A Christmas Cracker: The only festive romance to curl up with this Christmas!. Trisha Ashley

past like beads along a waxed string.

      ‘This, and a couple of farms along the road, makes up all of Godsend – it really is a tiny hamlet, not even a village. It’s marked in the Domesday Book, though.’

      ‘Perhaps there were more people here then?’ I suggested.

      ‘I think it was more likely because there was already a house on the site of Mote Farm,’ she said. ‘One of my husband’s ancestors built the mill, then in Victorian times it was changed from some aspect of cotton manufacture to the production of fancy goods. The cottages were specially built to house the workers.’

      ‘Did the family always employ ex-prisoners in the mill?’ I asked curiously.

      ‘There’s certainly a long tradition of it, though we haven’t taken on anyone new for many years: the workforce has naturally dwindled, but none of them wanted to retire. But now, if Marwood’s Magical Crackers is to survive, we must move with the times and embrace change.’

      ‘Or close, as your nephew, Randal, would like,’ I commented. What Freda had said earlier about the elderly workers not liking change very readily had made me wonder if they were up to the challenge.

      ‘Oh, I’m quite sure you can come up with an alternative plan,’ Mercy said, with more faith in me than I felt myself at this point. ‘In fact, we must, because I feel I’ve let my husband down by not taking more interest in things. But my mission in Malawi seemed to do so much good …’ She sighed, but then her natural cheerfulness and energy returned and she said, ‘Still, I’m back now and we’ll see what can be done. Come along!’

      We were now almost at the mill, which, since it lacked a chimney, grime and urban setting, was not at all darkly satanic, or even Lowry. Mercy pointed out the extensive attached outbuildings, the roomy parking area and more garages, where they kept a delivery van and Bradley’s small car.

      ‘Phil, who has the last house in the terrace, keeps his motorbike in one of the garages, too – men do seem to like taking machines apart and putting them back together again, don’t they?’

      ‘Yes. My ex fiancé used to spend a lot of time polishing his car and tinkering with it.’

      ‘Do you miss him, dear?’ she asked suddenly, with her acute, bright-eyed gaze.

      ‘No, not at all,’ I replied, surprised into frankness. ‘I think I must have been in love with a mirage. Perhaps we both were, because he can’t have known me, or he’d have realised I was telling the truth about the fraud. And he sent my cat to a rescue centre without telling me.’

      ‘That was not an act of great kindness, but he probably meant it for the best.’

      ‘Yes: his best. I’m sure Pye thought it was a cat prison and he was being punished for something, but I’ve got him back now, that’s the main thing,’ I said. ‘We can both have a fresh start together.’

      ‘Once you’ve found your bearings, you can register him at the vet’s practice in Great Mumming – turn left onto the road at the bottom of the hill. You already know the way to Little Mumming, but you can get to it by means of a track behind the factory, too, if you don’t mind a bit of a climb.’

      She led the way into the main building, which had ‘Friendship Mill’ carved into the stone over the entrance, with, below it, a faded royal-purple board proclaiming, in worn gilt lettering, ‘Marwood’s Magical Crackers’.

      Inside was one of those large, anonymous lobbies, with washroom facilities, a coffee table and worn tweed-effect chairs. An office was partitioned off from it with glass windows, like an aquarium for secretary fish. It was in darkness today: no piscine inhabitants lurked in its depths.

      ‘Arlene, Dorrie Bird’s daughter, works part-time in the office and the rest of the week at the bank in Great Mumming, but this isn’t one of her days,’ Mercy explained, pushing open double doors at the far end of the lobby with a flourish. ‘And here we are: the cracker factory!’

      The interior was surprisingly large and well-lit, both by a series of long windows down one side and a double row of large suspended green-shaded lights. A staircase ran away to the right to a mezzanine floor.

      Only one side of the space seemed to be in use and most of the workforce were seated there at benches. They looked up curiously as we entered.

      ‘Hello, everyone, I’ve come to show Tabby, my new assistant, around,’ called out Mercy. ‘Do carry on and I’ll introduce you individually as we get to you.’

      They continued to suspend operations and stare, but Mercy didn’t seem to notice, just led me across to a slender black lady with striking short silver hair. She had on a flowing dress in a bright yellow daisy pattern, an Arran cardigan with big wooden buttons and red leather clogs. My initial impression that she looked as serious and stately as an elderly Maya Angelou was dispelled the moment she spoke.

      ‘Pleased to meet you, luv,’ she said in a strong Liverpool accent along with a puckish grin. ‘My daughter, Arlene, will be, too. She works in the office a couple of mornings a week, but she won’t be in till tomorrow.’

      ‘I’ll look forward to meeting her then,’ I said. She was sitting at one of a row of workstations, with drawers and trays at the back, and a small unit on casters next to her.

      ‘We’ve got everything we need to make the crackers right to hand,’ she explained. ‘We lay out the novelties ready, according to what kind it is, though we only produce two different ones now, unless we get a special order.’

      ‘Do you all make the complete crackers from start to finish?’ I asked. ‘I thought it might be sort of an assembly line, with each of you doing different parts.’

      ‘We can all make them, but Bradley and Phil do other jobs, too. Brad makes sure each workstation is stocked with the right paper, jokes, novelties, hats and decorations, while Phil rolls and glues the central tubes and gets the snaps out of the storeroom as needed.’

      ‘Don’t you need those to hand, too?’

      ‘Yes, but you don’t want a lot of them together, because they’re a fire hazard,’ she said. ‘They’re in a reinforced fireproof bin in the back room.’

      ‘Silver fulminate,’ said Mercy. ‘When the snap is pulled apart, the friction makes the small explosive sound.’

      ‘Joy and Lillian usually pack the crackers in the display boxes and the boys carton them up for delivery. But as I say, if we’re busy we can all do anything.’

      It didn’t look as if they’d been busy in a very long time but it did remind me very much of Santa’s workshop, what with the half-open drawers and trays full of novelties, spools of bright ribbon and half-made colourful crackers in crinkled crepe paper.

      As I watched, one of the other women rolled a tartan-edged green paper rectangle round the central tube, secured it with a dab of glue and dexterously gathered and tied off the ends with red ribbon.

      ‘Them glue guns we got last year were good, once we got the hang of them,’ Dorrie said. ‘That was our Arlene’s idea.’

      ‘Brilliant,’ Mercy said. ‘I’m sure she and Tabby will come up with all kinds of other things too, once they put their heads together.’

      She introduced me to the others one by one, who eyed me with a wary speculation that I recognised from prison. I only hoped I wasn’t permanently wearing the same expression.

      Bradley was a pale, slender man with thin, pepper-and-salt hair, freckles and watery grey eyes behind severe glasses. He seemed morose and didn’t look directly at me when he shook hands, barely touching my fingertips before dropping them.

      Phil, on the other hand, was a burly, cheerful, bald-headed man with no discernible neck, and tattoos up both arms. The mermaids would have looked at home in the aquarium office.

      The other two women were totally unlike each other. Lillian’s improbably