Page 35 of A Christmas Celebration
His tone and manner suggested my feet were far from there.
‘It’s the only appointment they had,’ I said, making to leave before he could turn it down. ‘I’ll see you at half three.’
‘Aren’t you going to come in and put this lot away then?’ he called after me. ‘There’s far too much for me to manage.’
I turned to face him.
‘I can bring it in,’ I said, ‘but I can’t stop. I’ve got a dog with me and he shouldn’t be shut up for much longer.’
‘You can bring him in with the bags, can’t you?’ Albert said gruffly, disappearing back inside again.
Bran didn’t need asking twice. He was off the back seat and up the path before I’d had a chance to close the gate.
‘I don’t know what Bella will make of him,’ I said, as I lugged the bags inside and closed the door with my foot.
‘Not much.’ Albert pointed, squinting to watch as the tiny cat purred rapturously and wove her way around Bran’s skyscraper legs. ‘He’s a size, isn’t he? Even I can see that!’
‘Well, I never.’ I laughed at the tableau and Albert very nearly chuckled too.
‘Life’s full of surprises, isn’t it, my woman?’
‘You can say that again,’ I agreed, thinking how quickly mine was being transformed. ‘Albert,’ I then said, ‘it isn’t as warm in here as I thought it was.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with the boiler,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve just been opening the windows to give the place an airing and let the damp out as it warms up.’
‘What, even upstairs?’
‘I can’t get upstairs,’ he let slip.
‘Oh, Albert,’ I sighed.
‘I haven’t wanted to risk going up,’ he said mulishly. ‘Not with my sight as it is, but I slept better for being warm.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ I said. ‘But where?’
‘In the chair,’ he said. ‘It’s a recliner. I’m comfortable enough on there but I’ll be back in my own bed if these new specs do the trick and I can get up the stairs again.’
He sounded almost excited at the prospect and as I bentto carry the bags through to the kitchen, I felt Molly’s rose quartz dig into my hip. I still wasn’t loving myself, but I did like the feeling I got as a result of helping Albert start to re-embrace life.
‘Come and tell me where to put this lot then,’ I said, ‘and then I’ll have to be off.’
I left Bella tucking into chicken in gravy and Albert with a strong brew and an assortment of biscuits on a plate. When Bran and I snuck a look back through the window, Albert looked every bit as blissed out as the cat.
Chapter 11
There was a dramatic drop in the temperature that night and I woke to find Wynthorpe Hall shrouded in heavy fog and a sharp frost and it wasn’t only the meteorological atmosphere which had been transformed in the space of a few hours.
In the kitchen, Angus was humming carols, Dorothy had retuned the radio to a channel which favoured festive pop and when I eventually got to town after defrosting Anna’s Fiat and driving in cautiously, I found the square a pulsing hive of activity.
Lights were being strung up, trees lifted into place and a sort of stage was being built at one end. Clearly, the countdown to the belated Christmas switch-on was on and the sense of excitement stretched from country to town and back again, inextricably joined by an invisible stand of sparkly tinsel which stretched right across the frosty Fenland landscape.
‘Everything looks like it’s shaping up nicely,’ I said to Kathleen as we ran through the delivery list and loadeda library box packed full of all sorts of books, along with everything else, into the diminutive car.
It was like a game of shopping Jenga and we arranged it all in drop-off order. One misplaced item would send the whole lot crashing down, so the system had to be in sync with the list. There was no point in packing in first what was being delivered first as that would mean me having to empty everything to get it out again.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, looking around. ‘Better late than never and of course it wouldn’t be happening at all if it wasn’t for that generous last-minute donation. I’d love to know who contributed that.’
Remembering how Angus had gone quiet when it had been mentioned, I thought I had a pretty good idea but didn’t say as much. If it was him, then perhaps that would be the extent of his festive mischief for this year and his, according to Archie, reserved mood, was more about him not wanting to croon about his kind gesture than having something else tucked up his sleeve. That was what I hoped, anyway.
