The Barn on Half Moon Hill (6 page)

‘Wonderful,' said Franco, clicking his fingers as an idea came to him. ‘Cariad, do you have a phone?'

‘Of course. Do you need to ring someone?' she said, handing over her iPhone.

Franco reached out for it and told Sue not to leave. ‘Let's have a photo. The three of us.'

‘I'm not . . .' Sue protested lightly, but Franco was too charming to turn down seriously. He asked the gentleman on the next table if he would mind taking the picture. Sue
stood in the middle, Franco picked up his plate and menu, making sure that the name of the restaurant was facing the lens. Cariad stood at the other side of Sue. Then they changed positions, with
Franco in the middle, arms around both ladies.

‘There, that wasn't so painful, was it?' said Franco to Sue, as they viewed the photos on the screen. ‘You look great.' Funniest of all was Ena photobombing in the
background.

‘And, Sue, you can tell everyone you had your picture taken with Michael Bublé. But not the real one.' Franco winked at her.

‘The Irish Michael Bublé with the funniest bloody accent I've ever heard.' Sue chuckled. ‘Do you want anything else or shall I tot up your bill? Apple pie? Treacle
tart? Sherry trifle. All home-made. Not like Grinter's darn t'road.'

Cariad shook her head. She hadn't any room left for more.

‘I think we're done,' said Franco, sounding more South African now than Emerald Isle as he sat back down in the red-cushioned booth.

‘That was nice of you, having your picture taken with the waitress.' Cariad smiled. ‘She's going to drop with shock when she realises who you really are.'

‘Send Sedgewick's the picture, Cariad. They can tell everyone that Franco Mezzaluna eats here and they have the proof.
Grinter's darn t'road
won't be able
to get that kind of PR.'

His Yorkshire accent sounded more Irish than his Irish one did.

‘Aw, that's lovely.' Cariad grinned. ‘I'm changing my opinion of you.' She settled back down on her seat and put her phone back in her bag. She couldn't
wait to email that photo to her mam.

‘Good.' He grinned back. ‘I'm glad I got something right today.'

‘So, what's happening when you get back to America then?' said Cariad, pouring out the last of the tea from the pot.

‘I start work on another film in two days. My leading lady is a renowned pain in the ass. And an ex.'

‘Oh dear. All your girlfriends sound like horrors. Hollywood versions of Becky and Lacey. I hope you find someone nice soon.'

‘Someone like you.'

Cariad gulped. Had he really said that? She had a sudden vision of floating down the aisle of a huge cathedral, wearing a white silk dress with a forty-foot train but the image dissolved no
sooner than it had formed.

‘I don't think we'd make a very good couple,' said Cariad, with a small shrug of her shoulders.

Franco opened his mouth in a mock gasp. ‘You're turning me down, Miss Williams?'

‘I couldn't do with all that jet-setting. And living my life under a microscope. I don't know how you do it.'

Franco downed the last of his tea. ‘I've lived in the spotlight for so long, I don't know what else there is,' he said.

‘You'd find something if you had to,' said Cariad, taking her purse out of her handbag.

It sounded to Franco that she was speaking from experience.

Jacques found Eve in the reindeer hut. She had her head in her hands and she was crying.

He rushed over to her and put his big arms around her and pulled her into his chest, and she let him.

‘What is it, my darling? What's the matter? It's killing me, seeing you so upset. Is it something I've done?'

‘No, it's not you, it's me.'

It's not you, it's me. Is this how this was going to go? That famous way to end a relationship when you had fallen out of love with someone?

‘I need to know, Eve. Whatever it is, I need to know.'

Eve lifted her head. ‘It's Jonathan,' she said. ‘I don't know what to do.'

‘I'll ring a taxi for you,' said Cariad, as they walked outside.

‘Wait a few minutes. I want to look at some of your beautiful Yorkshire scenery,' replied Franco, taking in the view from the top of Half Moon Hill: the stunning old railway viaduct,
the cluster of houses that made up the market town of Penistone, the farms and their fields, the tall, white wind turbines in the distance, their blades resting today in the still air. It was the
most gorgeous summery late afternoon; the air was as warm as a coat yet only a couple of hours ago he had been surrounded by snow in Winterworld. It had been a very unusual day all round, though as
far from unpleasant as it was possible to get.

