A Cornish Christmas

by Lily Graham

Have faith

  Show courage

  Look for what lies beneath the surface

  Sometimes, when we are least expecting it, we encounter a friend

  Chapter 14

  Tempests and Teapots

  Despite my warnings about deadly viruses left unattended, we hadn’t told Genevieve about the baby. Stuart was holding firm that he was done.

  I tried to phone her, only to discover that she was away on an international conference in New York for women in finance and wouldn’t be available for most of the week as she was overseeing several panel discussions.

  I felt a sense of palpable relief even though I knew we were only delaying the inevitable.

  Stuart, however, was adamant that he was through with her, perhaps even for good. ‘I can’t stop you from telling her, but I can’t forgive what she did. What she caused, she had no right.’ He flat-out refused to tell her about the baby, or to speak to her after the harm she’d caused.

  When Genevieve was back, I tried to call the house and got through to Stuart’s father instead. Somehow, in all of the drama that his wife had created, I’d overlooked him. I felt a guilty start at hearing his voice. ‘Oh sorry, Ivy, she’s just having a lie-down,’ said John.

  I glanced at the receiver in shock. Genevieve, having a lie-down?

  ‘Anything I can help you with, my dear?’ he asked in his kind, rather posh voice, which to me always sounded like he came from another era. I could picture him in his sporting whites, while a butler with a name like Harrison shone his golf balls, even though I knew they didn’t actually have a butler.

  ‘No, nothing... just wanted to have a word.’

  ‘Is this about Stuart?’ he asked, surprisingly. Generally, John stayed out of family disagreements to the point when sometimes he would be holed up in his study ‘working’ when really we all knew that he was simply avoiding his wife and whatever family drama she had created now. When we moved to Cornwall, he practically took up refuge in his study. Stuart said he’d even found him there taking a nap, with the latest John Grisham novel on his lap.

  Poor man, it was the first time I’d developed a sort of soft spot for him, and had seen a little of where Stuart and Smudge came from.

  ‘Look, Ivy love, I know she’s bruised you both. Genny’s always been overly protective of the kids... she’s such a fighter, it’s her best and worst quality. Sometimes she really doesn’t know how to stop herself, she so wants the best for them that she’ll fight tooth and nail, even against them if she has to. But she’ll come round... it’s best to just leave it, I think. Stuart is the same, and she knows it, even if she fights against it sometimes. And if this is what he wants... well, then she must just respect it.’

  ‘What he wants?’ I asked, surprised.

  ‘The smallholding... look, it bothers her. It shouldn’t. He’s happy and that’s all that matters. But you know, Genny... well, she just wants more for him. He finished top of his class, won that scholarship... She thinks he’s throwing it all away, so she’s trying everything she can think of, and it’s not working.’

  I swallowed hard. ‘She even tried to turn us against each other,’ I admitted. ‘But he’s not throwing anything away, I hope you can see that. He’s loving what he’s doing and he’s doing well. And, more importantly, he’s happy.’

  ‘I agree,’ said John to my surprise. This was the longest conversation we’d ever had, apart from a long, slightly drunken chat on my wedding night.

  ‘I think,’ he started, then cleared his throat. ‘Honestly, I think he’s got his head on straight. What’s it all for? I worked sixty-hour weeks when my children were born. I never changed a nappy. Now,’ he chuckled, ‘some men would think that was heaven, but I missed out on a lot of it. Back then it was the norm, but now, maybe I’m just getting old, but I can’t help but think what was it all for? Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you have to devote your life to it. He was miserable in London, now he’s happy and making something to be proud of...’

  I swallowed again; that’s what Stuart had been telling me the other night.

  As I listened to John I realised I wasn’t the one who needed to hear him say this. While Stuart may be his own man, and I doubted anyone could ever truly change his mind once it was made up, sometimes, no matter how old you were, it was nice to hear that at least one of your parents approved of what you were doing.

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, ‘I’ll get Stuart.’

  He started to protest; I’d obviously gotten him in a contemplative mood. ‘John, I really think it might help him to hear you say it ... I know it meant a lot to me.’

