Once Upon A Winter (14 page)

‘That’s sad. Especially if their parents were dead, too.’

‘I know. Calista inherited a fortune, and a big house in the village. It’s very tucked away, so not one we’d pass daily. And she got married quite young, to Edward. He was very English and upper crust and also loaded.’

‘Does she have children?’

‘No, unfortunately. She’s on her own now.’

Nell stared straight ahead pensively. ‘And you don’t think she’s a crackpot, in spite of appearances?’

‘No,’ said Emma, without even hesitating, ‘because even though she may not front the café, she’s running it behind the scenes. She must have shrewd business sense to have made it the success it is, and she comes up with some ingenious recipes, from what Meryl claims. I don’t think she could do that if she just wafted about all day in her purple dress turning over tarot cards or staring soulfully into her crystal ball.’

‘OK,’ said Nell, after a pause. ‘I’ll go see her. If nothing else but to satisfy my curiosity about this big house and how Calista really dresses when she’s at home.’

Emma grinned. ‘No time like the present then.’

‘What?’ Nell
checked her watch. ‘We have to collect the kids.’

‘I’ll do it. I’m going up to Bryn
Heulog to see Nana Gwen, anyway, and find out how Gareth’s getting on, so it’s no bother. I’ll leave all the presents in my boot, too, and we can sort out hiding them when the kids are in school again tomorrow.’

‘But . . .’ Nell could think of no “buts”.

‘There
are
none,’ said Emma, confirming what Nell already knew. ‘None that are going to hold up in court.’ She smiled encouragingly. ‘Go on, I’ll drop you off. Just call me later if you don’t want to walk back in the dark.’

‘What if she’s not in, though?’

‘Well, she won’t be in the café, or anywhere else in the village, I don’t think. But if she doesn’t answer the door, just ring me and then walk up to the school. I’ll wait for you there.’

‘I feel press-ganged,’ said Nell sourly.

‘Just satisfy your curiosity, and put your mind at rest. And I’m expecting to hear every nitty-gritty detail afterwards,’ said Emma. ‘So you better not let me down.’

‘Would you like a mince pie, cariad?’

Calista Molyneux offered Nell a plate of fresh-from-the-oven pastries, a warm golden brown colour, with a holly motif decorating the top.

‘I’m not much of a mince pie person,’ Nell admitted.

‘Let me try to convert you then,’ Calista tempted her. ‘They’re a new recipe I’ve been working on, and I need another taster, a fresh opinion. Please,’ she wheedled. ‘You need something to go with your coffee. I made it strong, as you asked.’

‘OK. Thank you.’ Nell grudgingly capitulated, and took a mince pie.

Calista Molyneux was a different woman from the one Nell had clashed with the week before.
She was dressed in jeans, jewelled ballerina pumps and a white embroidered shirt, and her hair wasn’t styled the way Nell had expected, either. She had imagined that the purple headscarf might conceal a straggle of grey-black curls, not a poker-straight asymmetrical bob; and there was no sign of any Goth-like kohl around her eyes, just a touch of mascara.

She was glamorous in an understated way for a virtual recluse, thought Nell admiringly. With no trace whatsoever of the Miss
Havisham about her, which was no mean feat in a house as dusty and creaky and dark-panelled as this one.

Obviously, Calista didn’t have a cleaner and wasn’t one for much housework. There were a lot of antiques around, Nell had judged, as Calista had led her through to a huge conservatory at the back, redolent of the Glass House at Kew Gardens. Things seemed tidy enough, but a thin layer of dust coated it all like a fine, misty veil. Except in the conservatory. And the kitchen, Nell guessed.

‘Under-floor heating,’ said Calista suddenly.

‘Sorry?’

‘At some point since you sat down you’ve wondered how I keep this place warm.’ Calista tapped the large, slate-coloured tiles beneath her feet with her sparkly flat shoes. ‘When the floor was redone, I had under-floor heating put in. This is my favourite room in the house, aside from the kitchen.’

Nell glanced around dubiously. The plants seemed to have taken over. ‘It’s very nice
in here.’

‘I have air-conditioning of sorts in the summer,’ said Calista. ‘
But
- that’s not why you’re here. Mr Guthrie - Daniel - suggested to you that I wanted to apologise for my behaviour at the school fayre.’

‘He said something along those lines . . .’

‘I do, cariad. I’m very sorry if I frightened your son. Joshua, isn’t it? And I’m sorry for upsetting you, too. It was lax of me, but . . .’ She tailed off, and pressed her manicured hands down firmly on her knees before rocking forwards, closer to the glass-topped coffee table between them. ‘I couldn’t say anything more to Daniel because he wouldn’t have understood, and the problem is, I suspect you won’t either.’

