The Christmas Angel

  About the Book

  ‘We’re all pilgrims,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘one way or another, aren’t we? Always searching for something.’

  Twelfth night – time to put away the Christmas angel. A new year is dawning and everything seems to be falling into place for Dossie. Her son Clem and his adorable five-year-old son Jakey have moved to Cornwall to be closer to her. She runs a successful catering business. All she needs now is some better luck in her romantic life.

  Complementing Dossie’s rather unconventional family set-up is the wonderfully eccentric Janna: a warm-hearted, generous woman who looks after the quirky nuns of the local convent – and little Jakey. With humour, kindness and the support of friendship, they form a tight bond.

  But the Sisters’ life as they know it is thrown into doubt when an avaricious property developer starts prowling around their beautiful, historic home. Will this close-knit unit who so depend on each other still be together next Christmas? And what will they have learnt about the true meaning of family, and about having somewhere you really belong?

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epiphany

  Candlemas

  Lent

  Pentecost

  Trinity

  Transfiguration

  Michaelmas

  All Saints and All Souls

  Advent

  About the Author

  Also by Marcia Willett

  Copyright

  THE

  CHRISTMAS

  ANGEL

  MARCIA WILLETT

  To Evelyn

  EPIPHANY

  THE HOLY FAMILY live in an old linen shoebag. The bag is dark brown, with a name-tape sewn just below its gathered neck where a stout cord pulls it tight, and each year on Christmas Eve the bag is opened and the Family, along with its attendant Wise Men, shepherds, an angel with a broken halo and various animals, are set out on a table beside the Christmas tree. They have their own stable, a wooden, open-fronted building, which has once been part of a smart toy farm, and they fit perfectly into it: the golden angel standing devoutly behind the small manger in which the tiny Holy Child lies, swaddled in white. His mother, all in blue, kneels at the head, opposite a shepherd who has fallen to his knees at the foot of the crib, his arms stretched wide in joyful worship. Joseph, in his red cloak, with a second shepherd – carrying a lamb around his neck as if it were a fur collar – stand slightly to one side, watching. A black and white cow is curled sleepily in one corner near to the grey donkey, which stands with its head slightly bowed. And here, just outside this homely scene, come the Wise Men in gaudy flowing robes, pacing in file, reverentially bearing gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

  Jakey stands close to the table, gazing at the figures, his eyes just level with them. Occasionally he might pick up one of the figures in order to study it more closely: the angel’s broken halo; the lamb curled so peacefully around the shepherd’s neck; the tiny caskets carried by the Wise Men. Once he’d dropped the Holy Child, who rolled under the sofa. Oh, the terror of that moment: lying flat on his face, scrabbling beneath the heavy chair, hot with the frustration of being unable to move it – and the huge relief when his fingers had closed over the little figure, and he’d drawn out the Baby unharmed and placed Him back in His blue-lined crib.

  Now, as he stands by the crib, Jakey grows slowly aware of the sounds around him: the clock ticking weightily, its pendulum a crossly wagging finger; the sigh and rustle of ashy logs collapsing together in the grate; his father talking on the telephone next door in the kitchen and the monotonous quacking of the radio turned down low. Today the decorations must be taken down because it is Twelfth Night: the last day of Christmas.

  Jakey begins to sing softly to himself: ‘“Five go-hold lings. Fo-our calling birds, thlee Flench hens, two-hoo turtle doves, and a partdlige in a pear tlee”.’

  He feels restless; sad that the tiny, sparkling lights and the pretty tree will no longer be there to brighten the short dark winter days. Still singing just below his breath, he climbs onto the sofa and tries to balance on his head on the cushions, his legs propped against its back, until he falls sideways and tips slowly onto the floor. He lies with his feet still on the sofa, his head turned sideways on the rug, and regards Auntie Gabriel who stands on the bookcase presiding over the Christmas festivities. The angel is nearly two foot tall with clumsy wooden shoes, a white papier-mâché dress and golden padded wings. Her hair is made of string but her scarlet, uptilted thread of a smile is compassionate; joyful. The clumpy feet might be set square and firm on the ground but when the golden wire crown is placed upon the tow-coloured head then there is something unearthly about her. Held lightly between her hands is a red satin heart: a symbol of love, perhaps?

