A Perfect Cornish Christmas

by Phillipa Ashley

  ‘Scarlett’s right. There must have been a cock-up.’ Ellie got up and turned off the TV. ‘I think they’ve mixed up our DNA with someone else’s. It must happen a lot.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Marcus said, ‘I’ve heard these labs are very accurate.’

  ‘Actually, I saw a programme that said there can be a big margin of error,’ Ellie declared. ‘Huge.’

  ‘Then why did you bother getting tested?’ Marcus said sharply, treating both of them to a glare.

  ‘Because we thought it would be fun …’ Scarlett said. ‘Didn’t we, Ellie? Dad’s always wanted to know if he has any Viking in him, and we thought it would be the perfect family present.’

  ‘Obviously, it isn’t,’ Marcus said, narrowing his eyes at Scarlett again.

  ‘Let’s not worry about it now. We’ll contact the site after Christmas and get our money back,’ Ellie said, then sniffed the air. ‘Hmm, what’s that amazing smell? I think dinner must be nearly ready.’

  ‘Mum’s only just put the sprouts on,’ Marcus muttered, his eyes straying to the laptop.

  ‘Shall I get us all another glass of Prosecco?’ Scarlett piped up, feeling as if she might throw up. She didn’t want Prosecco and had no idea how she was going to eat Christmas dinner.

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ their father insisted as Scarlett snatched up her laptop, intent on hiding it under her bed, as if that would make any difference at all to the results. The genie was out of the bottle now. Her hands were shaking.

  ‘If your DNA test says you and Ellie are half-siblings, what does it mean …’ Their father looked at them both. Scarlett hugged the laptop. Oh God, everything was becoming horrifyingly clear. Their mother’s lack of enthusiasm for the DNA test, slinking out of the room when they tried to find their relatives. Oh, Christ on a bike, what the hell had she unleashed on her family?

  ‘Nothing, because it’s a computer error or a mix-up in the lab. Don’t worry about it, Dad,’ said Ellie. ‘Blooming rip-off! For all we know, TreeFynder doesn’t even have a real lab and it’s a couple of kids with a chemistry set in their bedroom. Let’s forget it for now and have another drink. What do you all want?’

  Their father nodded but seemed confused and quiet. Marcus, however, would not be silenced. ‘But I’m still confused about exactly what the results mean,’ he said insistently. Scarlett loved her brother, for all his faults, but at this moment would have happily wished him to evaporate.

  ‘Marcus. There’s no point having the conversation. Now, come on, let me get you a drink.’

  As she looked at him, it hit her. Marcus and Ellie both had their father’s thick dark curly hair. Scarlett was fair. Her mum had light brown hair that the sun bleached in summer, but Scarlett was blonde all year round, and almost wheaten in the sunny months. Her hair was straight and easily tamed, which Ellie had always envied but Scarlett thought was a bit boring compared to Ellie’s bouncy curls. Her siblings had strong noses, ever so slightly ‘Roman’, according to Auntie Joan – which hadn’t amused Marcus, but had made Ellie burst out laughing and start muttering, ‘Hail, Great Caesar,’ to him.

  As they’d grown older, Ellie and Marcus had changed but had always at some point resembled their dad. Scarlett never had.

  If that test was accurate … Scarlett felt as if she was about to suffocate and her stomach clenched. She had to get out, or she might be sick, but Heidi blocked the doorway, her hands still in oven gauntlets. She’d obviously been there much longer than they’d realised.

  ‘I’m sure this is all a mistake, Roger,’ she said, looking at their father with pity. ‘Because if that test is accurate, it means that Ellie and Scarlett can’t possibly have the same father. One of them isn’t your daughter.’

  Chapter Three

  Nine months later

  October 1 2019

  ‘Ellie. Marcus here. I’m calling re: Christmas. I’ve got five mins between meetings so I thought I’d phone before you make any plans.’

  Ellie’s heart sank at the mention of Christmas.

  ‘Hi, Marcus …’ Ellie could hear phones ringing in the background of her brother’s Birmingham office, in sharp contrast to the quiet of Seaholly Manor.

  He launched in again, cutting her off.

