Sowing Secrets

by Ashley, Trisha

  ‘And I’ll do a special rite, to speed up the inner healing process and give you strength,’ Nia said, a faraway look in her eyes.

  ‘What sort of rite?’ I asked uneasily. ‘This is just Druidry you’re up to, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course, I told you! What did you think I was doing? Black magic?’

  ‘No…it’s just that I happened to see you once, burying something up at the stones,’ I confessed.

  She looked slightly embarrassed. ‘An elderly member of my circle’s last wish was to be laid to rest up there, so I did.’

  ‘You buried a Druid in the stone circle?’

  ‘Just ashes,’ she said defensively. ‘Why not? But don’t worry, all my sacrifices are inanimate.’

  ‘You know, I think I’ve just thought of a sacrifice on the altar of revenge,’ I said, a brainwave illuminating the inside of my head like a flashbulb. ‘Mal’s going to make it. He’s asked me to send him his stamp collection, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’

  Stamped Out

  Nia and Carrie wanted me to go right up to Plas Gwyn and talk to Gabe then and there, but I needed to think about it a bit first.

  Besides, I had some urgent business to do this morning: drive to the nearest post office and buy loads of stamps, a stick of glue and glossy postcards of St Ceridwen’s Holy Well.

  After that, all I had to do was crack the six-figure number on the safe box Mal kept his stamp collection in, which was easy when you knew him as well as I did. Using the simplest of number codes for the word ‘Cayman’ I hit pay dirt first time and his treasures lay in my hands.

  I spent the next couple of hours very pleasantly, addressing the postcards out to Mal in the Caribbean, and gluing his collection of stamps on to each one in pretty patterns. Of course, I also added the correct postage, too, so they should get to him OK. They were a very colourful lot, and practically filled the little village postbox.

  I felt like a wicked child sticking fireworks in a dustbin.

  * * *

  Next morning I set out for Plas Gwyn, assuming I would find Gabe up there somewhere, and on impulse turned off the drive and headed for the maze.

  I’d found him sitting there once before—and I struck lucky again. The heart of the labyrinth seems to be his favourite place for brooding.

  ‘Gabe?’ I said tentatively, but since he didn’t look up I slowly started to walk around the pathway like a reluctant sacrificial victim.

  It seemed twice as big now the outer edges had been re-cut, but of course you can’t get lost in a turf maze, even if you do have to go to and fro a bit.

  ‘Gabriel!’ I said more sharply, finally reaching the middle, and he looked up sombrely. ‘Gabe, can we talk?’

  ‘I certainly can, but you seem to specialise more in silent departure at dead of night,’ he said rather bitterly.

  ‘I know, and I want to apologise for my behaviour the other night.’

  ‘Which bit?’

  ‘You know which bit!’

  ‘No, I don’t. Are you apologising for sleeping with me, or leaving in the middle of the night?’

  ‘Neither,’ I snapped. ‘I don’t know why I even bother trying to explain—and that nasty crack you made about throwing my lovers out in the middle of the night was totally unjustified!’

  ‘I saw him, don’t forget, Fran.’

  ‘You saw me telling him to go away—the doorstep was as far as he got! You just automatically drew the wrong conclusions.’

  ‘Maybe, but your own daughter told me you were getting back together,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Yes, and I told you that was just wishful thinking on her part—not that it’s any of your business anyway!’ I was beginning to wish I’d never embarked on all this.

  ‘You can’t deny that the other night was my business,’ he said darkly, ‘even if I was just the consolation prize.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry if it rankles, but I wasn’t in a fit state to think straight when I woke up, that’s why I left. It was totally different from last time!’

  ‘Was it? Last time you went back to your boyfriend, Tom, didn’t you? Is that what you intend doing this time too?’

  ‘No.’ I sat down on the grass next to him. ‘Gabriel, I didn’t go back to Tom last time.’

  ‘Nia said—’

  ‘Nia said he’d asked me to go back to him, but she didn’t say I had. I didn’t. I came here to St Ceridwen’s alone, instead.’

  He turned and looked at me, but I didn’t meet his eyes. ‘I probably should have told you this right at the start, when you first recognised me…but knowing about the paternity claims and the gossip mags, I just couldn’t. It’s…there’s something I really have to tell you.’

