The Christmas Surprise Page 27

  ‘You know she’s going to be at church,’ said Rosie, as they sat eating breakfast.

  Stephen looked at her.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Is she spending the day by herself?’

  ‘She is pleasing herself, as she always does.’

  Rosie gave him The Look. Stephen sighed.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, picking up the phone. ‘Okay. Just to give her the pleasure of telling me to piss off. As a gift.’

  ‘Ah, the true spirit of Christmas,’ said Rosie. She took out the dishes while Stephen reluctantly dialled his mother.

  ‘Hey,’ he said awkwardly. There was a long silence; Henrietta was obviously talking. Rosie pretended not to be earwigging.

  ‘I think,’ Stephen said eventually, ‘I think there’s probably a spare space … you know, at Lilian’s … Yes …’

  Another long silence.

  ‘Yes. We are thrilled. The letters on the wall … those were your idea?’

  Stupefied, Rosie moved closer to the phone so she could hear. Henrietta’s voice was still imperious, but it sounded frailer, too.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I wanted … I wanted to make sure he felt part of the family.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Merry Christmas … Mum.’

  Cathryn had excelled herself this year. Great garlands of holly and ivy had been gathered by the gardeners and hung all around the home, and the old ladies had been busy crocheting silver stars, which they had managed so successfully they now covered every available wall space, along with the hundreds of cards, from a generation whose handwriting grew increasingly faint and wobbly.

  Relatives arrived with piles of gifts; surly teenagers fiddled with their phones; exuberant little ones, suddenly anxious at the sight of all the old people, caught sight of the huge tree in the corner, lit up and brilliant, and were struck dumb.

  Lilian had bagsied the best table, between the windows looking out on to the snow-covered gardens and the crackling fire, simply by putting a cardigan on the back of each chair and giving a deep snarl to anyone who came over and considered complaining. Cathryn had managed to source a high chair from somewhere, so Apostil, who was only just beginning to sit up, could enjoy watching over the proceedings.

  The young, nervous teens from the local Prince of Wales scheme, which trained them up in catering, came round with the first delicious canapés of the day, and aperitifs were served. Lilian asked loudly for a gin fizz, but was ignored and made do with a port and lemon.

  Rosie and Stephen came bustling in, brimming over with laughter and gifts, Apostil beaming, Mr Dog sneaking in behind. Cathryn saw the dog but turned a blind eye as he sniffed around appreciatively for chipolatas. Moray and Moshe weren’t far behind.

  ‘No ailments!’ Moray was shouting. ‘I am NOT on call today, so nobody choke on a turkey bone. Or do if you like; I shall stand by whilst you wake Hye out of his underground lair. Someone give me a Campari and soda.’

  Frank Sinatra was singing Christmas carols in the background as gifts were exchanged. To Rosie’s growing embarrassment, all anyone seemed to have bought was a plethora of toys and ridiculous outfits for Apostil, who ignored all of them in favour of trying to eat some bubble wrap. Across the large dining room, similar scenes were taking place in every family group; even Maud Winton, who had nobody left in all the world, had been co-opted by Ada Lumb’s family for the duration. Ida Delia was grumpily examining a necklace Dorothy had bought her and asking if she’d kept the receipt.

  Outside, the snow was falling – as it would fall now until March – but Rosie didn’t mind, thinking with a shiver of pleasure of their new carpets, their cosy windows, all the ridiculous luxury of Peak House. She still couldn’t quite get her head around it. She squeezed Stephen’s hand very tightly, and without turning away from flirting with Lilian, he squeezed hers back in a way that showed her he understood; that he would always understand; that he would always be there, hand in hand, side by side, for the good and the bad.

  At 12.30, everyone who could manage it stood up, as Cathryn said the grace.

  I heard the bells on Christmas Day,

  Their old familiar carols play

  And wild and sweet

  The words repeat

  Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!

  Suddenly the door opened, letting in a bitter icy draught. Everyone turned to stare. Standing in the doorway, as proud and formidable-looking as ever – possibly more so in her red greatcoat – was Henrietta. For a few moments everyone was silent. Then Lilian’s voice rang out.

  ‘Oh, there you are.’

