A Cornish Wedding

by Jenny Kane

  Cassandra got to her feet, wishing Dan had kept hold of her hand. ‘I wish I could argue with that, but I can’t. Even at the age of thirty I can’t spot a good one.’

  Dan had listened quietly to Cassandra’s story, how she’d come to be in Cornwall, and why she felt like a fish out of water, and now, not commenting on her poor boyfriend-spotting, asked, ‘And the fainting was because?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ve never done it before’

  ‘Have you been eating properly?’

  Feeling a bit embarrassed by her lack of cooking skills, Cassandra shrugged. ‘I don’t tend to cook. I always ate out in London. I’ve not been starving myself though.’

  ‘No proper meals. Just snacking?’

  ‘I suppose so. I hadn’t thought about it. I don’t think it’s a lack of good food though.’ Cassandra shrugged. ‘It’s hard to explain. I was sat at the table, everyone was happy and laughing, and I felt so overwhelmed. So much has happened to me so fast in the last few weeks. Since I arrived in Sennen, I’ve been robbed of my pride, my business acumen and my self-confidence, along with my agency, and possibly my partner.’

  ‘Possibly your partner?’ Dan frowned. ‘After everything you’ve told me, you’re honestly still thinking of Justin in terms of being your partner?’ He’d been about to take her hand, but now Dan gripped the handle of his rucksack instead.

  Hating that it sounded as though she was making excuses, Cassandra said, ‘Six years together is a long time. I have to hear what Justin has to say face to face.’

  ‘You weren’t together for six years.’

  ‘We were. I told you, we –’

  ‘No, Cassandra. You were together for a few hours every week and the occasional overnight stay for six years. Add it all together and it probably adds up to way less than a year.’

  ‘How dare you! You know nothing about our situation at all. If it wasn’t for Justin’s vindictive wife I’d still have a home and a business to call my own.’

  Then, Cassandra strode across the road in front of Dan and stalked back to the hotel, wishing she had brought her car with her so she could drive straight back to Miners Row on her own.

  For a split second Dan was inclined to let her stride off on her own, and drive back to Chalk Towers, but somehow Cassandra had got under his skin. She was a challenge that needed tackling. Bloody woman! ‘You didn’t really want to know, then.’

  Cassandra whirled round to see Dan was standing a few feet away from her, a let-down expression on his face, his hands on his hips.

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Unbelievable. If the conversation doesn’t revolve around you and your problems, then it’s not important, is that it?’ Not giving Cassandra a chance to bite back a reply, Dan went on, ‘I’ve met plenty of women like you in the past. Usually the higher-ranking officers’ wives. All materialistic and designer, who think they are oh-so in control of their lives. Then when something doesn’t go their way for a change it’s everyone else’s fault but their own. Listen to yourself, woman!’

  ‘I haven’t blamed anyone!’

  ‘Is that so? Not even Justin’s vindictive wife! Who, may I remind you, you’ve been figuratively screwing over for years.’

  Cassandra stared hard into Dan’s blue eyes for a second, before spinning round and staring out to sea. She didn’t want to acknowledge he was right. ‘Thank you for your earlier consideration, Dan. I apologise again for fainting and preventing you from enjoying your afternoon tea. Perhaps you should return to Stan and Dora. If you could pass on my apologies, I’ll take a taxi back to the house.’

  ‘Not bloody likely. You can come back inside and prove to me that you aren’t a heartless bitch who turns her back on the first genuine offers of friendship she has received in six years.’

  Cassandra tilted her chin up and pushed her shoulders back. Her false bravado crumbled as she abruptly remembered what it was that she’d asked him, then not waited for an answer.

  Why Dan had left the army was obviously a subject he usually kept closed, and wouldn’t normally volunteer information about. He had almost told her, and then she’d started thinking about Justin and Jacinta and what she’d lost, and forgotten all about it.

  Her shoulders sagged. ‘Oh, God! I’m sorry, Dan.’ She glanced towards the bay window of the hotel. She could see Dora and Abi waving happily in her direction. Waving back, she risked a peek at Dan.

