Читать книгу Teepee for Two - Daisy Tate - Страница 5

TO: Charlotte Mayfield

FROM: Lady Venetia of Sittingstone

RE: Christmas Cake Crisis!

Darling –

Venetia here. The crimbo cakes you made whilst ‘the girl’ is off on maternity are absolutely brilliant. What a clever thing you are. The crowd from the hunt scoffed the lot, greedy bastards. I know you’re off to Scotland in a few days to sample the delights of Hogmanay (and a bonnie laird or two?). Any chance you could restock The Larder with your delectable puds before you head to the land of heather and honey? (There’s a story there, darling. It involves a kilt, an icy loch and more than a dram of whisky. Remind me to tell all next time you’re round.) Have tucked your Christmas pressie behind till in Larder if our paths don’t cross. Happiest of hols and mwah from moi – V

PS – If you’re able to do me one of those gooey lemon drizzles of yours, I’d be eternally in your debt. (A sugar high is the only thing that will see me through my son’s return.)

‘Mum! Get out!’

‘Sorry, darling.’ Charlotte made a beeline for the washing basket. ‘I was just checking if you had anything that needed urgent washing before your ski trip tomorrow.’

Poppy glared at her then burst into tears.

Charlotte took some tissues off her daughter’s bedside table and carried them over to the beanbag, where Poppy had buried her forehead against her knees after flinging her phone to the floor. A lame joke about Boxing Day not having anything to do with tissue boxes briefly flared then fizzled.

A fortnight into the winter holidays, Charlotte had grown accustomed to expecting the unexpected when she dared open Poppy’s bedroom door. For the first few days she’d written off her kaleidoscoping moods as exhaustion, hormones, and the fact it was to be the first family Christmas without their father. Though Oli and Xanthe’s baby wasn’t due until mid-January, Oli had made it very clear his calendar was blocked out. Xanthe had put him on call for emergencies. Emergencies, Charlotte presumed, like proposing to his girlfriend before his divorce had gone through. Not that there’d been an announcement. A trip to Paris and a surprisingly large diamond had made an unexpected appearance on #CheekyLawGirl’s Instagram account a couple of weeks back. Izzy had since banned her from the site.

Now that they’d stumbled through Christmas Day (thank you Izzy and Luna for making Wii fun again!), Charlotte was acutely aware that there was definitely more to Poppy’s moods than her parents’ looming divorce. Unlike Jack, who was constantly out with friends or making plans with friends or gaming over his headsets with friends, Poppy seemed to be increasingly isolated. If she wasn’t reading, practising her flute, or thumbing through heaven-knew-what on her phone, she was rewatching Gilmore Girls with a near feverish dedication. She’d never once suggested inviting a friend over or going out.

Whenever Charlotte braved suggesting they watch television together or, heaven forbid, talk, there was either a total shutdown or a whirl and strop – Poppy’s new signature move. It had swept into their lives after this summer’s disastrous divorce announcement and showed few signs of departure.

If it weren’t so heartbreaking – the glare, dramatic whirl of hair and rapid-fire departure – it would be funny. ‘Classic teenager’, Izzy had laughed when she first bore witness to one. Hilarious!

If only she knew. She had a little girl who still liked holding hands.

In truth, the only time Poppy seemed truly at peace was when she was playing with Luna. Izzy’s ten year old absolutely adored her. Followed her around the same way Bonzer, the not-so-puppy-sized puppy, loped after Luna. She was always trying to copy her hair, giddily accepting hand-me-downs, absolutely loved being experimented on with Poppy’s increasingly large eyeliner collection. The genuine smiles and occasional laughs that Luna elicited were just one of the many pluses of having Izzy and Luna living in the granny flat above the garage.

They were just the injection of energy she’d needed to keep the huge family home from feeling like a mausoleum to a failed marriage. Selling the place and moving closer to the children’s boarding school had occurred to her more than once, but Jack hadn’t spoken to her for a week when she’d suggested as much. Poppy had given a world-weary shrug and said, ‘Whatever. It isn’t like we actually have a choice, is it?’

