The Great Christmas Knit Off

It’s like that film, Deliverance, when I push open the door of the Duck & Puddle – all that’s missing is a man in dungarees chewing tobacco and strumming a banjo.

Ten or so pairs of eyes turn to stare at me as I stamp the bulk of the snow from my legs and feet, push down the hood of my parka and pull off my bobble hat, it’s like a furnace in here. And I haven’t missed last orders at all; in fact, from the number of full pints lined up on the bar, I’d say ‘drinking up time’ has only just begun. The windows all have heavy velvet blackout curtains blocking the light from the numerous candles dotted around the tables, which explains why the pub looked closed from the other side of the village green, and the source of the heat is an enormous real log fire with crimson, blue-tinged flames crackling and wheezing in the ceiling-height inglenook fireplace to my right.

I smile tentatively and scan behind the bar, but Cher isn’t here.

‘Well, don’t just sit there. Give the girl a hand,’ a chunky woman wearing a woolly poncho (handknitted) bellows to the extremely tall, robust-looking man sitting beside her, before elbowing him sharply in the ribs.

‘Will you turn it in, woman?’ he pretends to chastise her as he shoos her hand away. ‘I was just getting my bearings.’ There’s a collective good-natured laugh from the crowd as the man downs his pint in one and then steadies himself on the table before hauling himself into an upright position.

‘That suitcase looks heavy enough to house a body,’ the woman continues. Oh God, don’t say that! They’re already eyeing me suspiciously – probably thinking I’m some kind of crazeee looper on the loose, come to their village to strangle them all in their beds as they sleep.

The man strides towards me and hauls the suitcase up over his shoulder in one swift movement. He extends his free hand.

‘I’m Cooper.’ He nods firmly, as if to punctuate the point. Ah, yes, I remember, the butcher with the hog roast.

‘Pleased to meet you.’ I quickly pull a woolly mitten off with my teeth and shake his hand. ‘I’m Sybs,’ I finish quietly, but he’s already dropped my hand and turned his back to go in search of a suitable spot in which to deposit the suitcase.

‘Now, where do you want this?’ he yells back over his shoulder.

‘Oh, well, I’ve come to visit Cher, so behind the bar perhaps, for now?’ I suggest, quickly going after him, scanning again and thinking where is she? This is really awkward. They are all still staring at me – and the only sound comes from the pop and whizz of the log fire. I spot the crate next to the bar, stacked high with an assortment of torches and flashlights and deposit my borrowed one on top of the pile.

‘SONNNNYYYYY!’ Jesus, that was right in my ear. Cooper sure has a big, booming voice. And Basil has obviously heard him from outside as he’s now barking like a mad dog – woofing over and over and over. Another guy jumps up.

‘That’ll be the cocker from the country club,’ he says to nobody in particular. ‘Perishing thing is always getting free and roaming around the village like it’s lord of the manor. I’ll herd it up and take it back.’ He heads towards the door with a determined look on his ruddy weather-beaten farmer’s face.

‘Oh, well actually, that could be my Scottie, Basil. He’s tied up securely though,’ I say, shrinking a little inside as they clearly don’t approve of dogs barking late at night. I wouldn’t usually risk leaving Basil on his own outside, certainly not in London where he could get kidnapped in the twinkling of an eye, but I’d figured he was probably safe until I found Cher and could get him upstairs out of the way. Besides, I thought the villagers would all be in bed asleep – I mean, don’t they all have to be up at the crack of dawn to milk cows or something? Obviously not, they’re all in the Duck & Puddle – the shepherd’s second home, theirs too by the looks of it! I glance at the wall clock and see that it’s after eleven. The farmer guy stares at me like I’ve just sprouted another head.

‘Why would you do that?’

‘Pardon?’ I blink, wondering what he’s going on about.

‘Leave your dog outside?’ he says, frowning and giving me an up-and-down look.

‘But, I thought—’

‘Get him in quick before he wakes up Mark.’ Who’s Mark? ‘And put him by the fire – he must be freezing half to death, the poor thing.’ Oh God, now they think I’m cruel to animals. He points to a dog bowl brimming with water next to a tartan blanket by a log basket at the corner of the tiled hearth.

‘Oh, that would be lovely. Thank you.’ There’s a little ricochet of chuckles as I dash back outside. How was I supposed to know that dogs were actually allowed inside the pub? And with special provisions too – blanket, refreshments, cosy log fire to bask beside – Basil is going to be in his element.

