Wish Upon a Star

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘There you are, see – you can have your hens. Just not cockerels,’ I said to Jago, and then had to explain the covenant on the property to the others.

  ‘I like hens,’ Stella said, peeping in at the nesting boxes.

  ‘You can help me look after them, if I get some, then,’ promised Jago. ‘It won’t be for a while yet, though.’

  ‘Perhaps Santa will bring you some?’ she suggested seriously. ‘You’d better write him a letter.’

  ‘Lots of people keep hens in the village and you don’t notice a cock crowing if you’ve been brought up to it,’ Hal said. ‘I wouldn’t take no notice of any covenant.’

  ‘I suppose it’s only newcomers who notice that kind of thing,’ Jago said.

  Hal began wading about in the weeds with his Strimmer, the modern-day machete-wielding explorer in the jungle, while we watched him from the paved area near the back door.

  ‘Anything worth saving?’ Ma called when he finally turned it off and could hear us again.

  ‘Not a lot. That tree there’s an apple – clear it around and feed it some good muck, then prune it back hard and see if it does anything. And there’s some quince up the dividing wall that look all right. I doubt there’s anything else worth keeping.’

  ‘I’m not a great gardener, so I’m thinking mainly lawn and maybe a herb bed?’ Jago said.

  ‘You liked the knot gardens up at the hall,’ I reminded him.

  ‘I know, but I don’t think I’ve got the patience to keep one trimmed into shape.’

  Hal said that now he’d started he might as well finish Strimming all the weeds down, so we all had a little picnic with cake and cold drinks, and then Ma, Stella and I left them to it and went home.

  It was ages before they turned up at the cottage, hot and tired, just as it started to rain in big, splashy drops, and a late roast Sunday lunch was nearly ready. Over it, Jago said Hal was going to knock the garden into shape for him.

  ‘Moonlighting from your moonlighting here?’ Ma said, but I don’t think she minded and anyway, it seemed unlikely to take up much of his time, since he was going to get a couple of the other Winter’s End gardeners down next Sunday to clear it ready for turfing and to dig out a herb bed at one end.

  ‘Oh, good,’ Ma said, ‘because this lady’s not for turfing.’

  Stella was half asleep in bed and I’d just got to a mention of Moominpappa in her favourite storybook when she suddenly opened her eyes and said, ‘Where’s my daddy?’

  ‘At the North Pole, counting penguins,’ I said, as I always did. ‘There are an awful lot of them and they keep moving around, so it’s taking him a very long time.’

  ‘No,’ she said crossly, ‘Daddy-Jago. I want him to read my book. I bet he can do the Moominpappa voice better than you can.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I conceded, not reminding her that Jago tended to stumble his way through unfamiliar books, due to his dyslexia. ‘But he had to go home. He did say goodbye, don’t you remember?’

  ‘He should live with us and be my Moominpappa,’ she said, her eyes closing again, so that I abandoned my half-formed notion of trying to explain to her a little more about why her real daddy had never been around because she was way too tired tonight to take it in.

  ‘Jago will read your bedtime story next time he’s here,’ I promised rashly, and then carried on until she was fast asleep, which took about a minute.

  Chapter 29: Nesting

  Next morning the weather had changed and the sky was a soggy, fuzzy grey blanket lying heavily across the landscape.

  I’d had an Easter idea for a ‘Tea & Cake’ recipe, carrying on from the little nests that Stella and I made the previous day, and created a big one using a ring mould, lots of melted chocolate and twiggy cereal. I decorated it with little sugar eggs stuck on with dabs of icing and tiny sugar flowers I had left over from something else. The effect was very pretty.

  I arranged my collection of painted wooden eggs in the middle and then sent Jago some pics, though he didn’t reply straight away so he and David must have been baking.

  When I’d cleared up, assisted by Toto, who was under the table hoovering up any fallen scraps, I checked on Stella and found her still fast asleep. So I turned on the laptop, meaning to type up the Easter ring recipe, though first, as usual, I checked the donations to the Stella’s Stars fund and then my email inbox.

