One Christmas Morning, One Summer’s Afternoon: 2 short stories. Тилли Бэгшоу

herself from crying.

      Five minutes later the bath was ready. Sinking her aching limbs into the hot, lavender-scented bathwater, Laura exhaled deeply, relaxed for the first time all day. Dangling her hand over the side of the bath, so Peggy could lick the chocolate from her fingers, she thought idly about Gabriel Baxter and Lisa James – Joseph and Mary. They were probably back at Gabe’s farm, having wild sex right this minute. For a split second Laura felt a pang of envy. Not because she had the slightest desire to sleep with Gabe, but because, since John and losing the baby, she hadn’t the slightest desire, full stop. She was only twenty-eight. But there were days when she couldn’t imagine ever being sexual again.

      ‘I’m turning into an old woman, Peggy.’

      The pug snuffled dismissively. Or perhaps it was supportively. Peggy did a lot of snuffling. Lying back, Laura immersed her whole head in the water, allowing her dark curls to spread out around her like a mermaid’s locks, luxuriating in the warmth and peace. When she sat up again, the phone was ringing.

      ‘Goddamn it.’ She contemplated not answering. It was probably just that old pervert Harry Hotham, trying to pin her down for a dinner date. Disgusting old goat. But years spent in the cut and thrust of a TV studio had left her congenitally incapable of leaving telephones to ring. Pulling herself up out of the bath like a Kraken, dripping lavender water all over the oak floorboards, she skidded down the corridor into her bedroom. Just as she was about to pick up the phone, the answer machine kicked in. She heard her own voice played back to her.

      ‘This is Laura. Please leave a message.’

       God, I sound awful. So depressed! I must remember to do a perkier version in the morning.

      ‘Laura, hi. This is Daniel.’

      She froze. Daniel. Daniel Smart? Daniel Smart was an old flame – a very old flame – from her student days at Oxford. Head of the Boat Club, and president of OUDS, the prestigious university dramatic society, Daniel had always been destined to do great things. They’d had a fling in the Christmas of Laura’s second year – they’d actually spent the holiday at Fittlescombe, in the cottage at Mill House, the year before Laura’s parents sold it. When the romance fizzled out, Laura had been briefly heartbroken. But it all felt like a lifetime ago now. Last she heard, Daniel was a wildly successful West End theatre producer. Married. Happy.

      ‘Look, one of our old Oxford lot told me you were in Fittlescombe.’ He laughed nervously. ‘I know I shouldn’t. But I came over all nostalgic. Anyway, probably silly of me. I just thought I’d get back in touch, see how you are.’

      Laura sank down on the bed, shivering. In her haste, she’d forgotten a towel. The Aga kept the kitchen warm, but what little central heating there was upstairs at Briar Cottage all seeped out through the warped and rotting windows. Laura’s bedroom was as cold as any polar base camp. Pulling the knitted bedspread off the bed, she wrapped it around herself.

      ‘Well.’ Daniel laughed again. ‘If you do want to call, I’m on 07891 991 686. But if not, and you think I’m a complete lunatic, I quite understand. I probably am. Love anyway. Er … bye.’

      There was a click. Laura stared at the red flashing light in the answer machine for a long time, too stunned to move.

      Daniel. Daniel Smart had called her! Tracked her down, here of all places. As if that weren’t bizarre enough, he’d sounded so awkward. Almost shy. The Daniel Laura remembered was supremely confident. Never in a million years would he have left her a message like that back in the old days. She, Laura, had been the nervous one, the one who couldn’t believe her luck that the likes of Daniel Smart might be interested in her.

      Maybe he’d changed. Maybe time had softened him.

      Perhaps Daniel Smart had also been through some tough times. Like me.

      Laura pulled the bedspread more tightly around her and, quite spontaneously, smiled.

      Perhaps, at long, long last, her luck was about to change.

       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘No, no, no and no. I am not spending four thousand pounds on a lump of ice.’

      Rory Flint-Hamilton pushed aside his boiled egg bad-temperedly. It was too early for this nonsense.

      ‘With respect, Mr Flint-Hamilton, it’s hardly a “lump”. This would be a life-size, intricately carved statue of Eros. It would make a spectacular centrepiece for the hunt ball.’

      ‘I daresay. But the next morning it’ll be a four-thousand-pound puddle. I’m not the Aga Khan, you know, Mrs Worsley. We’ll have a nice vase of flowers like we usually do. Ask Jennings for some roses and whatnot.’

      The Furlings housekeeper knew when she was beaten. It was the same every year. Mr Flint-Hamilton wanted to do everything on a shoestring, grumbling and moaning about the expense of the ball like Fittlescombe’s own Mr Scrooge. But somehow, thanks in no small part to Mrs Worsley’s ingenuity, they always pulled off an event to be proud of.

      While the housekeeper cleared away his breakfast, Rory Flint-Hamilton gazed out of the window across Furlings Park. It was a vile day, grey and drizzly, with a vicious wind whipping at the bare oak trees and flattening the sodden grass. But Furlings’s grounds still looked magical, a carpet of vivid green spotted with deer that had lived on the estate for as long as the Flint-Hamilton family themselves.

      Rory was in his early seventies but looked older. Tall and wiry, he walked with a stoop and sported a shock of hair so white it almost looked like a wig. His eyebrows were also white and grown out to an inordinate length, something Rory was secretly proud of, curling them with his fingers the way a Victorian magician might have twirled his moustache. Since his much younger wife, Vicky, had died five years ago in a car accident, Rory had aged overnight, embracing old age like a young man rushing into the arms of a lover. Rory and Vicky’s only child, their daughter Tatiana, was living in London now and rarely came home. There was no one to stay young for, no one who cared whether or not Rory went to bed at nine every night and spent entire afternoons eating fudge and watching the racing on television. He was increasingly reclusive, and so the Furlings Hunt Ball was the one time of year when Rory Flint-Hamilton was forced to engage with the outside world. He always dreaded it. This year, thanks to Tati’s behaviour, he was dreading it more than most.

      Once Mrs Worsley had left the room, he reopened the offending page of the Daily Mail. Once again, his daughter was in the gossip pages. This time she was accused of stealing the husband of a minor member of the Royal Family and cavorting with him at a nightclub in Mayfair. The pictures of them together turned Rory’s stomach. The man was old enough to be Tati’s father and looked a fool in jeans and a silk shirt unbuttoned to the chest. As for Tati’s skirt, Rory had seen bigger handkerchiefs. It was clear from the photograph that Tati was very, very drunk.

       She’s twenty-three, for God’s sake; she’s not a teenager any more. When is she going to grow up?

      Rory Flint-Hamilton was not a demonstrative man. But he loved his daughter deeply, and hated watching her throw away her potential and talents on an empty life of partying as she dragged the Flint-Hamilton name through the mud. He also took his role as custodian of Furlings very seriously. He wasn’t going to live for ever. The thought of handing the estate down to Tatiana filled Rory with a fear so acute, it was hard to breathe.

      Folding up the newspaper and putting it under his arm, he got up and shuffled slowly out into the hall. A long, marble-floored corridor lined with Flint-Hamilton family portraits led to what had always been known as the ‘Great Room’, a vast, galleried ballroom with eight-foot sash windows affording a spectacular view of the Downs. In only six weeks’ time, this room would be filled with noise and laughter, bedecked with dark-green holly, blood-red berries and plump, white mistletoe. A towering Christmas tree, cut from the estate’s own woodland, would sparkle beneath the light of the chandelier. Furlings