  She indicated an empty place at the end of the table that Rosie had thought she was keeping free for Henry, and Rosie dropped Stephen’s hand and urged him forward to greet his mother. He extended his arm to take hers, and kissed her gently on the cheek – at which she coloured, which was unlike her – then led her to the top of the table.

  ‘I have,’ she said, caressing Apostil’s head, ‘I have a gift for … for my grandchild.’

  ‘You are his gift,’ said Stephen gently. ‘His grandma.’

  And there, gentle reader, we are going to leave them. Eating a wonderful meal – nobody did choke on a turkey bone – in a room full of love and warmth and fellowship, which for my money is just about the best we can get in this world.

  Moray will tell a terribly off-colour joke, which Lilian will absolutely love, and Apostil will hit a toy drum someone bought him until they take it away, and Ida Delia will be persuaded to lead the charades (she always was a show-off, Lilian will remark, and refuse to guess), and they will toast their beloved Henry Carr, and the spirit of Célestine, never forgetting that Apostil has two mothers. The weak daylight will soften into early dark, but no one will pay the least bit of attention, and the carers will dance with their elderly clients, even when they pretend they don’t want to, and Lilian will wear her paper hat at a jaunty angle and make it look rather chic, whereas Rosie will get a bit overheated and pink, and her hat will stick to her forehead. And Apostil will try and put anything from the crackers into his mouth and have to be rescued from choking about four times, and he will think this is a tremendous game, and crack up laughing each time. And in about ten minutes, Rosie will go to the bathroom and throw up for the fourth time that day, then run downstairs and whisper to Stephen what has just happened, and he will say, ‘Just like you did yesterday morning?’

  And she will nod, terrified, and Stephen will smile, his paper hat falling off the side of his head in surprise, and say, ‘Well I will say one thing about life with you, Rosie Hopkins: there is never a dull moment.’

  But that is quite another story.

  So hush: let us leave them, draw back above the beautiful house with its lovingly tended gardens; above the valley, with Lipton nestled in it, cosy in its blanket of snow, the lights blinking their Christmas message of hope and fraternity and love; over the gently rolling land, and higher still, across the world, its freezing mountains, its boiling deserts, its great seas, and over all, Polaris, blinking out its message to everyone, in hut and mansion alike: peace on earth, goodwill, goodwill.

  Acknowledgements

  As you can see from the dedication in this book, this year I lost my wonderful agent and great friend Ali Gunn. We have all been heartbroken; she dug me out of the slush pile many years ago and we had so many wonderful adventures together. So she is still upfront in the acknowledgements, where she belongs. Wholehearted thanks also to Douglas Kean and Sarah McFadden.

  Also: Rebecca Saunders, Manpreet Grewal, Thalia Proctor, David Shelley, Ursula Mackenzie, Emma Williams, Charlie King, Jen and the phenomenal sales team, Victoria Gilder, Jo Wickham … actually, the whole of Little, Brown is just amazing and I know how unbelievably lucky I am. Thanks also and welcome to Jo Unwin whose unflappability and sensitivity were so helpful at a difficult time. And a huge thanks to Jane Selley and Elizabeth Dobson for their excellent copy-editing and proofreading skills.

  Karen Murphy
MRCS, Christian Aid, for showing me Africa; Deborah Schneider and Mallors; Faustine Reynaud, the board, and of course and for always, Mr B and the wee bees.

  CHRISTMAS TREE COOKIES

  This feels a bit of a cheat because you need to buy the moulds. But they do look so lovely on the tree! And of course the smell.

  300g plain flour

  40g soft butter

  100g brown sugar

  150g golden syrup

  1 tbspn ground ginger

  1 tbspn ground cinnamon

  1 tspn bicarbonate of soda

  Icing – I buy the coloured stuff that comes in the little tubes that you can squeeze into nice whirly shapes, but any will do for decoration.

  Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Mix together the butter and sugar, and then add the syrup.

  Sift in the dry ingredients and knead together to form first crumbs, then a dough. Refrigerate for half an hour or so – go on Facebook, have some tea.