  ‘Well, all right then, if it’ll help,’ came John’s slightly nervous voice.

  I took the phone through to the polytunnel, where I found Stuart poring over his garden plans, no doubt dreaming of summer. Muppet was on his lap. ‘Someone on the phone for you.’

  His face darkened momentarily. ‘It’s your dad, don’t worry. Think he has something you’d like to hear.’

  I handed the phone, which he took with a quizzical expression. ‘Dad?’

  I stayed just for a moment, while Stuart looked at me; it seemed John was being awkward. ‘Tell him what you told me, John,’ I said loudly, knowing he’d hear.

  Then I watched as Stuart’s expression changed. His eyes grew a bit moist. I saw him hold Muppet a little firmer so I left them to speak.

  * * *

  Later, as I made myself a cup of tea and got to work on The Fudge Files, I couldn’t help my smile as I heard the familiar sound of Stuart’s whistling. I peeked out the window and watched him crossing the garden path with the wheelbarrow, a familiar jaunty step in place.

  I looked up at the sky, as lightning cracked, and frowned.

  That evening, my finger began to swell. Like it hadn’t in years. Not since I’d lived in Cornwall as a child. I touched it and thought: storm’s brewing.

  * * *

  I awoke to a violent sea. A tempest that heralded the storm that blew throughout the village, taking off roofs and upturning trees, travelling through our little town, smashing windows all along Finders Lane, taking the door off Robyn’s bakery, and breaking all the windows in my favourite café, Salt, till it swept through to us high up on the hill, tumbled through Stuart’s potager, blighting most of his winter crop, and seemed to come to a head with the arrival of Stuart’s mother, Genevieve, who arrived shortly afterwards on our doorstep.

  Stuart and I had been huddling together in the little downstairs cellar where he had managed to salvage some of his prize vegetables, along with the two cats, Muppet, and our four bantam ex-battery rescue hens, when the doorbell rang. Perhaps it would have been a better idea to remain in the warmth of the cellar with the animals, but in my innocence I followed after Stuart, curious as to who was desperate enough to be out on a night like this.

  As he opened the door, it flung wide with the wind to reveal Genevieve, who despite the frenzy outside, the whirling eddies of tumbling debris and the lashings of sideways rain, stood serenely under a black umbrella with a white marble and gold handle, her salt and pepper hair as sleek and dreary as her expression. Her red lipsticked mouth folded in upon itself, just as her manicured eyebrows shot up.

  She had eyes only for me. With the wind billowing into the doorway it was like standing in front of several high-speed blowers. All of which seemed to be pasting my clothes to my frame, and I watched as her eyes raked my body and fell on my now conspicuous baby bump.

  She pursed her lips. And set down a suitcase which I hadn’t noticed before. It was frightfully large, and ominous.

  ‘Well, well,’ she said. A mix of a thousand emotions flashed across her face: pain, anger, and something I didn’t recognise. I felt a shiver of guilt watching her try to process it, while trying to pull my T-shirt away from my body in a useless attempt to cover up what she had already seen, wishing I’d just gotten through to her the previous week.

  Finally she looked from me to Stuart and sai
d coldly, ‘So, were you ever actually going to tell me?’

  I opened my mouth in an attempt to form some sort of explanation but no words came out. When I looked at Stuart, he was just as speechless.

  At our feet, Muppet, who had followed after us, began, very uncharacteristically, to growl.

  ‘Well, I hope that when the baby comes you’ll get rid of that, at least,’ she said with a nod to Muppet.

  ‘Stop it,’ I said to Muppet. ‘No, we won’t,’ I told Genevieve.

  ‘Dogs are dangerous,’ said Genevieve.

  ‘So are people,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ she said, eyes narrowing. Then, not to be distracted, she hissed, ‘Never mind the bloody dog, why didn’t you tell me?’ she continued, rounding on Stuart.

  ‘Because you would be like... this,’ he said truthfully. ‘And honestly, Mum, Ivy just doesn’t need the stress, especially after what you put us through the other day,’ he added pointedly. ‘Did you not get my message? I’m done with whatever silly little dramas you want to enact with my family.’

