A Merry Mistletoe Wedding (26 page)

She pulled out a set of golf clubs that had belonged to Mike's late brother and hauled them to the front door. She couldn't even remember why they'd got them: Mike detested golf. He considered it tedious and pointless. Would a charity shop want them? She hoped so. Or Gumtree; perhaps that would be even better because whoever wanted them would have to come and get them. That was probably the way forward. Or a yard sale might be an idea … She could do that at the weekend and put a note on the wall inviting people to come in and help themselves. A giveaway would be better than a sale really, especially with Christmas coming up. Who had spare cash for what was essentially junk at this time of the year? She could put a tin out for donations and give the resulting cash to a charity. Miriam's funeral had had a collection for the NSPCC so she'd go for that one.

The golf clubs were joined by two of Jimi's old cricket bats, an ancient suitcase, an unravelling wicker picnic basket (for the tip, that one) and an ironing board that she'd meant to throw out a good ten years back. There were coats that hadn't been worn for years, rotting wellington boots and two pairs of white ice skates (Emily and Thea's) from the long-ago days before the rink at Richmond closed. She put them all together with the golf clubs, fetched a broom and dustpan and gave the cupboard a thorough sweeping. Then the phone rang. It was Belinda on the line asking if it was OK to bring a family for a viewing that afternoon. Anna agreed and then looked at the clutter that now graced the hallway. It couldn't stay there; it represented exactly how
not
to welcome in people who were being invited to spend nearly three million pounds on a house. So she gathered everything up again and stuffed it back in the cupboard, albeit in a far more orderly fashion than it had been loaded in before. Oh well, she thought, it was a start. But she knew it wasn't, not really.

Thea didn't intend to avoid Sean. It had been two days and she knew she had to talk to him and to hear what he had to say. She felt stronger by the next morning, although still deeply sad about the grass ring. It going missing felt like an omen although she fervently hoped it wasn't. She reminded herself, now she was feeling a bit calmer, that Sean hadn't exactly told her any lies, but could she trust the rest of her life to a man who was, as politicians liked to put it, ‘economical with the truth'? After the disaster that had been Rich, was she really so wrong to expect all-out honesty and genuine commitment?

The school day was hectic. There was a rumour in the staffroom about a possible Ofsted inspection and after an intense session of numeracy that wore both her and the children out, her class was summoned to the school hall for a long rehearsal for the nativity play. Melanie was keen that the lines should be in rhyming couplets and she'd got the year six teacher – who fancied himself as a poet – to write a kind of chorus that all those who didn't have main roles would recite together. The first run-through was a disaster. Thea could sense Melanie trying not to stamp her foot with impatience as the children read the lines with maddening slowness and with no expression at all. Thea wasn't surprised: some of them were only five.

‘They'll be OK once they've learned what it's all about and they've had plenty of practice,' Thea tried to reassure her. ‘Half of them aren't nearly up to the necessary reading standard for this yet so it'll take some time.' Privately, she thought they needed a far simpler script. What on earth did they understand about unexplained words like ‘Hosanna' and ‘Cherubim'? She would give her own class a talk about it all but she felt a lingering sadness for her own discarded project about the changing of the seasons. From the thunderous look on Melanie's face she wondered if she too was regretting being so dismissive. Having the children dress up as the Green Man or dancing around the stage pretending to be sunlight triumphing over darkness would have been a doddle compared to this. They'd have loved it.

The signs of Christmas were coming out into the streets now. On the drive home, Thea could see that Christmas trees supplied by the council had, that day, been put up in the high street, leaning at ninety degrees over the shops. Their lights weren't yet attached but it would only be a couple of weeks till they flashlit her way home each night. As she parked outside her house, she noticed Mr and Mrs Over-the-Road had put a pair of wire-framed deer in their front garden, one each side of the path. They were unevenly lit and one gave the impression in the dark of only having three legs and one antler. The sight gave Thea an added moment of depression. She was so near to her wedding day. That's if it was going to happen at all. As she locked the car, June's door opened and she crossed the road clutching a large white parcel, a massive bouquet that was almost as big as she was. With her light grey hair, beige mac and the package, she looked peculiarly ghostly, lit palely from behind by those deer. She seemed to have something important to say.

