15
“Your turn!” Laura nudged Camilla as they sat at Jackie’s table that Sunday afternoon.
“Pardon?” Camilla shook herself as she realised she’d been staring into space.
“I said it’s your turn, Auntie Camilla.”
“So it is!”
Camilla shook the dice, rolled them, then counted the four spaces along the snakes and ladders board.
“Ha ha! Down the snake!” James clapped his hands. “You lose!” He held up his left hand making the shape of a backwards L.
“James, that’s the wrong hand.” Laura rolled her eyes at Camilla.
“And we told you not to do that didn’t we?” Dawn said as she walked into the room to find her son now holding up his right hand and making an L shape at Camilla.
“It’s only a bit of fun,” Camilla said as she winked at her nephew.
“You might think that but his teacher doesn’t. She rang Rick last week to say that James had done it to her when she couldn’t find her glasses.”
Camilla bit her bottom lip to stop herself from laughing. James was an adorable little boy but he definitely had a wicked side.
“Your turn then, James,” Laura said and James shook the dice then moved his small blue figure along the board.
“You want a cuppa?” Dawn asked Camilla.
“That would be lovely, thanks.”
“I win!” James shouted suddenly then jumped up and pulled his t-shirt over his head.
“James, be careful!” Dawn called as he bounced around the room then tripped over a chair leg and landed facedown on the floor.
“I’ve got him.” Camilla got up and hurried around the table. She gently pulled his t-shirt back down and peered at his face, afraid that he’d be in tears but instead he was grinning up at her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes thank you, Auntie Camilla. I won!”
She shook her head then helped him to his feet.
“Come on, Dawnie, I need that tea. Or perhaps something stronger.”
Dawn nodded and they went through to the kitchen.
Jackie was standing in front of the sink gazing out into the garden and Laurence was at her side, where he always seemed to be since his return to Heatherlea, and they were crooning along to Ella Fitzgerald’s version of Let it Snow. As Dawn and Camilla watched, Laurence moved behind his ex-wife and slid his arms around her waist then they rocked gently in time with the music.
Camilla turned to Dawn and they shook their heads at each other then Camilla went to the kettle and switched it on.
“Hello girls.” Jackie slipped out of Laurence’s embrace and patted her hair self-consciously.
“Hey Mum.” Dawn smiled. “Dad.”
“Where’s Rick gone?” Camilla asked. “I thought he was helping with the dishes.”
“He was but now he’s outside fixing that new bird feeder to the fence.” Jackie gestured at the window.
“I let him do it,” Laurence said. “Didn’t want to impose seeing as how he brought his drill over.”
“I could have done it, Dad.” Dawn said, resting her hands on her hips.
“What and shake that baby up?” Jackie shook her head. “Don’t be daft, Dawnie. Let your husband crack on with it. He’s done a fine job, anyway.”
The kettle clicked as it came to the boil and Camilla dropped teabags into the pot then poured water over them.
“I’ll just see how he’s getting along.” Dawn slipped out of the back door leaving Camilla alone with their parents.
As Frank Sinatra took over from Ella Fitzgerald, Laurence grabbed Jackie’s hand and started waltzing her around the kitchen. Camilla pressed herself against the worktop to keep out of their way. Jackie was soon laughing and breathless and Camilla had a lump in her throat. It was good to see her mother so happy, so relaxed and so… different.
As festive music filled the kitchen, the sounds of drilling came from outside. Her parents giggled like teenagers in front of her and Camilla started to laugh herself. It was wonderful to see the people she loved enjoying themselves, being close as a family and just doing what she classed as normal things on a Sunday. In the past, she’d always felt guilty leaving Jackie on a Sunday afternoon, wondering how her mother would fill the lonely hours until she went off to work early on a Monday morning, but now she didn’t need to worry. Her mother had someone. Her mother had her father.
It amazed Camilla how people could transform over such a short space of time, but Jackie really had done. She had fallen into a new pattern since Laurence’s return and here they were, moving in synch, anticipating each other’s dance moves as if it had always been this way. As if the twenty plus years they’d been apart had merely been a glitch in their relationship that sent them in different directions, but now they had found their way back to each other again. But perhaps that was human nature. Perhaps this was how people could repair, restore and progress. Perhaps love really was that powerful.
An urge flooded through Camilla, starting in her belly and spreading out to tingle in her fingertips and toes. She needed to speak to Tom and she needed to speak to him immediately. In fact, she knew she couldn’t wait a second longer!
She pulled her mobile out of her back pocket and went through the hall and into the lounge where she scanned her recent contacts until she found Tom’s name.
Then she pressed call and waited for him to answer.
Camilla dropped her mobile onto the carpet and stared at it as if it had burnt her fingers.
How could this be?
Her heart pounded and nausea climbed up her throat, threatening to choke her.
She’d been such a fool!
She left her mobile where it was and went into the hallway then pulled on her coat and boots with trembling hands.
“Camilla?” Her father stood in the kitchen doorway frowning. “Where are you going? I thought we were having tea?”
She stared at him, willing herself to stay strong, not to break down and sob on the stairs as she felt like doing.
