A Merry Little Christmas (3 page)

Pippa was baking; her kitchen smelling warm, comforting, and safe. It was her default position when stressed. Plus she was part of the volunteer group who kept the local shop open, stocked and supplied with local produce and home baking. The rate she was going today, the shop was going to be well stocked for weeks. She’d spent all morning making chocolate brownies, blueberry muffins, and scones – all to put off facing up to the unpalatable news that Lucy’s social worker, Claire King had given her that morning.

‘I’m sorry,’ had been Claire’s opening gambit, ‘but we’re all having to cut our budgets for the next financial year, and one of my more unpleasant jobs has been working out which services have to be cut. One of the options we’re looking at is reducing our respite care packages. It has to go on level of need, I’m afraid …’

The pause spoke volumes.

‘And ours isn’t great enough,’ Pippa said flatly.

‘I wouldn’t go as far as to say that,’ Claire was clearly floundering a bit, ‘and I’m not saying this is a definite, or that you’ll lose the respite altogether …’

‘But it’s a possibility?’ said Pippa.

‘I think it’s more likely that Lucy will be receiving respite care once a month in the foreseeable future, rather than once a fortnight,’ said Claire, ‘and rest assured we will be working hard to sort out an alternative for you, but …’

But that was no guarantee of help in the long term. Reading between the lines, and given the level of cuts being imposed on social services, it was highly unlikely that Lucy would be having any respite care in a year’s time. Pippa was desperately looking round for alternatives, but as far as she could see there were none. She’d written a letter to her MP, Tom Brooker – without much hope of success, given that it was his party implementing the cuts – and was now trying to drum up support from other parents similarly affected. The trouble was, most of them, like her, were worn down by the years and years of fighting a system that at its best could be brilliant, but at its worst was cold, indifferent and cared little for individual sob stories.

Her next port of call was going to be Cat Tinsall. With her media contacts, Cat might be able to help, not just Lucy, but the other kids who got help from the Sunshine Trust. And Cat, Pippa knew, would understand. When Cat had first moved to Hope Christmas just under four years ago, they had instantly bonded over children, cooking and how hard it was being a carer. Cat’s mother, Louise, suffered from dementia, and Pippa knew how tough she found it. She empathised with the guilt, the feeling that maybe you could do more, be better, be less selfish.

‘Mmm, something smells good. Bad day?’ Dan’s six-foot frame filled the kitchen. He had a way of dominating a room. He’d come fresh from the outhouse where he scrubbed down after milking the cows, before entering the house. He’d been out since dawn and had come back now to have breakfast. Pippa’s heart swelled. However hard life was, she had and always would have Dan. A sudden memory snuck its way into her brain, of her and Dan, lying together in their field at the bottom of the hill on a sunny day, Dan saying quite seriously, ‘Love you forever,’ when Pippa had only just got round to thinking the ‘L’ word. Everything was manageable with Dan by her side.

‘How did you guess?’ asked Pippa, lifting her last batch of scones out of the Aga and putting them on the pine kitchen island in the middle of the kitchen, replacing them with muffins. She took a broom out and swept away the mud Dan had brought in with him.

‘You always bake when you’re in a bad mood,’ said Dan.

‘And you always bring mud in from the farm,’ she said.

‘I did wash up,’ protested Dan.

‘But you forgot to take your boots off, as usual,’ Pippa rolled her eyes at him.

Dan responded by picking up a scone and taking a bite. ‘Delicious.’

‘Oi, they’re not for you,’ said Pippa. ‘But why don’t you sit down and I’ll make you a cuppa and a fry-up.’

‘No, you sit down,’ said Dan, ‘and tell me all about it. What’s that bloody woman done now?’

‘Nothing more than usual,’ said Pippa, loving him for so perfectly tuning into her mood. ‘She’s wrung her hands as much as she can, but the upshot is we still have respite care for the short term, but monthly not fortnightly.’

‘Well, that’s something at least,’ said Dan.

‘I know,’ said Pippa. ‘But it’s the long term I’m worried about. What happens if we lose it altogether?’

‘We cross that bridge when we come to it,’ said Dan, handing his wife a cup of tea.

‘Why are you always so positive?’ said Pippa. ‘Here I am finding problems, and you go round making out it will all be okay.’ That was Dan all over, her rock, her strength. He always managed to help her see a way through, when she felt overwhelmed.

‘One of us has to be,’ said Dan, ‘and you do enough worrying for the pair of us. Something will turn up, you’ll see.’