‘Thea? These are for you.' She held out the flowers and pushed them into Thea's arms. Thea, already carrying her bag and the car keys, almost dropped them. They were ridiculously heavy – and vast. She wasn't sure she had any vases big enough to accommodate them, unless she opted for the bright blue bucket she used when she was washing the kitchen floor.

‘They came this morning. On a van,' June said, her eyes gleaming. ‘I think they're from your young man.'

Thea's spirits lifted massively. Sean. Wow, this was some gesture. She thanked June, clutched the bouquet to her and went into the house. The flowers were huge white Madonna lilies, which surprised her a bit. For one thing they were madly out of season (which Sean wouldn't normally approve of) and must have cost a fortune. Also, Sean didn't like lilies so it must have been the florist's choice. He knew their pollen was deeply poisonous to cats and had once said he'd never buy them as he didn't want to encourage the trade.

Thea put the bouquet on the kitchen table and looked for a card, which was nestled among the blooms in a small blue envelope. The edges were a bit scuffed and she guessed June had already had a quick read. She hoped the message wasn't too intimate – how embarrassing that would be, to have had her neighbour read something deeply personal, possibly a bit suggestive. June would forever after be giving her little meaningful looks and as for Robbie, he'd up the level of his customary near-leering to a whole new realm. He was bad enough at the best of times: only that summer he'd told her she was ‘a fine figure of a lass' when she was on her way out in a short tea dress. Thea read the card twice in the feeble hope that she wasn't seeing the right message:

With massive thanks in advance from the two of us. With all love and a big woof. Rich and Benji.

Could she be more disappointed? Flowers from her ex and his dog. Oh, the joy. The surge of love for Sean and the whizz of adrenaline dissipated fast and she sat down heavily in the chair and put her head in her hands. The phone rang and, despondent, she picked it up.

‘Thea. At last.'

‘Hello, Sean.'

‘So, er … how are you?' He sounded nervous, she thought. She probably did too. Her entire future could hang on this conversation.

‘I'm … OK.'

‘No, you're not.'

‘No – that's true. Did you expect me to be?'

‘Because Katinka was there? Well – I suppose it must have been a bit of a surprise. She said you went off in a big hurry and …' he laughed for a second then stopped as abruptly ‘… she said you were “steaming mad”.'

‘You could say that. Why didn't you say she was coming? And how
not
steaming mad do you expect me to be when I find her coming out of
our
bathroom dressed in nothing but a towel?'

‘Ha. Yes, well, I don't know why she used that one.'

‘For my shower gel apparently. Was that before or after she also got into the bed I'd only just left with the boyfriend I'd only just—'

‘Hey? No! How could you say that?'

Thea hadn't meant to go that far but she was just so upset, she couldn't stop herself.

‘I have
not
slept with Katinka!' Sean sounded quite angry now.

‘Never?
Really?
'

There was a second of silence. ‘We went out together for maybe three months about seven years ago when I was still competing and she was a newbie. I mean, come on, Thea, you and me, we're not teenagers, we've both got a past.'

‘Is she still there?'

‘No. She left this morning. I dropped her at Redruth station and she was heading for Heathrow. I don't expect to see her again any time soon. She was just passing through on her way, you know. Honestly, it was no big deal. You don't have to pull this big jealous number, really you don't. There's no reason.'

‘She told me the “just passing” thing too. But tell me, Sean, how is our part of Cornwall on the route to anywhere? You live miles from anywhere that's remotely between the USA and South Africa. You're one hell of a detour for someone who's just an old friend.'

Sean sighed. ‘It's not a detour from Newquay. She'd been to a meeting with the British Surf people there, about next year's Boardmasters contest. She's going to be the poster girl representing America. It's a business, Thea. You might think surfing is just a hobby but it's been my working life and now it's hers.'

