Page 62 of The Christmas Invitation
I sighed, laying down my pencil.
‘I do wish I knew what has happened to Mum. River feels strongly that she’s still alive.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Henry said gently, then seeing I’d finished my sketch, bent to wake Lass. ‘My feet are warm, but quite numb.’
When Henry had gone back to his study to work, the morning was well advanced and I thought I’d go and visit Flower.
The sky had that slightly ominous leaden tint and a fine, sleety rain was falling, but I decided to walk anyway. It was only about ten minutes away, hardly worth getting the van out for.
Flower, looking damper than even I probably did after my walk, let me in at Preciousss by the shop door. It sounded like a million small jingle bells, due to the long string of fabric elephants holding brass bells in their trunks that hung on the back of it. The shop was narrow, but stretched back a long way, an Aladdin’s cave of wind chimes, dreamcatchers, bunches of scarves, swinging racks of clothes, pictures and posters, bookcases, shelves of dragons and other Tolkien tat, replicas of the Starstone, a basket of embroidered toe-post sandals (just the thing for winter in Starstone Edge), a case of silver and semi-precious stone jewellery, loops of thonged necklaces, trays of friendship bracelets, incense, joss sticks … It was a veritable New Age version of the treasure trove in Tutankhamen’s tomb, but without the mummy.
The air was redolent with sandalwood, patchouli and possibly a hint of weed. Apart from the weed (River is very puritanical about these things), the smell was just like home.
‘I’ve put all the lights on in here, because I was sure you’d want to look around before we go through to the kitchen and have some coffee. Grace-Galadriel’s crashed out on the sofa in the snug with Bilbo.’
She was right: I did want to look around and it was all way too tempting. The counter, a tiny island in a sea of little baskets of smaller items, was soon piled high with my purchases and she even produced starry wrapping paper and rolls of Sellotape.
I’d already bought some Christmas wrap in Great Mumming, but I could wrap the one or two small gifts I’d bought for River in something more celestial.
I’d selected several things to take back for my family at the Farm, too, and Flower, cheered no end by all this spending, popped everything into two huge brown paper carrier bags. Then she thriftily turned off the shop lights and led the way into a small kitchen, which was heated by a very ancient stove and awash with felines, who all ignored me.
‘How many cats are there?’ I asked, picking my way through them to a wheel-back chair.
‘Six,’ Flower replied, filling a battered kettle and putting it on a hotplate. ‘Tree, Leaf, Rainbow, Dandelion, Daisy and Sky.’
She pointed to each in turn as she named them, but only one, Tree, reacted. He gave her a dirty look, then stalked off under a chair. One of his front fangs stuck out over his lip, which gave him a somewhat malevolent expression, so I was glad it wasn’t my chair he’d chosen to retreat under.
She made coffee and Bilbo came in for a chat, carrying the baby, who had now woken up and regarded me with huge, pale eyes.
She was almost a year old and I suspected was going to resemble both her parents, which was unfortunate.
Bilbo was a short, stocky man with a receding hairline, thin ponytail, a long nose that was bulbous at the tip and alugubrious expression. However, he was very pleasant and chatty, wanting to hear all about the time when Flower was at the Farm and what we used to get up to. Flower had loved the donkeys. I expect that’s why she cried for a week after they left.
After a bit he went back into the snug to play some kind ofLord of the Ringsgame on his computer.
Flower said, ‘He does a lot of research on Tolkien, too – that’s why we’ve got the computer – but we don’t have mobile phones because they fry your brains.’
‘I’ve heard that, too,’ I said. ‘I do have one, but I keep it switched off most of the time. And I have an iPad, but that’s mostly for work.’
‘It’s all juststuff,’ she said vaguely, offering me what was left of a tin of peanut butter biscuits. Bilbo had taken a big handful back to his lair with him.
She got on to the subject of Lex, whom she seemed to fancy, in a dim way. ‘You’ll see a lot of him over Christmas, because he always stays there from the Solstice ceremony to the New Year,’ she said slightly enviously.
‘I already know him a bit; he was in the year above me at art college.’
‘Oh, then you know about his wife dying? It was terribly tragic and I think it’s blighted his life because he’s never married again. I mean, he has gone out with one or two women, just nothing serious.’
She sounded a bit disappointed by this. I think she’d much have preferred him to be totally blighted.
‘The Doomes had a nanny for Teddy until he went to school and she really threw herself at Lex, but I could see he wasn’t seriously interested in her, just being kind.’
‘Really?’ I prompted. I remembered Clara telling me about the nanny, but in connection with Mark, surely?
‘Flora, she’s called. She’s an orphan and grew up with her aunt, Deirdre, who runs a guesthouse called Bella Vista further up the road.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember passing that one. Clara says Deirdre’s in Australia, so it’s shut up for the winter.’
‘Everything in Starstone Edge shuts up for the winter,’ Flower said gloomily. ‘Flora trained in childcare and then her first job was looking after Teddy, but she didn’t live in; she stayed with her aunt.’
