Once Upon A Winter (15 page)

‘Yes. But no one really calls me that. Only a handful of people . . . I introduced myself to you as Nell.’

‘Did you?’ Calista examined the saucer beneath her tea-cup, as if she had spotted a mark invisible to anyone else. ‘My cat,’ she said, and lifted her head. ‘I used to take Bluebell to your father before he retired. Your father calls you
Ellena, doesn’t he? It must have stuck in my head.’

‘I suppose,’ said Nell.

‘Anyway, my question,’ Calista swept on, dragging Nell along with her. ‘About believing in something so much it actually comes to exist.’

‘I don’t think I believe that, no . . .’

‘I’m not saying that mankind was aware it was believing in anything, as such, merely that it became part of folklore, part of the general tradition, transcending cultures and customs, generation after generation. I think, when that happens over such a long period of time, the membrane between reality and fiction wears fragile and thin. So thin, in fact, that the make-believe becomes something tangible. And the more real it becomes, the more it belongs to reality rather than fantasy. Are you following, Nell?’

‘Honestly?’ Nell shook her head. ‘No.’

‘I’m not referring to religion: believing in something based on faith. That’s a distinct issue. I’m talking about something that was always fiction . . . up until the point that it wasn’t. A character. An ideal . . . The archetypal hero.’

Nell was silent again. She took a gulp of coffee.

‘It’s a lot to take in, I know,’ the older woman admitted. ‘But these creations don’t come fully formed. They don’t just materialise out of thin air. They have to be born. They have to be children before they can be anything else. They have to learn, grow, mature. But as children, in their purest form, they still have so much to teach us. We shouldn’t wish that innocence away, because when it’s gone, a part of them goes with it. And I think, tragically, the part that goes is fundamentally the most human.’

Nell blinked down into the dregs of her coffee. ‘Time’s getting on,’ she said softly. ‘Everyone will be wondering where I am.’

‘And I’ve filled your head with too much to think about right here, right now.’ Calista sighed. ‘I understand. And you weren’t hungry, so I’ll wrap up the mince pie in a napkin. You can take it with you. Let me know what you think next time.’ She rose gracefully to her feet.

Nell followed suit, rather less gracefully. She felt stiff, yet shaky. It was dark outside, and the conservatory window directly ahead bounced her dazed expression back at her. As Nell turned towards the door, she thought she caught the reflection of a figure, a man, half-concealed by the potted palm jungle beyond the suite of wicker chairs. Yet as
Nell jolted, and looked back to check, there was nothing except a cluster of shadows. She must have imagined it. Calista’s husband was dead. She lived alone, by all accounts, save for her elusive cat.

And yet, Nell shivered, and suddenly realised the walk down the lane back to the Main Street would be a dark and lonely one.

Calista led her back through the house to the front door.

‘You can see the village Christmas lights from here.’ Calista walked Nell down to the gateposts which marked the edge of her property. She  pointed into the chill December evening. ‘You’re perfectly safe, you know. If you like, I’ll stand right here and you can wave when you get to the Main Street. I’ll see your silhouette.’

Nell shook herself out of her nervous mood. It seemed just as risky to expect Calista to stand alone for a few minutes in the darkness at the end of her driveway.

‘I’ll be fine,’ said Nell. ‘You go back inside. You haven’t got a coat on.’

‘Well, if you’re sure. The road’s fairly even, you shouldn’t twist your ankle or anything like that if you take it slowly.’

‘I’ll be careful.’ Nell turned back. ‘Thank you . . . for the coffee . . . and the chat.’

‘My pleasure, cariad. And please, just drop in whenever you wish. My door will always be open to you and the children. Anytime you want to talk things over again, I’ll be here for you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Nell, her head overflowing with everything Calista had impressed upon her today.

Nell turned and started heading back to civilisation, picking her way cautiously in the starless gloom. She would call her sister once she reached the well-lit, populated Main Street. Emma could drive down and collect her. If she’d had the foresight to call her sooner, Emma could have picked her up from Calista’s. But anyway, it was done.

As Nell reached the end of the lane, though, and sighed up
at the twinkling white lights draped in a zigzag pattern high over her head, from one end of the Main Street to the other, she realised she hadn’t been as uneasy during her short walk in the dark as she’d expected. As if she hadn’t actually felt alone.

