The next fortnight was extremely hectic for Perdita. Both the health farm and Grantly Manor were particularly busy, and other restaurants that were not regular customers wanted things at Christmas. Aware she was likely to get a furious phone call from Lucas when he found it, she decided to bury the cheque she had so far failed to give him, in her delivery box among some handsome, but not very appetising cardoons.
Then she rang Janey to find out when would be a good time to deliver, in other words, when Lucas wouldn’t be there. Having been assured that he never appeared before ten o’clock, she got up even earlier than usual and ignored her chores, so she could arrive seconds after the kitchen opened. When Lucas leapt out from behind a door at ten past nine, she couldn’t help screaming.
‘Ah! What did you do that for? You gave me such a fright! Honestly!’ Perdita hoped her indignation and surprise would conceal her anxiety about the hidden cheque. He hadn’t ordered cardoons, either.
‘The early bird catches the worm.’ Before Perdita could heartily agree that he was a worm, he went on, poking a derisive finger through the box she was carrying. ‘What have you fobbed off on me this time? Not what I ordered, that’s for sure. Oh my God! Cardoons!’
Knowing the cheque was right at the bottom of the bunch of spiky, acanthus-shaped leaves, she managed to look him straight in the eye. ‘It’s a difficult time of year.
I’ve got a lot of orders to fill. And not everyone can handle a cardoon.’
‘If you think you can flatter me into accepting your rubbish, you’re in for a shock.’
‘Oh?’ asked Perdita sweetly. ‘
Can’t
you handle them, then?’
He leant against the cold store door and narrowed his eyes. ‘Bitch.’
Perdita took this both as a compliment and as an acceptance of the culinary challenge, thrust the box into his arms and went to fetch the next lot. She was on her way out after the final delivery when Lucas stopped her.
‘Don’t run away. You usually have time to waste my staff’s time, you can stay for a minute. Can you get us both a coffee, Janey?’
‘Say please,’ muttered Perdita, on Janey’s behalf, confident that his cheque was still safely hidden.
‘So, what are you doing for Christmas?’ Lucas asked, having carried the two mugs into his office.
Reluctantly, Perdita had followed the coffee. ‘Oh, I’m going to an old school friend’s. In Shropshire.’ It was nice to be able to tell him this. It made her sound like a proper person, not a sad divorcee without a social life.
‘And I expect you’ll be seeing your boyfriend while you’re there?’
Perdita had momentarily forgotten about her fictional boyfriend. ‘Oh, yes.’
‘What does he do? I can’t remember if you said.’
Perdita couldn’t either. ‘He’s a vet,’ she said, remembering the catalogue which Kitty was still mulling over.
‘Oh. Well, don’t forget my invitation. Perhaps you’d like to bring him for New Year’s Eve? We’re doing a dinner dance. It should be rather special.’
‘Sounds fun. I’ll have to ask him, of course.’
‘Is he working over Christmas?’
‘Oh, er – yes.’ She searched her brain for inspiration.
She’d never had a pet, and knew nothing about vets except what she’d read in James Herriot. She smiled. ‘Lambing starts at Christmas. He’s likely to be very busy. Which is why I’m going up there. I can see him between lambs.’
Lucas sipped his coffee, which he took very strong and very black. ‘Has he got partners, this vet of yours?’
‘Well – of course.’ James Herriot had had partners.
‘Then I expect he’ll be able to get time off over New Year, if he’s working all Christmas.’
‘Well, it’s possible, I suppose. But I’d have to ask him.’
‘Of course. You mustn’t take him for granted. Eligible men are terribly scarce, so everyone tells me.’
Perdita’s coffee was also pretty strong. She took a gulp and said, as blandly as she could, ‘They are. You should take advantage of the scarcity, Lucas. There’s probably even someone out there desperate enough to take you on.’
He smouldered at her, and Perdita found it quite hard not to respond to the smile which lurked beneath his snarl. He hadn’t lost his sense of humour, after all.
