“Anyone want that last brownie?”“Much as I hate to be turnin’ down your Georgie’s bakin’, iffen I’m goin’ up that ladder again, I’d better not!”
“I’m with you on that,” Artie admitted. “Seeing as I’m going back up the other ladders to carry on putting up the wallpaper. Which is real pretty, I have to say. What made you choose it?”“Annie and I, we had climbing roses round the house, front and back…”
“I remember them,” Old Tench broke in. “They was real pretty too.”
“Well, this time, I’ve a fancy to plant wisteria. I grew the roses because Annie loved them, and I’ll have a rosebush in the garden, to remember her by, but I’m putting wisteria up the house front and sides. So I chose the colours in here to go with it.”
“Mind you,” Grandpa Geo went on, a bit ruefully, “I’m going to have to break it to Georgie that that red door’s going to have to be repainted.”“Well make sure you break it to her after she’s done the next batch of bakin’ or she’ll not be doin’ any for you at all!”
“I’ll finish paintin’ that covin’ ‘n picture rail.”“I’ll carry on measuring and cutting the wallpaper.”
“And I’ll put it up once you’ve done that. Unstoppable, that’s us!” Artie finished, laughing.
“We’ll have this room done well before Christmas. I’m pleased about that. I want Georgie feel like this is a proper home for Christmas. And she’s real pleased that you two are going to join us! She’s planning some major cooking, I do know that.”
“An’ we’ll be entertainin’ her with tales of what you was like when you was young,” Old Tench said. Grandpa Geo groaned.
“Do you need a hand with dinner, my love?”“It’s mac and cheese tonight, Lachlan. Special request from Taylor – I’m fine. But thank you for asking. Let Georgie quiz you: she’s got her breath back from trying to outdo me on the treadmill.”
“So the thing is, we have this ancient printing press in the newspaper offices – and I know it can be repaired, because there’s this guy up north who did just that. I read about it. I mean, it’s all mechanical, there’s no electronics at all, but I just wouldn’t know where to start…”
“But someone told you that I might just have an idea or two, right?” Lachlan asked, smiling at her. It was hard to believe that Annette had said he was Mr Gloomy when he arrived.
“It was more along the lines of, if Lachlan can’t, then nobody can, actually! Annette really likes the idea of us having a local newspaper again: she said she and Marcus would pay for the restoration of the press if it can be restored, seeing as the church is finished. And they’ll pay for you to have a look at it anyway. She said you could have cash, wine or a mixture of the two: whichever you wanted.”
“What do you think, my lovely?”“Mixture. Some nice wine wouldn’t go amiss at Christmas, and the children need new clothes. They will keep growing! Mason, you can have ten more minutes colouring, but then you need to clear up. Whose turn is it to lay the table?”
“Me and Taylor,” Harper said from where she was painting.
“Georgie, can I tempt you to stay? You can always give your Grandpa Geo a ring, now that Frank’s got you connected.”
“Hey, Grandpa Geo, Marianna’s asked me if I’d like to stay for dinner. Will you be okay if I do?...You’ve still got Old Tench and Artie there?...Artie’s going to cook? Save a bit for my lunch tomorrow! I want to taste it!”
“Good grief, Mason, you were hungry, weren’t you?” Mason’s spoon was scraping on the glaze of the bowl already.“I really like this too. Can I learn to cook, please? Could you make me an oven of my own that really works, Dad? That’s what I’d really like for Christmas.”
“And what about the rest of you?” Marianna asked.
“Paper. To write on,” Harper said.“You like writing too?” Georgie asked. “I do. That’s why I’m a journalist.”
“I like writing stories. And drawing and painting pictures to go with them. Can I have some more painting paper as well, please?”
“I like painting too,” Mason pointed out, sliding down from his stool. “But I’d like to learn how to cook. Like Artie and Leo can.”
“You could be a painting chef,” Fletcher suggested to his brother.
“I want to be an astronaut,” Taylor said. “And an engineer and a scientist, because they all go together. Can I have a science kit for Christmas?”Lachlan smiled, and Marianna choked on her mac and cheese.
“We’ll have to think about that one, sweetheart. Science kits are expensive.”
“Dad could make one. He can make anything.” Lachlan’s smile got wider.
“Books, please,” Fletcher said. “But a chess set would be fun. I like playing chess.”“Well, we have a bookshop now. Do you want to choose for yourself or shall I choose for you?”
“Oooh. Can I choose? In order of want? And then you can decide how many you want to buy?”
“That sounds fair,” Lachlan agreed. “I’ll take you there as soon as maybe. Where did you learn to play chess, though?"”
"School," Fletcher said laconically.