  ‘I can’t excuse my behaviour, but please, perhaps for now, could you accept that I feel a bit lost. I’m truly sorry for my outburst. If you feel you could trust me, then I would genuinely like to know why you left the army.’

  Dan spent so long staring straight into her eyes that Cassandra started to feel awkward, until at last he said, ‘Did you know that there are flecks of peppermint in your irises?’

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Cassandra wasn’t sure if it was the glint in Dan’s eyes, or the welcoming beckoning of the people on the other side of the hotel’s bay window that convinced her that running away was not an option. Not only would it be cowardly, it would be rude, and from that point, there would be no going back to this benevolent group of people. With each step across the car park the truth came into sharper focus. She had one last chance to have friends here.

  With a long exhalation of breath, Cassandra climbed the first of the stone steps up into the hotel, and turned to see if Dan was following her, or if he’d walked the other way, got in his car, and driven back to Chalk Towers.

  ‘You thought I’d gone?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have blamed you.’

  ‘I thought you were going to get a taxi?’

  ‘So did I – when I was over there.’ Cassandra pointed back across the road to the sea beyond.

  ‘But now you’re going back inside.’ His eyes smiled, even if his mouth wasn’t giving way.

  ‘I don’t want Abi to worry. She’s been very good to me. They all have.’

  Something about the relaxation of Dan’s shoulders told Cassandra that, this time at least, she hadn’t disappointed him. ‘You should talk to the girls more. Share with them. It’ll make you feel better, I promise.’

  It was all Cassandra could do not to cry as she was hit with a wave of concern and questions about her welfare when she sat back down at the round table. ‘You saved us cake!’

  ‘Of course we did,’ Dora said. ‘A nibble of scone out of a napkin is one thing, but you haven’t had a real Cornish cream tea until you’ve eaten one off proper china plates, with tea from a teapot, and a silver teaspoon with which to ladle on your cream and jam.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Go on.’ Stan pushed a small pot of cream and a glass pot of homemade strawberry jam in Cassandra’s direction. ‘That lot will keep your strength up. Are you sure you’re OK, girl?’

  While walking across the plush thickly carpeted floor, back towards the round table, Cassandra had decided to treat the next hour as if she was bringing a particularly tricky business meeting back to order. Now, however, with six sets of concerned eyes, and one set of eyes belonging to someone who had stared into her eyes so hard that they had picked up flecks of pale green, something that Justin had never done (unless he’d simply not thought to tell her), she couldn’t do it.

  ‘I’m fine now, thanks, Stan. It was my own fault. I haven’t eaten much over the last day or two.’ Aware of being watched, Cassandra hesitated as she approached the cream and jam. ‘Umm, which is it first? I know Devon is one way and Cornwall is the other. But which is it?’

  The chorus of ‘jam first’ made Cassandra burst out laughing, and the weight on her shoulders seemed to evaporate. There was no need to explain, no need to make a thing of what had just happened. She could just move on, a fact that was underlined for her as she caught sight of Dan out of the corner of her eye. There was no doubt he liked her laugh.

  Max, who’d been watching Cassandra closely for signs of tension that might ruin the afternoon for Stan and Dora, also felt the atmosphere li
ghten as he said, ‘Did you know that the original Cornish cream teas weren’t on scones at all?’

  ‘Really?’ Beth chuckled. ‘I assume this is pub quiz information?’

  ‘Oh, do you like pub quizzes?’ Cassandra asked as she tried to dollop half the over-generous portion of cream back off her silver spoon.

  Abi answered before Max could. ‘He is a general knowledge wizard! The only time I’ve ever been in a winning pub quiz team was with Max before we started going out together.’

  Beth, who was now helping Cassandra scrape the cream off with her own spoon, laughed, ‘Go on then, Max, I can see you’re bursting to tell us. If cream teas weren’t on scones, what were they on?’

  Picking up his pint, Max said, ‘Well, traditionally they were served on a Cornish split.’

  Abi was trying not to giggle as Cassandra gave up trying to be delicate with her cream and pushed it off with her finger. ‘I assume a Cornish split isn’t a local gymnast with a weird fetish?’ Cassandra asked.