Nell lifted her chin. Obstinacy sparked inside her. ‘Try me.’

Calista held her gaze searchingly, then sighed. ‘All right. It’s no less than you deserve, as Joshua’s mother.’

‘Look, I know he’s not . .
. ordinary. Since he was little, there’s always been something about him. Something . . .’

‘Other worldly? Ethereal?’ Calista prompted. ‘He’s a beautiful child.’

No one had ever referred to her son like that. To Nell, Joshua was beautiful in a way that could only originate from inside him. Something that spilled out of his soul into his pale skin and glossy black hair and the jade green of his eyes. Every physical attribute her husband had shared, but somehow more heightened and pure.

‘He’s a special boy,’ said Calista. ‘If I were you, I would be proud of him.’

‘I am proud.’

‘He doesn’t need “fixing.”’

Nell took instant umbrage. ‘I never said he did!’

‘Then, why are you so concerned? Daniel confided as much, when he took me back to his office. He said you had enough to deal with, worrying about your son and how he might fit in.’

‘Daniel had no right to tell you that . . .’

‘But it’s true.’

Nell swallowed the anger rising to constrict her throat. ‘I
am
concerned, because I don’t want Joshua to just hover on the edge of society as he grows up. I want him to be accepted.’

‘Then the first person who must accept him - exactly as he is - is his mother,’ said Calista serenely, impervious to Nell’s defensiveness.

Nell scowled. ‘I do accept him! I love him for who he is. But he’s only nine years old, and already there have been too
many people who’ve said to me that something’s not quite right about him. They’ve never been able to define
how
, though, for all their so-called knowledge. And I’ve felt like I’m going down one dead-end after another, because I just want to understand him more . . .’ Nell sighed, and put down her coffee, realising she was trembling too much and in danger of spilling it. ‘
I
don’t want to change him.’ Her voice broke as she muttered, ‘I just know that other people do.’

Calista reach
ed across the table and patted her hand. ‘Then, I’ll help you to understand, cariad. Forewarned is forearmed.’

There was a rustling from deep in the jungle of potted plants. Nell turned her head. Calista
tapped her hand again, urging her to look back round.

‘Don’t worry. It’s just my cat Bluebell. She likes to prowl furtively around in here, probably pretending she’s a panther or something.’ Calista smiled thinly. ‘What I meant before . . . I simply want to help you understand Joshua with a little more clarity. You see, I could recognise how special he was, how miraculous, the instant I took his hand . . . So much
life
in him.’ Calista seemed in awe now. ‘So much life just bursting out everywhere, he can hardly contain it.’

Nell stared mutely at the older woman. To a degree, she understood what Calista meant, but she couldn’t reconcile her own bias towards Joshua with a complete stranger’s reaction.

‘Do you feel to blame for the way Joshua is?’ Calista asked abruptly. ‘Or do you blame your husband?’

‘My - my husband?’ Nell’s hands a
utomatically clenched, as if it was her first instinct, to fight back, to defend herself, even as the bottom dropped out of her stomach. ‘What about him?’

‘Do you think he didn’t accept Joshua? Do you worry that’s the reason he left?’

Nell opened and closed her mouth wordlessly.

‘Did you ever consider that possibility?’ Calista pressed. ‘And do you ever wonder if Joshua might be very different now, if only your husband had stayed?’

‘How - ? How did you know . . . ?’

‘Know what? That Silas Jones left you and the children? Harreloe is a village. Not small by some standards, yet small enough. Nothing much stays hidden for long. You should know this.’

Nell wished she could refute that point - but she couldn’t. ‘I don’t know how much I blame him . . . Joshua was
born
the way he is, I’m sure; but what sort of a boy do I think he might be now if he had a father figure in his life . . . ? I don’t know. And do I think Silas left because of Joshua?’ Nell struggled for as much honesty to shape her answer as she was willing to give away. ‘‘He was better with Joshua, I always thought, than he was with Freya, our daughter. Anyway’ - she shook herself - ‘I don’t want to talk about it. About him.
Silas
.’

‘No, I’m sorry . . . I notice you’re not wearing your wedding
ring,’ said Calista. ‘Although that pretty sapphire on your right hand looks as if it might have been an engagement ring once . . .’

Damn, she was nosy.

‘In a former life, it was,’ said Nell dryly. ‘And actually, I stopped wearing my wedding ring out of necessity. It was a narrow band. A couple of years ago it just snapped.’

Calista’s brow lifted. ‘Really? Did you feel that was a sign? You
didn’t bother to get it mended?’

