A Perfect Cornish Christmas

by Phillipa Ashley

  ‘I’m a bit … rusty,’ she said, her body telling her that there was no going back.

  She felt, as much as heard, his laugh. ‘I’ve been in the army for ages. How rusty do you think I am?’

  She giggled in a most un-Ellie-like way, but she could forgive herself. This was hardly a normal situation. ‘I’ll make allowances if you will.’

  Aaron lay back on the sofa, taking Ellie with him so she was sprawled on top of him. His hands rested on her waist before slipping under her top, his fingers warm against the bare skin above her jeans. They were big hands that spanned the width of her back … She could feel safe with Aaron, if she wanted to. She did and she didn’t … but thrilled to the knowledge that it was her decision to be safe or not.

  She lowered her face to his and kissed him again. His hands slipped further up her back, and flicked open the catch of her bra. Ellie murmured in pure pleasure and pressed herself against his body.

  Shingle was flung against the windows again, louder, like the roaring sea was demanding to be allowed in. Aaron didn’t flinch, too intent on exploring her body. The wind screamed around the rooftops, wailing like a banshee. But the house might have been swept away and neither of them would have noticed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Ellie didn’t make it home for breakfast, then.’

  Scarlett’s knife hovered midway between her toast and the butter. She’d been waiting for her mum’s comment since late the previous evening when Ellie had texted to say she was staying over at Cove Cottage, complete with a winking smiley and a ‘wow’.

  ‘No, Mum,’ she said, spreading the butter on the slice. It was mulled wine bread, left over from a loaf Ellie had brought home from the café. She vaguely wondered what Ellie might have had for breakfast.

  ‘Hmm.’

  Scarlett braced herself.

  ‘She popped in to get her stuff first thing and then drove straight to work,’ she said, without glancing up from her toast. ‘I heard her but didn’t actually see her.’

  ‘Funny, I didn’t even hear her.’

  ‘It was dark. You must have been asleep.’ Scarlett crunched her toast as loudly as she could, guessing Ellie had crept up to her room in her bare feet, the way she used to when she was a teenager and home much later than she should have been. Scarlett used to lie awake, with a book and torch, waiting for the creak on the stairs and the sound of Ellie slipping into her room.

  ‘Hmm. Well, she’s a grown-up, I suppose. I want her to be happy.’ With an even more significant ‘hmm’, her mum poured herself a cup of coffee. Scarlett managed to hold her tongue, even though it did seem more than ironic that her mother was offering advice on their relationships. She knew an ill-judged comment would be like throwing petrol on a bonfire and without Ellie to referee, she decided to switch the subject to a safer topic.

  ‘Will you be staying for the Solstice Festival, Mum?’

  ‘When is it?’

  ‘December the twenty-first. That’s why it’s called the Solstice Festival,’ she said, innocently.

  Her mum rolled her eyes. ‘Well, I didn’t know they were sticking to the actual date. Hasn’t there already been a big festival in Porthmellow this year?’

  ‘That was the summer one in July, but this is the first Christmas event. It’s obviously not going to be anywhere near as big, but it should be fun. Ellie’s on the sailing trust stand – or rather on their new boat. I’m helping Jude with his foraging stall.’

  ‘Really?’ Anna asked sharply.

  Scarlett was instantly on the alert. ‘Yes. Why are you so surprised?’

  ‘I suppose he seems like a nice enough chap—’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But I didn’t think he was your type. He’s quite a contrast to Rafa, who was so stylish and glamorous.’

  ‘Yeah, well, much good style and glamour did me as far as he was concerned. Jude’s a nice guy …’ And he makes me feel as if I can be myself, that just being me is enough, she might have added but she didn’t feel like revealing her deepest feelings to her mum, as she once might have done.

  ‘Nice? Yes, he is a nice man, of course, but I’d never have dreamed you’d be into all that environmental and wild-food stuff he goes in for.’

