The Little Christmas Kitchen (16 page)

She looked across the bay at the heaving clouds hanging low over the water, exhausted and plump with the promise of more rain. Then down at Dimitri, bent over with a bright yellow children’s bucket in his hand chucking water out into the sea, cigarette dangling from his lips, red sou’wester flapping over his khaki cargo pants, rain soaked shaggy hair flopping forward over his eyes. And it suddenly occurred to her that, up until yesterday afternoon’s debacle, she hadn’t put her head under the water when she went swimming for more years than she could remember. Blow-drying her hair straight afterwards was such a pain. Instead she did this terrible girly swimming, her chin jutted out and her eyes glaring at anyone who made a splash as they swam past.

The yellow-eyed cat from the taverna appeared next to her, wound his way through her feet and paused just out of reach of her hand, watching.

Ella couldn’t stop thinking about her hair. She looked at Dimitri’s crazy curls and wondered if hers were like that. And that’s when another of the thoughts that had kept her awake popped into her head. That when he talked about his marriage, she had seen in Dimitri true and exquisite pain and absolute unwavering love. Someone who, had their relationship lived, would never have written in an email,
I have no pressure to be better, which is actually quite a relief
.

‘Ella?’ She was snapped out of her memories by her mum calling up towards the bedroom window.

‘Yeah?’ Ella hung as far as she could over the sill and saw her mum looking up at her, umbrella tipped back, tea-towel over her shoulder, hair all dishevelled from where the rain was hitting her upturned face.

‘I think I’m going to need some help.’ she said, looking apologetic and then nodded her head towards the bus. ‘None of the ferries are going because of the weather. This lot, they’re all stuck here and they all want breakfast. I don’t think I can do it on my own.’

Another bus arrived just as Ella was jogging down the stairs. After seeing the look of panic in her mum’s eyes she’d flung on her dirty white jeans and a stripy long-sleeve, no time to try and remember outfit suggestions from her polaroids, no thought for perfect make-up, she’d pulled her hair back and was in the kitchen ten minutes later.

‘How can I help?’ she asked, a touch out of breath. Somehow the feeling of her mum needing her usurping all thoughts of her broken marriage.

‘God Ella, I just don’t know.’ her mum said, her hand on her chest like she couldn't quite catch her breath. ‘I’ve never had this many people here out of season. It’s a Tuesday for goodness’ sake. If it was the summer I’d have four people working. I don’t even know if I have enough food.’ she said, then patted her heart and added, ‘I can actually feel the panic – here, right here in my chest.’

If there was one thing Ella knew about her mum it was that she was terrible under pressure. Terrible when she was taken by surprise or caught off guard. She liked to plan, liked to be in control. Hence why Ella’s dad leaving had left her so completely derailed. She simply hadn’t seen it coming.

‘Ok, look, calm down. Let’s think about this rationally.’ Ella peeked out the kitchen door to the tables packed with people, the plastic rain covers bowing as chairs pushed against them and more tourists tried to squeeze round the edges.

‘I feel a bit sick.’ her mum covered her face with her hands and took some calming deep breaths.

‘Well for starters, how about we open up the kitchen? We’ve got the fireplace and the tree. We could make an occasion of it?’ Ella said just as her grandparents ambled inside, eyes wide at the flock of guests waiting outside. ‘What do you think? Gran, can you set this big table with coffees, teas and juice?’ If there was one thing Ella was good at it was organising. And, as Adrian always said nearly every board meeting, she never failed to make something out of nothing.

Ella looked at her grandmother expectantly, who in turn was looking slightly perplexed at Ella’s mum and shaking her head while saying, ‘Well yes I could. But we’ve never had people in here before. I haven’t washed the windows.’

‘It’s raining,’ Ella pointed to where the water was cascading down the glass panes. ‘No one will see the windows.’

‘I’ll see the windows.’

‘Seriously, we don’t have time for cleaning the windows.’ Ella sighed, ignoring her grandmother’s frown and turning to where her granddad was about to lower himself into his chair. ‘Grandpa, you’ll need to light a fire.’

He glanced over at his wife and Ella’s mum, clearly quite taken aback at having been asked to do something. When neither of them told him not to worry and just sit down, and instead he was faced only with Ella, hands on hips and one eyebrow raised in challenge, he reluctantly pushed himself back up to standing and shuffled towards the big stone fireplace. ‘Let’s get it all festive, make a show of it.’ Ella went on. ‘People can come in, warm up, have something to drink while we put together some sort of set menu. How would that work? Would that work?’ she asked, looking back towards her mum.

