A French Affair (17 page)

‘Good. How are things going for you?’ she asked nonchalantly, locking the cabinet and squirrelling away the key. She was ridiculously pleased to see him.

‘OK,’ he said non-committally.

Matthew was always bleak, Gina reminded herself, she shouldn’t regard it. But somehow she heard herself saying, ‘You don’t sound very cheerful. Business has really picked up around here, hasn’t it? Shouldn’t that perk you up a bit?’

He chuckled. ‘You make me sound like a hairstyle that needs some gunk or other to improve it.’

‘I’m sure we can find that gunk if we look on the internet.’ She smiled. ‘Or is it the time of year that’s getting you down? Not everyone loves Christmas and when the whole world is supposed to be feeling jolly . . .’ A thought occurred to her. ‘What are you doing for Christmas anyway?’

Afterwards she could have kicked herself. She really didn’t want to look as if she was prying into his personal life, which she now knew included an ex-wife whom no one ever mentioned.

He hesitated. ‘Last year I went to Jenny and her family. They have a big old farmhouse with all sorts of animals. They’ve got a pair of Jack Russells called Nunc and Dimittis. They adore Oscar.’

‘So you’re going there this year?’

There was a tiny pause. ‘No. They’re all going away somewhere. I shall have a peaceful time here, getting ahead with my paperwork.’

She spoke without thinking. ‘Why don’t you come to Sally’s? It’s utter chaos but always fun. I know she’d love to have you.’ Even as she heard herself say this she wondered how on earth they’d fit another person and a huge dog into Sally’s tiny cottage.

‘I wouldn’t dream of intruding.’

‘You wouldn’t be intruding. The more the merrier. And
Sally loves it if someone who’s not family comes because she says it makes the girls behave better. You’d be a very useful addition.’

‘The girls are terrified of Oscar.’

‘They’d get used to him. Do come.’

‘I couldn’t possibly. Really. I’ll be fine.’

‘If you don’t come I’ll end up doing all the washing-up on my own. It happens every year.’

‘So you want me to help with the washing-up? That’s the only reason you’ve invited me?’

She nodded, trying not to smile and knowing she’d have to examine all the other reasons she might have for inviting him the moment she was on her own. Was she imagining things or had he been pleased she’d asked him?

‘In which case I’d be delighted to accept.’

‘Good. I know Sally will be delighted.’

‘But on the condition you let me invite you to something.’

Gina frowned. ‘A particular something? Or just some random something that might come up?’

‘A particular something.’ He smiled but didn’t elaborate.

‘What then?’ Gina urged.

‘I want you to visit an old friend with me. I think you’d enjoy it. I will need to check first though. He lives in an amazing house. It’ll be shortly after Christmas – if it comes off.’

‘It sounds wonderful – and very intriguing. Can you give me more details?’

‘I could but I prefer not to. It might not happen.’

‘You’re being very mysterious, Matthew.’

‘And usually I’m a miserable old man resistant to change?’

Gina nodded. ‘You’re not that old though.’

Matthew laughed. ‘Come on, it’s time you went home. I’ll let you out.’

Rather than phoning Sally she decided to drive to her house so she could tell her face to face about inviting another guest for Christmas to her tiny house. She caught Sally at a good moment. The girls were ensconced in front of CBeebies and Alaric was in his studio.

‘Come and talk to me while I cook. This is so nice. I can open some wine,’ Sally said when she’d given Gina a huge hug.

‘I won’t have any—’

‘You don’t have to. But your presence in the house means it’s OK for me to drink.’

‘You might throw it at me when I tell you why I’ve come.’ Gina pulled out a chair and sat at the table pulling the half-peeled bowl of potatoes towards her. ‘Sally, I’ve asked Matthew to spend Christmas with us. He was going to spend it on his own,’ she said in a rush.

Sally sighed as she pulled open the fridge door.

Gina held her breath, and then let it out again as her sister said, ‘Well, I can’t blame you. I would have invited him too if I’d known he was going to be alone. I am a bit surprised by you though, hon. I thought you wanted to keep things strictly business between you.’

‘On the whole, yes, but I have my share of the milk of human kindness. I’m peeling your potatoes although I’m not staying for supper.’ She realised she wasn’t being completely honest with Sally but if Sally got wind of her crush on Matthew and the possibility (or foolish hope on
her part) that he might feel something for her in return she would have no peace. Gina got up from the table and took the potatoes over to the sink to rinse them. To stop herself mentioning something that was beginning to take over her mind she said, ‘Let’s think about Christmas. How many other people are coming? Or is it just us and Matthew?’

