My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories(11)

“Like the fox,” he says.

“Like your fox,” Miranda says. She’s horrified to find that her eyes are watering. Is she crying? It isn’t even a real fox. She doesn’t want to look at the man in the coat, Fenny, to see if he’s noticed, so she jumps down off the wall and begins to walk back toward the house.

When she’s halfway to the Hall, the drifting snow stops. She looks back; no one sits on the wall.

*

The snow stops and starts, on and off all day long. When dinner is finished, Honeywells groaning, clutching their bellies, Elspeth has something for Miranda.

Elspeth says, wagging the present between two fingers like it’s a special treat, Miranda some stray puppy, “Someone left it on the doorstep for you, Miranda. I wonder who.”

The wrapping is a sheet of plain white stationery, tied with a bit of green thread. Her name in a scratchy hand. Miranda. Inside is a scrap of rose damask, the embroidered fox, snarling; the mangled leg, the bloodied trap.

“Let me see, sweet,” Elspeth says, and takes the rose damask from her. “What a strange present! A joke?”

“I don’t know,” Miranda says. “Maybe.”

It’s eight o’clock. Honeywell Hall, up on its hill, must shine like a torch. Miranda puts on her coat and walks around the house three times. The snow has all melted. Daniel intercepts her on the final circuit. He’s pimply, knobbly at present, and his nose is too big for his face. She loves him dearly, just like she loves Elspeth. They are always kind to her. “Here,” he says, handing her the bit of damask. “Secret Santa? Secret admirer? Secret code?”

“Oh, you know,” Miranda says. “Long story. Saving it for my memoirs.”

“Meanwhile back in there everyone’s pretending it’s 1970 and they’re all sweet sixteen again. Playing Sardines and drinking. It’ll be orgies in all the cupboards, dramatic confessions and attempted murders in the pantry, under the stairs, in the beds and under them all night long. So I took this and snuck out.” Daniel shows her the bottle of Strongbow in his coat pocket. “Let’s go and sit in the Tiger. You can tell me all about school and the agony aunt, I’ll tell you which Tory MP Elspeth’s been seeing on the sly. Then you can sell the story to The Sun.”

“And use the proceeds to buy us a cold-water flat in Wolverhampton. We’ll live the life,” Miranda says.

They drink the cider and eat a half-melted Mars bar. They talk and Miranda wonders if Daniel will try to kiss her. If she should try to kiss Daniel. But he doesn’t, she doesn’t—they don’t—and she falls asleep on the mouse-eaten upholstery of the preposterous carcass of the Sunbeam Tiger, her head on Daniel’s shoulder, the trapped fox crumpled in her fist.

*

Christmas after, Elspeth is in all the papers. The Tory MP’s husband is divorcing her. Elspeth is a correspondent in the divorce. Meanwhile she has a new thing with a footballer twenty years her junior. It’s the best kind of Christmas story. Journalists everywhere. Elspeth, in the Sunbeam Tiger, picks up Miranda at the station in a wide-brimmed black hat, black jumpsuit, black sunglasses, triumphantly disgraced. In her element.

Miranda’s aunt almost didn’t let her come this year. But then, if Miranda had stayed, they would have both been miserable. Her aunt has a new boyfriend. Almost as awful as she is. Someone should tell the tabloids.

“Lovely dress,” Elspeth says, kissing her on the cheek. “You make it?”

Miranda is particularly pleased with the hem. “It’s all right.”

“I want one just like it,” Elspeth says. “In red. Lower the neckline, raise the hem a bit. You could go into business. Ever think of it?”

“I’m only sixteen,” Miranda says. “There’s plenty of room for improvement.”

“Alexander McQueen! Left school when he was sixteen,” Elspeth says. “Went off to apprentice on Savile Row. Used to sew human hair into his linings. A kind of spell, I suppose. I have one of his manta dresses somewhere in the Hall. And your mother, she was barely older than you are now. Hanging around backstage, stitching sequins and crystals on tulle.”

“Where’s Daniel?” Miranda says. She and her mother have been corresponding. Miranda is saving up money. She hasn’t told her aunt yet, but next summer Miranda’s going to Thailand.

“Back at the house. In a mood. Listening to my old records. The Smiths.”

Miranda looks over, studies Elspeth’s face. “That girl broke up with him, didn’t she?”

“If you mean the one with the ferrets and the unfortunate ankles,” Elspeth says, “yes. What’s her name. It’s a mystery. Not her name, the breakup. He grows three inches in two months, his skin clears up, honestly, Miranda, he’s even better looking than I expected he’d turn out. Heart of gold, that boy, a good brain, too. I can’t think what she was thinking.”

“Preemptive strike, perhaps,” Miranda says.

“I wouldn’t know about the breakup except for accidentally overhearing a conversation. Somewhat accidentally,” Elspeth says. “Well, that and the Smiths. He doesn’t talk to me about his love life.”

“Do you want him to talk to you about his love life?”

“No,” Elspeth says. “Yes. Maybe? Probably not. Anyway, how about you, Miranda? Do you have one of those, yet? A love life?”