‘Well I think that sounds like a marvellous idea.’ her grandmother said, pausing in her surreptitious search to find a rag to wipe down the windows with. ‘Jolly fun.’

‘All pitching in. I like it, it’s like the war.’ said her granddad as he shuffled over to look for fire lighters.

‘Oh Michael,’ her grandmother muttered, ‘Would you please just shut up about the bloody war.’

Ella watched as her mum went to look through the doorway at all the people, study the scene for a moment running her hand back and forth over her mouth and then glance back at the big table.

‘Yes.’ She nodded, looking again from the doorway to the table. ‘Yes we could lay out some bread, jams, cheese. I’ve got some yoghurt and stewed berries. There’s cereal, I think. There’s baklava?’ She made a face towards Ella who nodded as if to say the more the better. ‘And actually I could make some croissants quickly. Maddy makes some lovely Christmas ones, we could do them.’

Ella flinched. Why did Maddy have to be a part of this – this was Ella’s idea, her time.

‘What about something a bit more Greek?’ Ella said with a shrug. ‘A bit Christmassy? D’you remember we’d always make
melomakarona
on Christmas eve? They’re easy aren’t they?’ Ella thought about the melt-in-your-mouth little cookies, super sweet and unbelievably moreish that they’d make together while watching
Santa Claus: The Movie
or
Scrooged
and she’d love it because no one else wanted to watch with them. Her dad and Maddy only liked proper Christmas films like
White Christmas
or
It’s a Wonderful Life
which they’d watch in the other room while decorating the tree. The taste of
melomakarona
in her mouth, of the honey spiced syrup on her tongue, wasn’t just the taste of Christmas, but the taste of one of the few times in her life that it was just her and her mum, alone.

‘D’you know, I haven’t made them for yonks. Not since–’ her mum paused. ‘Not since the divorce I don’t think.’

Ella shrugged, pretending to be all casual, like she didn’t really mind if her mum made them again or not and went about laying out the little glasses for coffee on the table.

But she felt her mum watching her, felt her take a moment from her fretting and remember the sweet, sticky biscuits. ‘Maybe you could help me? You were good at making the syrup.’ she said and Ella turned to see her mum shrug and then look down at the work surface to start sorting through some ingredients. She wondered if she was pretending to be casual as much as Ella.

After a moment’s pause, Ella nodded and said, ‘Ok, yeah.’ Putting down the last teetering stack of glasses she wiped her hands on her apron and looked over at where her mum was putting weights onto the scales. ‘I could give it a go.’ she said, swallowing, unsure when the last time she’d cooked was, but aware that by taking those tentative steps to walk and stand next to her mum on the other side of the island unit she was crossing into territory that she hadn’t ventured into for years.

As she took the first few paces, the smell of the fire starting behind her and the coffee brewing, the noise of the tourists outside and the rain smashing against the windows, it felt more important than anything else that was happening in her life. That, stupidly, taking the steps towards baking those sticky little biscuits was a small act of courage.

One foot in front of the other. Hand trailing on the stainless steel surface. Mum looking up from under her mop of wavy hair, all frizzy and wild from the rain and the stress, the expression in her eyes expectant, possibly nervous. Warmth from the flames that crackled and hissed weaving its way through the air. The corner of the work surface sharp on her hip as she misjudged the distance. Her mum reaching her hand forward to check that she was all right but stopping before she touched her. Ella shaking her head to say it’s nothing. The sound of her grandmother outside telling the tourists what was going to happen, the breakfast rules. Her mum smiling as she listened. Ella smiling as she listened. The two of them looking at each other, sharing the joke. And then suddenly the moment was breeched.

They were side by side.

So easy. So quick.

Yet as Ella reached forward to pick up a bowl it wasn’t only that she noticed her hand was shaking, but it felt like all the strength in her arm had disappeared. She was exhausted. The effort it had taken for her not to walk the opposite way, not to don her Work Ella attitude and leave the cooking at a safe distance while she organised, to peel off a layer of defence and stand next to her mum unguarded and equal, seemed almost overwhelming. Everest-like. And for a second, as her mum handed her a sieve and the weighed out flour, she thought she might cry.

