Escape for Christmas (6 page)

“Bollocks,” said Angel, killing the engine. She put a hand on Gemma’s shoulder and squeezed it kindly. “Looks like somebody had the same idea. You OK, babes?”

Gemma swallowed the lump in her throat. The truth was that she was absolutely devastated, which was ridiculous. The dream of her and Cal living happily ever after at Penmerryn Creek had only ever been that – a dream – and it made no sense that her eyes stung with tears.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she fibbed, and this time Angel didn’t tease her because it was obvious that Gemma wasn’t fine at all.

“It’s a gorgeous spot,” Angel said thoughtfully, winding down the car window and letting the sharp salty air lift her long blonde mane. “I can see why you like it so much.”

Gemma nodded, still unable to find her voice, which she was sure would sound as cracked as her dreams. Angel was right: it was a gorgeous spot. Even on a December afternoon, with the light fading and the creek resembling a pewter-grey ribbon, the place was breathtaking. Oystercatchers waded in the mudflats, the blue flash of a kingfisher darted over the shallows and a beady-eyed robin in his Christmas sweater was chip-chipping away from his gatepost lookout. The jetty had been mended, she noticed with a pang, and a smart new Boston Whaler boat was on a trailer alongside the house. There was an extension too, sympathetically done in matching granite and with a stylish glass roof ribbed with blonde beams, as well as a new stable-style door in the old pantry area. Whoever had done this had taste, Gemma thought grudgingly, and lots of money to burn too. Getting such quality materials sourced and then delivered this far off the beaten track wasn’t cheap, and neither was the labour.

“Maybe I should have been a banker, not an actress?” she murmured.

“Not with your maths! Bloody hell, Gem! You read numbers back to front.”

This was an unfortunate truth and it often made for huge disappointments on salary cheques and bank balances. Gemma was to finance what Kim Kardashian was to small bottoms. For this reason, and because she’d made several big errors with the business plan, Cal now handled the joint finances. There was a daily account which they both used for food and fuel, but she left the rest of it to him. Gemma sometimes worried that maybe this wasn’t very feminist of her; however, they both had different strengths and it made sense to use them. Besides, since his horrific tax bill, caused by poor advice and a celebrity money-hiding scandal (“That’s the fecking last time I take advice from famous comedians,” Cal had said bitterly), Cal had employed Angel’s sister Andi as his accountant. Andi was red hot; she never missed a trick, and Gemma trusted her entirely.

“It’s called dyscalculia and it’s a learning disability,” she told Angel huffily, who just laughed.

“Call it what you like; I don’t think Mark Carney’s quaking in his boots that you’re in the running to be the next Governor of the Bank of England. Not that I’m much better. If Stephen Hawking saw our overdraft he’d think he’d found another black hole.”

No point asking if she and Cal could have central heating installed at the Lion Lodge then, thought Gemma bleakly. Thick socks and thermals it was. No wonder they rarely had sex. By the time the layers were off they’d completely forgotten what it was they were up to in the first place.

“Come on then,” said Angel suddenly, unbuckling her seatbelt and opening the car door. “What are you waiting for?”

“What do you mean? Why are you getting out?” Gemma was confused.

“I haven’t driven this far just to sit in the Land Rover.” Angel was out of the vehicle now and striding towards the cottage, or striding as much as it was possible to stride in purple spiky-heeled ankle boots on muddy grass. “Come on,” she called over her shoulder. “Let’s check it out. You never know, it may still be for sale!”

Shoving the passenger door open, Gemma followed her friend up across the garden – although she really didn’t see the point. Even if the house was being flipped around and put back onto the open market it would command a huge price and be way out of her league. The joy of it being a ruin had been that firstly she and Cal could afford it and secondly they could have fun doing it up together and putting their own touches onto it. Now the cottage belonged to somebody else and her dream of a future there with Cal was in pieces.

Gemma really hoped this wasn’t an omen…

Angel, balancing precariously on a water butt, was now peering in through a window. One false-nailed hand clutched the lintel while the other fiddled with the latch; she looked like a well-dressed Goldilocks.

“What’s that face for?” Angel asked when Gemma joined her.

“Angel, you can’t go breaking in!” Gemma cast a nervous glance around the darkening garden.

“I’m not breaking in. I’m just having a look. Don’t you want to know what it’s like inside?”

