Christmas Cakes and Mistletoe Nights

by Carole Matthews

Genres: General Fiction; Family Life; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

What are readers saying about Carole Matthews? 'Fabulously enjoyable . . . full of heart and fun' Milly Johnson 'Gorgeous' Katie Fforde 'I laughed and cried and marvelled' Cathy Bramley ---------------------- Fay and Danny are madly in love and it's all Fay's ever dreamed of. But she left everything - including the delightful cake shop she used to run - to be with Danny on his cosy canal boat The Dreamcatcher. And as she soon finds out, making delicious cakes on the water isn't always smooth sailing! Then Fay gets a call that sends her back to where it all began; back to where she first met Danny, back to her friends and the Cake Shop in the Garden. Even as Fay happily returns to dry land and her passion for baking, she knows it will be hard being away from Danny, especially with Christmas round the corner. But their relationship is strong enough to survive . . . isn't it? Can Fay really get everything she ever wanted in Christmas Cakes and Mistletoe Nights? Join Fay and her friends this Christmas and indulge in this wonderful, cake-filled novel of romance and friendship. Christmas Cakes and Mistletoe Nights is Sunday Times bestselling Carole Matthews doing what she does best! Perfect for fans of Jill Mansell and Milly Johnson.

Release date: October 19, 2017

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 400

Sample

I watch a weeping willow dipping its branches into the canal, leaves ruffled by the breeze. Beneath it, a cow and her young calf are standing at the water’s edge where the bank has been trampled flat by many hooves. Delicate, spiky-headed teasels, crisp and brown now after their summer flowering, harbour the last of the dragonflies. Behind, a lush meadow stretches away and, in the distance, the spire of an ancient church peeps above the tall trees that have already turned golden this year, parched after our long, hot summer. A couple of swans glide elegantly by. It looks as if it’s been unchanged for hundreds of years. If I was an artist, I’d try to capture this scene in watercolour. But I’m not, so I take out my phone and snap a shot for posterity.

‘Fay! Are you planning on doing anything with that windlass?’

Danny’s shout brings me back to the present. ‘Sorry!’ He’s waiting at the entrance to the lock for me to leap into action and open the gates. Which I now do. ‘I’m on it!’

I’ve run ahead of him so that this would all be quicker and then wasted the time by standing here daydreaming for five minutes. I finish closing the top lock. Diggery, our little Jack Russell cross, runs up and down barking his own instructions. He’s wearing a skull-and-crossbones neckerchief today and looks very jaunty.

When I’ve finished my part, Danny steers The Dreamcatcher into the tight space, bumping the sides slightly as he does. The Dreamcatcher is a decent-sized narrowboat and takes some manoeuvring. Despite spending the last few months living on the canal together, we’re still very much novices. There’s no doubt that we’re learning quickly, though. Every day seems to bring some new challenge or obstacle to overcome – I can now unblock a loo with a certain degree of competence, light a stubborn woodburner, and fill the water tanks without giving myself an impromptu shower. All of these things are life skills I didn’t have a short time ago – or ever think that I’d need.

‘No worries,’ Danny says as he cruises past me on the boat and settles The Dreamcatcher into the lock. ‘We’re not in a hurry.’ He jumps off the back of the boat onto the towpath and together we manhandle the heavy lock gates into place.

I tell you, I have arms like Popeye now after all this physical work. The canals are not for wimps. No gym membership needed for me!

‘I was having a little daydream,’ I admit as we work the lock, watching The Dreamcatcher rise on the turbulent water to the next level. ‘This place is so lovely.’

Danny looks round and takes it all in. ‘We can stay up here as long as you like. Hopefully, I can get some more work.’

And that’s one of our main problems. The last of the gloriously hot summer has gone and we’re well into the cooler days of autumn now. Christmas will soon be upon us and the seasonal work that’s kept Danny busy on our travels is slowly starting to dry up as the days grow shorter and colder.

