Christmas At Thrush Green (17 page)

Bruce’s pink tongue was lolling out, and he was looking around for some more attention.

‘I think we’re all going now,’ said Isobel. ‘Let’s walk over together, and then you and I, Ella, can go on to Tullivers while Winnie pops in to change her shoes.’

They moved together out of the church into the sharp night air. Harold had been right about there being a frost that night. Alan Lester and his family were walking home to the school house down the middle of the green, and their passage had left four sets of tracks across the white grass.

‘While shepherds washed their socks by night,’ the two youngsters sang in high-pitched voices, and then skipped out of the way of their father’s reach.

‘I’m dying for a ciggy,’ Ella said, ‘and I know I won’t be popular if I smoke at Tullivers so I’ll go home for a quick one and join you at the party in a tick.’

‘You know you should give them up,’ Winnie said disapprovingly, but with a smile.

‘It’s one of the few pleasures left to me in life,’ replied Ella, and the other two women made ‘Aaah!’ noises, and they all laughed.

Thank heavens for good friends, thought Winnie as she did up the top button of her sensible tweed coat.

 

At Tullivers, Phil and Frank Hurst had about a ten-minute start on the first of their guests. As soon as they were back, Frank ran upstairs to change out of his seventies’ pop-star clothes. Phil could hear him above her, the floor-boards creaking as he moved around their bedroom, drawers opening and shutting.

As she slid trays of sausage rolls and vol-au-vents into the oven, which had been left on low, she hummed ‘We Three Kings of Orient Are’. She was delighted, and not a little relieved, that the Nativity play seemed to have gone so well, better really than if they’d had their original pre-pox cast. And she was inordinately proud of Frank. She was stoking the fire which had been left well-banked before going out when he clattered down the stairs again.

‘Now, what can I do?’ he said coming into the sitting-room, running his hand over his thinning hair. ‘I think I’ll give myself a drink. I’ve deserved it!’

‘Darling, you were wonderful,’ said Phil, giving her husband a hug. Still holding him but standing back from him, she continued, ‘I think you must do things like that more often. Keeps you young!’

‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ replied Frank. ‘I think you can reckon this evening will be both my debut and my finale at that sort of thing. I’m much too old.’

‘Well, it was the performance of a lifetime. Now,’ she said briskly, disengaging herself, ‘I must go and change. When the boys arrive back, put them to work!’

Jeremy had asked if he and Paul could help at the party and Frank had been more than happy to agree.

‘I’ll get some bottles open,’ said Frank to Phil’s retreating back. He went down on his knees and very carefully crawled into his study under the drinks table, being careful not to take the tablecloth with him. ‘I’m too old for this sort of caper, too,’ he muttered, as he clambered to his feet the other side. ‘Now, where’s my corkscrew?’

He looked on the table: not there. On his desk: not there. He then remembered it was in the kitchen so, with an ungentlemanly oath and a good deal of grunting, he warily wriggled back under the table. He found his corkscrew and was just making his way back under the tunnel of tablecloth when the first guests arrived.

‘Hello!’ called Isobel Shoosmith, coming through the front door. ‘Are we too early for you?’ She looked around at the empty hall. ‘Anyone at home?’

‘Yes, yes, I’m here,’ replied Frank, scrambling to his feet on the business side of the table, bright red in the face. ‘Phil will be down in a moment, she’s just changing. Pop your coat on that chair.’

At that moment, Phil came running down the stairs and gave Isobel a big hug. ‘Lovely to see you. Harold’s coming, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, of course. He’s sent Albert on to the pub and will stay to lock up. Well, what an evening! Everyone was marvellous,’ said Isobel, laying her coat on the chair at the bottom of the stairs. ‘And well done, you, for persevering when all those children went down with chickenpox.’

‘It was Frank, really,’ she said, giving her husband a loving smile.

‘To be fair,’ Frank said, pausing a moment to extract a cork, ‘the three of us cooked it up at the pub that lunchtime. I think the second pint gave us Dutch courage. It was good fun, but I’m not sure I would do it again. Now, what can I give you, red or white?’