That gave Thea a jolt. Was she being ridiculous? She now felt more than a little foolish. All the same, he must have known she was in the area.

‘Not the first time she's stayed then?' she persisted, wishing she could stop. She felt she might be on a self-destruct mission but all the things she wanted to ask, wanted to know, had to be said or there was no moving forward.

‘You have to trust me, you know.' Sean sounded more soothing now. ‘Nothing's going on, I promise. I love you. It's you I love and it's you I want to marry.'

‘I'm glad,' she said. ‘But … can I just ask, when were you going to tell me you were married to Katinka?'

‘I didn't need to, for heaven's sake,' he said, his voice turning dull and cross. ‘Because I'm not.'

Emily was feeling unusually cheerful and was on the floor in the sitting room, helping Milly and Alfie to put their Lego safari park together. Ned was, for once, up in his crib and she was starting to feel just slightly closer to her normal self rather than like a scared animal that only wants to huddle in a safe corner from where she can keep an eye on all the threats around her.

‘I want the lions over
here
,' Alfie decreed, picking up pieces of fence and slotting them together.

‘They don't need a fence,' Milly told him, doing her grand big-sister voice. ‘They are
free-range
lions.'

‘But they'll eat the camels,' he protested.

‘They might not,' Emily told him, soothing. ‘They might be calm, nice lions. And besides, they might already be full of dinner.'

‘They're not,' Milly said, an impish gleam in her eyes. ‘They're
hungry
lions and
fierce
.'

‘Let's put the camels inside the fence then. So the lions can't get to them.'

‘And the elephants. And the tiger,' Alfie said, picking up the plastic animals and lining them up in twos, ark-fashion, if mismatched for partners.

Emily, her back aching, got up and sat on the sofa, watching her children absorbed in their playing. If they had that house in Wiltshire they'd have a lovely big play area just off the kitchen, she thought. She would get window seats made, padded on the top with gorgeous fabric but with pull-out storage for their toys. She'd seen it on one of those makeover programmes and thought it a great idea.

‘Sam?' She went into the kitchen and found him chopping an onion for a chilli sauce. ‘Sam, can we go and look at the Wiltshire house this weekend?'

‘
This
weekend? Er … no, I don't think so. I've got to put together the old annual “My Favourite Christmas Reading” piece for the colour supp. I should have done it last week but it fell off the list.'

‘But you said …'

‘Said what?' He was smiling at her. She thought he looked a bit sly, as if he knew something she didn't. For a crazy moment it crossed her mind he'd had a secret lottery win and already bought it for her. How glorious that would be. She could see herself, seconds from now, throwing her arms round him, giddy with delight and then running to tell the children. Ridiculous, really, but that was what thinking too fast did.

‘You promised that we could go and look at it. If I went to Mum and Dad's for supper last night, you said that was the deal.'

‘Ah yes, that. I did promise and I'll keep the promise. But the old deal also holds. I'm willing to go and look at the place just as I said – but on the way to Thea's wedding. Christmas in Cornwall.'

Emily was overcome once more by the old heart-sink feeling of weightless, numb inability to move. She had no power, not over her body or, it seemed, over anything else.

‘But that's not what you said,' she finally managed to blurt. ‘Snow. I was so scared.' She was rambling. ‘I want to be here this time.'

He stopped chopping and put the knife down and looked at her properly, his eyes gazing hard into hers. ‘I said we'd go and see the house. I didn't say when. I think you'll find
that's
the deal. And it's the one I'm sticking to. There won't be snow in Cornwall this Christmas. You can look at all the weather stats you like but I bet you any money you won't find two of them in a row that were either white or where anyone was snowed in. And if you miss that wedding, Emily, there'll be a hell of a lot of people who won't forget it in a hurry. And at the front of that queue' – he picked up the knife again and made a start on the parsley – ‘there'll be me.'