A Cornish Christmas (11 page)

After that he took my number, and I waited like an idiot for him to call for an entire day, jumping out my skin every time my phone beeped, until finally at eight that evening, he called and said, ‘Ah God, it's been like bloody forever!' As if
I
was the one who was meant to call him and not the other way around. I'd put my phone in the drawer to stop myself from ringing Smudge to demand, ‘Has your brother spoken about me? Does he like me?' Ugh! Then I'd taken it out just as fast in case I missed his call. I'd thought of around thirteen different ‘reasons' to call Victoria to ask for Stuart's number. He'd left his jacket? His wallet? Or the truth: he'd left a big pile of girly hormones behind, who'd forgotten to take down her hot brother's number? So when he FINALLY called, I was a bit surprised and well, wildly ecstatic really, to hear him say, ‘I'm not good at this – I like you, I know I'm meant to wait, or whatever, and play this cool, but do you want to do something soon, like maybe tomorrow?' My heart was thrashing about in my chest, but I said, ‘No, I don't think so. How about now? You busy?' So he came over and I pretty much never let him leave afterwards.

I waited five months for him to propose; he says it took that long only because it took that long to train Muppet (who had decided that Stuart was her favourite boy in the world too) to carry the ring cushion through to the lounge to the sound of ‘Don't You Want Me Baby?' which was what he'd set his ringtone to.

She grinned back, then asked, ‘So, what happened? Did you just tell him no?'

‘Well, the thing is... I wasn't quite sure, I think I would have said no eventually but that evening I drove to my parents' place – Colin and I were renting student digs in Falmouth at that time, one of our worst decisions, which was to try living together to see if that would make him less possessive – not a great plan,' I said with a snort. ‘Anyway, that's when I found May Bradley, one of my mum's best friends, sitting outside with a cup of tea, unpicking her sewing.'

Driving over, I'd forgotten it was a Thursday. Which was when my mum's group got together. To be honest, seeing May there, I was a little annoyed – I'd just wanted to see Mum on her own so that we could chat. But with the group there, I hadn't wanted to air something like that to half the schoolmatrons of the village. ‘Especially Winifred Jones, the headmistress of the primary school where I went. Stern to a fault. God, she drove me mad growing up,' I laughed in memory. ‘Especially as a teenager, she was always suspicious of me.'

‘Ivy, weren't you sort of naughty though... I mean, Catherine's stories...'

I laughed. ‘Well, yes ... but I mean, having the headmistress over almost every Thursday didn't make things any easier. But May was different; of anyone she was my favourite.

‘I said something like, “Oh, I forgot it was The Thursday Club today,” and she said, “Will it be a whiskey then?” in that brogue of hers that she had never lost, the kind of voice that you knew was putting an
e
in the word
whiskey
,' I said with a chuckle that Victoria shared.

‘I agreed, not wanting to go inside and have Winifred demand to know why I was there – maybe May knew this too, because she slipped inside to pour us “a wee dram – something to steady the fingers, as well as the mind”, as she put it, and then she came back and gave me this look and said, “Sure you're a sorry-looking sight... What has he done now?”

‘And I choked on the whiskey, and asked her how she knew. She just shrugged, said something like when yer in yer twenties it's always about the love life... or the job... No one comes home to their mammies about their job so I figured it was worth a shot...'

Victoria laughed. ‘Wise words!'

I chuckled. ‘She's a blast! Well, anyway, the thing with May was she wasn't the interfering one in the group – she was the fun one, the one who made the others laugh when things went wrong. The one who brought the whiskey, you know. So it was really surprising when she just patted me on my knee, and said, “Now, lookit, I'm going ta tell yer something I wish with all me heart me own mam had told me. Sure she would have saved me a whole heap of trouble if I'd have heard it but she didn't know it... I heard it on the
Oprah Show
, you know?
Feckin
'
loved that show, not sure why she gave it in ... Anyhoos, yer listening now?”

