But thats not safe with childer, so Ive bound it into the bracelet instead.
I noticed her use of the old Lancashire word childer for children, something I remembered from my grandmother, whose speech patterns had also been peppered with thees and thous, though that might have had something to do with the Strange Baptist religious sect the Almonds used to belong to.
Is it magic? Stella asked seriously, fingering the leather band and, when Mrs Snowball nodded, she looked pleased.
Itll help get the roses back in your cheeks and a bit of flesh on your bones, so the wind doesnt blow you away, she said.
It seemed kindly meant, so I thanked her, but later Stella threw a typical three-year-olds tantrum when I took it off before she had her bath, even though I put it right back on again afterwards.
The next afternoon I left Ma minding Stella while I went for a rummage round the Sticklepond shops. Chloe Lyons was my first port of call. I bought a box of Chocolate Wishes for Christmas Day, which were a sort of chocolate fortune cookie, and a little milk chocolate angel lolly for Stellas stocking. Chloe made all the chocolates herself and the smell had lured me in a few times before, so she recognised me. She was the vicars wife, too, which was odd, seeing as her grandfather was Gregory Lyon, who ran the next-door witchcraft museum and Ma said was a self-confessed pagan.
While she was putting my purchases in a glazed paper carrier bag, she absently handed me a pack of cards to hold. Then she took them back and laid them out on the counter. These are angel cards. Pretty, arent they?
Yes, lovely, I agreed, admiring the pictures on the backs.
She smiled, turned some of them face up, then shuffled them back together and lifted down a large chocolate angel from the shelf, which she insisted was a special present just for myself, refusing any payment. It was extremely kind of her because her chocolate is very expensive, so I thanked her and said I would save it for a special treat on Christmas Day.
I popped in and out of the village shops, buying Stella the latest Slipper Monkey childrens book in Cinderellas Slippers, the wedding shoe shop, since the owner, Tansy Poole, is the author and keeps a rack of them next to the till. I didnt dare even to glance at the gorgeous shoes, since spending money on myself for something so impractical was totally unthinkable when I had Stellas fund to think of.
I crossed the road and bought Ma the latest Susan Hill crime novel from Felix Hemmings in the Marked Pages bookshop, and had a nice chat with him about my cookbooks. I hadnt realised before quite what a literary hotbed the village was, but apparently Ivo Hawksley, Tansys husband, writes crime novels, Gregory Lyon at the Witchcraft Museum writes supernatural thrillers and even Seth Greenwood from Winters End has had published a gardening tome called The Artful Knot.
When I got back to the cottage and went up to the studio I found that Ottie had visited in my absence. She divided her time between her house in Cornwall and Winters End, where she lived in the converted coach house, but of course she came back for Christmas. There was always a huge party up there for all the staff, family and friends, and I knew Ma had been invited a few times, but wouldnt go.
I was sorry to have missed Ottie (as a little girl, I had attempted to call her Auntie Ottie, but it had been too much of a mouthful), who had always been kind and prone to arrive with unexpected presents.
Stella was fast asleep on the battered old chaise longue, with a fistful of pheasant feathers from the collection she kept in the studio loosely splayed around her, but woke as soon as she heard my voice.
She was still pretty sleepy, though, and after lunch went willingly off for her nap just before Will and Celia arrived for our fundraising session.
Will had put the finishing touches to the Stellas Stars website and it was about to go online, which was exciting.
The fundraising will really get going then, Celia said.
I only hope youre right, because its such a lot of money to raise quite quickly. I mean, Dr Beems wants to do the operation before shes five, so the latest date shed have it would be spring of the year after next and he did warn me that if her condition suddenly deteriorated, it might have to be much sooner.
Well hope it wont; thats just the worst-case scenario, Celia assured me.
I know, but Ive had some sleepless nights thinking about what Id do if it came to it and Ive come to the conclusion that the only way I could raise the money in time would be by selling the flat.
Sell the flat? echoed Celia. But you still have a mortgage on it, dont you?