Phil welcomed some more people who came through the front door at that moment, and as soon as they had drinks and had moved through to the sitting-room, she bustled into the kitchen to take the clingfilm off the plates of squares of brown bread and smoked salmon. She squeezed some lemon over the top and was grinding on black pepper when Jeremy and Paul arrived.

‘Hello, you two. Well done, you did the readings really well. Now, Jeremy, you’re just in time to help. Can you take that pile of coats upstairs and put them on our bed - tidily! - and keep your eye on that chair for a bit. You don’t need to go upstairs with every coat, but don’t let the pile get too big. Then you could see if Frank needs any help.’

Jeremy disappeared and Paul asked, ‘What can I do to help, Mrs Hurst?’

‘Would you like to hand these round?’ she said, handing him a platter of smoked salmon squares. ‘I expect people will be peckish.’

Paul took the big plate carefully and disappeared, but not before Phil saw the first of the squares disappear into the boy’s mouth.

She had bought some French bread, and when Jeremy arrived back into the kitchen, she pointed it out and said, ‘You are probably both starving. There’s bread and butter there, and some cold chicken in the fridge. Make yourself some sandwiches when you’ve a moment.’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Jeremy and cut himself a big chunk of bread.

 

Harold had seen the last of the congregation out of St Andrew’s and he stood for a moment in the now-silent church. ‘What a very good evening,’ he said out loud. The retiring collection had received a generous amount, and was safely in a cloth bag he was holding. After he had locked up the church, Harold set off across the green to his cottage. He followed the Lesters’ tracks over the frosty grass but diverted, as usual, to pass close to the statue of Nathaniel Patten.

‘I’m not sure what you would have made of that Nativity, old chap,’ he said, pausing to look up at the statue. ‘But it’s all in a good cause,’ and he lifted up the bag holding the retiring collection. ‘I’ll see that half of this gets out to the mission hospital.’

He continued on his way to the house where he hung up the church key and put the money in a safe place. Then he set off to join Isobel at Tullivers.

The party was in full swing when he arrived. Young Jeremy was just about to take an armful of coats upstairs, and Harold added his to the top. He wove his way through the people standing in the hall, glasses in hand, chattering nineteen to the dozen, and found his way unerringly to Frank’s table of bottles.

‘Ah, Harold, well done! You’ve made it. All locked up? Red or white?’

‘Thank you, red, please, and yes, all safely locked up,’ said Harold. He took the glass of wine and took a generous sip. ‘Ah, I needed that. I hope you’re finding time to have a drink, too, because you’ve certainly deserved it. I had no idea you could play the guitar.’

Frank laughed. ‘I can’t really, not any more. I used to play a bit at university. It’s Jeremy’s and he showed me a few chords. It’s rather like bicycling - once learned you never really forget. And with a guitar, there’s no danger of falling off!’

Harold laughed. ‘I am totally hopeless at music, and tone deaf as well. Isobel begs me not to sing in church, but I love carols and don’t care what I sound like.’

‘Quite right, too!’ said Frank. ‘Now go on through to the sitting-room. Isobel’s in there and you should find some food. Ah, Charles and Dimity! Well done, you’ve arrived! How was the Christingle service?’

‘Good, good, thank you,’ replied Charles, his eyes twinkling behind his little round spectacles. ‘And how did the Nativity go?’

Frank handed him a glass of red wine, and a glass of white to Dimity. ‘Very very well. I think we can safely say it was a huge success. Go on through, and I’m sure you will hear all about it.’

‘Is Ella here?’ asked Dimity. ‘I’ve got some magazines to pass on.’

Frank looked around. ‘Actually, I don’t think Ella has arrived yet. Perhaps she went home first, some did. Do you want me to put them in here, out of the way?’

Dimity handed a carrier bag over the drinks table, and Frank put it on his desk. Returning to the table, he hailed Jeremy who had just bounded back down the stairs.

‘Do you reckon everyone is here?’ he asked. ‘I’m longing to come out from behind this table.’

