A Winterfold Christmas

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  Joe

  November 2014

  “I’ve never cooked a Christmas meal before, no. I don’t understand what all the fuss is about, to be honest.”

  Sheila Cowper, Joe’s boss, stopped in the act of pouring a glass of wine, her mouth open. “What’s that now?”

  “I’ve never cooked a Christmas meal before.” Joe Thorne shifted under her appalled gaze. “Come on, it’s not that big a deal. It’s November. I’ve got ages, haven’t I?”

  “You’re joking, aren’t you? You? Never cooked Christmas? And you’ve offered to do the cooking”—Sheila hugged herself, eyes dancing—“at Winterfold? You’ve taken over from . . . from Martha Winter and you’ve never done a Christmas meal before?” She shivered. “Ooh, this is great.”

  Joe scratched his neck where the label of his chef ’s whites always itched. Trying not to sound arrogant, he said, “Sheila, I am a professional chef, you know.”

  “Ha-ha!” Sheila was laughing. “Oh, I know, love. Now listen, don’t get me wrong.” She leaned on the bar. “Bob? Bob!” she called out. “Come over yere! Joe’s saying he’s never cooked a Christmas meal before!”

  Bob, their oldest regular, whose age was a matter of fierce debate in the village, cupped one ear with his hand. “He what?”

  “He’s never cooked a Christmas meal before!”

  “But ain’t he cooking furr them up there at Winterfold, instead of Mrs. Winter?” he said. “Susan told me as he was. You sure about that, my dear?”

  Sheila laughed, jerking her head in Joe’s direction.

  “Well, well,” said Bob, gazing reproachfully at Joe. “That’s very interesting. Very interesting indeed. Tell me, do you know how she makes her bread sauce? Do you?”

  “No,” said Joe. “I’ve . . . I mean, I’ve made bread sauce, okay?” He wished he didn’t sound so defensive.

  “Sure you have, dear,” said Sheila. “I’ve eaten it. It’s delicious. Everything you make’s delicious, Joe.” She tapped the blackboard above the Oak Tree’s gleaming bar. “Why do you think we got people booking seven months in advance to eat here? But you’re not Martha Winter, my love.”

  “I’m not saying I am,” said Joe, nettled.

  “I’m just . . . well, you’re a brave man, that’s all.”

  “How?” said Joe, though he knew the answer.

  “Taking on the Winters at Christmas,” came the reply. “There’s no one does Christmas better than Martha. I can’t believe she agreed to let you do the Christmas meal. It’s legendary. You know, one year she cooked the potatoes three times, to get them right?” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Boiled, shaken around in rice flour and polenta and lightly fried in olive oil, then in the hot oven with the goose fat. You know once,” said Sheila, warming to her theme, “once she cooked a chicken inside a goose. And, and a turkey as well. And she did it all running that house and raising three children, as well as looking after David and having a hundred people turning up to the drinks party. Oh, she even read the lesson at the Nine Lessons. ‘The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light,’ ” said Sheila with relish. “That’s her. She reads beautifully, you know.”

  “Well, things are—” Joe began.

  “She always looked so nice, too,” Sheila interrupted. “Not that she doesn’t now, of course.” She stopped in the act of pouring a second glass. “I do hope she’s all right, poor Martha. Does she seem all right to you?”

  “Martha? She’s fine. This time of year’s difficult, of course.” They nodded at each other.

  For years the Winters had been thought of unofficially as the first family of the village—though they would have been horrified at such a description. But people loved David, the cartoonist creator of Wilbur the dog, beloved around the world. Martha was the businesslike one, the one who remembered birthdays and made lasagnas for sick people, and David was the kind, charming one, who kissed children and loved singing show tunes. Their three children had long since grown up, of course, but they still—all of them—had thought of Winterfold as home.

  Then, two years ago, disaster had struck. David had had a heart attack in the middle of a family lunch and died. Things had moved on, though—that’s what everyone said, anyway. But in fact, they hadn’t for Martha.

  “You need to make sure your mother-in-law’s okay,” said Sheila, whipping him with a tea towel.

