Two Weddings and a Baby (14 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought I was good at coping under pressure and taking life as it comes. After all, I’ve had to re-sew fifteen ballgowns after the models got drunk and went on a KFC binge. Fifteen, in an hour! But this … I think it’s driven me a little bit … I lost perspective.’

Jed nodded, smiled that same ‘nice’ smile, used that same calm tone. ‘It’s bound to have.’

‘Look,’ Tamsyn said, ‘I’m trying to apologise for accusing you of being a dog-collared Lothario, so please don’t give me that vicar shtick.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Jed said.

‘You know what,’ Ruan said to Alex, ‘I think it’s about time we went to bed, before Buoy smothers you.’

‘Shtick, I said shtick not shi … Not that word!’ Tamsyn said, just as the light went out on the bottle warmer.

Ruan lifted Buoy off Alex and carried the old dog in his arms like a baby. ‘’Night, sis,’ he said to Tamsyn. ‘It’s been … memorable.’

‘Ruan,’ Alex hissed at him as she grabbed Skipper’s collar, detaching him with some force from the table leg he’d clamped his teeth around, in a bid to stay up later.

‘’Night, Tamsyn,’ she said. ‘I’m so pleased that you’re here. And I’m so sorry it’s been so dramatic!’

‘Not your fault,’ Tamsyn said. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Alex. You seem far too good for my brother.’

Mo was quietened at once by the bottle in her mouth, although for several seconds she continued to make angry little noises, just to emphasise that she didn’t expect to be kept waiting in future, and really the service could be improved around here.

Tamsyn couldn’t help but smile as she looked down at the angry little face, scrunched up around a nub of a nose. She looked furious, and Tamsyn supposed she had good reason. Did she know, Tamsyn wondered, could she sense what had happened to her? Was she feeling lonely and lost and sad, and wondering where her special person was? Tamsyn hoped not. She hoped that Mo knew nothing about it at all, that the expression on her face was all about having to wait for a feed, and nothing about feeling abandoned, amongst strangers.

She glanced up at Jed, who had his sleeves rolled up as he tackled the washing-up.

‘I’m sorry if I offended you,’ she said to his back. ‘I was just trying to work it out; to find out who on earth would leave a baby in a churchyard in this day and age. It seemed plausible to my weary, sleep- and wine-deprived brain.’

Jed pushed his hair out of his eyes, leaving a little garland of bubbles on his forehead which Tamsyn found rather endearing.

‘Only if you think that what I do, what I believe and the way that I try and live my life is a joke,’ he said.

‘I don’t, truly I don’t,’ Tamsyn assured him, sitting down carefully on one of Sue’s rickety kitchen chairs. ‘I suppose I just don’t often meet people who believe, well, in anything. Unless you count the belief that carbs are the root of all evil and horizontal stripes are the devil incarnate. It’s rare to meet a person who has faith. I am truly sorry, and really, you should be accepting my apology about now. Otherwise you start to lose the moral high ground and just come across as a bit sulky.’

Jed almost smiled as he picked up a tea towel – a glimmer of a proper smile – and dried his hands.

‘Apology accepted,’ he said, sitting down at the table. He watched her for a moment with those beguiling eyes. ‘I am sorry, too. I think I probably could have seen the funny side for a bit longer. I do get a bit humourless when it comes to things that I am passionate about. And, well, if I’m honest, I wish I had met the person I felt I could share my life with completely. I look at Ruan and Alex, and I see … wonderment. I get lonely. I’d love to be a father, to have that sense of joy whenever I look at the person I love. I pray that someday it comes to me, just as it has to your brother.’

‘But, I mean,’ Tamsyn hesitated, trying really hard not to say the wrong thing. ‘Do you think you can
know
that a person is that person when you don’t “know” them in the, you know, biblical sense?’

‘Yes,’ Jed nodded. ‘Yes. I think if a person is the right person, then your hearts and minds will connect long before your bodies do. For me, a conversation with the right person can be just as thrilling as a kiss, and a kiss just as erotic as sex.’

‘Mmmm,’ Tamsyn said, pressing her lips together and wondering what it was about what Jed had just said that made her heart beat a little faster. ‘So as a vicar, you are allowed to say “erotic” and “sex”, then.’

‘Yes, I can say those words,’ Jed said. ‘I can feel those feelings, feel desire for a woman. It’s not an alien concept to me, although it’s been a very long time since I felt it last.’

Tamsyn listened to the ticking of the clock on the kitchen wall and wondered how many seconds had passed while they said nothing, and just looked at each other. It was the strangest sensation, and one she was almost certain was making her weary brain hallucinate.

