A Cornish Christmas

by Lily Graham

  ‘My mother,’ he spat, eyes darkening.

  I closed my eyes. So he had deliberately kept it from me. Why?

  ‘Why did you keep it a secret?’ I asked, trying, yet failing to keep my voice steady. ‘Why would you just decide to keep that from me?’

  ‘I’m going to kill her,’ he said through gritted teeth, digging out his phone from the pocket of his jeans.

  I snatched the phone out of his hand. ‘No, you’re going to explain to me why you didn’t tell me about it first, and why I had to hear it from your mother. Why she seemed to think that I was responsible for killing not one but two of your dreams.’

  He looked shocked. ‘She said that?’

  I gave him a tight smile. ‘Not exactly. She phoned to tell me that I shouldn’t give up on having a baby when you’d given me everything I wanted. Which isn’t exactly fair as you told me that you wanted to move down here and start a new life too. But thanks for making me look like the completely selfish one, that was great,’ I said, with dripping scorn. ‘Please explain. Why. Did. You. Keep. It. From. Me?’ I demanded.

  He looked up at the ceiling boards, leant back in his chair and sighed. Then, shoving his hands into his hair in annoyance or frustration, or both, he gazed back at me and shook his head slowly. ‘It just didn’t matter. You were so excited. It meant we could finally move to Cornwall... what we’d been talking about for years. And Dr Tam said that once we were more relaxed, we’d probably have a better chance of having a baby... which was true, it seemed a small sacrifice. David Mortimer – the Red Agency’s CEO – understood.’

  ‘Oh, the CEO of the Red Agency understood, did he? But obviously, not your wife? I had no say... It was just fine for me to be the selfish one, the one whose dreams could come true, while yours didn’t?’

  Stuart’s eyes widened. ‘It wasn’t like that, Ivy... it wasn’t selfish, it’s what you’d always wanted. So I found a new dream, here with you, and now we’re finally going to have a baby – even Dr Harris said that she thought the move was one of the biggest reasons it has finally happened.’

  I looked at him. ‘And if it hadn’t have worked out... if I hadn’t have fallen pregnant, what then? Would the sacrifice that you never needed to have taken been small then?’

  He frowned. ‘I didn’t marry you so that we could have children, Ivy. Obviously, if it didn’t happen I’d have been disappointed, but I would have got over it, and anyway it worked, didn’t it?’

  Not the right thing to have said.

  I shook my head, furious. ‘Yes, you’d be the one allowed to “get over it” while I’d be the monster who dashed all your dreams, and as far as your mother is concerned couldn’t even be bothered to keep trying to have a child. You couldn’t even give me the chance to have a say in what may have been best for both of us. I was absolutely fine living in London...’

  ‘No, you weren’t,’ he said flatly. ‘You wanted to come home, you always spoke about it.’

  ‘So what! People speak about things like that all the time, it didn’t mean we had to do it! Despite what your mother seems to think, I’m well accustomed to being an adult and not getting every bloody thing I desire. It’s give and take, isn’t it? Except, of course, not when it comes to me and my “child-like” nature, is it? Where you just get to be the one who makes all the noble sacrifices.’

  It wasn’t fair to throw Genevieve’s words at him, I knew it. But still, perhaps there was some measure of truth in it – particularly in the way Stuart was treating me. You kept information like that from a child, not from your partner. I didn’t enjoy the fact that somehow, after everything we had faced, Stuart saw me as someone who could or should be infantalised.

  His face paled. ‘What? Ivy? It wasn’t like that! I just thought that it wasn’t the right time to take up the job... You, we, wanted to really try for a baby, and I didn’t want to be the one signing us up for potentially never having children as a result.’

  I pursed my lips. ‘It wasn’t a binary issue, Stuart. People make these things work all the time. You might have been busy, but you would have been happy, which as Dr Harris said, if you remember, was the major reason she thought that it had finally worked... because we weren’t stressed. She said that it wasn’t because we moved to Cornwall, precisely. But no, you were so sure that I’d have chosen this path for us,’ I said, my arms waving to indicate Sea Cottage. ‘Did you ever consider that just maybe I never wanted to be the one who made you “just get over” your dreams? That actually I’d much rather be the sort of person who helped make yours come true as well?’