“I need to go home.”
“But why? I thought we were having fun, angel.” He tucked his hands into his brown corduroy trouser pockets and tilted his head. “Hey… you don’t look at all well. Eat too much pudding did you?” He laughed. “Come on, have a cuppa with us and you’ll feel better.”
“No I won’t!”
Laurence pulled his hands from his pockets and raised them slightly as if to calm her.
“Something else has happened hasn’t it? But what? How?” He shook his head and looked around as if the answer was on the gold tinsel looped around the banister or the mistletoe pinned to the hallway mirror.
“It doesn’t matter.” Camilla tugged her hat down over her ears. “I’ll see you in the week.”
Her father stepped closer then glanced into the lounge.
“Is that your mobile on the floor? Let me get it for you, Camilla. At least take that with you.”
He went into the lounge and Camilla turned quickly and let herself out, pulling the front door shut behind her.
Then she ran and ran and ran until her heart felt as if it would burst from her chest and her cheeks were wet and cold.
When she opened her own front door, she locked it behind her and pressed her forehead to the smooth hard wood. She’d been so stupid to let herself get caught up in romantic fantasies. And look at what had happened. Now her heart was broken and Christmas would not be the joyous occasion she’d anticipated.
But she had no one to blame other than herself.
And there was no way she’d ever let herself open up to love again.
16
Camilla rolled over on the sofa and gagged. Her head hurt, her mouth was dry and her tongue had a fur coating. She peered from under the throw she must have dragged over herself at some point.
What time was it? The only light that had managed to sneak through the gap in her curtains was grey, so it could be morning or afternoon. She she didn’t care.
H
er coffee table was a mess. Mugs, wine glasses, used tissues and sweet wrappers littered its surface and as she forced herself to sit up, she realised that the horrible smell making her nauseous was coming from her. She hadn’t showered since Sunday and that had to be two or three days ago. Maybe more. The house was cold, the fire in the lounge had long gone out and she hadn’t bothered to relight it.
Her landline had rung and rung since Sunday, so she’d unplugged it from the wall. Her mobile was still at her mother’s and although someone had, at some point – but she couldn’t remember when – been knocking on the front door and calling through the letterbox, she’d shouted at them to go away. She thought it had been Rick, probably keen to put Dawn’s mind at rest, but she also believed she recalled her father’s voice too.
Camilla pushed the throw to the side and stood up, then wobbled as her head spun. She needed water desperately.
She padded out to the kitchen and groaned as she took in the mess out there too. The clock on the wall told her it was seven-thirty, so it was morning after all. She’d just filled a glass with cold tap water when someone knocked on her door and the letterbox fluttered open.
“Camilla! It’s your father. If you don’t let me in today, I’m getting the police or the fire brigade out to break your door down.”
Camilla froze. Break her door down? It was cold enough as it was without losing her front door.
She went through the hallway and knelt in front of the door then pressed her lips to the letterbox.
“Go away, I’m fine. I just want to be left alone.”
“You’ve said that for the past three days since you ran off from your mother’s after lunch. Your mobile kept ringing all Sunday night then all day Monday and yesterday the battery must’ve run out as it finally stopped. We could see from the caller ID that it was that vet, Tom, but we didn’t like to answer it.”
Camilla shook her head then winced. So what if it was Tom? She had nothing to say to him. And three days? Her father had been back every day to check on her? The wine haze must’ve blurred her concept of time.
“Dad… please go away.”
The letterbox creaked open and she saw her father’s eyes blinking at her through the narrow gap.
“Please let me in Camilla.”
She sighed. If she didn’t, then he’d keep coming back or get her door broken down, so she could just let him in – so he could see that she was all right – then send him on his way.
As she opened the door, Laurence stood there with a tote bag in one hand and a sad smile on his face.
“I brought you some groceries. Figured you might need milk and bread.”
“I guess you better come on in then.”
Camilla led the way to the kitchen and watched as her father unloaded the contents of the tote bag onto her kitchen table.
“Right, love, where’s the kettle?”
Soon, he handed her a steaming mug of tea and a plate with two slices of toast covered in thick yellow butter.
“Let’s go into the lounge, I’m sure it’s warmer in there.” He gestured at her for her to go in front of him.
“It’s really not. I haven’t lit the fire.”
“No problem.”
He rolled up his sleeves then knelt in front of the log burner as Camilla sat back down and pulled the throw over her legs again. She made herself nibble the toast and washed it down with sips of hot tea. Her stomach churned but she knew it would make her feel better if she could just keep it down.
Once the fire was established, Laurence got up and sat next to Camilla on the sofa.
“Looks like the ghost of Christmas past has visited.” He eyed the mess on the coffee table and the floor then met Camilla’s eyes. “Sweetheart, what is it? Is it me being back? Does it bother you that much?”
She shook her head.
“Is it Tom then? Has he said something to hurt you?”
She shook her head.
“Then what? I want to help.”
Camilla shook her head and to her horror, her bottom lip wobbled and a strangulated sound came from her throat.