‘Well,’ she said, trying to sound sensible and not at all beguiled by a Man of God. ‘That still leaves us with a little girl with no family, and no clue as to who might have left her in the porch.’

‘I think you’re right that it must be someone familiar with the church,’ Jed said. ‘Someone who thinks of it as a safe haven. The trouble is, we have a healthy congregation in Poldore. It’s a very community-led parish. We are involved in all sorts of ways: youth groups, supporting our elderly, working in the schools, visiting the sick … And all sorts of people use the parish rooms. The sewing circle, the WI; there are life-drawing classes; Rory leads a creative-writing class. We have a project that helps young, unemployed people gain skills and qualifications. I don’t think you can categorise the people that are involved with the church; they come from all walks of life, all age groups, all backgrounds.’

‘Oh, Mo,’ Tamsyn said to the little girl. ‘If only you could talk. If only you could tell us who your mummy is.’

‘You must be tired,’ Jed said, gently. ‘She should sleep for a few hours now. Do you want me to take her while you get your head down?’

Tamsyn hesitated. There was a large part of her that really wanted to curl up alone in a cool bed, close her eyes and fall instantly to sleep, which she knew was exactly what would happen. And yet to her surprise, she wasn’t biting Jed’s hand off to accept his offer.

‘It’s just, she’s had so much upheaval already,’ she said, not quite believing her own words. ‘I don’t want her to have any more that isn’t completely necessary. I’m exhausted and my arm feels like it’s about to drop off, but it’s only for a few hours, isn’t it? And then one way or another she’ll be out of my life. I just want these first few hours of hers to feel as secure and as safe as they can.’

‘You sound a little surprised to be feeling that way,’ Jed said, but he wasn’t mocking her.

‘I suppose I am,’ Tamsyn said. ‘Must be jet lag. And sobriety.’

For a few moments they listened to the roar of the wind outside, and the rain occasionally blowing against the window, sounding like handfuls of pebbles.

‘You should sleep,’ Tamsyn said, finally. ‘You’ve been all over the place being all vicary. Did you get a bed when Sue was allocating bunks?’

‘I did,’ Jed said. ‘But I don’t sleep very well. Insomnia; I’ve had it for a few years now.’

‘You can’t count sheep, or angels, or something?’ Tamsyn asked him. ‘I can’t imagine not being able to sleep; it would be the worst feeling in the world.’

‘I get enough sleep, somehow,’ he said. ‘I just don’t try to go to sleep. I wait until my brain can’t take any more and switches off, and then I usually have a few good hours. But that’s a long way off yet.’

‘I love sleeping,’ Tamsyn told him. ‘Sleeping is one of the best things in the world.’

‘It’s not the sleeping I have issues with,’ Jed hesitated. ‘I suppose I am just one of those annoying people whose brains won’t stop ticking and thinking. I always write my sermons in the early hours of the morning.’

‘What made you become a vicar?’ Tamsyn said, her brain, almost asleep, articulating the words that had been knocking around in her head almost since she’d first met Jed in the rain under the cedar tree. ‘Did, erm, God talk to you or give you a sign, or something?’

‘If only,’ Jed said. He leant back in his chair, stretched his arms out wide and revealed his throat, which Tamsyn discovered she wanted to press her lips to in a series of little butterfly kisses. ‘Wouldn’t it be so easy and simple if faith was something so certain? But then I suppose it wouldn’t be called faith.’

‘So you didn’t grow up in a religious home, then?’ Tamsyn asked him. ‘I mean, Mum and Dad always said when we were filling in forms that we were C of E, you know. And Dad had a proper funeral, with hymns and everything, and we were all christened, and Ruan’s having a church wedding. But, I don’t know, I wouldn’t say any of us are what you’d call
religious
. What is it that makes you so good at believing?’

Jed rubbed his hands over his face; he had a little smattering of golden stubble around his jaw that glistened in the lamplight.

‘There’s no certainty,’ he said. ‘Only hope. And faith and love of my fellow man, and love of God. I believe because I feel it, in here.’ He tapped his chest. ‘In my heart and soul. I believe because, to me, not to believe seems impossible. I’m sorry, I don’t suppose that explains it very well.’

‘Well enough,’ Tamsyn said, ‘considering the late hour, or early hour, whichever one it is now.’

‘And what do you believe in?’ Jed asked her.

‘Would it sound awfully shallow if I said the thing I had the greatest faith in the world in is Prada?’

