Reaching for her fifth biscuit (which didn’t really count because she wouldn’t have any dinner), Gemma scrolled through her home page, liking a picture of Angel’s sister Andi and her partner all glammed up for a charity ball, and then doing a quiz to find out which Muppet she was. Was Oscar the Grouch a worse result than Miss Piggy, she wondered? Fat or grumpy? Which was the bigger sin? Grumpy people could still fit into a size twelve, she supposed, whereas her waistbands were a little snug lately.
She reached for another biscuit. She’d get healthy again after Christmas and her birthday. There was no point before then, was there?
Having caught up with her friends, it was time for a bit of Facebook stalking. Gemma checked out the pages of several exes and a couple of girls she really hadn’t liked at school before the mouse hovered over the link to another page. She knew that clicking on that particular person’s page was emotional masochism but she found it impossible not to look. Like the biscuit eating, it was compulsive and very, very bad for her.
Aoife O’Shaughnessy
Click went Gemma’s finger, and just like that she was plunged into another woman’s life – and not any other woman either, but Cal’s childhood sweetheart, the apple of his mammy’s eye and, according to Moira South, the one who got away. Gemma knew that she shouldn’t look, but when it came to the saintly Aoife she just couldn’t help herself.
Back in the dark ages, at about the same time that St Patrick had driven snakes out of the Emerald Isle, Cal had dated the girl next door.
“Sure, and it was just a teenage fling,” he always said to Gemma. “Haven’t I dated loads of girls since, and don’t I love you the best, me darlin’?”
He had certainly dated lots of girls – this came with being a footballer – but Gemma was (mostly) certain that he did love her the best. The problem was that Mammy South didn’t. No, Mammy South, who was more terrifying than any comic creation Brendan O’Carroll could come up with, disapproved of Gemma with a capital D and in complete inverse proportion to her idolisation of Aoife.
Aoife was such a good Catholic; she went to Mass every week, she helped the poor and she said her rosary. You’d think she was on first-name terms with Pope Francis too, Gemma thought wryly, the way that Cal’s mother went on. The daughter of the family from the next-door farm, Aoife had been an honorary part of the South family for years and everybody had thought – had hoped, Mammy South had sniffed, shooting Gemma a beady look from her curranty eyes – that one day she and Cal would get together. But for some mysterious reason this had never happened.
“Sure, and it wasn’t so mysterious,” Cal had told Gemma when she’d once asked him why. “Aoife went to Trinity to read law and I was shagging my way through all the WAGs. Anyway, me and Aoife? That’s never going to happen.”
“Why not?” Gemma had asked. “Apart from being with me, of course?”
Cal had shrugged and then given her a hug. “Aw, Gem, she’s just not my type.”
Gemma hadn’t bought this. Aoife O’Shaughnessy was tall and slim with a cloud of ebony hair, eyes as green as Irish shamrocks and skin like milk. She also had a killer brain, great boobs and possibly even a halo too. And his mammy loved her – and Cal, like most men, revered his mother. It didn’t make sense. Girls like Aoife were every man’s type.
“Why not?” she’d pressed.
Cal had merely shaken his head. “Because she really isn’t my type, Gem, and I’m pretty certain I’m not hers either. Aoife’s just a good friend.”
Just a good friend had slowly nibbled away at Gemma’s peace of mind. Whenever they visited County Cork, Cal’s mammy couldn’t resist dropping in some little snippet about how Aoife had been home recently (“such a good child, Cal, she visits her poor mammy more than twice a year”) or had been promoted or had split an atom during her lunch hour. OK, maybe not quite that, but you got the drift. It was as obvious as the giant picture of the Pope in the Souths’ kitchen that Cal’s mum wanted Aoife as her daughter-in-law and wished Gemma were on the moon. No matter how many times Cal reassured Gemma that he loved her and that there was nothing between him and Aoife O’Shaughnessy, Gemma couldn’t help feeling insecure.
