Trisha Ashley - Twelve Days of Christmas

‘I suppose so, in some ways: they certainly only celebrated the religious aspects of Christmas.’

I hadn’t put my slippers on, because I thought I would be quieter without them and now I realised my feet were blocks of ice and it was more than time to go.

‘Fascinating as it is to discuss my childhood and religion with you in the middle of the night, Jude, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better get on.’

I tried to push past him, but he was still blocking the way, an inscrutable expression on his face. ‘You know, I still find you very hard to read, Holly Brown!’

‘Well, don’t rack your brains over it,’ I said sweetly, ‘I’m an open book. Now, I’d like to get this done because I’ve had to set my alarm really early so I can put that enormous turkey in the oven, and if I don’t go to bed soon it won’t be worth it. What a monster!’

I think he was unsure if I was applying the epithet to him or the turkey, but he finally shifted to one side and I made my escape. But unfortunately, just as I emerged into the passage, I came face to face with Noël, who must have been returning from the bathroom.

However, he merely smiled in an avuncular and unsurprised way and murmured, ‘Ah, getting to know each other better, I see? Good, good!’ with no apparent innuendo intended, and carried on.

I got a touch of the Cocos and had to clamp my hand across my mouth to keep a hysterical giggle in, while behind me, Jude said, sounding amused, ‘We can only hope he was sleepwalking and will have forgotten he saw us in such compromising circumstances by morning.’

I turned to look back coldly at him and in return he gave me an enigmatic smile that I would have quite liked to have smacked off his face. Then he retreated, closing his door silently behind him.

I mouthed a very rude word then tiptoed off up the nursery stairs, turned the handle and crept in. Jess was dimly illuminated by a moon-shaped nightlight, curled up in bed with one arm around her teddy bear, looking angelic and very much younger. I hung the stocking on the end of her bed and sneaked out again.

I only hoped it wasn’t a huge disappointment to her, though surely after last year’s it had to be an improvement?

This time I walked on the far side of the passage as I passed Jude’s room — but my precaution was needless.

I went downstairs very early in jeans and jumper, ready for cooking, not using the backstairs but the dogleg ones from the gallery. Descending slowly into the dark sitting room, I inhaled the strangely exciting mingled scents of woodsmoke and pine needles, which instantly brought to mind past Christmas mornings with Alan, all the more poignant for being happy memories.

I stoked the fire and plumped up the cushions, stuck a few pieces of jigsaw into the last remaining places round the edge (a compulsion too hard to resist), then switched on the tree’s fairy lights. They twinkled in the dark corner under the stairs, reflecting off the gift-wrapped pile beneath. It seemed to have grown since I last looked, with an added layer of parcels inexpertly wrapped in the paper I’d bought.

Suddenly I spotted my name on one, written in a bold hand I recognised from all those handwritten additions to the Homebodies manual. I was just about to pick it up when I firmly stopped myself, because I wasn’t a child like Jess, unable to keep from fondling my presents!

I cast the ash from the fire onto the icy patch outside the back door, just as Gran used to, and let Merlin out into the still-dark world. At least it seemed to have stopped snowing, though it had frozen hard again overnight.

In the stable both horses were still half-asleep, but Billy bleated plaintively at me. I gave them all extra Christmas chunks of carrot, then left them for Becca to do later, as she had told me she would. It was bitterly cold out there, the icy wind holding a threat of snow, so perhaps it would be better if they stayed indoors today. I worried even more about Lady now I’d grown to love her, and I was even getting attached to Billy. Still, that was a decision I could safely leave to Becca and Jude now.

Merlin and I were both glad to get back indoors again, though even as I was kicking off the snow from my boots and giving him his breakfast, I was thinking about the day’s cooking.

There was breakfast to prepare too and everyone would come down at intervals, getting under my feet if I wasn’t careful. I couldn’t serve it in the dining room, since I wanted to lay the table for Christmas dinner, so I decided to put a cloth on the small round table in the sitting room and put the toast rack, butter, marmalade and jam on that, then people could collect Holly Muffins like the ones I’d made at Jess’s request the other day and take them in there to eat.