  ‘It may only be the start of October, but you know Scarlett likes to organise us all. Or used to. It’s of no matter anyway, because we won’t be coming to the manor for Christmas. Although after last year’s catastrophe, I expect you’ve already worked that one out. I’m assuming that Mum and Dad won’t be there either.’

  She held the phone away from her ear, trying to rein in her irritation. Finding out that their family wasn’t what they’d thought had been a hell of a shock for all of them, but Marcus had taken it very hard.

  ‘I don’t know what their plans are yet,’ she said patiently.

  ‘Whatever they decide to do – or not do – we definitely won’t be coming down to Cornwall. We’ve booked a skiing chalet in Courcheval with some friends and we leave on the twenty-seventh. Heidi thought it would be good for the boys to get some exercise instead of lazing about, and besides, they’re getting to the age where they’d rather be with their mates than hanging around with family in a draughty old house. And, to be honest, Heidi still hasn’t got over the trauma of last year. None of us have—’

  ‘Right …’ Ellie interrupted his flow. He sounded irritated and guilty and her own patience was running out as fast as sand in an egg timer. Which reminded her of last Christmas. Heidi’s face when Ellie had told her the eggnog tasted like sick. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

  ‘Um, Els … Have you seen Mum recently? I’ve been worried about her.’ Marcus’s clipped tone lost its edge, instantly taking Ellie back to the unsure younger brother she used to know. He did love their parents dearly and had been especially close to their mother. Marcus and his dad hadn’t always got on that well, but the bomb that Scarlett’s ‘Christmas gift’ had lobbed into that relationship had changed the dynamics.

  Marcus was finding it hard to believe his mum had had an affair, and even harder to believe she wouldn’t admit to it. They all were, although Ellie’s priority was to support both parents in trying to save their marriage, which until eleven a.m. last Christmas Day, had appeared to be long and happy. Scarlett had been and still was devastated and since then, Ellie had had to set aside her own feelings of shock and disbelief to support the others as best she could. Privately, however, she’d spent many sleepless nights worrying about its devastating effects on her family.

  ‘Ellie?’

  ‘Not since she came to stay a couple of weeks ago. I’ve spoken to her on the phone plenty of times. She called me from work. I’ve spoken to Dad, too.’

  ‘And? Have they come to any decisions?’

  ‘Not yet. They’re still sleeping in separate rooms from what I can work out. Scarlett paid them a visit a couple of days ago.’

  ‘I’m surprised they let her in the house!’

  ‘Dad invited her … but Mum was there too. Marcus, how many times do I have to tell you that this mess isn’t Scarlett’s fault?’

  ‘I know it’s not totally her fault, obviously, but if she’d never bought that bloody test kit, none of this would have happened. She does have a tendency to put her foot in it, ever since she was a kid.’

  ‘Don’t blame Scarlett. This whole thing has hurt her more than anyone.’

  ‘She’s still not speaking to Mum, then?’

  ‘Not really. She still sees Dad and phones him, but I don’t think she and Mum are on speaking terms.’ Ellie wasn’t sure just how the revelations had changed Scarlett’s relationship with their father, but she wasn’t going to complicate things by voicing that to Marcus.

  ‘Humph.’

  ‘Marcus?’

  ‘I still say that the test was wrong.’

  ‘What? Both of them?’ Ellie replied, shuddering at the memory of Scarlett’s fresh disappointment when they took a private DNA test that proved she was ‘only’ Ellie’s h
alf-sister. Their mother had been angry and hurt but continued to insist there had to be a mistake.

  ‘I wish none of this had ever happened. If Mum did – you know, with another bloke – then why won’t she admit it?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s obviously a deeply painful experience for her as well as the rest of us. Until, and if, Mum is willing to share the truth, how can you expect Scarlett – and Dad – to start understanding and forgiving her? We don’t know any of the circumstances.’

  ‘I suppose not …’ Marcus said grudgingly. Ellie hated to see the turmoil the family was going through, but as the eldest, she felt obliged to try and keep the peace. Her travels over the years had also, she admitted, given her a slight distance – and a fresh perspective on family life. She’d seen a lot of unusual family set-ups while she’d worked and lived all over the world, enough to remind her that no one’s circumstances were ever as smooth as they might appear.

