A Perfect Cornish Christmas

by Phillipa Ashley

  Ellie closed her eyes as Scarlett barrelled down the lane, hoping that Aaron – or anyone else – wasn’t coming the other way. She heaved a silent sigh of relief when they arrived at Seaholly Manor.

  Once the trauma of the drive had worn off, she reflected how lovely it was not to have to come home alone to a dark house, and that some company was very welcome now the days were so short. Knowing that someone else was in and out of the house while Ellie was at work was comforting, too.

  However, she had to admit that, much as she loved her sister, sharing her space after having free rein at the manor had been trickier than she’d anticipated. She hadn’t realised how much she’d like to spend time with Aaron Carman when she’d agreed to let Scarlett move in.

  Scarlett was as good as her word when it came to contributing to the household expenses, which was very welcome. As energetic and optimistic as ever, she’d wasted no time in turning the study into the hub of her business. Over the past week, she’d upgraded the broadband package and installed a landline extension – which was good because she was on the phone a lot, either to customers, or her mates.

  After a stir-fry cooked by Scarlett – another bonus of having a housemate – Ellie opened her own laptop to check on some information from the sailing trust. There was a group email from Skipper Drew to all the team, including the mate and the marketing manager, discussing their stall for the Solstice Festival. The trust operated two vintage sailing trawlers and took groups of adults on day trips and holidays around the South West. The previous spring and summer had often seen Ellie at sea, cooking for the crew and guests, but there would be no more trips until Easter. Nonetheless, the festival was a great opportunity to let visitors know about their work.

  She explained to Scarlett that the trust planned on selling gift vouchers for sailing courses and days out as the perfect Christmas present. Ellie was also involved in the Harbour Café stall, preparing mince pies and pasties, mulled wine and hot chocolate.

  ‘Evie and Sam said I could help out if I want, but I’m not sure how,’ Scarlett said. ‘I feel a bit like a spare part at the moment.’

  ‘They’re probably waiting for you to offer your services,’ Ellie said, keen to encourage Scarlett to find a new focus to take her mind off everything. ‘Maybe you can help with the copywriting and PR?’

  Scarlett perked up instantly at the scent of a new business opportunity. ‘Excellent idea … Jude said Zennor and Ben have a graphics company.’

  The phone rang. ‘I’ll get it,’ Scarlett said. She was gone for a while. She’d closed the door to keep the room warm so Ellie could only hear snatches, but when she walked back in, Ellie could tell she was downcast.

  ‘That was Mum,’ she said.

  Ellie winced, wondering how the conversation had gone. ‘Is she OK?’

  ‘Yes, but she wants to come down for a visit.’

  Ellie screwed up her face. ‘Uh huh. That sounds ominous. Did she say why?’

  ‘Only that she wanted to talk to us face to face.’

  ‘Shit, I bet she wants to sell this place. Oh no, I hope they’re not splitting up!’ Ellie blurted out.

  ‘Can you blame Dad if he wants to make a break?’

  ‘Don’t say that, Scarlett,’ Ellie said, exasperated and worried about their parents. Like any couple, they’d had their moments, not helped by the fact that their father was a quiet man, who liked to spend his time with his books or in his shed. He’d never left her, or as far as she knew, her siblings, in any doubt of his deep love for them but, like most men of his age, he wasn’t given to showy displays of affection. Their mother was a loving, practical and energetic woman, as you’d expect from someone with three children, a teaching job and a husband who worked away a fair bit. They had seemed to work well as a team, and despite the odd row, had appeared to respect and love each other dearly.

  Now, Ellie wasn’t sure if she’d missed troubling undercurrents that her mum and dad had carefully hidden from all their children.

  ‘If they have decided to get a divorce, we can’t do anything about it,’ she said briskly, hiding her concerns. ‘When does she want to come?’

  ‘Early next month. She said she and Dad need some space – some physical space away from each other – and she hinted she might stay on here for a while.’ Scarlett paced around with the phone. ‘I’m not sure I’m ready for that, to be honest. I try to stay calm but keep wanting to ask her about – him.’

  ‘I can understand that, but this is Mum’s house,’ Ellie pointed out. ‘It’s more than reasonable if she wants to move in here for a while. You’ll have to try and get along.’

