The Christmas Angel (10 page)

‘I’m on my own at the moment,’ he said.

His expression was an odd one – a mix of bleakness? a determination not to become emotional? – and she decided to respect it; not to pry, or to persuade him that he would be quite safe with her if he wanted to let it all hang out. She was used to Clem’s need for emotional privacy. She’d seen how he’d dealt with Madeleine’s death in this same way, and she was determined not to make Rupert uncomfortable.
Carefully
she led the conversation back into its former lines and soon they were laughing again. And there was a new sense of freedom between them, as if by getting all the baggage out into the open they were free to go forward.

She drives into the farm shop car park and looks for his car: an ancient dark blue Volvo.

‘It’s a good old work horse,’ he said affectionately after that lunch, as they stood outside the pub beside the car. The back seats were folded forwards and an old sheet was laid down across them; various tools were scattered on it. ‘What do you drive?’

She pointed to her tidy little Golf. ‘I have to look reasonably smart,’ she said, ‘but I need to be able to get trays of food in the back too. My clients like to believe that I’m efficient
and
respectable.’

‘What a pair we are,’ he said. He dropped a hand lightly on her shoulder and she quivered suddenly at his touch, looking quickly away and pretending to shield her eyes from the sun.

‘I’d better dash,’ she said. ‘Let me know if you want any more information for your clients.’

‘Oh, I will,’ he assured her, but she saw that disturbing look in his eyes, and she smiled and said, ‘Thanks for the lunch,’ and hurried away before he could say anything else. Just as she was almost glad that the snow prevented their first meeting, so then she wanted to postpone any further commitment; she wanted to preserve this excitement and the sense of anticipation of what was to come.

And now she is here, staring at his battered old Volvo, and taking a deep breath to steady herself. She slants the driving mirror and stares anxiously at her gilt-fair hair, at her face with the slatey-blue dark eyes. Too late to wonder whether
she
should have changed; her moleskin jeans and favourite old cashmere jersey will have to do. She mustn’t look too keen, as if she’d made a great effort.

She gets out and slams the door, swings her bag on its long leather handle over her shoulder and goes in, through the shop with its fresh vegetables and home-made chutneys and delicious fudge, and into the restaurant. He isn’t at any of the tables at the end of the shop, so she smiles at the girl by the till and passes on into the bigger, brighter area with its high wood-framed pine ceiling and big windows. He is standing beside a table, staring out of the window across the grassy spaces towards the hills behind St Austell.

He glances round as she comes in, his face brightening with pleasure. ‘Wasn’t I lucky to find you at home!’ he says. ‘There’s an old cottage for sale not too far away that I thought I’d go and have a quick look at, and I suddenly realized how close I was and it was too good an opportunity to miss.’

She is glad that he hasn’t decided simply to drop in. She isn’t ready to explain anything to Pa and Mo just yet.

‘It was good to get out into the sunshine,’ she says lightly. ‘I’ve been cooking all morning for a dinner this evening, so I can’t be too long.’

‘It’s incredible, isn’t it,’ he says, gesturing to the view, ‘that those amazing-looking hills are simply spoil heaps from the china clay industry? How quickly old Mother Nature would obliterate us if she could! So are you up for a cream tea?’ He looks at her with an almost intimate all-appraising stare. ‘You’re not a calorie counter, are you?’

She laughs then: challenging his disturbing glance. ‘Do I look like one?’

He shakes his head delightedly. ‘Thankfully not. I can’t abide skinny women. I’ll go and order.’

He leaves her standing by the table and goes out to the bar. She watches him go, liking his casual, elegant grace, and thinks, Great legs! and laughs guiltily to herself.

When he returns she is sitting with her back to him, staring out of the window, and he slides into the seat opposite and watches her.

‘So tell me about the cottage,’ she says casually. ‘Do you really need another one?’

He leans back, stretching out his legs which touch her own, though he seems unaware of the contact. She sits quite still.