‘There’s enough to keep me busy on site for the next two or three weeks.’ Danny’s currently doing casual labouring on a building site, but as the weather worsens there’ll be less available. ‘But that’s about it. They won’t be taking on until after the new year. Maybe even spring, if we have a bad winter.’

His work has been bringing in some very welcome money, but only just enough to keep body and soul together.

‘After that, I’m not so sure what will happen.’ He turns his heart-warming smile on me. ‘But something will come up. You don’t need to worry about it.’

Yet, I do. I’m one of life’s worriers. The fact that I’m here at all is nothing short of a miracle. I’d never done a reckless thing in all of my forty-two years – until, of course, I left behind everything that I know and hold dear to run away with Danny Wilde for an itinerant life on the waterways of England. Even though I’m telling you this, I can still hardly come to terms with it myself. I waved goodbye to my old life, my friends, my family, my lovely little café in the garden without a backward glance. Well, not much of one. I could well be having a mid-life crisis but if I am, it feels really rather nice. Well, most of the time. It’s only when I look at my bank balance that I get the collywobbles.

‘We’ve got our love to keep us warm,’ Danny says.

‘And a dwindling supply of firewood.’

‘I’ll get some later,’ he promises. ‘It’s on my never-ending list of Things To Do.’

Life on the canal, as we’re both finding, certainly isn’t all about sitting back with a glass of wine and watching the world go by. It’s hard graft, that’s for sure. But, now that I’ve done it, I wouldn’t change a thing.

We’re in Wales on the Llangollen branch of the Shropshire Union Canal. It’s the most beautiful part of the country and the temptation to linger here is very strong. It’s taken us six weeks or more to work our way up here and the journey has been truly wonderful. I’ve never tried anything remotely like this before and I’m fully embracing the free spirit that’s slowly emerging from somewhere deep inside me.

Together we open the other gates, me huffing and puffing like an old train, Danny doing it with consummate ease.

‘Come on, Digs,’ Danny calls. ‘Back on board or we’ll leave you behind.’

Taking no chances, Diggery bounds onto the boat and sits by the tiller.

Expertly handled by Danny, The Dreamcatcher floats happily out of the lock. It’s a sturdy boat, getting on a little in age and slightly scuffed around the edges – much
like my good self. A few bits are patched up and held together with string, glue, an extra coat of paint and crossed fingers which will need some attention when we eventually find some spare cash.

I close the lock behind the boat and climb on board too. I stand proudly beside Danny while he takes control of the tiller and steers us back along our route. Even now, there are times when I look at him and can’t believe that we’re a couple.

‘What?’ he says as I gaze at his face. ‘You’re looking all moony.’

I laugh. ‘I am all moony!’

‘Glad to hear it, Ms Merryweather.’ He puts his arm round my waist and draws me close. He smells of woodsmoke from firing up the stove this morning to take the chill off the boat.

I didn’t think my jaded, middle-aged heart was capable of containing this much love. But it does. Danny’s young – much younger than me – handsome, and the nicest man that you could meet, to boot. And he’s mine.

What can I tell you about him? He’s thirty-two – a full ten years my junior, though I have to say I’m the least likely cougar on the planet. He’s tall, skinny and muscular all at once. He never looks better than when he’s wearing a tight T-shirt and black jeans. His hair’s jet black, cropped at the sides but flopping every which way on top. I look at it now and think that it could probably do with a cut. Despite living frugally on the boat, Danny still likes to go to a barber rather than have me taking to it with the kitchen scissors. Today, because of the cool morning, he’s wearing a black beanie hat and a faded grey denim jacket. He hasn’t shaved yet and he subconsciously keeps smoothing the shadow of stubble on his skin. Originally, he’s from Ireland – near Belfast – and even though he’s lived in England for years now, he still speaks with a soft, sexy accent that makes my heart go all silly. He has dark, mischievous eyes and they make not just my heart but everything else go silly too. Actually, just take it as read that I’m as lovestruck as it’s possible to be.

