeted the room with a hearty yell, thus alerting the last two chess-playing pensioners in the corner, who had been previously unaware of what was happening. Rosie stomped out of the pub and, crossly, into the street.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ said Stephen as she threw open the door ten minutes later with a face like thunder. ‘You look like my mother.’

  Pamela was pacing up and down in front of the fire, shouting into her phone.

  ‘Oh good,’ said Rosie through gritted teeth. ‘Pamela’s back. After she threw you out of your home, she appears to be squatting at ours.’

  Stephen looked uncomfortable.

  ‘She’s not been well,’ he said. ‘Also she says she needs miso and I don’t know where to get any.’

  ‘Halifax,’ sniffed Rosie. ‘Shall we go and drive her there now? There’s a Force 4 coming in, but anything for Pamela.’

  She unstrapped a howling Apostil and passed him over.

  ‘What’s up?’ said Stephen. ‘Don’t tell me, is being a mum not exactly like they said it would be in all those stupid magazines you bought?’

  Rosie half smiled.

  ‘Ha, the ones with the perfect children in clean clothes doing somersaults?’

  ‘With the skinny smiling mothers who also don’t have any drool on them?’

  ‘With their fresh-faced nine-hours-sleep faces?’

  ‘And their high-heeled shoes?’

  Rosie couldn’t help laughing. It was hard to be grumpy when Stephen was teasing her.

  ‘No. Actually, up until about ten minutes ago, he’s been a total angel all day. It’s not him.’

  And she explained.

  ‘I was just trying to help out, but everywhere we turn …’

  She looked at Pamela, who was having a cigarette outside the kitchen door, even though it was absolutely freezing, and still shouting into her mobile phone. Mr Dog was jumping up and down excitedly and trying to bite the lit end; this was more entertainment than he’d seen in months.

  ‘Who’s she calling?’

  ‘Oh, she has a full list of requirements for Peak House. You’d think it would be impossible before Christmas, but my sister can be quite persuasive when she wants to be.’

  Rosie looked at her for a long moment.

  ‘What’s she even going to do up there?’

  ‘Be a dog in a manger,’ said Stephen. ‘Annoy my mother. Take the pressure off us. Get bored and sell Peak House. All that good stuff.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Rosie, and she told him the rest. To his credit, Stephen laughed heartily.

  ‘I don’t think Roy Blaine being an arsehole is going to make the papers … Did you really take our baby to the pub?’

  Rosie switched on the kettle and allowed herself a smile.

  ‘Oh God, I know. I promise, I absolutely wasn’t thinking. I had my jacket done up and he was so quiet and keeping me warm, and Tina and I go to the Red Lion all the time, and …’

  ‘Who else was there?’ said Stephen, letting Apostil kick naked on a towel to give his nappy rash an airing. The layers of itchy wool had their down side sometimes.

  ‘Oh don’t,’ said Rosie. ‘Jeremy from Bender’s Farm. Big Pete, of course. Mrs Laird. Everyone. All the worst gossips and everyone who hates me. Why was the social worker in the pub anyway?’

  ‘Because she’s a free agent?’

  ‘No, because there’s nowhere else to go in this town. I should open a café.’

  ‘What, come and have a cup of tea and a lollipop whistle?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rosie. ‘Anyway. It was horrible.’

  ‘They’ll make allowances.’

  ‘Plus I have an employee who can’t sit up without bursting into tears. That isn’t helping matters.’

  ‘No,’ said Stephen, looking grave. ‘This is really getting to Tina, isn’t it?’

  ‘It would be nothing to Roy Blaine to let her use that damn scout hut,’ said Rosie. ‘Nothing. He’s only doing it to be an arsehole.’

  ‘I think I should introduce him to my sister.’

  ‘No,’ said Rosie. ‘His teeth aren’t white enough.’

  Stephen made her feel a little better, but it still took her a long time to get to sleep that night, especially with Apostil making his little noises in his crib in the corner of the bedroom – they’d had to move him upstairs; it was just too cold down there. Somehow she knew he sensed they were all sleeping in the same room, and it was obvious he approved of the situation. They were going to have a heck of a job moving him back down.

