The Magic of Christmas. Trisha Ashley

foaming at the mouth by this stage.

      ‘Dr Patel has offered to do the Temptation of Christ, the Curing of the Lame Man, the Blind Man, and the Raising of Lazarus: all short scenes.’

      ‘Seems appropriate,’ agreed the doctor, adding generously, ‘and the Water into Wine and Feeding of the Five Thousand too, if you like.’

      ‘I’ll see to the Last Supper, Judas, the Trial and Crucifixion myself this year – the Crucifixion’s always tricky, but you might want to take that on next year, Vicar – and then that leaves just the Resurrection, Ascension and Last Judgement.’

      ‘I’ll do those again,’ offered Annie.

      ‘We do the final dress rehearsals for the whole thing up at the Hall in a couple of sessions before Christmas,’ Marian helpfully explained to the vicar. ‘In random order, or it would be unlucky. But since at least two-thirds of the players will have done their parts before, it’s just a question of making sure the new ones know their lines and where to stand, that’s all.’

      ‘Oh, good,’ said poor Gareth weakly. He looked at his watch. ‘I’d better get back – I’ve got a funeral to prepare.’

      ‘Yes, our Moses – such a sad loss,’ Miss Pym said. ‘We will have to recast that part, too.’

      Clive stuffed his papers and clipboard into a scuffed leather briefcase and then he and Marian started transforming the hall into a snooker parlour for the Youth Club, turning down my offer of help.

      When I went out the vicar was already halfway across the green with Annie, heading in the direction of the church. I bet they were only talking about something totally mundane like Sunday school, though, and she hadn’t noticed at all that he fancied her.

      Miss Pym climbed into her little red Smart car and vanished with a vroom, and Dr Patel wished me good night and got into his BMW.

      I wended my way home to Perseverance Cottage, where I did not find my husband or, more importantly, my car, but did find a telephone message on the machine from Unks, asking me to ring him back. When I did, he told me that Mimi, his elderly sister who lived at the Hall with her long-suffering companion Juno, had been arrested by the police at the Southport Flower Show, having temporarily got away from Mrs Gumball, who’d volunteered to keep an eye on her. You can’t blame her, though, since Mimi is very spry for an octogenarian while Mrs Gumball is the human equivalent of a mastodon, so moves slowly and majestically.

      Unfortunately, Mimi is a plant kleptomaniac: no one’s garden is safe from her little knife and plastic bags, and she really just can’t understand why anyone should take exception to her habits. Still, the police had merely cautioned and released her this time and, since the coach had by then set out on the return journey, drove her and Mrs Gumball home in a police car.

      Roly said she was under the impression they had done it to give her a treat, and was hoping next year’s flower show would be as much fun.

      Then he added, rather puzzlingly, ‘And I hope Tom told you that you can stop worrying about ever losing Perseverance Cottage, my dear, because after I’m gone, it’s yours and Tom’s. I would have said before, if I’d known it was on your mind.’

      ‘But I wasn’t worried, Unks! In fact, the thought never even entered my head,’ I assured him. Since I would have to leave soon, it was immaterial to me, but Tom had evidently used me as an excuse to find out how things had been left. How Machiavellian he’s becoming!

      After this, I unpacked Annie’s candyfloss machine to distract myself from worrying until Jasper arrived safely home. The instructions absolutely forbade me to use any natural essences or colourings other than special granulated ones designed for the purpose, which was disappointing from the point of view of making Cornish Mist, until I discovered one of the tubs in the box was lemon.

      Fascinating how the floss forms inside the bowl like ectoplasm, and you have to wind the near invisible threads onto wooden sticks. Fine, sugary filaments drifted everywhere, and the kitchen took on the hot, sweet, nostalgic smell of funfairs.

      It was really messy but fun, which Jasper said was a good description of me, too, when he got home and saw what I’d been up to, though by then I was sitting among the debris, writing it all up for the Chronicle.

      Maybe I’ll have ‘messy, but fun’ as my epitaph.

      Chapter 6: Driven Off

      I wonder if plastic bags of fluffy white candyfloss labelled ‘edible Santa beards’ would go down well with children at Christmas? I expect they would try them on and get terribly sticky, though.

      The Perseverance Chronicles: A Life in Recipes

      There was still no sign of my car next morning and, in a furious temper, I rang all of Tom’s friends that I knew about, or who I had mobile numbers for although trying to contact his surfing buddies down in Cornwall was always like waking the dead, and I got little sense out of them even when they did answer the phone.

      The first time or two he went missing for a few days I also rang the local hospitals and the police, but after that I learned my lesson.

      I woke Jasper early and saw him off by bike to the dig, then I called Annie to tell her I was without transport; but luckily she only wanted me to exercise the two Pekes and a Shitzu belonging to one of the more elderly members of the Cotton Common cast, Delphine Lake. She’d bought one of the expensive flats in part of the former Pharamond’s Butterflake Biscuit factory in the village and I’d walked her dogs several times before.

      Uncle Roly sold the Pharamond brand name out to a big conglomerate years ago for cash, shares and a seat on the board, which was both a smart and lucrative deal; so now the factory has been converted to apartments, a café-bar called Butterflakes, and a museum of Mosses history.

      Delphine’s dogs may be little, but they loved their walks, so it was late morning before I got back to the cottage and found a female police officer awaiting me on the doorstep. An adolescent colleague sat biting his fingernails behind the wheel of a panda car.

      I immediately thought the worst, as you do. ‘Jasper?’ I cried. ‘Has something happened to Jasper?’

      ‘Mrs Elizabeth Pharamond?’ she queried solemnly.

      ‘Yes!’

      ‘I’m Constable Perkins and I’m afraid I have some very bad news for you.’

      She paused, and I was just about to take her by the throat and shake her when she added,

      ‘About your husband.’

      ‘Oh – thank God!’ I gasped devoutly, then burst into tears of relief.

      Wresting the keys from my nerveless fingers, she ushered me into my own home, where she broke the news that Tom had had a fatal accident. He’d driven off the road into a disused quarry, which was odd in itself, since there’s only one place within a radius of about fifty miles where he could have managed to perform that feat, and it’s up a little-used back lane.

      While her colleague made me tea, she spoke to me with skilful sympathy, though my reactions clearly puzzled her. But all I was feeling was an overpowering sense of relief that it wasn’t Jasper.

      And then I got to thinking that this was all so blatantly unreal anyway, that it couldn’t be true: it must be just some dreadful nightmare!

      This was a very calming idea, since I knew I’d wake up sometime, so I agreed quite readily to go and identify Tom’s body. My head seemed to be this helium-filled thing bobbing about on a string – or that’s what it felt like, anyway – but there’s no accounting for dreams.

      And Tom, apart from his thin, handsome face being a whiter shade of pale, looked absolutely fine. He was always one to land butter-side up …

      ‘Is this your husband?’ the policewoman asked formally.

      ‘Yes – Thomas Pharamond. Are you sure he’s dead? Only he looks just like