The Christmas Angel (18 page)

‘And if Janna would stay we would be very grateful to have her,’ adds Mother Magda.

‘We’d certainly need her,’ says Sister Emily bluntly. ‘We’d need someone who knows our ways and whom we trust and feel safe with.’

‘And Jakey?’ asks Sister Ruth sarcastically. ‘I suppose we need him too?’

‘He balances us,’ answers Sister Emily. ‘We who are so old and Jakey who is only four. It is refreshing to see things through his eyes and to hear his thoughts and ideas. Yes, I think that Jakey could be contained within it all, don’t you?’

‘If Clem stays, then Jakey stays, and we certainly need Clem,’ Father Pascal says strongly. ‘They could stay in the Lodge, of course. Nothing need change there.’ He looks around at them. ‘We have much to think about and to pray
about
, I know that, but it gives us a fresh hope and the prospect of a new beginning. I am reminded of that verse from Isaiah: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you … Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”’

‘As long as we can manage it all. If only we were younger …’ Mother Magda still looks anxious; Sister Emily is radiant and Sister Ruth judicious. Sister Nichola gets up from her chair and shuffles across the room to stand beside Father Pascal. She bends towards him.

‘“Have you not known?’” she quotes softly. ‘“Have you not heard? Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength: they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk, and not faint.”’

They sit for a moment in silence and then Father Pascal smiles up at her. ‘You do right to quote Isaiah, too,’ he says. ‘A prophet of vision and of great faith. Shall we have a prayer to close?’

‘I like butterfly cakes,’ Jakey says contentedly. He sits on the grass outside the caravan door. Stripey Bunny is propped against the leg of the canvas chair and the Peter Rabbit mug stands beside him on the picnic rug. ‘Shall I have another one?’

‘Why not, my lover? You should eat Stripey Bunny’s. I don’t think he likes them much.’ Janna is stretched out on the grass beside the rug. ‘Is Daddy coming back for a cuppa?’

‘He said he would.’ Jakey peels away the paper carefully and licks some crumbs from it. ‘He’s happy again now.’

‘Is he?’ Janna shades her eyes with her hands and looks across at Jakey. ‘That’s good, then.’

Jakey nods, eating his cake. ‘Auntie Gabriel came in the night and then Daddy was happy again.’

‘Auntie Gabriel?’ Janna half sits up, propping herself on her elbow. ‘Isn’t she the angel you had at Christmas standing on the bookcase?’

Jakey licks his fingers and wipes them on the grass. ‘She comes and watches us in the night. She looks after us.’

‘Watches you?’

‘She stands outside but I can see her when I look out of my bedloom window.’

‘And then what happens?’

‘I wave to her.’

‘And does she wave back?’

Jakey shakes his head. ‘She has her hands together like
this
.’ He clasps his hands. ‘She’s holding her heart so she can’t wave back.’

Janna sips her tea thoughtfully. She remembers the large, delightful angel with her string hair and fragile crown; and now, too, she remembers the red satin heart that Auntie Gabriel holds between her hands. Janna guesses that it must have been a particularly vivid dream.

‘As long as you weren’t frightened,’ she says.

‘No. I love her,’ he says. ‘She’s not flightening. She watches over us. Look! Here’s Daddy.’

Clem comes striding towards them through the orchard, the pretty grey and gold banties scattering before him; he looks strong and confident and purposeful. Janna watches his approach with a mixture of surprise and wariness: it is clear that he’s heard some news. Instinct warns her that great change is imminent for all of them and her heart beats faster in trepidation.

‘We saved a cake for you,’ Jakey is crying to him, delighted to see him. ‘You can sit there, in the chair.’

Clem folds himself into the small chair and smiles at them both. Janna stands up, still wary, examining the excitement that shines in his eyes.

‘You look like you’ve won the lottery,’ she says lightly. ‘Want a cuppa?’

‘Oh, yes, please. Just ordinary stuff, if you’ve got some.’ He accepts the cake that Jakey presses upon him and looks again at Janna, who hesitates at the bottom of the caravan step. ‘I’ve just seen Father Pascal.’ He speaks quietly. ‘Good news. It seems we might not have to go, after all. Can you come down and have some supper after I’ve put Jakey to bed?’ She nods and he smiles at her reassuringly. ‘It sounds really good,’ he promises, and then Jakey flings himself upon him, wanting attention, and Janna climbs up into the caravan to make the tea.