  Chapter Fourteen

  God rest ye merry, gentlemen

  Let nothing you dismay …

  O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy

  O tidings of comfort and joy

  It was a filthy day. Derby had a huge Christmas lights display, big ropes of sponsored adverts hanging over the streets. The traffic was awful. Rosie crawled along in the car. Some of the town centre was absolutely beautiful, and she felt her spirits rise somewhat. But as she squinted at the directions lying on the passenger seat – the car didn’t run to sat nav – she found herself getting further and further away from that part and into the downtrodden rows of closed-down high-street shops, where the street cleaning wasn’t as good; where mattresses and cars and blocks of flats lined the road. There were many beautiful bits of Derby, Rosie could absolutely see. But this was not one of them.

  The estate agent, a nervous young chap called Lance, was waiting on the corner of Bendragon Road. It was an enormously long street of hundreds of identical terraced houses, some with dirty nets in the windows. A few of them seemed to be B&Bs. Rosie blinked.

  Lance was overweight and sad-looking. His accent was from the south-west.

  ‘Have you been here long?’ Rosie asked for politeness, hoisting Appy out of his seat into the howling gale.

  ‘Three months,’ said Lance ponderously. ‘I was in Cornwall. I miss Cornwall.’

  ‘Is the weather better down there?’ said Rosie.

  Lance nodded.

  ‘It’s always sunny and beautiful in Cornwall.’

  ‘Not always,’ said Rosie, smiling.

  ‘Always,’ said Lance. He pushed open the clanking gate, which was off its hinges. A small, scrubby front garden with cracked crazy paving led to a cheap white-painted front door.

  Inside, the house smelled of abandonment and loss. There was swirly carpet on the floor, in some places showing the old newspaper underneath. Obviously nobody had lived there for a long time; a huge pile of ancient mail spilled over the hall. Lance didn’t bother to pick it up.

  To the left was a tiny sitting room. A faded green armchair with a brown stain on the headrest stood in front of a gas fire. There was ruched wallpaper on the walls, with dirty marks where pictures had been removed. A car drove past at high speed on the street, and its beams passed through the room and across the ceiling. Apostil wriggled crossly.

  ‘Sitting room,’ sniffed Lance quickly. The house felt cold and damp.

  Along the passage was a tiny kitchen with badly fitted units, an ancient and filthy oven and ripped linoleum. There was a back door leading to a patch of grasssy scrub filled with three different types of bins, and a little alleyway. Even in the cold and dark Rosie could hear the shouting and noise of children. Perhaps Apostil could make friends with them, she thought nervously.

  Upstairs were three cheerle
ss bedrooms, the master bedroom getting the full benefit of the noise from the road, with a street lamp shining through the window.

  It was horrible.

  ‘So,’ said Rosie. ‘Um.’

  ‘The thing is,’ said Lance, ‘in your price bracket … there’s not a lot about. If you want a house … I mean, I’ve got a few flats …’

  Rosie shook her head firmly.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘We need a bit of garden. We do.’

  On Sunday morning Rosie sat with Lilian after Mass, drinking tea and pretending to play bezique.

  The home had been decorated beautifully, as it always was at Christmas time. Residents were encouraged to bring an old decoration from home, or something that meant a lot to them, so that the place was full of exquisite treasures: a little carousel of dancing reindeer that went round and round and had hypnotised Meridian the year before; a beautiful collection of hand-painted Victorian baubles hanging high on the tree; silver and glass bells that shimmered and tinkled every time somebody opened a door; and cards hung on lines, so many cards. The generation, Rosie thought with alarm, that still wrote and sent cards at Christmas. She hadn’t done any. She could do all her shopping for her family in Australia online, but there was nothing quite like getting a real card. She’d suggested to Stephen that they should dress Apostil and Mr Dog up in reindeer antlers and Santa hats, and he’d looked at her as if she’d gone stark staring mad and asked if she was kidding, and she’d immediately said yes, she was totally kidding, and hidden the antlers behind the mantelpiece.

  ‘What we need is a bit of blackmail,’ Lilian said. ‘Not much. Mild. What have we got on Roy Blaine?’

  ‘Um … occasional overcharging?’ said Rosie. ‘That’s not very impressive.’

  ‘He must do something bad.’

  ‘He does loads of things bad. Tragically, he doesn’t care and he does them all in plain sight.’