  ‘It’s Rosie, isn’t it? She’s mine,’ he interrupted, to my complete astonishment.

  I stared at him, dumbfounded, the wind taken right out of my sails. ‘She might be,’ I admitted. ‘Or she might be Tom’s, I don’t know. I always suspected she was yours, but short of a DNA test there’s no way to be certain.’

  ‘Oh, I was certain almost the moment I set eyes on her,’ he said positively.

  ‘How on earth could you be? She doesn’t look like you in the least!’

  ‘No, but she does look like photos of my mother as a girl.’

  ‘She—she does? And you didn’t say anything?’ I demanded indignantly.

  ‘I thought that you thought she was Tom’s, and I didn’t see any sense in rocking the boat—especially if you might get back with him.’

  ‘There’s no way I’d ever think of getting back with Tom,’ I said hotly. ‘And even Rosie’s gone off the idea now she knows he’s still got a wife!’

  ‘He has?’ He sat up and looked at me intently, his eyes sincere. ‘Fran, when I saw Rosie and realised she was mine, I felt really bad that you’d never been able to tell me about her. And I wished I’d known. Another daughter I’ve missed seeing grow up,’ he added bitterly.

  I was feeling rather anticlimactic. ‘ To think that you knew all this time, when I’ve been going frantic worrying that you would find out. Or Mal—or the press.’

  ‘There’s no reason why anyone should find out unless we tell them, Fran.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure she’s yours?’

  ‘Positive. I’ve had the photos out several times, and she’s my mother’s image as a girl. I think she’s got a bit of my nose too, don’t you?’ He turned his impressive profile towards me.

  ‘No, of course she hasn’t,’ I said scathingly. ‘She’s got a neat little nose!’

  ‘Are you saying mine’s huge?’

  ‘Yours is fine for a man,’ I allowed graciously.

  ‘Thanks. Your ma thinks Rosie’s got a look of me.’

  ‘Ma does?’ I exclaimed. ‘Good grief, does Ma know? Who else knows?’

  ‘No one. Your ma guessed. She said she could see there was something between us from the first time she saw us together,’ he added pensively, ‘and then Rosie has mannerisms that are just like mine.’

  ‘Well, of all the secretive old…! She could have told me that you knew!’

  ‘I asked her not to. Are you going to tell Rosie? How do you think she’ll take it?’

  ‘I’ll have to tell her now, but I don’t think she’ll believe me. Prepare yourself to be interrogated. And…you’ll be nice to her, won’t you, Gabe?’ I asked painfully.

  ‘Of course I will, Fran, what do you take me for?’ he said, looking hurt. ‘I’m delighted to have another daughter, and I hope she’ll let me get to know her.’

  ‘And what about Stella? Are you going to tell her that there’s yet another skeleton in her dad’s cupboard?’

  ‘I haven’t thought quite that far ahead yet,’ he admitted. ‘She might come and visit me soon. The term ends over there any minute, so she will probably fly back to be with her grandparents. If she does, I’ll break it to her then.’

  ‘Rosie’s half-sister!’ I marvelled. ‘And she might not mind too much, Gabe; af
ter all, it was such a long time ago, before she was born.’

  ‘I hope not. I don’t want to find one daughter only to lose another. And, Fran,’ he added gently, ‘I’m sorry I was angry with you about the other night.’

  ‘That’s all right, I’m glad we’ve cleared the air,’ I said, rising to my feet, and he rose with me, pulling me into his arms. The maze seemed to whirl around us dizzyingly—must have been delayed jet lag.

  ‘Blush Noisette,’ he said softly.

  ‘La Belle Sultane,’ I said. My knees seemed to be folding.

  ‘Maybe you should think twice before running from my bed in the middle of the night next time?’ he suggested in my ear.

  ‘What makes you think there will be a next time?’ I said indignantly.

  ‘I feel it in my bones.’

  ‘Then you feel it wrong.’ I pulled away and said politely, ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘I’m not blocking your way,’ he pointed out, looking amused.

  ‘Yes, you are, I have to walk back on the path.’

  ‘You mean you won’t cross the lines?’ He stood aside with an incredulous grin, and watched me tread my intricate course round the maze until I emerged by the yews.