  ‘It’s easy for you. You’re calm, you get on with everyone. Sometimes I think you’re a saint.’ Scarlett flopped down on the sofa, the movement transporting Ellie back twenty years to the moody teenager phase that Scarlett had gone through when Ellie first left for university.

  A saint? Nothing could be further from the truth, thought Ellie. ‘You’re wrong. I’m not that calm, and I try to get on with everyone. You have to, when you work with customers all the time. But I don’t think that my way is the best, or suits everyone. Avoiding conflict isn’t always a good thing, I promise you.’

  Ellie thought back to her sudden departure all those years ago. Scarlett must have missed her badly when she went to university, so goodness knows how she’d felt when Ellie left the UK altogether halfway through her degree. She must have been devastated, her parents too. She didn’t think Marcus had been affected; he was preoccupied with his cars and sport.

  ‘You don’t seem to run away. You seem to take stuff on and get on with it, whatever the circumstances,’ Scarlett said.

  ‘I’ve done plenty of things I’m not proud of.’

  Scarlett was intent on Ellie, her attention piqued. Ellie was already wishing she’d kept quiet.

  ‘Like what?’ she asked.

  ‘Like things I don’t want to admit to.’

  Scarlett laughed. ‘You haven’t robbed a bank, have you?’

  Ellie studied the rug. Scarlett had no idea. ‘Nothing illegal,’ she said quietly, already regretting letting the conversation get this far.

  Scarlett sat bolt upright. ‘Oh my God, what were you up to out in Thailand?’

  ‘Managing a bar. Nothing else.’ Ellie’s voice quietened. ‘But we all make mistakes.’ She paused. ‘Even saints,’ she said ruefully, quickly softening the comment with a smile.

  Too late. Scarlett had sensed a secret and wasn’t about to let it lie. ‘What d’you mean, make mistakes?’ She touched Ellie’s arm lightly. ‘Hun, you know you can tell me anything.’

  Ellie had already said too much. Or perhaps it was time to get something off her chest that had been weighing on it for a long time. Scarlett deserved some honesty from one member of the family, at least. ‘I did something I knew was wrong. I was young and green, but I still knew it was wrong, deep down, and I shouldn’t have done it.’

  Scarlett bit her lip and leaned forward. ‘You’ve got me worried now.’

  ‘There’s no need to be worried … but maybe we should have a heart to heart and be totally honest with each other.’

  Scarlett touched her arm again. ‘Ells?’ she murmured.

  ‘Remember when I dropped out of uni when you were in the sixth form?’ Ellie asked.

  Scarlett frowned. ‘How could I forget? Mum and Dad hit the roof. I was amazed because you’d always been such a nerd until then.’

  Ellie thought back to the earnest young English student she once was, passionate about Keats and her hatred of DH Lawrence … she gave it up for a life of travel and working in bars and kitchens, and it seemed a century away now. ‘You all thought I’d just got bored and wanted to see the world. Mum and Dad thought I’d got in with a crowd of hippies.’

  ‘I was angry that you left me. That was selfish of me, but it was such a shock that sensible Ellie had dropped out. I thought you’d had a meltdown and finally rebelled after all the swotting and work.’
r />   ‘I didn’t dare tell anyone the real reason, especially not Mum and Dad.’ Ellie took a deep breath. ‘I was seeing my tutor. My married tutor.’

  Scarlett was wide-eyed. ‘Oh my God, Ellie, I’d no idea you were having an affair!’

  Even these days, Ellie thought, infidelity still had the power to shock. It should do, it caused long-lasting hurt and damage that never really healed.

  ‘I wouldn’t call it an affair, as such.’ Ellie forced herself to go back to the end of the spring term in her second year at Plymouth Uni. ‘Professor Mallory, or Julian as he’d asked me to call him, was a lot older than me, and brilliant and sexy and sophisticated … and at the same time, he also seemed to “get” me. I’d chosen to study a paper on Anglo Saxon poetry that no one else had. He was an expert on it and gave me a one-to-one tutorial.’