‘Did someone bellow?’ Clive has appeared behind the bar when I return with Basil. ‘Sybs! Hello darling. What a nice surprise,’ he beams on spotting me. ‘And Cher will be made up to see you.’ He lifts the hatch and motions for me to come through. I smile with relief at seeing a familiar face, and then, as if by magic, everyone starts chatting and laughing amongst themselves, doing normal pub banter – just like a scene from Emmerdale in the Woolpack Inn when the director has just yelled ‘action’. How strange … I feel as if I’ve passed some kind of initiation ritual and that they’ve all relaxed and gone back to whatever it was they were doing before I burst through the door of their local, a stranger in their midst, but it’s all OK – now Clive has verified me, that is.

I take off Basil’s snowy wet coat and settle him in the designated spot by the fire (he instantly looks right at home, sprawled out on the blanket and he’s practically comatose already as he relishes the intense heat) before I head towards Clive. Cooper follows behind, dumping my suitcase in the hall next to a mountain of boxes containing cheese and onion crisps.

‘Thanks, Cooper,’ says Clive.

‘No problem, Sonny.’ And he strides off through to the other side of the bar.

Clive gives me a hug and then steers me through to a cosy private lounge out the back. Once the door is closed and I’m satisfied that the locals can’t overhear us, I give Clive a quizzical look.

‘Er, why is he calling you Sonny?’ I ask in a hushed voice, creasing my forehead. Clive smiles and shakes his head in amusement.

‘Because I’m Cher’s boyfriend.’ Clive shrugs as if it’s the most obvious reason ever, and then he explains. ‘On our first day here, one of the regulars said it for a laugh, you know, as in, “so if our new landlady is called Cher and you’re her fella, then you must be Sonny” and it’s stuck. Now everyone in Tindledale calls me Sonny, as in Sonny and Cher.’ And he belts out a line from their iconic song, ‘I Got You Babe’.

‘Ha ha, of course they do,’ I laugh and give him another hug. ‘And my second question – who is Mark?’ I shake my head.

‘Oh! He’s the local bobby – lives in the police house next door to Dr Darcy who’s the village GP. Mark gets upset if he’s woken up in the middle of the night, hence Pete wanting to get Basil inside quickly,’ Clive explains in a matter-of-fact way.

‘But Mark is OK about you having a lock-in?’ I ask, lifting my eyebrows. I’m surprised; it’s not something Cher usually goes for.

‘Weeeeell …’ He gives me a shifty look and shoves his hands into his jeans’ pockets. ‘Cher isn’t actually here. She’s on a course at Brewery HQ. A last-minute space came up after one of the others dropped out so she jumped at the chance of staying in a hotel for a few nights.’

‘Oh no!’ My heart sinks.

‘But she’ll be back by Sunday afternoon,’ he adds quickly, seeing my face drop. ‘And Mark’s fine about a bit of banter after hours as long he doesn’t know about it, if you know what I mean. Discretion, that’s the key.’ Clive winks and grins before tapping the side of his nose with an index finger. ‘Now, how about I get you a drink before we find you somewhere to stay.’ He rubs his hands together.

‘Er, I thought it was OK to stay here. Cher said …’ My voice trails off and for some ridiculous reason I can feel tears threatening. I push my top teeth down hard on my tongue to focus my mind and stop the tears from tumbling out. I’ve cocked up again. I should never have just rocked up here. What was I thinking? I can’t imagine there’s a Travelodge anywhere in Tindledale so I’m going to have to go back home – which is where I probably should have stayed to face the music in the morning with Mr Banerjee.

‘Hey, of course it is,’ Clive says kindly. ‘Cher has been going on and on about you coming. Like I said, she’ll be made up that you’re here. And it’ll sweeten the blow when she returns.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come and see.’ And Clive pulls open a little timber-slatted door in the corner that I hadn’t even noticed, and after ducking his head under the low frame, he motions for me to follow him up the narrowest, twistiest, higgledy-piggledy stairs I think I’ve ever seen. I feel like Alice in Wonderland as I crouch down and place the palms of my hands on the steps in front of me just to get low enough to climb up to the next floor.

‘Oh dear! I see what you mean.’ We’ve emerged into a tiny, exposed beamed bedroom with a mattress on the floor, one side of which is propped up on a row of wooden blocks next to a window so low and bowed it’s practically a continuation of the carpet. ‘What are they for?’ I point to the blocks.