  And there, in the inbox, was a once-familiar name … Adam Scott’s.

  In case my short-term memory was really bad, he’d put ‘From Adam Scott’ in the subject line, too.

  I deleted it before I knew what I was doing, and then sat there, my hands shaking, my nerves twanging and my heart pounding. Then I took a couple of deep breaths and fished the email back out again.

  Another intake of breath and it was open in front of me.

  Hi Cally, it’s me, Adam, it began, followed by a smiley face emoticon.

  A smiley face? I stared at the screen blankly. Not a word during the years of trauma his child had suffered and he’d sent me a smiley face?

  Creep! The air turned bluer than Gauloise smoke.

  Heard from a friend that you had a little girl and I assume she’s mine? Have been thinking about you a lot lately and I know I behaved badly, but I’d really like to meet up and say I’m sorry.

  Bit late, Adam, I thought.

  I did two tours of Antarctica, then I was based on a small island near the Falklands, but I’m back now. Got a job in London with Wesley Marine and ready to settle down.

  Another smiley face.

  Had all that exposure to extreme cold done something to his brain? And why would he think I had any interest in what he’d been doing, or was doing now? I wished I’d changed my email address as well as blocked him on Facebook!

  Please reply, if this gets to you,

  Adam x

  His last kiss had turned out to be a Judas one. I stared at that kiss for so long that the screensaver kicked in.

  It was a bit pat that he should suddenly pop back up so soon after Aimee had seen and recognised me, so I had to assume she was the ‘friend’. Jago might have managed to forgive Aimee for jilting him, but how much more did I have to forgive Adam for!

  Ma, entering the kitchen and seeing me sitting there, said, ‘What’s up? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I have – I’ve just had an email from Adam.’

  ‘What, Scott of the Antarctic?’ she said incredulously, her precious jade cigarette holder coming perilously close to falling on the kitchen floor.

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘What on earth does he want?’

  ‘He was politely enquiring if he was Stella’s father, since someone had helpfully mentioned to him that I have a little girl. I think it’s Aimee, trying to stir things up – remember I told you Jago’s ex recognised me?’

  ‘Sort of. All these exes popping back up again is a bit complicated.’

  ‘He says he’d like to see me again and presumably also Stella, but only if she really is his, of course.’

  ‘Are you going to reply?’

  ‘No,’ I said, but I was thoroughly unsettled and didn’t even protest when she broke off a big chunk of the giant chocolate bird’s nest and munched it while popping bread into the toaster. ‘Mmm, chewy,’ she said.

  ‘It was meant more as a table decoration,’ I told her. Then Stella woke and called me, so I quickly deleted the email again and decided to put Adam right out of my head. Perhaps if I ignored him, he’d go away.

  Unfortunately, putting it out of my head proved impossible, so I rang Celia later when I was on my own to talk it through, though at first she thought I was calling about the cakes I was making for the Knitathon tomorrow. She chatted away quite happily until it suddenly dawned on her that she wasn’t getting much response and asked what was up.

  ‘I had an email from Adam!’

  ‘What, Adam your ex, Adam?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ I agreed, and then told her what he’d
said. ‘I’m not answering it, of course.’

  ‘Oh … I don’t know about that, Cally. I mean, he is Stella’s father, so—’

  ‘Only biologically,’ I broke in, ‘not any other way. And I don’t want him in our lives, especially at this stage.’

  ‘I know you wouldn’t want Stella upset or unsettled, but she doesn’t have to be. I mean, perhaps he’s changed,’ she suggested. ‘If he’s heard about Stella’s problems from this Aimee, then he might feel guilty and want to help now.’

  ‘We’ve managed perfectly well without his help all these years, so he can keep it,’ I snapped.

  ‘Well, don’t entirely close the door on the possibility,’ she advised, and I wondered if Elizabeth Bennet ever felt like murdering her lovely, sweet-natured sister Jane?

  Later Adam sent me another ‘Dear Cally’ email which, after a profound inner struggle, I opened. It said he hoped I’d got his first email and would I now give him my mobile number so we could talk and arrange to meet.