At this point, there was an element of truth to it. The past few months had been lived in limbo as the lawyers dug their claws into Charlotte and Oliver’s marital history. It was just the sort of thing Charlotte abhorred. Luckily, Emily had found Charlotte an extremely confident lawyer called Hazel Pryce – a quirkily dressed, rainbow-haired woman – whose sole remit seemed to be nailing Oli to the cross. All good things come at a Pryce!

The intensity of her crusade against Oli made Charlotte squeamish. She was, after all, entitled to stay in the house until the children were eighteen. She was earning some money of her own (who knew so many farm shops would pay her for her advice?). And there was the monthly direct debit Oli continued to pay into the household account. (His lawyers probably told him to do that so we couldn’t take him to the cleaners, Charlotte. Stay tough. Stay focused. We won’t stop until the Pryce is right.)

Normally she found speaking with someone who regularly referred to herself in the third person tricky terrain, but on days when her daughter was falling to bits in front of her? She was a card-carrying Hazel fan.

‘Darling,’ Charlotte rubbed Poppy’s back and gently wiggled the tissues in front of her. ‘Anything I can help with?’

‘Look!’ Poppy grabbed her phone and virtually flung it at Charlotte before hurling herself across the room onto her bed and curling into a small, weeping ball. Charlotte’s favourite cushion, one Freya had given her years ago, absorbed her daughter’s tears.

When Charlotte looked at the phone, her frustration with not being able to stem her daughter’s histrionics instantly shifted to pain.

CheekyLawGirl’s Instagram page.

Charlotte ran her tongue along her upper teeth as she flicked through the images. She wasn’t a vain woman, but she certainly wasn’t succumbing to lip wrinkles because of her husband’s pregnant lover.

Ah.

The chronicles of ‘Bump in the City’ had gone on holiday. ‘Le Bump dans Les Montagnes’ was the latest instalment. A swish chalet in France or Switzerland, from the looks of the gooey cheese she was selflessly forgoing. They must’ve taken the train as Xanthe wouldn’t be allowed to fly this late into her pregnancy. Honestly. Did the world really care if Xanthe and Oli were ‘seeing out the rest of the year à la française’? Charlotte wasn’t even sure that was a thing. Unless, of course, you were talking about peas.

As she absorbed the picture, the comments, the time, the date, the penny dropped.

Poppy and Jack were meant to be skiing with their father. Tomorrow. In Austria.

The plan had been to drop the children off at the airport with Oli before she, Izzy and Luna headed up to Scotland.

It was the one bit of normal the children had planned for the holidays. The annual Mayfield Family ski trip: new country, new pistes, new year. Oli’s parents, sister and her family went every year and had done so since the children were little.

They hired a huge chalet. The children took overpriced lessons, chased up by insanely priced cake and hot chocolate sessions. The adults had ridiculously boozy lunches. Everyone ate too much, drank too much, stayed up too late and annually declared New Year’s Eve the best time ever. Charlotte had never really taken to skiing, or the pressure of having the best time ever, so was ‘given a few days off to pamper herself at home’ every year. No one ever noticed that the house was always immaculate when they returned. Regardless, it was the one thing Oli had vowed would stay the same.

It appeared Oli had lied.

Charlotte scrolled down and saw yet another post.

Xanthe gazing thoughtfully out into the middle-distance. A mountainscape at sunset glowed beyond the gauzily curtained window, her diamond-ringed finger held just so … Her hair was down, she didn’t have on make-up and she was … oh … she was wearing a hospital gown.

And then the telephone rang.

EMMS: Happy Après Christmas from Ward Seven. Feasted on Twiglets and Christmas cake that tasted of old boot. Lotte: I would’ve paid handsomely for some of yours. Next year can you do mail order? How boozy are they? #Askingforafriend

IZZ: Hey woman! I’ll see if I can bring one up to Scotland with us tommoz. I’m sure there’s one kicking around Charlotte’s mahooosive pantry. You still taking the train?