It was mad, she knew it was, but since when had jealousy ever been rational? That would have made Othello a very dull play. Realistically, Gemma knew that she should be jealous of some of the stunning models and actresses Cal had dated during the good old, bad old days of his Premier League glory. There was Laura Lake the pop princess – famous for her tiny shorts and suggestive dancing, which regularly sent the morality brigade into fits of outrage (“Sure, and didn’t she have the smelliest feet?” said Cal) – or Fifi Royale (“Jaysus, she had more hair extensions than brain cells!”), both of whom were gorgeous with flat tummies and flicky hair. But Gemma never worried about them. Neither did it bother her when some kiss-and-tell slapper came out of the woodwork (“Feck, I probably did shag her, Gem – but, Jaysus, I was so off my face back then it could have been Sister fecking Wendy and I wouldn’t have noticed”). Gemma was only human and she wasn’t a fan of any of this. Still, she loved Cal and this meant accepting that his past was more chequered than a chessboard. Besides, she knew that what they had ran far deeper than the shallow trappings of fame or looks or whatever made great PR. Even more importantly, none of those girls could make a cream sponge to match Gemma’s.
Aoife O’Shaughnessy, however, was in another league altogether. She was beautiful, intelligent, Irish and a Catholic; she shared Cal’s history, she’d been his childhood sweetheart and, here was the crux of the problem, Mammy South had put her on a pedestal. What would happen if one day Cal realised that, much as he loved Gemma, she would never really be the good Irish colleen he needed?
Gemma sighed. She was being bloody ridiculous. Cal wasn’t interested in Aoife. He’d told her that enough times, almost to the point of exasperation. She flicked through the Facebook pictures – for somebody so smart Aoife had rubbish security – hoping against hope that she’d see a picture of the gorgeous Irish girl with a man. There were always male friends but Gemma had yet to see Aoife snuggled up to somebody or, better still, snogging his face off. Gemma’s page was crammed with images of her and Cal, although she had to admit that some of these were quite old. But maybe Aoife was far too professional for all that?
“Get a grip!” she told herself furiously. This was becoming an unhealthy obsession.
Leaving Facebook, she tried to distract herself with the property porn on Rightmove, but today cute cottages and converted barns weren’t doing it for her. A few days ago she’d Googled a cottage outside Falmouth that she’d liked. Maybe she’d check it out again, now that the dream of Penmerryn Creek was over? The browser history should have saved it.
Hang on. That was odd. Apart from today’s trawl round Facebook and Rightmove, the browser history was empty. Somebody had cleared it. An icy hand clenched Gemma’s heart. She certainly hadn’t deleted it, which meant only one thing: Cal had. She frowned. This was really odd. Why would Cal do that?
There’s a rational explanation, she told herself while her brain went into overdrive imagining the very worst. Deep breath, Gemma! Breathe! Maybe he was looking at bloke stuff? Guys did that, didn’t they? (And after all, hadn’t she just taken a bestselling mummy porn novel upstairs with her?) Or maybe when the fuse blew the computer had reset itself somehow? She supposed that was possible. There was nothing sinister.
Hating herself but unable to stop, Gemma navigated to Cal’s personal email, breathing a sigh of relief when she was able to get straight in. If there were any problems then she knew that he’d have changed the password. Feeling horribly guilty for spying on him, she closed the browser and shut the laptop hastily. Lord. What was getting into her? This lack of sex business was making her paranoid.
There was only one thing for it: she needed to change this situation – and change it soon, before she went mad. Maybe Angel had been onto something after all? Reaching into the lilac carrier bag, she re
moved the Mrs Santa outfit, the handcuffs and the can of whipped cream that Angel had insisted she buy when they’d stopped at Bodmin Asda for fuel. Quite what that was for was anyone’s guess. Finally, she drew out that iconic book with the innocent tie design and deceptively dull grey cover, and nervously flipped to the first page. There was no putting this off.
It was time to see whether Christian Grey had any good ideas.
Chapter 7
The slamming of the front door, followed by a loud thud and a shout of “Feck!”, announced Cal’s arrival home from the big house and roused Gemma from a doze. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep – this was far too risky with all the tea lights and candles that she’d lit and placed in what was a hopefully romantic trail from the hall all the way up the stairs to the bedroom – but the sexy Mrs Santa costume was skimpy to say the least and she’d burrowed under the duvet to prevent hypothermia. Fifty Shades was all very well, but Ana and Christian’s red room of pain was bound to have been centrally heated, and pneumonia wasn’t sexy even if it was painful.