Nell hesitated and looked back, squinting at the route she had just taken, uncertain what she expected to see if she strained her vision hard enough. There was nothing back there now except a heavy, opaque sort of darkness. And whatever else there might have
been . . . it hadn’t been malign.

Nell shrugged, as much to dismiss the fanciful notion as to shake off the cold.

She started trudging up the street in the direction of Bryn Heulog, fishing in her bag for her phone.

‘You’re not really here, are you? You haven’t been here since we arrived.’ Daniel stared glumly at Nell over the tea-light candle dancing in its green votive glass.

‘What . . . ?’ She looked up from the pumpkin risotto she’d barely touched, except to push it around her plate.

‘Something’s worrying you,’ said Daniel. ‘You’re distracted.’

‘I . . .’ Nell shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just . . . I didn’t want to cancel tonight. I probably should have, though. I’m not the best company.’

Although she had gone to the effort of wearing a figure-flattering blue dress, the rest of her looked as if she had rushed getting ready. Her hair tumbled in frizzy waves past her shoulders, and her make-up was non-existent, save for some lipstick that had now worn off.

‘Aren’t you feeling well?’ Daniel frowned, and sipped at the glass of Pinot
Grigio he’d ordered for himself. Nell had insisted on driving rather than getting a taxi. She was only drinking soda water, which probably wasn’t helping her relax.

‘No, it’s not that,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’ She looked up from her plate determinedly, as if she’d come to a decision. ‘I went to see Calista Molyneux the other day.’

‘Oh . . .’ Daniel put down his glass. ‘You went in the end. I wasn’t sure you would, after everything you said. How did it go?’

There was a tiny furrow between Nell’s eyebrows. Daniel resisted the urge to reach across and smooth it out with his forefinger, as he used to with Lauren. Nell’s right hand was spread out on the table, though, and he lightly touched her fingertips with his. She didn’t pull back, simply met his gaze candidly.

‘You know, Daniel, I have no idea how it went. I’m still trying to make sense of it all. You were right, though, Calista did apologise. And I liked her - the
real
her. She’s different from how I expected. But some of the things she came out with . . .’ Nell shook her head.

‘Oh?’ Daniel wet his lips. ‘About Joshua, you mean? The stuff she said I wouldn’t understand?’

The waiter slid up to their little table, cosily situated in a nook at the rear of the Italian restaurant, as Daniel had requested.

‘Is everything all right with your meal?’ he asked, with a pointed glance at Nell’s plate.

‘Yes,’ she said quickly, picking up her fork. ‘Delicious, thank you.’

‘Is there anything else I can get you?’

‘No, not at the moment,’ said Daniel. ‘Thanks.’

The waiter pursed his lips and slid off again.

‘You better try and eat something,’ Daniel urged Nell. ‘You can’t worry yourself to death. I won’t let you. We can talk about this later, if you still want to.’

‘You sound like Emma.’

‘Have you talked it over with her?’

‘I tried, but I’m not as eloquent as Calista. Emma just looked at me as if I’d imagined everything Calista said, or totally got the wrong end of the stick. But I don’t even know what end of the stick I’ve got, so how she could say that . . .’

‘Eat,’ said Daniel forcefully.

‘OK,’ Nell muttered. ‘Is your veal
parmigiana nice?’ she added, looking up at him through soft brown lashes.

Daniel grinned rapturously. ‘When you exist on microwave meals, it’s ambrosia.’

Her smile was like a kick in the ribs. The way she hooked her hair behind her ears, exposing her pretty face rather than hiding it, made him want to circle the table and . . .

Steady, Dan. Geez.
It’s been a while, but don’t take the mick. You’re not Casanova.

‘So, rather than an awkward silence,’ Nell said, between mouthfuls, ‘as you’ve practically finished your meal, why don’t you tell me more about your trip to Italy. Visiting your mum - right? You said she got remarried, to an Italian, a couple of years ago. Tell me about it.’

When the only other option was staring dopily across the table like some overawed adolescent, Daniel was only too happy to oblige.

*

A two-seater, floral-print sofa had never seemed more intimidating. Nell blinked down at it as Daniel took her coat and offered her a drink. She declined, and perched on the edge of the sofa.