  I did answer that one, but no ‘Dear Adam’ in my reply:

  I was surprised to hear from you, I wrote without any preamble. My daughter is nearly four so you can do the maths yourself if you want to. We have managed perfectly well without you so far – and long may that continue.

  Cally

  I hoped that would do the trick, but I felt so ruffled that I phoned Jago when Stella was in bed that night and told him all about Adam’s contacting me, too, and his sudden interest in Stella. Actually, I’d been dying to tell him all day, but I didn’t like to unload all my troubles onto his shoulders.

  But he said I should have called him earlier. ‘It must have been such a shock suddenly hearing from him – and I’m sure you’re right and he got to know about Stella through Aimee, and I feel that it’s my fault.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll think better of it now and that’ll be the last I hear from him,’ I said optimistically. ‘I told him straight that we’d managed fine without him all these years.’

  ‘I don’t know …’ he said doubtfully. ‘Perhaps he genuinely does want to apologise and to be part of Stella’s life, even if it took him a long while to get there?’

  ‘That’s more or less what Celia said,’ I admitted, ‘but I don’t want him to suddenly appear and then vanish again, which would upset Stella for no reason. I mean, she’s used to the idea that he lives at the North Pole and that’s why she’s never seen him.’

  I didn’t add that Jago was fast becoming the dependable father figure in her young life, so any sudden attempt by Adam to assert himself in that role would just confuse her.

  ‘You’re right, it’s tricky, and your instinct as a mother is to do what’s best for Stella, whatever that is. We are a pair, with our exes trying to muscle back into our lives as if nothing ever happened!’ he said ruefully.

  ‘But unlike you and Aimee, I don’t even want to be friends with him. I don’t want to see him, come to that.’

  ‘Actually, I’m fast starting to feel the same way about Aimee,’ he confessed. ‘I began by feeling sorry for her, but now I’d prefer it if she forgot all about me. She hasn’t rung me, apart from that message asking me to forgive her, but she keeps sending little text messages.’

  ‘They aren’t covered in smiley emoticons, are they?’

  ‘How did you know?’ he asked, surprised.

  ‘She and Adam seem to have come from the same mould. A shallow one, with chipped edges. Oh, well,’ I sighed, ‘I’ll just have to wait and see what happens with Adam.’

  ‘But do tell me straight away if you hear from him again. You don’t have to worry about anything on your own, when you can share it with me,’ he said, and I felt a warm and fuzzy glow round my heart.

  I hoped to discuss things with Celia a bit more next day, but the Knitathon event was such a success that there was little opportunity to talk.

  The garden was full of people sitting crocheting on the grass, on garden chairs, on fold-up ones borrowed from the church hall up the road, and even perched on the stone toadstools like terribly domestic fairies. They were all sponsored for every square they produced, but lots of other people had simply paid their entrance to sit about under the shady trees and have tea.

  The sun shone on the righteous. Will had put up a gazebo with trestle tables near the house, where my home-made cakes and scones were spread out, and volunteers trotted in and out with fresh pots of tea and coffee and jugs of cold drinks.

  Stella spent most of her time with Jenny and Mrs Snowball under a shady tree, eventually falling asleep on Jenny’s lap, and only woke up when everyone was going.

  Long shadows moved across the grass as the volunteers folded the chairs ready for collection and carried dirty crockery and cups into the house. The day had produced a great mound of crocheted squares in a rainbow of colours and I asked Celia what she was going to do with them.

  ‘The ladies at the church up the road that we borrowed the chairs from are going to sew them into blankets and then distribute them among the elderly locally just before Christmas,’ she said, which seemed a lovely idea.

  ‘We must have made loads of money just from the entrance fee,’ Will said, staggering past under a mound of multi-hued wool. ‘Then there’s the sponsorship money to come in, too. I’d say it’s been a huge success.’

  ‘Yes, me too,’ I agreed. ‘Thank you so much, both of you!’