  ‘Come up and see what we’ve been doing on Thursday when the crew have all gone,’ he called.

  ‘I might,’ I said, walking away.

  But first of all I have to think out how on earth I am to tell Rosie about Gabe, when I don’t think she even likes him!

  And I wonder what Gabe’s daughter is like?

  I thought I’d go and talk things over with Nia, and was just heading for her workshop when I came across a tableau in the courtyard that stopped me in my tracks. For a minute I thought the cameras had returned and were using the place as the backdrop to a soap.

  A medium-sized, wiry man, whom I recognised as Nia’s ex-husband, Paul, was just saying aggrievedly, ‘But I’m asking you to come back to me, Nia! Emma’s left me—she went off to France with some man she knew before. It was all a mistake and I should never have let you go.’

  ‘Well, you did,’ Nia said shortly, ‘and now I’m gone for good.’

  Rhodri, who had been standing by looking rather anxious, now put his arm round her and said, ‘That’s right, she belongs here, now.’

  ‘And you would be…?’ enquired Paul nastily.

  ‘Rhodri Gwyn-Whatmire—and you’re on my property.’

  Paul turned on Nia. ‘I see how it is. You’ve decided on the soft option—finding a man with money this time?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly. I’ve worked my butt off with hard physical labour the last few months, and Rhodri hasn’t got any money, just a pile of stones and a lot of ambition.’

  ‘So you won’t come back to me, then?’ Paul said almost incredulously, as though he had only to walk up and ask, and all the infidelity, the betrayal and the divorce would be wiped out with a great, smiling ‘of course!’.

  ‘No, she won’t,’ Rhodri said pugnaciously. ‘She’s with me now.’

  I remembered that Flash Gordon was still Rhodri’s favourite film, and felt the dialogue was taking a turn for the worse.

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether I’m with anyone else or not, I still wouldn’t come back to you, Paul,’ Nia said. ‘You’ve wasted your time coming.’

  ‘If that’s the way it is, then,’ he said, looking from one to the other of them uncertainly.

  Rhodri tightened his grip on his prize and Paul muttered something, turned on his heel and stalked off.

  ‘I feel I should applaud,’ I said, and they finally looked round and noticed me. ‘The dialogue was a bit melodramatic, but it was well acted.’

  ‘The cheek of the man, thinking he could just walk up here and claim me back like a mislaid belonging,’ Nia fumed. ‘As though I were just sitting here waiting for him. Well, I didn’t! I got a life, instead.’

  ‘Yes, with me,’ Rhodri agreed enthusiastically. ‘Let’s get married!’

  ‘God, no,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t face being Nia Gwyn-Whatmire!’

  ‘You could keep your own name,’ I suggested.

  ‘Whose side are you on?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Talking of weddings, where’s Gabe?’ Nia retaliated. ‘Have you talked to him yet?’

  ‘Why, is something going on between you and Gabe, Fran?’ Rhodri asked intelligently.

  Nia gave him a look. ‘Of course there is, you big idiot—they’re meant for each other!’

  ‘Hold on, Nia! I’ve just discovered my marriage is on the rocks, so you might let me come up for breath first before pairing me off again!’

  ‘They do both like roses,’ Rhodri admitted.

  ‘Among other things,’ she agreed. ‘Didn’t you hear or see anything when they were together up here? They flirt all the time under the pretence of talking about roses—it’s embarrassing.’

  ‘No, of course he didn’t, because there wasn’t anything to notice,’ I said hastily.

  ‘And he did it on the phone when you called from Cayman!’

  ‘He was just trying to cheer me up by talking about gardening.’

  ‘Admit it, Fran, you started falling out of love with Mal nearly a year ago when he began turning weird, and fell back in love with Gabe the minute he reappeared on the scene.’

  ‘Back?’ Rhodri asked, puzzled.

  ‘I was never in love with him in the first place—it was nothing, a one-night stand.’

  ‘What?’ Rhodri said, his light-blue eyes startled.

  Nia patted his arm. ‘Don’t worry about it, Rhodri, I’ll explain later. Fran, are you going to come to the pub tonight? I think you ought to get out, not sit at home brooding about everything.’