  Laughing at the Londoner’s unexpected humour, Max explained, ‘It’s a sweetened white bread roll, a little bit like a plain brioche. The split would have been warmed slightly, and then buttered, before the jam and then cream – clotted, obviously – was added.’

  ‘Buttered as well?’ Cassandra could feel the delicious calories jumping directly onto her hips as she took her first mouthful.

  ‘Yes. You can imagine how gorgeous they would have tasted, but also how many heart attacks must have come as a result of a lifelong addiction to them!’

  Dora, who’d been unusually quiet as Cassandra tackled her first cream tea scone construction, watched with satisfaction as the city girl took her second bite. ‘Better than Claridge’s?’

  ‘Ummm. . .’ Unable to answer properly, Cassandra chewed her mouthful as Dan filled her teacup with tea, just as Jacob topped up her champagne flute with bubbly.

  Once her mouth was empty, Cassandra looked at both of them. ‘Are you trying to fatten me up?’

  ‘Yes!’

  Again the answer was unanimous, and Cassandra shrugged in defeat, before taking a deliberately massive bite of the scone to the rapturous applause of her comrades.

  ‘Flecks of peppermint?’

  ‘That’s what the man said.’ Cassandra passed Abi a drawing pin to stick a poster onto the gallery’s notice board while Beth lounged on the sofa, rubbing the very first glimpses of her baby bump.

  ‘That’s a very strange reaction, considering he’d just been shouting at you.’ Abi pushed the last pin into place and stepped down from the stool she’d been balanced on.

  ‘To put it mildly.’ Cassandra smiled, running a hand over her stomach in a similar fashion to Beth. ‘I’m still stuffed from yesterday!’

  Cassandra had been stood outside the gallery in time for Saturday morning opening, a bunch of flowers in one hand, and a packet of fudge in the other. Rather than actually say sorry again, she had taken the unusual step of sharing what had happened between her and Dan, and was pleasantly surprised to find having girlfriends to talk to was as much fun as he’d told her it would be.

  ‘Well, I think it’s romantic.’ Beth stretched her legs outwards and then stood up. ‘He obviously likes you. And you said he called you Cass?’

  Abi propped the galleries front door open, relishing the brief hit of sunshine on her face. ‘I must say, I think Cass suits you. It sounds more relaxed than Cassandra.’

  ‘I like it too.’ Cassandra felt another effortless smile cross her face. ‘I always liked it, but Justin said it was common, so I didn’t use it. I think I will from now on though. Cass it is.’

  Beth rolled her eyes. ‘I know I have never met Justin, but he sounds a total arse.’

  Cass had to agree. ‘And I’ve wasted quite enough time thinking about him. Time to start again.’

  Abi tilted her head to one side, her yellow fringe flopping over her eyes. ‘And does this new life include living by the seaside?’

  Cass suddenly felt awkward. ‘That’s unlikely. I am happier down here than I was, thanks to you guys, but I think a road to Damascus experience beach-wise is probably pushing it.’

  Beth was almost as stunned as Abi had been when Cass had first confessed she didn’t like the seaside. ‘You seriously don’t like going to the beach?’

  ‘Nope. But, I have to say, I do like Cornwall. I like the pub gardens and the little shops, and cream teas are every bit as good as Stan said they’d be, and this gallery is fantastic, but the beach – no. Sorry.’

  Unlocking the till ready for the day, Beth said, ‘Each to their own, I suppose. There’s heaps of Cornwall that’s inland. Personally, I love the villages a little way back from the coast best of all. Have you been to Zennor yet? If you go with Max though, I should warn you he’ll tell you about the mermaid, and every other bit of Cornish village folklore he knows.’

  ‘Which is a lot!’ Abi added.

  ‘That sounds quite nice actually, but I wouldn’t expect Max to schlep around villages with me, especially as he’s up to his elbows in painting my house.’

  Abi beamed at her neighbour. ‘You said “your house”. I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you sound happy about that.’

  ‘I’ve done a lot of thinking since I spoke to Justin. And, if I’m honest, even more since yesterday afternoon.’ The women were staring at her with such open curiosity that Cass couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Should we put the kettle on for this?’

  Beth clapped. ‘Now you’re talking our language!’