Danny Wilde came into my life at a time when I felt I had so little to look forward to. I’d completely lost who Fay Merryweather actually was or the woman she’d once hoped to be. I’d been in a relationship of sorts with the same man for years but, if I’m completely honest, I wasn’t really in love. Anthony and I were together out of habit more than any great passion. He was more keen on his golf clubs than he ever was on me. My stepmother – a wicked one as it turns out – and her extensive range of illnesses had dominated my life. I was Miranda’s prime carer and, for my sins, she made sure that it was a role I filled 24/7. I’d been forced to give up my job because of it and ran a café from our home by the canal, Fay’s Cakes, that had developed out of necessity rather than any fabulously ambitious business plan. My ad hoc selling of cakes from our ancient canal boat, the Maid of Merryweather, became a success despite my daily struggle to hold it all together. Before long, I added light lunches and teas and my business grew into the garden when we put a few tables out under the apple trees. Then I took over the dining room and we had even more tables, so I hired Lija Vilks, my ill-tempered Latvian assistant, to help me keep my head above water. Lija turned out to be the most foul-mouthed and fastidious employee anyone could have and I have no idea how I would ever have managed without her. She’s as feisty as I’m timid, and as lovely as she is difficult, but she’s fiercely loyal to me and, well – just fierce, actually. Beyond all else, her cakes are flipping amazing. A slice of her lemon drizzle makes me overlook all her shortcomings in the customer-care department.

Yet, despite loving running the café, I still felt that I wasn’t in control of my own destiny. Anthony and Miranda were controlling my life. When they said jump, all I did was ask, ‘How high?’ I got up, baked cakes, made beds, cleaned floors, pandered to Miranda’s needs, baked more cakes, ironed shirts and sheets, pandered to Anthony’s needs, fell into bed exhausted. Then got up and did the same thing the very next day. I was bumping along the bottom of my existence and that’s never a good feeling. I’m in my forties and I should have been in the prime of my life – yet I was going nowhere fast. Little did I know how that was all about to change. Now I’m still going nowhere fast, but for very different reasons!

Our life on The Dreamcatcher is as far out of the rat race as you can get. Now we work to live, not the other way round. Danny had escaped the corporate life, buying the boat on a whim and taking to the canals for a great adventure. He came to the café looking for casual work – much in the same way that he’s doing now. While Lija and I managed to stay on top of the daily upkeep of Fay’s Cakes, the garden and repairs around the house were going to pot, so I found Danny some gardening and odd jobs that had been on my To Do list for ages, unaware that this seemingly small decision would turn my staid little life upside down.

Every morning, I thank my lucky stars that I did. If I’d decided that my fence could stay unpainted, my trees unpruned, then I could quite conceivably have drifted into marriage with Anthony and would have spent the rest of my life as a downtrodden golf widow with a husband who thought having sex once a month was being rampant. Instead, I fell madly in love, embarked on a whirlwind romance with my young and gorgeous gardener, left Anthony, gave up the café, and ran away to join Danny Wilde on his travels. Go, me!

I couldn’t have acted any more out of character if I’d tried. Yet I’m so glad that I did. My new life is everything I’d hoped for and more. Danny and I have lived together in close quarters on the boat for a few months now and, so far, we’ve hardly had a cross word. Seriously, I have to pinch myself on a daily basis to check that it isn’t all a beautiful dream.

There are days when I wonder what Danny sees in me. I’m not one of those young, trendy forty-somethings that you see in the magazines. I’m no Kate Moss or Gwyneth Paltrow. No one would ever mistake me for a style icon. I haven’t even had my hair cut since I’ve been on the boat, so my low-maintenance bob has taken on a life of its own. I’ve got random waves and it’s longer than I’ve worn it in years. I might even grow it intentionally. I’ve also lost quite a few of my … ahem … curves since I gave up the café for a life on the water. Less cake and more physical work has done wonders for my waistline. Though I do miss the fact that I don’t have the opportunity to do as much baking now. I’ve got a tiny oven on the boat which isn’t really suited to my signature three-tier monster Victoria sponges.