  ‘Wow …’

  ‘Yeah, don’t look like that at me. It seemed normal at the time. He made me coffee afterwards and we started talking about all kinds of stuff. He’d been born in West Cornwall and we got talking about Porthmellow and Auntie Joan. He’d heard of her, you know, and he even knew a couple of the authors she was friends with. I expected him to dismiss her books as trash, but he was actually quite nice about them. He’d read a couple because they were set in Porthmellow and he was brought up not far from the town.’ Ellie broke off, remembering Julian’s comments that she should write a novel of her own. She’d felt flattered and believed he meant it at the time but she’d never acted on it, of course. Life had taken a different course, sweeping her as far away from literature as possible.

  ‘This doesn’t sound as if it’s going to end well,’ Scarlett said gently.

  ‘No … but at the time, it felt as if we – me and Julian – were meant to be, or so my twisted logic went. I suppose I was dazzled and felt that we had a genuine connection, but that’s no excuse. I was madly in love with him but then I got ill. Remember how low I was over the Easter vacation, and then I missed the start of the summer term and was struggling to catch up?’

  ‘Low? You had glandular fever, Ells! You were wiped out for most of the holiday. Mum told us to keep away from you in case we caught it, but I came in to see you anyway. It was Marcus who was terrified of catching it. It’s the kissing disease, he said, so you must have been snogging loads of people.’

  ‘Only one,’ Ellie said. ‘And that was after I’d recovered.’ The glandular fever had knocked her out for the whole Easter vacation and its effects had lingered into the next term, making her fatigue easily.

  ‘Julian was really supportive. He made sure I got help from the uni health service, he allowed me extra time to hand in essays and he offered me some extra tuition.’

  ‘Oh Jesus, Ellie. You were only nineteen!’

  ‘Nearly twenty.’

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘Thirty-nine.’

  ‘The creepy perv.’

  ‘He didn’t look it. He was gorgeous – and come on, I was young but I wasn’t totally naïve. I’d had relationships with a couple of guys before then.’

  ‘Not married ones, or ones twenty years older!’

  ‘I was well aware that Julian was married with a young child. But he said …’ Ellie felt the guilt and pain flooding back. ‘He said he and his wife were considering a trial separation and had only got married because she was pregnant.’

  ‘I still say he’s a perv,’ Scarlett sniffed in disgust.

  ‘Julian said they were totally unsuited and that she’d been seeing one of his colleagues, and I did see her flirting with one of the other tutors. I’ve no idea if there was anything more to it, but I had such a massive crush on him and he’d been so kind and trustworthy and reliable in every other way, that I believed him. Or rather I wanted to believe him. I’m not a victim. I take part of the responsibility – then and now.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t take responsibility because he was obviously a manipulative shit. How could he do that to you?’ Scarlett burst out, as if she’d like to get hold of Julian right that second. Ellie couldn’t help but be touched at the way Scarlett wanted to fight her corner now, even after all these years.

  ‘Auntie Joan would have said it takes two to tango. That’s why I don’t want to be so hard on Mum. She might have had a fling and now regret it deeply, like me.’

  Should Ellie tell Scarlett the rest of the story? The part that still, even now, made the backs of her eyes sting with suppressed tears and made her wonder, almost every day, what might have been. Should she tell Scarlett that if things had been different, by now, Ellie would have had a grown-up child? Judging by Scarlett’s open mouth, Ellie had already shocked her enough. The part about the baby that Ellie had lost could stay hidden for a while longer, possibly forever.

  Yet Ellie desperately wanted to blurt out how shocked she’d been when she’d found out she was pregnant and Julian had offered her the money for a termination and some extra cash too, if she ‘was prepared to be discreet’. She’d fled her halls of residence, devastated when she realised that he’d no intention of supporting the baby and was only terrified that his wife might find out.

  She’d had the termination, thinking it was the right thing at the time, for her, for Mallory’s family, for her future, and yet … she hadn’t been able to stop herself from thinking ‘what if’ ever since. In the immediate aftermath, she’d been exhausted and traumatised by the whole affair. After the abortion, a couple of student mates had looked after her and accepted her story that she’d had a drunken one-night stand with a random guy. She’d recovered physically, but the mental scars lingered to this day. She hadn’t told Julian she’d had a termination because part of her wanted him to suffer the way she was, by making him worry that she might tell his wife.