  The old grandfather clock struck the half hour, startling Ellie.

  ‘Marcus. Can we talk about this later, please?’ she asked. ‘I have to go to work. Someone’s off sick at the café and they want me for the lunch service.’

  ‘The café? I thought you were working on a yacht.’

  ‘It’s a vintage sailing trawler actually, but it’s the end of the season so I’m only helping in the office two days a week. I’ve started doing some shifts in the Harbour Café again.’

  He huffed. ‘Oh, well, I suppose you need a bit of money for extras and stuff. Lucky you don’t have to pay a mortgage or rent.’

  ‘Mum and Dad seem OK with the arrangement at the moment, and they’ve got enough on their plate without worrying about whether or not to sell this place. It’s not good to leave old houses like this empty, especially over the winter. I’m keeping the place safe and secure until they decide what to do with it, and I’m doing the garden and small maintenance jobs.’ Which took up a lot of her time, she could have added, not that Marcus would realise, because he didn’t know one end of a screwdriver from another.

  ‘They can’t even decide whether they want to stay married, so I shouldn’t hold your breath. Although if they do get a divorce, they’ll have to sell the manor and you’ll have to move out.’

  ‘Sorry. What was that?’ Ellie held the phone at arm’s length, fuming quietly that her attempts to soothe him had obviously failed. ‘I can’t hear you, the signal’s really bad down here.’ She heard his tinny voice say something about ‘being prepared for the worst’ then banged the handset on the hall table. ‘Oh no! Damn! I’ve lost you. Speak soon!’

  She hung up.

  Swearing under her breath, Ellie scooped up her car keys from the hall table. With a bit of luck, Marcus would be too wrapped up in his waste-management meeting to remember he’d called her landline.

  As she drove, she thought back on her conversation with Marcus – it had renewed her worries about everyone involved, especially Scarlett. While Marcus had gone into a similar path of denial to their mother, choosing to blame Ellie and Scarlett for opening up a can of worms, Scarlett had taken the opposite and perhaps more understandable route: retreating from their mum and blaming her. Ellie understood this, even if she thought it wouldn’t help the rifts to heal any faster, or encourage their mum to open up. Not only did Scarlett have to cope with the turmoil of their parents’ estrangement, she also had to come to terms with finding out that her dad wasn’t her biological father. Scarlett couldn’t even begin to do that while their mother refused to be honest with them.

  At least Ellie’s work at the bustling Harbour Café, with its cheerful boss and quirky clientele, kept her mind off her problems for a while. She loved Porthmellow in all its moods, even on a foggy autumn evening such as this, with mist wreathing around the old clock tower and the waves slip-slopping against the harbour walls. With its cosy beamed interior, the café was at the heart of village life; bustling with locals and visitors from breakfast till teatime.

  Twilight was falling by the time she walked out of the old building onto the quayside. It was almost completely dark when she reached the dead-end lane that followed a stream down one side of the steep valley to Seaholly Manor and then the tiny cove itself.

  The bare branches of the trees lining the cove lane were spidery in the gloom. Some people might have found the manor spooky on their own, but Ellie had spent nights in some ‘interesting’ places around the world and ghosts didn’t bother her. In fact, she wouldn’t have minded a chat with Auntie Joan again, bless her. Ellie hadn’t seen her that often, but it was enough to miss her witty, sharp conversations and anecdotes about famous authors. Joan had never been shy about relating her romantic adventures either. Their mother would probably have been horrified to hear what she’d shared once the girls were over eighteen. Even before then, they’d delighted in reading her novels, especially the ones in black and red covers that were written under another name that Joan kept in a chest in her room and didn’t think they knew about.

  Seaholly Manor had so many happy associations that Ellie felt she could never be afraid there. It was also unlikely that anyone would find their way down to the manor by accident, as it wasn’t signposted from the road. Unless the burglars had a thing for first editions and filthy fiction, there was nothing worth nicking anyway. Still, on such a gloomy night, she was looking forward to getting inside and making up the fire before phoning Scarlett to see if she was OK.

  The road levelled out and narrowed over the last few hundred yards to the manor. From nowhere, a shadow darted out from the bushes and across the road.