  ‘We’re only friends, Mum. I’ve only known him a few weeks and, personally, I’m glad he’s the opposite to Rafa.’ Scarlett reached for the pot of bilberry jam that Jude had given her. ‘To be honest, before I came here, I thought foraging was all hippy dippy stuff involving weeds and lethal mushrooms. Now I’ve changed my mind. It’s fascinating and I’ve only had lovely food when I’ve been with him.’ Apart from the pine-needle tea, she thought, with a shudder.

  ‘Does he make a living from it – this foraging?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Not from the foraging alone. He runs courses and writes books on wild food, and he has a part-time job at the college too. He has a PhD in Botany. He’s Doctor Penberth.’

  ‘Yes, I remember now … Joan thought a lot of him. He’s always seemed harmless enough and, as you say, you’re only friends.’

  Scarlett’s hackles rose again. She didn’t want to start a row but why was her mother so anti her and Jude? ‘Harmless enough’ and ‘only friends’ made their relationship sound like something out of the Famous Five. What if things went beyond good mates …? In fact, she hadn’t realised quite how much she wanted their friendship to go way beyond mates until now. The problem was, did Jude feel the same? Her confidence in judging male emotions, and emotions in general, had been shaken to its core lately. How could you really know what those around you were feeling, even the people closest to you, your own flesh and blood …

  However, as her mother had brought up the subject of the Penberths, she decided to probe further.

  ‘Did Joan know Jude and his parents well?’ she asked, slathering jam viciously onto her toast.

  Her mum shrugged. ‘I’m not really sure. She used to let him roam around the gardens and I think she thought of him as a surrogate grandson, but I’m not sure if she was as close to the rest of the family. I can’t imagine that Hayden and Fiona shared her interest in literature and the arts. Why do you ask?’

  ‘No real reason, apart from the fact that Jude showed me a photograph of him down in the cove with his dad. You were there too. Jude was around five or six. Ellie and Marcus aren’t in the picture though, and I wasn’t even born, of course. Do you remember it?’ Scarlett crunched her toast, knowing she’d ventured into dangerous territory but not caring.

  ‘Good grief, I can’t remember that far back. I used to come and visit Joan often in the summer. Ellie was probably playing with a friend and Marcus might have been in his buggy, out of shot. Where is this photo?’

  ‘Jude has it in an album.’

  ‘Oh …’ She pursed her lips then nodded. ‘Hmm. I have a vague idea when it could have been taken. Marcus was asleep and the woman who helped Joan with her manuscripts was looking after him at the manor while we all went for a walk. Ellie had gone to a children’s party in the village.’

  ‘Right … so where was Dad?’

  ‘Abroad, of course. He was away a lot then.’

  ‘Must have been hard for you to spend so much time without him.’

  Her mother peered at her. ‘Where’s this leading? Are you implying that something happened when I was down here?’

  ‘No! I’m not.’ Scarlett was stung into pushing further. ‘But did it?’

  Scarlett could have bitten off her tongue. Her mother’s eyes were bright with tears. Of shock or anger, she wasn’t sure.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,’ she said, feeling the atmosphere between them crackle with tension.

  ‘That’s what family secrets are, things you don’t talk about. You hide them away in a dark cupboard and hope they never see the light of day,’ her mother said quietly.

  ‘Until someone opens the cupboard …’

  ‘I never thought that would happen.’

  ‘The man though. My b
iological father. He might have come looking for me.’ She wasn’t going to let her mother off the hook, not now she was so close, closer than she’d ever been, to finding out the truth.

  ‘Why would he? He’s no idea you’re his,’ her mother said.

  ‘Does he even know I exist?’ Scarlett asked.

  Anna hesitated. ‘No. I’ve never told him.’

  Scarlett snapped. ‘So you did know him, then? You still do.’

  Anna’s chair scraped on the tiles as she stood up. ‘Please. Stop this. It won’t make an ounce of difference whether he knows about you or not.’

  ‘But I’m his daughter. He has a right to know!’

  ‘No. He shouldn’t. He has absolutely no right to know about you whatsoever. As far as I was concerned, you were far more likely to be Roger’s than his. And that is the absolute last thing I have to say on the subject. Forget him. I have. It won’t make your life one tiny bit better to go hunting him down, and will make a lot of lives a whole lot worse!’