‘What's that?' he asked, as his eyes touched on a single-storey wreck across the road.

‘It's sort of an old barn,' said Cariad.

‘Let's go look.'

‘There's nothing there.'

‘Humour me.' He held his hand out to her. ‘Come on,' he urged, when she wouldn't take it. Eventually, she slipped her hand into his and felt his fingers tighten
around hers.

‘It's been empty for years, apparently. There's nothing to see,' she protested as he pulled her along with him.

‘You're still limping.'

‘I know. That Becky one gave me a hell of a kick.'

They crossed the road and walked down the overgrown path to the building which had so intrigued Franco.

‘I've always dreamed of owning an old place in England,' Franco said. ‘I want to spend more time in this country and I like this view a lot. Imagine how it would be to
wake up to it. Especially on a snowy morning. Plus, it's on
Half Moon
Hill, maybe that's a sign I should buy this old ruin and breathe new life into it.'

The building was indeed a wreck. Franco peered in through one of the broken windows and saw a long, wide hall, part mirrored on one wall.

‘What was this place? It doesn't look much like a barn inside.'

‘It used to be a school once, a dance school.'

‘You're kidding?'

‘No, I'm not. It closed down and for a while one of the local farmers used it for his animals and to store his hay in. Then it was considered too dangerous to keep any livestock in
so it's just been left to rot.'

‘How many years has it been empty?'

‘A long time, but it came up for sale at the end of last year.'

‘No one has bought it and it has a view like this?' Franco raked his fingers into his wavy black Italian hair.

‘You can't build anything else on the land. You'd only be allowed to renovate this back into a dance school, that was the proviso of the sale, and it would cost far too much
money.'

Franco turned on his heel to look at Cariad. ‘You seem to know quite a lot about it.'

‘I know 'cos I flaming own it. It's mine,' she replied with the heaviest of sighs.

‘Jonathan?' asked Jacques, his voice a breathy whisper. Eve's fiancé Jonathan had died over seven years ago. He'd been a soldier in Afghanistan
and had been killed on Christmas Day. It had taken Eve years to finally let him go.

Eve nodded and a single, solitary tear dropped down her cheek.

‘Start at the beginning,' said Jacques, taking her hands in his. She was shivering.

Eve began talking quietly: ‘Do you remember when I went shopping with Violet in Manchester last month?' Jacques nodded. ‘We were walking down one of the streets and I saw
Marie, Jonathan's ex-fiancée. Do you remember? She was the one he left for me?'

‘I remember,' said Jacques, not quite sure where this was going.

‘She was with a man. They both had wedding rings on and she was pushing a pram with a baby girl in it.' More tears were falling from Eve's eyes now. ‘She's moved
on. Well and truly on.'

‘Ye-es, it sounds like it,' replied Jacques softly. ‘That's good, isn't it?' He had gathered that Marie was devastated by the split. But then it had been a
long time since Jonathan had died.

‘It's as if he never existed, isn't it? I've moved on and she's moved on.'

‘And that is life, my darling.'

‘It's like Jonathan's been forgotten though. He's disappeared into a hole and it's closed up over his head.' Eve pulled her hands from Jacques in order to
wipe her cheeks. ‘His parents won't have grandchildren. I keep thinking he's up in heaven all lonely . . .'

‘Oh, Eve, my love,' Jacques said sympathetically. So that's what had been worrying her all this time. That was an anxiety and a half to be carrying around with her.

‘I know it sounds mad . . .'

‘Do you know what I think?' He said, cutting her off. ‘I've seen a few good men, young men, who left this earth way before they should have and, in my darkest times, I
had thoughts along those same lines as you. Then I began to wonder that if our spirits do go on to something else, maybe they dwell in many houses of happy memories and moments with all the people
who loved them, not just one. That's how I processed it into some shape that I could make sense of and, in the absence of any solid evidence, it's what I like to believe. We don't
know what there is beyond this world, but this has helped me to deal with those I knew who died much too soon.'

