by Judy Astley
Thea looked out at the glittering sea with its heavy autumnal breakers hurling themselves at the shore, at the broad deserted beach with only three people and a dog on it. The wet sand shimmered in the sun. She thought about Sarah’s Meadow School and the collection of warm-hearted and friendly parents and children there, and compared them with the school-gate mummies at home who slid into the classroom at every possible moment to try and discover why each of their little geniuses wasn’t being stretched, as if children were bits of elastic. Why did she keep running away back to the grey city? What was there? Oh yes, her family and other friends – and her pupils, of course. And yet – what kind of a marriage would it be if they were so ludicrously separate?
‘Of course I will, though I can’t just walk out of the job,’ she said suddenly. ‘I’d be mad not to want to move here as soon as possible, wouldn’t I? It’s crazy to go on like this, living half-separately. Even Helena Bonham-Carter and Tim Burton only stayed as far apart as living next door to each other.’
‘Didn’t they split up?’
‘Oh, right – yes, they did. OK, not a great example. I’m sure there are others but I don’t want us to be them.’
Sean wrapped his damp neoprene-clad arms round her. ‘At bloody last,’ he said. ‘I know it’ll be a wrench with you having a close family, but no one in the UK is that far away. And even your parents are selling up and going off wandering.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Cornwall isn’t New Zealand, though there are summer weekends in the traffic when it feels as if it’s taking just as long to get here as it would to get there. But I have to find a job. And decide what to do about the house. And get Emily to come for the wedding. And find a dress. And make lists. The wedding is the easy bit.’
‘Hey,’ he said, kissing her. ‘You’ve just made a list right there. One thing at a time. It’ll all work out, as the Tom Petty song goes.’
In Mousehole, the little hotel where Mike and Anna had spent the night had a Christmas Day menu up on the board and the gallery next door was selling Christmas cards designed by local artists along with hand-made tree decorations and Santa-themed bunting. The village Christmas lights were already up (had been for a couple of weeks, according to the landlord) and during the evening, as soon as it got dark, there had been people out on the street switching various displays on and off and checking them over ready for the great switch-on later in the month. Mike and Anna had sat in the bar drinking mulled wine, eating fish and chips and watching groups of children and adults in Halloween costumes and fierce make-up parade through the little town carrying lamps. The landlord had told them proudly about how people came from all over the country and beyond for Mousehole’s famous Christmas lights.
‘First of November and Christmas is all on the go. I don’t know whether to find it depressing or what,’ Anna said, picking up a pack of cards as they wandered round the gallery that morning. They depicted a harbour scene with Santa bringing sacks of presents on a fishing boat. ‘I like these,’ she said to Mike, ‘but I can’t quite bring myself to buy them. I don’t want to be one of those people.’
‘You could always buy them, hide them in a drawer and forget you’ve bought them till nearer the time,’ he advised. ‘Like Rosie did that time she went to the Matisse exhibition in August and bought a hundred cards then lost them somewhere in the house. She ended up buying emergency cheap ones at the last minute.’
‘I know. And then she found the lovely Matisse ones a week after Christmas. That’s the way it goes. I expect she’ll send them out this year instead.’
‘Does that make her even more “one of those people”? Having had the cards since the Christmas before?’
Anna laughed. ‘What, Rosie? The vaguest, scattiest woman on the planet? I don’t think so, do you? Unless you count someone who drops her son off for his school ski trip at five in the morning on the day before he’s supposed to go as a person who simply likes to get ahead. Poor Elmo. When he got back and I asked him how the trip was, all he did was grumble that he’d had to get up before dawn for two mornings in a row. I never did find out how the snowboarding went, bless him.’
‘Fair comment. What I do need to know is about when we have lunch today with Thea and Sean. Do we tell them about that house we want to buy? Or do we wait and tell the whole family in one shebang once we’re back home?’
‘Play it by ear, I think,’ Anna said as she paid for the cards and several beautifully painted tree baubles, ‘and mind the step …’ she called as he left the shop to collect the car.
‘What was that?’ Mike turned and, almost as if she’d set the whole thing in motion by warning him, he missed his footing and fell crashing to the pavement.
