Footsteps in the Snow and other Teatime Treats

Copyright

Avon

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Published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

Copyright © Trisha Ashley

Trisha Ashley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007585458

Version: 2014-08-19

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue: What the Dickens?

1. One Man’s Treasure

2. Tipping the Scales

3. Melting Moments

4. Honey and Spice

5. Breaking the Ice

6. A Bit of Christmas Relish

7. Not Just for Christmas

8. Footsteps in the Snow

9. Slightly Cracked

10. A Kitten too Far

11. The Cinderella Dress

Read on for a first look at Trisha’s brand new novel Creature Comforts …

About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

Prologue:

What the Dickens?

Bestselling novelist Trisha Ashley on forging her own Christmas traditions.

As always, Christmas seems to hover tantalisingly on the horizon for ages like an unattainable mirage and then, when we glance away, suddenly rushes up and takes us by surprise. Thrown into utter panic and urged on to an insane level of consumerism by a barrage of advertising, we shop as if we were about to pull up the siege drawbridge for a month.

And of course there’s a sudden rash of books and articles promising to show you how to create a stress-free and perfect Christmas, an immaculate concept with the decorations themed to the latest colour scheme, the swags hanging neatly from the staircase and mantelpiece and, above all, a festively dressed table groaning under the weight of a beautifully crisped turkey with all the trimmings, to be followed by Christmas pudding, Christmas cake and all the rest of it. Only by absorbing such seasonal advice, the authors seem to be implying, can you be sure of a happy Christmas … except for the person running his or herself ragged attempting to produce all this perfection, of course.

And this supposedly ‘traditional Christmas’ with all the extravagant trimmings is not what most of us grew up with. The decorations of my Lancashire childhood were a bright chaos of paper chains, garlands and clusters of balloons, the crackers were cheap and cheerful and the table decoration a couple of pine cones and some holly enthusiastically daubed with silver glitter. The turkey, a monster, would have gone into the oven around midnight on Christmas Eve and have been slowly roasting ever since, though the pork sausages that had followed the stuffing into the cavity would be removed and cooked for breakfast. The dinner itself was quite leisurely: we ate when it was ready and no one thought to add extra work by putting chestnuts into the Brussels sprouts, or anything fancy of that nature. Any slight deficiencies in the cooking, such as slightly overdone sprouts, say, were overlooked: what did it matter? Covered in my mother’s thick, tasty gravy made from the juices in the roasting tin, it was all delicious anyway!

You can see Holly, the heroine of one of my novels, The Twelve Days of Christmas, preparing and cooking for just such a Christmas feast and she has it all well in hand by the day itself. And when I got married, for the first few years I too produced the kind of Christmas I’d been brought up to expect, with roast turkey, cake, pudding, trifle and mincepies … but always in a laid-back manner. I mean, if the legs drop off the turkey as you take it out of the oven, it’s a pretty good sign it’s cooked, isn’t it? And if you don’t have a set time for Christmas dinner, then it’s ready when it’s ready. And remember, there will be no Christmas police checking that the crackers match the tablecloth and decorations, that there are chestnuts in your stuffing and you’ve bought a hideously expensive but trendy kind of Christmas pudding, or even popping back later to ensure you’re all watching the latest Dickens TV adaptation: God Bless Tiny Tim … again.

But as the years passed, I began to change the Christmas traditions to suit myself, mixing old and new and forging our own way of doing things. For instance, none of us were mad about turkey, but we all loved roast duck – so now we have a Christmas quacker, with delicious potatoes roasted in the fat and petits pois. This is followed by profiteroles with chocolate sauce. We do have Christmas pudding – but on Boxing Day, when we are not quite so stuffed full and can appreciate it more.

I make my Christmas cake in November, to the same rich fruit cake recipe (which you can find at the back of my novel Wedding Tiers) I use for most celebration cakes, though using dark rum instead of sherry. Then I marzipan and ice it, before adding a polar bear cunningly poised on a snowy hummock, ready to leap onto a jolly and unsuspecting Father Christmas, who is waving at an oversized reindeer. Behind this little group are three bristly green bonsai pine trees and a giant robin. A fringed red, green and silver paper band is wrapped around it, secured with a dab of icing.

Nearer Christmas I’ll bake a ham and a few mincepies – but a lot more of the yummy mincemeat flapjacks I devised a few years ago, when pondering what to do with the inevitable bit of mincemeat left at the bottom of the jar.

There’s a large trifle to create, too, in the cut-glass bowl with a gold rim that was my grandmothers. I can take three days over this, one layer at a time. But there’s no rush, is there? It will be ready for after dinner on Christmas Eve, covered in fresh cream and with a sprinkling of hundreds and thousands melting into rainbow swirls.

