Christmas At Thrush Green (25 page)

Dimity looked at her husband sitting so contentedly at the head of the table. Then she looked across at her old friend sitting on Charles’s right. How well she and Ella had got on when they had shared Ella’s cottage before she had married Charles. On this Christmas night, it seemed as though fate had brought the three of them together.

M
ost households had a fairly quiet start to Boxing Day morning. The weather had changed again. Gone were the blue sky and crisp frosts, and back came leaden skies and a sharpish wind.

Percy Hodge, of course, had had to get up at his usual time because cows had to be milked whatever the day, whatever the weather. However, he whistled as he went about his work, knowing that when he went in for breakfast, there would be a slice of fried Christmas pudding with his usual fry-up.

‘Aren’t you havin’ any?’ he asked, as his wife carefully lifted the sizzling slice of pudding from the frying pan onto his plate.

Gladys Hodge gave a shudder. ‘Certainly not!’ she said. ‘What a dreadful mixture.’

‘Luverly,’ pronounced Percy, spearing open the fried egg that he had directed should be placed on top of the Christmas pudding. ‘What makes it so special is that I only gets this once a year.’

‘You can have it tomorrow, too,’ Gladys said. ‘There was that much left over from yesterday.’

There was silence in the farmhouse kitchen, broken only by Percy’s old sheepdog having a scratch in a corner, setting a tall rack of saucepans rattling as his backside bumped against it.

Gladys knew better than to disturb her husband at his breakfast, but once he had cleaned his plate with a piece of white bread, she poured more tea into his huge cup and asked what his plans were for the day.

‘I thought I’d go down into Lulling mid-morning an’ see the hunt. It’s always such a fine turn-out, the Boxing Day meet. You comin’?’

‘No, too much to do here. You haven’t forgotten Doreen, Bobby and Suky are arriving round dinnertime, have you?’

Doreen was Gladys’s daughter by her first marriage and Bobby and Suky were Doreen’s children. The boy’s father was a ne’er-do-well who had led Doreen a merry dance. She had finally seen sense and returned home to live with her mother and, for a time, the tongue-wags of Thrush Green had thought that Percy Hodge was paying court to the girl. ‘Much too young for him,’ said one; ‘cradlesnatcher! ’ said another. In the event, it was Gladys Lilly on whom Percy Hodge had set his sights.

Mother and daughter were both married within a few months of each other - Gladys Lilly to the Thrush Green farmer, and her daughter to a nice young man she had met while living in London, where he had a window-cleaning business.

‘Plenty of work up there,’ Percy had said to his cronies in The Two Pheasants. ‘What with all that smog.’

Bob Jones, polishing a glass, had paused and said, ‘Smog? That’s out of date, that is. Ain’t no smog any more.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t know, would I?’ Percy said defensively. ‘Never set a foot there. Did plan to go once, to visit Smithfield Market, but then that wretched Foot an’ Mouth come in, and I never moved far from ’ere. That would ’ave been 1968. Anyways, the boy seems to get plenty of winders to clean. Got other chaps workin’ for him now.’

The window-cleaner appeared to be a dutiful son, and he was going to see his elderly mother who lived not far away in Cirencester, dropping off Doreen, Bobby and the new baby, Suky, on the way. He would collect them the following afternoon.

‘I’ll be back for me dinner,’ said Percy now, pushing back his chair and reaching for his old jacket and cap. ‘Got a few chores to do in the parlour first, then I’ll be off.’

‘Don’t be late,’ cautioned his wife. ‘No poppin’ in to the pub, and then gettin’ stuck in for one of your sessions. We’re sittin’ down proper today, what with the children here.’

Percy grunted and clicked his fingers at the old dog which followed his master out of the back door into the yard.

Well, I didn’t say I wouldn’t, Percy thought smugly; always a good crowd in the Pheasants on Boxing Day. A swift half wouldn’t hurt.

 

Before they had gone to bed the previous evening, Dimity had encouraged Ella not to rush to get up in the morning. ‘Boxing Day is a day of rest in this household,’ she’d said. ‘Charles is always exhausted after the busy Christmas Day, and we take it very quietly.’

‘I’m not one to lie in bed, as you know,’ Ella had responded. ‘However, I’ll keep quiet for Charles’s sake and hold off making the fire, doing the washing-up and hoovering right through until he’s up and dressed.’

