Nobody else, however, appeared to have noticed anything out of the ordinary.
‘Hello, Daddy,’ Ella greeted him airily, over her shoulder. ‘We’re just waiting for them to get cold enough to eat. I did the tummy buttons myself, with real currants.’
‘I’m going to eat the arms and legs first,’ Josh told him with ghoulish pride. ‘Then the heads, until there’s only bodies left.’
Janey, unaware of the smudge of flour on her forehead, smiled and said, ‘Hi. Don’t worry, I made them a proper tea at six. It’s only chicken casserole and mashed potatoes, but there’s some left if you’re starving ...’
It hadn’t been the best of days as far as Guy was concerned. The countess, who was over eighty, had examined the preliminary Polaroids and haughtily demanded to know why someone reputed to be so clever with a camera couldn’t even manage to take a moderately flattering snap.
The raddled old bag, it transpired, had delusions of passing for fifty, which not even all the soft focusing in the world could hope to achieve. It had been a long and tiresome session, throughout which Guy had endured being addressed as ‘That boy’.
And now, this.
It didn’t take a genius to work it out, but he said it anyway. Where’s Maxine?’
Janey, evidently the innocent party, looked surprised.
‘What? She caught the ten o’clock train this morning. Did you think she wasn’t leaving until tonight?’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Guy. The girl was uncontrollable. Was there anything she wouldn’t do in order to get her own way? ‘Bloody Maxine.’
‘Oooh!’ Ella squealed with delight. When she’d said bloody the other day it had caused all kinds of a fuss. Just wait until the next time her father tried to tell her off for saying it.
‘What?’ repeated Janey, bewildered by Guy’s response. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Is there a problem?’
‘Go on then,’ he said heavily. ‘Tell me how she managed to talk you into it.’
It didn’t take long for realization to dawn. Maxine had done it again. ‘You didn’t know she was going,’ Janey sighed.
‘Damn right I didn’t know,’ said Guy icily. ‘But then she was hardly likely to tell me, was she? My God, I told her she couldn’t just waltz off ...’
Damn, registered Ella, beside herself with glee. Surely that was another bad word? She wondered whether it was worse than ‘sodit’, which was what Maxine had said when she’d burnt the scrambled eggs the other night.
For once, however, Janey was on Maxine’s side. Had she stopped to think about it, she supposed she wouldn’t have agreed to take over if she’d known the full story, but she also knew how much the job offer meant to Maxine.
Besides, she was here now, and it wasn’t as if she was a crazed axe-murderer.
‘Look,’ she said reasonably, ‘there really isn’t a problem. I’m enjoying myself, Paula’s going to be looking after the shop ...’
‘Maxine asked me if she could go and I said no,’ Guy repeated defiantly. ‘And I don’t know how you can even begin to defend her. She can’t seriously expect to do this kind of thing and get away with it.’
Josh and Ella watched, enthralled, as Janey squared up to their father.
‘If you didn’t have any intention of allowing her to take the job, you should never have let her go up for the audition. That’s unfair.’
‘If she’d given me enough warning, I wouldn’t have objected.’ Guy found it hard to believe that Janey was defending Maxine. ‘But I employ her to look after my children. She cannot expect to skip off at a moment’s notice, leaving them in the care of God-knows-who ...’
‘She only found out yesterday that she’d got the job,’ Janey countered hotly. ‘And I’m not God-knows-who. I’m her sister. I’m sorry if that isn’t good enough for you, but—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Realizing that the situation was getting out of hand, he made an effort to calm down. Removing his leather jacket, he tipped Ella off her chair, sat down in her place and pulled her on to his knee.
‘And don’t look at me like that,’ he told Janey. ‘You know I’m not criticizing you. This is all Maxine’s fault, as usual. That girl is enough to drive any man to distraction.’
And she’d even been flattered when she’d thought Guy had wanted her to look after the children. Janey, still indignant on Maxine’s behalf, didn’t return his smile. When he reached past Ella and helped himself to a gingerbread man, she hoped it would burn his mouth.
It did. Guy pretended it hadn’t.
‘These are brilliant,’ he said, in an attempt to mollify her. ‘Oh come on, Janey. Cheer up.
Have a gingerbread man.’
Is the tummy button nice, Daddy?’ asked Ella.
The currant tummy-button was molten. Swallowing valiantly, Guy gave her a squeeze.
‘Sweetheart, it’s the best bit.’
‘Look, you’re back now,’ said Janey in level tones. ‘You don’t need me here. Why don’t I just go home and leave you to it?’
Belatedly, Guy realized just how affronted she really was. The expression in his dark blue eyes softened. ‘OK, I’m sorry. I know you think I’m an ungrateful bas—person, but I’m not really. And of course you can’t leave; we want you to stay. How could I not want someone to stay when they can make gingerbread men like these?’
‘She did mashed potato with real potatoes, too,’ offered Josh.