‘This brings back memories.’ Nell sighed as Daniel hung up their coats on a couple
of hooks in the small, cramped hallway.

He looked back at her through the open living room door. ‘When your grandmother lived in the Annexe, you mean?’

‘You haven’t changed much around here.’

‘Well . . .’ Daniel came back in, flopped on to the other end of the sofa, and hooked one leg over the other as he turned to face her. ‘This was only meant to be transitional, while the divorce went through. When the dust settles, I’m planning to get something more permanent. I appreciate the favour your dad’s done by letting me stay here. It was totally unwarranted, and generous of him, considering . . .’ He looked remorseful.

Nell didn’t want to get into that again. There was enough to wade through in her head right now. ‘Is the dust still settling then?’

‘Sort of.’ Daniel looked up. ‘It seems there’s a solid buyer for the house. During the divorce, Lauren and I came to the agreement that I’d get back my initial investment. Most of it was my inheritance, from when Dad died. It’s a fair whack, so I shouldn’t have any problems starting over again. Lauren wants to move to Chester, where she works, and rent a flat there. She’s not leaving the marriage empty-handed, by any means, so she’ll be fine, too.’

‘At least there weren’t any children involved. That only makes breaking up harder and more complicated.’

‘It must do, yes.’ Daniel picked at a loose thread poking out from his trouser seam. ‘You know, it wasn’t that Lauren and I didn’t want kids. I would have gladly had two or three by now. And it wasn’t that we couldn’t have them, although I guess we’ll never know for sure. We just never got around to trying. Lauren kept putting it off; like many women do, I suppose.’

‘You were comparatively young when you got married. There was lots of time, in theory.’

Daniel nodded. ‘Young, enthusiastic, but totally unprepared. I thought we did really well to get through those early years. Anyway, Nell Jones, you married young, too.’

‘Emma did, as well,’ Nell pointed out. ‘And I don’t like the way that’s going right now. Gareth is being really . . . weird at the moment.’

‘A temporary hiccup, let’s hope,’ Daniel acknowledged grimly. ‘What I mean, though, is that you got hitched and had your children relatively quickly. You didn’t hang
around.’

‘I didn’t have a career, though. I didn’t go to university, like you. When I met Silas, I was just temping and drifting from one job to another, wondering what I was going to do with my life . . .’

‘So you decided motherhood was your vocation?’

Nell’s gaze slid over to Daniel’s bookcase, and the rows of high-brow literary novels jostling for space with sporting autobiographies and academic non-fiction. She felt out of her depth, suddenly. This man was intelligent and well-educated, and what he lacked in materialistic ambition he made up for in his dedicatio
n to his pupils and his school.

‘Motherhood was something I fell into,’ she admitted at last, turning back to Daniel with a feeble smile. ‘Silas and I didn’t plan it. I thought we were being careful. We were both a bit shocked when I did the pregnancy test.’

‘He didn’t want kids?’

‘Yes . . . No. That is, he was surprised and a little . . . I don’t know, shaken up by it. As if bringing another life into the world made him face up to his own mortality. I remember him saying something along those lines, once or twice, especially when we found out at my first scan that it was twins. He seemed resolved to fatherhood, rather than happy.’ Nell shifted on the sofa, sinking back into it as opposed to just perching. ‘It was different for me. I was content being a wife, but I only seemed to come properly alive when I gave birth to Joshua and Freya.’

‘Was Silas jealous of them, maybe?’ Daniel speculated. ‘Do you think that’s why he bailed out? There are men out there with Peter Pan complexes who don’t want to be reminded that they’re growing up.’

Oh, not this. Not again. The futile probing of the collapse of her marriage from yet someone else’s point of view.

‘I don’t know,’ said Nell. ‘That wasn’t really what I came back here tonight to talk about . . .’

‘Sorry.’ Da
niel reached across and touched her arm contritely. ‘You wanted to offload about your visit to Calista. Why don’t you tell me what she said.’

‘Even if it makes no sense?’

‘Especially if it makes no sense.’

‘OK,’ said Nell slowly. She took a deep breath, then launched straight in.