  There are several other, smaller, angels strung from convenient hooks about the room; but none has the status of Auntie Gabriel. Not as fierce and cold and glorious as the Archangel himself, flying in from heaven in all his power and majesty, and trailing clouds of glory; she is, nevertheless, a distant relation: the human, fallible face of love.

  With a mighty heave, Jakey rolls head over heels and stands up. He goes over to the bookcase and stares up at Auntie Gabriel, who beams sweetly at him with her lop-sided silk-thread smile. He doesn’t want her to be packed away in the soft roll of material that protects her fragile dress and padded wings, her gold crown wrapped separately, before they are all put into a large carrier bag and tucked into the drawer in the old merchant’s chest. He doesn’t want Christmas to be over. Jakey is utterly miserable. Deliberately he kicks out and stubs his toe in its soft leather slipper against the corner of the bookcase, hurting himself, and his mouth turns down at the corners. He decides to let himself cry; he’s just going to, even though he knows that he’s a big boy now; that next birthday he will be five. He experiments with a sob, listens to it with interest, and squeezes his eyes shut to force out a tear.

  * * *

  Clem watches his small son from the doorway, his heart twisting with a mix of compassion and amusement.

  ‘Listen,’ he says. ‘Guess who that was on the phone.’ And at the sound of his voice, Jakey jumps and turns quickly. ‘It was Dossie,’ Clem says. ‘She’s on her way over and she’s bringing something special with her.’

  Jakey hesitates, head down, his lower lip still protruding, not quite willing yet to be jollied out of his self-pity.

  ‘What?’ he asks, pretending not to care much. ‘What is she blinging?’

  ‘It’s a secret.’ Clem sits down and scoops a long-eared, long-legged brightly knitted rabbit onto his knee. ‘Isn’t it, Stripey Bunny? It’s a Twelfth Night present. Something you have when all the decorations have been taken down.’

  Jakey looks around the room: at the Holy Family; at the glittering tree; at Auntie Gabriel. He hesitates, debating with himself, but Clem senses signs of weakening and blesses his mother for the idea.

  ‘He’s utterly miserable,’ he told her on the phone. ‘He can’t bear the thought of Christmas being over and I can’t really explain to him why we have to take all the decorations down. It’s going to be a bad evening.’

  ‘Poor darling,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t sympathize more. I hate it too. Now here’s a plan. Why don’t I bring over the chocolate cake I made this morning and something out of my present drawer? I’ve got one of those Thomas the Tank Engine thingies. James, I think it is. Or is it Edward? Jakey will know. We were reading a story about them all.’

  Clem hesitated. ‘He’s had so much for Christmas, Dossie. I don’t want to spoil him.’

  ‘Oh, darling. One little truck. Remember how you used to feel? Anyway, we coul
dn’t spoil Jakey. He’s much too balanced. A Twelfth Night present. What d’you think?’

  ‘OK. Why not? Do I get one too?’

  ‘Certainly not. You’re not nearly as balanced as Jakey is and I can’t risk spoiling you at this late date. But you shall have some cake. See you soon.’

  Now, Jakey wanders over and leans against Clem’s knee. He twiddles Stripey Bunny’s long soft ears and allows himself to give in.

  ‘When will Dossie be here?’

  ‘Soon.’ Clem glances up at the clock: the drive from St Endellion to Peneglos should take about half an hour. ‘Let’s have a quick walk before it gets dark and you can ride your new bike. Stripey Bunny can go in the back.’

  Jakey runs shouting to the door, high spirits restored.

  ‘Boots on,’ calls Clem. ‘And your coat. Wait, Jakey. I said, Wait …’

  Presently they go out together into the wintry sunset.

  Frost lies thick in the ditches, crisping the bramble leaves, scarlet, yellow and purple, that trail over the bleached, bent grass and frozen earth. Dossie drives carefully in the winding lane, watching for icy patches unthawed by the day’s sunshine. A flock of starlings rise from a field beyond the bare thorn hedge; they swoop and dive, as sleek as a shoal of fish swimming in the cold blue air, settling randomly on the telephone wires like notes of music scribbled on a score.