Dimity had laughed. She’d known Ella was joking. Her friend still found it very difficult to use her plastered arm and wrist. ‘You can help me with the washing-up later in the morning,’ she’d said.

The house was quiet when Dimity went downstairs that Boxing Day morning in her dressing-gown, a few minutes before nine o’clock. Although she didn’t have the same arduous Christmas Day programme as Charles, she had welcomed the unaccustomed lie-in. She was determined that he should have a really quiet day. They were due to have lunch with the Shoosmiths the following day, Saturday - and then it was Sunday again, with services in three of Charles’s four parishes.

The kitchen was as they’d left it the night before, and she was pleased that Ella had not crept down early and tried to tackle the washing-up single-handed. After their Christmas dinner, they had put the plates and dishes in to soak, and she had put away the brandy butter and covered the remains of the turkey and cheese. These had been stored in the vicarage’s cool north-facing larder.

On the kitchen table was a bowl of crusts, left from the bread sauce that they’d had with the turkey. Dimity looked out of the window. It seemed to be a miserable grey sort of day and she decided that the birds at least should have their breakfast on time. She sat at the table and dreamily broke up the bread into small pieces. She found an end piece of loaf in the bread bin and crumbled that up, too.

The bird table was set in the grass at the edge of the gravel drive, and Dimity knew she would be able to take the food out without getting her slippers wet. She went to unlock the back door and, to her surprise, found it was not locked.

Surely it was locked last night? she thought. It was one of those things that was done automatically by Charles each night: lock the back door, check the front door was locked, raise the blinds in the kitchen windows - Dimity hated to come downstairs in the morning to dark rooms. Yes, she distinctly remembered his locking it because he had asked if there were any milk bottles to put out, and Dimity had had to remind him that there would be no milk delivered on Boxing Day.

Dimity stood in the middle of the kitchen and looked round. Everything seemed in place. She went through into the dining-room and nothing appeared disturbed there. The candlesticks were still on the table, as were the silver coasters in which the bottle of wine and Charles’s port had stood. Well, it didn’t appear they’d been burgled. But why was the door unlocked?

Then she remembered her unpredictable house guest. Lifting up the edge of her dressing-gown in one hand to ensure she didn’t trip over it as she went upstairs, she set forth to find if Ella was still in her room.

She wasn’t - and, somehow, Dimity wasn’t that surprised. Ella had muttered the evening before that she thought it was time she went home, but Dimity had hoped she’d persuaded her to stay on for a few more days.

She looked round the room: the little case they had brought from Ella’s cottage only a few days before had gone. She opened the drawers in the mahogany chest of drawers - they were empty, as was the wardrobe apart from the tartan skirt and red jacket. The bedclothes had been roughly pulled up, and on the eiderdown was the box containing the cassette player she and Charles had given her for Christmas. The bird had flown!

Dimity returned to her bedroom and quietly began to dress. Charles, who had been asleep, now woke up and sleepily asked her what the time was.

‘It’s a quarter past nine. You stay there as long as you want. Ella’s done a runner, and I’m going to find her. She’s obviously walked home - lugging her case with her. Goodness only knows how she managed to dress herself.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Charles, now sitting up in the bed. ‘If you wait a moment, I’ll come with you.’

‘No, dear, there’s no need. I don’t know what time she went. I found the back door unlocked which alerted me. If she only went a short time ago, I’ll be able to pick her up in the car. I’ll try to get her to come back with me but if she insists on going home, I’ll ring you from there.’

By the time Dimity had got the car out of the garage and set off through Lulling, it was drizzling. It had obviously rained during the night since there were puddles in the road. There weren’t many people about: just a few brave dog-walkers and a couple of lads showing off on what were obviously new bicycles.

Dimity saw Ella from quite a long way off. She had reached the steepest part of the hill leading to Thrush Green and had stopped to have a rest, the little case beside her. The sheepskin jacket draped round her shoulders - her plastered arm prevented her wearing it properly - was some protection against the rain, but she had nothing on her head, and her short straight hair was plastered to her skull.

Dimity felt a surge of both concern and affection for her old friend. She stopped the car beside Ella who, as soon as she saw who it was, picked up the case and trudged on up the road.

‘Ella, stop!’ Dimity cried. ‘Don’t be so silly. You’re soaking wet.’ Then she drove on a little way, this time stopping some yards ahead of Ella. She quickly got out of the car and went round to confront the sorry figure that was her dearest friend.