‘So we don’t tumble away when we’re fast asleep in the middle of the night and end up going through the window.’ He manages a wry smile, but he also has a very good point, because the floorboards slope so severely that there’s every chance this really could happen. ‘We can’t get any of our furniture up those doll’s house stairs. The pub was built in 1706 as a coaching inn originally – even the old stable buildings are still intact. And currently storing all of our furniture, I hasten to add. People were clearly pocket-size in those days.’ He shrugs and pulls a face. ‘We’re lucky to even have the mattress; if it wasn’t for Pete lashing it up tight like a bale of hay, we would have never squeezed it up the stairs. No, we need a new bed, one that can be assembled in situ, as it were.’ He pauses and shrugs. ‘But until then, this is it, I’m afraid. So unless you and Basil fancy bunking down with me on the mattress …’ He laughs, slings a friendly arm around my shoulders, and jiggles me up and down in a big bear hug.

I like Clive, always have. When Cher first met him, he was washing dishes in her parents’ pub in Doncaster to pay his way through catering college, and they’ve been together ever since. He’s so solid and uncomplicated. When I ran out of the church, Cher and Clive arrived at Mum and Dad’s house within moments of me getting there. I learned later that Clive had grabbed Cher’s hand, run her from the church (she was bridesmaid, of course) and driven at breakneck speed to find me. No fuss, just a ‘well, she’s your mate and he’s a wanker’, and he was all for hunting Luke down and giving him a ‘good slap’, but Cher talked him out of it. Yes, Clive is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy, and there’s a lot to be said for that. Not like Luke who clearly has very hidden depths. You know, Luke even tried telling me once that he mistook Sasha for me and that’s how the ‘mix up’ had all started in the first place. He snogged her by accident and it ‘sort of went from there’. I didn’t buy it of course – because for starters, our faces may be the same but that’s where the identical twin bit ends these days. And Sasha wears completely different clothes to me – expensive body-con dresses and designer stacked heels to my hand-sewn Renfrew tops or chunky jumpers in winter with jeans and flats. Anyway, Sasha could easily have pushed him away, or laughed it off at the very least.

‘Um, think I’ll pass if you don’t mind. Cher has told me all about your super-loud snoring,’ I play punch his chest, trying to make light of the situation and wondering if perhaps Basil and I could sleep on one of the sofas in the bar. If the villagers ever decide to head back to their chocolate box cottages, that is.

Leaning back against the plum-coloured velvet headboard with Basil snuggled up on a blanket beside me, his front left paw on my thigh as he snores softly, I snuggle into the enormous squishy bed in my ditsy floral-themed bedroom.

After Clive and I had made it back down the tiny stairs and into the saloon bar area earlier, the woman in the poncho, who it turns out is called Molly and has a pet ferret which she walks around the village on a lead – it was under the pub table apparently, and I didn’t even notice – anyway, she’s Cooper’s wife, and she kindly rang the only B&B for miles around. It’s located in the valley on the far side of the village and doubles as a hair salon too, apparently. As luck would have it, there was one room left, and dogs are very welcome, so Pete, who I later found out farms cattle – ‘three fields over near Cherry Tree Orchard which supplies apples to all the major supermarkets’ – loaded me, Basil and my suitcase into the cab of his tractor, I kid you not, and then trundled us all the way down the hill in the snow and right up to the front door that doubles up as the B&B and hair salon reception.

So now I’m wrapped in a fluffy white bathrobe trying not to think about the contents of my suitcase. All of my clean clothes, pyjamas, underwear – the whole lot’s soaked in red wine. Ruined. Even my almost-finished knitting project, a lovely little Christmas pudding, is now stained a vivid claret colour and stinks like a barrel of rotten grapes. The top on the bottle wasn’t screwed on properly so had come off and seeped wine into everything. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, in my rush to escape London and the wrath of Mr Banerjee, I left my make-up bag and hairbrush behind on the hall table, so I will now have to spend the whole weekend wearing my super warm, fleece-lined Ho Ho Ho jumper and snow-sodden jeans.

I say good night to Basil and switch off the lamp – the electricity in the village flicked back on, just like magic, as Pete and I left the Duck & Puddle. I was climbing into the tractor when the festive fairy-tale scene literally took my breath away. The pretty red, gold and green Christmas lights twinkling all over the tree on the village green before cascading the length of the High Street, with a grand finale – the cross at the top of the tall church steeple illuminated in silver as if bathing the whole village in a ray of tranquillity and spiritual peace.

