Frost At Midnight And Other Christmas Stories

By Stephen Mossop

Four different stories - four very different Christmases....

Frost At Midnight
Jake’s love for his new wife and son is offset only by the fact that he’s just lost his job at the Christmas Tree farm (but then, who buys Christmas trees after Christmas Eve?), and the fact that they’re going to have to find a new place to live - again - because their landlord won’t have babies in his properties. Despair weighs heavy on his shoulders. After his last, long shift at the farm he’s cold and he’s tired, but on Christmas Eve night, Jake takes on the midnight feed from his exhausted wife. He talks to his son about his past, his hopes and his dreams....but can an overlooked Christmas card offer hope for a better future?

Perfect Christmas Angels
Amanda really isn’t in the mood for Christmas. Her daughter barks at her all the time, and her new boss is so obviously trying to get rid of her - but if it wasn’t for the nuisance calls, she could just about cope. It’s always the same thing....hundreds of times a day....‘Come Home Jenny, please, please, please come home.’ She doesn’t know any ‘Jenny’, and she certainly doesn’t know the caller. How can she make them stop? With help from her new ex-policewoman friend Eileen, she tracks down the source of the calls and on Christmas Eve they go to confront the perpetrator. For Eileen, what they find offers closure on a 30-year-old unsolved case she was involved in as a rookie cop. For Amanda, it means so much more. It offers a reason for her childhood dreams of making Christmas Angel cookies, and for why the smell of cinnamon means so much to her.

The Christmas Window
Archie’s worked hard and long to be a grumpy old man. Why should he want to change now? A little girl’s smile is what started the thaw - she wanted so much for her mum’s new Teddy Bear shop to succeed, and he never could resist a challenge. Sarah is very resistant to Archie’s approaches - all she’s ever gained from her contact with men was her daughter, Holly, so why on earth would she trust a grumpy old man with anything, let alone her last-chance business?

Midwinter Solstice
Twelve-year-old Matthew Crawford, lonely and grieving following his parents’ death, is stuck in a boarding school he hates. When his kindly form-teacher, Mr Pearce, takes him to spend Christmas at his elderly father’s house, he finds himself adrift again when the old man’s health fails. He is sent to spend Christmas with neighbours, where he meets Bridie, a year older and his complete opposite - where he is wind-blown and lost, she is as grounded and as planted in the landscape as the ancient granite ley-line bridge she keeps watch over. As the strength of the ley-line increases with the midwinter solstice, both children find that their lives are changed irrecoverably by its power.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Mossop
• Release date: Aug 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9780995603004

Stephen Mossop

Stephen Mossop is Head of Library Services at the University of Exeter, UK. He has published and presented widely on aspects of Strategic Organisational Development and Library Management, and has special interests in library design, RFID and customer relationship management. He is best known for his 2008 case study on RFID at the University of Central Lancashire (for the BIC e4libraries project).

Book preview

Frost At Midnight

and other Christmas stories

Stephen Mossop

Published by Stephen Mossop

Copyright ©2016 Stephen Mossop

Stephen Mossop asserts the moral rights to be identified as the author of this work

ISBN: 978-0-9956030-1-1 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-9956030-0-4 (ebook)

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover design by Charlotte H N Cooper ([e-mail])

Contents

Acknowledgements

Frost At Midnight

Perfect Christmas Angels

The Christmas Window

Midwinter Solstice

Bonus Chapter: ‘Spring Equinox’

Who made this book

Other books by Stephen Mossop

Acknowledgements

Many of the stories in this book have been wandering around the deep forest of my mind for more years than I care to remember. All they needed was a home, and a little encouragement to bring them to life.

They would have found neither if it hadn’t been for the active encouragement of my long-suffering wife, Brenda, who allowed me the time and space I needed to get them out of my head and onto paper.