Then, just for fun, I’ll make a batch of fondant sugar mice with string tails and dozens of spicy, crisp gingerbread stars to hang on the tree.

In early December I’ll have made the annual expedition to the frozen attic in search of the boxes containing the tree and baubles, not to mention the large porcelain-faced figure of the Angel Gabriel, who seems to like to hide himself away, so that a second expedition usually has to be mounted to find him.

And when it comes to decorations – well, forget themes, for I’m the least likely person to wake up one day thinking, “Mmm, I think I’ll have an upside-down black tree this year and a black and blood red theme throughout the house. Wonder where I can buy matching holly swags and door wreaths?”

No, out will come the cheap gold tinsel tree that my toddler son fell in love with so many years ago, to be heavily loaded with every treasured old glass ornament from the box – birds with fibreglass tails, violins, trumpets, bears, dogs, icicles, Santas and snowflakes. And then, the crowning glory, I’ll top it with a papier-mâché Santa that my mother’s sister bought when she was four, which makes it over ninety years old now. The red robe has turned the colour of Brown Windsor soup and at some point he’s been misguidedly embellished with a white cotton wool beard and a smattering of scarlet glitter glue, but he’ll still benignly preside over all.

It looks quite magical when it’s done and the house, garlanded and redolent of Christmas spices, seems by Christmas Eve to have acquired a heady sense of mystery and expectation, even if it doesn’t remotely resemble anything in the magazines.

So … I suppose you could say that I am a traditionalist; only most of the traditions are of my own devising and make for an easy and stress-free Christmas.

And every year, just as I’m starting to wonder if those are snowflakes or seraphic feathers lazily swirling down from the sky, the Angel Gabriel finally turns up.

1

Previously published in the Express S magazine.

ONE MAN’S TREASURE

In Annie Moss, James thought he’d found the perfect tenant for the cottage he’d inherited from his great-uncle. She was in her mid-thirties, quiet and widowed, with no children to trample mud onto the newly-fitted carpets. Then he remembered that she was a gardener, so might well do that herself!

But as if she could read his mind, Annie smiled at him and said, “I’ll look after the cottage really well and leave my muddy gardening boots in the porch, I promise.”

Their eyes met … and held. His were a forget-me-not blue, reminding her of the fresh promise of an April sky, while her brown ones made him think of the dark velvety softness of pansies …

Annie also liked the way he hadn’t made the usual joke about rolling stones gathering no moss, though it was true she’d moved about a lot since her husband died. But here … well, there was something about the place that made her want to put down roots, spread out her branches and – just possibly – burst into a late flowering.

“So, you already have some work lined up in the area?” he asked.

She nodded. “At the garden centre, though I’ll be happy to sort out the garden here for free, if you’d like me to? It’s a bit of a mess – I couldn’t help noticing all those holes …”

She paused and he grinned.

“I was treasure hunting! My Great Uncle always said he didn’t trust banks, so he’d hidden his valuables away at the cottage, instead …”

“Didn’t you find anything?”

“Only a small amount of cash under his mattress and a tin box with a few half-sovereigns in it on a ledge up the chimney. Somehow I thought he’d have a bit more put by, so I did a quick sweep of the garden with a borrowed metal detector, though there was nothing there except old horseshoe nails.”

“Well, if I hit treasure trove I’ll let you know,” she promised. “I have a metal detector, too – you wouldn’t believe how useful they can be to a gardener. I once found a whole Morris Minor buried just under a lawn, it was no wonder if was patchy!”

*

As summer slid into autumn, Annie transformed the neglected cottage garden, digging flowerbeds and planting a rambling rose by the porch.

Then she turned her attention to the small area at the back, where two gnarled old apple trees stood amid a waist-high tangle of weeds. And there she came across a dog’s grave, shedding a few tears over the poignant inscription:

Old Charlie

RIP

Faithful friend.

*

“Oh yes, Charlie was a Jack Russell and Uncle Ray adored him,” James explained when he dropped in, as he now frequently did on his way home from work.

“I notice you didn’t dig any holes down that end?”

“No, because I was sure Uncle Ray wouldn’t want Charlie disturbed.”

“I had thought of dividing up some of the clumps of primroses and planting them on the grave,” she suggested. “It would look lovely in spring.”

“Go ahead, I’m sure Uncle Ray would have loved the idea,” he agreed, then smiled so warmly at her that her heart, which had entered some kind of ice age after the loss of her husband, began a rapid thaw.

