Escape for Christmas (12 page)

So why then wouldn’t that twisty feeling of unease go away?

Chapter 11

December usually begins with a deceptive air. There are days and days to go until Christmas actually arrives; there’s no need to rush because there’s plenty of time yet to do the Christmas shopping, and the chocolate advent calendar is still deliciously full. Then, around the sixth day, time suddenly decides to pull a moonie and accelerate – and before you know it there’s under a week left to buy the presents, get the food in, post the cards and, in Gemma’s case, tell your boyfriend that he’s going to Cornwall for the festive season.

Gemma hadn’t deliberately
not
told Cal about their Christmas escape to Seagull Cottage. Part of her was desperate to tell him, but another part loved the fact that she had this amazing surprise waiting for him. There never seemed to be the right time to tell him either, because Cal was working longer hours than ever at the bakery or being filmed at the house. They really were like ships that passed in the night, or rather in their case bakers who passed by the industrial sink. Since the disastrous night of the handcuffs neither Gemma nor Cal had had the energy or the inclination to do much more in bed than pull on their layers and shiver. As the temperatures plummeted across England the windows of the Lion Lodge froze on the inside and the idea of taking off clothes in bed seemed suicidal rather than sexy.

As far as Gemma knew there hadn’t been any more calls from Aoife, although it was hard to tell because Cal normally had his phone with him, which made checking pretty difficult. She was constantly looking to see if the browser history had been erased, which it hadn’t, and to her huge shame she even logged into his emails just in case. There was nothing more incriminating in Cal’s inbox than an email from a Mr Eduka Buboni from Gambia who needed to borrow his bank-account details to pay in an unexpected inheritance, and a couple of adverts for Viagra. Feeling hot-faced and guilty, Gemma had quit Hotmail, but not before she’d half convinced herself that if Cal had wanted to keep secrets he wouldn’t have “Dangers”
as his password. Besides, they were a couple and therefore shouldn’t have secret passwords. If Cal were innocent then he’d surely be happy to let Gemma look at all his correspondence anyway.

So why then, if it’s fine
, said the little voice of conscience that liked to whisper in Gemma’s ear at the least convenient times – usually when she was snooping round Cal’s Facebook account in case Aoife had left a message for him –
don’t you just ask him rather than skulking around?

Gemma tended to try very hard to ignore the little voice of conscience. It could more accurately be called a big pain in the rear end, mostly because she knew that it was right. Nosing into her boyfriend’s emails and texts and social media was really underhand stuff, and Gemma wasn’t proud of herself. There had been absolutely nothing incriminating anywhere and it looked as though Angel had been right: Gemma had just been putting circumstantial evidence together and coming to some crazy conclusions. Yet although she could tell herself this all day long, it didn’t seem to make the slightest bit of difference. She still had the oddest feeling that Cal was hiding something from her.

“You’re being paranoid,” was all Angel would say every time Gemma raised the topic. “Honestly, Gem, I don’t know what your problem is. Cal isn’t having an affair – well, not unless he’s boffing a bread roll! He’s never out of the bakery.”

So her best friend thought she was mad. That really didn’t help much. There was nobody else left to talk to. Andi was abroad with her partner and Dee would just say that Gemma needed to work on her honesty in relationships. And there was no way she dared broach the subject with Cal. He’d either be hurt beyond belief that she could think such a thing in the first place or – and this was even more unbearable – he’d tell her that yes, he was in love with Aoife. Just imagining this made Gemma want to drown herself in the ornamental lake, so God only knew how terrible the reality would be.

“It hasn’t happened,” she told herself furiously as she drove back after a final last-minute Christmas shopping trip to Exeter. “It’s all in your head, Gemma, you idiot. Everything will be fine once you get to Cornwall!”

During the manic build-up to Christmas this was her one and only ray of light; once she and Cal were away from Kenniston and in the sanctuary of Seagull Cottage, Gemma knew they’d be able to talk. With any luck all the horrible fears that had been stalking her would vanish like mist in the sunshine and Cal would explain exactly why he’d been in London. It would all make sense, and away from the pressures of work and the cameras they’d be back to how they used to be. It was all going to be fine. Their Christmas escape was going to solve everything.