“Jaysus, don’t tell me the lights have fused again?” she heard Cal grumble. “It’s like living in a fecking Dickens novel!”
Charles Dickens was not the author she had in mind right now, Gemma thought with a little shiver of anticipation, although she did have Great Expectations for some Hard Times!
Earlier that evening she’d read a few chapters of Fifty Shades, before running a cold bath (which was probably a good thing) and shaving and scrubbing and exfoliating every inch of her body. Then she’d smothered herself in the dregs of her Coco Mademoiselle moisturiser before squeezing herself into the red and white mini dress and fur-trimmed hat. Golly, it was tight, and it the way it squeezed her boobs up and out made her look like a porno version of Nell Gwynne – but then maybe that was the point? It didn’t entirely cover her bottom either; craning her neck to see her back view in the mirror Gemma noticed that it showed far too much cellulite for her liking. Maybe once Cal clocked her boobs her wouldn’t notice this? The candlelight should help too.
The thump of Cal’s footfalls on the stairs galvanised her into action and, cranking up the fan heater, she fluffed out her blonde curls and arranged herself on the bed in what she hoped was a seductive manner. Whipped cream? Check. Handcuffs? Check. Edible body paint? Check. Gemma took a deep breath. This was it. Time to surprise her man.
“Miss Pengelley will see you now,” she called huskily. Wow, with her acting background it was much easier than she thought to get into this role-play stuff. Maybe Angel was onto something?
“The lights downstairs are working, Gem. What’s with the candles?” Cal strode into the room, flicking on the main light and instantly destroying her carefully thought out and flattering lighting. For a nanosecond he and Gemma blinked at each other, dazzled by the sudden glare of the one-hundred-watt bulb, before Cal started laughing.
“Sure, I knew it was cold here but I didn’t know we were in the North Pole! Hello Santa! How the feck did you manage to get down the chimney?”
He couldn’t have chosen a worse comment to make. With a howl of misery Gemma leapt off the bed, beyond caring now whether or not her wobbly bits were on show, and, slamming home the bolt, barricaded herself in the bathroom. Tears poured down her cheeks, ruining her carefully applied make-up and washing away one of the false eyelashes that she’d spent ages gluing into place. In the mirror a red-faced, red-suited figure in a too-tight cheap polyester frock stared back her, her silly hat flopping just like her hopes. God, no wonder he’d laughed. She looked an absolute state. It was a joke to even think she could pull this off. What would look sexy and cute on size-eight Angel only made Gemma, a size-fourteen girl with boobs and hips, resemble lumpy porridge poured into a dress.
Slamming down the toilet lid and collapsing onto it, Gemma buried her face in her hands. No wonder he didn’t fancy her anymore. She was a joke.
“Aw, Gemma, will you come out?” Cal was saying through the crack in the door.
“You laughed at me,” Gemma choked. She didn’t think she’d ever felt so humiliated in her life, and as a girl who’d once modelled control pants this was saying something.
“I didn’t mean to laugh, darlin’. You just took me by surprise. I was wondering if there were any little elves hiding in the wardrobe, so I was!”
Normally Cal’s humour worked a treat when he’d been a typical bloke and done something wrong, but today Gemma was failing to see the funny side.
“You said I was fat!” she cried.
“I did not!” Cal said, sounding offended. “You’re not fat. You’re bloody gorgeous.” This was followed by a hollow slapping sound, which Gemma knew was him walloping his own tummy. “I’m the one in the chub club.”
“It’s different: you’re a guy and you look great and everyone fancies you,” Gemma shot back. “Didn’t Cosmo have you as one of their top-ten sexy TV chefs?”
He laughed that lovely dark-chocolate laugh that usually made her insides ripple. Today, though, her insides were a millpond. Cal was not getting away with this.
“Sure, and isn’t that all bollocks, Gem?”
“So why say I’d never fit down the chimney?”
He bellowed with laughter. “Because it’s capped, you eejit!”
Ah. Gemma hadn’t thought of that.