EMMS: Yup. Surgeries through the rest of today and tomorrow, then off midday on the 27th. See you at cocktail o’clock?

IZZ: Deffo. Total chaos at Charlotte’s. Looney and I are hiding in the granny flat. ()£&%)ing Oli’s bit on the side has gone into labour! In FRANCE!

FREYA: Wot??????

EMMS: Way to bury the freaking lead! More deets please, Detective Yeats.

CHARLOTTE: Poppy and I are at Sittingstone delivering cakes. Will hold one back for you Emily. Izzy … perhaps it’s best to let the dust settle a bit before we air the details on Oliver’s situation?

IZZ: Sorry, Lotts! My bad! I just thought as skiing was off and we’re bringing Pops and Jack up to Scotland it was open news. *zips lips until further notice*

FREYA: WOT?????????

Freya put her phone down with a weary sigh. She’d been so excited for Izzy, Loons, Charlotte and Emily to arrive, but Charlotte’s children as well? Obviously it wasn’t nice to dislike other people’s children but plfffttt … they were just so … bleurgh.

She started making a mental list for extra bedding, pillows, hot-water bottles and whatever else the over-privileged little so-and-sos would be used to at their fancy boarding school. Chocolates on their pillows at night? A butler?

Freya caught her sourpuss expression as she passed the entrance hall mirror, backtracked then stuck her tongue out at herself. She was being envious, spiteful and ungracious. The perfect trilogy of holiday cheer!

Not.

Her shoulders sagged as the last twenty-four hours swept through her afresh. This wasn’t her. She loved huge, boisterous, holiday get-togethers. She loved Christmas! More to the point, she loved coming home. Her annual top-up of ‘Burns juju.’ Her mum had always made these sorts of unexpected arrivals an adventure, not a burden. Besides. What were a couple of bratty teens when the whole rest of her life was a shambles? She absolved herself with a sign of the cross then pressed her head to the cool front-door window.

She still couldn’t wrap her head round how her childhood home looked the same as it had last Christmas, but felt completely different. The tumbling remains of the stone tower still stood to the side of the huge old house. The grey-tiled roof was still visible from the main road into St Andrews. Well. The only road into St Andrews. The cowsheds still circled the yard abutting the back of the house. The grazing and fodder fields still sprawled on for acres and acres until they eventually dipped into the River Tay – a wide tidal river that ebbed and flowed with bracing North Sea water and the occasional pod of dolphins. Her mother had loved it when she saw the dolphins. The binoculars still hung from the nail by the kitchen window.

Yes, it all looked the same, but none of the comfort or beauty of her childhood home had distracted from just how tough Christmas Day had been.

In keeping with the Scottish style of not acknowledging the blatantly obvious – everyone desperately missing Freya’s mum – they’d all tiptoed over every scrap of minutiae instead.

We’re totally happy! We just thought we’d get pyjamas is all. We normally – doesn’t matter. Last year’s onesie was super big so …

If that look’s to make sure I kept the receipt—

No, sis. The turkey wasn’t dry, I just wanted more gravy is all. Is this a new recipe?

Are these chestnuts in the stuffing? No, no. They’re fine. Different. Good, but different.

After they’d slogged their way through Christmas dinner and retold all the jokes from the Christmas crackers, they’d retired to the sitting room to play a game. Everyone had been over-polite. Then snappy. Then wildly apologetic. Or, in Monty’s case … downright childish.

It turned out teasing him about bunking off paying a household bill so he could get her the rather lovely charm bracelet he’d given her had been exactly the wrong thing to say.

How was she meant to have known it was precisely what he’d done? The bracelet was nice, but it was hardly ‘The Gift of the Magi’. And it wasn’t as if she’d actually meant him to bugger off and give her space to think.

Driving through the night to his parents or, more likely, his brother’s as it was nearer to the pub, had been yet another show of Monty’s emotions outweighing his ever-decreasing common sense. It was taking what little remained of her fortitude to keep the terrifying thought at bay that her marriage may have absorbed its final blow.