  “She’s my grandmother-in-living-together,” pointed out Joe. “Cat and I aren’t married. And she’s Martha’s granddaughter.”

  “You know what I mean. Martha needs looking after. She pretends she doesn’t, but she does. After last year, too . . .” Sheila’s face darkened. “Oh dear.”

  “Look, Sheila, I know Barbados was a disaster.” He rubbed his forehead, as though instantly sweating at the memory of last year’s attempt to have a family Christmas not at Winterfold. “But things are different at Winterfold now. I’m there. Cat and I are together. We’ve got Luke and Jamie. It’s time for Martha and Cat to take it easy. They’ve got me. I can look after them.”

  He wished he felt as certain as he sounded.

  “Oh, I know it all,” said Sheila, and she smiled at him and put some glasses on a tray along with some roasted nuts tossed in fennel seeds and sea salt. “They’re the luckiest women west of London, those Winter girls. But you’d better not screw it up, my love. They take Christmas seriously up there.”

  Joe thought of Cat, at this very moment stalking the hedgerows on this chilly, damp November afternoon, picking sloes to make sloe gin, a reluctant Luke by her side. “Tell me about it,” he said.

  When he came to think about it, he had absolutely no memory of how he’d decided to offer to do Christmas, and in such a peremptory fashion. It was unlike him. Joe was a planner—careful, shy. It was what he had in common with Cat: they were introverts, not crazy arm-waving extroverts like Cat’s cousin Lucy, who talked nineteen to the dozen, or Cat’s aunt Florence, who frequently walked into doorframes because she was waving her arms around too much.

  “I’ll do it,” he’d announced one morning a couple of weeks ago, when it was still October, Halloween hadn’t even happened, and Christmas seemed an age away. Martha had idly mentioned it at breakfast and he’d leaped right in there.

  “We’re here for the first time. Together.”

  “Is Jamie coming?” Cat looked up. “I thought he was with Jemma.”

  “He is with her.” Jamie was Joe’s son from a previous relationship. He didn’t want to admit to anyone, especially Cat, that he hoped by doing all the Christmas cooking to distract himself from the hole in his heart when his son wasn’t around on days like these. He saw him little enough as it was. He couldn’t bear to think about how much he missed Jamie. “But we’ll see him in the new year.” He smiled at Cat lovingly. “Point is, this should be special. Let me do it. The meal, some drinks the night before, the mince pies and the cake.” He waved a gracious hand around. “It’s not right you should have to do all the work.”

  “No,” Martha had said, amused, in that clear, slightly scary way she had. “No, I don’t mind the work. You could help me. You don’t have to do it all.”

  He should have just agreed. It’d have been so much better.

 
“No, Martha. I’ve been thinking about it. . . .” He hadn’t been thinking about it that he knew of. It hadn’t crossed his mind! “It’s time you relaxed. What kind of chef am I—and what kind of partner to Cat—if I can’t knock up a decent Christmas meal? You know, Barbados wasn’t quite right for us. . . .”

  Across the table, Cat shuddered and gave a grimace.

  “Now we’re all here, I’d like to do it. Show you all it’s my home as well, and that I’m the man who can do all that, sort it all out. You know, prove myself to you. Show you that I’m . . .” He trailed off, suddenly aware this had escalated from being a casual conversation into some Russell-Crowe-in-Gladiator-style declaration of intent. “Would that be okay with you all?”

  Martha had simply shrugged. Luke had looked at Joe curiously, but Cat met his gaze, her eyes filmy with tears. Tough, hard Cat, who never showed emotion, his beautiful willowy girl who made his heart leap every morning when he woke up and looked at her lying next to him. He had made a vow to himself that she’d never feel afraid or lonely again. He would let her fly, mend her broken wings . . . though when he said stuff like that, she made vomiting noises and hooted with laughter. She was tough, like her grandmother.

  But he’d got to her now, he’d made her cry. Joe’s heart swelled.