‘Oh bloody hell!’ Anna and the shopkeeper rushed to him.
‘Are you all right? Which bit hurts?’ Anna could feel her own heart thumping and hoped his was still doing the same. Mike had his eyes open but didn’t seem to be focused on anything, like an overdramatized TV corpse. People were collecting around him and she wanted to tell them to go away, stop blocking the air, even though she knew they were only being helpful and there was no shortage of fresh salt-scented air.
‘Shall I get an ambulance?’ the girl from the shop asked. ‘Is he alive?’
‘I’m alive. I think.’ Mike started to sit up and put out his hand to Anna. ‘Give us a paw. I can get up OK, but not from here, if you see what I mean.’
‘Oh dear,’ a concerned voice came through the group. ‘Has someone had a fall?’
Anna and a pony-tailed, athletic young girl who’d been jogging hauled Mike to his feet. ‘No, I have not had a sodding fall,’ Mike announced, sounding grouchy, which was a relief to Anna. It was a sure sign of him being his normal self. ‘I fell over. “Having a fall” is what old people do.’
‘Well, quite. That’s what I said,’ said the voice, adding a smug sniff.
‘Never mind that,’ Anna said, conscious that Mike was leaning on her shoulder, ‘have you hurt anything?’
‘I appear to have damaged my ankle,’ he said, grimacing. ‘In fact it fucking well hurts.’ He tried putting it to the pavement but went pale as he tried to put weight on it.
‘Oh hell. I hope it isn’t broken. Wait there, I’ll get the car. We’ll go to A & E and see if it needs an X-ray.’
As Anna drove the car back from the harbour-front car park she could see Mike sitting on a chair outside the gallery, adjusting his bandana. The girl from the shop was sitting on the step beside him. He looked slumped and in pain and she felt a sudden fear of a future of possible illness, pain, decreasing mobility. It was all very well him insisting that ‘old’ was other people, and to be fair he was younger than most of his old rock-star heroes. They were still leaping about onstage with a healthy gusto that their early lifestyles probably gave them no right to expect. But it wasn’t something you could deny for ever. Were they mad to be contemplating a three-hundred-mile move to an area they had little experience of? Probably. But for now, as she pulled up outside the gallery, the one consoling thought was that in the event of various worst-case scenarios, the house at Marazion had a staircase plenty wide enough for a stairlift.
‘Are you speaking to me yet? I promise I won’t make you go out again.’ Charlotte’s head, encased in a huge furry hat, appeared round the back door. Emily was absorbed in looking at rural houses on Rightmove on her iPad at the kitchen table. The sight of Charlotte in her hat and her leopard-print boots made her jump.
‘Bloody hell, Charlotte, did you have to creep up on me like that?’
‘I wasn’t creeping. And your doorbell’s bust. Me and the postman were standing there like lemons. Here you are.’ She came in and sat down opposite Emily and handed over a small heap of envelopes and one large, stiff one.
‘Thanks. And yes, of course I’m speaking to you,’ Emily told her, shutting down her iPad. ‘But next time I look like I need my hair sorting, I’ll make my own decision about what to do, thank you.’
‘
I was right though, you did look a fright.’ Charlotte got up and switched on the kettle. ‘And you don’t look a lot better now, to be honest. Your skin’s all sallow from lack of fresh air. But hey, if you’re not going anywhere, then who’s looking at you?’
Emily laughed and quite surprised herself. It was a sound she hadn’t heard for a while. ‘You don’t have any kind of filter, do you, Charlotte? You think it, you come right out with it. Nothing in between. I don’t know whether to hate you for it or admire you.’
‘Go for admire,’ Charlotte told her, searching in the cupboard for biscuits, ‘because when I like something I always say so; I don’t hold back on the love.’ She pulled out a pack of organic plain oaty biscuits and made a face. ‘Is this all you’ve got? Biscuits are for pleasure, not worthiness. Dear Lord.’ She shook her head and sat down again, wafting a mixture of old perfume, ordinary soap and something of her own body at the same time. Emily quite liked it but found it disturbing. It was almost as if she was scenting Charlotte’s physical core, perhaps even a powerful hint of libido. She’d bet it drove men crazy and was glad Sam was out at the park with the children. Poor Sam had been deprived of sex for months. Emily couldn’t seem to get round to it and realized that now she had Ned to cuddle in bed at night, she’d completely lost any urge to do more than feed him and sleep as much as she could. Sam hadn’t complained once. Was he just a saint or should she worry about that? Even if she did, at the moment there wasn’t anything she was prepared to do to change things. The thought was too exhausting.
