said Paige calmly, trying to hide the evidence of her crime.
‘Don’t say bloody,’ said Noel automatically.
‘That’s what Mummy calls it,’ said Paige.
‘And don’t steal chocolate from the tree,’ added Noel.
‘I’m not,’ said Paige, ‘Magda said I could.’
‘Did she now?’ Catherine came down the stairs looking frazzled. ‘Come on, it’s your bedtime.’
She kissed Noel absent-mindedly on the cheek before going into the playroom to calm down not only the howling Ruby, but also a semi-hysterical Magda, who was wailing that these children were like ‘devils from hell’.
Noel stomped downstairs to the kitchen, got himself a beer, and sat disconsolately in front of the TV. Sometimes he felt like a ghost in his own home.
‘Angels! I need angels!’ Diana Carew, formidable representative of the Parish Council, flapped about like a giant beached whale. It was hard to see how someone so large could actually squeeze through the tiny door of the room allocated for the children to sit in while they awaited their turn to go on stage, but somehow she managed it.
Marianne suppressed the thought as being bitchy, but it was hard to take her eyes from Diana’s enormous bosoms. Marianne had never seen anything so large. And it gave her something to smile about while she sat freezing her arse off in this godforsaken tiny village hall watching the Hope Christmas Nativity taking shape, knowing damned well that any input from her was not actually required. In the weeks leading up to the nativity, Marianne had become grimly aware that she was only on the team because every other sane member of the village, including her colleagues at the village school, had already opted out.
Everyone, that was, apart from the very lovely and immensely supportive Philippa (or Pippa to her friends). Marianne had only got to know Pippa in recent weeks, since she’d been co-opted into helping on the Nativity, but she was fast becoming Marianne’s closest friend in Hope Christmas and one of the many reasons she was loving living here. Pippa was bearing down on her now with a welcome cup of tea and a barely suppressed grin. Together they watched Diana practically shove three reluctant angels on the stage, where they joined a donkey, two shepherds, some lambs, Father Christmas and some elves, who were busy singing ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ as they placed gifts at Mary and Joseph’s feet.
‘I have to confess,’ Marianne murmured, ‘this is a rather, erm, unusual retelling of the Nativity. I can’t recall elves from the Bible.’
Pippa snorted into her tea.
‘I’m afraid the elves are here to stay,’ said Pippa. ‘Diana does a slightly altered version every year, but the elves always feature. It dates back to when she ran the preschool in the village. And it’s kind of stuck. Everyone’s too frightened of her to tell her to do it differently.’
‘Are there actually any carols involved in this?’ Marianne asked. So far, on the previous rehearsals she’d been roped into, the only thing remotely carol-like had been ‘Little Donkey’.
‘Probably not. At least this year she’s dropped “Frosty the Snowman”,’ said Pippa. ‘Mind you, it took the Parish Council about three years to persuade her that really, it didn’t actually snow in Bethlehem on Christmas Day. She loved that snow machine.’
Marianne hooted with laughter, then quietened down when Diana hushed her, before continuing to marshal the children into order and berate them when they’d got it wrong. She was quite formidable. And her version of the Nativity was sweet in its way. It was just…so long. And had so little to do with the actual Nativity. Marianne liked her festive season—well, festive. There was a purity about the Christmas story that seemed to be lacking in everyday life. It was a shame Diana couldn’t be persuaded to capture some of that.
The natives were getting incredibly restive and parents were beginning to arrive to pick their offspring up. Diana looked as if she might go on all night, till Pippa gently persuaded her that they still had the dress rehearsal to have another run-through of everything.
Marianne quickly helped sort the children out of costumes and into coats and scarves. The wind had turned chill and there was the promise of snow in the air. Perhaps she might get a white Christmas. Her first in Hope Christmas, with which she was falling rapidly in love. Her first as an engaged woman. This time next year she would be married…
Nearly all the children had been picked up, but there was one small boy sitting looking lonely in a corner. Stephen, she thought his name was, and she had a feeling he was related to Pippa somehow. Marianne hadn’t been in the village long enough to work out all the various interconnections between the different families, many of whom had been here for generations. Marianne didn’t teach him, but the village school was small enough that she’d got to know most of the children by sight at least.
‘Is your mummy coming for you?’ she asked.
The little boy looked up and gave her a look that pierced her heart.
‘My mummy never comes,’ he said. ‘But my daddy does. He should be here.’
Poor little mite, thought Marianne. Presumably his parents had split up. He couldn’t have been more than six or seven. Perhaps she should go and let Pippa know he was still here.
Just then she heard a voice outside the door. A tall man entered, wearing a long trenchcoat over jeans and a white cable-knit jumper. A thick stripy scarf was wound round his neck. This must be Stephen’s dad.
‘Daddy!’ Stephen leapt into his dad’s arms.
‘Woah,’ said the man. He turned to Marianne and looked at her with deep brown eyes. Soulful eyes. She shivered suddenly. There was such pain in those eyes. She felt she’d had a sudden glimpse of his soul. She looked away, feeling slightly uncomfortable.
‘Sorry I’m so late,’ he said. ‘Something came up.’
There was something about the way he said it that made Marianne feel desperately sorry for him. He looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
‘Is everything all right?’ Marianne nodded at Stephen who was clinging to his dad’s side for dear life.
Stephen’s dad stared at her, with that same piercingly sad look his son had.
‘Not really,’he said.‘But it’s nothing I can’t handle.Come on, Steve, I’ll race you to your cousins’. I think it’s going to snow tonight.’
‘Can we build a snowman?’
‘Of course,’ said his dad. He turned back to Marianne. ‘Thanks again for looking after him.’
‘No problem,’ said Marianne, and watched them go. She wondered what was troubling them so deeply, then dismissed it from her mind. Whatever their problem was, it was no business of hers.
Marianne stood in the kitchen fiddling with her drink, looking around at the shiny happy people spilling into Pippa’s cosy farmhouse, an old