As she spoke haltingly, Daniel’s expression flittered from anticipation to bewilderment and then to something Nell couldn’t fathom at all.

‘Wow,’ he said hoarsely, when she’d finished. ‘I can see why you’re floored.’

‘Why did this happen to me?’ said Nell, welling up with a sudden desperation, as if opening up to Daniel without being constantly interrupted, as she had with Emma, had somehow made it all too real and overwhelming. ‘I’m just a plain, ordinary girl from North Wales. Nothing special about me. So why did
I
have Joshua?’

Daniel shifted closer to her on the sofa. ‘So Calista claims he’s destined to be special? Like some sort of . . . Chosen One?’

‘Of course you sound dubious,’ said Nell plaintively, searching his face. ‘Anyone would. It’s all . . . insane. But she said this wasn’t a religious thing. And she spoke in the plural, as if there are more of them out there . . . More children like Joshua. More . . . adults, too, I suppose.’

‘“Archetypal heroes”?’

Nell nodded. ‘Whatever that means exactly.’ 

‘So, if you apply some logic to what Calista said,’ Daniel broached cautiously, ‘then you need to think genetically. And if there’s never been anyone quite like Joshua in your side of the family before, then . . .’

‘Silas?’ murmured Nell, after a moment’s hesitation.

‘Is that possible, do you think? Nell, I’ve never met the man, so . . .’

‘Joshua is the image of him. But . . .’ She shook her head, every nerve-end fizzing with the memory of the man she had married. ‘What does Calista mean by “archetypal”?’

‘What did Silas do for you, Nell? How did you meet him? What was he really like? I can’t help you with any of that, because the only image I have of him is a grown-up Joshua without any trace of your son’s integrity. Just a bastard who walked out on his family and didn’t look back.’

Nell shook her head again, as if trying to clear out the tangled mess. ‘He was never really completely mine,’ she said at last. ‘That’s all I can tell you that might make any sense. We dated, we got engaged, we got married - all in a short space of time. And then we had kids. But . . . I think I was always waiting in vain for the day when I’d feel he
belonged
to me. As if he was keeping something back . . . As if I was just . . . borrowing
him for a while . . . The thing is, he was my first and only, in so many ways - how was I to know it wasn’t supposed to be like that?’

Nell had somehow found herself in the circle of Daniel’s arms. His head rested against hers with such tenderness and security, she felt a tear escape her eye and tickle her cheek as it rolled down. Hastily, she smeared it away.

‘Do you think it isn’t meant to be that way?’ she heard him ask gently.

‘In spite of the cards I’ve been dealt,’ said Nell, ‘I still think there ought to be more.’

‘So do I.’ He pulled away slightly, so that they could look at each other, face to face. His finger slowly lifted her chin.

Before Nell could resist, or even wonder if resisting was actually what she wanted to do, Daniel was kissing her. Hesitantly at first, until Nell found herself kissing him back, as if conceding to a primal need she had repressed along with everything else.

It was Daniel who pulled back eventually, staring at her with happy, surprised eyes. ‘I think we ought to slow this down a bit,’ he muttered huskily.

‘I think perhaps you’re right.’ Nell smoothed down her hair. ‘I can’t even blame it on alcohol, can I?’

‘I like you too much, Nell.’ Daniel stroked her face gently with his thumb. ‘I don’t want us to rush this and mess things up.’

‘I’d - I’d better go anyway. It’s getting late.’ She swayed to her feet. ‘Will you keep in touch over Christmas, Daniel?’

He rose to his own feet. ‘I’ll text you every day. I half wish I wasn’t going away now,’ he added.

‘You don’t. You’ll have a great time. It’ll be lovely to see your mum. She always had a smile for everyone,
so different from your dad.’ Nell instantly realised what she’d said. ‘Oh, Daniel, I’m sorry -’

‘No, you’re right. Mum’s great. I miss her. I just wish I could spend the holidays here with you as well . . .’

Nell stretched up and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘Apart from missing my dad - and you, too, now, of course - it’ll be like every other Christmas I’ve spent recently at Bryn Heulog,’ she predicted. ‘Uneventful.’

‘In a way, I’m glad about that,’ said Daniel sheepishly. ‘But I hate leaving you when you’ve got so much on your plate.’