in all it had been a good Christmas, Cat thought as she carried the Santa sack up the creaking stairs of their old country cottage, to put back up in the loft later. Even Mel’s moodiness had done little to put a spanner in the works. It was weird how a previously model daughter had morphed into the teenager from hell over the last year. From having once enjoyed a close relationship with her daughter, Cat felt constantly baffled by Mel now. Noel was always telling her she needed to relax and not force the issue so much, but she couldn’t help wanting to find out what was going on in her daughter’s head – while realising that the more she pushed, the further Mel retreated from her.
It was just that now, with her mum’s dementia having taken her away from them forever, Cat wanted that closeness with Mel even more. One of the most heart-wrenching sights this Christmas had been seeing Louise looking so bewildered as she sat down to join them for Christmas dinner. It still gave Cat such a pang to see her mother like this; to see her refer to Mel as ‘Catherine’, and watch her wander in to help with the turkey, stirred by some memory of Christmases long ago, then stand around with an air of uncertainty saying, ‘This isn’t my kitchen.’ None of this behaviour was unusual, but somehow it was always worse seeing her mother away from the home, where for the most part there could be at least a pretence that things were quite well. Cat knew she should be used to it by now. But she was not, and probably never would be.
The trouble was, every time she saw her mother, she remembered what they’d had, what they’d lost. It had just been her and Louise throughout Cat’s childhood, a two-woman united team, and Cat had always assumed she would share that same easy closeness forever – and when she had children of her own, replicate it with her own daughters. Mel was proving her wrong about that on a daily basis. Cat tried to think of any major moments of rebellion in her childhood, but there hadn’t been any. There had been no need. She loved her mum, knew how hard Louise had to work, and had no intention of making her life harder than it already was. Whereas Mel … Cat sighed. Where had she gone wrong with Mel? Maybe it was, as Noel seemed to think, that her daughter was jealous of the attention James had garnered as her cooking companion.
The TV company who’d produced her original series, Cat’s Kitchen Secrets four years ago, had pounced on James when they spotted how often he was in the background helping her out. With his cute (then) ten-year-old goofy grin, cheeky manner and angelic good looks, they’d realised he was ideal TV fodder. Mel, a gawky twelve-year-old, was far too self-conscious to appear on the TV, even though she’d been given the option to.
None of them could have predicted what a success James would have been. Now fourteen, he was relaxed in front of the camera, and having been a natural cook from an early age, had always showed far more interest in helping her in the kitchen than his sisters. The girls enjoyed baking but couldn’t be bothered to cook a meal, whereas James was developing his own creative ability to cook up tasty food. Although to be fair, his menus did include a lot of pizza and nachos. Consequently, a TV series of his own aimed at kids was in the offing, and he was already (with Cat’s help) writing his second book, James’ Top Tips for Hungry Teens.
Cat had tried really hard to ensure that the attention hadn’t gone to his head. Luckily James was a down to earth sort, just as happy kicking a football about with her friend Pippa’s sons, Nathan and George, as lording it in front of the TV cameras. And as for writing cookery books, that was clearly far too much effort, so Cat was writing most of it for him. Cat tried to make up for the attention James was getting by focusing as much on the other things the girls did, like Paige’s singing or Ruby’s dancing, and so far they seemed unaffected. Paige was so sure she was going to be on X Factor, and aiming at being twelve going on thirty that she couldn’t care less, while Ruby was still too young to notice.
Mel, on the other hand was another matter. One by one, she’d dropped the activities she used to enjoy, no longer playing tennis, attending Scouts, or to Cat’s great disappointment, playing the piano. Instead she spent far too much time mooching about in nearby Hope Sadler where she worked in a café at the weekends. On top of that, having initially mixed with a crowd of pleasant, hard-working girls when they’d first arrived in Hope Christmas, Mel seemed to have dropped them all to hang out with the rebels of the year. From what little Cat had gleaned, they seemed to mainly spend their time in the local parks, smoking and drinking. Mel always denied joining in, but Cat had long since given up completely trusting her daughter. Something she’d never before imagined could happen.
Cat sighed again and climbed up into the loft with the decorations. Time to get back to reality.
Marianne North drove into the large sweeping farmyard of the home she shared with Gabe, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Their ancient farmhouse had never looked more welcoming. Gabe had been home for a week already. It was difficult for him to take any time away from the farm, so he’d come back early, while Marianne had ended up stuck at her mum’s for pretty much the whole fortnight of Christmas, the longest time she’d spent there since university days. But Mum – feeling cheated that her precious grandchildren had missed their first Christmas at Nana’s (Marianne’s protestations that three-month-old twin babies were pretty nightmarish to take anywhere had fallen on deaf ears and despite an invitation to Hope Christmas, Mum had resolutely refused) – had been so martyred about how the twins’ other granny saw so much more of them that Marianne had had to capitulate and trek down to London this year. Gabe’s mother Jean, whom Marianne knew would miss the twins dreadfully, was fortunately immensely generous and said, ‘I’ll survive without you all. I do get to see the twins a lot more than your mother,’ which was true, especially as she looked after them twice a week while Marianne was working. ‘I had a demanding mother-in-law and always promised I wouldn’t be the same. David and I will have a nice quiet time together alone.’
Marianne had hugged her with gratitude, and they’d had a pre-Christmas lunch with Pippa and Dan and their family the week before the big day. Marianne had then set off two days before Christmas, and Gabe and Steven had joined them on Christmas Day. Poor Steven had been nearly as bored as she and Gabe were. There was precious little for an eleven-year-old boy to do in the drab London suburb where Marianne had grown up, particularly when he knew no one there. Then Gabriel had taken Steven over to his mum, Eve, for a few days. Eve, though in the past an unreliable mother, seemed in recent years to have sorted herself out, even managing to hold down both a good job and a rich boyfriend, Darren. Gabriel was much more relaxed about Steven visiting her now, and this time around Steven had leapt at the chance to go, Marianne noticed, a little sadly. She worried that since the arrival of the twins, Steven had felt left out, and it must be really hard to take on an extra set of grandparents, who, let’s face it, weren’t really interested in him. Though Marianne noticed, gratefully, that Dad had made huge efforts as far as Steven was concerned, but Mum just couldn’t help herself from cooing over the twins. You couldn’t blame her in a way, she’d waited a long time for grandchildren and then to get two for the price of one … Marianne loved her mother dearly, but it was the sort of relationship that benefited from distance – two hundred miles was just about right.
‘Hi Gabe, we’re home.’ Marianne unloaded the car, while the children slept in the back. So much crap for two little people who hadn’t reached the age of two yet; nappies, buggies, car seats, toddler seats for sitting at dinner, two travel cots … And that was without the presents Mum had insisted on buying – a pram set for Daisy and a toy car for Harry – nothing like clinging to stereotypes – as well as countless soft toys, rattles, shiny things with plastic knobs and buzzers on. Marianne felt sure her parents must be nearly bankrupted by the arrival of their twin grandchildren, but nothing she said would stop her mother from buying stuff for them. (‘You can’t spoil babies,’ she’d trilled when Marianne faintly tried to suggest that maybe it was all a bit much.)
‘And it’s fab to see you.’
Gabe. Her heart still did that funny little skipping thing when she saw him standing in the farmhouse doorway in a thick knit sweater and jeans, his dark brown hair slightly mussed up where he’d been