Laurence opened his arms. “Let your old dad give you a hug and try to make it better.”
“You can’t,” she squeaked. “No one can.”
“Maybe I can’t but I can try.”
Camilla didn’t want to fall into his arms, she didn’t want to release her pain and she certainly didn’t want to show weakness, but in spite of all that, she found herself sobbing on her father’s chest, and as he gently stroked her hair and murmured words of comfort, she was glad. Glad that he was there. Glad that he cared. Glad that he’d come home. And glad that he was finally holding her and looking out for her the way she’d always wished he would. He couldn’t take back the past but he could be here for her now and in the future.
Once she’d stopped crying and her eyes stung and her throat ached, her father lifted her chin. “Now do you want to tell me about it?”
“Okay.”
“Take your time.”
So she told him about Tom and the Halloween party, about how she’d really liked him and how they’d spent time together and how she’d felt herself falling for him. Then she told him about all the years of sadness when Laurence hadn’t been there and how much she and Dawn had missed having their dad around and about how angry she’d been with him, but how she’d secretly hoped that one day he’d walk back through the door.
And he had.
“So you like Tom and he likes you? What’s the problem then?” Laurence asked finally.
“After I saw you and Mum dancing in the kitchen I realised I really wanted to speak to him. I thought it would be wonderful to hear his voice and to tell him how much I was missing him.”
“But?”
“A woman answered his phone.”
“Oh…” Her father frowned. “Perhaps it was his mother? He’s gone to visit her hasn’t he?”
“It wasn’t his mother, Dad.”
“How’d you know?”
“When she answered I asked to speak to him and she said he was in the shower. I asked if she was his mother, wanting to say hello to her and tell her I’m a friend of Tom’s. You know, I didn’t want to say girlfriend or anything similar, in case he hasn’t told her anything about me yet. But she said…” She took a deep breath. “She said she was his wife.”
“Oh…” Laurence sighed. “I see.”
“So do I. Now.”
“There could be a perfectly logical explanation, Camilla. Perhaps she’s teasing you or perhaps they’re separated or… you know. Something like that.” He shrugged. “You need to speak to him. I brought this for you.” He placed her mobile on the table in amongst the mess. “Call him again and find out.”
Camilla shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Whoever she was, doesn’t matter. I’ve learned a valuable lesson about myself and that is that I need to stay away from love. I was right all along and love just isn’t worth the risk!”
“You don’t know that for certain, angel. You should give Tom a chance to explain. Look at how differently you might have thought about me if you’d known I tried to stay in contact with you and Dawn.”
“Maybe. Probably.” She did wish she’d known her father had tried to stay in touch, but as for Tom, she couldn’t see a way forwards now; he was married, after all.
“Why don’t you go and have a hot bath and I’ll tidy up a bit.”
“Okay but Dad…”
“Yes?”
“You’ll still be here when I come down?”
“Of course I will.”
He wriggled on the sofa then reached around behind him and frowned.
“What’s this?”
He held up the white bauble Tom had given Camilla and the bulldog swayed from side to side in his fingers.
“It’s nothing, Dad. Just an old decoration.”
Camilla took it from him then dropped it into the wastebasket by the fireplace with a handful of tissues that she pulled from up
her sleeve.
“Goodbye Tom,” she whispered.
Then she made her way upstairs to run a bath. She intended to wash away the ghosts of Christmas past and to embrace Christmas present as she looked to the future.
She had so much more than so many other people did and she wasn’t going to take it for granted a moment longer. Even if she knew it would take a while to let go of Tom completely. Even if she suspected that letting him go would be very difficult indeed.
17
Camilla accepted a mug of mulled wine from Chris as she stood in the front garden of The Cosy Cottage Café. It was a beautiful cold crisp winter evening and the weather was perfect for the carol service.
“Thank you.”
She raised the mug to her nose and sniffed. The combined scents of the ruby wine, cloves, cinnamon, brandy and citrus were beautifully festive. An image of strolling around the Christmas market with Tom flashed into her mind and she gasped with pain and sadness. This year, she’d hoped Christmas would be a time of celebration that she’d enjoy with Tom. But it wasn’t meant to be. She closed her eyes and forced the image of his handsome face away then opened them to find Chris gazing curiously at her.
“It’s the mulled wine. It smells so good.” She took a sip and shivered with delight as it tingled on her tongue then warmed her throat and belly as it travelled down.
“Might have known you’d be here sampling the wine already!” Dawn nudged her.
“Oh yes, sorry you can’t have any, Dawnie.”
“You wait until next year. I’ll make up for it.” Dawn giggled.
“It’ll be lovely to have another little one around, won’t it?”
Dawn’s eyes shone. “I feel so lucky, Camilla. I have everything I’ve ever wanted. With Rick being around more, our relationship is better than ever. Laura and James are happy, I’m happy, and Rick is like a different man. He’s so much more relaxed, you know?”
“I know and I’m so happy for you.”
“And it’s just wonderful to have Dad here for Christmas.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
A Year at The Cosy Cottage Café: A heart-warming feel-good read about life, love, loss, friendship and second chances Page 32