Danny and I have wandered, at a leisurely pace, almost two hundred miles across the canals of our green and pleasant land. We started outside my former home on the Grand Union Canal near Milton Keynes and since then have taken in Birmingham, parts of Staffordshire and Worcestershire, before heading up onto the Shropshire Union waterway. We’ve stopped where the mood or the work has taken us and have travelled far from home.

We’re slowly wending our way up through miles and miles of open countryside towards the towering Pontcysyllte Aqueduct – a part of the canal that rises high above the landscape of Wales – which, by all accounts, is spectacular. The picturesque town of Llangollen is our ultimate destination and, as Danny said, we hope to moor near the town there for a short while and take a break. One of the problems with not having a permanent residential mooring is that we can only stay put in one place for two weeks at a time – at the most – and then the Canal & River Trust require us to move on.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ I say. ‘We could do with a cuppa after all that exertion.’

‘Any biscuits?’

‘There’s only a few left, but I’ll bake some fresh ones later.’ Danny likes my homemade oat cookies baked with hazelnuts, grated apple and raisins. I make them with maple syrup instead of sugar in an attempt to keep them on the healthy side. I’m not entirely sure it works.

As I go to move, Danny grabs my hand. ‘You are OK, aren’t you?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I thought you were a bit quiet this morning. I know that you miss Lija and Stan.’

‘I do.’ Like mad, if I’m honest.

Lija now owns the café outright and I fret about how she’s managing to run the place. It’s not that she isn’t perfectly capable, but I know how much hard work it is to cope single-handed. I hope she doesn’t start telling the customers to eff off. She does get very sweary. Words beginning with F are by far her favourites. She sprinkles her conversations liberally with them. Also, Lija can’t quite compute the concept of the customer always being right, though I’ve tried to explain it to her on many occasions. She treats most of them as if they’re necessary evils – and I try to point out that when you’re running a business they sort of are. Even the tricky ones.

So she’s not exactly everyone’s cup of tea, so to speak. Although some adore her. Much as people adore Basil Fawlty. Stan, on the other hand, is completely loveable. My elderly and endearing neighbour lives in the cottage right next door to Canal House and very quickly became a surrogate father to me or, at the great age of ninety-three, more probably a surrogate grandfather. He’s a delightful old boy and the hardest thing is not seeing him every day when he comes in to the café for his lunch and a chat. He sits at his favourite table down by the canal, under his favourite apple tree, in his favourite holey cardigan, and watches the world go by. Being apart from them both is the hardest thing about my new adventure and there’s nothing I’d love more than to see them now.

Lija and Stan might not be related by blood, but they were always kinder to me than my own family ever were. It’s fair to say that I had a troubled relationship with the woman I called Mum all my life – only to discover when she died that she wasn’t my real mum at all. She was my father’s second wife and took me on as a baby as my own mother had died. I had no idea of any of this until Miranda herself passed away. The sad thing is that it seems as if she never really considered me to be her daughter at all. You have no idea how sad that made me and I still know so little of my birth mother beyond her name.

I’ve got a sister too – or a half-sister if we’re being pedantic. What can I tell you of Edie? Bless her. My dear sister is Troubled with a capital T. She was always Mum’s favourite and I guess I know why now. When Mum – Miranda – died it was Edie who inherited everything. Despite me being the one to stay at home and care for her for years, Miranda decided to cut me out of her will. I didn’t get a penny, or one iota of thanks, for all the love and attention I lavished on her. Edie – who’d scarpered to New York as soon as she was able – was handed it all on a platter.

