A Fairy Tale for Christmas by Chrissie Manby

Author:Chrissie Manby [Chrissie Manby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
Published: 2016-09-21T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty-One

Kirsty wasn’t overly worried about the way her little sister and father bickered. It was normal, wasn’t it? India was pushing against the boundaries. Stu was busy trying to keep them intact. At some point he would give up. Then India would get what she wanted and find out it really wasn’t worth all the fuss. She would probably even come to agree that Stu had been right all along. When one day her own children wanted mopeds and wine with their dinner, she too would be suitably outraged. For now, however, Kirsty knew that India’s bid for freedom was the most important thing in her life. No amount of telling her that things would be different in a couple of years would persuade her to stop arguing now.

‘So what happened to your boyfriend?’ Stu asked, ignoring India’s bid to convince him she was old enough for a motorbike and Merlot. ‘I thought he was coming with you tonight.’

‘He’s not feeling too good,’ Kirsty lied, not sure why she didn’t feel like mentioning Jon’s upcoming interview. ‘There’s a bug going round so I told him he’d better stay home rather than come here and make you guys ill as well.’

‘That’s thoughtful,’ said Stu. ‘Nothing worse than getting ill at Christmas. It’s a shame though. We’d have liked to meet him. Is he still doing the show business thing?’

‘Yes,’ said Kirsty. ‘We both are.’

Linzi brought the chilli to the table. It smelled delicious and Kirsty was secretly glad that Jon hadn’t come after all. She could imagine him sitting across the table, putting his hand across his plate to stop Linzi from overloading it, signalling with a look that Kirsty should do the same. But he wasn’t there and he couldn’t see how much she was going to eat so she decided she would eat as much of Linzi’s chilli as she wanted. And she would load it with cheese and sour cream and guacamole. Linzi seemed pleased by the endorsement.

‘You’ll have to show me how to make this,’ Kirsty said, though she knew after one bite that she would never be able to make it for Jon. Way too hot.

‘So, tell us what’s been going on?’ Linzi said. ‘How are you liking Newbay? I used to go there on holiday when I was a child. Is the pier still there?’

‘They’re planning to refurbish it next year.’

‘Oh, I loved going on that pier. Me and my brother would be given a pound each to play the slots. He would spend hours on those machines where you try to make the pennies cascade down. I would always spend my money on the fortune-telling machine. It was a glass box with this model of a wizard in it. You stuck ten pence in. The lights would start flashing and the wizard’s head would roll around a bit then the machine would spit out your fortune on a little piece of card. I ended up with hundreds of them.’

‘Load of rubbish,’ said Stu.

‘Well, it foretold that one day I would marry a handsome man,’ said Linzi, looking at him fondly.

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