Page 24 of I’ll Be Home for Christmas

“Oh god!” said Fred, wearily burying her face in her hands. “Here we go.”

“Oh tosh! A bit of cream won’t hurt me.” Aunt Aggie was unrepentant.

“Tell that to your stomach when it swells to the size of a bowling ball and you start farting like an old Kitty Hawk taking off,” said Aunt Cam. “I’m the one who has to deal with the fallout.”

“Pun intended?” Diggory inquired, and Martha snorted as she followed her husband around the table ladling out the thick stew.

“Absolutely,” Aunt Cam replied. “So much fallout!”

“It may be vegan, but I shaved in plenty of truffle, just how you like it,” said Bella.

This seemed to mollify Aunt Aggie. “Oh, well, that’s different then, why didn’t you say so?” she asked as she rolled her sleeves up and carved thick slices of fresh bread for those who wanted it, while Aunt Cam lit candles along the table and some on the dressers too.

“I would have, if I could have got a word in edgeways,” Bella mumbled under her breath. Warren heard her and laughed. “Sorry, Warren, I’d say it isn’t usually like this, but I’d be lying.”

“No need to apologize. It’s nice to be around a family,” Warren said, drawing the contentious butter dish toward him and buttering his bread. Which made Bella wonder what his family circumstances might be.

Thankfully, Fred had relaxed, especially when it became clear that Warren had managed to charm almost everyone at the table.

The dark circles that had lent her daughter a haunted look when she’d first arrived had all but vanished now.

She looked younger and, as Aunt Cam would say, her aura was brighter.

The brittle smile she had worn for too long had been replaced with a more robust expression of happiness, making her eyes sparkle and lighting her face from within.

“This is delicious, Bella,” said Warren. “I’m guessing these vegetables are locally sourced; you can taste when food has experienced minimal air miles.”

“Thank you, Warren. They are indeed. Aunt Cam pulled the carrots, leeks and swede from the garden this morning. And I dug up the potatoes.”

“I knew it!” Warren nodded, smiling enthusiastically, clearly pleased to be right.

“There’s been a vegetable garden at Hallow House since 1912,” said Aunt Aggie. “We grow all sorts of interesting things: herbal remedies, poisons—”

“Fred tells me that you aspire to be a food writer,” Bella said quickly, pulling Warren’s attention in her direction and cutting her aunt off before Fred’s eyes bulged any wider.

“I do. Fredricka suggested I write my first piece about some of the restaurants in Pine Bluff.”

This was met with great enthusiasm and the people around the table began to suggest places he might like to try. Warren pulled his phone out and began to tap in the names of restaurants.

Bella noticed that Ryan didn’t offer any suggestions, though he smiled along amiably enough. You don’t like him, do you? she mused. Was there a touch of jealousy there?

Dinner conversation turned eventually to the Christmas market.

“I wonder how many traders have been coming back for as many years as you have?” Warren asked Liam.

“There’s a few of us. Delia’s been doing it almost as long as me; she’s a potter down in Cornwall.”

“And, um…what’s his name? The Welsh chappy, makes the patchwork quilts,” said Aunt Cam.

“Connor,” said Martha. “I’ve bought one for every grandchild. Beautiful workmanship.”

Diggory nodded his head at Ryan. “Still waiting for this one to settle down so we can buy one for his kids.”

“Oh, leave him be,” Martha chided her husband, good-naturedly. “Not everyone has to have children. And we’ve already been blessed with a plentiful bunch of grandchildren.”

Ryan shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and Fred gave him a sympathetic smile.

“Don’t forget Rita and Bev from the chili farm, they’ve been at the market for as long as I can remember,” said Liam.

“Yes.” Bella seized on the change of subject. “I stock up on their sweet chili sauce, every year. They make it with honey from their own bees.”

“If you like spice, Warren, get yourself down to Rita and Bev’s stall, their ghost chili pesto will blow your gonads off!” said Aunt Aggie.

Warren choked on his wine.

“Really, Aggie!” Aunt Cam exclaimed. “Gonads at the dinner table indeed. Whatever next?”

“Nipples in the drawing room?” Martha piped up.

Fred smacked a hand to her forehead, and Ryan laughed.

“Liam carves tree spirits,” said Bella, and Warren jumped at the chance to move the conversation away from body parts.

“I’ve seen those in the woods. I wondered who was making them,” he said.

Liam laughed affably. “I can’t claim to be responsible for all of them, I’m afraid.”

“What do they do?”