  At the A39 she turns westwards towards Wadebridge. She is filled with joy at the glory of the sunset – gold and crimson clouds streaming out across the rosy sky – and at the sight of a half-moon, already well risen, trailed by one great star. She hopes that Jakey can see the star; he loves the firmament at night. At this time of the year they are able to star-watch together before his bedtime; and she made him a stargazy pie for his fourth birthday. The memory of his expression at the sight of all the little pilchards staring skywards makes her smile, but with the smile comes the familiar twist of pain. How sad it is – how cruelly sad – that fate should repeat her wicked little trick, so that, just as Clem never knew his father, so Jakey’s mother died of post-partum haemorrhage just hours after his birth. Dossie heaves a great sighing breath: oh, the shock and the pain of it, still fresh. At the time she tried so hard to persuade Clem not to give up his theological training, just begun at St Stephen’s House in Oxford, offering to make a home there for all of them until he was ordained, pleading with him to allow her to look after Jakey, either in Oxford or at the family home in Cornwall.

  ‘Mo and Pa would love to help,’ she said. ‘He’s their great-grandson, after all, Clem. They helped me bring you up; now they could do the same for Jakey.’

  It was quite useless. Politely but steadfastly he refused to listen to his tutors and his spiritual advisers, who tried to convince him of his vocation, telling him that his grief was blinding him to his true calling. He returned to his lucrative job in IT in London, working from their little flat whilst paying for a nanny to take care of Jakey, and doing as much as he could for his baby son.

  Dossie knew very well that Clem hadn’t wanted her to give up her own work as a self-employed caterer or to lose the contacts and reputation she’d spent so many years cultivating on this high windswept Atlantic coast; and Mo and Pa were no longer young. He must fend for himself and for Jakey, he said. But she knew he hated returning to that place where first he’d felt what he’d once described, with a kind of disbelieving awe, as ‘the pressing in of God’.

  Now, ahead, Dossie can see the New Bridge striding across the River Camel. The tide is out and only a silver trickle marks the water’s course. Little boats lie lifeless at their moorings on the pale shining mud, waiting for the sea’s pulse to lift them again into life. She drives across the bridge, past Wadebridge and the old bridge upstream, turning off the A39, taking the road towards Padstow, remembering Clem’s phone call just over a year ago.

  ‘There’s this job advertised in the Church Times,’ he said. ‘It’s somewhere near you at a place called Peneglos. It says: “Strong person required to work six acres of grounds plus some house maintenance. Small salary but a three-bedroom lodge house comes free with the post.” It’s an Anglican convent.’

  His voice, abrupt but oddly eager, almost daring her to comment, silenced her for a moment. She had no idea that he still read the Church Times.

  ‘That must be Chi-Meur,’ she said lightly. ‘It’s a lovely old place. A little Elizabethan manor house that was given to the nuns by an elderly spinster of the Bosanko family who owned it at the time. And Peneglos is the tiny village running down to the sea between Stepper Point and Trevose Head. The convent sits up above it in the valley.’

  She waited; the silence stretched interminably between them.

  ‘I’m thinking of going for it,’ he said at last, challengingly. ‘I can sell the flat and invest the money and then see how we get on. After all, Mo always used to make me work like a slave in the garden and Pa made sure that I’m no stranger to a paintbrush.’

  Dossie’s excitement was so intense she hardly dared to breathe.

  ‘Sounds great,’ she said casually. ‘Nothing you couldn’t handle, I’m sure, and fantastic for Jakey. A perfect place for a little boy to grow up, so close to the sea.’

  Once again she waited: she would not question him or ask how he’d manage with Jakey while he was working.

  ‘I’ll have to find out about childcare,’ he was saying. ‘It’ll be easier when he starts school, of course, but there should be a nursery in Padstow. And you’re not far away.’

  ‘Half an hour at the most, I should say. We can all help till you’re settled.’

  ‘OK.’ He sounded excited; hopeful. ‘If they give me an interview we could stay at The Court for a few days. That’d be OK, wouldn’t it?’

  She laughed then. ‘Of course it would. Let me know what happens.’

  ‘“Ch’Muir?”’ Clem repeated thoughtfully. ‘Is that how you pronounce it?’

