‘Hello, darling,’ Alex said with a wave, as he hurried past. ‘I would stop but I’m on twin patrol.’
‘He drew the short straw,’ Rowan said, jumping down from the bottom step so she could take Margot’s hands.
‘Lovely to meet you,’ Margot said, again gifted with two very expertly given kisses on the cheek, then Rowan was disappearing down the hall.
‘Oooh! You brought cake,’ Sage pointed at the cake box, which was drooping slightly now. ‘Shall I grab that, while you take off your coat?’
‘It’s quite hard to know what to bring when you’re going to the house of people who run a florist,’ Margot said, as Will helped her take off her coat and woollies.
‘Let me unleash the hound then I’ll put them away for you,’ Will said, bending down to unclip Blossom, who didn’t even wait for her harness to come off before hurtling down the hall and through an open door.
‘Oh, is that my darling girl? Nanna’s saved all the giblets for you!’
‘You know when you and Will decided that Blossom wasn’t meant to have human food?’ Sage rolled her eyes. ‘Well, Mum ain’t got no time for that.’
Margot had had her suspicions. The vet had been very surprised at how quickly Blossom had reached her target weight. ‘Anything else I should know about?’ she asked Will, who was hanging her coat on an old-fashioned coat stand by the front door.
Will’s face was a perfect blank. ‘Nothing that I can think of,’ he said.
Sage snorted from behind Margot. ‘You don’t know half of it. Now come and meet Mum,’ Sage said cheerfully, beetling down the hall so it was just Margot and Will left.
Margot smiled weakly. ‘Your mother really doesn’t mind me gate-crashing?’
‘You’re not gate-crashing. You’re the guest of honour.’ Will smiled and put a hand over his heart. He was wearing a thin black sweater over a grey T-shirt – the sweater soft enough and luxurious enough that Margot, who knew a thing or two about fabric, could tell it was cashmere. ‘My mother is the least scary person you could ever meet, I promise you.’
He was a lot taller than his sisters, but they all had the same twinkle in their blue eyes. Margot had never seen Will’s twinkle before, but maybe it was the combination of Christmas cheer and being on home turf that had completely obliterated his resting bitch face.
‘OK, then,’ Margot said bravely. ‘Lead on.’
Will’s hand settled gently at the small of Margot’s back to steer her down the hall. Usually Margot would have something to say to a man who put his hand anywhere near her without her explicit permission. But Will wasn’t just any man and the warm weight of his hand was a comfort until Margot realised that the nerves fizzing in her tummy were roughly 67 per cent terror at meeting the other woman in Blossom’s life and 33 per cent frisson. Yes, definitely a frisson. Margot shivered and yes, it was the good kind of shiver, and she was so perturbed by both frisson and shiver that her nerves were entirely gone as they entered the kitchen. Margot hadn’t really needed Will to lead her: she could have simply followed her nose. The unmistakable scent of Christmas: turkey roasting, potatoes sizzling in goose fat, cranberries simmering on the hob and even bacon frying.
The kitchen looked like it hadn’t been updated since the eighties. No Shaker-style units in Farrow and Ball colours or a butler’s sink and Smeg fridge in here. There were dark mahogany units, a gigantic range cooker and three women bustling about in a cooks’ ballet.
Sage was scoring an ominously large pile of Brussels sprouts and Rowan was stirring a saucepan full of red cabbage. Margot didn’t need an introduction to the third woman who was busy opening oven doors and prodding at the pigs in blankets under the grill and peering over Rowan’s shoulder to check on the cabbage. If Christmas cooking was a ballet, then Mary Bloom was the prima ballerina assoluta.
If Margot had been in any doubt as to who she was, Blossom, who was sitting in front of the double oven, two slavering trails of drool hanging from her mouth, eyes fixed unwaveringly on Mary, would have given the game away.
‘This is my mother, Mary,’ Will said rather unnecessarily. ‘This is Margot, she’s brought a cake.’
Mary turned towards Margot. Margot forced herself to stand up straight, keep the smile on her face.
It was easy to see the family resemblance. Mary, Rowan and Sage all had the same colouring, the same china blue eyes, the same fine blond hair, though Sage’s was currently lilac and Mary’s was greying. But Mary’s features were blurry and more careworn than her daughters. She was also very thin, the wiry kind of thin that Margot always associated with an intense sort of person, as if their nerves fuelled their metabolism.
‘Thank you for having me,’ Margot said uncertainly, because Mary Bloom was staring at her with Will’s eyes, which was rather disconcerting. ‘So kind of you to let me crash your Christmas dinner.’
Mary Bloom smiled then, so she didn’t look blurry or careworn anymore, but as if Margot’s presence in her house on Christmas Day was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to her. ‘It’s my absolute pleasure. I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you.’
22
Will
Will had been dreading this moment – the two main women in Blossom’s life, and increasingly in his life, meeting.
Margot was smiling. She hadn’t stopped smiling since they arrived, but it wasn’t the kind of smile that lit up her whole face and made her eyes sparkle. It was more manic than that.
And his mother? She was giving Margot the full wattage beam of her best smile; the smile that was like coming home after years trying and failing to find yourself. It was a smile that bathed its recipient in a golden glow so that Margot’s own shaky smile became the truest vision of itself.
‘Shall we hug it out?’ Margot asked. Will and his two sisters all winced. Mary was great at smiling but not so big on hugging. ‘It’s just I know how much you adore Blossom and take such good care of her, and I adore Blossom, too, so I feel like we’re already on hugging terms.’
‘Oh, yes. Well, I suppose that would be all right.’
If Will had thought that the cheek-kissing of earlier was awkward and excruciating, then compared to Mary and Margot hugging, it was a passionate embrace. Mary’s shoulders touched her ears and her arms were like iron girders as they briefly encircled Margot, then released her with indecent haste.
Margot didn’t appear to notice that Mary had very unwillingly had her defences breached. ‘And again, thank you so much for having me here. I hope it’s not an imposition.’
Mary was all smiles again now that she’d been released from the enforced bondage of Margot’s arms. ‘You’re not to mention it again,’ she said, wagging a finger. ‘We’re delighted to have you.’
When Will had told his mother that they’d be one more for Christmas dinner, and briefly explained Margot’s unhappy circumstances, Mary had agreed instantly, as Will had known she would. Then, as he’d also suspected, the doubt and worry had set in.
‘What will Margot think of the house? Everything is so old and out of date. I still think of it as Mum and Dad’s house and it feels wrong to start ripping up carpets and getting rid of those nasty kitchen units that they chose together.’