Winter Wishes (18 page)

“Somebody around here needs to show some moral fibre,” snapped Ivy.

“Sounds like something you’d eat for breakfast,” Caspar murmured, which incensed the older woman even more. Arms folded, she glowered across the table.

Jules knew from bitter experience that she’d need a whole oil well to smooth these troubled waters now. Ivy wasn’t above phoning the bishop’s office to complain.

“Ivy, I’m very sorry that the book offended you. I certainly didn’t put it on the stall, but whoever donated it had good intentions, I’m sure.”

“The road to hell is paved with those,” Ivy shot back.

“Yes, because people get things wrong sometimes,” Jules pointed out gently. “It’s part of being human and it’s often only through God’s grace that we can forgive those errors, just as He forgives us.”

Ivy stared at Jules as though she was speaking Chinese. Forgiveness probably wasn’t in her vocabulary, and it was with a sinking heart that Jules pressed on.

“Look, what I’m trying to say, and saying badly, is that we’re all trying to do our best here to raise money for the church. Can’t you just focus on all the good things we do at St Wenn’s rather than this one mistake?”

But apparently Ivy couldn’t; instead, she just huffed and scowled before spinning on her heel and stomping away, her indignation evidenced by the rigid set of her shoulders. Jules sighed. She’d better prepare herself for a difficult conversation with the bishop.

“My God, what rattled her cage?” whistled Caspar.

“Oh that’s just Ivy, don’t mind her,” said Sheila. “She’s always a little grouchy.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Grouchy? I’d hate to see her in a really bad mood.”

“Stick around and you will,” Jules promised him.

Their drinks were cold by now, and as Sheila returned to her stall, Caspar went to fetch more coffee, muttering about putting a drop of brandy in the next ones. Jules half hoped he wasn’t kidding; she’d had the same thought earlier, and she felt a good deal more in need of it now. She stared thoughtfully after Ivy. Why was she always so determined to be as objectionable as possible? There had to be more to her behaviour than met the eye, and Jules knew that she needed to get to the bottom of it if she was to stand a chance of helping the elderly woman.

The trouble was that Ivy made it so difficult to help.

“That’s a long face. Is there anything I can do?”

Looking up, Jules was jolted to find Danny standing at her side, close enough for her to touch, close enough to smell his aftershave. As she inhaled that familiar scent Jules experienced a pang of longing so intense that she could hardly bear it. It must be raining heavily outside now because his hair was plastered to his scalp like a dark gold cap and his long eyelashes were starred with raindrops. Struck by the beauty of him, she gulped and looked down at the table top. She had to fight these feelings and she had to win.

“Let me guess,” he continued, pulling out a chair and sitting next to her, “the lovely Mrs Lawrence again? Do you want me to have a word?”

Seeing him so unexpectedly had made the words dry up on Jules’s tongue, and all she could do was shake her head.

Danny grinned. “Thank goodness for that. She bloody terrifies me!”

“You’re not alone there.” Jules was relieved to find that her vocal cords were working again. She took a breath to steady herself. “I’ll go and see her.”

“Rather you than me,” said Danny. “Seriously though, if you want a wingman for support I’ll be there. After what happened with Morgan the other day she isn’t on my list of favourite people, but I promise I could keep my cool. Not like in my bad old drinking days.”

The allusion to his behaviour on the night they’d first met made Jules smile.

“Not even Ivy deserves a dose of that.”

“That’s debatable! I could always bring an emergency six-pack of lager?”

“Tempting, but I’ll speak to her alone,” Jules said. “I know I have to. The way she’s been acting recently has been really unacceptable. I’m sure there’s more to it – and hopefully this,” she touched her dog collar, “will help her feel that she can share whatever it is.”

“You always see the good in people, Jules,” Danny said warmly. “It’s one of the loveliest things about you.”

They stared at each other momentarily. His hand on the crumb-covered table top was only inches away from hers and it took every drop of self-control Jules possessed not to reach out and touch his fingertips.

“Why aren’t you answering my texts?” he asked quietly.

Jules couldn’t look at him now. “You know why.”

“Are you seeing someone?”

Her head snapped up. Danny’s uninjured eye was trained on her with such a deep blue intensity that she was floored.

“What?”

