“Thank god I’ve found you!” he said, letting out a puff of held breath. “You need to come quickly, Star is freaking out.”
“Star?” Maggie was incredulous. “Star doesn’t freak out, she meditates.”
“She’s not meditating now.” Duncan looked grim.
“Right, lead the way.” There was nothing like another person’s crisis to help you shelve your own.
When she entered the cookery school kitchen behind the Stag and Hound, the preparations for the feast were well under way. Saucepans full of parsnips and potatoes waiting to be parboiled before roasting covered half the hobs. A vat of red cabbage simmered gently, pushing out steam perfumed with red wine and cinnamon. Mounds of peeled brussels sprouts and carrots sat beside a pile of cauliflower florets ready for the leek and cauliflower cheese.
Across the kitchen ten large raw chickens in roasting tins were lined up along one long stainless steel worktop. A bucket-sized bowl of stuffing sat nearby, amid the detritus left by peeled garlic cloves and branches of herbs.
Standing beside chicken number eight, wearing rubber gloves that reached up to her elbows and a maniacal expression on her face, was Star. Her gloves were shiny with raw chicken and butter and smeared all over with stuffing. She was brandishing a lemon like a weapon.
“Hello, Twinkle-Star, everything all right?” Maggie asked in her most soothing voice.
Star’s eyes seemed to focus, as though just realizing Maggie was there. “Nigella says I have to put lemons up chickens’ bottoms!”
“Does she now? Pervert.”
“She’s made me massage butter into their crevices.”
“Nigella is a very sensual woman.”
“I don’t eat meat. I’ve never handled dead birds. I’ve never handled dead anything. Do you know what massaging a dead chicken feels like?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. But I can see that this has been something of a baptism of fire for you.”
Star shook the fist that clenched the lemon. “This is what love looks like. I’ve forced lemons into dead chickens’ bottoms because you are sad. True love is lemons in chickens’ bottoms!”
Maggie noticed that Duncan was backing toward the door. She didn’t want to laugh at her sister’s obvious distress, but it had been a hell of a weird day and this absurdity was just too much. Once the giggles started, she couldn’t stop them.
“Star, I’m sorry you were left with all this,” she said through her snickering. “I’m going to take over from you now, okay?” She was moving slowly around the worktop, one hand out like she’d seen Chris Pratt do with the velociraptors in Jurassic World.
“They’re all dead!” Star squeaked, but she was starting to laugh too.
“Given the circumstances, that’s probably for the best.”
“I was supposed to be in charge of the nut roasts.”
“I know, sweetie, and I’m sorry. I’m here now.” Star still held the lemon, but her stance was beginning to relax a little and she burst out sporadically in paroxysms of laughter. “Star, I need you to step away from the chickens and put the lemon down.”
Star looked at her hand as though only just seeing the lemon and placed it down on the worktop.
“Good girl. Let’s get you over to the sink and rinse those gloves off, shall we?” She took her sister by the shoulders and carefully maneuvered her toward one of the sinks. The pair of them were practically squealing with laughter.
“That was intense,” breathed Star once she was clean and divested of chicken gloves. Their giggles had subsided, and Maggie felt a sense of relief at having burned off some of the fire raging inside her.
“Of all the things, I never expected it to be raw chicken that would break your spirit.” She smiled. “Where on earth is Simone? I don’t understand why she isn’t helping you.” Maggie looked at her watch. It was just after one o’clock. “Shouldn’t Verity be back by now? It was only a morning playdate. And where’s Patrick?” It was like she was just coming back to her senses after a long dream.
“Verity’s over with Antonia watching The Muppet Christmas Carol. She was here, but she got bored of breaking the cauliflowers into florets and grating cheese. She said both her arms were broken.”
“That sounds about right. What about Patrick?”
“I’m here, Ma.”
Maggie swiveled round to see Patrick standing in the doorway, looking contrite, and her heart instantly felt as though it would explode.
“Hello, love, where have you been galivanting off to? Have you seen your Aunty Simone?”
“She’s been with me.”
“Doing what? I’ve spent the last ten minutes talking Aunty Star down from a carcass crisis.”
“I needed to make something right. I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time.”
“Oh, my darling, none of that matters. We aren’t losing the house—or the business—isn’t that amazing!”
“What? I mean, yeah, but how?”
“It’s a complicated story, but the long and short is Gilbert legally can’t turn us out, because we’re Norths. We don’t have to leave. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the eviction. And I should have told you how I felt about Joe.” She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“I’m sorry I made you sad.”
“We both made mistakes, my sweet boy, so let’s promise to communicate better in the future, deal?”
“Deal.” Patrick smiled.
Maggie pulled him into a tight hug. “Now,” she said with a sniff. She released him and wiped her eyes. “Tell me what you and Aunty Simone have been up to, because I know it wasn’t helping with the chickens.” She cast a glance back at Star, who looked over at the chickens and shuddered.
“We were on a mission,” said Simone, stepping in beside Patrick.
“Good god, what happened to your hair? You look like a cave woman.”
“Salt spray,” Simone replied, touching her hand to the matted beehive her usually straight hair had become.
“Salt spray? Have you been at the beach? I take a morning off, and you’ve all gone loco.”
Joe walked in then, stepping around Patrick and Simone to stand in front of them.
“They came to stop me from leaving for France,” he said.
Maggie stumbled backward. Her brain ceased to form coherent words or instructions to her limbs, and she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her. Joe was here. Joe was here! Was this real? A hope that she’d dared not consider flooded her body. She loved this man, so wrong on paper yet so utterly perfectly right for her.
Joe approached her, slowly. Unsure. He couldn’t know that every atom of her being sang at the sight of him.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you who I really was. Can you forgive me? I love you, Maggie. I don’t care about the age gap, I don’t care if we have to live in a tent, I don’t care what the future brings. I simply love you, truly, madly, deeply, and that’s never going to change.”
Before she knew quite what she was doing, she ran at Joe, jumped into his arms, and wrapped her legs around his waist. He laughed, catching her with ease.