Last Christmas - Julia Williams

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her,’ said Noel.

      ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Catherine, frowning slightly. ‘Oh, well, no harm done, I suppose.’

      A sudden crash from the playroom and a wail had them scurrying.

      ‘That damned bookshelf—’ Every week Noel mended the bookshelf and every week someone managed to make it collapse again.

      ‘Can you deal with that?’ Cat asked. ‘I need to sort Mel out.’

      ‘Oh?’

      ‘Girl talk,’ said Cat firmly.

      ‘Right,’ said Noel. ‘Yes. Bookshelves it is.’

      Of late Mel had spent a lot of time huddled with her mother having sobbing fits. It always seemed to be related to women’s things. Noel didn’t like to ask, or think about that. To him, Mel was still his little girl. The thought that she might be growing up made him very uneasy. His daughter was becoming a woman, and he was feeling tired and old. Sometimes it felt as though the best part of his life was over.

      Marianne ducked into the back of the village hall, panting a little. One of the things that had annoyed Luke about her when they were together was how she never managed to get anywhere on time. He did have a point. Since she’d arrived in Hope Christmas, Marianne found it nigh on impossible to walk down the High Street without finding someone to chat to, so she was generally late everywhere. She felt a smidgeon of guilt when she saw Pippa already in the front row. How did she do that? There she was with her three children and much more frantic life than Marianne had, and she was never late. Marianne felt a familiar downturn in her emotions. Luke had had a way of criticising her that made her feel pathetic and useless. Could she never get anything right?

      There were two empty seats at the back, so she sat down on one of them and hoped that the formidable Miss Woods and Diana Carew wouldn’t be taking notes as to who was there or not. Diana Carew, who had of course taken charge, her reading glasses hung about her neck and perched on top of her enormous bosoms, was booming down the microphone about the need to fight back for the sake of their community. Vera, looking more than ever like a frightened mole, got up to speak while Mr Edwards (did anyone ever call him by his first name?) shot her encouraging looks.

      ‘Thank you all so much for coming,’ Vera squeaked. ‘I’ve been looking into our options and it seems that we might be able to take our case to the courts and try and stall things for a while. We could also try and diversify. That seems to have worked well in other communities. They’ve combined their pub with the village shop and post office. That’s something we could consider. Thanks to Mr Edwards—’ Vera blushed, ‘we now have a website, which you can find at www.soshopechristmaspostoffice.com, and I believe he’s also set up a petition on the Number 10 Downing Street website, so please do tell all your friends. Miss Woods has kindly drafted us a letter that you can send both to our local MP, the council and the Post Office. We have copies at the front here, or you can download them from the website.’

      Vera sat down to a roar of applause, before Diana threw things open to the floor and a lively debate ensued.

      ‘I’m not sure that we really need to go chain ourselves outside the Houses of Parliament—’ Diana was saying to a rather enthusiastic teenager, who’d clearly just learnt about the suffragette movement, when the door opened and someone sidled in and grabbed the seat next to Marianne.

      ‘Is this seat taken?’

      Of all the seats in the room, why did he have to pick the one next to hers? Marianne stared up into the eyes of the very same stranger whose feet she’d been sick on at New Year.

       Chapter Four

      ‘Have I missed anything?’ Gabriel whispered. He felt incredibly awkward. He knew the new reception teacher from school, of course he did, but he’d barely spoken to her till New Year’s Eve. When first she’d flirted with him, and then she’d thrown up on his feet. He could only imagine how mortified she must be feeling right now. Probably best if he didn’t mention any of that.

      ‘Not much,’ Marianne whispered back, blushing a little. On their previous encounter he hadn’t noticed how pretty she was. Her dark curls fell down her back and her bright blue eyes were alive with intelligence. He felt a pinprick of interest in her, which took him by surprise. ‘They’ve set up a website now and have asked us all to write letters to our MP and the Post Office and so on. That’s about it. And now we’re getting to the point in the evening where we enter a circular debate in which nothing gets resolved.’

      Gabriel sat back to listen and had to conclude that Marianne was right. There seemed to be a division already forming between one group—led by a rather forthright Miss Woods—who seemed to think direct action was called for—‘I’ll travel down the motorway on my scooter if I have to!’ she declared—and another led by Diana Carew, who felt that it would be unseemly to be campaigning in such a public way. ‘We don’t want Hope Christmas to become synonymous with thugs,’ she kept saying, which elicited a harrumphing response from Miss Woods.

      Seeing things seemed to be getting out of control, Mr Edwards took the opportunity to leap to his feet and announce that that wrapped it up for now, but that a steering committee was being formed to tackle the issues head on and anyone who wanted to join it was welcome to sign up.

      The meeting ended in noisy confusion as people broke off to chat in animated groups.

      ‘So, are you going to join up?’ Gabriel nodded towards the front of the hall where a small crowd, including Pippa and Dan, had gathered.

      ‘Not sure,’ said Marianne, who looked ill at ease. ‘I’m not much of a committee person…’

      ‘You shouldn’t have chosen to come to live in a village like Hope Christmas then,’ said Gabriel, grinning.

      ‘That was clearly my first mistake,’ said Marianne, smiling.

      She was relieved to see Pippa come bounding up to them both. ‘Come on you two, we need some voices of reason on this committee if it’s not going to develop into a mad bunfight between Diana and Miss Woods.’

      ‘Pippa, you are a bugger,’ said Gabriel. ‘I said I’d come along, I didn’t say I’d get involved.’

      ‘Now you know that’s not the attitude, cousin of mine,’ cajoled Pippa.

      ‘Oh my God. You two are related?’ Marianne was utterly mortified.

      ‘Didn’t you know?’ said Pippa. ‘I thought you two knew each other. Marianne, my cousin, Gabriel. Gabe, this is Marianne, she teaches reception at the school.’

      ‘We’ve met,’ said Gabriel.

      ‘Have you?’ Pippa looked puzzled.

      Marianne was now the colour of a tomato.

      ‘New Year’s Eve, your house,’ she muttered. ‘I was sick on Gabriel’s feet.’

      Pippa roared with laughter. ‘Oh my God. Gabe, you never said!’

      Gabriel felt almost as embarrassed as Marianne. ‘I didn’t think it was polite to, and I think you’re embarrassing your friend.’

      ‘Oh, Marianne, I didn’t mean to offend you. Come on. Let’s go to the pub, so you two can get to know each other properly. Honestly, he doesn’t bite.’

       It’s a kind of magic…That’s what I always think about baking. You take four simple ingredients, flour, eggs, butter, sugar, and look what you can achieve with them, anything from fancy cakes to shortbread. And when I was a kid, watching my mother bake was also somehow quite magical…

      Catherine paused from what she was typing and sighed. How was it that the words in her head, which seemed so magnificent, always seemed so dull when transferred

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