The Magic of Christmas by Trisha Ashley

too!’
    When we got to Faye’s, the others were already there and expressed their condolences, before we got down to the business of the meeting: dividing up our purchases of flour, dried fruit and peel, flaked almonds and all the rest of it. Faye’s cavernous farmhouse kitchen slowly became redolent with the spicy fruity smell of Christmas and I found that strangely comforting.
    So too was the tea Faye laid on afterwards, with strawberry jam and clotted cream to spread on the freshly baked scones. It was no wonder her little tearoom was perpetually packed out, so that she had to take on extra staff!
    I felt so much better after spending an hour or two in the undemanding company of my friends. And then the making and bottling of my mincemeat over the following days, along with producing some jam and chutney from a basket of ripe apricots given to me by Marian, proved a pretty good distraction.
    Due to Unks ringing an old number instead of that of Nick’s BlackBerry, it was Wednesday before he tracked him down to give him the bad tidings, and by then I’d already received a postcard of Morecambe Bay he’d posted a couple of days ago. It bore a scribbled recipe for spiced potted shrimps, which I found immensely comforting.
    Unks said Nick sent his love and would call me when he got back, because, of course, being a true professional, he will complete his assignment and send in his copy first. This was more than I seemed able to manage, for the end of August deadline for sending in my newest
Perseverance Chronicle
was fast approaching.
    I rarely mentioned Tom in the books — though when I did I referred to him only as ‘the Inconstant Gardener’ — but I couldn’t entirely ignore what had happened to him, so bringing the latest one to a close on any kind of upbeat note would be
impossible
. Unless, that was, I ended it just
before
Tom’s demise. Then I could include it in a foreword at the start of the book after that, which would come out when a decent interval had passed, the misery blunted by time.
    I could even end my current
Chronicle
with an apocryphal near-death by mushrooms instead. It’s the sort of thing my readers seemed to enjoy and I often embroidered the truth to make a good story. Saved by Caz Naylor in the nick of time … assuming he
had
found the poisonous fungi in the basket of mushrooms Polly left me, which I don’t think was ever clearly established. He could have been giving me a hint about Polly and Tom. I’m sure Caz must often have been flitting about the place in the evenings like a shade, so may well have seen and heard some of what had been going on.
    But I should have known better than to accept anything edible from Polly’s hands, even if the mushrooms had looked suspiciously like supermarket ones, brought as an excuse to snoop around Perseverance Cottage — or maybe, now I know about her affair with Tom, in order to see him without my suspecting anything.
    I had a sudden horrible thought. If I’d cooked the mushrooms without spotting the poisonous one,
Jasper
might have been made ill too! (But not Tom, who didn’t like them.) That put me right off mushrooms, whereas before I loved them.
    A lovely letter of condolence came from the Vanes this morning. They must have posted it practically the minute Annie told them about Tom. Of course, they only really knew the old, charming Tom and not the monster I’d been living with lately, but it was very kind and comforting all the same.
    The latest issue of the
Mosses Messenger
was in the letter box too, and carried a Mystery Play notice, which I found a bit poignant.
    IMPORTANT NOTICE!
    Everyone wanting to take part in the next Mystery Play should put their name forward immediately to Clive and Marian Potter at the Middlemoss Post Office, including any of last year’s performers intending to reprise their roles. (Applicants must be residents of Middlemoss, Mossedge or Mossrow and able to devote one night a week to rehearsals.) Sadly, due