Chapter 21 A Christmas Wish
A Christmas Wish
Coming back into the house felt like immersing yourself in a warm bath, one deliciously scented with pine, cinnamon and other spices.
We had barely taken off our boots and coats before Opal followed us, so even she must have felt the chill up at Mab’s Tomb and quickly given up.
While the twins went off to change, through the open door to the kitchen, Toby and I could see Rhys sitting on the edge of the big table watching Bronwen stirring something in a large pottery mixing bowl and, when he caught sight of us, he beckoned us in.
‘Just in time for the mince pie tasting. Come on in!’ he said. ‘The first batch is just out of the oven, so we can make a wish.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Toby as we gathered round the table, where a dozen mince pies were cooling on a wire rack, each topped with a pastry star rather than a lid.
‘A Triskelion tradition. We call these Star Pies and you take a bite out of one and make a wish,’ Bronwen explained.
She took the pastry from the bowl and began rolling it out on the floured table, before starting to cut out circles. ‘It was Rhys who christened them Star Pies, when he was a little boy.’
We took one each, and luckily they’d cooled a bit, because who hasn’t taken a bite of a mince pie straight from the oven, filled with molten lava, and regretted it?
I didn’t know about the others, but I closed my eyes before taking a nibble and making my wish … which was to find my perfect forever home.
‘You have to keep your wish secret, or it won’t come true,’ Rhys told us. ‘But it might be fun trying to guess what the others will wish for when they get their Star Pies after lunch!’
*
I went to my room after lunch and began sorting out the material for the Wisteria Cottage books on the trestle table, but I couldn’t settle, so in the end I decided to go and look at the gallery at the pottery instead.
It was very busy and the selection of lovely porcelain Christmas baubles seemed to be almost flying off the shelves. I was entranced by the various ranges of porcelain figures from myths, fairy tales and legends, including figures from the Solstice ceremony, which came in two sizes.
Then there were the tall, fabric-bodied, porcelain-faced Santas and angels, as well as non-Christmassy wizards.
It was all exquisitely made and very detailed – and extremely expensive! Luckily, I wanted everything, which meant I only came out with one small, gilded hare bauble – St Melangell’s, presumably – although I had a feeling I’d be drawn back again after Christmas.
I went back to put my purchase in my room before wandering down to the refectory, feeling restless.
Despite all her lofty words about working, I found Kate already there, laying out the pieces of a giant jigsaw on a table, while Toby was casually playing a Christmas carol on the old upright piano.
He said he just couldn’t concentrate on much either, so we had a game of table tennis, not something I’d ever played before.
After a bit, Tudor appeared and set the big jug of coffee on the hotplate, next to a plate of chocolate brownies. Kate took hers back to the table where Verity soon joined her. Jigsaw puzzles seem to have their own magnetic pull – people just gravitate to them.
‘Painting takes so much out of me,’ Verity said plaintively. ‘I give it my absolute all and it is so draining.’
‘She needs to put the plug in first,’ I muttered, thinking this was a bit precious, and Toby grinned at me. He was much better than me at table tennis, so when Pearl came in I was glad to cede my place to her and have a rest.
She said Opal didn’t feel like coming down, and no one else appeared before Kate had performed the magic trick of making the last brownies disappear.
Perhaps none of the others was as distracted by the imminent arrival of Christmas as I was.
*
Dinner was early again because of the carol service, which it appeared that everyone was going to – even Kate! I think she just hated being left out of anything.
We all, Noel, Bronwen and Tudor included, piled into the minibus and this time Rhys took the wheel.
When we arrived, the stained-glass windows of the tiny ancient church glowed brightly from within and sent harlequin colours across the path.
We filed into a pew near the front, next to a side chapel with a large Nativity scene set up in front of it.
Bales of hay were artistically arranged around a crib and various figures of Wise Men, angels, shepherds, sheep and oxen, with a large gold paper star hanging from the rafters directly above it.
Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus were missing and when I asked Cariad, who had come to join us and was sitting between me and Rhys, where they had got to, she told me they were still on their way to Bethlehem. ‘You can’t go fast on a donkey.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ I agreed.
‘Mel is Mary this year and Angelo, whose dad has the pizza restaurant across the road, is Joseph. He’s in our year at school.’
