The Little Christmas Kitchen: A wonderfully festive, feel-good read. Jenny Oliver

of course.’ Ella took a sip of water because her throat was suddenly really dry, and then reached forward to shake his hand.

      His skin was rough and dry, and his hold on her was completely different to being touched by Max. While her hand was in his it was like she couldn’t speak. Like her brain had been momentarily switched off and she was paralysed, like one of those spiders who injects their mate with poison, except nicer than that. And more stressful at the same time.

      ‘Are you hot, Ella?’ her granddad asked.

      ‘No not at all.’ she said, pulling her hand back and sitting on it. ‘It’s…’ she rubbed her cheek with her other hand and felt the warmth radiating from it, but couldn’t think of any reasonable excuse.

      If there was one thing she didn’t need to be reminded of, it was her fifteen year old self.

      Dimitri leant forward, seemingly completely unabashed by the whole previous thirty seconds, and scooped up some moussaka with a spare fork. ‘So…’ he said with his mouth full. ‘What are you celebrating?’

      ‘I’m going to London.’

      ‘Ahh.’ He nodded. ‘I should have guessed. I suppose you have something to do with this?’ He turned again to look at Ella and she found herself having to look away.

      ‘I erm–’ she stumbled.

      ‘Ella is paying for Maddy to go.’ Sophie said, coming over to the table with bowls full of creamy, white yoghurt and dried figs like squashed bruises and setting them down with a smack on the centre of the table. ‘And in doing so taking my best waitress.’ She went on as if it was that rather than just little Maddy leaving that was the problem. She picked up the remains of the moussaka as Dimitri reached up for a last scoopful, her lips tight, her eyes a little red. ‘Which no one seems to have thought through at all.’

      ‘Agatha could do it.’ Maddy said, her hand stilled on her wine glass, clearly afraid it was all about to fall through.

      ‘Agatha couldn’t do it, Maddy. She can’t be front of house. You know that. She scares all the customers away and if there’s one thing I need at the moment, it’s customers.’

      There was a pause.

      ‘Yes.’ Her mum nodded. ‘Thank you for thinking of me through all this.’

      Maddy looked down at the table. Dimitri raised a brow like he’d just walked into a storm and was trying not to giggle in the face of the tension.

      The white cat trotted into the kitchen and Ella, keen to avoid being a part of the conversation, leant down to stroke it but it darted away, pausing in the far corner of the room where it winked one eye before jumping up on the windowsill to settle down to sleep.

      Her mum seemed to be taking her annoyance out on the yoghurt, scooping big dollops of it into little blue and white painted bowls, thrusting them at Maddy who passed them on like a pass-the-parcel.

      ‘Well it’s obvious.’ her grandfather said, reaching forward to spoon some figs into his bowl, his lip turned up at the corner as if they were all stupid. ‘Ella’ll do it. Won’t she? Won’t you? You’re here. May as well make yourself useful.’

      ‘Waitressing?’ Ella said with horror before she could stop herself.

      There was a pause.

      The only noise was the hum of the motor that made the fibre optic angel wings glow.

      ‘Yes Ella, waitressing. If that’s not beneath you.’ her mum said without looking at Ella at all. And for the first time Ella realised that perhaps alienating her mother wasn’t the best way to get her to notice her.

       CHAPTER 10

      MADDY

      The plane had to circle three times before it could land. Snow was causing havoc at the airport and the runway needed to be cleared. No more planes were taking off. The wind was shaking the aircraft, juddering the wings.

      Maddy closed her eyes and held onto her armrests. She’d been in a plane three times before and they had all been to visit her da, seemingly a lifetime ago. She’d had Ella with her to hold her hand.

      She forced herself to open her eyes and look out the window. To marvel at the sight of London below her, like a map speckled with white. Take it all in, Maddy.

      She glanced at the person next to her and gave them a little smile. The woman turned her lips up but then looked away, as if embarrassed that they’d had any contact.

      Maddy went back to looking out the window.

      When they finally landed, the captain wished them happy holidays and the flight attendants had Santa’s elf hats on and big tins of Quality Street. Maddy paused at the entrance of the tunnel that led them out of the plane and into Arrivals, cramming an orange cream into her mouth and wishing she’d paused over her selection more carefully and got that big purple one with the hazelnut in the middle of caramel. The taste of the chocolate mingled with the residue of fear in her mouth and she rested her hand on the side of the plane just to catch her breath.

      ‘Please keep moving, there’s a place to pause as you exit the tunnel.’ The flight attendant ushered her forward. But Maddy just moved to the side, let the people in suits and the guys with big Beats headphones and relatives with bags of presents push past her. She took a deep breath and inhaled the stale smell of airplane food, harsh chemical cleaner and the sharp tang of fuel, she felt the icy blast of air around the edge of the tunnel and the engulfing heat of the airport and she thought, this is it, I’m here. I’ve made it.

      Someone pushed into her back and she stumbled forward, catching her arm on the sharp metal edge and nicking her jumper. The person didn’t apologise, they just kept on walking, their iPhone pressed up to their ear.

      ‘Hey, thanks a lot.’ she shouted, pulling up her sleeve to inspect the damage to her skin. Someone else sighed when they couldn’t get past her and muttered, ‘Jesus woman, get a move on.’

      She glanced over her shoulder to look at who’d said it, and a small guy with a red sports jacket and a crime novel under his arm stared back at her, eyes wide, ‘Come on!’ he chivvied again. ‘Jesus H Christ.’

      Maddy made a face. ‘It’s Christmas. Be nice.’

      He pushed past her.

      She shook her head in disgust but made herself forget about it. Some idiot shouting at her couldn’t put a dent in her excitement. Ditto her throbbing arm.

      The airport was stark but to Maddy it was stunning. Exotic. Romantic. Beautifully monochrome. Outside the sun-flecked grey sky shimmered like granite. Planes on the runway were wrapped in wisps of cotton wool fog. It was no longer snowing but the ground was covered with white, crisscrossed with tyre tracks of black slush.

      Inside it smelt like stale air and possibility. Coke machines buzzed bright. Maddy stood on the travelator, flattening herself against the edge so that people could march past with their wheely bags, her hand pressing on her scratched arm, wondering why everyone was in such a hurry, why they weren’t pausing to drink it all in. The travelator rumbled on at a snail’s pace, allowing her to absorb all the posters advertising perfumes and Scotch whisky, then one came up for the Michael Buble Christmas album, and then another for carols at the Royal Albert Hall complete with fanfare trumpeters, and then there was an advert for Harrods, presents wrapped up in their sludge green and gold, and then Chanel, white snowflakes falling on some really stunning celebrity whose name was on the tip of her tongue. A poster for Christmas markets along the Southbank showed people all wrapped up in scarves and gloves pointing at treasures on stalls in little wooden huts. Maddy could feel the Christmassiness rising up inside her. It was going to be amazing.

      At the end of the corridor was a model red bus and a stack of fliers for a London city tour. A man in a chauffeur’s hat and a badge saying, ‘Ask me about the Christmas bus! All aboard!’