“Not really,” said Gemma. She liked the way she’d imagined the cottage. Why spoil that by hearing about designer furniture and the ubiquitous Farrow & Ball paint?

“Damn! There goes my nail! I thought I nearly had it then, too.” Angel held up her hand and looked sorrowfully at her index finger, which seemed rather bald and stumpy compared to its fellows. “It’s on the floor. Can you see if you can find it? I’ll glue it back on when we’re home.”

And so it came to this, Gemma reflected, that she was scrabbling around in the mud looking for her best friend’s acrylic nail, outside what had until minutes before been her dream cottage. Her own nails were soon covered in dirt and the knees of her jeans were grubby too. She sighed. There wasn’t even the prospect of a hot bath to look forward to: the water at the Lion Lodge was a lukewarm trickle and turned glacial the second it splashed into the huge enamel bath. The bathroom itself was freezing as well, and although an asthmatic fan heater wheezed dusty puffs of air into the room, it made little difference. This had been fine in the spring when they’d first moved in. Buoyed up by the privacy and the sunshine streaming through the windows in golden ribbons, the lack of heating really hadn’t seemed an issue. Fast-forward several months and it was a very different story. Lately, Cal and Gemma had taken to strip-washing by the fire with flannels and bowls of hot water, like something out of the Victorian era. Cal had joked that they were only a step away from getting a tin bath. At least, Gemma hoped that was a joke.

She brushed the dirt from her trousers and sighed. It just went to show that there really was no such thing as a free house. No wonder Laurence had looked at them as though they were mad when they’d insisted on moving in.

“There’s nothing to see anyway,” Angel reported, derailing Gemma’s train of thought. “It’s totally empty inside: just bare walls and wires hanging out.” She inspected her fingers again sadly. “Looks like I’ve sacrificed a nail for nothing. Give us a hand getting down, Gem. I don’t want to trash any more.”

It was just as Gemma was trying to help Angel down – the spike-heeled boots making it difficult for her friend to balance, and Angel’s dress being rather too tight for parkour – that the front door of the house opened and a smartly dressed woman stepped onto the newly laid garden path. She was city-chic in a sharp black trouser suit and killer red heels, which were teamed beautifully with her short ebony bob and crimson mouth. A briefcase was held loosely in one hand and a large bunch of keys was suspended in the other. She was pausing to lock the house when she caught sight of Angel swaying drunkenly on top of the water butt. Her eyes widened.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Gemma had a horrible sensation as though somebody had dropped a scoop of ice cream down her chest – a sensation totally at odds with the hot flush sweeping up her neck. She was just about to open her mouth and explain that this wasn’t what it looked like when Angel overbalanced. The next thing Gemma knew, she was sprawled face first in the mud with her best friend on top of her. Winded, she closed her eyes and prayed that the kindly Cornish earth would swallow her up, right here and right now.

“There’s my nail!” she heard Angel exclaim in delight. Eight and a half stone leapt off Gemma’s back and, spitting out dirt and grass, Gemma was able to push herself up onto her hands and knees. A pair of bright red shoes, which were no doubt hugely expensive designer ones, stopped right in her line of vision.

“This is private property,” said an unamused American voice. “You’ve got no right whatsoever to be here. You get me?”

Gemma looked up. The woman, tall and slim and in her mid thirties, was staring down at her. It was safe to say that the expression on her face was not welcoming. Gemma quailed. She “got it”, all right. She opened her mouth to try to apologise, but this was easier said than done given that it was full of dirt.

Angel – who was already on her feet and still immaculate, thanks to landing on her best friend – was introducing herself as though at a garden party. “So sorry about that,” she said brightly, going into her full-on, wide-eyed, warm-smile Charming mode. It had never been known to fail, and Gemma had seen it get her friend out of all kinds of situations. She wished she could bottle whatever it was that Angel had, so that she could sell it; she could buy and renovate a hundred cottages with the profits.

“How do you do? I’m Angel Elliott, Viscountess Kenniston,” Angel continued, sounding like something from the BBC in the 1950s – although Gemma had a sinking suspicion that playing the archetypal Brit probably wasn’t going to impress this particular American. With her lean figure and razored bob, she hardly looked the type to melt just because someone talked like Penelope Keith. Angel held out her hand. “That was so bad mannered of us!”

