The Christmas Stocking and Other Stories by Katie Fforde

Author:Katie Fforde
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2017-11-01T16:00:00+00:00

Stella took the food in her car and Fitz brought the dogs in his. As he had a little dog wrangling to do she got to her house a bit before he did.

She realised she didn’t have a lot of time to make the place look festive and was grateful for her habit of draping her homes with fairy lights even when it wasn’t Christmas.

She rushed into the back garden and detached a length of ivy from the garden wall and tucked it behind everything on the mantelpiece. Then she lit the wood burner.

‘Are you sure these hounds from hell can come in?’ said Fitz when he arrived a little later, holding them on leads, looking like a charioteer behind a team of eager horses.

She nodded. ‘I said the house is dog-friendly and I can’t bear to think of them being alone. It is Christmas, after all.’

‘I’ll go and get their beds.’

Stella made a fuss of Tris and Izzy so they wouldn’t notice that Fitz had left them. He was back very soon. ‘Just take the beds through there.’ She gestured the direction he should go in.

‘That’s just grand for the dogs if you can get them to stay there,’ he said a minute later. ‘The trouble is, they prefer to be with humans.’

‘It’s probably full of doggy smells which should be comforting for them.’

Fitz looked down at her, half smiling, half frowning. ‘My mother is going to love you!’

Although she’d invited him, Stella found his presence in her space rather unnerving. She needed to get him out of the house for a bit. ‘And I’m sure I’ll love her right back. Is it time you went to get her?’

‘Yes. Can I leave the dogs with you, then?’

‘Of course. Now off you go!’

Tristan and Isolde were not pleased to have been abandoned by Fitz. It was, Stella realised, possibly the second time they’d been abandoned by their owner in a very short time. They yelped and barked and tried to scratch their way through the front door.

Stella didn’t have a lot of experience with dogs. Her father’s dog had been trained by him and was always fairly well behaved. However, she was experienced with small children and decided she might as well treat Tris and Izzy the same.

‘Now listen, you dogs, I know you’re upset that Fitz has gone but he will be back and in the meantime we need to keep very calm. Follow me!’

She didn’t know why but she wasn’t going to question it: the dogs followed Stella into the boot room. It was dusty, full of boots, ancient fleeces and anoraks, dog leads, bowls and beds. Stella hadn’t even begun to tackle it yet. And now it had their dog beds in it.

‘And now, my darlings,’ she went on – it wasn’t quite professional to call schoolchildren ‘my darlings’ and Stella enjoyed not having to be professional – ‘you’re going to stay here while I get ready for Christmas.’

They weren’t convinced. They whined and jumped up at the stable door as if about to climb over it.

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