Miranda could never get over the fact that my mother was always my father’s first love and this, I suppose, was my punishment. To compound the damage, my sister kindly sold my home and the café from beneath me, cutting me completely adrift. If I’m looking for silver linings in this, it at least gave me the impetus to throw in my lot with Danny and leave them all behind. At that point, it seemed as if I had nothing left to lose.

Edie and I have made up, after a fashion. We’re still speaking – just about – but I’m not sure that leopards ever change their spots and I no longer trust the relationship between us. When you’ve been hurt like that, and so cruelly, it’s hard to think about that person without dwelling on what they’ve done. Before the dust had even settled, before I knew what would become of me or where I might live, Edie hightailed it back to New York to be with her married lover. She’s still waiting for him to leave his wife – which is never going to happen – and I haven’t seen her since. We have the occasional, strained conversation – where there’s clearly a lot that goes unsaid – and I hope that will change in time. I feel that I’ve mostly forgiven her for all the horrible things she did – sort of. But in truth, it’s Lija and Stan who I pine for.

I love Danny to pieces and would go to the end of the earth with him – not just a pleasant part of Wales. But there’s still a nagging pull to my former home. The café and the house were mine for so long that it’s hard to completely cut my ties. I worry about Lija and Stan. I talk regularly to them both when I can get a good phone signal – never a given on the boat. The internet connection is even worse, even though we have a dongle or dangle – or something like that – to assist. It still means that Skyping is usually out of the question. Hence I don’t chat to them quite as much as I’d like. They both assure me that they’re managing perfectly well without me, but that doesn’t stop the longing. I love my life on The Dreamcatcher and my heart is definitely here with Danny, but I can’t help but feel that a small yet significant part of it has been left behind.



Later, we moor up for the night and the next few weeks, hopefully. Even on a Sunday when there are usually day trippers galore, this seems to be a quiet stretch of the canal and we’ve found a spot not too far from Danny’s work so that he can walk to the building site in the morning. There’s also a local pub nearby in case we want to wander along the towpath for a swift half later. However, Danny has stoked up the woodburner and there’s a comforting warmth spreading through the cabin which will be very hard to leave. I think there’s a bottle of cheap red wine in the cupboard so the lure of snuggling up on the sofa instead of venturing out into the cold might prove too strong. Diggery certainly looks comfortable cuddled up snoozing on one of the cushions. His nose twitches occasionally as the scent of cooking wafts his way.

The Crock-Pot has been on all day, turning some budget cuts of meat into a delicious stew. Danny is doing hard, physical labour at the moment and eats like a teenager. I’ve given up watching my carb intake as we have a big bowl of rice or potatoes every night to fill him up and, weak-willed woman that I am, I can’t resist.

I open the side hatch and look out over the canal. Within seconds two ducks appear, looking for an easy dinner. I find them some pumpkin and sunflower seeds and they snaffle them up, gratefully.

Danny, out of the shower, comes to put his arms round my waist. ‘Smells wonderful. What’s cooking?’

‘Fridge stew. I need to walk into the town centre tomorrow and get some supplies. We’re out of almost everything.’

‘I’ll be paid in two days, so we’re doing fine this week.’

‘I wish I could do more,’ I say. I’ve not found it as easy to get casual work as Danny has. Anything on offer short-term tends to be physical work – mainly on construction sites or heavy-duty gardening. I can’t really try for shop work or waitressing as we’re on the move too much. If we’re staying put somewhere for more than a few days, I’ve been displaying a sign with the hope of selling some cakes to passing trade. Some days it’s gone better than others and I have to balance baking enough with making sure that we don’t have any left over. It worked reasonably well in the last days of summer, but it’s not so good now that the weather has changed and there are very few people on the towpaths who are keen to stop and buy some homemade cake.

‘You do what you can,’ Danny says, pragmatically. ‘You can’t do any more.’

‘There’s only so much cooking and cleaning I can do,’ I tell him.

‘I know.’ He gives me a squeeze.