Ella tried to push past, but Dimity stood firm. ‘Ella, you’re mad! Stop—’

Again, Ella tried to pass Dimity but she was obviously exhausted by the walk up the hill. ‘Just let me go home, Dim,’ she said. ‘I just want to go home.’

‘Then let me drive you,’ Dimity replied, opening the passenger door. She was relieved when, after a moment’s hesitation, Ella plonked herself down in the seat. Dimity picked up the abandoned case and put it on the back seat.

Nothing was said during the few moments it took to drive up the rest of the hill and to park outside Ella’s cottage.

‘Have you got the key?’

Ella took the front door key out of the pocket of her jacket, and handed it to Dimity, who said briskly, ‘Come on, then, let’s get you inside, and get those wet clothes off.’

It was as though a bubble had burst. Ella allowed Dimity to hold her good arm and guide her down the short garden path, and waited patiently while Dimity unlocked and opened the front door. Ella stumbled over the lip of the doorstep and might have fallen had Dimity not got a firm hold of her.

They went upstairs together to Ella’s bedroom, Dimity carrying the case.

‘Now, let me take your jacket. It’s soaking.’ Dimity dropped the sodden garment on the floor.

Ella just stood there, a picture of misery.

‘Oh, my! You must have been freezing as well as drowned,’ exclaimed Dimity. All Ella had been wearing under the jacket was her nightdress, more a night-shirt than anything. It had wide sleeves through which Ella had been able to put her plastered arm. It had been roughly tucked into the elasticated top of her skirt.

Gently, Dimity helped Ella off with the wet clothes. She wrapped her in a bath-sheet she’d fetched from the airing-cupboard, the big woman snuggling into the towel’s warmth. When she was dry, they found a clean pair of trousers and a sort of fisherman’s smock that they eased gently over the arm.

‘Now you get on some clean socks, find some shoes you can manage, and I’ll go and put the kettle on. I think we both need a good cup of tea.’

‘And a ciggy,’ muttered Ella.

Dimity was almost relieved by that remark; it showed that her old friend had not lost all her spark.

Dimity put on the kettle and then telephoned Charles to tell him that Ella was safe, and that she would ring again when they’d had a talk.

By the time Ella clomped heavily down the cottage’s narrow stairs, the tea was made and there was a plate of biscuits from a packet Dimity had found in the cupboard, along with some powdered milk, the fridge naturally being empty of the fresh variety. Not having had breakfast, Ella was ravenous and ate three biscuits before touching the tea.

‘Thanks, Dim,’ she said finally, brushing some crumbs off her ample front.

While she had been making the tea, Dimity had pondered how to tackle this latest drama and had decided that this time a head-on confrontation was perhaps the only way.

‘What possessed you to do such a damn silly thing?’ she asked. ‘If you wanted to come home, you only had to ask, you know that.’

‘I know, but I didn’t want to be a nuisance. I thought that if I asked you to bring me home, you’d say I couldn’t cope. So I thought I’d see if I could manage, muddling along as best I could. And I didn’t want to disturb your day by asking you to drive me back. You have no idea how beastly it is to have to continually ask for things to be done. “Can you tie up my shoelace?”, “Can you cut up my meat?”, “Can you drive me home?” ’ The flood-gates were open and words now came tumbling out. ‘And it’s so awful not being able to help, do my share. You’ve been very kind but I don’t want to be beholden to you and Charles any more.’

Dimity snorted. ‘Beholden? For heaven’s sake, Ella, beholden doesn’t come into it. We’re your friends. I like to think I’m your best friend. You would’ve been the first person to come to my aid if it’d been me who had fallen down and broken my wrist. You’d have been down to the vicarage in a flash, organizing me and ensuring that Charles and I still had a good Christmas.’

Dimity paused momentarily to gather breath, and into that pause Ella said, very very quietly, ‘But it’s not just my wrist, Dim. That’ll mend in time. It’s my eyes - I can’t see very much. They’ve deteriorated even over the past few days. When I saw the specialist eighteen months ago, he warned me that my eyesight might go downhill suddenly.’ The large woman gave a wheezy cough, as though it gave her time to gather her thoughts. ‘I didn’t let myself think about it but now I’m frightened that that’s what’s happened. I’m beginning to see things, too. Odd patterns on the wall or floor, patterns that I know aren’t actually there.’