We all quietened as the vicar, who was a tall, rangy man with fly-away red hair and a gentle, slightly plaintive singsong voice, welcomed us all. He had a microphone on a stand in front of him, but since he constantly turned away from it, his voice came and went.
We started with a carol, ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’, then the vicar narrated the Nativity story, while the door at the back opened and a slim dark-haired youth in a striped robe and with the obligatory checked tea towel over his head, led a dark grey donkey up the aisle.
Mel, blue-robed, sat astride her mount, rather than sideways as depicted in most old paintings.
I’d always wondered what prevented Mary from slithering off, because I don’t suppose they had proper side saddles then, with a pommel you could put one knee securely over.
The donkey got halfway up the aisle, dug his heels in against Joseph’s tugging, and then defecated copiously. A warm, rich farmyard smell pervaded the church.
Everyone laughed and Rhys whispered to me across Cariad, ‘That’s Walter. He does that every year.’
Cariad giggled. ‘And then he tries to eat all the hay and sometimes he brays when we’re singing.’
As soon as they reached the Nativity scene, Walter did indeed make straight for the nearest haybale and started pulling wisps out of it.
Mel, with practised ease, dismounted neatly, showing a glimpse of purple rubber paddock boots under her blue robes. Then she retired behind the bales and returned almost instantly with a large plastic baby doll, which she plonked down in the crib in a no-nonsense manner.
‘Lo, a child is born!’ said Angelo, without a great deal of interest, and Walter paused briefly between mouthfuls of hay to bray in seeming agreement.
The vicar concluded the Nativity story and then we sang, appropriately, ‘Away in a Manger’ and other old favourites, with the occasional assistance of Walter.
The vicar had just embarked on a sermon, which seemed to be about goodwill to all mankind, when the microphone on its tripod stand suddenly crackled – and then a loud stream of what sounded like rapid Italian invective issued from it.
‘The sound system’s playing up again, Vicar. That’s Dad,’ Angelo called, in a resigned kind of way.
The vicar looked rather helplessly at the microphone, but Max Prynne slid out of his aisle seat and went to switch it off.
‘Er, thank you,’ said the vicar as peace was restored, and then wound up his sermon in a somewhat distracted manner.
With an air of relief he announced the final carol, and the opening notes were just wheezing from the organ when the third interruption of the evening occurred. A tall, white-haired and wild-eyed elderly man, looking like a disreputable prophet, arose from behind the hay bales.
He stared wildly around, blinking, and then seemed to focus on Walter.
‘Ish a donkey,’ he said. Then, his eye moving on to the life-sized angel standing next to him: ‘I’ve died ansh gone t’Heavensh.’
‘No, you haven’t then,’ said a small, stocky, middle-aged woman, marching up and grabbing the man by the arm. ‘It’ll be the other place for you, you old reprobate.’
‘Thash no way to talk to your grandfasher,’ said the man, sounding hurt.
‘We’ve spent hours searching for you, thinking you were out in the cold somewhere and all the time, you were here, sleeping it off in the church!’
She took his arm and propelled him towards the door, saying over her shoulder, distractedly, ‘I’m so sorry, Vicar!’
‘That’s all right, Mona. God loves a sinner,’ he assured her. Then, as the door closed behind them, he said, generally, ‘Well, that was a most stirring end to our service, wasn’t it?’
Then he wished us all a blessed and happy Christmas, and the organist, who was hidden behind a faded red velvet curtain, played us out with ‘Unto Us a Child Is Born’.
‘That was even more entertaining than usual,’ said Nerys as we climbed back into our minibus.
‘Yes, I don’t see how they can top that next year,’ Timon agreed.
‘Perhaps they’ll finally fix the sound system at least, although, actually, I look forward to Tony at the pizzeria joining in every year,’ Noel said. ‘Luckily, I don’t think many of the congregation can understand fast and idiomatic Italian.’
‘Idiomatic is one word for it,’ Evie said, grinning.
*
Cariad was tired enough to fall asleep on the way back, but then woke up in a sort of feverish excitement and didn’t want to go to bed. Nerys took her off there firmly and Rhys promised to go up in a bit and read The Night Before Christmas to her, which apparently he did every Christmas Eve.
