Once Upon A Winter (9 page)

It was the largest room on the ground floor, and had once accommodated a long table as well as an assortment of cupboards.

There was only a lonely black stove in there now.

‘It was never a fitted kitchen,’ explained Nell. ‘I suppose my dad’s arranged for one to be put in, though.’ She hoped it would be traditional, in keeping with the place, and not glaringly modern.

‘The stove looks like it’s staying,’ said Daniel, sounding pleased.

‘Wood-burning,’ said Nell. ‘I think.’

They stood side by side for a moment, staring into the cottage, before Truffle wriggled in Nell’s arms, and she was forced to put him down.

‘Listen.’ Daniel spun to face her abruptly, reaching out and grabbing her arm, as if
worried she might bolt. ‘I’d like us to be friends, Nell.’

‘Oh.’ Nell blinked up at him, fazed. ‘Right.’

‘That sounded like such a cliché, didn’t it? What I mean, is . . .’ He took a deep breath, before blurting out, ‘I know you hate me. And you have every reason to. It’s just -’

‘Please . . .
Daniel’ - Nell gently extracted herself from his hold - ‘“hate” is a very strong word. I don’t really want to talk about what went on when we were at St Cecil’s. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then.’ Now she was the one spewing clichés. They were as bad as each other.

‘But I’m not the same person I was then,’ Daniel continued. ‘And I don’t think you are, either. So it would be healthy, I think, for both of us, to just start with a fresh, clean slate. Another cliché,’ he groaned. ‘Sorry, but -’

‘Look.’ Nell tried to pull herself up to her full height; but she was never going to come anywhere close to Daniel’s. ‘I forgive you. Is that what you need me to say? I forgive you for being a kid back then, and I accept that you’re an adult now. OK?’

‘Nell, I realise you have a grudge against all men at the moment, and obviously I fall into that category -’

‘What?’ she cut in icily. ‘What makes you think I’ve got a grudge against men?’

‘Er,’ Daniel visibly faltered, ‘your sister said something . . . About what happened with your ex-husband . . .’

‘He’s not my ex,’ snapped Nell, turning away and trying to scoop up Truffle again, who was having none of it. The dog must have sensed her mood had switched abruptly.

‘Nell, I’m making a pig’s ear of this, but what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to be judged by whatever that man did. Just judge me for what
I
did. And if you really have forgiven me, then I don’t want to act like I need to apologise around you all the time.’ He looked at her pleadingly. ‘Do you get what I’m trying to say?’

Nell sniffed. ‘I’m not stupid. Of course I get it.’

‘I don’t want to keep trying to avoid you every time I set foot outside.’

‘You were avoiding
me
?’

‘Well, in a way. I wanted to talk to you about all this, but there were always other people around you. The kids, or your sister. And I was glad I caught you here, like this, today, because I needed to say all this. I feel terrible about what Emma said happened,
but it was twenty years ago, and if I’ve learned anything lately, it’s that I don’t want to feel guilty any more.’

Nell stared at him, frozen to the spot, held rapt by his eloquence and the way his grey eyes had come alive, full of turbulence and passion, like the storm they resembled. He would have made a skilful lawyer. Perhaps his father had been right.

‘Oh,’ she mumbled eventually, but then something he’d said set alarm bells ringing again. ‘“Something Emma said happened,”’ Nell echoed. ‘Those were your words just now, weren’t they?’

‘Um . . .’

‘Do
you
know what happened when we were at St Cecil’s? I mean, do you
remember
it?’

‘Frankly?’ said Daniel, and gulped. ‘No.’

‘So, when we met again the other week, you really didn’t know who I was - did you? You really couldn’t remember me.’

‘Not at first. Not exactly. But, like I said then, you’ve changed a lot . . .’

‘
That
much?’ Nell shook her head. ‘I think that’s just a convenient excuse.’ She frowned at him one last time, before turning and breaking into a stride, urging Truffle to follow.

‘Nell,’ called out Daniel, sounding exasperated, ‘you’re an attractive woman with a lot going for her. I’m guessing you weren’t so bolshie, either, back when we were sixteen, because believe me, I would have noticed you. You would have been just my type.’

Nell could feel a blush burning her cheeks, searing upwards from the striped scarf around her neck. She had no choice but to come to a halt, because Truffle had decided he wasn’t going anywhere.

Her stopping had absolutely nothing to do with anything Daniel had said. But she turned back anyway, staring at him challengingly as he gazed back at her with mutual defiance.

‘Can we go out to dinner?’ he said, breaking the charged silence again.

‘No,’ said Nell, and made a grab for Truffle, who dodged her.

‘Lunch then?’

‘No. We’re living under the same roof, more or less. People will talk.’