‘Come on,’ Charlotte said as soon as she’d had a few sips of her tea and pulled a face after dunking a biscuit. ‘Get your coat. We’re going shopping.’
Emily held on to the table edges. ‘I can’t,’ she muttered, ‘I can’t. And just now you said you wouldn’t make me.’
Charlotte laughed. ‘Oh yes you can. And this time you won’t be on your own, I’ll be with you. We’re only going to your posh supermarket, nowhere scary, and I won’t leave you for a second, I promise. But your cupboards and your fridge are shockingly low on supplies and, well, suppose there’s a sudden uprising? A riot or a … I don’t know, a massive Noah-style flood? What will you do without enough teabags and milk and biscuits? Real biscuits, not these horrible things. They won’t comfort you when your feet are soaking and the crazed rampage hurtle up the streets protesting about lack of chocolate digestives.’
Emily laughed again. ‘Charlotte, you are mad, you realize that? But … OK. If you promise not to vanish up the washing powder aisle while I’m looking at teabags, then maybe we could go. I don’t think Sam’s bought anything for supper yet.’ She flicked quickly through the mail and took the stiff envelope to the drawer where the tea towels were and slid it inside.
‘So you can surprise him,’ Charlotte said. ‘He’ll like that. They do.’ She crammed her hat back on her head and picked up her bag. ‘Get your coat and the car seat and we’ll load that baby in.’
It took a while. Charlotte had got hot and steamy in her coat and hat before Emily had manoeuvred Ned into his little panda suit, brushed her hair and got herself into a coat, scarf and gloves. She took the car seat with Ned strapped into it and the blanket Charlotte had knitted and hesitated by the front door.
Charlotte shoved her way past and opened the door and Emily shrank back from the blast of cold air.
‘It smells of smoke,’ she complained, putting a hand over Ned’s sleeping face.
‘Always does in November. Bonfire night later this week, don’t forget.’
Emily had forgotten. The weeks had turned into one long blur of baby-care, of feeding and fretting and being out of control of her life. She had been putting it down to missing the routine and order of her work life. When she went back to that, all would be well again. It really would. It wasn’t as if there was anything wrong with her. Not at all.
Charlotte’s car smelled of her but more strongly and with a mild overlay of cigarettes. Again, as she strapped Ned into place, Emily wondered if this was such a good idea, if breathing in this air would be good for him or give him … oh, she didn’t know, a taste for weird scents? Too much exposure to an unfresh world? If she could keep him snuggled to her till he was twenty-one she probably would. Of course even she knew she was in danger of being smotheringly over-protective. But those boys at the mall had taken more than the buggy. They’d taken all her sense of having a safe place in the world.
‘So come on, big or medium trolley?’ Once they arrived, Charlotte wasn’t having any dithering. ‘Let’s make it a big one and I’ll get all my stuff too while I’m here. I don’t often get to park in the parent-and-child section so I’ll make the most of it.’
With Ned safely in his sling and bouncing gently against her breasts, Emily allowed Charlotte to walk her slowly round Waitrose. She felt strongly as if she were a member of the party of elderly ladies she sometimes saw in the big Marks and Spencer, having a day out from the local care home with assistants guiding them through their choices, sorting their money and credit cards, tenderly suggesting that a pack of three Brazilian-cut knickers probably wasn’t what they’d meant to choose. She breathed evenly and calmly and kept her eyes focused only straight ahead or on the products she wanted, but even so, a certain unusual feature of the decor still got through her mental screen.
‘Oh God, it’s everywhere,’ she exclaimed as she tried to find some plain white napkins. There was nothing but scarlet and green packs of paper tablecloths, napkins with stars and mistletoe and holly amid all sorts of seasonally themed tableware. ‘Christmas. Isn’t it ages away? Where did it creep up from?’
