Page 3 of The Christmas Invitation
As the miles vanished behind us, I shook off the last of the sadness I felt at leaving the Farm and began to look forward to being back in my own quiet space again … even quieter now Fliss had moved out. I would miss her so much and I also had the added worry about paying the rent on the flat on my own.
River broke into my reverie by saying, for possibly the third time, ‘You should have stayed till after the Winter Solstice, Meg, if not the Yule Feast. Some of the family are coming home for it and they’d love to see you.’
By ‘family’, he meant anyone who had ever stayed at the commune over the last forty-odd years since he set it up, nomatter for how long or short a time. And people did tend to return like homing pigeons, especially the ones who had grown up there, like me. We might all have felt the need to escape, but the umbilical cord frequently twitched us back.
‘I don’t want to leave the flat empty for too long, and anyway, I have commissions to arrange, things to catch up on and a living to earn,’ I pointed out.
‘You could take it easy for a while longer, though, Meg. Surely no one will want their portrait painted over Christmas?’
‘Probably not, but I do need to add a few finishing touches to my last commission.’ Like signing it, for instance. I was pretty sure I’d forgotten to do that before I was carted off to hospital.
While I preferred to paint the entire portrait from life, my sitters couldn’t always spare me enough sessions so I took lots of photographs on my iPad. Those, and the sharp memory of the posed sitter in my mind’s eye, meant I could complete the background later, if necessary.
Fliss had just got married, which was why she’d moved out. The wedding was another thing I’d missed during my stay in hospital, though to be honest, I’d really dreaded putting on that puffy-sleeved teal-blue bridesmaid’s dress with matching capelet edged with fake swansdown and freezing my ass off for the day.
The things we do for love.
‘So you really must come back for the Solstice ceremony on the twenty-first, even if you can’t stay for the Yule Feast,’ River was still urging, in his gentle, cultured and fluting voice, which went so well with his appearance: think of a small, slender, elfin Gandalf, silvery of beard and ponytail, bright eyes the pale azure of a summer sky. ‘I can come back and fetch you.’
I was touched because it was a long drive, especially in that vehicle, and he was no longer young … though exactly how old I had no idea. He’d always seemed much the same to me: ageless and possibly immortal.
‘I’ll try,’ I promised. ‘And if I do, I’ll be able to drive myself by then. I feel so much better.’
‘Good, though Maj thought you really needed a few more days of nourishing home cooking. You’re still too thin.’
It was true that my normally curvy figure was now fashionably skinny, but there was a limit to how much weight you could regain in one month, even on a hearty vegetarian diet, with liberal amounts of goat’s milk cheese, yoghurt and extremely free-range eggs – when the very free-range hens obliged.
‘There’ll be visitors to the yurt camp too, because Posy and Simon are running a drumming and meditation retreat,’ he said.
Well, that sounded irresistible, though the drumming would be just a faint rhythm on the breeze from the farmhouse.
He turned his head slightly and gave me his charming pixie smile, full of affection. ‘We’re your family and the Farm is your home: you’ll always have a place there, and in our hearts.’
He was given to these slightly embarrassing expressions of affection but, none the less, I was touched and tears pricked the backs of my eyes. The aftermath of the illness was to make me more emotional and, in my darker moments, remember what I had lost and what might have been.
Still, if I could have chosen to have any grandfather in the world, I’d have picked River.
But luckily, I didn’t have to, becausehehad chosenme.
2
The Vital Spark
River magically found a parking spot right outside my flat, something he often did … in the same way he frequently discovered the right change for a parking meter lying at his feet.
The basement flat felt dark, cold and empty when we arrived, though I knew Fliss had left the heating on low and popped in from time to time to make sure everything was OK. But the boiler was ancient and the pilot light often steered itself into extinction.
I switched on the electric fire while River vanished into the tiny galley kitchen, carrying Maj’s parting gift: a basket of home-baked goodies.
Just as the long-unused bars of the electric fire began to glow dully and give off a smell of hot dust, the pipes emitted a sudden bronchial rattle and River came back into the room wearing the pleased expression of someone who had carried out an esoteric and difficult rite.
‘I offered up the vital spark and it was accepted,’ he announced. ‘Our ancestors would call that magic.’
He should have looked slightly ridiculous, with his long silver hair tied back in a ponytail, the plaited beard and theblack tunic, which had a hem embroidered with silver symbols, probably runes. He wore it over loose black cord trousers, tucked into baggy piratical boots, but somehow he got away with his style.
‘Great,’ I said, wishing that the vital spark of my life – painting – could also be rekindled so easily. At the moment it all felt a bit damply ashy and there was no sign of a phoenix, rising or otherwise. ‘I’ll make us a hot drink and then let’s blow the budget and order a takeaway.’
After a month of having herbal brews pressed on me and eating meals that, however well prepared, often featured grated raw vegetables, nut roast and lentil loaf, I desperately wanted gallons of coffee and craved a Singapore-style fried rice with shrimp.
