A Merry Mistletoe Wedding (19 page)

‘Yes, miss,' Sam said.

‘Jimi?'

‘Fine by me. You seem to have it all sorted.'

‘Good. OK, Jimi, another glass of this vino for me, I think. A large one, please.'

‘No trick-or-treaters last night then,' Thea said as she sat on the sand dune with Sean in the morning, drinking tea. The sand was probably dewy-damp but she didn't care because the day was bright and sunny: the sort you couldn't waste by staying indoors even at 9 a.m. with the air sharp and breezy with autumn chill. She had her sheepskin coat on and wrist warmers and was as cosy as she could be. Sean had been in the sea and she'd walked along the beach with Woody the cat at her heels, watching him and a couple of other keen surfers. Sean on a surfboard was in a class way above everyone else out there and she loved to see him snaking the board across the waves. It was obvious that the others took the lead from him, watching for the waves he went for and chasing after him seconds later.

‘No. Most of the village families go on a mass outing to Mullion and the kids do a sugar-grab all round the town while their parents are in the pub. It kind of works. Here, it's a bit limited. Cornish children have to be willing to travel for maximum fun.'

‘At home,' she told him, ‘Halloween is all about making sure you've got a huge supply of sweets in the house otherwise you get major egg-splatters over the front door and flour all down the path. They don't hold back. And then when you
do
give them the sweets the posh mums who are hovering at your gate in case you're a molesting monster glare at you and swoop to take them off the children “for later” because they feel guilty about them getting all that sugar. It's a middle-class minefield out there. No wonder Emily is so paranoid. I hope I wouldn't get like that.'

Thea thought about her sister for a moment, wondering how she was. She hoped she was all right, that she was simmering down a bit and had recovered from the buggy-mugging. Jimi had phoned and asked when Thea was coming home, suggesting she go round to Emily's and simply make her spend time together in the same room, forcing her to have the contact she was so determinedly avoiding. Thea had sent her a friendly text early in the morning as a sort of lead-in, asking if she was OK and how was Ned, but so far there'd been no reply. She was missing out on this baby's early weeks and she felt sad about that. When she got home, she'd volunteer to take Milly and Alfie out for a day, give Emily some space. What new mother wouldn't jump at that?

‘I was never allowed to go trick-or-treating,' Sean told her as he rubbed his hair dry with a towel. ‘My mum said it would summon up the devil and the devil should be left in peace or it was asking for trouble. Those Catholic roots again. She always claimed to be a non-believer but you should have seen her with the Hail Marys the time we were on a rough crossing to Ireland.'

‘I'm a bit the same as your mum but with planes,' Thea told him. ‘I'll go on them if I must but there has to be something massively tempting at the other end to lure me on board.'

‘You got as far as the Caribbean, you told me. With your ex? You must have thought that was worth it.' He gave her a bit of a teasing sideways smile.

Thea wasn't sure what he was getting at. Did he sound a bit jealous? ‘Well yes, of course I did – at the time. I was really excited about going. After all, it's not a usual destination for an underpaid primary-school teacher. But it was a lot less fun than I'd hoped it would be. It was very beautiful and all that but Rich found fault with absolutely everything: the service, the food, the room, because he'd assumed the hotel would be some kind of flashy show-off place and it was actually quite laid-back. His complaining made me feel tense the whole time and as if I should keep apologizing to everyone. I should have known I could never stick with someone who was rude to waiters. Why did you mention it? Did you want
us
to go there?' she asked.

‘Ha, funny! If I were thinking about us having some sort of honeymoon, it wouldn't be to any place that was in the worn footsteps of your ex! I think that might not be the best start, do you? But otherwise I don't mind going anywhere if it's with you.'

‘You're being all cheesy again,' she said, laughing and going to hug him. ‘What I really don't mind is
not
going anywhere, but not going there with you. If you see what I mean.'

‘I do see. I think. But … just now you said “at home”. When you're back there at your house, do you refer to this place as home?' Sean asked her. ‘I really want you to think of it that way round.' He kissed her neck gently.