‘So let them.’

‘My children go to your school.’

‘It’s not “my” school. And there’s no law against it.’ 

‘Daniel -’

‘Call me, Dan,’ he said firmly, coming over all Alpha-male now.

‘Daniel. I don’t date. I haven’t dated anyone since . . . since my husband. I didn’t come back to Harreloe to mess up my life, or complicate it with a relationship. I came home to straighten it out.’

‘One dinner doesn’t amount to a relationship,’ Daniel pointed out. ‘And it wouldn’t be an affair, either, regardless of how you classify your marital status. It’s just a meal. Two people, who could become friends, sitting down to eat together in a restaurant.’

Nell tried to swallow, but her throat felt too dry. She wanted to say no again, but the word wouldn’t come to her lips.

‘I promise not to stand you up this time,’ said Daniel, and a roguish smile spread across his mouth that turned up the heat in Nell’s cheeks by several degrees.

She put a hand to her face, conscious that Daniel had probably noticed how flushed she’d become. He was such a sod.

‘OK,’ she heard herself mutter. ‘But I pick the date and time. And I drive.’

‘Well my bike isn’t a tandem. We could take a taxi -’

‘No.’

‘Do I get to choose the place then? Am I allowed one concession?’

‘Fine. But nowhere in Harreloe. And nowhere too fancy, either,’ Nell continued, ‘because I’m paying my half of the bill.’

‘Do you want all this in writing?’

‘No.’

‘Truffle can be our witness then.’

Nell pushed up the cuff of her anorak and glanced at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go. They’ll be back from church and wondering where I am.’

Dani
el stood there, grinning. ‘We’ll talk soon,’ he called, as she turned and walked away a second time, with an oddly compliant Truffle this time.

Nell made a noise, like a harrumph, and didn’t look round again.

‘It was a moment of madness,’ said Nell. ‘
I can’t believe I said yes.’ She scooped the crate, which had once been overflowing with scraps of material and now contained a pile of cushion covers, out of her boot. ‘He wore me down, though. He wouldn’t let up. It was as if . . . as if he turned my anger against me.’ She shuddered from cold and unease. ‘He’s going to be here today - isn’t he?’

‘Oh, for crying out loud, Nell, you’ve been like a stuck record all week.’ Emma led the way through the school gates, carrying one of her cake boxes, determinedly ma
rching on ahead with her hair rippling gloriously behind her. ‘And of course Dan’s going to be here,’ she informed Nell over her shoulder. ‘It’s the school fayre, and he’s still acting Head. He’ll be networking. Harreloe Primary’s poster boy. All the mums think he’s great. They’ll be massively jealous of you.’

‘You make him sound like a piece of meat.’

‘He’s a mate. He wouldn’t mind.’

‘He’d probably mind more because he
is
your friend. And I hope you haven’t been spreading rumours already, because there’s nothing to spread, except the dregs of your own putrid imagination.’

‘Were you always such a prude, Nell? And honestly, I haven’t told anyone. You know I haven’t.’

‘It’s just one dinner. I can’t think about anything else. We’re not dating.’

‘No, I know you’re not. Because you’re both yards away from each other at Bryn
Heulog, but you haven’t spoken since Sunday in the woods. Now, in my opinion, that’s not what people do when they’re going out. You’re avoiding him again.’

‘Yes. I am. I wouldn’t know what to say. It’s awkward. One minute I was standing there, fuming over the way he’d humiliated me, even though it was years ago and people might think I’m over-reacting now. The next, I was agreeing to go out for a meal with him.’

‘You always did over-complicate everything.’

‘Look, we haven’t even arranged an actual day for this . . .’ Nell wasn’t sure what she should call it.

‘Non-date?’ Emma smirked as they entered the school building. ‘Remember, I’m happy to babysit. We’ll work out the logistics later.’

‘It might not even happen. Maybe he’s got cold feet.’

‘Or maybe he’s just worried
you
have.’

Nell didn’t reply. Her sister led the way along the deserted corridors to the hall. All the children were in their classrooms after lunch break. A few volunteer mothers and grandmothers were putting up the stalls for the
fayre so that it could kick off as soon as the last bell rung at three o’clock. Trestle tables had already been set up around the hall. Red, green and white garlands festooned the walls, and metres of tinsel had been garishly wound around a Christmas tree positioned on the stage beside a giant plastic elf, which looked as if it had been wheeled out as a prop every year for over a decade.

Although Nell was wearing tight jeans, tan boots and a favourite tangerine-coloured jumper, compared to everyone else she seemed to have fallen slightly short, as if they had made just a little more effort.