  “We’ll have beef,” he said, thumping the table. “And three kinds of potatoes. And the brussels sprouts will taste like heaven. I’ll make the mince pies, the sausage rolls—”

  Luke, Cat’s son, who was munching away at a bowl of Shreddies, looked up. “You make the best sausage rolls in the world, Joe,” he said briefly, then went back to his cereal.

  “Thanks, Luke!” Joe felt a swell of gratification. “Thanks, buddy. Sausage rolls, um . . . the Christmas cake, the Christmas log—I’ll do a ham for Boxing Day, and roast a turkey just in case we need some extra cold meats.” He reached into his pocket for the tiny notebook that was always on his person. “Bread sauce infused with cranberries, how about that?”

  There was a pause.

  Cat said delicately, “Lucy doesn’t eat beef.”

  “Oh. Okay, fine!” Joe scribbled this down.

  “I loathe cranberries,” said Martha. “They’re American, apart from anything else. Like English muffins. We don’t eat cranberries.”

  We don’t eat cranberries. “Eggnog?”

  “I like eggnog when I want to catch salmonella and nearly die. Raw eggs, Joe. Bad idea.”

  “Oh.” Undaunted, Joe carried on scribbling.

  “Listen, if you’re sure you want to, then by all means. It’s very kind of you.” Martha stood up. “I’d better go and do some work. They want the revises by lunchtime. This is wonderful news. If you’re sure you want to.”

  “I’m absolutely sure.”

  “As long as you don’t blow the fuse box like you did when you cooked for Cat’s birthday.”

  Joe smiled patiently. “Ha-ha,” he said. “I think that’s the electrics, not me.”

  “It’s never happened before,” Martha told him, and he felt the tiny licking flames of irritation being stoked inside him. “You switch the kettle on too much, that’s the trouble. The electrics at Winterfold are fine.”

  “Okay, I’m sure it’s me.” Joe bowed. “I won’t blow the fuse box. Thank you, Martha.”

  “You sure it’s okay, Gran?” said Cat, catching hold of Martha’s hand as she passed by.

  “Absolutely,” said Martha flatly. “I’m not really looking forward to Christmas. This makes it easier.”

  “Why aren’t you looking forward to it?” said Cat, troubled.

  Martha shook her head. “Nothing you can help with, darling. I’m fine. Just . . . more memories than usual this year, that’s all. Ones that I don’t want to leave me.”

  “Oh, Gran. What kind of memories? Southpaw?” This had been the family’s name for David, Martha’s husband.

  But Martha ignored the question. “I must get on.” She patted Joe on the back. “Well, Joseph. The baton passes. Good luck, my boy.”

  Joe thought he caught a twinkle in her eye as she walked off, but he wasn’t sure.

  Joe’s Secret Best Sausage Rolls in the Entire World

  Makes 30–40 mini sausage rolls

  2 sheets of ready-rolled puff pastry (ideally the all-butter variety, not the stuff made with oil, thoroughly defrosted if frozen)

  15–20 good-quality chipolatas or other long, thin fresh sausages, depending on size

  small bunch of thyme that has dried out over previous two weeks (sounds fiddly but is absolutely worth it, I promise you)

  18 ounces (100g) Parmesan, grated fine (may need more)

  black pepper, grated

  1 beaten egg and a little milk to loosen

  Preheat the oven to 425°F. Carefully, so that you don’t crack it, lay out the puff pastry flat, landscape-style.

  Put two sausages end to end vertically, squashing them together at the tips. Scatter dried thyme and lots of Parmesan down one side of each sausage, packing it in. Add some freshly ground pepper.

  Cut the pastry parallel to the sausages and pinch together to form a little seal. You will judge best at what width to cut to fully enclose the sausages, but don’t waste pastry—you only need a small overhang. Ideally you can fit four or five lengths on one roll.

  Repeat along the puff pastry until it is all used up; then, using kitchen scissors (much better than a knife for this task), cut each of the long rolls into small sausage rolls, no longer than 1 inch.

  Brush with beaten egg and milk. Cook for 12–14 minutes on a greased baking tray in the preheated oven, or until golden brown and crispy and delicious-looking.

  Tip: Can be frozen before cooking after being cut into small rolls.