  Ellie let out a cry and swerved to avoid the fox. A heartbeat later, there was a bang as the car slammed against the hedgerow. The seatbelt tightened across her chest and there was only silence.

  It took a few seconds for Ellie to get her breath back. Gingerly, she flexed her wrists and hands and waited for any stabs of pain in her neck or back. The seatbelt had done its job, which was why she was out of breath, but otherwise she seemed to be OK. The car, however, probably wasn’t. That sickening crash hadn’t been the sound of metal hitting mere twigs. Like many Cornish hedgerows, this one had an earthen bank, reinforced with stones, at its heart.

  The vehicle was at an angle, so she was able to open the door and swing her legs onto the tarmac. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light, the road lit only by a sliver of moon appearing now and then from behind the clouds.

  She shone her phone torch on the front of the car. The bonnet was warped and the bumper was crumpled and pushed back into the engine.

  ‘Oh f-f—’ It looked pretty bad and she already guessed that the insurance company would write it off. That was all she needed. She also had the problem of what to do next, because she doubted it was driveable. She’d have to call out the local garage to tow it, if she could get hold of them. She was blocking the road too, not that anyone else was likely to use it.

  The car wouldn’t start, so she was about to phone the Porthmellow Garage when she heard the low rumble of another vehicle coming down the lane. Two headlights wavered in the gloom and her heart sank further.

  They belonged to a Ford Transit of the kind Scarlett loved to call a ‘kidnapper’s van’. Hairs stood up on the back of Ellie’s neck and she prepared to jump into the Fiesta and lock the doors. It stopped a few feet away, the door opened and a man got out. She didn’t recognise him but she knew one thing: he cut an unnerving figure in the dark. He was over six feet, wearing a black leather jacket and built like the proverbial brick outhouse.

  She debated whether to jump inside while she had the chance, but told herself to be sensible and assume he had a rational explanation for being on the lane. A wrong turn in the fog was surely more likely than him looking for people to abduct?

  ‘Hello. Are you OK?’ he called as he approached. His accent wasn’t broad, but more importantly, his tone was concerned. Ellie let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

  ‘Yes. My car isn’t though. I swerved because of a
fox … It was instinct. That’s why I’m blocking the road.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter, as long as you’re not hurt. You’re sure you’re all right?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Ellie gave him a closer look. ‘Did you take a wrong turning down here in the fog? Porthmellow’s the next road.’

  He smiled. ‘No, I meant to drive down here. I’m Aaron Carman. I’ve just moved into Cove Cottage.’

  ‘Really? I had no idea …You weren’t there yesterday when I went for a walk on the beach.’ And no one had told her that a man was moving into the only other house for a mile around, and she’d have expected to hear about it on the Porthmellow grapevine. ‘I’m Ellie Latham. I live at the manor house,’ she added.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Ellie, but not under these circumstances. Actually, I only moved in late last night. I brought my own stuff in the van. I don’t have much.’ He tutted loudly at the Fiesta. ‘Your car could be a write-off, you know.’

  ‘I know.’ She gritted her teeth.

  ‘That’s a shame. Would you like me to help you shift it to the manor?’

  Ellie was more aware than ever that she was alone in the dark with a complete stranger offering to come to her house. On the other hand, it would be a lot simpler than calling out the garage in Porthmellow after hours.

  ‘Um …’

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ he said, moving closer and resting his hand on the bonnet.

  Ellie looked up at him and a light bulb flashed in her brain. Those handsome features, the light brown skin, his upright bearing … ‘Did you say you were called Aaron Carman?’

  ‘Yes. Why? Has my bad reputation preceded me down here?’

  Ellie smiled, despite her predicament. She felt on safer ground now. ‘No. The opposite, in fact. You must be Troy and Evie’s son? I’d no idea you were moving into the cottage. I thought you were in the army.’

  He smiled. ‘I was, but I’m out now. Long story. Now, come on, why don’t you let me help you with the car?’

  Her feeling of relief from knowing Aaron was unlikely to be a serial killer was followed by the minor irritation that he thought she couldn’t handle the situation. ‘It might be difficult getting it to start at all. Do you know anything about cars?’