She took a few sips of coffee and then broke the silence. ‘So, what did you want to see me about? Not just to check out my holiday arrangements, surely?’
‘No. It’s about this cooker. I really need to replace yours. I can probably even get a cooker firm to give me one, as an advertising stunt: “As used by Lucas Gillespie in the award-winning programme …”’
Perdita shook her head. ‘If they did that they’d want you to use their biggest, most fancy model, not something small enough to fit into my kitchen. No, Lucas. You have to manage with the cooker I’ve got, or do the programme somewhere else.’
She stalked out of his office, hearing his low growl and feeling his furious gaze on her back. She tried hard not to appear to hurry.
It was with relief that she set off for the health farm. Ronnie might nag her a lot, but he didn’t bite.
‘How are you, love?’ asked Ronnie, when she staggered into the kitchen at Abbotsford Health Resort. ‘Haven’t seen you to talk to for ages. Time for a coffee?’
‘I’ve just had one, actually, but I’ll have another. So what’s new?’
‘More to the point,’ said Ronnie, pouring water into mugs, ‘what’s new with you? What’s all this about a television programme with Count Dracula from Grantly Manor?’
‘You wouldn’t have a biscuit, would you? I’m starving.’
‘I’ve got KitKats, but don’t let anyone know, and you can only have one if you tell me everything.’
‘I will, but there isn’t much to tell, honestly. The television company who’s filming Lucas – Count Dracula
… that really is a very good name for him – decided, for some inexplicable reason …’
‘Careful where you’re spraying those crumbs.’
‘ … that they want to do the series in my kitchen. In my cottage, with me.’
Ronnie’s shriek was gratifyingly loud. ‘But it’s titchy! Not to mention a pot mess.’ Ronnie had glimpsed Perdita’s kitchen when he had his customer tour.
‘Exactly. I expect they’ll see sense before anything actually happens. But Lucas is in a froth because my cooker’s not up to much. He wants to buy me a new one.’
‘Well, let him! After all, he’ll be getting well paid for the telly.’
‘I can’t – for all sorts of reasons.’ Perdita realised how nearly she had let slip that she and Lucas had once been married. ‘I mean, one wouldn’t want to be beholden to a man like that.’
‘I’ll take your word for it. But promise me one thing: if
you are going to be on telly, let the girls sort you out first.’
‘But, Ronnie! I’m a woman of the soil!’
‘There’s no need to look like one! You could be a real beauty if you weren’t so …’
‘Grubby?’
‘No! Well, I’d have said unkempt, badly groomed.’
‘I’m not a horse!’
‘So why do you wear a ponytail then?’
‘Leave me alone, I’m all right as I am.’ She gulped down a last mouthful of coffee. ‘Now I must go, I’ve got an appointment with Derek at the garage, and you know what a ray of sunshine he is.’
Perdita kicked at a piece of rubber tube on the ground, pondering bleakly on how often people said ‘sorry’ when they actually meant ‘thrilled to bits’.
Derek, her grudging but long-standing garage man, had declared her van unfit to go to Shropshire without a major overhaul, which, of course, he couldn’t possibly do before Christmas. Derek hated her van and had been nagging her to get a new one for at least a year.
‘I just wouldn’t want you breaking down over Christmas,’ he said, his smile not concealing his
Schadenfreude.
‘You could be stranded in Shropshire for weeks, and then where would you be?’
‘In Shropshire, presumably,’ said Perdita, ‘but I take your point.’
‘You need a new van, love, that’s the top and bottom of it. It’s not worth spending money on, see?’ He kicked its rotting under-parts and Perdita saw. ‘I’ll keep my eyes open for one just a couple of years old for you, after the New Year.’
Perdita faked gratitude as best she could and took her unreliable, unrepairable, but strangely dear, vehicle back home, depressed. She would have to tell Lucy that she couldn’t come for Christmas, and face up to the fact that
she would have to find the money for a better van. How could anyone work as hard as she did and still not be rich? It wasn’t right.