  Anna snatched her plate up but knocked her cup over. Coffee dregs spilled on the table and splashed her skirt. ‘Fuck it!’

  Oh God. Her mother never swore so she must be upset, and not over some spilled coffee. Scarlett grabbed a tea towel.

  ‘Shit, shit shit!’ Anna cried.

  Scarlett dabbed at her skirt.

  ‘Leave it!’ She batted the towel away. ‘I’m sorry. I came here hoping to build some bridges with you both, but my presence is only making things worse. I can’t take this.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, Mum, but I can’t take it either!’

  Anna rushed from the kitchen, flapping her hand at Scarlett to keep back.

  Scarlett clutched the sink, feeling desperate and ashamed. Well, that had gone spectacularly wrong. She hadn’t meant to hurt her mother – oh, who was she kidding? She clearly had meant to hurt her and she was a horrible person. That was one of the worst things about the whole mess: it had dragged so much nasty stuff out in all of them. It had changed them, for the worst and possibly forever.

  Now she might have driven her mum out of her own house and made it more unlikely than ever that she’d get any answers to the questions that were tormenting her.

  Floorboards creaked as her mum moved about upstairs. Scarlett was sure she could hear muffled sobs. It was barely nine o’clock and she’d already managed to make her cry. No matter how hard she tried to suppress the urge – the need – to know the circumstances around her biological father, she couldn’t help wondering. The hurt and desperation bubbled away, so close to the surface all the time.

  She tipped the toast in the bin, her appetite gone. She’d have to tell Ellie what had happened … or should she leave Ellie in ignorant bliss? Ellie deserved happiness, after that horrible business with her tosser of a tutor. Their mother didn’t know about that either.

  For the rest of the day, she tried to work, but one thing kept coming back to her, amid the guilt and frustration. OK, her mother had been angry and upset at Scarlett’s outburst, and she had good reason to be.

  But she also hadn’t answered her questions.

  Scarlett spent the rest of the day in her study until Ellie came home from work. It was a treat to see a smiling face because Scarlett and her mum had barely spoken all day. Anna had gone out to the launch of a gallery in Porthmellow, a relief to Scarlett and probably an even bigger one to her mum.

  ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Yes.’ She gave a tight smile. ‘Well, not really. Mum and I had a bit of a moment.’

  Ellie flopped onto the sofa. ‘Oh God, no. What happened?’

  ‘I don’t really know. Somehow, we ended up rowing about him – my real dad – and she said she’d come here to try and make things up with me, but now she thought it was a bad idea.’

  ‘Oh, Scarlett!’

  ‘Yeah, I know. You leave us alone for five minutes and all hell breaks loose. I don’t want her to leave, even though it’s really hard to be patient with her.’

  ‘I’ll have to talk to her when she gets home.’

  Scarlett sighed. ‘No, I’ll do it. I was the one who upset her and even though I feel angry and frustrated, it’s up to me to persuade her to stay. I keep thinking about how she must feel and if, you know, if she’s always regretted that night. I just want things to be right between us, but while she’s holding back, I don’t feel they can be. No matter how much I love her and Dad, there’s this space inside me now that can’t be filled until I know.’

  Ellie listened. ‘I wish I could do more to help. All I can say is give Mum time.’

  ‘Yeah. You’re right. You always are.’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘At least you had a good time with Aaron?’ Scarlett asked, wanting to change the subject and avoid bursting Ellie’s bubble further.

  ‘You could say that.’ A smile formed on Ellie’s lips and grew into a grin.

  ‘It’s serious with him, then?’ Scarlett couldn’t be happier for her sister.

  Ellie sighed. ‘Not yet. I’m trying to keep it light but, yes, I really think it could be the start of something special.’

  ‘Good. You deserve it. I hope he deserves you.’

  She laughed. ‘Like I said, I’m no saint myself.’

  Scarlett smiled and teased her. ‘After you didn’t come home, and seeing the look on your face now, I’ve worked that one out.’

  The mood brightened and they spent the rest of the evening talking about the Solstice Festival and watching TV.

  When Anna came home around half-past ten, Scarlett jumped up to meet her at the door as soon as she heard the car. She’d barely got the words ‘I’m sorry, please stay,’ out of her mouth when her mother burst into tears and embraced her.

