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

beat of her heart pound in her head.

      God this was actually real.

       CHAPTER 4

      MADDY

      The repairs to the yacht were going to cost all her savings.

      ‘I just don’t understand why you’d take someone else’s boat out into a storm?’ Maddy’s mum, Sophie, was rolling out filo into wafer thin sheets, refusing to look up at her and taking her frustration out on the pastry. ‘What would possess you to do such a thing. With little kids on board. Jesus Maddy. It’s Christmas. Imagine… imagine if one of them had gone overboard.’

      ‘But they didn’t.’ Maddy said, unable to hold back the sulky tone to her voice. She leaned against the table top and traced the pattern of the old wood with her fingertip.

      ‘But they could have.’ Sophie said, exasperated, slamming the rolling pin down on the stainless steel surface of the island unit in the middle of the room where she worked. ‘They could have, Maddy.’

      ‘But they didn’t.’ she said again. ‘You can’t live with “could haves” all the time.’

      Her mum didn’t reply and after a pause said, ‘Can you get me the bowl of feta from the fridge?’

      Maddy sloped out into the storeroom at the back of the kitchen that was piled high with vegetables, tins of beans and jars packed with lentils, flours, rices and rows and rows of herbs and spices. Along the back wall were three fridges, glowing fluorescent with see-through doors. Maddy loved the fridges, she loved that you could see inside and stare at the bowls of cucumber flecked tzatziki, pale pink taramasalata, tubs of tiny anchovies and plates of garlic covered prawns. See all the new creations her mum had made and the great trays of moussaka and pastitsio that they would have a wedge out of for dinner. As she opened the door and pulled out the big glass bowl of feta, she saw on the bottom shelf the rows of tiny mince pies that her mum had started to make for Christmas and closed her eyes for a second. Annoyingly she could picture herself eating them, standing with everyone on Christmas morning and popping a couple into her mouth – no longer London bound for the holiday season. No longer the possibility of her family toasting a picture of her with their champagne and wishing she was with them. Who knew that mince pies could depress her so completely?

      ‘Maddy – the feta!’ her mum called.

      Back in the kitchen she slid the bowl over to her mum and looked up to see that Dimitri had sauntered in along with her grandparents and her mum’s friend Agatha who waited tables when they were packed but was so moody with the customers her mum always tried to play down their busyness.

      ‘So how much is it going to cost you, Maddy?’ Dimitri asked as he picked a handful of carrot sticks off the countertop and popped them one by one into his mouth.

      ‘I just chopped those.’ Maddy’s mum leant over and slapped his hand when he went for some more.

      ‘Sorry Sophie.’ He winked.

      ‘I’ll bet you are.’ She shook her head, attempted unsuccessfully to hold back a smile, and then pushing her hair behind her ear with the back of her flour-covered hand, said, ‘So yes, Maddy, how much is it going to cost? I can’t pay for it, you know that don’t you?’

      They may have been seeing a massive spike in business at the taverna because of the unseasonably high temperatures, but the flip side was the wild thunderstorms that had swept part of the back roof off and flooded the outhouses – costing her mum pretty much the entire summer’s profit.

      Dimitri leant up against the island unit, twisting the top off the beer he’d obviously grabbed from the fridge outside on his way into the kitchen, and said, ‘Is it as much as, say, a plane ticket to London?’ His expression dancing with mischief.

      Maddy narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Yes Dimitri, yes it is that much, perhaps a little bit more.’

      He sucked in his breath.

      ‘Who’s going to London?’ her granddad asked as he lowered himself into the ratty old armchair in the corner of the room.

      After the divorce, when her mum had moved permanently to the island that they’d holidayed on every year, buying the taverna that sprawled out into the bay, gradually Maddy’s grandparents stopped going back to England. If anyone ever commented on how odd it was that they’d changed allegiance, relocating to move near their ex-daughter-in-law, they always said it was because they couldn’t bear to be so far away from her cooking. But really it was just because they loved her, and at the time, not so much now, she struggled to manage without them. They downsized to a pied-a-terre in Nettleton, the village both her mum and dad had grown up in, and shipped all their furniture from their big country house over to Greece where the majority of it didn’t fit in the little villa they’d bought. Now it was dotted about in various places – Maddy, for example, had their Chippendale writing desk and Dimitri had inherited a glass 1950s cocktail cabinet that sat next to the fruit machine in his bar. Her granddad’s armchair sat in the taverna kitchen, an incongruous addition to the rustic industrial chic look that her mum had going on.

      ‘No one’s going to London, Granddad.’ Maddy went over to the kettle and flicked it on to make him a cup of tea before he could say that no one took care of him properly.

      She could feel her mum watching her. ‘Why are you talking about London?’ she asked.

      ‘I’m not. Dimitri was.’ Maddy said, too quickly, as she reached up to get the tea bags from the shelf.

      ‘You don’t want to go to London, do you Maddy?’ her mum said, slight panic in her voice as she went on, ‘Why would you want to go to London? It’s Christmas. You can’t go to London.’

      ‘Are you going to London, Madeline?’ Her grandmother looked up from where she was helping her mum spoon feta into the cheese pies. ‘If you are could you pick me up some chocolate digestives?’

      Maddy had to exhale slowly to calm herself down as she made the cup of Earl Grey. ‘For god’s sake. No one is going to London.’ she said through gritted teeth as she walked over to her granddad and slammed the tea down on the doily that covered his little side table.

      ‘You’re a little angel.’ Her granddad smiled, then looked at the cup and added, ‘One of your mum’s lemon biscuits would really go down a treat.’

      Maddy rolled her eyes and went back to the shelf to grab the biscuit tin. When her granddad reached in and took a couple he said, ‘Are you singing this week Maddy?’

      ‘Friday, at the bar.’

      ‘I hate the bar.’ He scowled

      Dimitri shouted over, ‘Thanks a lot.’

      ‘You make it so I hate it, Dimitri. It’s not for people like me.’

      ‘Rubbish.’ Maddy laughed, the atmosphere lightening, ‘You could come to the bar. You’re not that old.’

      Her granddad scoffed. ‘Maybe. Maybe just to hear you sing, then I’ll leave.’

      ‘Maybe I won’t let you in, Mr Davenport.’ Dimitri said with one brow raised.

      Her granddad laughed. ‘I was in the war, kiddo, I could fight my way in.’

      ‘You weren’t in the war,’ her grandmother scoffed. ‘You were behind a desk filing papers.’

      ‘That was still the war.’ he said crossly and sat back in a sulk with his cup of tea. ‘Madeline…’ he added, ‘if you went to London you could see your father.’ His bruised ego deliberately trying to stir up trouble.

      ‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Michael.’ Maddy’s grandmother slapped him on the arm.

      Her mum sucked in a breath. Maddy closed her eyes for a second and then scowled at Dimitri who made a face of laughing apology and sloped out the door with his beer.

      ‘That’s