“You’ve got to stop being so hard on yourself, Gem. You’re gorgeous and I love you just the way you are,” Cal continued. She heard his back slither down the door and his weight thump onto the floor. “Ouch. I must be getting old, so. I’ll just sit here, so I will, until you come out. Only don’t take too long; it’s fecking freezing out here.”
“I’m not coming out.” Gemma figured that she had a loo, the fan heater and water in the bathroom. She could outlast Cal. He’d be an ice lolly in ten minutes.
“Ah, come on, Gem. I’ll make it up to you.” He paused and then started to laugh. “You can be Santa and I’ll be Rudolph! I’ll unwrap your presents!”
“That isn’t funny at all!” Cal was lucky he was locked outside, because this quip had lit the touchpaper of Gemma’s anger. “I was trying to do something nice! I was trying to act out a fantasy!”
“By dressing as Santa?” Cal sounded totally bemused by this. Although she couldn’t see him, Gemma knew that he’d be tugging at his corkscrew curls anxiously. “Jaysus, Gemma, central heating and calorie-free cake are my fantasies these days.”
“That’s the point! We never seem to have time for each other anymore,” Gemma sobbed. Both false eyelashes were gone now, sitting on the cracked lino like soggy spiders. “You’re always busy working and I hardly see you.”
“We see each other all the time. We live together,” Cal protested.
He really didn’t get it. Passing in the hallway or bumping into one another by the microwave did not count as seeing each other.
“Proper seeing each other,” Gemma sniffled. She yanked off a length of loo roll and blew her nose loudly. Ouch. The cheap stuff was like sandpaper. If she kept this up for much longer she really would be Rudolph rather than Mrs Santa. “Like we used to.” She swallowed back a sob. “Like when we went to Cornwall that time.”
There was a brief silence and Gemma knew that Cal was remembering that perfect summer’s afternoon at Penmerryn Creek. She couldn’t see his face but she was certain he was smiling.
“Sure, and wasn’t that a magical time?” he said softly. “The best time ever, but there are going to be more. So many more, I promise. Please come out, darlin’. I can’t bear it when you’re sad.”
The loo roll was disintegrating in her hands and her bum was getting numb on the unforgiving toilet lid. Suddenly, being locked away from Cal didn’t seem such a great idea.
“Listen, Gem,” he was saying earnestly, “I know it’s been flat out and I know that I’ve probably spent far too much time working, but believe me, darlin’, I’m doing all this for us. Building the bakery and the brand is all part of the groundwork for our future. Eve
n that daft TV show’s just another step towards a better life for you and me. Sure, and wasn’t it you who told me how much help the telly coverage would be for the business when we signed up for the first series?”
He was right. Gemma had been the driving force behind their signing with Seaside Rock, but this had been back when she’d still thought she wanted to be an actress and before she’d truly understood just how intrusive Cal’s kind of fame could be. Nothing could ever prepare you for the devouring curiosity of the public or the exhaustion of always having to be on your guard. A fat day, a spot, an argument, a trip out without make-up – all these things were fodder for discussion or a story on a slow news day. Gemma still cringed when she recalled how she’d been papped pulling her skirt away from her knickers.
“I did try and warn you,” he said gently. “Reality TV is not your friend, Gemma, and there’s feck-all real about it either.”
In fairness to Cal, he had tried to explain that a season of starring in reality TV could be very long indeed. It was acting without a script, he’d said, and Seaside Rock would want their money’s worth. But Gemma – buoyed by Angel’s enthusiasm and, she had to admit, tempted by the money – hadn’t really listened.
“But you didn’t have to sign for the second series,” she said now, hating the whining note that was creeping into her voice. “You knew how I felt.”
“I did, Gem,” Cal insisted. He was starting to sound frustrated now. The ringlets would have been tugged into a crazy bird’s nest. “I know it’s been a mad rollercoaster of a journey, but I’ve loved every minute I’ve spent with you. Come on, we both knew this year was going to be insane, but it’s going to put us in a much stronger position. All we have to do is just ride it out and I promise you that next year everything will be different. We’ve got to get to the New Year and I swear on my mammy’s life and the holy cross that everything will make sense.”
Escape for Christmas: A Novella (The Escape Series Book 2) Page 6