She was so tired of it all. The fighting, the worrying, the fear.

She plodded back to the mirror and gave herself a wan smile. As much as she hated him leaving in a roiling cloud of hurt and fury, with Monty gone she had a few days to wrap her head round where they were as a couple and, more pressingly, where they stood as debtors.

Right now, both were looking grim.

They might have their car back, but chances were high it would disappear again. It turned out that Monty had put the debt collector’s fee on one of his secret stash credit cards. At least the regular minimum payments explained where the money had gone for the council tax, the water bills and the mortgage. She swallowed down the increasingly familiar tang of guilt, knowing the shop should’ve really been raking it in during the lead-up to Christmas, but … it was as if all the stress had tamped out any sort of creative fire that still might be flickering somewhere deep within her.

She stared at her phone, willing a message notification to ping up.

Nothing.

She supposed she could always text him. Find out if he was lying in a ditch somewhere.

No. She stuffed it back in her pocket. She wasn’t ready. The chances of a phone call degenerating into something she well and truly regretted were too high.

So here she was, listlessly making faces at herself, when a normal Boxing Day wouldn’t have seen so much as a moment to loiter. With Christmas over and done with, Freya’s mum would’ve roped her into some project or other (baking, sewing, painting name tags for the cows). The children and Monty would’ve been put to work, too. None of them would’ve had a moment to think about how awful it had truly been. Then again, it wouldn’t have been awful because her mum would have been alive, full of practical advice she would no doubt have followed, and everything would have been less … different.

She put a few stray ribbons back into the wrapping paper box and set it at the foot of the stairs along with Monty’s favourite jumper. The one with the worn elbows. He would be less than pleased when he realized he’d forgotten it.

She pulled her phone out again, willing a message to ping up. One full of misery and woe and, of course, fathomless apologies for being such a class-A twat on her first Christmas without her mother.

She sighed heavily and dropped onto the cold, stone stairwell. She hoped he felt as miserable as she did. There’d been no need to take the dog. Dumbledore adored it here. All of that cow poo to roll around in. New things to smell. But no. If Monty was miserable, everyone else had to be, too. Score one to Monty!

She’d actually looked up selling a kidney last night to see if that could put an end to their financial woes. It turned out, if she were able to find an organ broker and get herself to Brazil, she could pay their council tax, Felix’s school trip fees and, at a push, the water bill.

She pushed herself up again. The chores weren’t going to do themselves. As she crossed to the sitting room, she made a note to throw down a few of the lambs-wool rugs her mum used to dot about the place. The stone floor, so cool and wonderful in the summer, was a recipe for chilblains in winter.

‘Tea, Dad? I’ve got the spiced one that Auntie Helen gave you if you like. The chai?’

He wouldn’t. He was a traditionalist. She didn’t know what her auntie Helen had been thinking. White and two sugars from as far back as she could remember.

‘All right, sis?’ Rocco leant into the sitting room, one of his big paw hands spanning the thick doorframe. If ever a man had been born into a farmer’s body, it was her brother. Thick, lightly curled dark hair flopping over beautiful green eyes. A physique perfectly suited to wandering amidst their towering herd of Friesians. ‘Dad? I’m off to the cowshed, all right? Buttercup and Jessamyn won’t be long now.’

‘Mmm … what was that, son?’ Their father, Lachlan, looked up from his own large hands, which he’d been staring at since Freya had asked him about tea.

‘Okay, Dad? Are you all right there in your chair? Want some more wood on the fire?’

Bless. Rocco had just filled up the wood burner.

‘I was just asking him if he WANTED SOME TEA.’

Rocco wiggled his finger in his ear and made a goofy face. ‘He’s a bit forgetful, Frey. Not going deaf.’

‘Sorry.’

Rocco shrugged and flashed her that bright smile of his, a bit of straw in his hair from the morning. He never let things get to him, except when it came to the animals. The dairy herd was his pride and joy. If he looked after himself the way he looked after the barns, he might have himself a wife by now.