“You heard me. I’d have thought it was a simple enough question, Jules. You haven’t been to the house. You ignore my messages and you’re drinking coffee all over the village with some handsome arty type. Are you seeing him?”

“Caspar?” The idea was so absurd that Jules just stared at him. Was Caspar handsome? Maybe in a poetic and long-haired way, but she couldn’t say she’d noticed.

“Yes, Caspar,” Danny said, and there was a savage note in his voice that she hadn’t heard before.

“I haven’t been drinking coffee all over the village.” Having lived in a city previously, Jules never failed to be amazed by the swift nature of village gossip. It certainly gave the tabloid press a run for their money. She could sneeze in the churchyard and reportedly have developed pneumonia by the time she reached the quay. “One drink in the pub and a coffee just now is hardly
all over the village
.”

His blue eye narrowed. “So you are seeing him. Thanks for letting me know.”

Jules was stung by the accusatory tone. “Dan, I’m single and I can drink coffee with anyone I choose. We’ve been through this a thousand times. You’re married to Tara – no!” She held up her hands. “Don’t tell me again that it’s over. I saw the way that you guys came together on Bonfire Night.”

“Because Morgan bloody well hurt himself!”

Jules saw her chance. “How is he?”

“Fine, it was just a nasty cut. Don’t think I don’t know you’re trying to change the subject.” Danny reached out to grab her hand and Jules pulled it away just in time. If he touched her she knew she’d be lost.

“I’m not changing the subject. I’m talking about Morgan and Tara – your family,” Jules said firmly. “The three of you are a family, Dan. I saw that for myself and it’s important. Maybe things are going to sort themselves out for you all, now that Tara’s moved back?”

Danny made a strange strangled sound. “How many times do I have to tell you? Things will never sort themselves out. Tara and I are over.”

“But you’ve moved back home again.” Alice had let this detail slip, and although it felt like a razor blade to her heart Jules had tried her hardest to be happy for Danny.

“Because I’m bloody sick of kipping on the couch in the marina office! You might not have noticed but I’m a sodding cripple these days and it hurts to sleep there. I’m sleeping in my own room, in case you want to know. I’m not with Tara.”

His voice rose and several heads swivelled.

“I don’t need to know that. The details of your married life aren’t my business,” Jules said.

“When it suits you, right?” Danny’s face was black with anger. “Normally you can’t wait to stick your nose in and tell me just how great my marriage could be. You’re happy to keep your secrets too, aren’t you?”

“I don’t have any secrets!” Jules protested. “If I think you should make your marriage work then it’s because I happen to believe in those vows that people take in front of me and God.”

“Yeah, well maybe you should just bear in mind that not everyone keeps them,” Danny shot back. “You keep talking all you like, Jules, but one thing’s for sure and that is I am
never
taking that woman back. Never.”

Stung by the fury in his voice and the sticking-her-nose-in jibe, Jules felt her eyes fill with tears. Oh Lord, there was no way she could cry in the middle of the village hall and in front of everyone. It would be the most talked-about event of the year. Furious with both herself and Danny, Jules blinked them away as best she could – but one solitary tear still rolled down her nose and splashed onto the table.

She couldn’t cry. Not here. Not now.

“Oh Jules, sweetheart, please don’t be upset. Not because I’m being a prick,” Danny was saying, aghast. “I’m so sorry. None of this is your fault. It’s not you I’m angry with, I promise. Look, what you need to know about Tara and I is—”

But Danny’s words were drowned out by a sudden shriek of excitement from the far side of the room.

“Vicar! Vicar! You’ve got to see this!” cried Sheila, elbowing her way through the crowds until she was at Jules’s side. Her right fist unclenched slowly to reveal a fifty-pound note. At least, Jules thought this was what it was. Being a vicar she didn’t often see notes of that value. The last one she’d seen had appeared in one of the collecting buckets on Bonfire Night, an occurrence so out of the ordinary that the postmistress had opened the post office especially so that could check it was genuine, which it was.

“Where did that come from?” Jules asked in surprise.

“It was in the float for the book stall,” said Sheila. “I hadn’t turned my back for five minutes and there it was. Oh, Vicar! It’s like a miracle!”

But Jules wasn’t so sure. First her meal in the pub, then the collection bucket and now this. Somebody was giving money away. Was it the same person who was making the mysterious donations into the St Wenn’s account and causing her so many headaches? And why on earth would they choose to do this?