Lucy, who still hadn’t moved, took the news unexpectedly badly. ‘But, Perdita! You
must
come! I was depending on you!’ Then she burst into tears.
Perdita, realising that there was a lot more behind this than one less pair of hands to do the sprouts, listened to her friend sob for a little while, opening a pile of Christmas cards.
‘I really hate to let you down.’ Eventually the sobs had stopped long enough for Perdita to speak. ‘But honestly, if the van’s not going to make it, I really don’t think I can come.’
Lucy sniffed loudly. ‘No, of course not. Sorry to be so silly. Moving is such hell –
Christmas
is such hell – and to have them both together is too awful for words – I keep crying. My mother’s coming …’
‘That’ll be a help then—’ began Perdita.
‘ … but I don’t want her to have to do a thing. She always had Christmas at her house, but Daddy died last year, and I want to do all the things she always did, for her.’
‘But, Lucy, you’re moving house! She won’t expect you to do the Full Turkey! When do you move, by the way?’
‘Oh, the day after tomorrow, and I’m still not properly packed. But I so want this Christmas to be special. For Mummy, as well as the children.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Perdita wondered if the phone cord would let her reach her box of cards so she could write a few. It didn’t.
‘I’ve just had a brilliant idea!’ Lucy sounded distinctly happier. ‘Geoff can collect you! He’s Jake’s brother, the one whose marriage has just broken up. He lives in Cornwall. That’s not far from you, is it?’
‘Only about a couple of hundred miles away …’
‘But it’s on the way, isn’t it?’
‘I’m really not sure. My geography’s a bit hazy …’
‘I’ll ring and ask him if he can pick you up. I’m sure he’ll be delighted.’
‘But if his marriage has just broken up, he’s not going to want to pick up some female he’s never met and drive her hundreds of miles.’ The thought of being that female, trying to make conversation, was filling Perdita with horror.
‘Yes he will. I’ll tell him how vital you are to my plans, and he’ll be perfectly OK about it.’
Perdita’s small enthusiasm for the plan evaporated entirely. ‘But
why
am I so vital, Luce?’
‘Oh well, cooking, and getting the house straight, and stuff like that—’ Lucy’s voice broke, and Perdita, certain that Lucy didn’t have time to keep bursting into tears, interrupted.
‘Well, of course I’d love to help with anything you want me to do, but …’ she tailed off. Perhaps it would be unkind to tell Lucy that she couldn’t cook anything more complicated than spaghetti and wasn’t known for her tidiness. ‘I could look after the children.’
Lucy sniffed. ‘Oh no, the children are being frightfully clingy. They’re being torn from their home, their familiar surroundings. But you could look after Mummy,’ she added more brightly.
When Perdita rang off, some emotionally charged minutes later, she decided to go and tell Kitty that she wouldn’t need to pay for the van’s overhaul. As she walked through her own land, to climb over the fence into Kitty’s garden, she wondered why Lucy’s mother needed looking after.
‘Well,’ said Kitty, having handed Perdita tea in a huge breakfast cup, with a couple of ginger nuts in the saucer, ‘I was a bit anxious about you motoring all that way on
your own.’ Never having learnt to drive herself, Kitty felt subconsciously that it was dangerous, and that women shouldn’t do it.
‘It would have been perfectly all right if the van had been reliable,’ said Perdita, who understood Kitty’s subtext.
‘Never mind. I’m glad you’re being driven. By a man.’ Kitty had the sense not to add the word ‘nice’. ‘So what are you going to take? I could let you have some mincemeat, if you like.’
Perdita shook her head. ‘Lucy might expect me to make mince pies. I can’t even manage frozen pastry.’
‘Buy a box of chocolate biscuits then; they’re always useful. And I’ll give you a bottle of Lionel’s port. I’ll never get through it, if I live to be a hundred and fifty,’ she went on, as Perdita protested. ‘And you might as well take some Burgundy, too. So, what am I going to get you for Christmas? A table lamp isn’t enough.’