‘I must have nodded because she looked at me, her eyes serious, “Love should feel good.”

‘I must have sat there for a while, thinking. Eventually I said something like, “It couldn't always be good, could it? It's also something you work at, isn't it? I mean, everyone says that, don't they?”

‘Well, May, she wasn't having any of that... She held up her latest sewing effort. God, it always came down to sewing for them,' I laughed in memory. ‘It was a jacket for her daughter Jackie. The jacket was lovely, one of those classic sort of Chanel-inspired ones, navy blue with very thin piping down the lapels, which May said would give it that extra something special. May said, “Making this jacket is like love; it isn't easy but it's mostly straightforward. And like this piping, when you have love it should only ever enhance your life, it should never detract from it because if it does then it's best left in the discard pile.”

‘It got me thinking, you know. How if I weighed it up, Colin's presence never really enhanced my life. If anything, most of the time I felt sort of diminished by him. After that I said goodbye to Colin for the final time. May's words really helped me. I don't think I'd realised till then that for the most part, love really
should
just feel good; sure you can have your problems and bad patches, and those should be worked on, but for the most part love should feel right. If it doesn't, there's a problem.'

I felt Victoria's hand clutch mine while she cried. I hoped that, like May, I'd done the right thing in telling her my story. Victoria would speak to me about Mark when she was ready.

After some time, I led her through to the guest room, draping May's soft blanket over her while she slept.

When I closed the door behind me, I didn't need to look at my watch to know it was 3 a.m.

I
took
a seat in my studio. Cold now without the soft knitted blanket May had made at least two decades before when I fell off my bicycle and was rushed to the hospital. Mum had said that May worked at it tirelessly all night. I felt a lump in my throat at the forgotten memory, at thoughts of May and the other women who had been there for me whenever I needed them, whenever Mum couldn't.

I wasn't surprised when the postcard began to write, leaving behind just three words that night.

The Thursday Club

‘Mum?' I asked.

But no new words followed. It was a reproach, I knew. A gentle one, but a reproach nonetheless.

How could I have done what I had to them? It was hard to see them without Mum there, but I shouldn't have let that stop me. If I was honest with myself, they were one of the biggest reasons I'd wanted to come back to live here in the first place. It wasn't just Mum I missed. Or sweet, funny May, but all of them: my mum's dearest friends, who had always been there throughout my childhood. A group of women who taught me the value of friendship, of laughter, and yes, sometimes, whiskey after dark.

The same women who were there for us in our darkest times, when Mum grew ill, and when she was no longer there. With a sinking feeling, I realised that after Mum had left, so had I.

I had been back in Cornwall for months, yet as when Dad had offered me Mum's writing desk, I'd been avoiding them as well. Or as much as you could in a village of this size. I was polite and friendly when I saw them, but they must have known that I was avoiding them. I never realised how much that may have hurt them. They'd each tried in their own way to welcome me back, but I kept putting them off. I'd tell May I'd come around ‘next week some time' when I ran into her in the shop, but ‘next week' never seemed to roll around. I'd tell Flavia when I saw her at The Cloud Arms that ‘we must have dinner one night', but that night never seemed to come. I made up excuses when they called. More often than not, I visited Terry's café, Salt, instead of popping into the village bakery where I'd have to see Robyn. I did it to all of them, not understanding why I was doing it really as it hurt either way. Avoiding spending time with them had been a different kind of pain.

I'd been a coward, simple as that.

The truth was I loved them, and I shouldn't have tried to cut them out of my life just because it was likely to bring back sad memories.

As I sat there staring at the words etched in gold and stardust I realised that there were six other ‘mothers' I'd lost as well, but this time it was of my own doing. I wiped my eyes. My gaze fell on my little wall calendar – it was a special edition of
Detective Sergeant Fudge
, and I laughed, realising that tomorrow was Thursday.

Well, of course it was. I didn't believe in coincidences, did I?

I believed in Mum, though.