“It’s the Polwenna Bay Angel!”

Pushing through the villagers who were rapidly gathering around Jules’s table, and with his black coat billowing behind him, was Caspar.

“Polwenna Bay Angel?” echoed Sheila. “What on earth are you on about?”

“The mystery benefactor who bought the vicar dinner,” Caspar explained in his theatrical voice, full of more plums than a Christmas pudding. He flung his arm around Jules’s shoulders and pulled her tightly against him. “There’s an angel in the village and this is their way of doing good! They love this lady here, that’s for sure!”

At this there was uproar and it took Jules a good five minutes to calm things down and to try explaining the odd events of the past few days. She even pleaded with the mystery benefactor to come forward. The hush that fell while everyone waited was tenser than that well-known part of the marriage service that required an answer, but it was no use. The Polwenna Bay Angel, whoever he or she was, wished to remain a mystery.

And talking of mysteries, what had Danny Tremaine been about to tell her? Jules turned back to him in the hope of picking up the thread of their earlier conversation, but then saw that his chair was empty. Her stomach felt as though somebody had kicked it and she had a horrible sensation that something fragile had just slipped from her grasp.

Danny Tremaine had gone, taking with him whatever secret he’d been on the brink of sharing.

Chapter 12

If this is what it feels like to be a celebrity then I’ll leave it, thanks
, Tara Tremaine thought as she made her way through the village. Huddled into her coat and with her head practically tucked into her chest to avoid the driving Cornish drizzle, she might not be able to see the villagers watching her from behind their net curtains or from the shop windows, but she could certainly feel their curious gazes burning into her back. They’d be sizing up her outfit and what she looked like, and they’d probably be judging her as the kind of flighty and appalling mother who not only unsettled her child by dragging him to the distant reaches of The Big City but allowed him to fall off the rocks and cut his head open to boot.

Tara sighed. It was one thing being Angelina Jolie, or even Summer Penhalligan, with a team of publicists and stylists behind you to ensure that your image was spun to perfection and that you looked fabulous wherever you ventured, but it was another altogether to be cast as a scarlet woman, friendless and looking an absolute state in a borrowed and ancient wax jacket that smelled strongly of horse. Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the window of Kursa’s Kozi Kutz
was enough to make Tara want to weep. Gone was the woman with the glossy bob and carefully applied make-up, and in her place was a bedraggled mascara-smeared fright. Maybe she was vain and shallow, just as Mo had once accused her of being, but for Tara looking beautifully groomed and well dressed was her armour. The villagers could say what they liked about her being a bad wife and a useless mother, but at least if she felt confident about her appearance she could hold her head up high. Without that, what did she really have? Tara thought bleakly. No education to speak of, no job and a broken marriage.

She was a total failure. Nobody really liked her or wanted her here. Alice and Summer were kind enough, Jimmy was affable as always (albeit preoccupied with whatever madcap schemes he was up to), and Mo was fortunately far too busy being loved-up to pay Tara much attention. Issie and Nick, however, had made their antipathy very clear, and their cold-shouldering was starting to give Tara frostbite. None of this would have mattered if Danny had shown any signs of being pleased to see her. He was obviously thrilled to have Morgan home but he’d hardly spoken to Tara since Bonfire Night, and it was now the second week of November. As much as she hated to admit it, Tara was starting to fear that her plan to win him back wasn’t going to be as straightforward as she’d hoped. Danny had assured her that there would always be a place for her and Morgan at Seaspray, but this seemed to be about as far as things went. There had been none of the late-night chats or nostalgic moments she’d hoped for; in fact, Danny had been in a very strange mood for days now and was barely talking to anyone. Even Alice had been snapped at for asking him what was wrong – which was a very bad sign indeed, because Danny adored his grandmother.

I haven’t helped at all by coming back
, Tara reflected sadly.
I’ve only made everything worse.
If it wasn’t for seeing how happy Morgan was to be home, she would have been sorely tempted to catch the next bus towards Reading and throw herself on her parents’ mercy. Even their long, disappointed silences, the endless Radio Four and the strain of them having a lively eight-year-old in a fussy house crammed with figurines from Sunday newspaper supplements had to be better than this.