Last Christmas. Julia Williams

whom they’d invited over to help dilute the toxicity of Angela’s presence. ‘I think I’m past the age where I care about overindulging.’ She flashed an understanding smile at her daughter, as if to say, You’re doing fine. Cat smiled back. Not for the first time she felt incredibly grateful to have such an easygoing, wonderful and utterly generous mother.

      The meal continued in silence until Ruby and Paige started kicking each other under the table.

      ‘Stop that you two!’ hissed Cat, trying not to draw Angela’s attention, whose views on children’s behaviour at the dinner table were more than a little Victorian. Luckily, Angela had chosen that moment to quiz James about which school he might be thinking about going to, a thorny subject as Noel and Cat were keen for him to try for a grammar school five miles away, which had a much better reputation than the local boys’ school, while James of course wanted to go where his friends were going. They’d already been through this once with Melanie, but her friends had roughly divided in half as to where they went, which had softened the pill of saying goodbye to her best friend somewhat.

      ‘She started it!’ said Paige, sticking her tongue out at Ruby.

      ‘Did not!’ said Ruby. ‘Paige, you’re a fucking shit!’

      The silence at the other end of the table was so deafening Cat felt as though she’d entered some awful time capsule where things were frozen in perpetuity. Oh my God. Where on earth had Ruby learned language like that? She battled the urge to laugh. Really it wasn’t funny.

      ‘Ruby! You do not say words like that ever!’ Cat shouted as sternly as she could. Great, now Angela would have all her worst fears about how terribly her grandchildren were being brought up confirmed.

      ‘James does,’ whined Ruby.

      ‘Don’t tell tales,’ Cat and Noel said automatically. ‘Go to your room at once.’

      Ruby stormed out of the room sobbing, while Cat and Noel scolded their son, who took himself off to the lounge, kicking the door as he went, complaining about how unfair the world was.

      ‘Angela, Mum, I’m so sorry about that.’ Cat tried and failed to recover her poise. ‘I had no idea they even knew words like that. It’s so difficult nowadays to stop them learning this stuff. I know it was different when we were young.’

      ‘I have to say I am a bit surprised,’ said Cat’s mum, with an asperity that was unusual for her.‘I thought rather better of your children.’

      ‘Oh, piffle. It’s not as if children have only just learnt to swear,’ said Angela. To Cat’s utter amazement, she was grinning. ‘I seem to remember being called in to Noel’s school because he’d been writing rude words in the boys’ loos. Do you remember, Noel?’

      Noel looked as though his teeth were set on edge.

      ‘I don’t think you’ve ever let me forget it,’ he said.

      Cat let out the breath she’d been holding without realising. That had been a close call but miraculously—presumably because the guilty party had been Ruby-Who-Could-Do-No-Wrong—Angela didn’t seem at all fazed by the incident. So much so that within minutes she was insisting that Ruby came back and sat down again, and even went into the lounge to try and persuade James to come back.

      ‘Wonders will never cease,’ Cat remarked to her mother later, as they were loading the dishwasher.

      ‘What’s that, dear?’ Her mother was looking a little distracted, looking at a teatowel as if she’d never seen one before.

      ‘Angela, earlier,’explained Cat.‘I thought she’d be apoplectic about Ruby swearing like that. I couldn’t believe she’d seen the funny side.’

      Mum looked at her in a bemused fashion.

      ‘Sorry, when was that?’ she said.

      Cat looked at her, puzzled.

      ‘You know, earlier on,’ she said. ‘Ruby said a rude word and we told her off, and then rather than Angela being angry she told a funny story about Noel. Surely you can’t have forgotten already?’

      ‘No, no, of course not,’ said her mother, but she had a slightly perplexed look on her face. ‘Right, where do you want these?’

      She lifted the washed plates from the table where Cat had left them.

      ‘In the cupboard they normally go in,’ said Cat.

      ‘Which is?’

      ‘That one,’ said Cat, pointing to the relevant cupboard. ‘Mum, are you all right?’

      ‘Never better, dear,’ said Mum brightly. ‘Oh, of course, silly me. They go in here, don’t they?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Cat, with a prickle of unease. Was it her imagination, or was her mother becoming more and more forgetful?

      ‘Have you seen this latest about the new eco town?’ Pippa was practically exploding as she sat at her kitchen table reading the local paper.

      ‘No, what?’ Gabriel had just dropped by to pick up Stephen. He’d been out in the fields since early that morning, tracking down his flock, ready to bring them indoors for lambing. Most of the farmers round here left their sheep on the hillside, but Gabriel preferred having his under cover: when, as had occasionally happened, he’d bred from different stock, the occasional large lamb was born, causing complications that were more difficult to deal with out on the hillside. A couple of sheep were still missing though. He was going to have to go out again tomorrow.

      ‘That bloody Luke Nicholas,’ said Pippa, practically spitting with venom. ‘Can’t think what Marianne can ever have seen in him.’

      ‘Why, what’s he done?’

      ‘Just announced that his eco town is going to have a brand new supermarket up the road, which conveniently his company is also building. I bet some money’s changed hands with a dodgy councillor over that. It says here that the supermarket is going to be donating a new leisure centre for the eco town. No wonder they got planning permission.’

      ‘A leisure centre doesn’t sound very green and, come to that, nor does a supermarket,’ said Gabriel.

      ‘Not unless they harness all the energy from the exercise bikes to power the place,’ snorted Pippa. ‘The whole thing is mad. We don’t need a new town this close to Hope Christmas. Besides, I’m sure that land he’s building on used to be designated a flood plain. Do you remember that Christmas a couple of years ago when it rained so heavily? The fields round there were waterlogged for weeks.’

      ‘Doesn’t it all still have to be approved, though?’ said Gabriel. ‘Surely he can’t just steamroller the thing through?’

      ‘Why shouldn’t he?’ said Pippa. ‘He’s got money and influence, hasn’t he? I tell you, that bloody town is going to kill Hope Christmas stone dead. What with that and the post office, I despair, I really do.’

      Something stirred inside Gabriel. Something that Ralph Nicholas had said to him weeks ago about keeping hold of the things you loved. He looked out at the hillside, towering over the house in the gathering gloom. Gabriel had lived in Hope Christmas for most of his life, and he realised, somewhat to his surprise, that he loved it with every fibre of his being. He couldn’t bear the thought of it being under threat. He’d been so preoccupied with his own personal problems he’d given less thought to those of the people around him. Hope Christmas was built around a community that in many cases just about eked out a living. Losing the post office would be a blow, but the eco town could prove the nail in the coffin.

      ‘Can’t we challenge it somehow?’ he said. ‘I seem to remember reading somewhere that there are a lot of protests about eco towns elsewhere. Maybe we should try and find out a bit more.’

      ‘Ooh, Gabe,’ teased Pippa, ‘you’re becoming quite the environmental campaigner, aren’t you?’

      ‘Well,’