‘Yes,’ Jed said.

‘That’s what I thought.’

Something woke Tamsyn with a start, and she realised with quiet horror that it was the sound of her own snoring. Sitting upright, she looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings and waited while the events of yesterday gradually came back, the most tangible reminder being the tiny, open-mouthed baby that slept soundly on her shoulder. Blinking, she winced as she straightened up and realised that what she had been leaning on was not a cushion or a firmly padded chair back, but a vicar.

‘Oh.’ Tamsyn formed the word with her mouth, but she did not say it out loud because Jed was still asleep, a state of affairs that she now knew didn’t come easily to him. He was a very neat sleeper, Tamsyn couldn’t help noticing. No slack-jawed dribble, no rattling snores; he slept with his mouth very slightly open, his golden lashes brushing the tops of his cheeks, his hair in his eyes making him look much younger than he was, and innocent.

They had come into the snug at about four a.m., when it had grown chilly in the kitchen, to see if the fire was still lit. Tamsyn had sunk down onto the battered old dog-hair-covered sofa, still warm from its last occupier, a very fat pug called Wash, and Jed had stoked up the embers of the fire again. She didn’t really remember much after that, except that she’d been in a curious state of deep but conscious sleep, so that even when she was dreaming she hadn’t forgotten the baby in her arms, and she’d been constantly aware of the sound of her breathing, the crackling of the fire.

Mo stirred, screwing her face up in what was fast becoming one of her characteristic looks of displeasure, and from the delightful scent that pervaded the tiny room, Tamsyn guessed that she probably needed yet another nappy change. Besides, the clock on the wall told her that Mo would be hungry soon, at a little after six a.m. Grimacing as she remembered her outfit, Tamsyn crept out of the room, taking one more look at Jed as he slept. He was extraordinarily restful to look at, after all.

The long corridor that ran through the house was all but silent; even the great hall seemed quiet, and Tamsyn didn’t care to guess what was going on upstairs, though she was certain that of all the refugees who had taken shelter in Castle House overnight, her twin nephews would be up by now and probably jumping on her sister’s head. She was well out of it down here.

‘That’s the trouble with children,’ she whispered to the baby as she crept into the kitchen with Mo snug in her arms. ‘They have no idea of the concept of lying in. Remember that, as you get older; remember lying in. It’s a wonderful thing.’

It took Tamsyn a second or two to realise that the huge kitchen wasn’t entirely empty, because sitting at the other end of it, almost blending in with the grey and white kitchen in the gaunt light of the dawn, was Catriona Merryweather, her hands wrapped around a mug of steaming tea.

‘Did you sleep?’ Tamsyn asked Catriona, who looked worse than she had done yesterday. Her greying hair, which Tamsyn guessed she usually wore in a bob, was ratted and tangled and she had a waxy sort of complexion and an expression that spoke of prolonged pain and the exhaustion that came with it.

‘A little,’ Catriona said. ‘I have to admit, I still feel rotten. But there is so much to do, so many people who need help … I thought I’d be back on my feet by now.’

‘You can never predict this sort of illness,’ Tamsyn said. ‘I had a bug in the winter that knocked me out for a week. I tried to go back to work but I kept throwing up, and it’s amazing how much supermodels don’t enjoy you throwing up on them.’

Catriona smiled weakly. ‘How is the little one?’

‘Doing well, I think,’ Tamsyn said. ‘She’s had two feeds and I’m about to do her third, right after I’ve changed a nappy. I don’t suppose you’d mind holding her while I go and hunt one down?’

‘I don’t think I’d better.’ Catriona shrank back in her chair. ‘I think I’m probably still very infectious.’

‘Of course,’ Tamsyn nodded. ‘Well, you should go back to bed. Can I get you anything?’

‘Perhaps some paracetamol?’ Catriona asked her. ‘I don’t usually take painkillers, but this time I think I am defeated.’

‘Yes, I’ll find some at the same time as the nappies,’ Tamsyn said.

‘But don’t you bring them,’ the older woman warned her, nodding at Mo. ‘If you see Jed, perhaps he might? I could do with a word with him, in any case.’

‘Oh yes, I’ve just left him,’ Tamsyn said. ‘We slept together.’ Tamsyn put her hand over her mouth, horrified by what she’d said. ‘Only, not like that,’ she added hastily. ‘On the sofa, with all of our clothes on. I was wearing this, which you have to unbutton all of even just to go to the loo, so it’s definitely not good for sex … Anyway, I’ll get him to come and see you.’