“They’re guardians of forests and nature, supposedly. For me, they’re something that I was always drawn to. Each one I carve is different and I never know how they’re going to look until I’m done; they all have their own personalities. I suppose you could say they guide me.”

“The wood spirits guide you,” Warren clarified. “Like some kind of magic? Sorry, I know I’m throwing questions at you, but I find people’s creative processes fascinating.”

“No, don’t apologize,” said Liam, smiling.

“I love an excuse to talk about carving. I don’t know as there’s any particular magic involved so much as my own creativity flowing through my hands as I work.

You’re a writer, you must understand that sensation of a creative flow that is sometimes bigger than yourself.

When an idea takes hold of you, and you are bound to follow it.

I suppose that could be described as an almost spiritual thing. ”

Warren was frowning. “I’m not sure that’s how I see my writing. I guess for me it’s more like a puzzle, a drive to find the right collection of words that will sound pleasing when I read them back.”

“And how do you feel when you find the right collection?” asked Aunt Cam.

Warren took a moment to consider. “Satisfied, I suppose. Like scratching an itch.”

“Could your drive be interpreted as inspiration? And couldn’t inspiration itself be described as a kind of spirituality?” Aunt Cam pressed. “It’s not like any of us knows why humans experience inspiration, is it?”

“I guess,” Warren said, pondering. “But if we’re saying that art is this ‘spiritual gift,’ rather than simply something that can be learned by anyone with the required time and drive, then it surely becomes exclusionary.”

“I disagree,” said Aunt Aggie. “It’s human nature to be inspired; it’s in us all, to some extent, whether it be a propensity toward video gaming or baking. It’s what drove the first Homo sapiens to paint on cave walls—”

“Or was that simply a means of recording data?” Warren broke in. “Or a method of teaching; this is how you hunt and kill a buffalo, that kind of thing. Cave drawings could have been necessity, not inspiration.”

Bella noticed that Fred was looking at Warren with deep interest. She’s got a type, all right. He certainly had the gift of the gab. But she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that he might be a bit of a dickhead. Maybe she was just being overly cautious, after Tim.

“Speaking of necessity and inspiration,” said Ryan, leaning back in his chair and stretching, “I am inspired by that there chocolate cake on the dresser, and it is becoming an increasing necessity that I try some. That was a delicious meal, Bella, thank you.” He smiled at her and the topic of conversation was replaced with whether the cake should be served with cream or ice cream or both; both, obviously.

When dessert was done, and the plates were cleared, Fred took Warren out to see the workshop, because he’d expressed an interest in the history of Hallow-Hart Crackers.

She seemed delighted to have his attention—maybe even a little desperate—and Bella hoped that Fred’s need to be seen, after so long kept in the shade, wouldn’t make her incautious.

There were no clouds in the sky, and the moon and stars above echoed the fairy lights below.

The aunts had gone back to the cottage for evening cocktails and cigars, and Diggory was upstairs trying to fix the broken radiator in the bathroom.

That left Ryan, up to his elbows in soapsuds at the kitchen sink, and Bella, Martha and Liam on drying duty.

“What do you make of him?” Ryan asked. “Warren, I mean.”

“He seems nice enough,” said Bella. “It’s hard to tell after only meeting him once.”

“But you can get a feeling about a person, can’t you?”

“What are your feelings about him?” asked Martha.

There was a beat before he answered, as though he couldn’t quite find the words he was looking for. “I don’t know,” he mused. And then, changing the subject, he said, “Is now a good time to pitch you my business idea?”

“Go ahead, you’re in my good books for helping with the washing-up, so you might as well strike while the iron’s hot.” Bella gave him a smile.

Ryan wiped over another dish and popped it on the drainer.

“I was wondering if you’d consider using Coast Roast mini-pouches as gifts inside the crackers.

I’ve been working on a special Christmas blend that would be exclusive to Hallow-Hart Crackers, and the company that makes my compostable packaging has said it could make smaller pouches to fit inside the crackers—to hold, say, one or two servings. What do you think?”

“I think it sounds like a great idea. When would the bags be ready? And how much is it going to cost me?”

“They’re ready to go when I say the word,” said Ryan, grinning. “Cost wise, if we said fifty pence per two-serving sachet?”

Bella nodded. “And you can do it for that price, without leaving yourself short?”

“Yes. There’s not much profit in it, but it’s incredible advertising for the business.”

“In that case, it’s a yes from me! We can trial them at the market.”

“Trial what?” asked Fred, coming in through the back door with Warren.

“Gift-sized Coast Roast packets in the crackers,” said Bella.