The Christmas Angel Read online

  ‘We’re the two Jays,’ she says to him. ‘We’re a team: high five, partner,’ and Jakey stands on tiptoe, reaching up high to strike his small palm against Janna’s.

  Even as Clem thinks about her, there is a quick little tattoo on the door and she comes in, scattering raindrops, her face screwed up against the wind and rain.

  ‘Yeuch!’ she exclaims. ‘What a night! Nice and warm in here, though. Shopping!’ She heaves two large bags onto the table and Jakey pushes himself up higher in his chair to peer inside.

  ‘Thanks, Janna.’ Clem takes a Petits Filous from the fridge and gives it to Jakey. ‘Honestly, I’m really grateful.’

  ‘I was going anyway. I just hope I remembered everything.’

  Clem begins to take out packages: fish fingers, sausages, yoghurt.

  ‘Good job your mum’s a cook and stocks the freezer up for you with proper food,’ observes Janna.

  ‘I can cook,’ says Clem, unperturbed. ‘Jakey and I happen to like sausages and fish fingers.’

  ‘I love sausages,’ announces Jakey. ‘Sausages are my favoulites.’ He bounces in his chair, beaming at Janna, flourishing his spoon, showing off.

  Clem puts a small bowl of grapes in front of him. ‘Eat properly or you’ll get a tummy-ache. Tea, Janna?’

  ‘Love some.’ She sits down beside Jakey. Clem switches on the kettle and begins to pile the tins and packets into the cupboard. Janna looks at Jakey; gives him a tiny wink.

  ‘So what have you had for supper, my lover?’ she asks. ‘Don’t tell me. Beans on toast with sausage.’

  ‘He likes beans on toast with sausage.’ Clem shuts the cupboard door. ‘It’s very nourishing. He gets a good lunch at school and Dossie’s here often enough to make sure he has a balanced diet.’

  Jakey knows that Janna is teasing Daddy and that Daddy doesn’t mind; he’s smiling as he puts a tea bag into the mug. Jakey eats some grapes. He wrinkles his nose and wriggles. He is deciding whether to demand Janna’s attention: ask her to play with him or read him a story. But a bit of him knows that when other people come and talk to Daddy, then this is a good time to ask if he can watch the television. Usually, he’ll be allowed some extra watching time while the grownups talk. He finishes his grapes and picks up Stripey Bunny.

  ‘Can I get down, Daddy? Can I watch television?’

  ‘“May I get down?” OK, yes. Just for a bit. Hang on a sec; let me wipe your face.’ The kettle boils. Clem makes Janna’s tea, puts the mug beside her and goes with Jakey into the sitting-room. She can hear them arguing about who should press which buttons, and what and for how long Jakey will be allowed to watch. Presently Clem comes back and sits down at the table. He pushes the laptop to one side and picks up his half-drunk, nearly cold coffee.

  ‘It’s keeping one step ahead that’s so exhausting,’ he says. ‘I had no idea that the mind of a four-year-old was so devious. He can argue for hours and the scary thing is that his arguments are very logical. I get to a point where I want to shout, “Just because I say so!” but I’d feel he’d outwitted me. It’s like living with Henry Kissinger. Dossie’s better at reasoning with him than I am.’

  ‘She had all those years of practice with you. Anyway, she’s a woman. She’s more devious than Jakey can ever hope to be.’

  They sit together companionably, talking over the day. Janna has a second mug of tea.

  ‘There was a chap round earlier,’ she says. ‘Funny bloke. Just wandering about. Did you see him?’

  Clem shakes his head. ‘I’ve been decorating the little West Room. No chance of getting anything done outside this last couple of days, and there are no guests in at the moment. When you say “funny” what do you mean exactly?’

