A Merry Little Christmas (13 page)

‘What?’ Mel said.

‘Nothing,’ said Cat. ‘I thought you might have revision or something.’

‘I’ve done my quota for today,’ said Mel. ‘It’s fine.’

Reluctant to quiz her daughter too deeply about just how much the quota was, Cat decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Ruby, who was the most likely to accompany her, opted to go and play with her friend Holly instead, while James and Paige both suddenly had homework that needed doing urgently. Funny that.

Mel was quiet on the way to the home, so Cat deliberately kept the chit-chat light and airy. No point creating conflict unnecessarily.

‘It’s lovely that you want to see Granny,’ she said, as they got out of the car and walked up the drive of the home.

‘Granny’s cool,’ said Mel. ‘I mean she doesn’t remember anything, but she’s cool.’

Cat wondered wryly if it were better to be a cool granny with memory loss, or to be a stressed-out mum without. Maybe Mum was better off in some ways.

They found Louise in the lounge, where several of the residents were gathered to have afternoon tea. Alfie wasn’t around and Mum was sitting dozing in her chair.

‘Hi Mum, how are you?’ Cat kissed her mother on the cheek, as Louise woke up looking a bit confused.

‘Are you the flower girl?’ said Mum.

Flower girl? That was a new one.

‘Oh no, it must be you,’ Mum held out her hand to Mel, who took it gently and smiled at her granny encouragingly. Cat felt a faint swell of pride and gratitude. It was nice to see something of the old Mel for a change, and know that she still appreciated her granny. Mel had always been close to her grandmother as a small child, and obviously retained that closeness even now, when Louise barely recognised her.

‘No, that’s Mel, your granddaughter,’ said Cat.

‘Granddaughter?’ Mum frowned. ‘Who’s the flower girl then? Is it you?’

‘Yes, I’m the flower girl,’ said Cat, exchanging glances with Mel. Sometimes it was better to go with the flow, or Louise grew more agitated. She held her mother’s hand, so fragile, so pale.

‘You looked so pretty at the wedding.’

Oh, now Cat got it. Mum was talking about the time she didn’t remember, but she’d seen in photos, when she’d been very tiny and been a flower girl at some long-forgotten relative’s wedding. For some reason, Mum must have remembered it. She felt oddly comforted, besides the lump in her throat. Somewhere, deep down, Mum still knew it was her.

‘My Cat came to see me,’ continued Louise. ‘I hope that boy doesn’t cause any trouble.’

‘What boy?’ Cat said, puzzled.

‘Oh that silly boy who doesn’t realise what a prize he’s got,’ said Louise. ‘Poor Cat. I hope she stays out of trouble.’

‘Does she mean you, do you think?’ Cat whispered to Mel. Louise did often confuse them.

‘No,’ said Mel. ‘You know what Granny’s like, she’s probably got muddled.’

‘Who are you calling muddled?’ said Louise, looking slightly pugnacious.

‘No one,’ said Mel, and kissed Louise. She had the knack of calming her grandmother down, so soon Louise had forgotten the perceived insult.

She looked around her again, as if surprised to see them. ‘Hello. Have you come to visit me?’

‘Yes,’ said Cat with a smile.

‘Sorry, I don’t know your names,’ Louise said. ‘Louise Carpenter. Delighted to meet you.’

‘I’m your daughter, Cat,’ said Cat, ‘and this is Mel, your granddaughter.’

She produced the family photo for the umpteenth time. Louise glanced at it, uncomprehending.

‘Oh are you, dear?’ she said. ‘I thought you were Auntie Lottie. Amazing.’

Auntie Lottie had been Mum’s favourite auntie; if she got Cat muddled with her, at least it was a benign thought.

‘Yes, I’m Auntie Lottie,’ said Cat with a sigh. She so missed her mother. If Louise was still as active and able as she’d been a few short years ago, Cat would have poured out all the misery of her miscarriage and Louise would have dispensed comfort and wisdom. Whereas now … Cat felt a familiar agonising ache of loss. This was like watching someone die by slow degrees. She couldn’t bear it sometimes. It just felt too hard.

They sat with Louise for about half an hour, the conversation turning in similar concentric circles.

‘Has it been raining?’

‘Yes it has.’

‘Well I never. I won’t go out then.’

‘Best not.’

‘So what do you think of our house?’ she said with a sweeping gesture, as if somehow, Louise was responsible for the whole place, before reverting to, ‘Has it been raining?’ all over again.

They were both beginning to flag, when Louise suddenly announced she was going to find Alfie.