Only so many hours in the day, Frey.

‘So what’s my little sister up to, eh?’

‘Tea.’

Rocco gave her one of those ‘you’re fooling no one’ looks. ‘No big projects to tackle? No gingerbread villages to make?’

She laughed. A few years back, when the children had been six or seven, she’d been obsessed with building not just a gingerbread house but an entire village. St Andrew’s more like, their father had hooted, when he saw the large dining-room table covered in edible buildings.

‘Not this year.’ She steeled her face with a cheery smile so that she wouldn’t burst into tears and tell her big brother that everything was going horribly, horribly wrong. Her business was failing, her marriage was failing and she’d been absolutely completely idiotic to ever leave the farm and think she could make a success of her own business. Not that she was wallowing. (She was.) But if she confessed all her woes, she’d be admitting that the faith they’d put in her all those years ago when they’d packed her off to get her degree in art and textiles had been for nothing. And, of course, they would try to help. ‘Maybe we’ll do something when Charlotte gets here.’

Again she received one of those looks from her brother. The type that said he was watching her. That he had her back if she needed it. Little did he know.

‘I’m off to the cowshed, Dad. If you need anything—’

‘Off you go, fussbucket.’ Their father shooed him with his big, veiny hands. ‘Your sister’s got everything under control.’

Freya gave her brother’s bum a little play-kick and grinned at him. Best big brother ever. In the world. The universe. Perhaps she could nominate him for something. An OBE? Did they make dairy farmers caring for aging, Alzheimer’s-tinged parents Officers of the Order of the British Empire? She hoped so.

Regan came barrelling down the stairs. ‘Uncle Rocco! Are you going out to the cowshed? Can I come?’ She’d been obsessed with the winter calving.

‘That’s right, chicken.’ He pulled her plaits, which normally would have put her in paroxysms, but this time only elicited a beaming smile. ‘Put on your bibs. I’ll meet you in the boot room.’

Freya’s eyes drifted round the sitting room while she waited for her father to make up his mind about tea. The Christmas tree was glittering away in the corner. The stockings had been rehung by the vast inglenook fireplace without much care. She resisted rehanging them in a more aesthetically pleasing style. Regan had been trying to help.

Half the children’s presents were still strewn around the place. Books, of course, for Felix. Not the latest and greatest gaming console he’d been hoping for, but … Regan had been delighted with her stethoscope and veterinary dictionary. She’d been even more over the moon when she’d unwrapped her nan’s pedal-operated sewing machine. Freya wished she could’ve given her a few bolts of fabric to play around with. She smiled, remembering the endless trips her mum had made to the charity shops for old wool coats, satin dresses, cotton prints. Then on to the woollen mill, where they’d picked up reams of odd-shaped ends going for next to nothing. Their booty was the inspiration behind Freya’s first-ever pair of homemade throw pillows. She’d given a set to Charlotte for her wedding. Butterflies, if she remembered correctly.

‘Dad?’ Whether or not he wanted a cup of tea usually didn’t take this much consideration. Then again, normally she didn’t ask him. She just made one and he would scoop up the mug in one of his big old capable hands and give her a wink of thanks. This – the asking – was part of a series of cognitive tests she was trying to slip into their day-to-day chat as suggested by her own GP.

‘Aye,’ Freya’s father said. Then, ‘No.’

Crumbs. This was exactly the sort of thing Rocco had mentioned. Uncertainty in a man who never dithered. He was a doer. A farmer, first and foremost, but in whatever capacity, he was someone who always knew what to do. Rock solid. Vital. Even at the ripe old age of seventy-three which, suddenly, didn’t seem that old. A shiver shunted down Freya’s spine. This couldn’t be the beginning of the end. Even though it had been almost a year, it felt as if they’d only just lost her mum. She wasn’t up to losing her father, too.

She tried again, with a brighter smile this time. One she might have used for the children when they were toddlers.

‘I’m making one for Rocco and me.’

‘Sit down, love. Freya’ll do it. She’s probably got the kettle on already.’

Bollocks.