Tudor and Bronwen had gone straight home to their flat over the garage, but Noel had come back with us, because he always stayed for a couple of nights at Christmas to be, as he put it, in the heart of the family festivities.
When we all went into the sitting room and I caught a good look at Opal in the light, I thought she, like Cariad, looked feverish – although surely not with excitement, in her case? She was quiet and shivery too, and her small face was even more pinched and pale than usual.
Nerys, returning, noticed it too. ‘I hope you haven’t caught a chill, Opal,’ she said, scrutinizing her.
‘That’s what I said,’ Pearl told her twin. ‘You really don’t look quite yourself, Opal. You would stay out earlier when it was so freezing!’
‘Nonsense. I don’t feel the cold and you know I’m never ill!’ Opal said crossly. ‘I’m just tired, that’s all – and I’m going to bed.’
‘Famous last words,’ said Verity, when the door had closed behind her. ‘She looks as if she might be about to get flu or something like that.’
Toby said, ‘I agree, Pearl, I really don’t think your sister looks well.’
‘I know, but she’ll never admit it! And she would have us pose without our coats on earlier, so she probably has caught a chill, at least. And she does get colds and flu, but usually she just says she’s fine and tries to carry on as if nothing is happening.’
‘I know the type, but if it turns out to be flu, she’s not sitting around sniffling and sneezing among the rest of us,’ Nerys said firmly. ‘We don’t want to catch it!’
‘It would be a shame if the poor girl had to miss Christmas Day, though,’ said Noel.
‘It would be even more of a shame if she didn’t and we all came down with some horrible bug,’ pointed out Evie. ‘Anyway, let’s not count our viruses before they hatch. We can see what she’s like in the morning.’
While Rhys went up to read to Cariad, Timon handed out the drinks and Nerys went off to the kitchen and came back with hot mince pies.
Rhys reported that Cariad had fallen asleep only halfway through the poem, in spite of being determined to stay awake until her Christmas stocking was delivered, so she could prove that Santa was really her dad or Timon, pretending.
‘Good,’ Nerys said. ‘You can pop her stocking in on your way to bed, Rhys, and I’ll put the presents out around the tree in the hall in a minute too, now I know she isn’t going to reappear!’
‘Do you need any help with that?’ I offered.
‘No, it’s fine. They’re all in a cupboard in the family sitting room – it won’t take a minute.
By the way,’ she added, ‘I hope you’ve all now studied the leaflet in your rooms and know there will be brunch tomorrow between nine and ten, instead of breakfast, and then Christmas dinner at around two. ’
‘The present opening is right after brunch,’ Timon said. ‘They’re handed out in the hall and then we bring them in here to unwrap.’
I thought we’d be more likely to be helping Cariad carry hers in there. I, for one, certainly wasn’t expecting any presents.
‘It sounds lovely, but I’m so tired I think I’d better go up now, if you’re sure there’s nothing I can do, Nerys.’
It wasn’t just that I was tired, but also I wanted to write up the day’s events in my current sketchbook: the first and probably only Triskelion one!
Evie and Noel were sitting on a small sofa, their heads together in some deep discussion, but she looked up and gave me one of her more roguish grins as I passed.
In the hall I met Rhys, who had taken some empty plates to the kitchen.
‘I’ve just been up and hung Cariad’s stocking on the end of her bed,’ he said. ‘She always looks so unusually angelic when she’s asleep.’
He looked down at me, a glow in those strange amber eyes. ‘I, on the other hand, feel neither sleepy nor angelic!’
There was a faint whispering noise from the ceiling and, looking up, I discovered that we were standing right under the largest of Tudor’s bunches of mistletoe, which was slowly revolving in some draught of air.
‘Happy Christmas, Ginny!’ Rhys said softly, and then, before I could move away, pulled me close and dropped a light kiss on my lips, before letting me go.
Then he went past me into the sitting room and I gathered my scattered wits together and went upstairs.
In my room the little glass parcels on my tree jingled as I walked across the floor, reminding me of the small gifts I’d wrapped up to give everyone tomorrow, and wondering if the mistletoe on Rhys’s stained-glass tree hanging was going to give him entirely the wrong message.