AFTER TWO WEEKS
of cold winds and heavy rain, which beat down the remaining frail blossoms from the azaleas, the last week in June is sunny and hot. In The Court’s gardens, baby woodpeckers sporting their bright red caps cling nervously to the nut-feeders, trying their new skills, still hoping to be fed by their watchful parent. From a corner, beneath the stone wall, a bronze slowworm slithers silently into the dank warm safety of the compost heap.

Mo, weeding the long border, sits back on her heels. She feels tired and anxious. Earlier, Adam, Natasha and the girls left to go back home after a weekend of tension, and she and Pa are suffering from the strain of it. The girls were uncommunicative, as usual, whilst Natasha seems to condone their behaviour, shrugging, smiling apologetically, but doing nothing to suggest that they might answer questions or be polite.

‘I suppose,’ Pa said, ‘that we are utterly irrelevant to them. They have a father, even if he is estranged, and aunts and
uncles
and grandparents, and we are just a tiresome pair of old biddies that they don’t need to bother about.’

‘But even so,’ Mo answered, ‘that doesn’t excuse rudeness. It doesn’t matter who we are, surely common politeness is still necessary, especially whilst they are our guests.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Clearly not.’

And now he is determined to speak to Dossie; to tell her that they want to leave The Court to her and to ask if she knows of any reason why this wouldn’t be a good plan.

Mo climbs rather painfully to her feet and puts a handful of weeds into the wheelbarrow. Her heart pounds unevenly and she steadies herself by grasping its handle.

‘So,’ Adam said casually when they were alone together. ‘Anything decided yet? Any plans for the future? I thought that Pa was looking a tad stretched. He’s OK, is he? No more keeling over sideways?’

‘No,’ she answered, shrinking distastefully from his callous words. ‘No, none of that. He’s very fit at present. And so am I.’

Adam glanced around the garden and up at the house. ‘Just as well,’ he said lightly. ‘I can’t think how you manage it all.’

‘No, I don’t suppose you can.’ She turned away from him, not liking him, and horrified at herself for such a feeling.

He followed her, catching at her arm. ‘It’s no good being upset, Mo,’ he said, almost angrily. ‘It’s got to be sorted out. I’m wondering if I – and Dossie – ought to have power of attorney, just in case. It’s all very well being proud, but things can happen suddenly at your ages.’

‘Or even at your ages,’ she responded sharply. ‘You might have a heart attack, mightn’t you? What then? What are
your
plans? Does everything go to Natasha? After all, you’ve known her for little more than a year and you’re not married. Do you intend to get married?’

He flushed: that odd, familiar yet almost shocking reaction, which suffused his fair skin with such vivid colour that his eyes looked frostily cold and rather frightening. She stared at him, fascinated.

‘It’s none of your business,’ he said shortly, turning away from her, so that it was she, this time, who followed and grasped his arm.

‘Why not? Why are you allowed to question us but we are not allowed to know your plans?’

He shook himself free and went quickly into the house, and she had to wait for several minutes to control her uneven breathing and the odd pain in her side. She thought, wryly, that it was quite the wrong moment to – how had he put it? – keel over. Suddenly she was determined to go with Pa to their lawyer and get it sorted out: The Court must go to Dossie.

Now, standing quietly, breathing deeply, she prays that Dossie still wants it; wonders if this new man might yet set all their plans awry. As she lets go of the wheelbarrow, she hears Pa calling her and the dogs appear, as if to collect her. She turns towards the house and he waves to her and she raises her arm in response.

‘All right, Mo?’ he asks as she approaches, and they sit down on the wrought-iron seat together.

‘No,’ she says crossly, when she’s got her breath back. ‘I am
not
all right. I feel angry and frustrated and, oh, lots of other things.’ She looks at him as he turns towards her and lays his arm along the back of the seat. ‘Where did we get it wrong, Pa? We loved him so much, didn’t we? The longed-for son.
We
were so proud. All those miscarriages. Do you remember in Jo’burg? God, it was so hot and you getting called away on some emergency and me losing the baby. It was like a miracle, having Adam. Yet it’s as if he’s a changeling.’

