The Christmas Surprise (36 page)

Then Stephen raised his arm, and suddenly, from
Africa, and from the chilly, snow-covered church, all the children’s voices rose as one.

Then the music changed to something slower, and the voices raised.

The sound was glorious, filling the entire nave. The children sang the lilting African lullaby first in Swahili, then in French, then the last time round in a charming, halting English, Stephen conducting madly the entire time.

Rosie held Apostil very tight, the tears rolling off her chin and dripping on his head. Tina whispered how she was going to kill Stephen for ruining her mascara. The church sat rapt, then, when the final voices had died away, erupted in a massive storm of clapping and cheering. It took a while to calm everybody down, and they were in the process of saying goodbye to the children in Kduli when the line collapsed and froze, and contact was lost.

‘That was our surprise, Miss Rosie.’ Edison’s voice rang out from the choristers.

‘Well it certainly was,’ said Rosie through her tears. ‘It was a very good one.’

‘
If
we can finally get on,’ said the vicar peevishly. ‘I welcome thee, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, Apostil Akibo Edward Lakeman.’

Then it was Lilian’s turn to gasp.

It was freezing outside the church, but nobody noticed, and nobody minded. People kept coming over to
congratulate Tina and Jake, and cuddle Apostil, and hug everyone else, and the photographer grew increasingly exasperated and warned them that they’d have no formal pics at all, and Tina – Tina, the devotee of the perfect wedding, Tina who had planned everything down to the nth degree, Tina with her magazines and colour-coded folders and Post-its – tossed her head and said those pictures were absolutely crap anyway, and superboring, and please, just to take pictures of their day as it actually was.

The sun shone on the icicles lining the church walls, and followed them as they all crunched their way on foot up towards the hut – everyone except Tina, who was borne away triumphantly by her new husband on a shiny tractor lent to them by Peter Isitt, which had been decorated with flowers and holly and lined with blankets. They threw sweets as they went, to Lilian’s horror, and the schoolchildren, already hyped up from the massive success of their concert, and the pressure of having to stay incredibly well-behaved for over an hour, went completely crazy for them. Holes were made in the knees of new trousers; icy mud was spattered across pretty dresses and smocks; shoes were trampled into oblivion. But today, nobody seemed to mind too much. Tina’s ushers, in another surprise for Rosie, were all shaking buckets for the African fund, and people were donating with a will.

Amid all the excitement, a rather shell-shocked
Moshe announced that if it was always like this, he thought he might convert. Lilian told him to come and talk to her first. She had adopted him without a second thought, and he was pleased to be invited to take her free arm; the other one of course was being held by Moray.

‘You are SUCH a coquette,’ said Rosie.

‘Always,’ returned Lilian serenely.

To give credit to Henrietta, she did come over, with a slight stiffness in her gait and a set to her shoulders, to where the little family was standing.

‘Quaint,’ she said, peering at Apostil, who was democratically beaming at everyone while also desperately trying to pull off his lace robe, which was scratching at his neck. ‘Hello,’ she said formally. ‘I’m your grandmother, remember?’

Apostil stared at her with his big round eyes and blew a spit bubble.

‘Have you seen Pamela?’ Henrietta asked. Rosie suspected she’d already gone ahead to the scout hut – the party to which Hetty was not invited – but didn’t say. Stephen stood, stony-faced.

Rosie couldn’t help it.

‘Would you like to come on? To the party? I mean, everybody else is …’

Hetty sniffed.

‘I dislike doing things everybody else is doing.’

‘We know that,’ said Stephen.

Hetty pulled herself up.

‘No. I want to check the gardener has spliced up the winter garden properly. There’s always plenty to be getting on with in the house.’

‘If you
have
a house,’ said Stephen sotto voce as she turned and walked away, the sole figure heading back up towards town, where her Land Rover was parked. Rosie clasped his arm.

‘Don’t you dare start to say anything about us being better off,’ said Stephen, tightly.

‘I shan’t,’ said Rosie, then reached up and kissed him lightly on the ear. ‘But we—’

‘Ssssh! I don’t want to hear it!’

‘But—’

‘I’ve just agreed to spend the rest of my life waiting at bus stops and shopping at Poundingtons.’

‘You can get amazing stuff at Poundingtons!’

‘I’m going to have to go through a metal detector to get to work every day!’

‘I’ll fancy you even more for your extraordinary bravery.’

He squeezed her hand.

‘You’d better,’ he said.

