Coming Home by Patricia Dixon

Author:Patricia Dixon [Dixon, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books

15

Carmen

Appleton Farm, Cheshire

Present day

Turning away from the window and the misty morning view of the frosty fields, Carmen got on with the task in hand, checking her list. She was in her mum’s newly repainted bedroom that was currently Christmas Presents Central. On the floor was a giant gift bag for each member of her family and then three more containing treats for the garden centre staff plus the tombola and lucky dip prizes for their children.

Ticking off one more item, she allowed herself a self-satisfied smile and a bit of a chuckle at her own rather extreme behaviour. Like her suggestion that everyone wore Christmas jumpers at dinner. She thought it would be fun; everyone else told her where to go! At least they’d capitulated graciously when she insisted they were all under one roof on Christmas Eve morning, but they owed her, after spending so many years worrying where each of her girls were. She would fret all day, in fact it always began the week before, this niggling fear of things going wrong and then all her preparation and saving and wrapping and the excitement that had built up might be ruined by some cruel quirk of fate.

When the girls were little it wasn’t too bad because from the minute school broke up for the holidays they’d be home with her. But as they’d got older and started to roam, Violetta especially, her teenage daughters had sent Carmen’s blood pressure through the roof on more than one occasion. And now, her two eldest grandchildren were a constant worry, not because they were bad kids, more because they were growing up in an increasingly dangerous society. Even the local park was like a ghetto. That was why, just for once, she wanted not to worry and wake up with a full house of the most special people in the world.

She could see it all. The adults could have a deserved lie-in. Not her though. She’d be up at the crack to prepare a huge breakfast. After they’d gathered in the kitchen the children could watch Christmas films or play outside. Bern was going to roast chestnuts and make his special stuffing and Lou was in charge of the mulled wine that always fragranced the kitchen with wintery spices. The girls would help with lunch preparations like when they were young where every year – and this one would be no different – vegetable peelings on the table took Carmen straight back to that last Christmas in London.

There was no way she could avoid those memories so she let them wash over her whenever they came calling. Giving a nod to the past was sometimes painful but other times uplifting, but mostly a bit of both.

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