“Grandpa Geo sent these over for you all, but I figured you might not want the children having chocolate just before bedtime.”“You are so right,” Marianna said. “Sugar just before bed does not work well! Especially with Taylor and Mason, for some reason. They can have some tomorrow when they get in from school. Do thank Grandpa Geo – did you know the children call him that? – for sending these.”
“I like your shirt, Lachlan. Am I imagining it, or are there a few like it?”
“Patience made them as Christmas presents for those of us who were here, three Christmasses ago now. Back when she had fewer children and more spare time! Artie arrived after she’d made most of them, but she squeezed a short-sleeved one out of the remnants for him!”
“So Annette said that Patience and Euan arrived a bit before you did?”“Yes. They were here – with their three babies – when we arrived with our four toddlers. Their house was – probably – even worse than ours! Euan came to do the graveyard.”
“And it was a disaster when he arrived! All the graves were totally overgrown – and mind you, maintaining the graveyard had been a condition of sale. Rafe and Leo found that out when they bought up all the factory buildings and went through the paperwork. Letting it get into that state had been totally illegal – no wonder the company decided to put Euan in as caretaker, what with a nosy journalist poking around a few years ago.”
“Euan’s transformed it!” Marianna chimed in. “It looked like something out of a horror story. You should go and see it now. In fact, I’ll go with you if you like – I haven’t been for a while and each time I go, it looks better. And then we could go to the tea room together – I haven’t done that in ages either.”
“I haven’t even been once. With just living over the road…”“I know what you mean. But let’s go together. I’d love that. And now that the children are at school and I’ve finally finished the windows for church – I’ve got a bit of spare time and I’m overdue a treat.”
“Wow! This is nothing like your description of how it used to look!”“Amazing, isn’t it? We’re working out how to fund getting the fence restored – we don’t actually want to ask the Lee Popeman company at the moment, because we don’t want to draw their attention to what’s going on here until it’s unstoppable.” Marianna paused and looked at the restored and tended graves.
“You know, if you wanted some articles for your newspaper, you could do a really good history series based round these graves. Your Grandpa Geo will know some of the families, Clara knows a lot of local history…”
“That’s a great idea!”
“This is lovely.”“Nice, isn’t it? Hopefully, it’ll get busy when the gallery opens and everything else takes off too. For now, we all chip in a bit, clean a bit, wash up after ourselves…It is so good to have somewhere to go that feels – well, female, rather than like a building site. And now we’ve all got phones, we can even phone round and arrange to meet here.”
“This is a nice cup of tea! Do you think you’ll keep the local phone lines when we finally get cell phone coverage?”“I think we will,” Marianna said thoughtfully. “It means the children can call each other for one thing. And anyway, it all adds to the charm of the place. And history buffs will like it.”
“When we’ve finished this lovely tea, do you want to come and see what the guys have done to Grandpa Geo’s house?”
“They’ve done a fantastic job in here!”“Haven’t they? They’ve started on the kitchen now, on the grounds that they can easily finish that before Christmas. And now we can choose colours for recovering those settees – I can do that, once I find a decent second-hand sewing machine to buy – and making curtains too. And that bookcase can be painted a different colour…I’m not sure how much I’ll get done before Christmas, but we’ll see…”
“Let me guess,” Georgie said to Old Tench. “He’s going to say that this door won’t go with the new colour either, and it’s going to need re-painting.”Old Tench looked a bit sheepish, but her grandfather definitely sniggered.
“Hey, Artie, you’ve got the new bookshop guy living with you, haven’t you? What’s he like?” Marianna asked.
“Oh my,” Artie said. “I used to think artistic types were kind of weird, and then I met Rafe and Amber, Lucie and Leo. Talented, but actually quite sensible in bits. This guy! I mean, he’s nice enough, but…Horse-crazy. Took on the bookshop, and he does know about books, but Rafe had mentioned the stud Chas and Sal are building up, and that’s why he was so keen to come. Kinda suits me since he’s real keen to exercise Old Pete, groom him, mucks out his stable no problem. Have you seen him yet?”“No, I’ve been too busy catching up on all the things that didn’t get done while I was working on the church windows.”
“Well, I’ll let you decide for yourself…”
Grandpa Geo was looking at the paint samples on the wall, seeing how they looked next to the yellow. Georgie was right – a contrast colour would look good in that alcove. But not the red, much as Georgie liked it. He’d go with the green they’d used in the other room. And when the daffodils came up in spring, the room would echo them. And he knew what he was going to buy Georgie for Christmas now – something he’d just overheard had given him an idea.The paint-in-progress wallpaper was made for me by Sandy at ATS3. And the decorating things like paint and paper and the ladders, rollers and brushes are on her website too. She also made all the food oddments and the gardening equipment in the graveyard – this story wouldn’t look the same without her talents and Cyclone Sue’s gift for grunge.