Several people read early drafts of the various stories, and their advice and observations has been very useful - I really am so grateful for their time and effort. However, credit must go to Brenda, who devoted many hours over the last few months to patiently reading, correcting and re-reading the stories as they emerged. Her invaluable suggestions and eagle-eyed spotting of plot-holes and typos helped enormously to bring the stories to their current form. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my responsibility.

I’m grateful also to Charlotte Cooper for creating such a brilliant front cover. It really is a comfort to have such a wonderfully talented friend!

For Brenda, with all my love

∞∞∞∞

Frost At Midnight

1

It was the whimpering that woke him. Jake knew from recent experience that the whimpering would very soon lead to a high-pitched wailing that would have woken the neighbours, if they had any, let alone his deeply sleeping wife.

Although he’d been in bed for an hour, he was still tired and cold from his last 12 hour shift. It had been chilly all day, but once darkness had started to fall the cold descended to well below freezing. It had been bone-numbingly cold, and, despite his heavy coat, thick gloves and the woolly hat pulled low over his ears, he had shivered non-stop for the last four hours at work. He had been more than ready for a warm meal and an early night.

For as long as she could remember, it had been the tradition in Mary’s family to serve fish for their Christmas Eve dinner. She had hoped to serve her husband a nice piece of salmon, or maybe cod, but her purse wouldn’t run to it so they’d had to settle for fish fingers. At least it was fish, and at least it was hot, which is what she’d known he would need more than anything else after a cold day at the farm. She had lit the small living room fire early, to keep the baby warm and to make it nice for him to come home to. She’d imagined that he would have fallen asleep in his armchair for a while after dinner, as he had most nights for the past few weeks, but instead he’d volunteered to wash the dishes. Normally, he would have made almost any excuse to get out of the chore, but tonight he’d insisted. He’d said that he wanted her to rest, that she’d had enough to do over the last few weeks, but she’d guessed that more than likely the real reason was that he needed to do something to stop his mind from dwelling on the fact that he’d just lost his job. Whatever the reason, she was grateful for a little time to herself. Looking after a new baby had been harder work than she had imagined, even without the added worries, and she had to admit that she was pretty beat.

Jake eased himself out of bed, careful not to disturb his sleeping wife. Mary was exhausted. They’d been lucky to find this place at such short notice, but he had to admit that the timing had been unfortunate. Although Jake had done his best to help, the strain of moving house and looking after a new baby at the same time had taken its toll on her. As if that wasn’t enough, it was Christmas Day tomorrow and, although they would be spending it by themselves this year, it was one of Mary’s favourite seasons and she had put a lot of effort into making it as special as she could.

Jake gently lifted the infant from his crib, bundling him into blankets against the cold. He whispered quietly to him as they made their way downstairs to prepare a feeding bottle in the kitchen. He was glad to feel the residue of warmth from the dying embers in the living room grate as he switched on the Christmas tree lights and settled into an armchair. While the baby fed, Jake stared thoughtfully into the small fire.

2

‘Well, Josh’ he whispered, ‘What do you make of all this then, eh?’

He glanced down at his son and smiled. ‘I can’t remember what it was like to be your age, but I reckon it was easier than being older. It’s hard work being a dad, you know. Lots of responsibilities. Even harder being a mum, though. You’re lucky to have your mum. She looks after you very well, doesn’t she? Looks after me, too. If I was rich it would be easier. Then I could buy mummy lots of nice things for Christmas. I’d buy you lots of great presents, too. Not just the ones I made you’, he said, glancing at the small pile of presents under the tree. ‘I hope you’ll like them when you see them in the morning’.

When feeding time was over, and the baby was changed and winded, he stood to look out of the window. The night was clear and windless, with a bright moon that bathed everything it touched with a glistening silver sheen. It seemed to him that he could almost hear the cold creeping across the open fields. Somewhere in the distance an owl’s cry broke the frozen silence.