‘I always need another one,’ he answers lazily. ‘It’s what I do. When I’ve finished this one I shall simply pack up and move on to the next one, though it might take time to find it. It works very well. It takes times to feel what the house really needs, what it’s all about, and to have the vision for what I want to do with it. It tells you itself if you give it a chance. This one has been a bit more of a challenge. I’m out of my comfort zone over here on the wild north coast and on the moor. Up until now I’ve stayed in the same area around St Mawes and I’ve got a trusty network of chaps who always work with me – a plumber, an electrician and an amazing carpenter – so this was a bit of a chance. I live in whichever cottage I’m working on until it’s absolutely right. It’s very exciting when you get just the right materials or design of some particular feature. Then I either put it into my renting portfolio or I might sell it, or put in a tenant on a long let, depending on the market. We did a whole barn complex once.’

She longs to ask how it worked with his wife; how she’d coped with such a peripatetic life, but she doesn’t have the courage.

‘I thought you might come and look at it with me,’ he says. ‘This cottage. It’s not very far away. I’m meeting the agent there at five o’clock and I’d value your expert opinion. Why not?’

She tries to think of some reason why not. The pressure of his leg unsettles her and she is glad when the girl brings the tray of tea and so that she can move, sit upright and draw in her legs, without looking as if she’s been conscious of the contact.

‘I could, I suppose,’ she says casually, ‘if we’re not too long. It might be fun,’ and she smiles at the girl and thanks her, and begins to pour the tea.

Mo watches her go. She clips a few more stems and puts them into the wheelbarrow and then goes to sit on the wrought-iron seat on the flagstones outside the drawing-room windows. It’s hot just here, out of the light north-easterly breeze, looking south-west across the garden and the fields to the low line of hills behind St Austell. John the Baptist comes to sit at her feet; sighing heavily he curls up, eyes closed. She nudges him very gently with her foot, just so as to acknowledge his presence without disturbing him, and he sighs again with contentment.

Mo sits quietly, ankles folded beneath the seat, but she frowns a little. What is Dossie up to? For a little while now she’s been in an odd mood; scatty, effervescent, distracted. She’s always been a cheerful, positive, outgoing girl. Even after poor Mike died in that ghastly motor accident she tried so hard to remain strong and positive for Clem. Dossie isn’t the sort to whinge and mope around, though there were times when she found it very hard indeed to cope with work and Clem and widowhood.

Of course, she met other men but – rather like darling Mike – they were always … well, a bit off-centre. Mo frowns again, remembering Mike: tall and loose-limbed, just like Clem. They all loved him; even Pa was touched by Mike’s warm-hearted extravagance. How he loved speed! Motorbikes, Formula One, speedboats. It wasn’t surprising that he’d come unstuck so tragically, given the way he risked himself. Mo shakes her head, sadly: poor Mike – and poor Dossie and Clem.

Then, later, there was the fellow who loved sailing. Dossie fell quite heavily for him, and little Clem adored him, and then, just when they were all wondering whether something might come of it, he announced that he was off to sail around the world. He asked Dossie to go with him, and Clem, too, but after a few weeks of agonizing over it she refused.

‘I can’t, Mo,’ she said miserably, hunched on her bed, curled in the angle of the wall. ‘How can I risk it? Clem starts school next term and we have no idea how long this voyage might last or how dangerous it might be. Anything might happen. I know people do take their children on long sea trips but … I simply can’t bear the thought of any more accidents.’

Mo, sitting on the bed, watching her, felt so helpless. Her heart filled with anguish for her child but she simply nodded, agreeing, and then she lightly touched Dossie’s knee as a gesture of comfort, and went away. And how relieved she and Pa were much later when they heard that the sailor had reached Sydney Harbour, and loved Australia so much that he abandoned the rest of his voyage and never returned.

There were one or two other relationships: Clem’s history master, who was divorced with a large and complicated extended family; and a fellow who owned a string of
restaurants
– and a string of mistresses to match. Neither of these amounted to anything, but Dossie entered into them each time with hope and a great deal of naïvety.

‘Why does she always get hurt?’ Pa demanded after they discovered the true nature of the restaurant owner. ‘Good grief! There must be an ordinary trustworthy kind of fellow out there somewhere. Why does she have to be attracted to nutters or to men who will hurt her?’

He thumped on the kitchen table with his fist, and John the Baptist flattened his ears and rolled an anxious eye at him.

‘Dossie believes in love. She’s an eternal optimist,’ Mo answered at last, and Pa breathed in heavily through his nose and turned his eyes heavenward as if seeking patience, muttering, ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ under his breath. ‘And it’s no good making faces at this late date,’ she added crossly. ‘
You
didn’t see anything wrong with any of them either.’