‘It’s difficult to tell, but there’s certainly quite a scrum in there,’ the boy said, turning towards the sitting-room. ‘It’s hard to get round with the food. I should say everyone is here. If you want to come out, I’ll hold the tablecloth up for you.’ He hooked up the cloth to give Frank an easier hands-and-knees passage.

‘Thanks, Jeremy,’ his stepfather said, dusting down his knees. ‘You’re being a great help.’

‘Mum has said to stop taking food round for a bit, to give it a rest. Is there anything I can do to help you?’ he asked.

‘I tell you what would be useful. Get rid of some of the empty bottles and orange juice cartons from in there,’ he said, pointing back into the study, ‘and put them out by the dustbin. Get Paul to help you. Thanks.’

Frank picked up a glass of wine for himself and shouldered his way into the sitting-room to join the chattering throng.

 

Frank had been right. Ella hadn’t arrived for the simple reason that she had tripped in her kitchen and had had a crashing fall. She had put a hand out to save herself but she had landed heavily and awkwardly.

‘Oh, no! No, no, please not!’ she cried out loud. But she knew her wrist was broken when she tried to put some weight on it in order to lever herself upright. She moaned in pain. ‘Oh, drat and double drat! Now what am I going to do?’

She managed to roll cumbersomely onto her side, and then with the help of her good hand she heaved herself cautiously into a sitting position and leaned back against a cupboard. And here she sat, her heart pounding in protest at the fall. What she wanted more than anything was a cigarette but she knew she could never make one of her noxious roll-ups with just one hand.

And that was where Kit found her quarter of an hour later.

When Isobel had expressed concern about Ella not appearing, Dimity smiled and said of her old friend, ‘But you know how Ella is. Hates a crush. She’s probably having a second cigarette and will come over when it’s thinned out a bit.’

‘But when we were walking over,’ said Isobel, ‘she was definitely going to come straight over after just one cigarette. She said she wanted to talk to Kit about what to give Dotty for Christmas, and she knows Kit won’t be staying long.’

Dimity looked round her. ‘Well, there’s Kit. Perhaps he’d pop back to Ella’s to see what’s going on.’

‘And he could look at some of Ella’s handiwork while he’s there, to see what Dotty might like.’

‘Or not like,’ said Winnie, and everyone laughed. Ella’s Christmas presents of peg bags or lumpy hand-made ties were a source of annual amusement.

And so it was that Kit walked the short distance to Ella’s cottage. He found the front door ajar and walked in. ‘Ella? Are you here, Ella? Everyone’s asking for you at the party.’ He pushed open the kitchen door and saw the great bulk propped against the cupboard. ‘Oh, my dear Ella, whatever has happened to you?’

He knelt down on the floor, and peered at his friend who looked decidedly ashen-faced.

‘My wrist, gone and broke it,’ said Ella, holding up her left arm, then squeaked with the obvious pain and put it hastily back in her lap. ‘Fell, didn’t I? Over that wretched piece of lino that’s come away from the floor.’

‘Let’s get you up,’ said Kit, ‘and then I’ll go and get John Lovell.’

He hooked his arm through Ella’s good arm and heaved and pulled and, with a great deal of huffing and puffing, he managed to haul the big woman to her feet, and then guide her to the safety of an upright chair that stood at the kitchen table.

‘Now you sit there,’ he commanded, ‘and I’ll fetch John.’ And, with just a backward glance to make sure Ella was all right, he hurriedly left the house to get help.

 

The news of Ella’s accident was greeted with dismay by everyone at the party.

‘Thank goodness you went over,’ cried Dimity. ‘She might have lain there for ages, poor lamb. What a disaster - and just before Christmas, too!’

John Lovell put down his glass with regret. ‘I’m actually off duty tonight, but because it’s Ella I’ll go over at once. Thank goodness I’ve only had this one glass of wine. I’ll have to call in at the surgery to get my bag.’ He turned to Dimity. ‘Do you think you could go and sit with her until I get there?’