  ‘So long as I don’t have to drink any alcohol,’ I said. ‘I think my entire system is poisoned.’

  I heard Rhodri’s voice raised on a questioning note as I left, but whether it was about me or about the possibility of nuptial bliss is anyone’s guess.

  At home, a removal van was packing up the contents of the Wevills’ house, but of the poison-penners there was no sign, and hadn’t been since my return.

  Gone, but not forgotten, for they had left a legacy of false rumour that would echo down through the years and never quite die. As we all know, there is no smoke without fire.

  Double Trouble

  Whatever explanations Nia gave to Rhodri caused him to cast puzzled but affectionate looks in my direction all evening, so I’m not sure he’s got the hang of the situation yet. That makes two of us.

  Gabe was at the pub too, his mood set to Fair bordering on Sunny, despite having to sneak in the back way to avoid a last lingering coachload of adoring fans.

  Afterwards he insisted on walking me home, and we were almost there before he stopped dead and said, very seriously, ‘Fran, I’ve been thinking about you—about us—all afternoon.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Of course I have. And I’ve come to the conclusion that, since you’re now an unattached female and I’m an unattached male, and we strike sparks whenever we get together, we should just start again from the beginning.’

  ‘Start what again?’ I asked cautiously.

  ‘A romance, a relationship—whatever you want to call it. But take it slowly this time and see where it goes.’ He took my hand. ‘You know: I walk you back from the pub like this for a week or two and kiss you good night. One day you invite me in for coffee; then I take you home to see my roses…And one fine morning—hey presto!—I wake up and you’re still there. Transplanted and bedded down. Sown, mulched and rooted.’

  ‘You say the most romantic things,’ I said breathlessly—because, actually, it works for me.

  ‘So what do you say?’

  From what I could see of him in the poorly lit lane he looked serious enough.

  ‘A cautious yes…though things could come unstuck when Rosie and Stella find out the truth.’

  ‘We’ll take it as it comes. We have to live our lives, Fran, because they
’ll be off living theirs soon enough. So—here’s a fairly chaste, first-night kiss.’

  If that was chaste, I’m a vestal virgin.

  It’s been a week of cautious discovery—and recovery. I’d heard from Mal’s solicitor and accepted his terms, so the house would soon be mine, and I’d turned down an offer from Justin. I wasn’t interested in how much he was willing to pay: I wanted Carrie to have the house.

  Ma came back and phoned me, unrepentant that she’d been keeping secrets with Gabe behind my back; and Rosie had her friend staying with her, though she hadn’t mentioned bringing her up again for the weekend, so I presumed she wasn’t after all.

  But that Friday night, as I sat in the back parlour of the Druid’s Rest with Nia, Rhodri and Gabe, in they walked—and it wasn’t just our table who went deathly quiet and stared, either.

  The two girls were like the positive and negative of the same photograph: Rosie fair and Star dark; but otherwise they might have been identical twins.

  They made their way across the silent room until they reached our table, and Rosie said, ‘Hello, Mum.’

  ‘Hello, Dad,’ Star said to Gabe—and then the penny dropped. Star—Stella—Cornwall—oh my God!

  ‘Haven’t you both got something you’d like to tell us about?’ they asked, more or less in unison, and I groped blindly for Gabe’s hand and gripped it tightly as we stared at our little Midwich cuckoos, come home to roost.

  Rhodri, looking profoundly baffled, got up and kissed Rosie. ‘Rosie, great to see you, and—’

  ‘My sister, Stella,’ she introduced her. ‘Half-sister, really, and she likes to be called Star.’

  ‘Er, right,’ he said uncertainly. ‘Hello, Star.’

  ‘This is Uncle Roddy and that’s Mum’s friend Nia, who’s living with Uncle Roddy—’ began Rosie.

  ‘Really, Rosie!’ I said indignantly.

  ‘That, of course, is my mother, Fran—’

  ‘And this is Gabe Weston, alternatively known as Adam the gardener, my father—and yours,’ Star said sweetly.

  ‘We’ve been rumbled,’ Gabe said to me.

  ‘Did you have to choose quite such a public spot for the revelations, Rosie?’ I said bitterly. ‘Why didn’t you go the whole hog and hire a town crier or take an announcement out in the paper?’