‘I will. I mostly do. I suppose it's because I still work up in London and my family are there. And that house – well, I bought it and made it my nest. Everything that's in it was chosen and put together by me, so yes, of course it's home. Think about it the other way round, do you ever call my house “home”?'

‘Well … no. But also yes. I'm sorry – maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it. I just really, really can't wait for you to come and live with me here. It feels all empty when you leave. Even Woody goes into a sulk and sleeps on your side of the bed, all stretched out, as if he's hinting at what's missing.'

‘He's probably just enjoying the extra space,' she said. ‘But honestly, I feel empty when I leave here too. The minute I get to the A30 and head east I just want to turn round and come back.'

‘So why not do it soon?' Sean said, smiling at her. ‘Please? Don't wait till next summer. Quit the job, bring all your stuff, chuck out most of my tat. Combine the best of it and make
this
your nest, or rather
our
nest. Do whatever you need to do to it. Paint it the same colours that you've got in your gaff if you like.'

Thea looked out at the glittering sea with its heavy autumnal breakers hurling themselves at the shore, at the broad deserted beach with only three people and a dog on it. The wet sand shimmered in the sun. She thought about Sarah's Meadow School and the collection of warm-hearted and friendly parents and children there, and compared them with the school-gate mummies at home who slid into the classroom at every possible moment to try and discover why each of their little geniuses wasn't being
stretched
, as if children were bits of elastic. Why did she keep running away back to the grey city? What was there? Oh yes, her family and other friends – and her pupils, of course. And yet – what kind of a marriage would it be if they were so ludicrously separate?

‘Of course I will, though I can't just walk out of the job,' she said suddenly. ‘I'd be mad not to want to move here as soon as possible, wouldn't I? It's crazy to go on like this, living half-separately. Even Helena Bonham-Carter and Tim Burton only stayed as far apart as living next door to each other.'

‘Didn't they split up?'

‘Oh, right – yes, they did. OK, not a great example. I'm sure there are others but I don't want us to be them.'

Sean wrapped his damp neoprene-clad arms round her. ‘At bloody last,' he said. ‘I know it'll be a wrench with you having a close family, but no one in the UK is
that
far away. And even your parents are selling up and going off wandering.'

‘I know,' she said. ‘Cornwall isn't New Zealand, though there are summer weekends in the traffic when it feels as if it's taking just as long to get here as it would to get there. But I have to find a job. And decide what to do about the house. And get Emily to come for the wedding. And find a dress. And make lists. The wedding is the easy bit.'

‘Hey,' he said, kissing her. ‘You've just made a list right there. One thing at a time. It'll all work out, as the Tom Petty song goes.'

In Mousehole, the little hotel where Mike and Anna had spent the night had a Christmas Day menu up on the board and the gallery next door was selling Christmas cards designed by local artists along with hand-made tree decorations and Santa-themed bunting. The village Christmas lights were already up (had been for a couple of weeks, according to the landlord) and during the evening, as soon as it got dark, there had been people out on the street switching various displays on and off and checking them over ready for the great switch-on later in the month. Mike and Anna had sat in the bar drinking mulled wine, eating fish and chips and watching groups of children and adults in Halloween costumes and fierce make-up parade through the little town carrying lamps. The landlord had told them proudly about how people came from all over the country and beyond for Mousehole's famous Christmas lights.

‘First of November and Christmas is all on the go. I don't know whether to find it depressing or what,' Anna said, picking up a pack of cards as they wandered round the gallery that morning. They depicted a harbour scene with Santa bringing sacks of presents on a fishing boat. ‘I like these,' she said to Mike, ‘but I can't quite bring myself to buy them. I don't want to be one of those people.'

‘You could always buy them, hide them in a drawer and forget you've bought them till nearer the time,' he advised. ‘Like Rosie did that time she went to the Matisse exhibition in August and bought a hundred cards then lost them somewhere in the house. She ended up buying emergency cheap ones at the last minute.'

‘I know. And then she found the lovely Matisse ones a week after Christmas. That's the way it goes. I expect she'll send them out this year instead.'