  She also hadn’t wanted to go back to uni, or go home and admit she felt like a failure. She didn’t want anyone seeing her distress and forcing her to explain why. So, she’d put on a mask of bravado, told her family and her uni friends she was bored with the course, that it wasn’t for her and she wanted to see the world.

  It was hard to say if she regretted not having her baby. She’d had a wonderful time travelling, met some amazing, generous and fascinating people who she might never have known if she’d finished her degree and ended up teaching as she’d once planned.

  Lately, though, her wandering had been replaced by wondering. What if she’d kept her baby and made a life with him or her? She’d now be the mother of a teenager. Now, approaching forty, she was hardly past it but her chances of having a family were diminishing … Unbidden and unexpected, tears clogged her throat.

  ‘Ellie.’ Scarlett was at her side, hugging her. ‘You should have reported him,’ she declared. ‘Taking advantage of a student in his care. What he did was totally inappropriate and in effect, he forced you to quit. That’s disgusting. He should have left, not you!’

  ‘Maybe I should have, but would anyone have believed me? Even if they had, I was ashamed – so ashamed, I can’t tell you. I didn’t want everyone staring at me in lectures, pointing their fingers and sniggering. “Oh look, that’s the one that shagged Professor Mallory, but then I always thought Ellie was a bitch. Flirting with him in tutorials, no wonder she got the best grades for her essays. She must have been screwing him for months – and him with a child too. Cow.”’

  ‘Ellie. Please, stop this.’

  Ellie was shaking. She’d no idea why the bitterness had surfaced now, but that was the trouble with lifting the lid on bad stuff after so much time. No wonder her mum refused to admit to her own affair – she must be terrified of unleashing further chaos and misery on the family.

  Scarlett’s eyes were bright with tears, but Ellie wiped hers away, feeling drained after finally telling Scarlett about Mallory.

  ‘I’m sorry. You’re the first person I’ve told about how I really felt.’ Or part of how she felt. ‘I know you care and you’re angry for me, but please, can we move on from it now?’

  ‘Thanks for telling
me. I’d no idea and I’m very, very sorry.’

  ‘It was a long time ago and I’ve put it behind me. I’ve had a fantastic life; probably far more exciting than if I’d stayed at uni. Let’s look to the future. We’re both ready for new adventures.’ She smiled at Scarlett; her heart full to the brim. Her sister was loyal and caring, and she was very thankful for that.

  Scarlett let out a sniff. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Even if they might be temporary adventures?’

  ‘I hope not. I’d like to stay here a while,’ Scarlett said.

  ‘Me too. Porthmellow and this house have started to really get under my skin.’

  ‘And Aaron is here, of course.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Ellie smiled to herself.

  ‘I don’t think he’s a Professor Mallory,’ Scarlett said.

  ‘Neither do I. Mind you, I’ve been wrong about men before, but I get a good feeling about him. So, what do you want from being here, Scarlett? What kind of adventure?’

  ‘Not the romantic kind, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Not even if it involves Jude Penberth?’

  ‘Especially not Jude Penberth, though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find him intriguing. His eyes are mesmerising.’

  Ellie laughed. ‘You make him sound like Derren Brown.’

  ‘Eeek. Nooooo.’ She sighed. ‘I like Jude, but he isn’t my priority. Work is, and most of all … I wish I knew who my dad was. You don’t think that’s why Mum’s coming down here, do you? To tell us who he is? Maybe she thinks that Seaholly is the right place to tell us.’ Scarlett sounded hopeful, but Ellie wasn’t so sure.

  ‘It’s certainly a peaceful place with happy memories … She might want to have us on our own so she can talk properly.’

  ‘Hmm. Perhaps we’re finally going to get some answers.’

  Ellie thought back to the conversation with her mother. Scarlett might have a point, but Ellie had an even stronger feeling that their mother wasn’t going to reveal her secrets so quickly, and that Scarlett’s wait for answers might be far longer than her sister was expecting or hoping. After what had happened at Christmas, she wasn’t even sure that delving any further into the unknown was a good thing. It could make things a lot more complicated for everyone.