  Roll out the dough under cling film so it doesn’t get dry and cracky. Then go nuts with the moulds. Make sure to leave little holes at the top so you can thread them with cotton/ribbon for hanging.

  Bake the cookies for 15-20 minutes. Keep an eye on them – they should be lovely golden biscuits. Leave them to cool then let your imagination go wild with the icing!

  SALT DOUGH DECORATIONS

  Of course, sometimes you want your Christmas tree decorations to last a little longer, which is why we love salt dough decorations for the tree. They are so easy but they last for YEARS. You can’t eat them, obviously, which you might see as something of a downside, but this is such a lovely thing to do with children on a chilly December afternoon. Also I like the measurements for this.

  100g plain flour

  100g salt

  100g water

  Preheat the oven to 100 degrees. Combine all the ingredients to form a dough. If it’s too wet or dry, adjust.

  Roll out the dough and cut out shapes – angels, stars, Christmas trees and hearts all work well. Remember to make a hanging hole.

  Bake for 3 hours.

  When they’re dry, the decorations can be painted (gold spray paint is fab), you can stick on glitter or sequins or anything. Thread with gold ribbon, then hang. And if you are a sentimental sort, keep them from year to year so you can remember your three year old’s misshapen angel, and have a bit of a wobble every December.

  FIGGY PUDDING

  Every year at Christmas time somebody says, ‘What’s figgy pudding?’ when we sing the song (even my computer thinks it’s called ‘foggy pudding’) so I am telling you now: it is Christmas pudding except with MORE FIGS and it is yummy and here it is.

  Tip: start the day before, but it takes just five minutes the day before and five minutes on the day so FEAR NOT.

  75g dried figs

  50g raisins

  35g sultanas

  15g chopped glade cherries (if you like them, which I do. If you don’t, up the sultanas)

  25g chopped cored apple

  Brandy

  40g plain flour

  30g ground almonds

  60g brown sugar

  1 egg

  1/4 tspn mixed spice

  1/4 tspn cinnamon

  1 clove

  40g butter

  1/2 lemon squeezed, plus grate the rind in

  1 tspn golden syrup

  1/2 cup of milk

  The day before, combine the figs, raisins, sultanas, cherries and apple and pour in a slosh of brandy (a slosh being the scientific term for a measure of ‘how much brandy you like’). Cover with a cloth and leave overnight to soak.

  The following day, add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour into a greaseproof paper lined pudding basin. Now you can either steam the pudding, which involves bain mairies and boiling water and so on, or you can do the BAD THING I do (complaining letters to the usual address) which is microwave it for 5 minutes and turn it out until it cooks through.

  Serve with custard or brandy butter. But, you know. CUSTARD.

  GALETTE DES ROIS

  Where we live in France, the big thing to eat at Christmas is yule log (coming next) and, after Christmas, galette des rois up to the feast of the Ephiphany, or Twelfth Night. There are little ceramic creatures, called fêves, or favours, hidden in each cake. They can be angels or religious figures, but these days you can also get Scooby Doo. Whoever finds it is crowned the Roi with the gold paper crown that traditionally goes around the outside. Then it is their turn to host the next galette des rois. We have found through trial and error it is usually prudent to push the fêve piece towards the youngest person in the room. If you can’t lay your hand on some fêves, a coin wrapped in greaseproof paper should have the same cheerful effect in warding off the post-chrimbo blues.

  1 roll ready-made puff pastry, unless you are a fantastic pastry nut (I worship you)

  1 egg, beaten

  2 tbspn jam

  100g soft butter

  100g caster sugar

  100g ground almonds

  1 tbspn brandy

  Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Divide the ready-made puff pastry in half, roll out each piece into two circles. Put one of the circles on a baking sheet and spread with the jam.

  Whisk the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in most of the egg. Stir in the almonds, brandy, and add the fêve.

  Spread the mix on top of the jam, then cover with the second piece of pastry. Seal up with a pinch. You can decorate the top of the galette with a fork if you like.

  Bake for 25 minutes or until crisp and golden. Serve warm or cold.

  YULE LOG

  This is called Büche de Noël in France, which I like because I like writing letters with dots on them. Swiss roll is what it is really.