  Stuart stood up, cross. ‘Has it not occurred to you that’s all I was trying to do, for you! After everything you’d been through, miscarriage after bloody miscarriage. Your mum dying. For God’s sake, couldn’t I just do this for you? The one thing I could control in this fucking world that I could give you!’ he shouted.

  I stared at him, wordlessly. Then I shook my head, sadly. He just didn’t get it.

  ‘But see, that’s just it. When you did that, you took away mine.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘Whatever little bit of control I might have had to ensure that we both had what we wanted, what we needed – that’s what a marriage is, isn’t it? I’m not some child that you had to create a bloody womb for,’ I said, before turning on my heel.

  Before Stuart could follow, I was in my car and half way up the drive.

  I took the coastal road down to Cloudsea bay, not registering the flock of gannets as they flew past or the idyllic stretch of golden sand.

  Mum was the one I wanted to speak to. The one who would know what to say. How I wished it was 3 a.m. I wished that I could use the postcard now to ask her advice.

  Instead I parked my car in the parking lot, along the beach road, and watched the waves crashing, unsure what I thought. My phone rang, and I put it on silent. I didn’t know what to think. A part of me should have been furious with Genevieve, a part of me was furious with her and her eternal interfering ways, but when she’d pulled the rug out from beneath my feet, she’d also exposed something that I thought I’d never find... something that felt like quicksand.

  * * *

  When I returned home hours later, I was grateful to see that Stuart wasn’t there, and that he hadn’t tried to come after me. He’d left a plate of food in the fridge with a note saying that he was at Tomas’s and would be home late.

  I hadn’t eaten all day but the thought of food turned my stomach. Stuart had made a casserole, and while ordinarily I would have devoured it, right now I knew that it wouldn’t sit well. Picturing Dr Harris’s disappointed face, I grabbed an apple and a handful of nuts and forced myself to eat, while I fed Muppet, Pepper and Pots.

  Muppet seemed to understand my mood; when I entered my studio she climbed onto my lap and closed her eyes, something she hadn’t attempted since her puppy days due to her sheer size. I was grateful for her warmth, and her indomitably kind, companionable spirit.

  I got to work on Mr Tibbles, knowing that the best distraction was often getting stuck into work, finally able to write and illustrate the part where the old owl Feathershloop dies, and while sitting at his bedside in despair, the Red Fairy comes to Mr Tibbles and tells him that, despite his small size, his courage has proved that he is ready to take over for Mr Feathershloop, and become the protector of the Fairy’s Forest.

  It was some time later when Stuart came into the studio. I hadn’t heard him come in, just felt Muppet start to wriggle in my lap. I followed her gaze but didn’t say anything.

  He sighed and pulled up a chair. He looked angry.

  ‘I’ve been trying to call...’

  I looked away. ‘I was cross.’

  ‘That doesn’t excuse it. Anything could have happened to you.’

  I sighed, ‘I didn’t want to speak to you...’

  ‘You don’t have to speak to me, but Ivy, love, c’mon, you can’t take off like that... these roads aren’t great and they say a storm is coming
.’

  I sighed and looked away. ‘They’ve been saying that for days. It’s just this time of year, it will probably blow over, and I would have come back long before...’

  ‘You can’t know that! Look, you’re allowed to be cross, but I don’t think it’s fair that you just left. If you want me to leave you alone, fine, then just say so... but you can’t just leave.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t “just” leave, is it? But you can keep a secret like that from me... for what, ever? Let me think that this whole move was our idea when actually it was you just giving in to me.’

  He closed his eyes for a second. ‘Ivy, stop... I know you think that I was treating you like a child, but I wasn’t. The only time you acted like one was today when you ran off!’

  My eyes snapped and I opened my mouth to retaliate.

  ‘Just hear me out for a second, please. I know what you think, that I’m some self-sacrificing saint or something, but it’s quite the opposite, really.’

  ‘What?’ I said in surprise.