‘I showed it to a jeweller. He said it was rare but sometimes gold could turn brittle like that. He couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t happen again, even if he fixed it.’

‘Perhaps that meant it was time to move on. Free yourself from the shackles of the past. Did you never see it that way?’

Nell
almost told Calista that it was none of her business, but she felt somehow as if she had strayed into a counselling session that she hadn’t realised she’d booked. There was an element to the older woman that made Nell want to bare her soul; something she had resisted doing for years.

‘That’s one of the reasons we moved back up here,’ said Nell. ‘To make a new start.’

‘And I over-reacted, didn’t I, at the fayre?’ Calista sighed. ‘Again, I apologise. I hope it’s all blown over. Next time I make an appearance, I’ll pretend to be even more weird and dramatic than usual, then everyone can just put it down to Silly Old Calista being sillier than normal.’

Nell smiled weakly, with a trace of gratitude. ‘People are busy enough this time of year. Thankfully, I think they’ve got more important things to worry about than what happened at the
fayre. Joshua seems fine, anyway, that’s the main thing. I don’t really care what anyone says about
me
.’

‘Really? That’s very brave of you.’

Calista’s gaze scoured her face, until Nell realised her statement had not been entirely true. In fact, it had been blatantly false.

‘I put on my act for fun,’ said Calista. ‘It amuses me. But it’s also protection. Whereas you - you don’t need to put on an act. I admire you for that. I admire anyone who can be themselves in public. The irony, of course, is that people probably say far more negative things about Crazy Calista than they would if I was simply myself, as I am now.’

Nell picked up her coffee again, cupping her hands around the art-deco print, bone china mug. ‘Maybe,’ she said slowly, pensively. ‘But at least you know all the stuff they say about “Crazy Calista” isn’t really about
you
. The
real
you. It’s about someone who doesn’t exist, except when you put on that purple dress and headscarf.’

Calista’s lips suddenly spread into a wide, appreciative smile. ‘I like you, Mrs Jones,’ she announced. ‘I hope you come to like yourself just as much, because you should. I think you’ve done a wonderful job raising Joshua. From what Daniel said, and from my brief encounter with the boy, he’s just as he ought to be. No one is to “blame”, in actual fact, because there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s perfect, and you’re a fortunate woman to have brought him into the world. When you can finally see that, I hope you stop worrying so much about him. It’s not about “fitting in”, because wherever he goes, however long he lives, people are always going to need him. He’ll never be lonely. There will always be someone to love him.’

Again, the plants deep in the conservatory seemed to rustle, and Nell turned her head, trying to catch a glimpse of Calista’s elusive cat. But there was no sign of Bluebell in the shadows.

‘Tell me, cariad,’ said Calista commandingly, urging Nell to look back at her again, ‘do you believe in the supernatural?’

Nell’s brow creased. ‘The supernatural? You mean, like . . . ghosts and things?’

‘The “and things” more so than the ghosts. Anything that can’t be explained by
natural law.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Nell guardedly. ‘But not the kind of thing you find in fantasy books. I mean, like vampires or werewolves. Or unicorns.’

‘Well’ - Calista shrugged - ‘I’m not talking along those lines, either. Although I’d love to meet a real unicorn. But sadly, that’s not what I’m referring to.’

Nell hesitated, but felt foolish for even allowing the thought to enter her head. ‘Demons?’

Calista seemed to be choking now. ‘No, no! Not
Rosemary’s Baby
or
The Exorcist.
Nothing half as dark, and certainly nothing satanic.’

‘So, what then?’ said Nell. ‘Angels? Celestial beings?’

‘Not angels, no . . . Although they’ve been mistaken for them, and I can understand why . . . But no. Not a celestial being. And nothing out of the faerie realm, either.’

‘So not Tinker Bell.’

Calista smiled, almost indulgently, at Nell’s dry humour. ‘Not Tinker Bell, no.’

‘Then, what? Where are we going with this?’

‘Well, when I said not a celestial being, I was being honest - but I was also splitting hairs. You see, ‘celestial’ more or less means: “of or belonging to heaven, or the sky”. And the kind of being I’m talking about belongs more to the earth, because it’s humanity’s creation. Flesh and blood, with our DNA. Yet it’s not human in the same sense as you and me - not quite.’

Nell shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, you’ve lost me. I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Ellena . . .
Nell
. . . Do you think that believing in something hard enough, and for long enough, might bring that thing into existence?’

‘I - ’ Nell narrowed her eyes, as a thought occurred to her. ‘Why did you call me
Ellena?’

‘Why . . . ?’ Calista plucked at a piece of lint on her jeans. ‘Isn’t that your name?’