Whenever Gemma had a spare minute (which wasn’t often because she was mostly flat out icing and dispatching Christmas cakes), she booted up their laptop and surfed the cottage’s website, loving the beautifully shot pictures and spinning dreams of how wonderful their time away was going to be. Last night she’d teetered on the brink of telling Cal about the cottage, but then Dwayne had called – apparently Cal was needed to pre-record another piece for the title sequence – and the moment had been lost. Filming was intense in the run-up to Christmas, and Gemma had gritted her teeth rather than snatching the phone from Cal and telling Dwayne that it was nine at night and that he could stick his pre-recording somewhere dark and, no, she wasn’t referring to Santa’s chimney!

“Not long now,” Gemma told herself, in what was supposed to be a soothing voice but sounded even to her own ears rather hysterical. “It’s nearly Christmas.”

She was almost back at Kenniston, and evening had fallen in earnest. On the radio John and Yoko were singing hopefully about war being over. Behind her, the boot of the Range Rover was filled with Christmas presents. Exeter had been rammed with shoppers in that last frenzy of panic buying, the kind where selection packs of random toiletries and eye shadows suddenly become irresistible and slipper socks sell by the hundreds. Gemma had scooted through the city as best she could with six bags looped around her wrists, and by the time she’d remembered her original intention to buy a dress for this evening’s meal at the Hall, she’d been exhausted already. Being elbowed from all directions while she’d browsed in Next and Monsoon had been no fun at all – and when she’d found it a battle to tug up the zip on a size-fourteen dress, Gemma had felt ready to howl. She must have been helping herself to the icing and leftovers without realising it. So much for walking up and down the drive to Kenniston twice a day as part of her fitness regime. Pushed for time and unable to face the horror of trying anything else, Gemma had decided that the Elliotts would just have to put up with her coming for kitchen sups in her jeans. It wasn’t as if anyone was filming her anyway.

She swung the Range Rover off the main road and down the narrow lane that led to the Lion Gate. The headlights lit up the road ahead but otherwise all was inky blackness. Several tiny cottages set back from the road twinkled with fairy lights and spilled their buttery warmth into the darkness. Gemma imagined the people inside, cuddled up on sofas together watching the news or maybe tucking their children up in bed, and a lump rose in her throat. These houses were warm and full of light and laughter, not like the freezing spaces and deadly silence of the Lion Lodge.

Driving past her house (Cal could help her unload later), Gemma decided that tonight was going to have to be the night that she told him about the Christmas surprise. Today was Saturday and they were due in Cornwall on Wednesday. Christmas Day was exactly a week away. She couldn’t really keep it a secret for much longer, and packing without Cal noticing would be easier said than done seeing as he didn’t have a vast array of clothes. Once Angel’s Christmas supper was out the way and they were driving back to the lodge, she’d tell him. He’d be thrilled; she knew he would. Cal loved Cornwall just as much as she did.

Parking the car in the courtyard, Gemma let herself into Kenniston through the back door. Built on the same scale as Blenheim Palace, the place was vast; sometimes Gemma felt that she needed a satnav just to find her way around. Angel had pointed out that most of it was uninhabited and crumbling away, but even the parts where the Elliotts lived were bigger than most people’s houses. Angel and Laurence occupied the West Wing and had been busy converting it into a comfortable apartment. It was this work that Builder Craig and his crew had been doing for months – when they weren’t posing about with their shirts off, that was.

Tonight’s supper was to celebrate the completion of the kitchen and the idea was that they would all be sitting at the table in the new kitchen in a very informal Nigella kind of way while Angel dished up food, which she claimed to have cooked herself. Since Angel could burn water, Gemma doubted this very much; she strongly suspected that Daisy and a couple of other apprentices from the bakery had been drafted in to help. It seemed like cheating to Gemma but, as Cal was always telling her, there was nothing real about reality TV.

