‘What are you two plotting about? You look very serious.’ Mummy, looking hot and flustered, was carrying a tray of glasses from the kitchen. ‘You can help me finish the table now.’
It was then that Mrs Nora brought out the little Christmas House to place it right in the middle of the table. It was like the gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel, and Evie wished it was made of sweets.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing to the ribbons poking out of each window.
‘Wait and see. We can have some fun with this little house,’ came the reply.
‘I don’t think I could eat another crumb,’ sighed Nora as she crushed her linen napkin with satisfaction. ‘I’m fair brussen, as they say in these parts, stuffed to bursting, and it was a grand effort by all! The goose was cooked to perfection, the gooseberry chutney the perfect complement … I hope you all had enough plum pudding and trifle, young Evie?’ Her gaze was directed at the pink cheeks of the girl in the velour tracksuit, a line of glittery butterfly clips in her blonde hair.
‘I found a silver sixpence in my pudding.’ Evie was looking pleased.
‘And look what I found in mine,’ laughed Nik, pretending to choke as he pulled a five-pound note out of his mouth.
Evie’s eyes were on stalks. ‘You didn’t?’
The years rolled away and Nora could see Tom performing that very old trick. Like father like son. He had not forgotten the old Christmases after all.
‘Anyone for seconds?’ she said, but there were groans of appreciation and satisfaction.
‘Time for coffee and liqueurs,’ Nik replied, rising from the table to do his bit for the meal.
‘Time for a game first, to let our meal settle,’ Nora whispered, seizing the moment. ‘Something I’ve cooked up for you all. Just a bit of fun to say thank you for all my presents. It’s been a lovely occasion and I feel such good vibes around us tonight. It must be Mr Christmas up the stairs, egging us on to play silly games,’ she laughed. ‘This is a special house. It was built not only with pride but with love.’ She lifted her glass in a toast. ‘I think each generation adds something to its magic. I wish it well. To Wintergill … may it stand for ever!’ she toasted.
‘To Wintergill,’ smiled Kay, her eyes bright with wine and contentment. ‘To the Snowdens, who’ve made our Christmas so special. We were strangers and you took us in, gave us shelter and made us welcome. Thank you.’
‘Cheers,’ laughed Evie, her hair slides glittering in the dark as she copied her mother with her cranberry fizz.
‘To the old house,’ Nik joined in, his expression so warm that Nora felt the tears of pride welling.
This is my son and he’s a good lad.‘Right then, this little Christmas House got me thinking about a game we played around the table when I was young. We used to do it with a home-made Christmas cracker. There’s a note attached to each piece of ribbon in all the open windows and door. All you have to do is pull the string and see what it says on the paper and, of course, do what it says!’ Nora pointed to the ribbons. ‘No cheating. All just a bit of fun but we’ll see what we see.’
Evie was dying to start the game off. ‘You must go first … Mrs Nora,’ she said.
She stretched over the debris of party poppers and cracker remains, her party hat cocked to one side. She pulled the string, opened the note and burst out laughing.
‘What does it say?’ Evie jumped up and down. ‘Tell us!’
‘I was hoping I wouldn’t get this one,’ she laughed. ‘It says, “Tell us about your most embarrassing Christmas.” Well, that’s easy enough. It was when Tom’s parents came for their first Sunday dinner on Boxing Day and I wanted to show off,’ she smiled, relating the tale of the pheasant she’d left so long hanging that it stunk to high heaven and they’d had to have bread and cheese instead. Everyone was laughing at her story.
‘Will that do?’ She took a deep breath as everyone was clapping. ‘I can still see that carcass full of maggots. The stink lasted for a week! Can I have my brandy now? I think I’ve earned it!’
‘Who’s going to go next?’ shouted Evie, looking at Kay, who was half asleep.
‘Go on then,’ she smiled, pulling her string and opening the instructions. ‘It says, “If I won the lottery, what would be my Christmas wish?"’ Here, in the candlelight, she was feeling at peace with the world just as she had felt in the little church the night before.
‘I think my wish would be that other people could share what we’ve shared today, mucking in together. Until a few months ago none of us knew each other. We came from different worlds. So if money was no object I’d love to build a house like this, full of bedrooms so that tired, sad, washed-out people could come and seek a week or two’s respite from their daily grind, and Christmas would be our speciality.