*

But next time he came, he seemed different, colder. “So, you planted the primroses on Charlie’s grave yesterday?” he said.

“Oh yes – but how did you know?” she asked, looking disconcerted – and also, he thought, slightly guilty.

“One of my friends saw you digging under the apple trees – and then he heard you shout ‘Eureka!’” he added pointedly.

She laughed. “He must have thought I’d gone mad, but finding it was just such a relief!”

“Finding what?” he demanded.

“My wedding ring: it must have slipped off while I was transplanting the primroses, so I took my metal detector out and found it.”

He suddenly started laughing, too. “You know, I thought you’d been treasure hunting, even though I was sure Uncle Ray wouldn’t have buried anything near Charlie.”

“No, of course he wouldn’t have – and even if he had, I would have told you.”

“Yes, I really should have known you better by now, Annie,” he agreed, then glanced at her left hand. “But you’re not wearing your ring?”

She shook her head. “No – losing it seemed like a sign that perhaps it was time to stop wearing it … to move on with my life.”

“Oh? Then perhaps you’d like to come down to the pub with me? I suppose I can’t keep you to myself forever.”

“Are you … asking me out?” she said uncertainly. She knew his wife had left him for another man a couple of years before.

“Yes, though I’m a bit out of practise with the dating game.”

“Me too – but you definitely owe me a drink for suspecting I’d been stealing your property!”

*

Being gold, Annie’s wedding ring had come out of the earth as freshly gleaming as it went in, which was more than could be said for the rusty old tobacco tin she’d found just underneath it.

Inside, sealed in a plastic bag, had been a small, worn dog collar and a note which she could remember by heart:

If you’re reading this, James, then you’ve disturbed old Charlie and you’re not the man I thought you! I did my best for him, spending a fortune on the vet and his headstone, but blood is thicker than water, so I hope you found the sovereigns up the chimney in the parlour.

Your Great Uncle Ray.

She’d debated whether to show it to James, then decided it would be better if he never knew about it, so sealed it back up again and reburied it under the primroses.

And after all, their evening out had gone very well. Perhaps James had lost one treasure but he might – just might – have found himself another!

2

Previously published in the RNA anthology

TIPPING THE SCALES

She came up in the fishing nets, her cold, clammy skin like translucent pearl, naked apart from long, silvery hair that clung like wet seaweed right down to the iridescent scales of her tail.

The crew conferred as she sat on the deck, watching them with aquamarine eyes while crunching the best of their hard-won catch between sharp, pointed white teeth. One of them, faster than the others and scenting a profit, caught her as she was about to slither back over the side.

She bit him, too, for his trouble. But she seemed happy enough in the hold; the men wary as they packed the fish with ice and sailed for port, fast.

A tall young man awaited them on the jetty, black curly hair blowing in the wind, eyes the turquoise of a Caribbean Sea. When they brought her up on deck, swathed in a mackintosh, he smiled, dazzlingly.

She remembered her grandmother’s stories. “Are you my prince?” she asked, the first words she’d spoken. “My destiny?”

“That’s right, darling,” he agreed, handing the skipper a bundle of coloured paper.

He drove her through the early morning light to the fairground by the beach and pulled up outside some wooden doors.

“You’ll be safe here,” he said, carrying her into a large room that smelt of stale seawater, algae and despair. When he switched on the light, great glass tanks cast watery shadows onto the walls and strange shapes moved within each one – except the last.

“There’s something fishy going on,” she said, puzzled.

“Not on, in,” he replied, heaving her over the side with a splash.

“Don’t leave me here,” she mouthed, bubbling, but his smile now reminded her of a barracuda.

“Sink or swim – my aquarium needs you. You put on a good performance for the punters and you’ll get all the fish you can eat. Watch this.”

He drained one side of the tank opposite until a large grey seal sat in little more than a puddle … then with a sudden shimmer it changed shape to a slender young man with dark, sad eyes.

“I’ll leave you to get to know each other – at a distance,” he said, laughing cruelly, and left them in the aqueous half-light.

*

They sat on their fibreglass rocks, their eyes meeting through thick glass. “He’s the Owner,” explained the sealman. “He does that every hour when the aquarium is open and humans pay money to come and watch.”

“How did he catch you?”

“Greed – I took the bait.”

“I thought he was my prince until he put me in stale water,” she said bitterly. “I’m fed up to the gills.”

“He feeds us dead fish, too, and never cleans out the tanks. But you have to do what he says, or he will hurt you.” The sealman shuddered, his eyes going dark with remembered pain.

There was a hammering. “What’s he doing?” she asked.

“Changing the signs outside, at a guess. You’ll be the star attraction now.”