He looked into her eyes, which were as green as Christmas trees. There was something she hadn't told him yet, he could sense it. Then she did tell him.

‘I'm pregnant, Jacques,' said Eve.

‘You own this?' Franco half gasped, half laughed.

‘Yep. I've been a right stupid idiot.'

‘Why? I mean . . . well, I mean, why?'

There was a bench outside the door of the dance school-cum-barn, which appeared to be the most solid structure around. Cariad sank down onto it.

‘I had the mad idea of opening up a dance school.'

‘Well, that's not a bad idea, is it?' said Franco.

‘The woman who used to own it, Mavis Wickersley, was famous around here. She worked in Paris as a Bluebell girl and then came back home and founded this place. She had a fantastic
reputation. She wanted it to carry on being a dance school, which is why her estate wouldn't sell it for any other purpose.'

‘You should do this, Cariad.' Franco was insistent. ‘And you should never have stopped dancing.'

‘But I'm a—' She cut herself off.

‘You're a what?' Franco sat down on the bench beside her. ‘Cariad, talk to me. What are you?'

Cariad sighed. Oh, where to begin? ‘Do you remember there was a time when I didn't write to you for ages? When my dad died.'

‘Yes, I do. Then you started writing again and that's when you told me you weren't going to be a dancer any more.'

‘I was in the same car crash that killed my da. My leg was crushed. They thought I might lose it at one point, but they managed to patch it up with a lot of metal and operations. But I had
to wave goodbye to any ambitions to be the principal dancer in
Swan Lake
.'

‘Oh.' Franco hadn't been expecting that. He thought she told him everything in those letters. ‘You didn't say.'

‘Boring, innit? Who wants to hear hospital news?'

‘So that's why you gave up wanting to dance?'

‘I never gave up
wanting
to dance. But I can't dance, can I? I tried to forget about it, but I couldn't. It's like it's in my blood.

I came up here for fish and chips and I saw this place the very day they were hammering the For Sale notice in the ground. I had a lot of compensation money sitting in my bank for a little house
but this mad idea overtook my whole brain:
I might not be able to dance properly, but I can teach others to, can't I?
Never mind half moon, I think there must have been a full moon
that day that turned me bonkers. All I could think of was my da saying to me, “Cariad Williams, don't you dare look down at a little moon in a puddle, when you can look up and see it
big in the sky.” So instead of a nice little flat, I went and bought this instead. On a mad whim. How stupid can you be? My mam and my uncle Effin would kill me if they knew.'

‘I'm a great believer that what is meant to be will be, if that helps?' said Franco, after a few moments' contemplation.

‘No, it doesn't bloody help at all. I should put it up for sale but I paid far too much for it and I'll end up making a loss, if I manage to sell it at all. I can't
afford to do it up, so I'm stuck with it.'

‘Do you have a key?'

Cariad reached into the side pocket of her handbag. ‘I carry one with me just in case I'm on the verge of doing anything impulsive ever again,' she said. ‘It reminds me
to shut my mouth.' She walked over to the door and jiggled the key in the lock.

They stepped inside and gazed around. Okay, so it had a Swiss-cheese roof and straw on the floor, but the main room still held the air of a dancing studio. Cariad could clearly see it restored
in her mind's eye, and it was torturous.

‘Would you be a good dance teacher?' asked Franco.

‘I'd be the best, I'll have you know,' Cariad threw back at him, mightily aggrieved.

Franco bowed. ‘May I have the pleasure of this dance, Miss Williams? I promise I won't do the
Dirty Dancing
lift.'

Cariad was about to tell him not to be so daft, but her limbs betrayed her and her hands came out to meet his. Together they gently waltzed around the dilapidated room and, as they did so,
Franco Mezzaluna had an idea.

‘Pregnant?' Jacques mouth formed the words, but no sound came out.

Eve nodded. ‘Nearly three months. I haven't been sick or anything, I just
knew
. I bought a pregnancy-testing kit that day in Manchester and it confirmed it.'