‘I would install a swimming pool in the old slurry pit-heated of course – with hot tubs under the stars too. I would make a studio so people could paint or quilt, do salsa dancing or yoga. It would be like a glorified health farm without the hassle. My clients could go for long walks and breathe fresh air in their lungs. It would be a community together, preparing good food, supporting local produce, a base where townies could be introduced to country life.’
Where’s all this coming from? she thought even as she was speaking.
‘There would be lots of nooks and crannies for tired people to sit and dream and do nothing. I’d want a big table like this so we could gather in the evening and talk. I would like them all to help on the farm, feel the soil, repair walls, feed the stock, make themselves useful too, and tire themselves out with activity. This would be a place for pampering and peace and contemplation but most of all a growing place where ideas could be generated and energy restored …’
She stopped abruptly, aware that all the eyes were on her. ‘Is that OK?’ She wondered if she had gone too far.
‘That sounds wonderful,’ Nora answered. ‘When can I sign up? They say there’s always an element in our dreams that is not only a wish but a possibility. Where there’s a will there’s a way.’
The attention was making Kay blush.
‘Where there’s a will there’s usually relatives!’ Nik quipped, wanting to get this game over with so that he could relax with his new malt whisky to sample. He pulled out his string and laughed. ‘I think you’ve spiked these forfeits, Mother! So I’ll get mine over with. It says: “Tell us your best Christmas joke."’
‘Moi?
Surely not!’ Nora replied, and he was glad that she seemed to have thawed out about the barn fiasco.‘I’m no good at jokes. I can never remember the punch lines, but practical jokes, now that’s a different matter. Just let me fill my glass and I will bore you all to tears.’ He looked up at their faces. ‘Only joking! Here’s one against myself. This goes back to my Young Farmers days, before the ark, when our Christmas parties were a blur of alcohol and vomit, I’m afraid. We decided to hold a fancy dress ball near Skipton so on Christmas Eve we went to collect our costumes. I drew the short straw and had to go as Father Christmas, white beard, cloak, the full Monty, complete with Ho Ho Hos. It got very hot inside there and we got very silly and very drunk.’
‘That’s my boy!’ shouted his mother.
‘We danced a bit but there was no one we fancied so a gang of us decided to go diving in a duck pond in the middle of winter, as you do,’ he continued, waving his glass in the air expansively.
‘I stripped off and jumped in and then realised I was on my own! The gang had beetled off with a cheer, leaving me almost starkers, jumping in a Land Rover to dump my costume down the road. They didn’t leave me to freeze to death but a cloak and a beard and a pair of wellies was all I had left to get back home in. It was well after midnight. I was twenty miles from home, stuck in that flaming costume, trying to look as if I wasn’t. There was no transport in sight so I had to leg it back as best I could, cursing them all to high heaven. A driver took pity on me and drove me back to Hellifield. It was a nine-mile hike after that. I didn’t half get some funny looks. You’d be surprised how many people are out and about on Christmas Eve.’
‘Did you see the real Santa?’ said Evie, suddenly alert.
‘No, love, not a peep, I expect he was too busy to notice me,’ Nik replied. ‘So there. My worst joke.’
‘I never knew about that, son,’ Nora smiled.
‘There’s a lot you don’t know, Mother, about those days, and least said the better.’
‘It’s me, it’s me now,’ cried Evie. ‘It’s my turn,’ she said, pulling the string through the window. ‘It says I have to light another candle in the window, sing a carol and make a wish.’ She lit one of the fancy candles in the brass candlestick and placed it by the window. ‘I know why we’re doing this. It’s called the Wayfarer’s candle, to guide people to the light. It’s for the Christ child to enter the house. Candles clear the air of bad things.’
She peered through the open curtains, singing two verses of ‘Away in a manger'. Suddenly she paused.
‘Are those really the stars in the bright sky?’ She pointed up. No one answered but Mummy was smiling.
‘Don’t forget your wish,’ Mrs Nora reminded her.
‘I’ve been wishing very hard for snow all day so that doesn’t count,’ Evie replied. ‘I wish, I wish that my mummy buys the Side House and we can mend it and stay here for ever.’
There was a funny silence after that.
No one wanted to spoil the moment, but Evie’s words had stunned her audience.
‘Thank you, Evie,’ said Nora. ‘It was just a bit of fun.
In vino Veritas,
and all that … Chocolates, anyone?’‘No, I’m full to the brim. Washing up for me and then bed for you, Geneva,’ Kay yawned. ‘It’s been a lovely day. I want to sample the lovely room upstairs.’
