Page 9 of I’ll Be Home for Christmas

“Aunties, please try not to frighten Fred off with spell talk, she’s only just got here,” Bella said, a wry smile playing on her lips. “So, after all that, how was Krampus Night?”

Fred pondered. “Well, aside from the chasing and the fear and the running until I thought I was going to die, it was surprisingly good fun.” She almost couldn’t believe it herself.

“I’m glad.” Bella smiled. “What a way to throw yourself back into Pine Bluff.”

Fred couldn’t help but mirror her mother’s smile. “Speaking of Pine Bluff traditions, I heard the market is opening this weekend.”

“Yes, the cabins will start going up today,” said Bella. “It’s been years since you’ve been here for the market.”

It had been far too many years, and she was secretly looking forward to it. Although artisans came from all over the UK to sell their wares, there was a comforting homespun feel to the Pine Bluff Christmas Market that she’d never felt anywhere else.

“Will Liam be there?” Fred saw a cloud cross her mum’s face that she couldn’t read.

“Yes. He’ll be there. I’m sure he’d love to see you.” Bella smiled, but it was wan in a way that Fred couldn’t fathom. She hoped Liam wasn’t sick.

Mum would have told me if he was ill, surely?

She’d heard of people giving up after losing long-term partners, and although it must be five years now since Claire passed, they had been together for a lifetime.

Guilt pricked at her, she should have been at the funeral; Liam and Claire had been like family.

“How are you on cracker orders?” Aunt Aggie addressed Bella.

It was a reasonable query, but it felt pointed to Fred, as though her aunt had wanted to move the subject away from Liam. I’m being oversensitive , she thought to herself; years of having to gauge Tim’s moods had left her hyper aware of changes in atmosphere.

“Getting there on the private orders, but there’s still a way to go on the market stock,” Bella replied.

“We’ll all lend a hand,” said Cam. “Fred will help, won’t you, dear?”

“Do I have a choice?” Fred asked, smiling.

Cam smiled back beatifically. “Absolutely not, my sweet love.”

“That’s what I thought. Who’s going to run the stall?”

“Mostly me,” said Bella. “But the aunts are covering lunch breaks, and Martha’s going to help me out when she’s not on Mrs. Christmas duty or working in the shop.”

“I can help out with the stall and the crackering—might as well make myself useful while I pick over the carcass of what was my life,” said Fred.

Bella frowned but said, “Thanks, love. Actually, I want to talk to you about that.”

“My life?”

“Well, kind of…”

The grandfather clock in the hall struck eleven. Aunts Cam and Aggie pushed their seats back from the table loudly and began to bustle about the kitchen.

“First cocktails!” Cam trilled.

“It’s eleven o’ clock in the morning!” Fred exclaimed, gulping down a mouthful of coffee.

“Precisely,” said Aunt Aggie. “First cocktails are always at eleven a.m.” She pulled two silver cocktail shakers off the dresser shelf while Aunt Cam filled a silver bucket with ice from the freezer and began to casually attack the cubes with a small ice pick.

“When did this start?” Fred asked, turning to her mum.

Bella considered. “A couple of years ago, after Aggie turned eighty-two.”

“It’s all about pacing,” said Cam, plucking two leaves from a mint plant on the windowsill. “Everything in moderation.”

Aggie poured generous measures of pale green liqueur and white crème de cacao into each shaker, then turned in time to catch the carton of soya cream that Cam tossed over from the fridge.

Nobody could deny that they were a well-oiled machine.

Cam scooped crushed ice into the shakers and, taking one each, they began to shake them violently, breaking their rhythm occasionally to toss the shakers into the air and catch them.

Fred looked at Bella, who shrugged, and said, “They are retired. And they only have three or four cocktails a day…unless it’s a holiday, of course, and then all bets are off,” and then she pursed her lips as though playing her words back in her head and questioning their wisdom.

“Only!” Fred declared. “Only three or four? Good grief! It’s bad enough that they took up smoking cigarillos when they turned eighty…”

“Well now, dear, we only smoke after meals,” said Aggie, placing two wide-rimmed martini glasses on the quartz worktop.

“And first cocktails are always grasshoppers because the peppermint in the crème de menthe helps with Aunt Aggie’s indigestion,” said Aunt Cam, as though this made it more acceptable.

“Wouldn’t an antacid make more sense?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” asked Aggie. “Now, listen,” she went on, deftly holding a cocktail shaker aloft in each hand and pouring the liquid into the waiting glasses.

“For seventy years, we worked hard, lived clean, looked after our hearts and paid our taxes, and now it’s time to live the rest of our lives in slutty ecstasy. ”

Fred shook her head and smiled as she looked at her mum. “It’s difficult to argue with that, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is rather. I won’t deny that I’m looking forward to my own slutty ecstasy years.”

“So am I now,” agreed Fred. A few years ago, this scene would have horrified her, but now she appreciated any woman with enough self-confidence to revel in her own autonomy.

The aunts clinked glasses, looked deep into each other’s eyes and said, “Here’s to swimmin’ with bowlegged women,” before taking a sip.