They were nearly the last to arrive at the hut. Outside, a huge bonfire had been set up in a great circle of stones in the forest clearing, and the children were running around it, shouting and hollering like wild things. Awkward teenagers were handing out champagne in plastic glasses, while Roy was eyeing it carefully. Many people had brought bottles too, which were cheerfully added to the makeshift bar inside. Outside, Tina and Jake, Kent and Emily and Roy and Pamela made up a slightly peculiar receiving line, and, with good grace, Rosie and Stephen joined it too, so everyone could have a cuddle of Apostil, who was showing signs of getting hungry. Rosie sipped from a glass of champagne, and found time to say hello to everyone who was there; from
Hye right down to Edison, who shook hands very gravely and seriously.

Pamela was all over Roy, who people were nodding at pleasantly enough.

‘So that’s going well?’ said Rosie politely, trying not to betray her vast sense of surprise. They were as unlikely a couple as could be imagined.

Pamela downed her drink as they all politely shook hands with Mrs Pettigrew who lived in the old row of cottages that had only got electricity in the nineties, and the Johnson family, six enormous boys who ran the vast dairy farm on the other side of the peaks, all of them looking identical, pink-faced and very cheerful in ill-fitting suits and slip-on shoes. They were some of Rosie’s best customers, but she couldn’t tell them apart any more than anyone else could, since they worked, ate, lived, played rugby and socialised together. Two of them were apparently married, but nobody knew which two. Moray also insisted that one of them was gay, but could never remember which one either.

‘You have to realise,’ Pamela said, nudging Roy to get her a refill. ‘The men in New York, they’re all totally unavailable. They’d never show vulnerability like he has, they never open up.’

‘Hmm,’ said Rosie.

‘And you know, I’m ready to settle down. Nobody in New York is; they’re all trying to make another million.
I mean, I’ve got my house here now, my roots are here, Roy’s made his money.’

‘He certainly has,’ said Rosie.

‘Maybe this is my time to get out of the rat race, you know? Slow it down a bit. Stop being the incredibly successful and popular party girl. You know what that’s like.’

Rosie thought it best to keep staring straight ahead at this point.

‘I can settle down … make jam.’

‘You don’t eat sugar.’

Pamela ignored this.

‘Keep chickens.’

‘You’re vegetarian.’

‘Get my home photographed for
Vogue Living
. I can see the profile now … “After years at the sharp end of the hurly-burly, the Right Honourable Dr Mrs Pamela Blaine-Lipton has formed an exquisite haven for herself and her dental surgeon husband …”’

‘You certainly have this worked out well for someone you’ve only known for five days,’ said Rosie, smiling stiffly at Tina’s nice out-of-town cousins.

‘Yes, but I’m done looking,’ said Pamela. ‘I’m done dating broke screenwriters who are actually rubbish, evil bankers who would kill someone for three bucks forty, commitment-phobes and guys who steal from you. I’m done, Rosie. I’m ready. I want what you have … except I want my own baby, obviously.’

Rosie summoned up all her reserves of cheer to greet Jake’s Irish grandmother, who was being helped along the line.

‘Obviously,’ she said through gritted teeth.

Pamela turned to Roy and ran her carefully manicured hand up his jacket.

‘Sweetie, you are looking so good,’ she murmured, and Roy went pink to the tips of his ears. Rosie shook her head.

When they finally got inside the hut, the noise levels were unbelievable. Even Stephen was impressed by the decor; the massive layering of decorations and the endless fairy lights had turned the place into a magical grotto. The band had started playing by the strawbales at one end. They had banjos and fiddles and were making a fabulous traditional racket that involved lots of yelling and banging of clogs on the floor. Several children had already started dancing. The old folks who’d come from the home in a minibus were seated at tables, watching cheerfully with great brimming pints of cider in front of them. The farmers and Rodge the vet were lined up against the makeshift bar, drinking pints – no champagne for them – and discussing livestock as if they were in the bar at the Red Lion, which, Rosie was pleased to note, they practically were, because the pub’s droopy-moustached barman was serving here too.

‘I thought you’d been invited,’ she said to him cheerily.

‘I was,’ he said, his usual lugubrious, unsmiling manner not faltering. ‘I just thought this would make a nice wedding gift.’

Rosie looked at him, blinking.

‘You know, it does,’ she said. ‘It really does.’

The band were magnificent, and had the effect of turning what was supposed to be a formal wedding breakfast (in Tina’s original, sophisticated dreams) into what already felt more like a night-time affair. Nonetheless, Apostil absolutely could not keep his eyes open – he’d been up very early, as had Rosie, and had had a lot of wriggling and excitement since then. He was visibly drooping. Rosie found a spot near the musicians – they were making quite a lot of noise, but there were no amps or wires, and behind the great strawbales it was actually quite quiet – and sat down and fed him with the bottle she’d been carrying in her jacket to keep it warm.