‘I wish. No, we’ve got all Alaric’s lot, including the mad aunt who sounds a lot of fun but who really isn’t.’ She bit her lip and looked at Gina. ‘Auntie Rainey was a proper mad aunt, generous, fun . . .’

Gina nodded. ‘Always drank too much at Christmas.’

‘Exactly. She was proper.’

‘So where are you going to put people?’ said Gina after a moment’s silent reflection on their dead aunt.

Sally looked around her. ‘Well, I thought if we took out every single moveable bit of furniture apart from the table we could just about manage to eat in here. That was what I planned to do.’

Gina felt that there would be no room for chairs. She was overcome with guilt. ‘Oh God, Sals, I’m so sorry. Now I’ve added Matthew that will be just impossible. I’ll uninvite him.’ Just for a second the thought of inviting him to her own little cottage and having a romantic Christmas for two flittered into her head like a cobweb to be chased out again by her mental broom of good sense.

‘Don’t be silly, we’ll manage.’ Sally rubbed her sister’s arm in reassurance. ‘It’s not as if he’s bringing Oscar.’ Then she caught Gina’s rueful gaze. ‘He’s bringing Oscar.’

Gina nodded. ‘I will uninvite him. He’ll understand—’

‘No. I refuse to think of him – anyone that we know – being alone at Christmas when we could have done something about it. Us’ll manage,’ she added. ‘That’s what Alaric always says, coming from the West Country, loike.’

GINA WAS DELIGHTED
when Sally asked her if she could come over a couple of days before Christmas Eve to help her get ready. She was unexpectedly excited about Christmas this year: although she didn’t really want to admit it, she knew it was because she would be spending the day with Matthew.

In spite of his mysterious invitation she wasn’t sure how he felt about her, of course, but sometimes she caught him looking at her in a way that gave her a frisson of hope.

She set off for Sally’s with a packet of chocolate Hobnobs and a pair of rubber gloves.

Sally was wearing a thick jumper and dungarees with a scarf wrapped round her head. ‘The kids are with my dear friend and her kids and Alaric’s off somewhere, which is a shame because we could do with some muscle, but you and I are going to create our Christmas space.’

Gina hugged her sister hello. ‘One of the things I love about you is the way you dress for the part – whatever that part might be.’ Warned she was going to get dirty, Gina had on tracksuit bottoms and a jumper which had
once belonged to Egan. (As she’d given it to him in the first place she felt it was sort of hers anyway, and it was the only thing of his that she hadn’t wanted to throw on the fire in a fit of anger.) ‘Can I come in? Why aren’t we in the kitchen with the kettle on?’

‘I’ll make you a hot drink if you want one but we’re not going into the kitchen.’

Gina shook her head. ‘Sal, you’ll never be able to clear all the furniture out of the sitting room—’

‘We’re not having Christmas dinner in the house. We’re going in the garage.’

Sally led the way down the front path to the garage and, with as near to a flourish as she could manage given she was dealing with something quite heavy, she pulled up the door. ‘Alaric agreed it’s too good a space to keep the car in. All we have to do is clear out the rubbish and then decorate it.’

Gina inspected the space. It was quite large. She remembered when Sally and Alaric bought the house – a tiny if picturesque ex-farmworker’s cottage – they’d mentioned turning the garage into a studio. Lack of money had stopped them ever doing it. Alaric had a shed in the garden.

‘God, Sal, we haven’t got a lot of time, have we?’ said Gina, trying not to dampen Sally’s enthusiasm.

‘I know, but I only had the idea the other day and then had to arrange childcare. We’ll be fine.’

‘Of course we will!’ said Gina brightly, quashing her doubts. ‘Where are we going to put the rubbish?’

‘We’ll drag it out of the door in the back into the garden and have a bonfire. It’s mostly wood. Look, I’ve bought us gloves.’

Accepting that her sister had thought everything through, Gina put on the gloves and started pulling at some hardboard. ‘Goodness. There’s an inspection pit in here. I wonder how you get into it?’

Sally took hold of the other end. ‘I don’t know, but you’ll be pleased to hear I’ve decided against having Father Christmas rising up out of it. I thought it would be confusing for the girls as they think of him as coming down things.’

‘Like chimneys?’

‘Exactly.’

Synchronising their efforts, they heaved the plywood on to the bonfire. ‘That looks a bit too good to burn,’ said Gina.

