The Christmas Surprise (28 page)

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 cheerless 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.’

Lilian wrinkled her brow.

‘Maybe appeal to his softer side?’

They both gazed into the fire for a moment, then burst out laughing.

‘You look tired,’ observed Lilian.

‘Thank you! I’m supposed to be a bride at some point!’

‘I know. Probably wait until you don’t look so tired.’

‘I
am
tired,’ said Rosie. ‘And all sorts of things are going wrong. Christmas is going to be a disaster, with Pamela and Lady Lipton shouting at each other, and us with nowhere to live, and everyone else living it up in Australia, and I’m going to have an employee with a ruined wedding on her hands, being sad all over the place, not that I blame her, but she blames me a bit, I think, and—’

Lilian laid her soft old hand on Rosie’s arm.

‘I think it will be a wonderful Christmas,’ she said. ‘With all the family.’ And she looked fondly at Apostil and smiled.

‘Ooh,’ said Rosie suddenly. ‘Do you think we could come here? We’ll pay for lunch.’

The catering at the home was of an exceptionally high standard. So many relatives had taken to popping in around Christmas time for a mince pie or a smoked salmon blini that Cathryn had decided to charge and allow anyone to come for Christmas lunch. It had been an enormous success. It meant no worrying for the families about taking their old – and in some cases confused and incontinent – relatives home, while for the residents themselves, the presence of noise and children’s happy voices had made the entire day much jollier. Anyone who could bang a tune out of the piano or sing a song took a turn, the rooms were large enough for the children to build railway tracks, and if it wasn’t wet, they could happily charge about the grounds on their new sleds and bicycles and, ill-advisedly, rollerskates.

Lilian beamed.

‘Are you sure? I was rather looking forward to Hetty and Pamela throwing crockery up at the big house.’

‘You can get that any day,’ said Rosie.

‘What about the christening?’

Rosie made a face.

‘It will be a blessing, not a christening. Oh that bloody vicar. He’s a pest.’

‘He’s a PEST,’ agreed Lilian vehemently. ‘That is a man who will take the last Minstrel, every time, even if you’re patently only offering out of politeness.’

‘Stop offering, then.’

‘I never offer anyone sweets,’ said Lilian peevishly. ‘Sets a very bad example in business. Do you think Lord Sugar offers people free computing telephones?’

‘He probably tries,’ said Rosie.

‘Anyway,’ Lilian went on, ‘that doesn’t mean that you should deny the village a good party. It’s the first Lipton baby in thirty years, and it would be the first one not to be welcomed in that church for three hundred.’

‘I never thought of it like that,’ said Rosie. ‘Mind you, if Lady Lipton is anything to go by, he’s probably the first bastard.’

Lilian coughed.

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that.’

Rosie smiled.

‘Oh, but all that fuss.’ Her face grew serious. ‘Will I have to put him in a dress?’ Henrietta had dropped round an extraordinary cream lace christening gown, yellowing at the edges. Rosie had stared at it in disbelief. Apostil would look utterly ridiculous.

‘Probably,’ said Lilian serenely. ‘He’ll probably like it. And he looks good in white. Goes with his lovely eyes, and he might have teeth by then.’

Rosie smiled at him fondly, watching him reaching out his little arm towards the spangled heights of the Christmas tree.

‘You’re going to kiss that baby to death,’ warned Lilian. ‘He’s got lipstick all over his head. So.
Christening, sorry,
blessing
, back to Hetty’s for champagne and a fight, then come here,’ she went on. ‘That sounds about right.’

‘Hmm. We’ll see. It’s pretty frosty between everyone at the moment. And am I going to have to stand up in front of everyone?’ grumbled Rosie. ‘They all know I’m a total heathen.’

‘And God forgives you for that,’ said Lilian. ‘But he doesn’t forgive you for understocking the rainbow pips.’

‘I’ve had a lot on.’

‘The rainbow pip people haven’t.’

‘Anyway,’ said Rosie, changing the subject. ‘Roy?’

‘Invite him over,’ said Lilian. ‘Look for his soft side.’

‘That’s just not possible,’ said Rosie. ‘I loathe him.’

‘Maybe that’s exactly why you should do it,’ said Lilian. ‘Shower him with praise. What’s your alternative?’

Rosie looked around.

‘I don’t know. Tina’s mum’s back garden. In December.’

‘Exactly,’ said Lilian. ‘Exactly.’

Rosie wouldn’t have given much credence to the plan if she hadn’t run into Hye in the market – every second Thursday, traders turned up from miles around with sheets, blankets, livestock, cheap shoes and watches and radios, honey, home-made cheese and a general mishmash
of items, and everyone flooded in from the surrounding valleys and farms, so it was always a busy day for the shop. Rosie was dashing out to grab some of the wonderful farm-made local Derby cheese when she ran slap bang into Hye buying a Victoria sponge. By the look on his face, Rosie reckoned he was planning on eating the entire thing himself.

‘Hello, young Rosie,’ he said. ‘How are things with your little chap?’

This was unlike Hye, who tended towards the brusque. Maybe he just liked being avuncular in public.

‘He’s great,’ said Rosie. ‘Would you like to see a picture? I have two thousand.’

‘I don’t think … Well, perhaps … Have you decided on a course of treatment yet?’

‘Oh,’ said Rosie. ‘No, not yet.’

‘No rush, no rush,’ he said. ‘I do have a good specialist friend, Dr Murphy. Well, Mrs Pike she operates as. But she is the best there is.’

Rosie was touched. Moray had recommended exactly the same surgeon.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Not at all,’ said Hye. ‘You don’t want anything but the best for the little lad now, do you?’ Then, as if regretting having spoken so kindly, he barked at the woman behind the baking counter to hurry up and wrap his cake.

‘Hye,’ said Rosie, now they were chatting, ‘you’re on the council, aren’t you?’

‘I am.’

‘Why … why is Roy Blaine running Boys’ Brigade meetings?’

Hye laughed.

‘I hope you’re not implying he’s trying to hang out with small boys. Roy may be many things, but—’

‘NO!’ said Rosie, blushing puce. She genuinely hadn’t been. ‘No! I wasn’t, not at all. I was just wondering. It doesn’t …’