Nell’s hair never seemed to cascade as stylishly as other women’s. Perhaps because she didn’t go near it with wands or straighteners. She had decided it looked OK today, at the very least, and left it to wave and kink loosely down her back, trimming her fringe slightly this morning over the bathroom basin, so it wasn’t poking her in the eyes.

Who had she gone to any trouble for, though?

Herself? Daniel? Her children - so that she didn’t embarrass them completely?

To make a good impression? Although not a first one, because she had already been introduced by Emma to most of the mums here. Her sister wasn’t one to allow her to melt into the scenery in the playground at drop-off or pick-up time. Emma persistently thrust Nell forward, forcing her to mix and chat and comment on things Nell had never wanted to comment on before in her life, and not because Nell needed to do all this, but because Emma felt she ought to.

‘You’ve got to chill out, Nell,’ Emma had directed. ‘Stop being so aloof. You think you can’t be sociable, but you can. It’s easy.’

‘
Why do you want me to fit a stereotype, Em?’ Nell had resisted. ‘I’m not girly, or chatty, or gossipy.’

Emma made it look simple, though; breezing through the playground, laughing, joking, exchanging pleasantries and making it appear so fluid and genuine. She liked to
remind Nell that they were all in the same boat. All mums together, with no one passing judgment.

To Nell, that was sadly delusional of her sister. Everyone was constantly judging everyone else. To pretend they weren’t was storing up trouble for yourself.

‘Ladies,
hello
! Over here!’

Nell and Emma both turned
as Antonia descended on them. Toni, as everyone called her. Despot of the ‘Friends of Harreloe Primary’. An Amazonian woman with perfectly red lips, as if they had been permanently stained that colour.

‘I’ve saved you two tables,’ said Toni briskly, from behind a clipboard. ‘Emma, you can set up at this end of the refreshments stall. Nell, are you happy enough here?’ She pointed to a table spread with a green paper cloth. ‘Not too close to the food and drink, is it? You don’t want grubby finger marks all over those cushions.’ She leaned over the crate Nell was still lugging. ‘They look gorgeous. Well done!’

‘Um . . . I’m not actually going to be selling these myself, am I?’ said Nell, carefully placing her cargo on the table.

‘Why not?’ her sister countered instantly. ‘I’m selling my cakes myself. Joshua and Freya will be fine wandering around the hall with Rose and Ivy. They’re hardly going to get lost. In my experience, they’ll keep coming back to you every time they run low on loose change, anyway.’

‘But Joshua will get bored,’ said Nell. ‘I was only going to stay half-an-hour and -’

‘Of course he won’t get bored!’ Toni dismissed her concerns. ‘And he isn’t down to see Father Christmas until
gone four, anyway. We do it in alphabetical order.’

‘He’s down to see Father Christmas? Oh . . .’ Nell had stopped taking Joshua to any sort of Santa’s grotto when he turned seven. He had infuriated the last Santa he’d met with an endless interrogation about the North Pole. Nell had sensed the man behind the beard gradually losing his patience, and had whipped her son away before the little boy’s illusions could be shattered forever.

‘Is there a problem with that?’ enquired Toni, lowering her voice to add, ‘It’s only Daffyd, the caretaker.’

Nell gave a weak smile. ‘No . . . it’s fine.’

‘Great. So, set up your cushion covers here. They’re retailing at five pounds each. I think that’s good value, don’t you? I’ll be buying a couple myself probably. I’ll come back in a minute, when you’ve got them all out, and have a proper root around.’ Toni fished one out of the crate. ‘It’s very professional stitching, you know. You’re very talented, Nell. I wish I could sew like this.’ Her red lips spread into a gracious smile. ‘Thank you very, very much for helping us out. I know it was last minute, and you must have been busy settling in still, but we do appreciate it.’

Nell felt a warm glow lighting her up from inside. ‘Er, thank you. Anything to help.’

‘I told you Nell wouldn’t let us down,’ said Emma emphatically. She winked at Nell as Toni hurried off, flapping her clipboard at a middle-aged lady in a flowing, purple chiffon dress. ‘See,’ she murmured, ‘Toni’s not so bad, after all. None of them are. You’ve got to get over this inferiority complex.’

But Nell wasn’t paying a lot of attention to her sister, who could sound like a stuck record much of the time herself. She was staring at the lady in the purple dress, who had a matching chiffon headscarf tied in a knot at the nape of her neck, and large, gold hoop earrings.

‘Who’s
that
?’ she asked, inclining her head towards her. ‘She looks like some kind of Gypsy Rose Lee. And why is she setting up a tent? It’s like some sort of wigwam.’

‘Who?’ Emma turned to look. ‘Oh . . . That’s Calista. I suppose you don’t remember her, not looking like that, but she’s been a fixture in Harreloe since before we were born.’