Angel’s kitchen was huge, double the size of most people’s, and already it was full of beautifully dressed guests clutching glasses of wine and chatting. Helping herself to one, Gemma glanced around the room admiringly. Craig might be the Narcissus of the building world but he and his team had done a great job. From the glittery black slate worktops to the salvaged flagstone floor to the enormous kitchen island, the room was stunning. There was a huge Rayburn, a giant American-style fridge and a stainless steel Lacanche oven that looked fit for a restaurant. The irony was that all this would be totally lost on Angel, who lived on salad. Still, it looked nice – which Gemma guessed was the point, because it was to all intents and purposes a set for the show. Take the massive scrubbed pine table, for example, at the far side of the kitchen and set beneath the glass roof. That would easily accommodate fifteen people, all of whom could be filmed beautifully as they sat beneath the stars sipping their drinks, toying with their food and hopefully creating enough drama to keep the viewers hooked.

Well, not me, thought Gemma rebelliously. They’d just have to shoot around her.

“Gem! There you are, darlin’. I was starting to get worried.” Cal slipped an arm around her waist and dropped a kiss onto the top of her head. He looked gorgeous in brown cords and a periwinkle-blue shirt that picked out the gold in his hair and the sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of his nose. The curls had grown much longer and now they brushed his shoulders, making him look like a sexy throwback to an eighties’ rock band – and Gemma had always had a guilty thing for Jon Bon Jovi. She nestled into Cal, leaning her head against his shoulder. Just breathing in the closeness, the
Calness
of him, was the emotional equivalent of sinking into a hot bath. God, she was such a muppet sometimes. Cal was his usual sweet self. Of course nothing was going on.

“You didn’t find anything to wear?” Angel was asking, rather unnecessarily, seeing as Gemma was still in her jeans and hoody. Angel, on the other hand, was looking stunning in a red shift dress with her hair piled up on her head in glossy ringlets. She sighed. “You are such a hopeless shopper, Gem. I knew I should have come with you.”

“Sure, but weren’t you far too busy cooking to go shopping?” said Cal, catching Gemma’s eye and winking. “All this food must have taken ages to prepare.”

“Oh yes, of course I was,” replied Angel, who was completely shameless and hadn’t a clue what they were about to eat. “I was flat out all afternoon err… chopping stuff up and boiling it and things.”

“She’s more full of the auld blarney than me,” Cal whispered to Gemma as they took their seats at the enormous table. “Daisy and Adam have been busy all afternoon; she paid them a wad to do this. I had to draft a couple of the crew in to help me.”

“If anyone can carry it off, Angel can,” Gemma whispered back. “Look how she managed to convince half of Rock she was a millionaire’s daughter while we were actually living in that tatty caravan.”

Cal reached under the table and laced their fingers together. “I have some wonderful memories of that caravan, so I do. I won’t hear a word against it.”

Lost in some very happy memories, Gemma daydreamed most of her way through the mushroom-and-cognac pâté starter. It had been a long day – Exeter on the last Saturday before Christmas was not a destination for the fainthearted – and the hours of elbow wars and basket rage were starting to take their toll. By the time she was halfway through the steak stroganoff and a glass of red wine, Gemma’s eyes were heavy. Conversations ebbed and flowed around her. Now and then there would be a ripple of laughter as Lady Daphne said something funny, or an outcry (such as when Craig tried to eat the bouquet garni and almost choked), but generally it was a relaxed and chilled evening. Cal’s hand wandered up and down Gemma’s jeaned leg quite a lot and she was almost hopeful that when they got back to the Lion Lodge he might cuddle something a little more exciting than the hot-water bottle. Even the film crew and Dwayne didn’t seem as intrusive as usual.

Gemma swirled her Merlot happily. She ought to drink red wine more often if it made her feel this mellow.

It was only when she was halfway through her sticky-toffee pudding (sod it, she was already a fourteen, so she may as well enjoy herself and diet in the New Year) that Gemma tuned back into the conversation with a jolt. The topic of discussion had turned to Christmas and specifically the Christmas special. Not being a member of the
Bread and Butlers
cast, Gemma hadn’t really paid much attention to this to date, but now her ears were out on elastic, especially as Cal was joining in.

“So we’ll all eat in the Great Dining Room,” Lady Daphne was saying. “We could eat naked like the Fifth Viscount did. That could be a hoot.”

“Ma, we’d all die of cold,” Laurence drawled. “Besides, I don’t want to be put off my Christmas pud looking at everyone in the buff.”