  Scarlett bit back her own tears and determined from that moment on to do her utmost to try and be patient and wait for her mother to reveal who her father might be … but of course, that wouldn’t stop her trying to find out by other means.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As Scarlett walked into Porthmellow with her mother, she was struck by how quickly Christmas had taken over the town during the past fortnight. With the Solstice Festival only three weeks away, Evie Carman had invited Scarlett to a lantern-making workshop at the Fisherman’s Institute. The finished Christmas lanterns were designed to hold tea lights and be paraded through the streets on poles by families before the solstice revelry kicked off.

  When their mother had heard about the workshop, she’d been keen to go along too. Having been an art teacher, it was right up her street. Ellie – and Scarlett, if she was honest – thought it was a good idea for everyone to get out of the house and do something fun and festive together. Ellie had promised to drop by the Institute after her shift at the café.

  The previous evening, Gabe Mathias had been invited to turn on the town’s illuminations and the streets had been filled with locals enjoying the switch-on while the local silver band played Christmas carols. The jewel-coloured bulbs bedecked the quayside and narrow streets, brightening the dark afternoons as the shortest day grew closer. Porthmellow wasn’t the bright lights of Brum, but it had its own quaint charm that made up for the lack of glitz and mega malls. She couldn’t help picturing her dad’s wry smile if he could see the quirky lights in the shape of luminous lobsters and crabs on the harbour wall. Scarlett considered texting him again to try to persuade him to come, but decided she’d run the idea by Ellie first.

  Over the past two weeks, an uneasy peace had broken out at Seaholly, on the surface at least, with Scarlett restraining herself from any mention of the elephant in the room. She was on a deadline for several work projects anyway, with the holidays coming up.

  A potent pong of glue hit Scarlett as she walked into the workshop. The room was alive with chatter and laughter as half a dozen families and helpers wrestled with the paper and willow twigs used to make the lanterns.

  Spotting them, Evie Carman made her way gingerly through the chaos. ‘Hello. Ho
w lovely to see you both!’ she exclaimed, hugging Scarlett.

  ‘Hello, Evie,’ Scarlett said, a little awkwardly. Evie’s enthusiastic greeting had attracted the attention of most of the room but soon everyone went back to their creations.

  ‘Nice to see you, Anna.’

  Her mum kissed Evie on the cheek and smiled. ‘You too. How’s the new knee?’

  ‘Oh, doing nicely. It doesn’t feel like my own but it doesn’t hurt either, so that’s a bonus. Now, if I can get my other one sorted, I’ll be giving that Mo Farah a run for his money.’

  Scarlett and Anna laughed.

  ‘I’m glad your op went well,’ Anna said. ‘You’ll soon be back to running around the beach.’

  Troy joined them, still in his cap even though the hall was overheated. ‘I see the professional’s here,’ he said. ‘We need all the help we can get, maid.’

  Anna laughed. ‘You must be the only person who still calls me a maid, Troy, but thank you. This looks like fun.’

  Scarlett glanced at the sea of wood and paper, thinking the opposite. Her mother was the one with the artistic talent in the family; Scarlett had barely got beyond the stick-man stage, preferring to express her creative side in words. Looking back, she’d probably decided that she couldn’t possibly live up to her mum’s skills, so she’d much rather make her own mark. How on earth she was going to produce a decent lantern from paper and a bit of twig was beyond her.

  ‘Don’t look so terrified,’ her mother said.

  ‘Oh, we’ll help you,’ Evie assured her. ‘Look, if the little kids can do it, I’m sure you can.’

  ‘I made this!’ a ginger boy of around six held up a very professional-looking starfish-shaped lantern.

  ‘That’s fantastic,’ Anna said. ‘Look at all his arms.’

  ‘It’s a girl starfish,’ said the boy, bottom lip jutting in disgust.

  ‘I see. What’s her name?’

  ‘It’s Rita, silly,’ he exclaimed.

  Scarlett and Evie held back laughter.

  ‘Rita? Sorry, I should have known.’ Anna touched the starfish.