The woman didn’t dispute this. Neither did she shake hands or acknowledge the title, which was unusual because in Gemma’s experience people usually went crazy for it. Maybe that was a British thing and Americans didn’t get titles – or real ones, anyway? After all, they’d had Lady Gaga for years. Instead, the woman glowered at Angel, who looked shocked by the failure of her charm offensive and the lack of recognition.

“This is private property,” the woman repeated coldly, dropping her car keys into one of her tailored pockets and retrieving a phone from another. Her eyes flickered over Gemma, who by now was on her feet and trying not to get mud everywhere. The woman’s thumb was poised above the keypad of her BlackBerry. “I ought to call the police.”

“There’s really no need,” Gemma said quickly. The last thing she needed was PC Puckey turning up and then telling the whole village that Gemma Pengelley had turned into a burglar since she went up country. “Although if you did call the police,” she continued, “the local bobby would know me anyway and be able to tell you I’m from this area. We really weren’t up to anything sinister, I promise! It’s just that I used to play here as a kid and I was really surprised to see that it’s been renovated. We were only looking.”

“Looking,” repeated the woman. She seemed distinctly unimpressed. “And that gives you the right to trespass?”

“Actually,” Angel said, recovered now and looking miffed, “in Britain we have the right to roam.” She knew this for a fact; it drove Laurence mad to have ramblers traipsing through the estate, and he was always moaning about it both on and off camera.

“Not all over this goddamn cottage it doesn’t,” the woman shot back. She pinned Angel with a steely gaze. “And I don’t think you have the right to climb on people’s property and peer in their windows either, do you? That is, unless something very strange has happened since I graduated from law school?”

Law school? Of course, Gemma should have known. Only bankers and city lawyers could afford to buy the plum Cornish properties these days.

“I’m so sorry.” Gemma was mortified. “We’re leaving right now, aren’t we Angel?”

But Angel, unperturbed that they might have a lawsuit slapped on them at any moment, didn’t budge. “Is the cottage being put back on the market once it’s finished?” she asked. “Only, my friend really loves it. Her partner’s a Premier League footballer, you know. That’s soccer to you, I think? Smaller balls and no padding and fit guys like David Beckham?”

The lawyer stared at her. She couldn’t have looked more confused if Angel had started speaking in Swahili.

“You must have heard of David Beckham?” Angel was saying incredulously. “He was in the States for yonks! And his wife? She was Posh Spice. You had the Spice Girls, right? She’s Posh Spice but she designs clothes now. They’re amazing. I’ve got this dress of hers and it was worth every penny, even though my husband Laurence thinks it looks like it came from Topshop. I guess you guys all shop in Wal-Mart though?”

Angel was not doing US–Anglo relations any favours, Gemma thought despairingly.

“Come on, Angel; time we left,” she said, grabbing her friend’s arm.

But Angel shook her off. When the bit was between her whitened teeth there was no stopping her.

“Seriously, Gemma’s boyfriend is a top footballer. He earns loads of money!”

Now, if this were true it would be great. Sadly it wasn’t. Apart from being an ex-footballer with a greater passion for pizza than the pitch, scandal and lawsuits had claimed a huge chunk of Cal’s cash. Angel’s well-meaning hyperbole couldn’t have been further off the mark. If Cal had been right up there with the likes of Beckham and Rooney for wads of cash, then would she really be washing from a bucket of kettle water when she got home that evening? The depressing truth was that although Cal had earned amazing money, he’d also been very good at spending it too. A combination of bad financial advice, too much booze, a very generous nature and a global recession had seen most of his wealth wiped out. Add to this his huge tax bill (which made Kerry Katona’s look like a pocket-money sum) and a family who constantly bled him dry, and there you had it: one skint footballer.

Mrs Black Bob wasn’t impressed anyway. “I’m afraid it doesn’t matter who you are or how much money you have. This cottage has been sold and it’s privately owned. Now, I’d really appreciate it if you could both vacate the property. If not, I will have no choice about pressing charges for trespass.”

Neither Gemma nor Angel needed asking twice; this woman looked like she meant business. Moments later they were back in the car. As Angel floored the gas pedal – mud and gravel spinning as though the Defender was an F1 car – Gemma turned around in her seat and took her last look at Penmerryn. Dusk was falling now, and a small slice of moonlight silvered the creek. As the shadows thickened and the car headed up the hill, she watched the cottage and her dreams grow smaller and smaller before they finally vanished.