Yes, but because Dad gave me a good deposit and I bought it just before prices went through the roof, Id make a huge profit, I said optimistically.
But then youd still have to rent somewhere for you and Stella to live, Will pointed out, and thats likely to cost more than your current mortgage payments.
Well, thats the thing wed have to move up here and live with Ma for a while.
I think that would be a bit hard after having your own place and would Martha think it was a good idea? asked Celia. I know she loves to have you visit, but thats a bit different from your being here all the time.
I dont know, but I think shed do it because she loves Stella they seem very alike in some ways. And it would be only until Stella had had the operation and recovered, then Id move back to London and pick up my career again.
We talked through lots of fundraising ideas and drafted a standard email that we could send out to everyone we could think of who might help, with a link to the website. And everyone in your address book, Celia suggested, even if you havent heard from them in years. If you give people a positive way of helping, Im sure theyll do it.
Yes, everyone loves to support a good cause, especially where a child is involved, Will agreed.
Ill organise a couple of events too. My knitting circle can have a sponsored knitathon, perhaps, and in the spring we could have a Crafty Celia garden party. Im having lots of ideas, Celia said enthusiastically. Will could put one of his sculptures in if we had a selling exhibition, too.
He nodded, Good idea. And maybe Martha can get some fundraising going in the village?
She isnt really tuned in to village life, I told him. Shes been to one or two sessions of the Musical Appreciation Society and she goes to the monthly Gardening Club, and to the library, but thats about it. She did suggest mortgaging this house and giving me the money, but I wouldnt let her: she isnt that well off.
We tossed ideas around a little more, while eating warm mince pies, then Ma came down from the studio and Stella woke up, so we all had an expedition to the gatehouse at Winters End to buy bunches of the mistletoe they grow there, a local tradition.
Later, I asked Ma the important question.
I mean, I really hope that Stella stays well and it wont come to it, but I wanted to ask you now, just in case
I see what you mean, she said, but I hadnt thought of that possibility.
Well, do, but dont answer me now, have a think about it, because I know you like your own space and so it would be a big ask.
I see what you mean, she said, but I hadnt thought of that possibility.
Well, do, but dont answer me now, have a think about it, because I know you like your own space and so it would be a big ask.
Its not so much that, but I think youd find it very difficult getting back on the property ladder in London when you moved back.
I know impossible, in fact; wed have to rent. But at least Stella would be well again
Let me sleep on it, Ma said.
Ma wasnt much of a churchgoer, except to admire the architecture, monuments and windows, but shed attended every Midnight Carol Service at All Angels since moving back to the village. I think it was the music: her tastes were very eclectic and she often said that Mr Lees, who was the organist there, had to be heard to be believed.
And actually, I had heard him, because he often played the organ at the strangest times, and a fugue distantly haunting you in the dead of night when the wind was in the right direction certainly got the hairs standing up on the back of your neck.
Id never been to the services with her, because taking Stella out in the freezing cold night hadnt seemed like a good idea, so that evening Ma went off with Hal, who called for her. While she fetched her voluminous black cape, which made her look like a smaller and more rotund version of the woman in that Scottish Widows advertisement, I asked Hal why he didnt fly out to New Zealand and spend Christmas with his daughter and her family and he said he wouldnt go in an aeroplane ever again for love nor money, but hed be off up to his sisters in Scotland for Hogmanay instead.
I couldnt miss the Winters End Christmas party, he added. Im the Lord of Misrule and we have a grand time.
I dont know about Lord of Misrule, but youre an old fool, getting dressed up and prancing about at your time of life, Ma said, reappearing.
Theres nowt about my time of life to stop me prancing, and anyway, you never come to the party so you dont know what goes on.
Ive heard things, though.
Id love to go, and Ottie invited us, but it would be a bit much for Stella, I said.
