There was a silence in the room and Izzy almost felt the collective will pushed Xanthe’s way, desperate for it to be all right.
‘Those middle lights aren’t right,’ Xanthe suddenly declared, like the leading actress finding a dead body. ‘They’re all bunched together. They need to be more evenly spread.’
‘They look all right to me,’ grumbled Duncan.
‘No, no, no. We’ll have to start again.’
Jim, Duncan and Ross looked at each other incredulously but before they had managed to say anything Xanthe stepped forward clapping her hands, shooing them back towards the tree as if she were guiding chickens back into their coop. ‘Come on, chop, chop. Ross, you undo the top and pass the wire down to Jim, gently now.’
Xanthe hopped about. ‘Not that way. Higher. Next branch. Back again.’
Even from her place at the other side of the tree, Izzy could see that Ross’s teeth were firmly gritted.
‘Up a bit. That’s better. No, Duncan! No, on that branch.’
Jeanette giggled under her breath but Izzy shook her head to herself. Xanthe was enough to try the patience of a dozen saints.
Eventually the lights were arranged to her satisfaction and she clapped her hands. ‘Izzy, turn the lights on.’
Ross, Jim and Duncan began to shuffle away, and Ross looked as if he might make a bolt for the door, with Jim not far behind him. Xanthe fixed them with a piercing stare. ‘You’re not going anywhere until this tree is finished.’
Izzy switched on the lights and everyone held their breath watching Xanthe, except Jeanette who was still laughing to herself. ‘They look like three schoolboys outside the headmaster’s office,’ she whispered to Izzy.
Xanthe studied the tree. ‘What do you think, Izzy? And change the setting of the lights, I prefer the one that fades on and off, not all this flashing; it’s like a disco and we don’t want that.’
Izzy obliged, pressing the control switch to a setting that had the lights behaving in a less migraine-inducing pattern. She shot a look towards the three men, their faces mutinous in the glow of the lights. There would be a walkout if Xanthe suggested redoing the lights again.
‘It looks fabulous,’ gushed Jeanette, clearly reading the glint in her husband’s eye.
‘Really lovely,’ agreed Izzy, her mouth twisting as she tried not to laugh.
‘Now the real work can start,’ said Xanthe with a gay wave of her hand towards the boxes of decorations stacked at the bottom of the stairs. She raised her glass. ‘Let’s have a toast. To Christmas at the castle, which I hereby declare open. Now, Izzy, open that box of decorations. We’ll start with those.’
‘I’ll watch,’ said Duncan, plumping himself down in one of the leather chesterfields by the fire. ‘I’ve no skill for this sort of thing.’ Ross perched on the arm next to him, showing solidarity.
Xanthe pouted for a moment and then said with a touch of cattiness, ‘I suppose you couldn’t be trusted to do it properly anyway. Jeanette, Izzy, this needs a woman’s touch.’ Jeanette giggled again while Izzy rolled her eyes and Xanthe was all smiles as she dug into the box and pulled out a couple of paper-tissue-wrapped parcels, which she dispensed as though she were bestowing royal favours.
Xanthe unwrapped hers quickly. ‘Look, Iz!’ With a whoop of laughter, she held up a sparkly glass unicorn with a decidedly out of proportion horn. ‘It’s Inappropriate Una. Remember when Gran gave us this? When you were fifteen and she couldn’t understand why we thought it so funny.’ She broke off and said in an aside to Jeanette, ‘Very phallic, although my mother never understood.’ Izzy took it from her with a fond smile, the memory flooding back. The she realised her mother was looking at her with the expectant eyes of a Labrador at one minute to tea time.
‘What?’ she asked, deliberately teasing her mother.
Xanthe arched one of her perfectly pencilled eyebrows and Izzy relented, pulling a paper bag from beneath one of the armchairs and dangled it in front of her. ‘This, you mean?’
Her mother jumped up and took a similar bag from her handbag where it was hanging on the newel post at the base of the stairs.
‘Here you go, darling.’
Izzy unwrapped a pretty ice skater in a glittery tulle skirt, white boots and a red Santa hat, performing a delicate one-legged manoeuvre while Xanthe peeled back the tissue paper around the little felt mouse playing the bagpipes that Izzy had bought in Edinburgh.
‘Oh, darling, he is gorgeous. I’m going to call him Mousetro and this year is going to be the “Christmas of the Scottish Castle”.’
Jeanette wrinkled her forehead in puzzlement and Izzy explained. ‘Every year we name our Christmases according to something that happened.’ She laughed. ‘One year it was “The Christmas of the Farting Dog”.’
‘Oh, Iz. Why do you have to bring that up? Revolting creature.’ Xanthe twisted her mouth in disgust. ‘Our neighbour came for lunch and insisted on bringing his smelly pug, who slept under the table and broke wind for the whole of the meal.’ Xanthe exploded into raucous laughter. ‘We never invited him again, did we?’
Izzy looked over at Ross, to find his forehead furrowed into deep creases. He was staring at her with a sort of sudden spooked recognition, as if she’d sprouted horns from her head.
Xanthe held up a new decoration from the box, a little wooden nutcracker. ‘This one is from “The Christmas Gran Left The Presents Behind”. She was mortified, wasn’t she, darling?’