  Janna frowns. ‘He seemed a bit shifty when he saw me. I was going down to the village the back way and he must have come up that way because he was round the back of the Coach House, just peering around. So I asked if he wanted anything and he said no, and that he hadn’t realized that the lane led straight into the grounds. “So this is the convent?” he said, all bright and interested. And I said that it was. And he said something about it being rather smart having your own private road into the village. Then he said, “But then, of course, they owned the village too in the old days, didn’t they?” After he’d said that he looked awkward and I didn’t know what he was talking about so I just left him to it. I didn’t want to walk down with him, see. I felt uncomfortable with him. Afterwards I wondered if it had been right to leave him but he didn’t look rough or anything like that. He was quite smartly dressed. What did he mean about owning the village?’

  ‘Before it became a convent, Chi-Meur and Peneglos, the church and all the farmland around here belonged to the Bosanko family. When Elizabeth Bosanko willed Chi-Meur to a small community of nuns, the village and most of the farms were sold off. Obviously this fellow has been studying the local history but even so I’d have thought he would’ve seen the notice at the back entrance that says “Private”.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, but I didn’t quite like to be rude. You know – he might’ve been a visitor that the sisters were expecting. After all, we do get some odd people turning up.’

  Clem shrugs. ‘Well, he clearly knew the history of the place. Perhaps he was just a nosy visitor staying down in the village.’

  Janna finishes her tea, glances at the clock. ‘I’d better dash. Vespers will be over in ten minutes and Sister Ruth’ll be needing help with supper. I’ve left your change on the table. Thanks for the tea.’

  ‘Thanks for the shopping,’ Clem answers.

  He pockets the pile of loose change, scrumples the till receipt and puts it in the bin. Part of him wishes that he’d asked Janna to come back later and have supper with him, but he knows that once he’s finished Jakey’s bath-and-bed routine he’ll be quite happy simply to slump in front of the television with a sandwich. It’s hard physical labour, keeping the grounds and the house maintained, as well as making certain that Jakey’s needs are answered. Dossie and Janna are a terrific help, but the aching emptiness remains: he misses Madeleine, and he misses the peace he once knew: the deep-down peace of recognizing his vocation and committing to it.

  He stands beside the table, hands in his pockets, head bent. The shock of Madeleine’s death threw him off track. He utterly lost his bearings. A few things were clear: she’d want his first care to be for their child and he couldn’t possibly have managed that at Oxford. Her parents lived and worked in France and so were unable to be of any great help to him, and although Dossie offered, even begged him to allow her to move to Oxford to make a home for them, he couldn’t have been responsible for the fact that the move would be such an upheaval for her. After all, she went through all this before: the loss of her beloved young husband in a car smash and the prospect of bringing up their child without him. Back then, she was in the last year at catering college and she used all her new-learned skills to start up a business immediately so as to earn a living whilst looking after her baby. How could he possibly have asked her to give up her clients, her contacts and all her other commitments? Impossible. Clem shakes his head. The other alternative, of Dossie taking Jakey back to Cornwall while he continued his studies in Oxford for the next three years, was also out of the question. Jakey had lost his mother; he needed his father. Back in London Clem could earn good money to pay for a full-time nanny and he’d have the network of his friends to support him. The prospect was a bleak one in contrast to all that he’d looked forward to but, anyway, how could he trust that his sense of vocation was a true one? Why should this tragedy have happened within the first few months of his training if he had indeed been called to the priesthood? For a long while he railed against God: angry, despairing, in pain.

  In retrospect, he sees that all his decisions were driven by guilt and grief – and yet, three years later, he found his way to Chi-Meur. And now there is a sense of healing and a measure of peace to be found working in this magical place so close to the sea, or
slipping into the chapel for the Eucharist at midday, or to listen to Terce or Vespers or Compline. And talking to Father Pascal in his tiny cottage down in the village.

  Slowly, reluctantly at first, Clem talked to the old priest about his confusion and his anger: how he believed that finding the job at Chi-Meur and the kindness of the Sisters, as well as Janna’s friendship, were healing him. But to what purpose? What of the future?

  ‘Signposts?’ Father Pascal suggested on one of these occasions. ‘The generosity of strangers, the love of friends. Don’t you think that these might be signposts on the road to God? The promises of God, who is on the road ahead of you. He will meet you there.’