He was irritated then, pushing his chair back so that its feet screeched on the slates, getting up and going out into the boot-room. John the Baptist struggled up, looking at her as if to say, ‘Here we go again!’ and followed Pa out, and they disappeared over the fields together.

Now, Mo closes her eyes and lifts her face to the hot sun. She is aware of the mower’s engine stopping and the sudden silence, and then of other sounds: a robin singing in the escallonia hedge and the two notes echoing from the top of the ash tree where a great tit swings in its branches amongst the fat black sticky buds, which are bursting into leaf. She thinks of Dossie just now, running out to her car; of the way, lately, she checks and rechecks her mobile for messages; of her recent bright-eyed preoccupation. A shadow blocks the sun. Mo opens her eyes: Pa is standing looking down at her.

‘All right, Mo?’ he asks – and she is unnerved by the familiar enquiry just at this moment, wanting to share her suspicion with him but fearful lest he too should become alert to Dossie’s behaviour and question her. It is impossible to swear Pa to secrecy and silence. Sooner or later he will speak out thoughtlessly and precipitate some kind of argument or action.

‘Where did Dossie say she was going?’ he asks, as though reading her thoughts. ‘I thought she had a dinner party at Rock.’

‘She has.’ Mo speaks calmly. ‘There’s plenty of time. A client phoned, she said. Do you want a cup of tea after all that effort?’ She gets up. ‘It’s so warm we could have it out here.’

‘And when did you say Adam was coming?’

He trails after her, and her heart sinks at his question. She stops, staring down over the newly mown grass. It is foolish to be so fearful of Natasha and her two girls, yet every instinct warns her against this woman and her two sullen, uncommunicative daughters. The fact that she, Mo, still loves and misses Adam’s ex-wife doesn’t help the situation, and irritates him.

‘Tomorrow morning,’ she answers. ‘In time for lunch. Dossie’s got something special planned. If it’s as warm as this we’ll be able to eat in the garden.’ She needs to be upbeat about it, otherwise Pa’s antagonism might well spiral out of control.

‘Why don’t those girls ever speak?’ he demanded after the last visit. ‘No “please” or “thank you”, no attempt at joining in, refusing to have anything to do with Jakey. Just glowering about and muttering to each other or plugged into those damned iPods. And those awful earrings and nail varnish.
Good
God, they’re hardly teenagers and they look like a couple of hookers!’

She remained silent. Adam had cornered her privately and suggested that it was time she and Pa downsized to a smaller house, and asked what Dossie’s plans were if and when they were to do so.

‘We’ve never discussed it,’ she answered frostily.

‘It’s as well to be prepared for every eventuality,’ he said coolly.

He didn’t add, ‘at your ages’, but she knew that it was what he meant; that he is afraid that she or Pa might die with things left unresolved. Yet her heart rebels at leaving The Court or any part of their belongings to Natasha and her children.

‘What do you think of her?’ Pa asked, after that first visit just over a year ago when Adam and Natasha had come down from Oxford without the girls. ‘Good-looking woman but a bit brittle. Not much heart to her. I felt she was sizing us up. Not just us, but the house and so on. Know what I mean?’

‘Well, that’s her job, after all,’ Mo answered. ‘She’s an estate agent, like Adam. Country properties are their forte. It must be second nature.’

Later, she learned from Dossie that Natasha has no plans for any more children; she said that two were quite enough, she was well past coping with the baby stage, and Adam wasn’t bothered. Mo isn’t particularly surprised. She’s long been resigned to Adam’s complete lack of interest in producing children and she guesses that his reluctance was a contributory factor to the downfall of his first marriage. So there will be no more grandchildren for her and Pa. She tries not to mind too much. After all, they are lucky to have
Clem
and darling Jakey not far away; and Dossie, of course, is a blessing.

Mo breathes in the sweet, evocative scent of new-cut grass. How wonderful if Dossie has met a man who can love her and support her in her work and share her life. Suddenly hopeful, she turns to Pa.

‘Tea,’ she says. ‘We’ll have some tea in the garden and then take the dogs for a walk in the field. Come on, you can help me carry,’ and he slips an arm about her shoulders, and gives her a hug, and they go into the house together.