‘We’re running away to Gretna Green,’ she said. ‘But shhh, it’s a secret.’

‘That’s marvellous,’ said Cat, having visions of them tunnelling out of their rooms and escaping like Colditz prisoners. ‘We won’t say a word.’

Deciding this was a good moment to escape, they both kissed her on the cheek, and went back to the car.

‘Running away to Gretna Green,’ said Cat dissolving into fits of giggles when they got to the car, ‘that’s priceless.’

‘It wasn’t that funny,’ said Mel.

‘Maybe not,’ said Cat, ‘but if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry and cry. And I know which I’d prefer.’

‘Oh Mum,’ said Mel, and squeezed her arm tightly. ‘I didn’t know you felt like that.’

‘Not all the time,’ admitted Cat, squeezing Mel’s arm back. At least that was something. She and Mel bonding over Louise. There was always a silver lining if you looked hard enough.

Marianne was standing in front of a Year 6 class, on the first day of the summer term, feeling totally spaced out. The twins had come down with a tummy bug and had been up half the night. When she’d eventually dropped off at four-thirty a.m., Gabe had woken her up an hour later to go out to Dan’s where he was managing the cows this week, on top of his normal duties. Between Gabriel, his father David and Phillip, Dan’s dad, they had developed a pretty efficient system for keeping the farm going, but with the bulk of it falling on Gabriel as the youngest, the strain was beginning to tell. Gabe was short-tempered with both her and Steven, and less involved with the twins than he’d been up until now.

Some days Gabe was gone before she’d got up in the mornings and though he’d come back for tea, as the evenings grew lighter, he’d go straight out again after supper, and come back late. On those days, he was so exhausted, he would fall into bed early, leaving Marianne sitting alone in the lounge, wondering what life was all about. She was the one left running the house, and the children. And she was aware that more than ever, Steven was feeling left out and neglected by his dad. It wasn’t Gabe’s fault, as Marianne kept telling Steven, but she could see why, when Steven barely saw his dad, he could feel that Gabe had lost interest – particularly as the school situation was still unresolved.

It was nothing to what Pippa was going through, Marianne knew, but still, she was struggling. And coming in to face a very stroppy hormonal Year 6 group who were thoroughly bored of revising for SATs was the last thing she wanted to have to do.

Marianne didn’t normally teach Year 6, but her Year 4 class had gone on the residential course that Marianne had been unable to attend, so she’d been lumbered with Year 6 instead. Which meant she could witness for herself that Matt Pilsdon evidently had a way of getting under Steven’s skin. He’d spent most of the morning needling him, and Marianne found herself having to play a very careful game, of not being very fair to Steven, in order to appear to be fair to Matt. If she came down too heavily on him, she knew the mother would be down on her like a ton of bricks, if there was the slightest suggestion that her darling Matt might appear to be in the wrong, or a hint that Steven’s stepmother was giving him special treatment. And knowing how wimpy Mrs Garratt could be in the face of complaining parents (a trait that wasn’t transferred to the way she treated her staff), Marianne knew she wasn’t going to get any support from that quarter.

Luckily, George, who was Steven’s great ally, came to the rescue. Marianne observed and chose to ignore several very sparky clashes between George and Matt. She’d already overheard George respond to Matt’s ‘You’re such a loser’ comment with a mild, ‘No I’m not. I beat you every time we have a race,’ which had made Matt apoplectic. She was hoping it wasn’t going to lead to fisticuffs in the playground later. The only thing she could think to constructively do was to have a chat with Carrie Matthews, whose class it was, when she came back. Poor Steven, no wonder he was so desperate to go to a different school.

The end of the day didn’t come a moment too soon, but much as Marianne wanted to dash off home to see the twins, she had marking to catch up and various administrative tasks to attend to. If she’d even remotely felt like leaving early, she knew it would have caused raised eyebrows, and resulted in a sarcastic comment from Mrs Garratt. As it was, she was the first to leave at six p.m., and although Mrs Garratt smiled sweetly at her on the way out, Marianne could feel the implied criticism. Marianne was beginning to wonder if the job was really worth the aggro.

By the time she got home, exhausted and hungry, Jean had bathed the babies and was getting them ready for bed. Steven as usual was attached like a limpet to his Xbox, and Gabe still hadn’t come in from the fields.

‘Lambing’s started,’ said Jean. ‘You know he’ll be out and about at all hours for a bit.’