  As Beth pottered about making coffee and tea, Cass explained about her last trip to Jo’s shop in Truro, and how much she loved her bumblebee furniture. ‘I know it’s a totally new – not to mention uncharacteristic – direction for me; and I have no idea if it’ll work, or if once I discover how much hard work it is, I’ll go off the idea, but I’d like to restore my own furniture.’ Cass braced herself, half expecting Abi and Beth to laugh.

  Abi however was clearly thrilled. ‘I think that’s a brilliant idea.’

  ‘You don’t think I’m being silly?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Abi took the mug of coffee Beth passed her. ‘Are you going to do one of Jo’s courses?’

  ‘I’m on the waiting list. She is so booked up.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’ Beth sipped her tea after blowing on the surface. ‘Max has always held Jo’s skills in high regard.’

  Cass sat on the edge of the sofa next to Beth. ‘A situation that is obviously mutual. It was Jo who recommended Max as a decorator to me before I knew he was Abi’s partner.’

  Turning the page of the large pad of paper propped on the easel, Abi asked, ‘What are you going to tell your lawyer to do? You aren’t going to let Justin or his wife just steal your life’s work, are you?’

  A little shamefaced, Cass said, ‘To an extent I am. I did cheat with her husband.’

  ‘I suppose so, but she has still stolen from you. Plus Justin lied to you – a lot. He never had any intention of divorcing her, did he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Perching on the edge of the gallery sofa, Cass felt the wave of sadness she’d been keeping at bay edge closer. ‘Justin said he was coming to talk to me in person, but I doubt I’m going to believe a single word he says any more.’

  ‘Probably wise.’ Abi’s mind filled with a vision of her brother-in-law, whom they all referred to as Slimy Simon. He’d managed to lie with so much style that he had people believing Abi was insane with grief after Luke’s death. He’d always come across as perfectly plausible.

  Not wanting to let thoughts of Justin darken the mood, Cass said, ‘I’ve decided to ask Donald, that’s my lovely lawyer, to do a little more digging. Whatever the truth of the situation turns out to be, I want to make sure my staff are compensated, and see what recompense I can get.’

  ‘But won’t you lose a fortune?’ Beth asked as she dunked a biscuit into her drink.

  ‘I’ll be out of pocket, but I still have a flat in London I’m renting
out and, if Donald is correct, then number two Miners Row is mine and not Justin’s.’

  ‘Really?’ Abi was openly surprised.

  ‘Yes. Donald thinks it was guilt that made Justin put it in my name. Which sort of implies he knew what Jacinta was up to fairly early on, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It sure does.’ Abi pulled a face. ‘He probably thought he’d be able to use your place as a bolthole if Jacinta decided to take direct revenge on him as well.’

  Cass groaned. ‘That’s the worst thing. The feeling that I’ve been such a fool. That Jacinta – or worse, Justin – are laughing at me. That I was merely a convenient mistress for him. That I wasn’t loved at all.’

  Beth put her arm around Cass’s shoulders. ‘Forgive me, but Justin is a shit. You’re much better off with Dan.’

  Cass blushed. ‘Dan is lovely, but he could do much better than me. I’m sure he was just being kind yesterday. Everyone here is kind.’

  Abi and Beth exchanged glances, before Abi said, ‘For goodness’ sake, woman; he noticed the flecks of peppermint in your eyes!’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  ‘At least if Dan and Cass do get together then they won’t be so bull in a china shop about it as you and Jacob were!’ Abi winked at Beth.

  ‘We weren’t that bad!’ Beth stuck her tongue out at her friend. ‘Jacob just knew a good thing when he saw it.’

  Having had an unusually heavy trickle of customers and browsers in and out all morning, the gallery was empty now. Cass had left to see how Max was getting on some time ago, and Abi had been toying with the idea of sharing her concerns about her own future with Beth, but there hadn’t been time. And with each new day now bringing with it an increase in the number of holidaymakers as the season crept towards mid-July, and the school summer holidays, the chance to talk before and after school was getting leaner outside of weekends.

  ‘Talking of having a good thing,’ Abi wasn’t sure she should say anything, but the thought that she and Max would be stuck as they were for ever refused to go away, ‘I don’t suppose Max has said anything to you about me?’