I lie in the silent night of the countryside, except for the intermittent ter-wit-ter-woo of an owl and try to let everything wash over me: Jennifer Ford, Mr Banerjee, Mum and her ‘make do with whatever’s left over’ implications, Luke the tool, Star Wars, Princess Leia buns, Chewbacca and, worst of all, the betrayal by my very own twin sister. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive her; men come and go, I know that, but my own sister? How does one deal with that? It’s not as if I can just cut her out of my life! What would that do to Mum and Dad? And it would certainly make things very awkward at family events. But then again, Sasha did this, not me. And I can’t help wondering if she has difficulty sleeping at night too!

I breathe in and out, desperately trying to slow my racing thoughts, in the hope of actually getting to sleep and making it through to the morning without waking up for once. It’s been ages since I managed to get a proper night’s sleep. Soon after the wedding-that-wasn’t, my GP prescribed sleeping tablets, saying they would help with the ‘overwhelming feelings of sadness too’ and they do, a bit, I guess. Which reminds me. I sit bolt upright and switch the lamp back on. Basil stirs before settling again at the end of the bed. I reach over to my handbag and check the inside pocket, but I already know the answer; the packet of tablets are on my nightstand at home. I’ve forgotten them too.

Sighing, I lie back down and focus on breathing in and out, desperately trying to evoke a sense of calm. Basil moves up the bed and snuggles his chin onto my shoulder as if willing me to relax too, but it’s no use. I fidget and plump the pillow over and over, dramatically, like they always do in the films, and resign myself to yet another restless night.

*

Satisfied that I won’t scare the other guests with my appearance – I’ve managed to tease my curls into some kind of normal-ish state, which given that I had to use the flimsy little plastic comb from the complimentary vanity pouch in the bathroom, was never going to be easy – I scoop Basil up under my arm, grab the Tindledale Herald (I must have gathered the newspaper someone had left in the carriage in amongst my stuff when I got off the train last night), pull the bedroom door closed behind me, and head off in search of breakfast. I’ve decided to keep the bathrobe on after flicking through the B&B’s brochure (at about four o’clock this morning when I gave up on trying to actually sleep) and saw a picture of a couple wearing theirs in what appeared to be the dining room. Let’s hope it’s OK, otherwise I’m going to look like a right fool, yet again. An image of me in the Princess Leia dress and buns flashes into my head like a still from a Hammer horror film. I shudder and instantly shove the sorry sight away. Years ago, Cher told me that she read in one of those psychology magazines that a Buddhist monk said it can take a whole year to get over a break-up. Hmm. So by that reckoning I have another five months of these dark thoughts. Oh joy.

‘Welcome to Tindledale.’ A very tall, fifty-something, debonair man with a shaved head, clad in a gorgeous soft grey cashmere cardigan (handknitted) over a checked shirt and chinos, walks over to where I’m standing by the breakfast cereal table. Underneath his stylish black-framed retro glasses, he’s wearing diamanté-tipped lash extensions. ‘I’m Lawrence Rosenberg,’ he says, sounding very polite and stately in an old school gentlemanly way, with the faintest hint of an American accent. He holds out his hand, the nails of which are painted a glorious pearly plum colour.

‘Oh, um, hi, I’m Sybil,’ I say, trying not to stare. It’s not every day you meet a man wearing lashes and nail polish, and it’s certainly not something I expected to find in this sleepy little village from a bygone era. ‘Lovely to meet you.’

‘Do excuse the …’ He circles an index finger around his face. ‘I’m an actor. I run the Tindledale Players.’ I must look bemused as he quickly adds, ‘Amateur dramatics, musical theatre, that kind of thing. It’s my passion, and we had a dress rehearsal last night for the Tindledale Christmas pantomime – I’m the fairy godmother. In addition to being the scriptwriter and chief gofer.’ He smiles, rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

‘Well, I think you look fabulous,’ I say, instantly warming to him. He smells of toasted almonds mingled with cigar smoke, and has sparkly blue eyes. ‘How did the rehearsal go?’

‘Thank you.’ He does a gentlemanly bow. ‘Very well, considering we had no electricity in the village hall, so it was very much “he’s behind you” and “oh no he isn’t!” and all the other pantomime catchphrases that we love, albeit by candlelight.’

‘Sounds fun,’ I say, remembering the Brownie pantomimes – Cher and I had loads of laughs one Christmas playing Happy (me) and Dopey (Cher) in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.