  ‘We’re only a small part of the fundraising programme, going by Hebe Winter’s constant updates,’ Celia said. ‘There seems to be some event or other now practically every day till autumn!’

  ‘I think that might be a slight exaggeration, but a lot is happening and we still have the biggest events, the fête and the auction, to go.’

  ‘I confidently predict you’ll double your target and so you can stop worrying about any new expenses that crop up,’ she said. ‘Will’s sorted your tickets, visas, hotel booking, insurance …’ she ticked off each on her fingers. ‘All the arrangements are made at this end and the hospital here is in contact with the one in Boston, isn’t it?’

  I shivered suddenly, though it was still warm. ‘Yes, they update them constantly on Stella’s condition, and Boston has just emailed me all kinds of information about the treatments she’ll receive and about how children recover after major heart surgery.’

  Celia gave me a hug. ‘It will all go well and she’ll bounce back to health, you’ll see. And never mind what I said about Adam: you were right and I was wrong, because he’s a complication you don’t need at the moment. Maybe when Stella’s fit and well again you might let him visit her and play some small future role in her life, if that’s what she wants, but don’t worry about it till then.’

  ‘So long as he doesn’t worry me,’ I said with a wry smile.

  Chapter 30: Plagued

  It wasn’t surprising that Stella was tired and fractious during her next hospital appointment, though they were a little concerned about her so we went straight home afterwards instead of into Ormskirk.

  But Jago came out for tea, bringing her a gingerbread pig, which she said was even more fun, even if she didn’t get to see her friends the Graces … and actually, I thought so too.

  By Saturday she was herself again, her small reserves of energy restored and so when we took Toto out for a walk we went by way of Honey’s to see how the students were doing with the big clear-out. Jago didn’t have a wedding cake to make, luckily, so was going to be there all day, supervising.

  There was no sign of life at the front, so we went round the corner and up the unmade bit of lane at the back, where the rusted corrugated iron gates had been wrenched wide open to allow entry for an enormous skip.

  Already it was half full of flattened cartons, rotted curtains and carpets and crumbling lino. A line of students carrying stacks of old newspapers were scurrying down the metal staircase from the flat like a procession of ants.

  Jago came out of the garage holding a bundle of old sacking and the rusty jerry can and tossed thos
e into the skip, too.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, then as Stella clambered out and would have run to him, added quickly, ‘No, don’t touch me, Stella – I’m filthy!’

  ‘Do you need a bath?’ she asked, stopping dead.

  ‘Yes, but I’ll have it when we’ve finished the clearing.’

  ‘How’s it going?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ve emptied the house and annexe and they’re just starting on all those newspapers in the flat, so pretty well, actually. I’m going to break up and bring out the kitchen units in the annexe in a minute, and when I can get near the ones in the flat, I’ll do the same with those. Then that should be it.’

  ‘You haven’t thrown out that lovely Belfast sink from the kitchen, have you?’

  ‘No, I’m leaving all the sinks and the baths and stuff until I get a plumber in.’

  ‘Good, because when you turn the washhouse into your utility room it’ll be really handy. Or if you don’t want it there, then they make nice planters in the garden.’

  ‘I’ll probably have it in the utility room, then, if you think it’s a good idea,’ he promised. ‘The good news is that now I’ve had a better look at the garage, it’s not as bad as I first thought, so I’ll have it repaired and painted when I have the gates replaced, and a gravel hard parking area, too.’

  Then he went off to rip out cupboards, but promised to come round later when he’d been back to the flat and showered off the grime.

  ‘Come for dinner,’ I invited.

  Stella nodded, so that her silvery curls bounced. ‘Pink fish,’ she offered enticingly.

  ‘Salmon en croute,’ I said, ‘salad, then raspberries and ice cream. It’ll be just us, because Ma’s off to the pub again with Hal – it’s getting to be a habit.’

  ‘OK, that sounds irresistible!’ he said, and so was the smile that went with it.

  Stella obviously felt the same because she beamed at him and said, ‘I love you, Daddy-Jago!’