The dishwasher crew all stared at the full machine and sighed in resignation.
Jessie’s scream ripped through the house. Everyone rushed to the dining room, Zach in the lead. Lottie dashed in behind Joe to see the table on fire: a funeral pyre of their Christmas. The smoke alarm screamed into life in the hallway, which added to the panic. Zach was shielding a tearful Jessie.
‘Open the window,’ yelled Joe, scooping up the flamesin the table protector and charging towards Lottie with the flaming bundle as wine glasses crashed to the floor. She flicked the catch and flung the window open, just in time for Joe to hurl the ball of flames through it. It gave a satisfying and reassuring hiss as it hit the wet ground outside.
The smoke alarm stopped. The buzz of Bernard’s wheelchair grew closer and he appeared in the doorway and surveyed the scene. The panicked faces all turned in his direction. ‘I only popped to the loo. What the devil’s going on now?’ he asked.
‘You okay?’ Zach asked Jessie, his face full of concern as he checked her over for any signs of damage. Emily joined him and wrapped the child in a hug; it was an instinctive gesture and despite the drama it brought a brief smile to Lottie’s lips.
Jessie nodded and sniffed back a tear. ‘I thought I could put the candle out with the tablecloth like Joe did when the oven gloves were on fire.’ Lottie thought back to Joe throwing a wet tea towel over them. ‘It all caught fire at once,’ she added, the horror of the moment in her wide eyes.
‘That’s the end of Rose’s special German tablecloth,’ said Bernard, peering out of the window.
‘Nana bought that years ago. I doubt it was subject to any fire-retardant guidelines,’ said Lottie, joining him at the window and surveying the smoking mass. She turned back to see Joe was wincing. She looked down at his hands. ‘Bloody hell, Joe. You’ve burnt yourself.’ It probably wasn’t the thanks he would have liked.
‘It just needs cold water,’ he said, squeezing past Bernard’s chair and exiting the room. Lottie followed him.
In the kitchen Lottie ran the cold tap and thrust Joe’shands under it; he didn’t protest. She hastily emptied the contents of the ice tray into a bowl – Angie would have to do without any in her G&T. ‘Let’s have a look,’ said Lottie, holding out her hands. Joe placed his dripping wet fingers in hers. Despite everything, the intimate contact made her stomach tumble over.
Lottie concentrated her attention on Joe’s hands. ‘Left one is okay,’ he said, and she agreed. The right one however was very red and already blistering on the palm.
‘Here,’ she gently put his right hand into the bowl with the ice. ‘Keep it in there for as long as you can bear. It’ll help reduce the damage.’
‘Thanks.’ He looked a little sheepish.
‘You were really brave back there,’ said Lottie, finally giving him the credit he deserved for acting so quickly.
He shrugged. ‘I just got there first.’ Typical Joe, always modest.
They both stared at his hand, distorted by the water. For a moment they glanced up at the same time and then hastily returned their eyes to the bowl.
Lottie looked away and realised they had an audience. A number of faces were at the kitchen doorway.
‘Right. Show’s over. Back to Christmas.’ Lottie clapped her hands. She was not going to let this Christmas get derailed – not even by a tablecloth inferno.
Chapter Eighteen
Lottie managed to shoo everyone out of the kitchen except for Joe, who was still soaking his burned hand. She busied herself with getting dessert ready, avoiding Joe’s gaze, which she knew was on her.
‘I was worried about coming back,’ said Joe.
Lottie concentrated on turning out the hot, steaming Christmas pudding; she didn’t want to get burned too. ‘That’s to be expected.’After nine sodding years, she added in her head.
‘But stepping back into the manor house it’s like I’ve never been away.’ When Lottie paused to look, Joe was wearing a soppy smile.
She gave the upturned bowl a firm tap as she’d seen Nana do, and lifted it up. The plate was bare apart from a dribble of juice, and the pudding was still firmly in the bowl. ‘That’s nice, Joe. I’m glad.’ She plonked the bowl back down with a thud, partly for the pudding and partly for Joe, but he didn’t react.
‘Nothing has changed,’ he was looking idly around the kitchen, ‘apart from your hair colour.’
Lottie peeked under the bowl. No sign of the pudding. She slammed it down and noted with satisfaction that thistime Joe jumped. ‘Not a single thing,’ she said. ‘Everything is exactly the same, just as you left it.’Apart from me, thought Lottie,I’ve changed. Before you left, I knew what I wanted in life but then I lost my drive. I’ve walked blindly into a dull career and lurched through a series of unsuitable relationships. She gave the bowl another hearty whack.
‘You okay?’ asked Joe.
‘Me? I’m fine.’ Lottie glared at the disobedient pudding bowl.
‘Maybe this was what I needed all along?’ Joe was watching her but sounded somewhere far away.
She rubbed her forehead, ignored the fact she’d smeared pudding juice across her face, and focused on the Christmas pudding. She held the bowl tightly through the charred oven gloves and lifted. Still no pudding. ‘Argh!’ She slammed the bowl down and the serving plate broke in two with a loud crack. ‘Bugger it!’ She lifted the bowl to reveal the bottom half of the pudding straddling the two halves of the plate. She drew in a slow breath. Why was everything so hard?