‘I’m glad we’re not outside’ he whispered quietly to the sleeping form in his arms. ‘It’s a cold world out there tonight, and no place for babies. Jack Frost will be working hard tonight, secretly painting fantastic designs on every available surface. If you’re up early enough, you’ll be able to see his work on the window panes before the sun comes out to clear up behind him’.

‘I remember looking out on winter mornings when I was a boy. It was always amazing to see my bedroom window so covered with tiny curls, swirls and stars that I could see nothing through the glass for the icy work that Jack Frost had managed to do overnight. It was always different every morning. I tried to draw the shapes sometimes, but I could never get the detail right’.

‘We lived in a house at the top end of a valley. From my window I could see a long way down the valley. I could see how the narrow lane bent and twisted its way between the fields, hemmed in on both sides by high, grass covered stone hedges. I could see the grass in the fields changing colour with the seasons, all different shades of green, or covered with the silver of frost or the white of snow. I liked the snow fields best. We didn’t get snow every year, but when we did it was always exciting. I would look forward to winter just in case there might be snow. I would wake up every morning and hope it would be there when I opened the curtains. Sometimes there would be just a little, enough to colour the lane and soften the hedges. Sometimes there would be more. Real snow. Enough to cover everything in white, moulding itself to hedges, hanging onto branches, hiding the lane. Cows and horses would stand in the best shelter they could find, but still the snow would gather softly on their coats. They would dig at it with their feet to find the grass underneath, but more snow would soon fall to gather in the small scrapes they made. Then farmers would struggle out in tractors to bring the animals hay to eat instead. They would have to dig snow from underneath the field gates, enough to open them, or would throw bales of hay over the ones they couldn’t move.’

The owl screeched a second time, as loudly as before, and then silence returned, broken only by the quiet breathing of the baby in his arms.

‘It was quiet in our valley. There would sometimes be tractor noises, or cattle calling to each other across the fields, but otherwise just occasional birds singing in the trees that grew here and there in the hedges. There were a couple of farms across the other side of the valley, and we could sometimes see people moving about between the houses and barns, but we rarely had visitors come to our door. There was a church in the village around the bend at the bottom of the valley, and we could hear the bells ringing on Sunday mornings. If the weather was good, we would hear them quite clearly. If it was windy, the sound was sort of bent and twisted, somehow, and with bits missing. Then it sounded strange, like it was detached and almost unreal. I miss not hearing the bells sometimes’.

‘Often, on Christmas Eve, the bells seemed to call to my mum. Then we would put on our good clothes and go to the midnight service to listen to the Christmas story and join in with the carol singing. It was exciting to be out that late, but I was always worried that Father Christmas might call at our house while we were out and think that we’d moved. I think he must have known that we were at church, because he had always come by the time we woke up in the morning. Sometimes it would be a struggle to stay awake in the church, though, and even more of a struggle to concentrate on the service for trying not to laugh when my friends pulled faces at me from their choir stalls behind the preacher’s back. I could never work out how they managed to sing so sweetly while crossing their eyes and flapping their ears with their fingers!’

‘We used to love Christmas in our house. We couldn’t wait for it to arrive, and we used to start thinking about it really early. When September came, the chilly mornings and dew-covered cobwebs that sparkled and glistened in the hedges would start us thinking that Christmas really wasn’t so far away. We’d start secretly writing lists of the things we’d like to get as Christmas presents. Then would come Autumn, and the first leaves falling would make us think of logs and fires. We’d pick up as many fallen acorns as we could find, and dry them out ready to start fires with, or to decorate with silver and gold paint for Christmas. When the first frosts arrived they’d make us think of snow and ice. We’d dream of reds and greens, and the smells of cinnamon and ginger.’

‘Do you like carols Josh? I do. I’ll teach you some when you’re a bit older.’ He paused, and quietly sang ‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night’. The sleeping Josh didn’t seem to mind the gruffness of his voice.

‘Aunty Angela used to sing ‘While shepherds washed their socks by night’, but I always liked the real words better. I wouldn’t fancy being