*

“I want a mirror and a comb,” she said sulkily when the Owner came back in.

“You’ve got them – they’re in that plastic clam shell over there. Now, you keep sitting on that rock and swish your tail occasionally …”

She slapped the water with it, drenching him from head to foot.

“You do that again, and there’ll be no fish for you today,” he said, giving her an evil look. “And after the aquarium’s shut, I’ll teach you some manners!”

When he’d gone to change she looked around her and sighed. “How far from the sea are we?”

“Not far – when the front door is open you can smell the tang on the breeze. If there wasn’t mesh over my tank I’d have been out of here in a flash and running down the beach – I’m sickening for the fresh, salty sea.”

“I couldn’t run,” she said sadly. “If I got out, how could I slither so far? My scales need oiling already.”

“I’d carry you, I wouldn’t leave you here. But it’s no use – the most we can hope for is that one day he will put us in a tank together.”

There was a sliding of bolts and a flood of light from the front of the aquarium. “Hush, here come the visitors,” he warned. “But if you put on a good show, perhaps he won’t be angry with you later.” His tank filled with water and, with a flick of his flippers, he began to circle.

She watched as the crowd gathered, his tank was emptied again, and the sealman reappeared.

“How does he do that?” a girl asked.

“It’s just a hologram projected in there, it’s not real,” her boyfriend told her.

“He looks real,” she said doubtfully. “And what about her?”

He shrugged. “It’s a woman wearing a mermaid tail, that’s all. It’s not even well made – look, you can see the join.”

The mermaid bared her teeth at them in a sharp smile and they stepped back nervously. She took up the mirror and began to untangle her silvery hair, humming.

The unearthly hum grew louder … and louder … until it became a strangely beautiful song that held the visitors fixed, enthralled, to the spot.

Her voice rose higher: the glass walls of the aquarium began to tremble, the water rippled and the fish fled to their farther corners.

The sealman knew the power of that song.

“What’s that racket?” the Owner demanded. He clapped his hands to his head. “My eardrums! Stop it – stop singing now.”

But it was too late: everything rang and shimmered and swayed and trembled – and cracked. Great cascades of water poured out of every tank, swirling a flotsam of visitors, fish and the Owner towards the door.

The sealman, stepping gracefully over the shards, carried her out of the back door and towards the distant sea. The morning sun reflected off their nacreous skin and flashing scales. The crowds fell back, the beach-road traffic stopped, the donkeys ran away and the kites tangled.

From behind came a sudden shout of, “Stop them!”

This was beyond optimistic: for a seal, he ran fast. The waves were to his waist before anyone even reached the edge of the sea. Then there was a splash as they dove – cool, smooth bodies entwined, twisting and turning into the depths.

He gave her a passing, unwary fish, salt fresh.

“You are my prince,” she said and, as a mark of her favour, bit the offering in half and gave him the head, to seal their union.

3

Previously published by My Weekly

MELTING MOMENTS

I found the new artisan chocolate maker’s little shop while taking a short cut back to the car after my second Fatbusters meeting. In fact, the leader’s parting rallying cry of ‘sumo to svelte quicker than you ever thought possible!’ was still ringing in my ears when I came face to face with my worst nightmare.

Yet to be truthful, it was more my fiancée David’s worst nightmare than mine, because I’d been quite happy with my curvy and generous size fourteen figure right up to the moment when he presented me with three month’s membership of Fatbusters as a Christmas present and suggested that as soon as I’d reached size eight we could set a date for our wedding.

Size eight? I wasn’t even sure my bones were size eight, let alone the rest of me! But since he seemed convinced that I’d told him I wanted to lose a few pounds in order to look truly gorgeous on my big day, I had to go along with it.

But the trouble was, that even the very idea of dieting made me feel twice as hungry as usual and all I could think of while being weighed today (I’d only lost a two measly pounds after practically starving myself for a week!) was that I deserved some chocolate.

Now, irresistibly drawn by the rich aroma wafting across the street, my nose was pressed against the bow window of Nick’s Chocolate Heaven, as I gazed longingly at the mouth-watering array laid out on old-fashioned cut-glass stands.

They looked beautiful – and hideously expensive. But that was good, because it meant that I couldn’t possibly have any … Unless, suggested a little devil in my mind, I just bought one single, delicious, self-indulgent treat for being so good all week. That couldn’t hurt, could it?

Before I knew it I was in the shop and scanning even more luscious temptations until I made my choice: a chocolate shaped like a rose and filled with coffee and cream truffle, all glossy, dark brown and tempting … rather like the proprietor’s eyes, I discovered, when I finally looked up.