‘It does. I might just leave it here until after Christmas. Or let Alaric decide.’

They went back into the garage. ‘So what are we going to eat off?’

‘That’s easy. We use the plastic picnic table and put a bit of fibre board or something on top of it.’ Sally giggled. ‘I was going to ask Alaric if I could have that really big canvas he’s never got right but thought someone might poke a hole in it.’

Gina restrained her amusement better. It was all right for Sally to be disrespectful about her husband’s paintings but it wouldn’t do for her to be so. ‘It wouldn’t be rigid enough anyway.’

‘The absolute joy about having earned a bit of money of my own is that I can spend some of it at least on Christmas.’

‘Well, I’ll provide the alcohol as usual,’ said Gina. ‘And as it’s my fault you’re having to do all this’ – she indicated the garage and its contents – ‘I’ll do the turkey as well. Although it will be frozen. Free-range but frozen.’

‘
That would be wonderful. Alaric’s parents always give us a bit of money towards it. Of course, they think they’re getting a posh fresh one from some farm or other but really, they never can tell the difference and there’s plenty of other things to spend money on.’

‘Now, let me get a broom so we can sweep the floor and see what we’ve got to deal with.’

The floor was not inspiring. Concrete and dirty even after a brisk sweeping it definitely needed some sort of covering.

‘I don’t suppose Matthew has a huge supply of antique killims we could borrow, do you?’ Sally looked at her sister.

‘Oh God, Sal. Don’t ask me to ask him. They might get damaged.’

Sally sighed. ‘OK, I’ll scrub that idea. What about tarpaulins?’

‘Well, they are quite expensive,’ said Gina.

Sally thought for a moment. ‘Right, fall-back position. We’ll paint the floor. If it’s light and bright it’ll be fine. You can get emulsion in bulk for not a lot of money.’

‘But will it dry in time? Imagine: little footprints permanently on your floors.’

Sally shuddered. ‘We’ll have to do something about heating anyway, that would help it dry quicker. I’d better get looking. There’s bound to be something on the internet.’

‘While you do that, I’ll start on the walls. We should maybe do them first, if we’re doing them. What do you think we should tackle first?

‘Actually I think we need tea. Come into the house.’

By the time Sally had made tea and put a hazelnut and
chocolate chip biscuit by Gina’s side, Gina had found out that portable gas heaters were hideously expensive too.

‘Oh! said Sally, crunching in Gina’s ear a few moments later. ‘Lightbulb moment. Alaric’s got a friend who spray paints cars. He won’t be working over Christmas. I bet he’d lend us his industrial heaters. I’ll go and phone him.’

She came back shortly afterwards. ‘Result. He’s shutting up shop this afternoon and I can pick up the heaters at five.’

‘Yeah! So that’s the heat and the floor decided if not actually done . . .’

‘We need to go back and see what else needs doing. I’m really enjoying myself.’ Sally hugged her sister.

They stood side by side inspecting the garage walls. The building was wooden and the construction meant the walls consisted of small shelves as wide as the two-by-fours that kept the building rigid.

‘No, we can’t paint them,’ said Gina. ‘It would take forever.’

‘I’m thinking tea lights,’ said Sally. ‘Masses and masses of them, on every shelf. It would help keep us warm, too.’

Gina sighed. ‘I hate to be an older sister but what about fire?’

Sally nodded slowly. ‘Hmm. Annoyingly, I think you’re right. OK, we’ll just have some where we can reach them and maybe’ – her expression lightened – ‘little buckets of sand? In case of emergencies?’

‘Good idea, and for the rest of the shelves, battery operated fairy lights,’ said Gina. ‘There’s bound to be a website with a deal on.’

‘Excellent. Let’s go and look,’ said Sally as they went back to the house. ‘And as fairy lights are one of my
addictions I don’t mind buying them with some of my Carmella money.’

As they looked online for the best deal Gina said, ‘You won’t give up on the antiques entirely, will you? I mean I know you really prefer new things to old but I need you!’

‘Oh hon. I’d never abandon you if you needed me. I won’t ever get into the fusty old stuff like you have but we’re still a team.’

Gina tried to smile although her sister’s words told her that Sally’s support was going to be more emotional than practical. Well, so she would be on her own with the antiques. She’d just have to manage. She was managing without a partner in her personal life, she’d do the same professionally. Matthew would go on supporting her, she was sure. Resolutely she pushed an image of his smile – so charming because it was so rare – from her mind. Focus. ‘Look. Bargain. Four sets for a tenner. Will that be enough?’