  He wiped his hand across his mouth in irritation. ‘I should have told you, I know that. But I know you too, you would have made us stay. We would have bought the Collingswood House, three bloody roads away from my mother, and we would have lived there until I became president of the Red Agency, or had a heart attack at age forty-five because I was pulling nineteen-hour days because it was “my dream”. And it was my dream... ten years ago. Sure, when you told me about Cornwall, and the life you thought we could have one day, I thought as well that it was something we might do later on. I might not have originally been the one who wanted it, but bloody hell, Ivy, I fell for it too. Every time we came down here, we came alive.’

  I looked at him, not ready to trust that he wasn’t still playing the ‘nice guy’ card. ‘Your mum said you were excited about the Red Agency, Stuart.’

  He nodded, then sighed, ‘I was... I really was. For about half a day, but I was more excited for the me from ten years ago, you know? When I came home and you told me about the print deal, I just felt like, I don’t know, maybe it was a sign. It was me that suggested Cornwall. I know Mum said it wasn’t, and you’d suggested it in the past. But I was the one who said we should move. That’s all I could think about when you told me your news. It meant we could live a life we had only ever dreamt about. I’d always wanted to be a VP, but did I want it more than I wanted to be a husband, or a father? More than what it felt like to sit back and have a cup of bloody coffee without gulping it down? To wake up thinking ideas, ideas, ideas? To go to bed thinking ideas, ideas, ideas... To always feel like part of my focus was somewhere else, and to wonder just when those ideas would finally run out?

  ‘I loved it, Ivy, I won’t deny it... but I love you. I love our life here more. Sometimes, on your way to one dream you find a new one, a better one. One that perhaps is a surprise to everyone, including yourself. I never for a minute might have imagined that I’d be doing this,’ he laughed, jerking his head towards the window and the garden outside. ‘What did I know about gardening or cooking, except for my part-time hobbies?’ He glanced at his brown mud-splattered wellies, and his calloused hands. ‘But it’s bloody great, and I’ve never been happier. I didn’t tell you, not because I didn’t trust you, but because I believed in this one more. It’s really that simple.’

  I sat back in my chair and let the tears fall. ‘You should have just told me that...’

  ‘I should have, I know, but I didn’t want you to second-guess. I knew you would, if things got tough you’d be worrying if we should have stayed...’

  ‘And shouldn’t I?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Just promise me, Mr Everton, no more secrets... You need to be able to tell me these things, and if I do sometimes worry that maybe you might regret something, well, that should be my right.’

  He nodded, and held me close.

  ‘Stuart.’

  ‘Ivy.’

  ‘Stuart, speaking of secrets...’

  He gave me a look of mock horror. ‘Don’t tell me that actually you were offered chief illustrator at Walt Disney and it’s based in London?’

  I punched his arm. ‘Not. Funny. Yet,’ I growled. ‘No, worse actually... I think. It’s time we told your mother.’

  He let out a massive, groaning sigh.

  ‘You know I’m right.’

  He sighed again, then buried his head in Muppet’s fur.

  ‘I mean, do you think I want to tell her?’

  He looked up and said hopefully, ‘No, so why don’t we leave it? I mean, do you really want to unleash another Everton Six: Electroshock therapy?’

  ‘More like Everton Nine: Severed finger.’

  He gave me a wounded look. ‘Seven: Bullet wound?’

  ‘Nope. Nine.’

  His eyes went huge. ‘Sorry, my love. But do you honestly want to go through that again?’

  I shrugged. ‘Your mother is like a deadly virus, Stuart. The longer she’s left unattended, the worse it gets...’

  ‘True, but she can just go to hell as far as I’m concerned. I’m done, this time for good.’

  Chapter 11

  Just Bobbins

  It started with the book. A practical guide on child-rearing circa 1980 that found its way silently onto the kitchen table, with useful bits highlighted in faded neon yellow, alongside fresh ink scratchings in red, written in the margins; corrections from a pen that didn’t know how not to be a little interfering. For instance, next to an opening on teething the red pen said, ‘Hogwash. A little bit of brandy rubbed liberally across the gums puts them to sleep and helps calm everyone’s nerves... just don’t advertise it with any “busybodies”.’