  I looked at Stuart. What message?

  Genevieve’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yes, your message – it’s why I’m here... I thought I’d come to make amends. Can you imagine? I felt bad when all I was trying to do was help. But this...’ she said, pointing to my stomach, ‘is too much. ‘“Ivy doesn’t need the stress” of WHAT? Having her mother-in-law know that she is about to have a grandchild? Well, I’m sorry, my dear, if that is stressful for you, just to pick up a telephone, or get your husband here to tell his only family that you are about to have a child after years and years of trying. After me trying everything I could think—’ She stopped.

  Her eyes seemed to X-ray me; I could see her mentally calculating the rough number of weeks. Her face grew paler still. Then her hands shook as she realised. I closed my eyes as she hissed, ‘You knew! All this time that I’ve been calling... when I asked you to come to London, to send my driver, no expense spared... you were already pregnant. Then when I phoned you again, you just brushed me off. You actually lied to me! I don’t believe it. Why would you do it, why would you be so cruel?’ she asked, looking from me to Stuart. Her eyes filled with tears and her iron helmet of hair seemed to sink somewhat. ‘Why?’

  I felt awful. ‘Genevieve, it wasn’t like that, I promise.’

  ‘So you didn’t know back then?’ she asked, almost hopefully.

  I bit my lip. ‘I... that is... yes, we did, but you don’t understand...We had to keep it a secret.’

  Her face grew pinched. She stood up straight. ‘The baby was at risk, so you didn’t want to tell me in case our hopes were raised?’

  I looked down.

  Stuart took a step forward. ‘Yes, and no. Mum, we didn’t want this,’ he said, raising his hands wide to indicate the ugly scene before us, of hurt feelings, lies, and turmoil.

  ‘I see,’ she said, taking a deep breath and looking past us. ‘So it wasn’t that you wanted to spare our feelings, it was just that you didn’t want me here, being a nuisance.’ She nodded then knelt down and picked up her bag. ‘You’d rather have that dog than a granny...’

  ‘Mum, God, you always do this! Stop making this so dramatic,’ said Stuart, grabbing her bag from out of her hands. ‘First of all, you aren’t going anywhere in this bloody storm,’ he said, slamming the door and bolting it behind him while the wind howled and rattled.

  ‘Second, we do want you as a granny... we just want to actually get through this bloody pregnancy without you driving us all mad, okay? Deny it as much as you want, but the last time... well...’

  ‘The last time I hired you a nurse! It should have been wonderful!’

  ‘It would have been if you’d have done it when the baby was actually there and with our full consent, not to babysit my bloody wife!’ shouted Stuart.

  Genevieve blinked in shock. Her mouth shook. ‘Fine, if that’s how you feel, I’ll just go.’ It was then that I realised just how tiny she really was.

  I’d spent years building her up in my mind as such a formidable figure, wary of the raging storm that seemed always to be just beneath the surface. It was then that I understood Mum’s message.

  I closed my eyes and recited it under my breath:

  The sea is hungry. It has many faces

  It can’t always control them, though it may wish to

  Have faith

  Show courage

  Look for what lies beneath the surface

  Sometimes, when we are least expecting it, we encounter a friend

  Was she trying to tell me something else? I’d thought that perhaps her message had been a warning about the storm, but it hadn’t made sense. How was the storm going to be my friend? But now... seeing Genevieve’s stricken face, I realised, she’d been talking about Stuart’s mother.

  When John checked out and ran away to his study, Genevieve was the one who was more often than not both mother and father. She was hard, often just plain obstinate and completely ruthless at times, but she loved her children, passionately. Of that I had no doubt.