‘I’ll help you,’ Nora offered, rising from the table but her eyes were tired.
‘No, I’m doing the washing up, you’ve done enough,’ Kay said. ‘Evie will get herself ready for bed and I’ll give her a story. It’s been a lovely day. Thank you.’
Everyone fled to their respective rooms, busying themselves, sad that all the fun was over. Tomorrow there were invitations for drinks at Pat Bannerman’s house down in the village, and a party in the evening. The guests of Wintergill House were going to be a nine-day wonder.
It was when Nik went to the back door to bring in some more logs that he shouted up to Evie with a grin.
‘Evie! Come and see! Look out there!’
Evie was dashing down in her tartan pyjamas to the front door, jumping up and down. ‘It’s snowing goose feathers, real snow, just like you said.’ Kay came clambering after her so fast she took a rough turn on the stairs, nudging one of the pictures off the wall with a clatter of broken glass. ‘Oh, no! I’m so sorry!’
‘Don’t move!’ Nik ran up towards the shards of broken glass and lifted the sepia print from the floor. ‘It’s only the portrait of Jacob and Agnes, the one I never liked. Don’t touch the glass or you’ll get cut. Evie’ll find the dustpan and brush.’
‘I’m so clumsy,’ Kay apologised, but Nik was not listening. He was too busy collecting shards and then examining the old wooden frame as it collapsed apart in his hands.
‘Wait a sec, there’s something else behind this photograph … You be careful and step over the mess, I’ll take it to the light.’
They all crowded round the portrait as Nik lifted from the back another piece of stiff paper wedged between the backing and the print. It was a black and white sketch of a waterfall with some hand-tinted tones and notes at the side with a date on it.
‘16th July'.
The watermark on the paper held up to the light was dated 1816.Nora stared down at it and then at the two of them. ‘You know what this is, don’t you? I don’t believe it, after all these years. Look! It’s the sketch … the lost Turner. It must be. But why is it hidden behind this picture? Kay, you’ve struck gold!’
Nik sat down on the step, winded. ‘I thought that was lost years ago. What a find. Thank you … I think I need another brandy … What a turn-up. Do you realise if this is genuine it might just be the answer to all our problems?’
Kay left the two of them to their discovery, standing with Evie on the front steps, trying to catch the snowflakes in their mouth. ‘Will it stick?’ She turned to Nik and he nodded.
‘It’ll stick and still be here in the morning. You’ll be sledging tomorrow, promise.’
‘Magic!’ Evie cried. ‘I made one wish and it came true! I hope the other does.’
The house was quiet. Evie was flaked out upstairs, surrounded by her stocking and her sledge. Nora had retired with the sketch and Kay was finishing tidying up in Nik’s kitchen. The wall clock ticked gently. She could hear the cat purring under the table as she put the remains of their dinner safely into the fridge. It was so peaceful and she thought over their wonderful day.
Nik’s unexpected and thoughtful present, a reminder of Muffin the collie dog, Evie’s disturbing little journal, a splendid dinner and revealing party game, and then the discovery as well as snow falling. It was like living in a Christmas card, she mused.
Then Nik came through the kitchen door, looking like a snowman. ‘It’s sticking fast now. Evie will have her wish,’ he smiled, kicking off his boots and shaking himself like a dog.
‘How could you tell it would snow?’ Kay asked, busying herself around his sink.
‘You can sniff it in the wind if it’s in the right quarter, and my barometer never lies. It won’t last long, but long enough for Evie to have some fun. We usually get a white Christmas up here, enough to make a frost topping but not like the old winters, of course. I reckon those are gone for ever with global warming.’
He paused, watching her polishing the sink as if it had never been done before. ‘We used to have to put snow fences all around us but I’ve not done that for years. Wintergill will look a picture in the morning. Fancy a hot toddy?’
‘Lovely,’ she murmured.
‘Let’s take it up into the old drawing room, seeing as we lit the fire and Mother made it festive,’ he suggested, gathering his ingredients on a tray. ‘I’d like to examine that picture more closely. I owe you a big drink. Just let me make the toddy first. I was taught this by a Highlander who I once met at an auction mart. It’s the only bit of cooking I can do,’ he confessed, carrying his tray carefully up the stairs and into the fire-lit room that smelled of woodsmoke and lilies and pine.