  This controversial advice in a tomb as large as the King James Bible, along with a set of knitted jumpers in shocking pink (how did they know it was a girl, how?), an ageing baby chest of drawers in desperate need of some paint, a fossilised perambulator, and a wooden rattle from another era, had found its way quietly and without much fanfare into our home.

  The Thursday Club were making their presence known.

  The somewhat controversial book advice belonged to none other than Winifred Jones, who despite her strict, headmistressy persona, could surprisingly display some old-fashioned, superstitious Cornish advice in the margins too, such as ‘Whooping cough: pass the child under the belly of a piebald horse’. And, ‘Never have even a picture of an owl in the nursery as this is considered a bad omen’, which seemed to attest at least to some of the more mythical aspects of our Cornish heritage, as well as another age.

  Odd, and outdated as some of the advice may well be, I couldn’t fault the kindness that had snuck back into my life, from all of them, and Winifred Jones in particular, with her guide, which must have taken some time. I could only imagine what Catherine would say to some of it... then again, she may well agree. Well, not about the whooping cough or owls, at least, I hoped.

  It seemed hysterical and sweet that my baby-rearing advice was coming from a group of geriatrics. If anything, it made it all the more dear. Winifred had had a good twenty years on my mum, as had most of the club – apart from May and the lovely Flavia, of course.

  But once they’d found out my news, Stuart and I began to notice casserole dishes wrapped up in cellophane, featuring old-fashioned dishes made from scratch, like cottage pie and Yorkshire puddings, magically appearing on our doorstep, with instructions written in Biro to warm in the oven for twenty minutes on a low heat.

  Somehow, against the odds, I had discovered not just one mother, but six.

  Flavia sent roses, while Abigail sent spa vouchers and a note to say, ‘Darling girl, you’ll need this, trust me... won’t get much time for any pampering later.’

  Robyn sent iced buns, and pains au chocolat; Stuart and I agreed that having a baker for a friend was a sign that we had done some good work in a previous life.

  May sent a bottle of whiskey for Stuart, and herself around as often as possible for a cuppa and a bit of a laugh, and w
e were grateful for both.

  Winifred Jones, of course, sent The Book. When I called her to thank her, she just shrugged it off. ‘It’s nothing, Ivy-girl,’ she said. ‘’Twas just something useful I had lying around, some of it was rubbish... you won’t believe, so I made a few notes for you.’

  I stifled a giggle, my eye falling on the heavy tome, and her many ink corrections. ‘Ah – yes, thank you so much.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. Look – I know these modern women wouldn’t agree... it’s all about being their “friend” and asking your two-year-old blighter if things are a good idea or not, as a form of discipline.’ She snorted, derisively. ‘Can you imagine? That’s what I heard on the telly the other day... they had on some twenty-year-old “Expert Mum” advising you to ask your child if what they are doing is a good idea or not, instead of having a good old-fashioned naughty corner... Imagine asking a two-year-old if calling someone a knob is a good idea... Can you imagine? He’s two, course ’tis a good idea!’

  I laughed. She had a point.

  ‘Look,’ she said sobering, her voice now uncharacteristically less grouchy. ‘Everyone’s going to have an opinion... your job is just to keep your child happy and healthy, everything else is just bobbins. It’s what your mum would have done. It’s what she always told me when I had an opinion about you... and she was right too.’

  I sat with my phone in my hand for some time after that call, realising that, somehow, Winifred Jones, the woman who scared me half to death as a child, had suddenly become someone I liked. Perhaps, this was one of the reasons why Mum had made sure I reconnected with The Thursday Club in the first place. Stuart and I had been so busy trying to fall pregnant that a part of me had felt I would be tempting fate if I read any baby books, or tried to prepare myself for the possibility of actually having a child. Now, when Dr Harris told us to trust that this time everything would be all right, I found that I hadn’t really prepared for what it would mean to actually have a baby. I mean, I didn’t even really know what whooping cough was.