Stella was already overexcited by the thought of Father Christmas arriving during the night and it had taken me ages to get her settled down that evening. Still, finally shed gone to sleep and later Id tiptoed in and hung her stocking on the bedpost, then arranged the presents beneath the little pine tree, before eating the gingerbread and carrot left out for the great man and his trusty reindeer.
Ma had already put her presents under the tree, roughly wrapped in brown paper and tied up with green garden twine, so they looked strangely trendy.
When she came back from the service she looked cold and the tip of her nose was scarlet. Once shed divested herself of her woolly cape, I handed her a warm mince pie and a glass of Laphroaig, her favourite whisky.
How was the service?
Very good all the old favourite carols and hymns, sung to the right tunes, although Mr Lees played us out with Nearer, My God, to Thee, which was a slightly odd choice. It was worth going, just for that.
She put her feet up on a red Moroccan leather pouffe, sipped her whisky and said, Well, our Cally, I had a good think about things while Raffy was doing his sermon, all about the Nativity. And, of course, theres always room at this inn.
You mean we can come and stay, if I have to sell the flat?
Of course you can, you daft lump. I was hardly going to turn you down, was I?
I got up and went to give her a hug. If it happens, I promise well keep out of your hair as much as we can, and then as soon as Stellas well again, leave you in peace.
You can have too much peace, she said surprisingly.
Mas reply was not unexpected but it was a weight off my mind.
Of course, part of me still hoped for a miracle to happen before the operation became necessary or at least that some new treatment would become available over here. But logically, I knew that it was unlikely that the cavalry would come riding to my rescue over the brow of the hill, and the most I could hope for was that Stellas condition didnt worsen over the coming year.
Since she was born Id learned to live in the present, but nothing could stop me dreaming of a future.
Chapter 6: Hasty Pudding
After a magical Christmas, when Stella seemed to be eating well and growing stronger, as she always did in Sticklepond, it had been quite a shock when she became ill with breathing difficulties and a rocketing temperature right after we got home, and was rushed into hospital.
What would be a minor sniffle cured by a dose of Calpol in a normal child became a near-miss with pneumonia for Stella, and though luckily they quickly got her stabilised and her temperature down, it was a week before she could come home, clingy, pale and exhausted by the least exertion.
It was another setback but more than that Id seen the writing on the wall. Even before the consultant suggested contacting Dr Rufford Beems in Boston about bringing forward the date of the operation, Id told Ma I was putting the flat on the market.
The operation had been booked for the coming autumn. All I had to do was raise a vast amount of money, and keep my darling child from catching any more infections between now and October, when we were to leave
To say I was stressed out was an understatement, and after comfort-eating four microwave-in-a-mug chocolate cakes in quick succession, when it got to the fifth I started thinking of ways to jazz them up a bit and came up with Black Forest gateau variation.
I sent the recipe off to Sweet Home magazine with some others Id stockpiled, and the editor liked it so much she slipped it into the April edition (which of course, as is the way with magazines, came out in March) instead of a raisin roll one.
In the same April issue, Celia was showing the readers how to create friendship bracelets from old buttons, and Will had an article about making found-object pictures using an old frame he found in a skip, bits of driftwood, sea-washed fragments of glass, and shells.
A lot of the stuff you find these days washed up on beaches after high tide you wouldnt want to stick in a picture, but Celia and Will never seem to notice anything ugly, only what is good and beautiful.
You know, before we met him, when Will had only just started sending articles about his driftwood sculptures into the magazine, we used to jokingly call him Wooden Willie. But once wed met him we liked him so much we never did again.
When Celia went to live in Southport with him I really missed her, so at least once the flats sold and weve moved in with Ma Ill be living near her and I can file my Sweet Home articles from Lancashire like they do. Stella always seemed both happier and healthier in Sticklepond, too.
I was pretty sure Ma was dreading it even more than I was, so it was with mixed feelings that I picked up the phone on the same brisk March day that the Sweet Home magazine came out, to tell her Id had offers on the flat at full asking price luckily two people had wanted it and accepted the one who could complete quickest.