  Cat

  Cat Winter hated Christmas. She loved late autumn, the countryside releasing its frantic hold on life and sinking into black and gray stark beauty. Releasing her hand from her five-year-old son’s, Cat tied her hair back and rammed the woolen hat over her head, as Luke tramped alongside her, complaining.

  “Maman! Why on earth do we have to do this?”

  Cat hid a smile. “Because sloe-hunting’s fun.”

  “It’s not fun. I had to go collecting sloes last week with Joe and Jamie for the Oak. I didn’t like it then. Plus I just pricked my finger again. It’s so dangerous.”

  “Oh, chéri.” Cat chucked him under the chin. “Don’t make such a blooming fuss.”

  “I’m not.” Luke crossed his arms and stood stock-still in the middle of the muddy path. “You said it’d be fun last year and my thumb got infected from that thorn. It was green. I want to go home.”

  Cat always thought you could tell her son was French when it came to matters of his own health, about which he was deeply concerned, she being more of the “if it drops off then we’ll worry” school.

  “If you help me, I’ll let you choose a chocolate from Gran’s chocolate selection when we get back,” said Cat, resorting to bribery and hating herself.

  “Okay,” Luke said happily. “Thanks, Maman.”

  On the fields above Winterfold the final autumn colors were almost indecent: the trees in the woodland behind wore every shade from crayfish pink to fluorescent yellow, with green, ocher, brown, and coral in between. Ahead of them, the setting sun cast rosy-gold ripples across the gray-blue skies.

  The hedgerows ahead of them were almost bare now, black-blue twigs flecked with phosphorescent lichen. The afternoon was utterly still; it was the first weekend after the clocks had gone back, and most folk were probably inside, safe from the sudden chill. Cat shivered; it would be Christmas soon, and she felt uneasy. Something was troubling her, in the back of her mind. She couldn’t work out what. She shook her head, shaking out the negative thoughts.

  “Where shall we go?” she said to Luke.

  “This way,” h
e said. “There were loads here last week.”

  “Oh, good idea. You see, you are a good sloe-hunter.” But when they got to the corner of the field, the branches were bare. Cat stared around in dismay.

  “I’m sure most of the birds have had them,” she said brightly, but inwardly she seethed. Other sloe-pickers, more like.

  Simon Ollerenshaw, husband of the local vicar, Kathy, was a real forager, hunting tirelessly all year round for food in the hedgerows and fields around Winter Stoke. He liked his sloes, Cat knew: Simon could leave an entire hedgerow bare. She wouldn’t have put it past him to have snaffled the whole lot. Village feelings ran high around sloe-picking time.

  She could recall so clearly the years of sloe-hunting with her grandfather, David, who, before his arthritis got too bad, had the most agile and precise fingers. He could delve past the hard, firm bar of the thorny branch, dodging its pricks, and pluck the juiciest, plumpest sloes from the center of the bush. The ones almost the size of a ten-pence coin, sleek and black, brushed with navy-purple and chalky coloring.

  “Ha-ha! Bingo!” he’d shout in childish delight. And the smell—that unmistakable scent of sharp, sallow fruitfulness that was, for her, Christmas at Winterfold. Before the miserable years in Paris, before she lost herself.

  Since she’d been back in England, she had been happy almost every day—as happy as she could ever feel, since something inside her was broken now and would never entirely mend. But Christmas was what brought that bleakness to the fore and was the reason they had spent the money last year on the disastrous holiday to Barbados. The holiday seemed to symbolize the time of sadness in Paris: the tiny tree, not much taller than her upright hand, that she’d put up in Madame Poulain’s flat, only to have it thrown away—“No, Catherine, no plants inside on my carpet”—the sight on the TV news of shopping in London, and the carols you’d hear in Marks & Spencer; the view, once, on the front of a free newspaper of Bath Abbey with the Christmas tree outside, the lights, the happy busyness of the place; and her, alone in the tiny chambre de bonne with a fitfully slumbering Luke on Christmas Eve, staring out at the black night sky and wondering what they were doing now, over in England, at Winterfold.