But first things first: the monstrous turkey was stuffed, foil-covered and stowed in the biggest of the ovens, with a lordly antique blue and white dish to receive it when it was finally roasted, which had matching gravy boats and lidded vegetable dishes.

The previous night I’d taken the chipolata sausages wrapped in bacon, sage and thyme stuffing, giblet stock for gravy and bread sauce out of the freezer (‘here’s some I made earlier!’), and now I prepared the sprouts and put them in a plastic bag in the fridge. The parsnips and potatoes were soon peeled and sitting in cold water and the pudding provided by the Chirks could go in Jude’s industrial-sized microwave. .

When that was all done I lifted tomorrow’s salmon out of the freezer, along with the last packet of filo pastry I’d brought and a packet of prawns to make today’s starter, and left them on a stone shelf in the larder to defrost slowly, the fridge now being a little full.

Once I’d emptied the dishwasher I checked my list and timetable and I seemed to have everything well in hand. As it was still extremely early, I sat down with a well-earned cup of coffee for a few quiet minutes before starting breakfast.

A few minutes was literally all I had, because then Jess suddenly appeared, still in her pyjamas and dressing gown, bringing her stocking with her to show me what she’d got. She laid it on the kitchen table and began pulling out the contents.

‘I woke Uncle Jude up first and he said it was his sock and he’d like it back when I’d finished with it, only without the pink ribbon.’

‘It has to be his, really, no-one else has feet that big.’

‘He said he wasn’t Father Christmas when I asked him and I think I’ve seen some of the things in Mrs Comfort’s shop, so maybe Mummy actually remembered this year and asked Granny to make me one?’

‘She must have done, there’s no other explanation. What did you like best?’

‘Oh. . the wolf, I think. Or maybe the bracelet. . When do you think I can open the rest of my presents?’

‘When everyone else has come downstairs and had breakfast, I expect.’

‘Uncle Jude said he was getting up, he might as well, now I’d woken him.’

‘You can give Merlin his present now, if you like?’ I suggested, as a slight sop.

‘Oh yes!’ She jumped up eagerly. ‘You know, sometimes I think giving presents can be nearly as good as getting them.’

‘Definitely!’

Merlin was suitably gratified and, after nosing off the loosely-wrapped paper, retired to his basket by the Aga, where he could be heard chomping away at one end of the rawhide bone while I was cooking bacon and eggs for two sustaining breakfast muffins each. Then I sent Jess upstairs to put some clothes on.

‘Granny likes me to wear a dress on Christmas Day,’ she said disgustedly.

‘Oh, do we dress up a bit?’ I asked. ‘I don’t often wear a dress in winter either, if it makes you feel any better, but perhaps I should go and change later.’

‘It would feel fairer if you had to do it, too.’

‘Okay, but you’d better put your jeans on now and give Becca a hand with the horses, if you wouldn’t mind? That would be a great help.’

‘Unless Uncle Jude’s down first and does it,’ she said hopefully.

‘If he is, then perhaps you could help me lay the dining-room table, instead.’

But by the time she reappeared Becca was in the kitchen finishing her breakfast and there was still no sign of Jude. When they’d wrapped up warmly and gone out to the stables, I fetched the last packets of muffins from the freezer: I’d underestimated how hungry everyone would be this morning and we’d already eaten two apiece. There was still plenty of other bread, both loaves and buns and several of those long-life part-baked baguettes so we wouldn’t run short. I might make soda bread one day for a change, too.

No-one else appeared, so after pottering round a bit more, ticking things off my list, I went upstairs and changed into a dark-red velvet dress and flat, soft, black leather ballerina slippers. Cooks spend so much time on their feet that they tend to prefer comfort above style — and anyway, killer heels would have made me a giantess. Though here I wouldn’t have stood out quite so much, because Coco is only two or three inches shorter than I am and Jude positively towers over me.

The colour of the dress flattered my light-olive skin and dark hair, which swung smoothly against my neck. That’s the only advantage of having thick, straight hair: it obligingly hangs where you put it, like a heavy curtain. I added a little makeup and then, remembering Sam’s comment, a slightly Nefertiti-ish dark line around my eyes and a bit of lippy (I’m not exactly high maintenance). Then I tried looking mysterious in the mirror, but I can’t say it really came off.