  ‘Where?’ Clem asked wearily. ‘I thought I’d already got started on that road and then it blew up in front of me.’

  ‘But you found Chi-Meur. You are on the road again, perhaps even a little further on. But the initiative is with God.’

  Now, Clem takes his hands out of his pockets and glances at his watch: nearly bath-time; and Jakey has been watching television for much longer than his usual allowance and won’t want to stop. Clem breathes deeply and braces himself for battle.

  In his bedroom in a farmhouse further along the coast, Janna’s stranger crouches over his mobile.

  ‘It’s all in pretty good shape,’ he’s saying. ‘Lovely house. Young feller in the lodge house looking after the grounds. He’s got his work cut out. And a girl in a caravan. Chief cook and bottle-washer, I should say. Bit of a looker … No, no. Don’t get out of your pram. There’s nothing like that going on. But I’m picking up information in the village. Four nuns. Sisters, they call them. Elderly. One of them a bit ga-ga. Can’t see how they can hope to carry on myself, though they’re very popular with the locals … No, I’m not staying in the village. I’m at a bed and breakfast up the coast a bit. It’s a farm. Nice and quiet. Pretty basic, touch of the Worzels, but it suits. I’ve told them I’m writing a book about the north Cornish coast and its history. They’re thrilled about it …

  ‘So we put in our offer and wait? And, if they accept, then it can be proved that the house is no longer going to be run as a convent and you can appear waving your bit of paper and say that, under the terms of the old will drawn up hundreds of years ago, you, as the last descendant of these particular Bosankos, are entitled to inherit … Yeah, I know that’s a bit garbled but that’s where we are. Right? … No, nobody can hear me. Don’t be so twitchy. I told you, the dit is I’m researching a book. It might be televised. I’ve dropped a few well-known names and the locals can’t wait to be in it. Everyone wants to have a say. I’ve got Phil Brewster lined up, ready to go when you say the word … OK, I’ll have another look around. Same time tomorrow? OK.’

  He switches off and stares around the tidy, comfortable room and then out into the wet, dark night. There is no sound, no streetlights. He shivers, makes a face, wonders how people can stand living in all this quiet. He drags the curtains across and stands for a minute, thinking. Seems a crazy scheme, this one, but Tommy’s got them through a few deals, right on the edge, bit dodgy, but lucrative. He’s a bright boy, is Tommy; old school tie with a lot of upmarket contacts, but he keeps you on your toes, chin on shoulder. He was excited at that last meeting, really buzzing with it.

  ‘Now listen,’ he said. ‘A friend of mine down in Truro, a lawyer, has turned up something rather interesting on the old family estate. I want you to go down and have a look around. It’s been a convent for nearly two hundred years but if we can get proof that it is no longer viable then, according to this document, it reverts to any surviving descendant of this particular branch of the family. We’ve checked it out and that’s me. Seems there’s only a couple of the nuns left and they might be thinking of joining other larger communities. Now we don’t want to alert them, d’you see? We’re working on the fact that nobody’s been looking at the small print. Just get down there and check it out.’

  ‘I don’t get it. If it’s yours by right anyway—’

  ‘Look, old chap,’ Tommy let him see he was being patient with him, ‘you discover that the old dears are thinking of moving on. You give the OK to Phil Brewster. He does his hotelier act and puts in a very nice offer, which they’ll imagine tucking into the coffers of their religious society to secure their futures. “Oh, yes,” they say. “Thank you very much.” He gets some positive proof of their intention to accept the offer, passes it on to you and then – wham, I turn up with a copy of the old will. Deal falls through, the place is mine. I know someone who would pay very, very serious money for a place just there.’

  ‘But what do they get out of it?’

  Tommy laughed then; really laughed. ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ he said. ‘They don’t get anything. I get the ancestral home back and sell it to the highest bidder and they have their treasure in Heaven where moth and rust don’t get a look in. Now, you get the proof and I move in. Usual pay and expenses.’