‘It’s been creeping up since August, love,’ Charlotte said, reaching for a bumper pack of mince pies. ‘You’ve been a bit … distracted, that’s all. Now, if you’ve got everything, let’s go back to yours and road-test these pies. I’m starving.’
‘I must get home and make lists,’ Emily said. ‘I haven’t done anything for Christmas. Nothing. I’m supposed to be the one who does this stuff. I want to be calm and everything to be nice.’
Charlotte took over wheeling the trolley as Emily was heading too fast towards the door and looked likely to forget about the checkout. ‘It’s OK, Em, just slow down. See, nice and calm. And as for somewhere nice and calm for Christmas, I think I know just the place. And all you’ll need for that is a little something from the doctor and a lovely new dress. Trust me.’
‘Can I? Really trust you?’ Emily looked in the trolley and saw Charlotte’s bags containing chocolate, ready-meals, biscuits and gin, but alongside was everything Emily had hastily scrawled on a list in the car on the way, neatly packed. There were ingredients for entire meals, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, treats for the children, nappies for Ned, wine for Sam. She didn’t really remember how it had all got in the trolley. So if she wasn’t the one who’d sorted it, then yes, she thought, perhaps she could trust Charlotte.
SEVENTEEN
It was now going to be lunch for six of them as Thea saw Paul and Sarah visiting the renting guests at Cove Manor during the morning and invited them along too.
‘Ooh – yes please! I met your parents briefly last Christmas when you were staying here in all that snow and it would be great to see them again. We can do wedding-chat,’ Sarah said.
But when they all arrived at Porthleven harbour, Thea was shocked to see Mike on crutches. After briefly reintroducing Paul and Sarah to her parents, she asked, ‘Bloody hell, Dad, what have you done? Did you—’
‘Don’t say “have a fall”, whatever you do,’ Anna warned her in a loud whisper.
‘I wasn’t going to – I know what he’d say,’ Thea whispered back.
‘When you’ve kindly stopped discussing me … I tripped on a step that wasn’t where a step should be. An American would probably sue.’
‘It was a perfectly normal doorstep in a shop doorway. I don’t know where else steps should be,’ Anna said, rolling her eyes.
‘Anyway, it’s only a sp
rain and it’s not broken,’ Mike said to Thea as he hobbled awkwardly on the crutches for the few steps from the car park to the restaurant. ‘We went to a very friendly A & E department where one of the nurses asked if I was Willie Nelson. I was sorry to disappoint her but I did take a bit of offence. I mean, OK, the guy’s a genius and I admire him to bits but he’s got a good few years on me.’
‘This from a man who is always saying age is just a number,’ Anna said. ‘Vanity will out.’
‘A sprain is almost as bad as a break though, isn’t it?’ Thea said as their party was shown to a table by a huge window overlooking the harbour. The tide was starting to come in and boats lounged on their sides on the mud, stirring as the water shifted them and reminding her of tired old seals flopped on a beach. ‘And just as painful. I remember doing mine in netball at school. It hurt so much I was nearly sick.’
‘You playing netball, in one of those teeny pleated skirts – now that I’d love to see,’ Sean murmured in her ear, rubbing a hand against her bum. She gave him a hard nudge in the ribs and laughed.
‘Yes, but not for as long,’ Mike told her. ‘And it doesn’t involve pins and surgery or weeks in plaster. I can almost put my foot down already but I’d rather not. It should be fine in a few days.’
‘You’re not as—’
‘Do not say “as young as you used to be”, Thea. I expect better from you.’
‘No, I wouldn’t say that but—’
‘But nothing. Really. End of, as Elmo would say,’ he told her. ‘Shall we order drinks? The one upside to being totally lame is that Anna now has to do all the driving. I fancy drinking a lot of something white, dry and disgracefully expensive.’
‘Steady,’ Anna said. ‘We don’t need to go mad.’
‘Well, we’re celebrating,’ Mike argued, ‘so let’s have something deliciously fizzy to start with.’