  ‘More or less,’ she replied. ‘It’s Cornish for “the big house”. Something like that.’

  ‘Sounds good. There was suddenly a wistful longing in his voice.

  Dossie saw in her mind’s eye his tall, lean form; the silvery-gilt blond hair, the same colour as her own, cropped close to his head. She remembered how happy he’d been in the discovery of his vocation, in the love of his pretty French wife and the prospect of their baby, and her heart ached for him. No point in asking if he found his present work empty; she knew the answer.

  ‘If it’s right then it will happen,’ she said, suddenly cheerful; some sixth sense prompting her to confidence.

  And it had happened. The Sisters of Christ the King at Chi-Meur Convent and their chaplain and warden, Father Pascal, had taken Clem and Jakey to their hearts and Clem was offered the post and the sturdy little lodge house with it.

  Now, as Dossie turns into the lane towards Peneglos, her heart is glad with gratitude. Clem is healing, and Jakey is growing – and they are happy. She passes in through the convent gates and there is the Lodge, light streaming out across the drive, and Jakey at the window, waiting for her.

  ‘I was wondering,’ says Clem, watching as Dossie puts the remains of the cake back into its Raymond Briggs Father Christmas tin, ‘whether to leave the decorations until he’s gone to bed. You know? Do them when he’s asleep.’

  They had tea in the big, square, cheerful kitchen and now Jakey is next door in the sitting-room watching a DVD: Shaun the Sheep. With Stripey Bunny curled under his arm he is engrossed by the flock of amiable sheep and the antics of the idiotic sheepdog.

  ‘No, no.’ Dossie is very firm. ‘He’ll enjoy it in an odd kind of way. It’s important, isn’t it, to learn to finish things as well as to begin them? It’d be a terrible anticlimax for him to wake up to find it all packed away. It’s like grieving. It has its own pace and its own rituals. He was too little last year to do much but this year he can be helpful. He’ll like that.’ She glances at Clem. ‘Am I being bossy, darling? You must do what you think is best
.’

  ‘I expect you’re right.’

  He turns away and stands for a moment, leaning against the sink, staring out into the darkness. The convent lights shine out between the bare branches of the trees but Dossie knows that he is thinking of Madeleine; of how Jakey’s mother might have dealt with the situation. She reflects that there isn’t much that Clem doesn’t know about grieving.

  ‘He can pack up Auntie Gabriel,’ Dossie says cheerfully, hiding her own anguish. ‘He loves Auntie Gabriel. And the Holy Family. He can be responsible for them. And afterwards he can have his present and we’ll play with the trains before he has his bath. What d’you think?’

  Clem turns back and smiles at her. His smile frightens her; there is an empty quality about it, a determined stoicism. She wants to put her arms round him but she knows that her desire to comfort will merely be a burden to him; he’d be obliged to bury his pain more deeply in order not to worry her.

  Jakey comes into the kitchen with Stripey Bunny still under his arm.

  ‘Shaun’s finished,’ he says. ‘Are we going to take the decolations down now?’

  He is still slightly reluctant to abandon his air of sadness, which has so far earned him a big slice of cake and the present to come, and Dossie watches him, amused. Showing great restraint, he hasn’t asked about his Twelfth Night present but clearly he guesses that it is contingent upon the decorations being packed away and is now quite ready for this next step. She raises her eyebrows at Clem, who nods.

  ‘Could you deal with Auntie Gabriel? And the Holy Family? The tree takes a bit of time so it would be a great help if you could manage them.’

  Jakey’s eyes open wide with importance; he grows visibly. He nods. ‘But I can’t leach Auntie Gabriel unless I stand on a chair.’

  ‘I’ll come and help,’ says Dossie. ‘I’ll do the tree and then Daddy can take it out.’

  They go together into the sitting-room and she opens the heavy bottom drawer of the merchant’s chest. Out come the empty boxes and bags and she puts them on the sofa. Jakey seizes the linen shoebag and studies the name-tape with its red stitched letters: C PARDOE. He knows that the letters spell Daddy’s name and his own name, and that the shoebag belonged to Daddy when he was little and at school. He opens the neck of the bag as wide as he can and carries it over to the low table beside the tree.