‘Yes, that’s exactly it.’ Pa nods. ‘Somehow I’ve never really
recognized
him. Dossie’s a mixture of you and my mother, and a bit of me mixed in too, which helps us to understand her, doesn’t it? And old Clem …’

‘I worried about Clem for a bit when he was at that adolescent stage. He became a bit distant. Dossie calls it “austere” and I feared that he might turn out like Adam. But he didn’t. He
is
austere but he’s also got a tremendous capacity for compassion. And a great sense of humour. Adam just doesn’t have that, does he?’

Pa shakes his head sadly. ‘I can’t reach him. I disappointed him when I stopped being someone he could brag about.’

‘We got it wrong for him when we came home and settled here. I thought he’d be pleased, which was stupid of me. I suppose it’s more fun for a teenage boy to be travelling across the world for his holidays than having his parents close enough to be able to turn up for athletics days and rugby matches. And he’d got used to us being so far away. He’d had to learn to manage without us and then he found he could. We can’t blame him for that.’

‘But it was exactly the same for Dossie,’ Pa argues. ‘She was older, of course, but she’d been away to school, too. Dossie loved us all being together.’

‘I’ve often wondered if Adam takes after my father,’ Mo says. ‘After all, I was only five when he was killed at Dunkirk, and he was a professional soldier so I hardly remember him at all. His photographs are all so formal. And black and white, of course, so it’s a bit difficult to see much of a resemblance,
though
his very fair colouring is right for Adam. My mother rarely spoke about him except in a kind of respectful way but never with great passion or huge regret.’

‘Well, it wasn’t a generation that let it all hang out, was it? Grief was a private thing. Stiff upper lip.’

‘Even so.’ Mo sighs. ‘I cannot connect with him. Adam, I mean. And it just breaks my heart. I can’t connect with Natasha, either, or those girls. Whatever shall we do?’

‘Whatever we do, I don’t intend to leave Dossie without a home. If she wants to stay here, then that’s what I want for her. I know they could sell and split the money and she’d have enough to buy a little place of her own but Dossie loves The Court. It’s her home.’

‘But could she afford to live here on her own?’ asks Mo anxiously. ‘We’re all chipping in, aren’t we, at the moment? But without our pensions, especially yours from RTZ, could she manage?’

‘She could do what we did,’ he says.

Mo looks at him, puzzled. ‘What we did? Oh! B and B-ers?’ She is silent for a few moments. Then, ‘Actually,’ she says slowly, ‘that’s not a bad idea. And she’d be so good at it. But would she even consider it?’

He shrugs. ‘She might get tired of all this driving to and fro. Making food, catering for dinner parties, dashing round the county.’ He grins at Mo. ‘Wouldn’t it be great?’

She smiles at his enthusiastic optimism. ‘It would be just wonderful.’

‘So when are we going to ask her about this man?’

Panic seizes Mo’s heart again. ‘Oh, good grief,’ she groans. ‘However can I ask her? How would I start?’

They sit together, considering ways and means, whilst the dogs doze at their feet in the sunshine.

* * *

In the car, travelling back to Bristol, the girls sit in silence. They know that they have behaved badly but they also know that, though Natasha’s loyalty is to them and not to Adam’s parents and that she refuses to hear a word against her children, she is secretly embarrassed by their behaviour.

Natasha
is
humiliated but refuses to acknowledge it: she implies that the old dears must put up with it. Adam is cross and as she drives she is wondering how she can keep these tiresome visits to a minimum without Adam losing his inheritance. It’s not really fair to the girls to introduce another set of elderly people into their lives, especially when Adam is not even particularly close to his parents. And she simply cannot bring herself to call them Mo and Pa: she said so to Adam right from the start. It’s ridiculous to use such silly names; she’d feel a fool.

‘It’s not important,’ Adam said. ‘Get over it. Everyone calls them Mo and Pa.’

Nevertheless she insists on calling them Mollie and Patrick. The girls, taking her lead, refuse to call them anything at all – which they know she finds a bit difficult, and annoys Adam – and she says defensively that she can see their points of view.

‘It’s not as if they’re grandparents,’ she said to Adam. ‘The girls have got two sets of those already. They don’t need any more.’

The girls agreed: they certainly don’t. But they could see he was annoyed.

‘So what will they call them?’ he asked. ‘They can’t call them Mollie and Patrick.’

She didn’t answer. Sometimes she finds this is the best way: silence is a very useful weapon.