‘But - I thought . . . That’s not Calista from the café?’ Nell frowned. It was an unusual enough name, how many could there be in a place this size?

‘The lady who’s always in the café is just Calista’s manager, Meryl,’ said Emma, ‘and the other girl is just an assistant. Calista Molyneux hasn’t worked behind that counter in years. And that tent is part of her
fortune-telling act.’

‘
Fortune-telling? At a Christmas fayre?’ Nell twitched an eyebrow sceptically.

‘She does it at the drop of a hat. It’s virtually the only time you see her.
Fayres, fetes, boot sales. She’s even done it to raise funds for the church. Which is a bit weird, but everyone puts up with it because it’s only for fun - and charity. She never gives anyone a bad reading. It’s just her and a crystal ball mainly and a silly voice, and sometimes she reads palms, too. She thinks of herself as a bit of a psychic. Says she has Romany blood in her veins, on her mother’s side.’

‘Well, I’ll be steering clear. And I thought it was the “devil’s work”, fortune-telling
and stuff like that. Isn’t it? I didn’t think she’d be allowed.’

‘The reverend’s very . . . progressive. “Quirky”, I call it. And so is Mr
Frennison. Besides, Calista’s harmless. You should have a go. It’s all just a joke, whatever she says. Like fortune cookies. Everyone knows not to take it seriously, and it’s the only time she ever seems to make an appearance, so I guess people indulge her. I’ve never had anything she said about me come true. Now’ - Emma heaved a sigh - ‘I can’t stand around here all day. I’ve got to set these cakes up and then fetch the rest in from the car. You can give me a hand when you’ve laid out all those cushion covers.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Nell tartly. ‘But I’ve got to ring Nana Gwen first, and let her know I’m going to be later than I said. Thanks to you and your precious “
Friends”.’

*

Coincidentally, Nell was in the toilet when Daniel made his inspection of the hall at ten-to-three. Emma recounted how he’d paused in front of Nell’s unmanned stall.

‘Wondering where you wer
e,’ Emma said, like a breathless teenager.

‘Or just thinking how much he hated my cushion covers.’ 

‘He’s a man. He knows nothing about cushions. You’re always putting yourself down.’ Her sister frowned.

Nell shrugged
. ‘Just jumping the queue.’

Emma pulled a face and sashayed back to her own stall.

Nell took a deep breath, examined a plastic container full of change that Toni had armed her with, and then made a few last adjustments to her array of covers.

Suddenly, before she knew it, the hall was swarming with people. As if a river had burst its banks, the double doors opened and a flood of children and parents gushed in.

Joshua and Freya fought their way through the throng, their faces lighting up when they spotted her.

‘Hi, Mum, can we have some money?’ they chirruped in
unison.

‘I’m going to buy some of Aunt
Em’s butterfly cakes,’ explained Joshua. ‘Four,’ he added. ‘One for me, one for Freya, one for Nana Gwen and one for you. For after dinner tonight.’

‘That’s nice of you, Josh.’ Nell smiled, reaching into her small handbag, slung around her body for safe-keeping. ‘You’d better hurry before they’re all gone.’

‘Can I have some money, too, please?’ Freya stretched out her palm. ‘I saw a stall on the way in selling hair-clips and scrunchies and stuff. Sparkly ones. They’re really pretty.’

‘Well, don’t blow it all there. Walk around a bit, you might spot something else you like.’

‘I’ll be back for more money if I do,’ said Freya. ‘Duh.’

Nell didn’t have time to rebuke her daughter for being cheeky. The girl had gone, with a swish of her high pony-tail. A proper little madam lately. 

Before Nell could wallow in her own misgivings, or wonder what she was doing wrong as a parent, a young woman jostled through the crowd towards her and started asking about the cushion covers. She bought one without any hard-sell on Nell’s part, gushing about the ideal Christmas gift it would make for her mother-in-law. One woman followed another, each remarking on Nell’s talent for sewing.

‘You’re very rosy-cheeked,’ said a male voice. Nell jumped, and looked up from sorting through her box of cash, rapidly filling up. ‘Are you hot?’ he asked, managing to sound amused and concerned at the same time.

Nell appraised Daniel quickly, before she could be charged with staring.

Smart, dark grey shirt. A Christmas themed tie: red background patterned with little sprigs of holly. New hair-cut, shorter and tidier. Less stressed than he’d looked lately, which made the salt-and-pepper sprinkles in his hair and the creases around his storm-cloud eyes look oddly distinguished; worn with pride, as if they were badges of experience and maturity.

‘It’s stuffy in here,’ he said sympathetically. ‘Emma should have warned you.’

‘I’m - I’m OK,’ Nell stammered, smearing a bead of sweat away from her temple.