‘And punishing whoever wins this monstrosity too, apparently.’ With a cautious finger, he touches the gingerbread wall, only for his finger to go right through it, creating a sizeable hole. ‘Oh dear.’
‘More natural light at least.’ Kit shrugs.
‘It’s kind of impressive that together you’ve created the worst gingerbread house to have ever existed. Has Mother seen this? Please tell me she hasn’t seen this yet – I don’t want to have missed that.’
As if on cue, Esther strides into the kitchen, takes once glance at the gingerbread house and stops in her tracks.
‘What happened to it?’
‘Nothing happened.’
‘That’s not what it’s supposed to look like, Katharine. Something happened to it. A natural disaster. Floods? Earthquake? A plague of locusts, perhaps?’
‘I think we were the natural disaster,’ Haf whispers.
‘What exactly am I going to do with this? It’s supposed to be a house, not rubble,’ Esther says, poking at the remaining mostly standing wall, which sags at her touch. She sighs deeply, and Haf is pretty sure she’s counting down from ten, lest she absolutely lose her marbles at them.
‘It’s fine,’ says Christopher, who is rooting through the fridge. ‘Carrots have been obtained and delivered. Sensibly, I made extra dough – admittedly for us for a family-bonding activity, but I can whip it up in time for the fête, so you’ll still have your Calloway gingerbread house for the raffle. Made by me, as it always should have been.’ He adds the last bit pointedly.
‘I just thought Haf wouldn’t want to spend the whole day in the kitchen,’ Esther says defensively. ‘I’d have thought you’d want to see the sights.’
‘I don’t mind,’ says Haf honestly. ‘We can just hang out here and I can watch the master at work.’
Christopher beams at her, and she thinks of all the baking books in his childhood bedroom.
‘You can taste test, and be on hot-drink duty,’ he says.
Esther throws her hands up in the air. ‘Fine, fine. I have to leave in twenty minutes, so can you just bring it straight down to the green when it’s ready?’
Christopher gives Esther a little kiss on the forehead to say all is forgiven, and that, of course, he’ll do that. In return, Esther gives him a little pat, then scuttles off to find her lists.
‘Okay, well, now that we’ve all established that I’m not to be trusted with... any of this, I’m going to Laurel’s before Esther can rope me into anything else. See you tonight,’ Kit says, rushing off.
Haf wills herself not to follow Kit’s escaping silhouette, and instead turns her attention to the technicolour mess before her.
‘Shall we just bin this? I really don’t think it’s salvageable. Although, maybe this bit of wall is okay?’ she says, but as she separates it from the house, it crumbles in her hands. ‘Maybe not.’
It turns out Christopher is not just a bit good at baking. He’s really,reallygood. All his gingerbread biscuits are even in thickness, with no weird warps or bubbles or holes, and when Haf steals a bit, it’s completely delicious. Cinnamon and ginger and sweetness burst on her tongue.
‘Oh my God, this is really good. I need you to make me this... biweekly, until the end of time.’
‘Is that twice a week or every two weeks?’
‘Omffff, just every day,’ she says through another mouthful of biscuit.
While the biscuit cools, he makes decorations for the house. Candy canes and holly wreaths out of coloured icing, and he even whips up a little trio of gingerbread trees onto which he pipes white icing in Nordic patterns. His snowman not only looks not terrifying, but is pleasing to look at, even cute. He makes her a tiny baby snowman for her to nibble on; it tastes like a peppermint cream. A front door is constructed from red icing piped onto a Nice biscuit with pretty scalloped edges he fished out from the tin by the kettle. The leftover peppermint icing from the snowmen is transformed into frosted window frames.
Christopher builds the gingerbread house with precision and care onto a square shiny cake base that she didn’t even notice was among the equipment. In hindsight, this makes a lot more sense than just trying to build it on the countertop. Miraculously, all his pieces go together, and his icing – whichthere’s apparently a ratio that you’re supposed to follow to make it – is actually strong enough to hold all the pieces in place.
‘You’re really good at this,’ she says when he’s finished.
He stands up straight, dusting icing sugar from his apron, and she hands him a fresh cup of tea.
‘Thank you,’ he says, not meeting her eyes. There’s a soft glow on his cheeks, which she thinks is from the praise rather than the heat of the kitchen. ‘I’ve always liked it, and I suppose I’m all right at it.’
‘All right?!’
‘Quite good, then.’