‘Oh Dan,’ said Pippa, suddenly feeling a bit teary. ‘Whatever did I do to deserve you?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Dan with a grin, ‘but if I’m allowed another one of those scones, you never know, I might even stick around a while.’

Cat was on the set of
Cat’s Country Kitchen,
her new TV show which was due to air in the autumn, when her phone buzzed. She’d been busy talking to Len Franklin the director about setting up a shot of her chopping onions for her Shropshire hotpot, which she was meant to be doing without crying. The phone buzzed insistently again. Damn. She thought she’d turned it off. Cat took it out of her pocket and saw, to her dismay, the school phone number. Her heart sank. Now what had Mel done?

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said to Len. She hadn’t worked with him before, and found him a little taciturn and unfriendly, so she wasn’t quite sure how he’d take the interruption. ‘Would you mind if I take this?’

‘If you must,’ said Len in long-suffering tones. ‘But please be quick, we’ve got a busy schedule and a lot to get through.’

‘Thanks,’ said Cat, smiling apologetically at the film crew, and wandered to the back of the studio.

‘Hullo, Catherine Tinsall here,’ she said. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. How may I help?’

She dreaded phone calls from school, which seemed to be happening with monotonous regularity of late.

‘Mrs Tinsall?’ The crisp tones of Mrs Reynolds, the school secretary, always made her turn to jelly. ‘It appears that Melanie is absent from school, and we haven’t heard from you. I take it she is ill?’

‘Ill? No of course not,’ said Cat in bewilderment. ‘I saw her off to school myself. Did you send me a text message?’

‘Of course,’ said Mrs Reynolds.

‘Oh,’ Cat checked her messages. She’d missed one. ‘Yes I did get it. I’m at work, and didn’t pick it up. Didn’t Mel come in at all?’

‘Apparently not,’ said Mrs Reynolds frostily. Cat knew it was paranoid, but she always got the impression Mrs Reynolds thought all mothers should stay at home till their children had left school.

‘I am so sorry,’ said Cat. ‘I’ll try and find out what’s happened and where she is.’

She put the phone down, her heart thumping. Bloody hell. She’d had far too many conversations this year with Mel’s form teacher about her bad behaviour, but usually it was about cheeking the teachers, or not working hard enough. She’d even been suspended for a day for being caught smoking. Why on earth would she have skipped school? It was probably because she was due to get her mock results. Mel had been grumpy as hell for the last few days, and judging by how little work she’d done over the Christmas holidays, Cat wasn’t expecting miracles. It was the first time Mel had ever bunked off. That is, if she
was
bunking off, and not dead in a ditch somewhere. Oh God, Cat thought, what if something had happened to her?

‘Don’t even go there, Cat,’ she muttered to herself, and rang Mel’s mobile. Switched off, of course. She sent a text instead.
You’ve been rumbled. RING ME, Mum
.

She texted both James and Paige at school, though she knew, technically, they weren’t supposed to have their phones on them.

Do you know where Mel is?

No idea.
James’ response was swift and to the point.

Paige took longer to reply.

Saw her talking to Andy outside school
.

Andy who?

Dunno
was the helpful response.

Great. Thanks for nothing, Paige.

‘Ahem, if we could get on?’ Len was tapping his watch, the film crew were looking bored, and Cat was conscious everyone was looking at her.

‘Yes, of course, nearly done.’ Cat made one last phone call.

‘Noel, I’m really sorry to do this, but Mel’s bunked off. I’ve no idea where she is and I was due on camera five minutes ago. Can you deal with it? I assume she’s in town somewhere. Possibly with a boy named Andy.’

‘Cat–’ began Noel.

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ said Cat, ‘I’ll get away as soon as I can, I promise.’

‘Okay, leave it with me,’ said Noel, ‘I’ll go out on a recce.’

‘Thanks,’ said Cat. ‘I owe you.’

‘
Again
,’ said Noel, who had, she realised guiltily, been picking up more of the domestic slack than her of late. ‘I’ll bloody kill her when I find her.’

‘Not before I do,’ said Cat.

‘When we’re ready,’ interrupted the director, sharply.

‘Ready,’ said Cat, turning her phone off.

She allowed the make-up girl to touch up her face, and stood in front of the shiny hot plates on which she was about to demonstrate making her twist on a traditional Shropshire stew.