The truth is that I’m quite lonely during the day when I’m not selling so many cakes and chatting to the people who stop to buy them. I’m not unhappy, but I just wish that there was someone I could talk to properly or a little job I could go to. When I ran the café we had people in and out all day and I miss the company. Plus Lija was always around and was endlessly entertaining. I miss her potty mouth and stroppy ways more than I can tell you. Stan always had a good story to tell too – he’s seen a lot of the world in his day – and I worry that Lija isn’t looking after him properly now I’m not there to nag her. She has what you might call a ‘casual’ approach to everything in life. Though she regularly assures me on the phone that she’s very solicitous of Stan’s needs.

As I’ve told you, I looked after my mum for years, when she was bedridden – mainly with imaginary sufferings – and it was tough, so tough. I never had a moment to myself or the time to even think about what I wanted from life. Yet, now that she’s gone, that’s left a gaping hole too. I feel slightly adrift and not just because we’re wandering the waterways of England like nomads.

‘I’ve lost you,’ Danny says into my musings. ‘Where have you gone?’

‘Thinking,’ I admit.

‘About home?’

I nod. There’s no use pretending. ‘I do feel a bit homesick.’ If I didn’t have all day by myself to think about it, then, perhaps, I wouldn’t be as bad. I have Diggery for company but – delight that he is – that’s not quite the same as human conversation.

‘This job will peter out soon.’ Danny moves away from me and pulls the bottle of red from the cupboard and waves it at me, needlessly questioning my desire for a glass of wine. I nod. So, it’s a night on the boat rather than at the pub. ‘We can head back towards Milton Keynes then. If we don’t linger too long anywhere, then we could be back in time for Christmas.’

Sometimes you forget just how long it takes to get anywhere by canal. Most of the time, we toddle along at walking pace and that makes a hundred miles seem like one hell of a distance.

‘It’s definitely doable,’ he adds when he sees the sceptical look on my face.

‘Christmas.’ I sigh. ‘That would be lovely. Lija would let us moor up on the jetty next to the Maid of Merryweather.’ This old boat has a strong pull for me too. It was my darling dad’s treasure and, as a girl, I used to spend as much time as possible with him on it. Edie and Miranda were distinctly less keen, so it was always a special place for me as I had Dad all to myself. We’d tinker about, polishing it, touching up the paintwork, and Dad would fiddle with the engine, losing hours just happily pottering. We had family holidays on it too which were always a mixed bag of emotions as I loved every minute of it, but Miranda and my sister would moan for England. They were both more five-star kind of women rather than canal fans. And then, when Dad died, I stopped using it on the canal. Until it was pressed into service again as a make-do shop, it sat in the water going nowhere and is now in a parlous state of repair due to lack of use and neglect. The boat was the only thing that came to me in Miranda’s will and, for that, I’m so grateful – even though it needs a small fortune spending on it to bring it up to scratch. At least there is something of my past that is still tangible.

‘I’m sure Lija would be delighted to have us back.’ Danny grins. ‘I bet she hides it well though.’

‘Yes.’ Lija’s default setting is grumpy.

He pours us some wine and we both take a welcome glug.

‘You could give her a call after dinner, if we’ve got a decent signal here.’ He picks up his phone and checks it. ‘Looks OK.’

I get a little thrill of excitement. Our first Christmas together on The Dreamcatcher and I can’t wait. It would be so nice to be able to share that with Stan and Lija too. ‘Are you sure we could do it?’

‘Why not?’ He shrugs. ‘That was the whole idea of this lifestyle. To go where the mood takes us. Admittedly, it would be a lot easier if we won the lottery. But we shouldn’t feel tied if we want to move on. Flexibility. That’s our new watchword.’

‘Have I told you today that I love you?’

‘Only once or twice,’ Danny says. ‘There’s room for more.’

We’re still like a couple of lovebirds so, despite Danny working a physical jo. . .