‘Does that make her even more “one of those people”? Having had the cards since the Christmas before?'

Anna laughed. ‘What, Rosie? The vaguest, scattiest woman on the planet? I don't think so, do you? Unless you count someone who drops her son off for his school ski trip at five in the morning on the day
before
he's supposed to go as a person who simply likes to get ahead. Poor Elmo. When he got back and I asked him how the trip was, all he did was grumble that he'd had to get up before dawn for two mornings in a row. I never did find out how the snowboarding went, bless him.'

‘Fair comment. What I do need to know is about when we have lunch today with Thea and Sean. Do we tell them about that house we want to buy? Or do we wait and tell the whole family in one shebang once we're back home?'

‘Play it by ear, I think,' Anna said as she paid for the cards and several beautifully painted tree baubles, ‘and mind the step …' she called as he left the shop to collect the car.

‘What was that?' Mike turned and, almost as if she'd set the whole thing in motion by warning him, he missed his footing and fell crashing to the pavement.

‘Oh bloody hell!' Anna and the shopkeeper rushed to him.

‘Are you all right? Which bit hurts?' Anna could feel her own heart thumping and hoped his was still doing the same. Mike had his eyes open but didn't seem to be focused on anything, like an overdramatized TV corpse. People were collecting around him and she wanted to tell them to go away, stop blocking the air, even though she knew they were only being helpful and there was no shortage of fresh salt-scented air.

‘Shall I get an ambulance?' the girl from the shop asked. ‘Is he alive?'

‘I'm alive. I think.' Mike started to sit up and put out his hand to Anna. ‘Give us a paw. I can get up OK, but not from
here
, if you see what I mean.'

‘Oh dear,' a concerned voice came through the group. ‘Has someone had a fall?'

Anna and a pony-tailed, athletic young girl who'd been jogging hauled Mike to his feet. ‘No, I have
not
had a sodding fall,' Mike announced, sounding grouchy, which was a relief to Anna. It was a sure sign of him being his normal self. ‘I fell over. “Having a fall” is what
old
people do.'

‘Well, quite. That's what I said,' said the voice, adding a smug sniff.

‘Never mind that,' Anna said, conscious that Mike was leaning on her shoulder, ‘have you hurt anything?'

‘I appear to have damaged my ankle,' he said, grimacing. ‘In fact it fucking well hurts.' He tried putting it to the pavement but went pale as he tried to put weight on it.

‘Oh hell. I hope it isn't broken. Wait there, I'll get the car. We'll go to A & E and see if it needs an X-ray.'

As Anna drove the car back from the harbour-front car park she could see Mike sitting on a chair outside the gallery, adjusting his bandana. The girl from the shop was sitting on the step beside him. He looked slumped and in pain and she felt a sudden fear of a future of possible illness, pain, decreasing mobility. It was all very well him insisting that ‘old' was other people, and to be fair he was younger than most of his old rock-star heroes. They were still leaping about onstage with a healthy gusto that their early lifestyles probably gave them no right to expect. But it wasn't something you could deny for ever. Were they mad to be contemplating a three-hundred-mile move to an area they had little experience of? Probably. But for now, as she pulled up outside the gallery, the one consoling thought was that in the event of various worst-case scenarios, the house at Marazion had a staircase plenty wide enough for a stairlift.

‘Are you speaking to me yet? I promise I won't make you go out again.' Charlotte's head, encased in a huge furry hat, appeared round the back door. Emily was absorbed in looking at rural houses on Rightmove on her iPad at the kitchen table. The sight of Charlotte in her hat and her leopard-print boots made her jump.

‘Bloody hell, Charlotte, did you have to creep up on me like that?'

‘I wasn't creeping. And your doorbell's bust. Me and the postman were standing there like lemons. Here you are.' She came in and sat down opposite Emily and handed over a small heap of envelopes and one large, stiff one.

‘Thanks. And yes, of course I'm speaking to you,' Emily told her, shutting down her iPad. ‘But next time I look like I need my hair sorting, I'll make my own decision about what to do, thank you.'