  She wasn’t my mum, and I needed to stop comparing her. It wasn’t fair, and it did neither of us any good. Not me, not Stuart, and not Genevieve. I knew that there were still likely to be many, many more fights after this and that she’d never be the one I turned to for a hug and cup of tea, or be someone I could go on holiday with, without wanting to shut myself into a sensory deprivation tank for a month afterwards until I regained my energy and stopped hearing the high-pitched whirring of my jangled nerves. Despite all that, despite our vast differences and personalities, she wanted what we wanted, and had been trying so very hard in her own pugnacious way to help us get it. Even when she told me about what Stuart had kept from me, in a weird, rather beastly way she was trying to help. Mum was right: at the heart of it all, deep, very deep down, she was a friend. She was just that one that you sometimes wanted to tip out the window.

  I put a hand on Stuart’s arm and shook my head. ‘No,’ I said.

  He looked at me in shock. ‘What?’

  I picked up Genevieve’s bag and said, ‘You are not going anywhere. Don’t you know you’ve got a really important job to do?’

  She frowned at me. ‘What do you mean?’

  I grinned. ‘Well, Genevieve, it turns out that you’re going to be a granny. Now, I’m sorry we didn’t tell you before, but I was going to tell you this week, but you were away at that conference in New York.’

  I saw her eyes smart. It looked a little like she was fighting two sides of herself. Like a sea, fighting against the tide, I could see part of her wanted to defend herself.

  ‘So I suggest,’ I added, giving Stuart a look, ‘that we put all of this behind us. It was wrong of me not to have told you, because I was afraid of how you might act...’

  She took a breath. ‘Just as it was wrong of me to imply that you did something to lose it the last time. I blame myself and that’s the truth, if...’ she took a shuddering breath, ‘if I hadn’t have interfered, and got that horrid nurse, maybe you wouldn’t have gotten yourself so stressed...’

  I touched her arm. ‘It’s not your fault. Pregnant women feel stress... it’s normal, a small bit of stress like that wouldn’t have caused that...’ To my own surprise, I found myself reassuring her, finding as I spoke the words how true they were.

  ‘We’re on the same team here, Genevieve, just, I know it’s hard... because you’re... well, very used to being in charge, but...’

  ‘I’m more like co-captain?’ she said, making a joke.

  Stuart grinned, ‘Sorry Mum, that’s my job, you’re the...’

  ‘Granny,’ I supplied.

  She closed her eyes, and bit her lip. When she opened them she looked younger, less severe. ‘That’s plenty.’

  I grinned. ‘So tell you what, let’s all get ourselves down to the cellar to wait out this storm, shall we? And I’ll tell you all about your grandchild and just how big she is.’

  Genevieve gasped. ‘It�
�s a girl?’

  We each shared massive grins. Outside, the storm waged on, but for now, we were exactly where we wanted to be.

  Chapter 15

  Friends, Floods, and Fare Thee Wells

  Genevieve stayed for four days and three nights. In many ways she was the model guest. Despite the fact that her phone rang constantly as her company flailed hopelessly without their captain.

  No one was more surprised than I when she put it on silent and said, ‘They can just bloody well wait, or figure it out themselves...’

  She listened attentively as I told her about Dr Harris and the progress of the baby. I didn’t know what it must have cost her to ensure that she never uttered a word against our obstetrician’s rural pedigree.

  She made a half-hearted attempt to get me to see an obstetric friend, but stopped herself, shaking her head. ‘Sorry, no ... this, er, doctor has gotten further than any of the others and the fact that she actually burst into tears of happiness when it finally happened, well...’ She twiddled her watch. ‘You can’t buy that, can you?’

  I shook my head in wonder at her. ‘No, you can’t,’ I agreed.

  Still, she sighed every time she passed the window, her eye falling on the garden outside, while Stuart tried his best to salvage what remained of his winter crop.

  There were nineteen squabbles. Five mentions of the Collingswood House. Three mentions of the job at the Red Agency.

  Two occurrences of slamming doors (me). Seven apologies and two occasions in which I escaped to May Bradley’s house for a much-needed breather. At these moments, each time Muppet came along too.

  I believe that Genevieve’s comment about the benefits of having a Labrador – a real ‘walking dog’ as opposed to a dog that slept more than it spent time awake – had even offended her rather indomitable canine sensibilities.

  May was turning out to be a great, sympathetic friend.