Second Thyme Around by Katie Fforde

listened to her friend sob for a little while, opening a pile of Christmas cards.
    ‘I really hate to let you down.’ Eventually the sobs had stopped long enough for Perdita to speak. ‘But honestly, if the van’s not going to make it, I really don’t think I can come.’
    Lucy sniffed loudly. ‘No, of course not. Sorry to be so silly. Moving is such hell – Christmas is such hell – and to have them both together is too awful for words – I keep crying. My mother’s coming …’
    ‘That’ll be a help then—’ began Perdita.
    ‘ … but I don’t want her to have to do a thing. She always had Christmas at her house, but Daddy died last year, and I want to do all the things she always did, for her.’
    ‘But, Lucy, you’re moving house! She won’t expect you to do the Full Turkey! When do you move, by the way?’
    ‘Oh, the day after tomorrow, and I’m still not properly packed. But I so want this Christmas to be special. For Mummy, as well as the children.’
    ‘I’m so sorry.’ Perdita wondered if the phone cord would let her reach her box of cards so she could write a few. It didn’t.
    ‘I’ve just had a brilliant idea!’ Lucy sounded distinctly happier. ‘Geoff can collect you! He’s Jake’s brother, the one whose marriage has just broken up. He lives in Cornwall. That’s not far from you, is it?’
    ‘Only about a couple of hundred miles away …’
    ‘But it’s on the way, isn’t it?’
    ‘I’m really not sure. My geography’s a bit hazy …’
    ‘I’ll ring and ask him if he can pick you up. I’m sure he’ll be delighted.’
    ‘But if his marriage has just broken up, he’s not going to want to pick up some female he’s never met and drive her hundreds of miles.’ The thought of being that female, trying to make conversation, was filling Perdita with horror.
    ‘Yes he will. I’ll tell him how vital you are to my plans, and he’ll be perfectly OK about it.’
    Perdita’s small enthusiasm for the plan evaporated entirely. ‘But why am I so vital, Luce?’
    ‘Oh well, cooking, and getting the house straight, and stuff like that—’ Lucy’s voice broke, and Perdita, certain that Lucy didn’t have time to keep bursting into tears, interrupted.
    ‘Well, of course I’d love to help with anything you want me to do, but …’ she tailed off. Perhaps it would be unkind to tell Lucy that she couldn’t cook anything more complicated than spaghetti and wasn’t known for her tidiness. ‘I could look after the children.’
    Lucy sniffed. ‘Oh no, the children are being frightfully clingy. They’re being torn from their home, their familiar surroundings. But you could look after Mummy,’ she added more brightly.
    When Perdita rang off, some emotionally charged minutes later, she decided to go and tell Kitty that she wouldn’t need to pay for the van’s overhaul. As she walked through her own land, to climb over the fence into Kitty’s garden, she wondered why Lucy’s mother needed looking after.
     
    ‘Well,’ said Kitty, having handed Perdita tea in a huge breakfast cup, with a couple of ginger nuts in the saucer, ‘I was a bit anxious about you motoring all that way on
your own.’ Never having learnt to drive herself, Kitty felt subconsciously that it was dangerous, and that women shouldn’t do it.
    ‘It would have been perfectly all right if the van had been reliable,’ said Perdita, who understood Kitty’s subtext.
    ‘Never mind. I’m glad you’re being driven. By a man.’ Kitty had the sense not to add the word ‘nice’. ‘So what are you going to take? I could let you have some mincemeat, if you like.’
    Perdita shook her head. ‘Lucy might expect me to make mince pies. I can’t even manage frozen pastry.’
    ‘Buy a box of chocolate biscuits then; they’re always useful. And I’ll give you a bottle of Lionel’s port. I’ll never get through it, if I live to be a hundred and fifty,’ she went on, as Perdita protested. ‘And you might as