‘I know,’ sighed Marianne. The downside of being married to a farmer was the antisocial hours, and the fact that a ewe in labour couldn’t be ignored, whatever else might be happening. With a sigh, she took the children to bed.

When she got downstairs, Jean had already tidied up the kitchen.

‘Thanks so much,’ said Marianne. ‘I don’t know what we’d do without you.’

‘You know it’s my pleasure,’ said Jean.

Steven came down, muttered a grunting acknowledgement to Marianne and stuffed his hand into the biscuit barrel.

‘Is Matt always like that in class?’ said Marianne.

Steven shrugged.

‘He’s not normally that bad,’ he said. ‘I think he was playing up because you were there.’

‘I’m really sorry if I made it worse,’ said Marianne. ‘I didn’t want him to go running home accusing me of favouritism to his mum.’

‘I know,’ said Steven. ‘It’s not your fault. I can handle him.’

‘What was all that about?’ said Jean, when Steven had retreated back upstairs.

‘There’s a boy in Steven’s class who keeps teasing him,’ said Marianne. ‘I had to teach them today, and he was very disruptive.’ She paused, wondering if Gabriel would thank her for broaching the subject. ‘It’s one of the reasons I think Steven should go to Middleminster, actually.’

‘Ah,’ said Jean. ‘And Gabriel doesn’t agree with you?’

‘Not exactly,’ admitted Marianne. ‘He thinks it’s none of my business.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘I think Gabe should let Steven decide,’ said Marianne, ‘but he won’t listen to me.’

‘Hmm. That’s Gabriel all over,’ said Jean. ‘Stubborn as a mule. Always was. I’ll have a chat with him, if you like. See what I can do.’

‘Brilliant, Dan,’ said the physio, as she watched him hobble up and down the lounge in his walking shoe cast. The NHS waiting list for physiotherapy was so long Pippa had paid her to come to the house to help out. ‘You’re doing really well.’

‘Do you think?’ said Dan, managing to raise a smile. ‘So I should be back up to speed for next year’s Monday Muddle then?’

‘Without a doubt,’ said the physio, a pretty young brunette called Lauren who, despite looking about fifteen, was immensely good at her job. ‘You’ve done brilliantly today, well done.’

It was what Pippa had been saying to him for days. Dan was still hobbling, but had begun using his stick less and less indoors. She grinned to herself slightly. If she’d suggested he was doing well, Dan would have bitten her head off.

‘Okay, what’s so funny?’ said Dan, as the physio left.

‘You,’ said Pippa. ‘Well sometimes you are.’

‘How so?’

‘If I tell you you’re doing well, you don’t believe a word of it, but all it takes is for a pretty young physio to come in and you hang on to her every word,’ teased Pippa.

‘Oh,’ Dan looked completely stricken. ‘Am I so much of a bastard to you?’

‘No, no, that’s not what I meant,’ Pippa reassured him. ‘I was just joking. Sorry. Not funny.’

Dan hobbled back to his chair in the lounge. He was still sleeping downstairs, but Pippa was hoping at this rate of progress, he might be back upstairs soon. Then they could all start relaxing a bit, and focusing on things getting better. She knew they were in it for the long haul, all the doctors had warned them as much, but no one had told them how hard it was going to be.

‘Do you fancy a cuppa and one of my muffins?’ said Pippa. ‘I was baking while you were busy breaking world records in hobbling.’

‘That would be lovely,’ said Dan. ‘God. Hobbling. I feel like such a feeble old man. I can’t imagine that I’ll ever walk properly again.’

‘Now stop that,’ said Pippa. ‘I will have no more negative talk out of you, do you hear? We’re going to get you better and that’s that. Now eat this and shut up.’

She popped a bit of muffin in his mouth and kissed him on the head.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her down on his lap.

‘Pippa, you’re the best,’ he said, pulling her close to him. ‘I know you’re right. I’m just so frustrated watching you run around after me.’

‘I know,’ said Pippa, kissing him softly. ‘But we will get through this, and this time next year, we’ll be looking back and feeling so lucky we did. You just wait and see.’

Marianne was pushing the twins up the lane to Pippa’s. She’d promised to sit with Dan so Pippa could get a break. Marianne was dreading it a little. The couple of times she’d seen Dan since he’d been home, he’d appeared morose and miserable. Pippa wasn’t saying much but it was clear she was struggling, although she had said Dan seemed to be getting on better with his walking, which was something.

As it happened, Dan seemed to be having a good day. He was sitting in the lounge watching a rugby match he’d missed in hospital, but happily switched it off when she came in.