E
very Thursday afternoon
for twenty-seven years they'd met. Sometimes the location changed, depending on whose home they had been to last. Sometimes they'd go to the same person's house every week for close to a year because a new baby had been born.

Sometimes they worked on something new, or the same project lasted decades. Sometimes they all worked together, or split themselves into pairs.

Sometimes a foot would pause on the pedal of a machine, so that it could take a step towards a neighbour to offer a guiding hand, or to sigh in sympathy, or bring a cup of tea, or maybe a wee bit of something stronger, when something needed to be ripped apart and started over, from the quilt they were working on for a child's nursery, to the marriage that had fallen apart. Sometimes one of their number would be ill, or couldn't be there that night.

Sometimes when that happened, you'd find them all there at that one's bedside instead. One of them getting out the Henry and giving the house a quick once-over, wiping down counters and appliances, and applying a healthy dose of lemon-scented disinfectant and common sense (Winifred Jones, it was always Winifred Jones, and you always seemed to say her full name, no one knew why), while another heated up some shepherd's pie for the family, and yet another tended to the patient – usually that was Mum, she was always the one you wanted at your bedside. The one who knew just how to make you feel better. The one whose kind visage belied the force of will inside. Which made it all the worse when she was the one who grew ill herself. I'll never forget when they heard that she was sick. Mum kept everything to herself. Always so ready to be the rock for everyone else. Till finally she had no choice but to break the news to them... not only that she was sick, but that she was dying too. That night May held her hand, as she began finally to cry and tell them what she'd been keeping from them for years...

No Henry was switched on that night. No shepherd's pie warmed up, and no helpful scent of lemon was able to wash it away or still poor Winifred Jones's shaking fingers, except the other six pairs of hands that reached out for hers.

There had always seven of them. That's the way it had always been from the start.

Winifred Jones was the eldest, and the founder. The Cloudsea Primary School headmistress, she was the one who suggested that they form a sewing circle when Mum had joined the school as art teacher. There were many reasons they decided to start the group according to Mum, but most of these had been forgotten over the years.

May, Mum's best friend, maintained that she'd agreed because the dress shop in town made clothes that were designed with little boys' bodies in mind. Mum said they decided to start the group after a flash flood swept through a neighbouring village, when people were evacuated from their homes and the roads were blocked in and people were freezing in a caravan park that the council had helped set up, so they all made blanket squares until their fingers began to knit by themselves while they slept. Robyn Glass, who ran the bakery in town, joined at around that time too. Inviting her had been May's brilliant idea, as she brought all the treats. Then Robyn invited Abigail Charming – an eccentric American, who had bought the Senderwood Estate after it was left to wrack and ruin and opened up the tea gardens there. I always suspected that she had made up the name ‘Charming' but Mum insisted it was her real name. Apparently one night May had given Abigail a bit too much whiskey and dared her to show them her passport... and there it was, along with the fact that she was actually a good ten years older than she claimed.

And then there was Flavia. I adored Flavia, she was wildly beautiful. Employed as the rose expert at Senderwood, and as far as many of the local men were concerned she was as much of an attraction as the rose gardens themselves.

Flavia, however, was only interested in roses, in tending them, growing them, and discovering new hybrids for the garden. There was something so enchanting about Flavia, too, something about her rose-tinted view of the world that brought the sun to our living room whenever she was there, so at odds with the perpetual storm cloud that was nosy, grouchy Winifred Jones. It was bad enough going to the same school where your mum worked, but having the headmistress over every week? There were times when it was deplorable.

‘Still can't ride a bike yet I see, Ivy-girl,' she'd remark, pointing out the obvious when I came home with scratches along my knees.

‘Art may be your given talent, but you've got to pull your socks up in the maths department, Ivy-girl. Mr Benners said you're barely keeping up, far too interested in making cartoons for your friends...'

As a result, there were many occasions I'd stay away from home on a Thursday when I was in school. But I always came back to see them... couldn't seem to help myself.