‘Hello and welcome to
Cat’s Country Kitchen
, where I’ll be showing you recipes old and new from Shropshire, the food capital of Great Britain,’ she said, trying with all her might to forget about errant daughters and concentrate instead on cooking. After all, that’s what she got paid for.

‘And, cut.’ Eventually Len was satisfied. It seemed to have taken ages to get the exact shots he’d wanted, and Cat had been itching to get off the premises for the last half hour. As soon as she decently could, Cat made her excuses and, heart hammering, dashed to the door. She switched her phone back on, to one text message from Noel:
Got her
. Thank God for that. Cat felt herself unwind slightly. At least Mel wasn’t in danger. But now she knew they were going to have the sort of confrontation Cat always dreaded, with Mel screaming in their faces and her losing her rag. She tried to stay as calm as Noel somehow managed to, but Cat found herself bewildered by their daughter’s unreasonable behaviour. Mel had everything she wanted, why did she have to put them through the mill like this?

Noel was always saying she should try and see it from Mel’s side more. Mel would no doubt say that she had everything but her mum’s time, Cat reflected. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Her default position. They’d left London so Cat could spend more time with the family, so how was it she seemed to spend less? And now there was more guilt, when she discovered Noel had had to leave an important meeting with Ralph Nicholas’ nephew, who had just joined the firm. If it had been Ralph, Noel was sure he would have understood, but Michael Nicholas was still an unknown quantity according to Noel, and while he hadn’t said anything, Noel had felt awkward about curtailing the meeting to deal with an absconding teenager.

‘Next time, it’s your shout,’ said Noel. ‘I can’t keep doing this.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Cat, thinking
well, I can’t either
. The trouble was she had been so busy filming over the last few months she had dropped lots of balls into Noel’s lap, from dental appointments to meetings with Mel’s teachers. She sighed and wished more than ever Louise hadn’t become ill. Life in Hope Christmas with Louise on hand to help out would have been perfect.

‘So where was she?’ asked Cat while rooting around in her bag for her keys.

‘I found her in the café,’ said Noel. ‘They were a bit dim, really. It wasn’t hard to track them down.’

‘And where’s Mel now?’ said Cat.

‘In her room, sulking,’ said Noel.

‘Oh joy,’ sighed Cat. ‘I’ll be home soon.’

She got in the car and put her foot down, and soon found herself escaping the gloom of Birmingham’s high rises for the snow-capped hills of her adopted county.

‘Blue remembered hills indeed,’ she murmured, as she drove down the main road towards Hope Christmas, seeing the hills she and Noel loved to walk on looming in the distance. It was a grey winter’s day, and shafts of light streamed out underneath the louring clouds, as she sped her way home.

Snow had started to fall as she finally drove into the large gravel driveway in front of their oak-beamed house. Their home in Hope Christmas was so different from their London abode – a converted farmhouse with a fabulous kitchen, its gleaming modern steel apparatus still managing to retain a traditional feel when married to grey flagstones and marble-topped work surfaces; creaking stairs, wooden beams, and a huge wood burning stove in the middle giving it a cosy aspect, particularly on a gloomy January day, like today.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Cat as she walked through the door, into their lounge, where the fire was already lit and the sweet smell of wood smoke filled the room, ‘I just couldn’t get away.’

‘No worries,’ said Noel, looking vaguely up from his laptop. He pushed his glasses up his nose in an absentminded gesture and smiled in a way that still made her go weak at the knees. ‘At least I found her.’

‘Did she say why she did it?’

‘Nope,’ said Noel with a sigh, rifling his fingers through his greying hair. ‘I read the riot act, and all that did was produce floods of tears. I couldn’t get her to say a word about what she’s been up to. So I’ve just left her to stew on it. Now might be a good time for some softly softly.’

Okay, time to gird her loins. Cat made her way to the top of the house, and to Mel’s low-beamed bedroom where she spent a huge amount of time in splendid teenage isolation. She disappeared up there for hours, plugged into either her iPod, her phone, or her laptop. (Cat was vaguely aware Mel had an anonymous blog, but she had no idea what it was called and despite her massive curiosity about it, at Noel’s suggestion had kept away – ‘Give her some space,’ Noel was always saying, ‘if you read her blog, it will be the equivalent of your mum reading your diary.’ Except she’d never written anything worth hiding from her mum in her diary. At fifteen, Louise had known all Cat’s secrets.) Mel was only secretive as far as Cat was concerned, hiding anything dodgy on Facebook, and chatting to God knows who on BBM, and for all Cat knew making a bunch of unsuitable friends.