CHAPTER 20

MADDY

‘Christmas, young lady, is shit.’

Maddy put the pint of Guinness down on the bar and waited for the man to fish around in his pocket for change.

‘I like Christmas.’ she said.

He blew out a breath. ‘You’re delusional. It’s crap. If I could just go to sleep for week and wake up and it was over that would suit me fine.’

‘Still going, Walter. Change the record.’ Mack glanced over from where he was changing the optics, swapping the normal vodka and whiskey for cheap Russian imports because it was two-for-one night, as he’d told Maddy during her brief induction.

Walter was one of three customers in the bar. He was in his mid to late sixties she thought, dressed in a black jumper and grey woollen coat. His hair was white and crazy like a mad professor and his glasses had red frames. Maddy had arrived, been snubbed by most of the other staff members, given her
Big Mack’s
black t-shirt and sent to work the far end of the bar where Walter sat. Where apparently he sat every night of the week.

‘No I just love Christmas.’ Maddy shook her head. ‘All the lights and the atmosphere and, my god, you’ve even got snow here.’ She pointed outside to where tiny flakes had been falling like bubbles, drifting weightlessly through the air. Walter didn’t turn and look. ‘And have you seen Piccadilly Circus?’ Maddy went on, ‘I saw it today. Eros is in a giant snow globe. I think that’s amazing. I’ve Instagrammed it.’

Walter took a sip of Guinness and narrowed his eyes at her, ‘And you noticed the advertising round the bottom I take it? You know the globe popped last year, burst in the storms. Like a metaphor.’

Maddy heard Mack laugh and turned around to watch him unscrewing the top of a Russian gin and say, ‘A metaphor for what?’

‘Hot air.’ Walter reached into his pocket and got out a pipe, putting it in his mouth unlit. ‘So–’ he nodded towards Maddy. ‘Why are you here? You’re far too young and innocent for this place.’

‘I tried to tell her–’ Mack called over from where he was battling with a broken optic.

‘I needed a job.’ Maddy shrugged. ‘I wanted to come to London. See if I could make it.’

Walter gave a snort of laughter.

Maddy looked down at her hands, embarrassed at her admission. The door opened and a group of three young guys walked in, went straight over to one of the velvet booths and hunched round a menu. The icy chill that accompanied the slamming door made Walter wrap his big grey overcoat tighter round him. He was turning his collar up when he said, ‘You know “making it” is a myth. A fallacy.’

‘Blimey, you’re full of Christmas cheer aren’t you?’ Mack poured himself a whiskey and turned to lean against the bar, his arms crossed over his belly, his gold signet ring glinting in the dull light. ‘Don’t listen to him, he’s a washed up old hack.’

‘Are you a journalist?’ Maddy asked.

‘No.’

‘He’s a writer.’ Mack said.

Walter gave a dismissive wave of his hand.

Mack snorted, ‘He wrote those books, for kids. You know he was a regular JK Rowling in his day.’

‘You’re not Walter
Brown
?’ Maddy tilted her head to the side and studied him, the deep grooves in his face, the white stubble, the slanting green eyes.

Walter turned his head to stare at the door. Maddy looked back at Mack who nodded.

‘I loved your books. I read them all. My sister adored them. Oh my god. You can’t hate Christmas, all you wrote about was Christmas.’ She held her fingers to her lips remembering her dad coming home from work with the last book in the series. They’d snatched it from him before he’d even had a chance to take his coat off and were upstairs reading it, Maddy doing voices for all the different characters and feeling a silly sense of pride when she made Ella laugh. ‘I loved your books.’

‘They’re shit.’ Walter said, taking a gulp of Guinness.

‘He’s never managed to write the Great British Novel.’ Mack said, seemingly loving the wince on Walter’s face.

‘What do you mean?’ Maddy asked, confused.

Mack laughed, ‘He’s got a chip on his shoulder about writing for kids. Wants to write a proper book.’

‘But I loved them.’

‘I promise you–’ Walter leant forward and tapped the bar with his index finger, ignoring her question. ‘You will never make it.’

‘Jesus, thanks a lot!’ Maddy laughed.

One of the guys got up from the table and came over to the bar with the menu. She made a move to serve him but the sullen girl with the hyena stare, who she now knew was called Betty, shooed her away and took the order herself.