  Caine raises his head. The wind is rising and the rain slaps against the window. He’s been offered supper and he’s accepted gratefully. He’ll spin a story about the book, talk about a television series and mention a few names: Simon Schama, Dan Cruikshank. What’s the name of that bird who does Wainwright Walks?

  He hears a noise. The farmer’s wife is on the stairs and he goes out quickly to meet her, shutting his door behind him so that the sharp black eyes can see nothing in his room.

  Nosy cow, he thinks, but he smiles at her, turning on the charm.

  ‘Is that supper ready, Mrs Trembath? Goodness, I’m hungry after being out all day.’

  ‘’Tis all waiting, Mr Caine,’ she says, and he follows her down the stairs.

  Dossie puts down the telephone and makes a few notes on her laptop. She’s working in the kitchen this morning, it being a much warmer room than her tiny, north-facing study upstairs; but at least, these days, she has a study all to herself. Things have changed since she came back home all those years ago as a very young widow, to have her baby and try to make a career. It was her parents who, in between running their own rather off-the-wall bed-and-breakfast business, looked after Clem whilst she organized lunches and dinners, cooking up special-occasion feasts in other people’s kitchens.

  ‘Of course we can manage, darling,’ her mother said. ‘And we know lots of people who will simply leap at the chance of having you catering for their parties.’

  She was right. Her parents had a great many connections all over the peninsula who were very willing to help out the widowed daughter of their friends. Gradually she built up a very solid client base and, with Pa and Mo as resident baby-sitters, she travelled the length of the county from Launceston to Penzance, and from Falmouth to St Ives. Sometimes, now, Dossie wonders whether it was fair to allow herself and Clem to be a burden to two middle-aged people who were trying to earn their own living. Yet, somehow she didn’t think about it quite like that. Pa and Mo were so all-embracing; so capable and so laid-back. Their guests, mainly friends of friends and parents of friends, who all seemed to become dear old chums after the first visit, would arrive with dogs – or even with a grandchild – in tow and the elegant grey stone house – The Court – was always full of people. She’d come in from doing a lunch in Truro to find two old fellows having a quick pre-dinner drink with Pa in the drawing-room before they set out for the pub, their wives chatting to Mo in the kitchen whilst they ordered breakfast. A dog or two might be stretched out in the hall or in the little television parlour where someone would be catching the news.

  Clem loved it. They brought him little presents when he was small, agonized with him through GCSEs and A levels, cheered him on to university, whilst Pa and Mo gave him exactly the kind of loving neglect that worked so well for his independent character. And now she is able to make some kind of return for all that love and generosity. The roles are reversed, and she can support them as once they supported her and Clem. It took Pa’s stroke, collapsing all among the debris of the full English breakfast, to per
suade them both that perhaps they should give up their ‘B and B-ers’, as they called them, but she still has a few of the specials to stay. Pa and Mo still behave like the good old-fashioned hosts that they were, and everyone has a lot of fun.

  Dossie makes some notes on the big calendar on the fridge so that Pa and Mo will know where she’ll be and what is happening workwise. When it comes to a social life not much is going on at the moment. There have been relationships, of course, one or two more serious than others, but some of the men involved were rather cautious about taking on a young boy, as well as the possibility of Pa and Mo at a future date.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ her younger brother, Adam, would say. ‘Get a life. You’re still young and they’ll manage perfectly well on their own. They’re indestructible. I don’t know how you bear it. I couldn’t get out quick enough.’

  Just recently, since he’s moved in with Natasha and her two teenage daughters, Adam’s words have changed. ‘They should have downsized ages ago when the market was still strong. You shouldn’t have encouraged them to stay on. What are you going to do when The Court has to be sold and they go into a home?’

  Dossie always feels a little chill of fear at these words. She can’t quite imagine herself anywhere else but in this pretty, gracious Georgian house, with its elegant sash windows and perfect proportions, which has been in the family for generations. Even worse, she can’t picture Pa and Mo in sheltered accommodation amongst strangers. After all, they are still quite fit even if Pa tires very quickly since his stroke and Mo struggles with arthritis and is rather deaf. And, oh, how they’d miss the dogs if they were to be separated from them.