Page 59 of The Cornish Christmas Book Clu
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The morning had been nerve-racking because Tamara had had an appointment at the bank to sign the loan documents, using her house as security. On the way back, she’d stopped by Georgie Rowe’s to pass over a hefty deposit to secure his go-ahead with the kitchen refurbishment. Then she’d started her preparations for tonight with a speedy clean of her neglected house, making her aware how little time she’d spent there recently.
It was a sort of unwritten rule that if you hosted the December meeting, your house should look suitably festive, so she’d spent another hour or so putting up her decorations. The artificial tree she’d dragged out of the attic had lost a lot of its needles, but she’d still covered it in all of the ornaments she’d collected over the years, including several lumpy clay Christmas puddings made by Toby in school. Festooned with the ornaments, draped in an excessive amount of tinsel and decked out in plain white lights, the tree cheered up the room. Vernonhad been pushing the bright-red poinsettias he’d had on sale this week at the shop, so she’d bought several yesterday and dotted those around too.
Now she was indulging in her favourite part of the whole day — the baking. There were the traditional mince pies and sausage rolls everyone would expect, but the star of the show in her eyes was one of her own recipes — a festive take on Battenberg cake. She sandwiched individual fingers of sponge cake together with a homemade cranberry jam and covered the whole thing with red and green striped marzipan. It was the same recipe she had planned on using yesterday for the first day of the pub’s December Dessert specials. Presumably that idea had gone by the wayside now.
As the last job before everyone arrived, she set a large pan of mulled wine on to warm through and fragrance the whole house.
It was something of a squash, but Tamara somehow squeezed all nine of them into her living room. Their usual seven-strong group had expanded to include Ophelia, and tonight they had another visitor. Evelyn had invited Monica Wyndham-Smythe, from the new Trelawney Court development, because she was interested in starting a similar club among her new neighbours and was keen to see how theirs worked.
‘Are we ready, girls?’ Evelyn clapped her hands and bestowed a wry smile on Monica. ‘You’ll find you have to take control, or it can disintegrate into nothing more than an excuse to drink and gossip.’
‘And wouldn’t that be terrible?’ Josie said with a grin. ‘Sorry, Evelyn. I’ll behave.’
‘That would be a first, Josephine. You never did at school, so why start now?’ The tart response set off a round of giggles. ‘Books out.’ She peered over her glasses. ‘A Christmas Carol.We’ll have opinions on the book first and as our resident nurse is in fine voice tonight, I suggest we start with her.’
Tamara and Laura shared a smirk. They often placed imaginary bets on who would get picked first.
‘You all know I’m practical, a bit cynical at times and not one for sentiment.’ Josie’s cheeks glowed. ‘But I don’t mind admitting I shed a tear reading the book. The part with those pitiful children — Ignorance and Want — was heartbreaking and tore me up. We’re reading it as historical fiction, but, when it was published, that was contemporary life to Dickens with all its warts and horrors.’
‘Absolutely, and part of its brilliance is the way you could change the setting to modern times and it works equally well.’ Amy chimed in. ‘Scrooge would be a modern-day business tycoon, consumed by greed and riding roughshod over the so-called little people.’
‘I love the hopefulness of it the most,’ Becky said. ‘It’s about redemption, isn’t it? If someone as dreadful as Scrooge can change his ways, then there’s hope for everyone.’ Her shoulders straightened. ‘If we all made the same promise as old Scrooge when he said he’d honour Christmas in his heart and try to keep it all the year, the world would be a kinder, gentler place.’
‘I hadn’t read the book until yesterday.’ Tamara made the admission reluctantly. ‘Good thing it was short.’
Evelyn’s eyebrows shot up.
Gage had been so sweet and had suggested a speed-reading session to race through it over their lunch. He was determined to copy Nathan’s habit of reading along with every one of the book club’s selections next year.
‘I’ve never seen any of the films either, except forThe Muppet Christmas Carol.It was Toby’s favourite and we still watch it every Christmas.’
‘Of course you do. Miss Piggy is probably your favourite actress.’ Laura’s good-natured teasing made everyone laugh.
She noticed Monica’s bewildered expression and hurried to explain about her pig obsession.
‘Ah, I see.’ The colour rose in the woman’s plump cheeks. ‘I’m diffident to voice an opinion—’
‘Don’t be, please,’ Melissa said encouragingly. ‘Everyone has one and they’re all different. That’s what makes the group so much fun.’
Tamara was relieved to hear her friend sound more animated. She’d been unusually quiet recently and almost seemed lost in a world of her own. In the bookshop a couple of days ago, Gage and Nathan had been in deep discussion about the Cornish books section he hoped to start soon, so she’d asked Melissa how she was. Melissa had fixed on a bright smile, and insisted she was fine. Later, Tamara might try to have a word with Josie to get her opinion. The two used to be neighbours and were still very close.
‘If you’re sure.’ Monica folded her hands in her ample lap. ‘I’m something of a film fan, especially the old classics, even back to the first silent films.’
Tamara always found it fascinating to see what emerged through their group discussions. The books they read were only a part of it and simply opened the door.
‘Believe it or not, the oldest film based on this wonderful book was made in 1901 and was calledScrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost. It’s obviously a silent film and only lasted a little over six minutes, and sadly about a minute of that has been lost over the years.’ Monica perched on the edge of the chair. ‘Remember, Charles Dickens didn’t die until 1870, so people watching the film when it was released could’ve been old enough to remember the book being published. They might even have heard Dickens read from the work publicly. Isn’t that incredible? Oh, goodness,I could rattle on for ever about all this. My poor husband tries to rein me in, but when I get started...’ She took a breath. ‘Most film buffs consider the 1951 version starring Alastair Sim to be unrivalled. He brought Ebenezer Scrooge to life quite incredibly and it’s the best adaptation as far as staying true to the story. It still makes people shiver, cry and laugh after all these years.’ Monica sat back, pink with embarrassment.
‘I can’t believe I’ve come across another film aficionado.’ Ophelia’s eyes shone. ‘I became interested when I lived in France where it’s such an art form. I’m particularly fond of forties and fifties classics with the old stars like Brigitte Bardot, Alain Delon and Catherine Deneuve.’
Was it wishful thinking to believe Evelyn’s sister looked brighter tonight?
‘I love those too.’ Monica nodded enthusiastically. ‘Perhaps you’d care to come over for coffee one morning? We can happily bore each other talking about films, rather than all these dear people.’
‘I’d enjoy that very much, thank you.’
Tears pricked Tamara’s eyes to see the club working its magic again. She left them all talking and slipped out to put the mince pies and sausage rolls in the oven.