  50ml double cream

  50g icing sugar

  50g cocoa powder

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  6 egg yolks

  125g caster sugar

  5 tbspn cocoa powder

  1 1/2 tspn vanilla extract

  1/8 tspn salt

  6 egg whites

  25g sugar

  Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Line a tin – loaf is fine – with greaseproof paper.

  Whip the cream, icing sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla extract until it thickens, then bung in the fridge.

  Probably use a mixer for this bit: beat the egg yolks with the caster sugar until thick. Add the second lot of cocoa powder and vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt.

  Separately (obviously. Sorry) whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Add the sugar, slowly, until the mixture gets stiffer. Fold the two mixes together and pour into the tin.

  Put in oven for 12 to 15 minutes – the cake should ‘spring back’ when gently prodded.

  Dust a clean tea towel with icing sugar.

  Run a knife around the edge of the tin, and upend the cake onto the tea towel. Get rid of the baking paper. Carefully, carefully, CAREFULLY, roll the cake up with the tea towel. Start at the shorter edge. Then let it cool for half an hour.

  Take the filling out of the fridge. Unroll the cake and spread the filling on it but not right to the edge. Then carefully roll it up again, put on a plate and stick in the fridge (put the edge side down on the plate). You probably want to make icing powder snow before serving. Also if you don’t decorate it with holly, it doesn’t count.

  Chapter One

  Lipton was quiet underneath the stars. It was quiet as the snow fell through the night; as it settled on the roof of the Isitts’ barn and the bell house of the school; as it came in through the cracked upper windows that needed mending at Lipton Hall; as it cast a hush across the cobbled main street of the village, muting the few cars that passed by. It lay on the roofs of the dentist’s and the doctor’s surgery; it fell on Manly’s, the dated ladieswear boutique, and on the Red Lion, its outdoor tables buried under mounds, its mullioned windows piled high with the stuff.

  It fell on the ancient church with the kissing gate, and the graveyard with i
ts repeated local names: Lipton, Isitt, Carr, Cooper, Bell.

  It fell on the sleeping sheep, camouflaging them completely (Rosie had made Stephen laugh once, asking where the sheep slept when it got cold. He had looked at her strangely and said, ‘In the Wooldorf, of course, where else?’ and she had taken a moment or two before she kicked him crossly in the shins). It fell on birds cosy in their nests, their heads under their wings, and settled like a sigh, piled soft and deep in the gullies and crevasses of the great towering Derbyshire hills that fringed the little town.

  Even now, after a year of living there, Rosie Hopkins couldn’t get over how quiet it was in the countryside. There were birds, of course, always, singing their hearts out in the morning. One could usually hear a cock crow, and every now and then from the deeper sections of the woods would come a distant gunshot, as someone headed out to hunt rabbits (you weren’t meant to, the woods belonged to the estate, so no one ever owned up, although if you passed Jake the farmhand’s little tied cottage on a Saturday night, the smell of a very rich stew might just greet your nostrils).

  But tonight, as Rosie went to mount the little narrow stairs to bed, it felt quieter than ever. There was something different about it. Her foot creaked on the step.

  ‘Are you coming up or what?’ came the voice from overhead.

  Even though she and Stephen had lived there together now for nearly a year, Rosie still wasn’t out of the habit of calling it Lilian’s cottage. Her great-aunt, whom she’d come up to look after when Lilian had broken her hip, had moved into a lovely local home, but they still had her over most Sundays, so Rosie felt that, even though legally she had bought the cottage, she rather had to keep it exactly as Lilian liked it. Well, it was slightly that and slightly that Lilian would sniff and raise her eyebrows when they so much as tried to introduce a new picture, so it was easier all round just to keep it as it was. Anyway, Rosie liked it too. The polished wooden floor covered in warm rugs; the fireplace with its horse brasses; the chintzy sofa piled with cushions and floral throws; the old Aga and the old-fashioned butler’s sink. It was dated, but in a very soft, worn-in, comfortable way, and as she lit the wood burner (she was terrible with fires; people from miles around would come to scoff and point at her efforts, as if growing up in a house with central heating was something to be ashamed of), she never failed to feel happy and cosy there.