May had given the group the name The Thursday Club, partly because in the beginning they couldn't quite decide on the purpose of their club. Was it a knitters' group, who occasionally sewed? Or a sewing circle that sometimes knitted? Were they a supper club, who occasionally crafted? Or a book group that forgot to discuss their books? When they realised that Thursday afternoon was the day they always met, rain or shine, due to old Winifred Jones's clockwork scheduling, May Bradley hit on the name, and it stuck.

It was always a part of my life growing up, this group of women, who more often than not were found seated around my mother's living room; somehow the rotation always seemed to have more circles towards Mum's house, perhaps because, in her own quiet way, she was the centre.

I'd come in to find Mum seated next to her writing desk as always, with the gaggle of women around her. The fold-up table brought in and seven sewing machines humming along to the sound of Mum's classical music in the background. Though, occasionally, May would get her way and I'd come in to hear them laughing, and working along to the sounds of the Beatles, or the Temptations or maybe the Four Seasons. There was something about sewing, May said, that brought out the sixties girl in her.

Today, I found them at May's home, like I knew I would.

The door had been open, and I let myself in.

There were always seven. Always.

Except, now there were only six. Six slightly older women, hair somewhat changed, the odd new streak of grey and white, faces a little more lined, and one empty chair: an empty chair meant for Mum. Which made me bite my lip. It was Winifred Jones, of course, who first noticed me. Her ever-busy hands grew still and she simply gasped. For once, she had nothing to say. No ‘Ivy-girl' admonishment.

Flavia turned towards me, her dark eyes widening.

I heard more than one whisper: ‘She looks just like Alice at her age.'

Then, suddenly Abigail's bright, Southern drawl cut through the tense mood. ‘Darling girl!' which never failed to touch my heart.

But it was May who shook her head. ‘Ah, lass! The prodigal daughter returns at long, bloody last.' Her eyes were sparkling, ‘Shall I pour us all a wee dram and you can tell us all about it? Sure we're all dying to know...'

I gave them a watery smile. ‘Go on then.'

So she did.

And I took a seat, realising that maybe... just maybe the empty seat was actually meant for me.

L
ater that evening
, I found the little blanket folded on the end of the spare room, along with a note, saying simply:

Ominous words indeed.

T
he studio was
lit when I entered. Lit with that strange light, of stardust and moonshine. A light that would now forever be associated with Mum in my mind.

She was waiting for me.

During the day, I always tried my best not to race through it, not to wish the time away; to somehow live through each day, but it was hopeless.

All I could think about was 3 a.m: getting into the studio and speaking with Mum.

When she was there, and the postcard began to glow, and write, call it fatigue or wonder, or simply magic, with my mind in an almost dream-like state, perhaps due to the early hour, and I was able to just let it be. Let it be enchanted and strange and fantastical.

Later, of course, in the ordinariness of the day, paying bills, scooping up after the dog, and mucking out the chicken coop, it was hard to imagine this time existed at all. That I hadn't, in fact, dreamt it. But I hadn't, and somehow, in some way, it was real.

I'd like to say that every night Mum could speak to me as if we existed in some time-lapse, that the postcard served like a form of telephonic exchange between my world and hers, that we could speak about anything that I desired, but it didn't always work that way.

Sometimes she didn't or couldn't respond to my questions and I would have to manage my frustration. Frustration that I had no right to feel. Not when I had this. Because most of the time what she had to say was so much more than what I wanted, it was somehow what I needed to hear.

Though, of course, I didn't always know it.

That night, the postcard only wrote once. I hated it when that happened. To wait all day for our exchange, only to feel like our precious sand in the hourglass was metered out grain by grain. I waited, my breath tight in my throat. But it stayed the same.

I didn't know exactly why she wrote what she did.

Her words, etched in moonshine and silver, glowed bright, the words slowly, ever so slowly, filling the postcard.

Stitch by stitch

I didn't know why she said it but I knew what it meant.

It was a squaring of shoulders; a testing of mettle. Most of all, it was a warning.