Escape for Christmas (7 page)

Chapter 6

The Lion Lodge was empty when Gemma and Angel arrived back in Devon. It wasn’t the darkness of the house that told Gemma this – the wiring was old and often fused – but rather the knowledge that Cal was up at Kenniston filming this evening.

“Come and join in,” Angel pleaded. “I promise we won’t include any footage of you. It’s going to be so much fun. Builder Craig is having his twenty-first birthday party and he’s totally convinced that Kelly Brook is going to jump out of his cake.”

In spite of her resolve to have nothing to do with reality TV ever again, Gemma couldn’t help being intrigued. Builder Craig, recently signed model and hot telly totty, was vain enough to believe this. “And is she?”

Angel snorted. “Hardly! No, Elly from the village teashop is going to jump out of the cake. She really fancies him,
which you’d know if you watched the show,
and hopefully he’ll be pleased. If not, it’ll make good TV.”

And this, Gemma reminded herself, was why she’d stepped away from being in
Bread and Butlers.
She was tired of having her life manipulated for the sake of ratings. She wondered when it was that she’d started feeling like this while her best friend became more and more obsessed with the show. Maybe she was boring? Or was it a turning-thirty thing? On Christmas Day, two weeks from now, it would be her big birthday. Surely she ought to be a little more excited?

“Come on, you’ll have fun,” urged Angel. “It’ll do you good to come out for the evening, and God knows we need a laugh after meeting that miserable old boot earlier. Blimey, she was like a female Bond villain, wasn’t she? Did you get a good look at her shoes while you were on the ground? Were there spikes in them?”

The memory of being covered in mud and caught red-handed trying to peer into the scary lawyer’s house was one that would probably have Gemma in therapy for years. Apart from the fact that she’d made a total fool of herself, Gemma knew they’d been completely in the wrong and this made her feel hot all over. It was all water off a duck’s back to Angel, though; she really didn’t understand why Gemma was so upset. For Gemma, it was far too painful to share her shattered dreams, so instead she’d spent the journey back to Kenniston Hall working her way through a family-sized pack of peanut M&Ms while Angel sang along to ABBA’s greatest hits. Now she felt not only miserable but sick too.

If there was a party mood, Gemma thought, then she was the antithesis of it.

“Look! The party’s started,” said Angel, pointing across the parkland to where Kenniston Hall was lit up like Oxford Street. “Come on, Gem. Cal will be thrilled to see you.”

“I doubt it. He’ll be far too busy working,” Gemma said bitterly, and Angel frowned.

“Now I’m really worried. Babes, Cal adores you. Why on earth would you think anything else?”

Gemma shrugged. No sex? Cal working long hours? Never seeing one another? His mother always singing the praises of his sainted ex-girlfriend? Take your pick, she thought.

“Is it the no-sex thing?” Angel asked. “Because,” she leaned behind her seat, rummaged around and then pulled out the lilac bag, “don’t forget this! Honestly, Gem, once you’ve got this lot on there’s no way he’s going to say no! He’s a man.”

Flinging the bag at Gemma, Angel gave her a little shove.

“Go in, get yourself all moisturised and plucked and dressed up, light a few candles and I’ll make sure Cal leaves early. And when you’re grinning from ear to ear tomorrow don’t think I won’t say ‘I told you so’!”

Gemma had learned a long time ago that arguing with Angel was pointless, so she took the bag, mumbled something and then stepped out onto the rutted track that masqueraded as Kenniston’s drive. The reflection of the mansion’s illuminated windows trembled in the black lake like a scene from
The Great Gatsby
, the party inside probably every bit as extravagant. Lady Daphne had mentioned riding her horse up the stairs but Laurence had vetoed this, details Gemma knew because Cal had retold the scene in such a way that they’d wept with laughter.

She tightened her grip on the carrier bag. See? They still had good times and the spark was still there between them; she knew it was. All she needed to do was to find a way of reigniting it.

As the taillights of Angel’s car retreated up the drive, Gemma pushed the front door open and let herself into the hall. As usual Cal had forgotten to lock the door and for a moment she felt irritated before reminding herself that any self-respecting burglar would take one look at the threadbare carpets, the black mould and the sinister wallpaper swellings that brought to mind that classic scene in
Alien
and flee for the hills.

Sensible burglar.

Gemma dumped her bags at the bottom of the stairs and meandered along the dark passageway to the kitchen. The electricity circuit was working for once, and soon the kettle had boiled and Gemma was preparing a cup of tea and a hot-water bottle to take upstairs. For a moment she’d toyed with the idea of curling up on the big squashy sofa in the sitting room and turning on the Christmas-tree lights. The Lion Lodge was actually a very pretty house and the sitting room was her favourite spot, with its big fireplace, full-height sash windows and ceiling that reminded her of icing on a wedding cake. Last weekend Laurence had delivered an enormous tree cut from the estate, which had resulted in Gemma and Cal having a trolley dash through Homebase for decorations. As she’d lobbed in baubles and tinsel and strings of coloured lights, Gemma’s imagination had been full of romantic images of her and Cal cosied up by the tree drinking mulled wine and stealing kisses in the glow of the fairy lights. Sadly a fantasy was what this had remained, because the sitting room with its high ceiling and rattling draughty windows was perishingly cold. Of course, there ought to have been a huge fire burning in the massive fireplace, but as neither Cal nor Gemma were big on chopping wood this was yet to happen. So the room remained cold – which was good news for the tree, but very bad news for romance.

Awkwardly clutching her tea and hot-water bottle, plus the shopping bag and a packet of chocolate digestives, Gemma headed upstairs for the bedroom where she and Cal tended to hole up in the style of two explorers in the Antarctic. Gemma switched on the trusty fan heater, picked up Cal’s laptop and plucked
Fifty Shades
from the bag. Two big feather duvets topped their bed; lobbing the hot-water bottle in first, she dived into them, wincing as the cold bedding brushed her skin. Eventually, with the lamps on and her toes defrosting, and chomping on her fourth biscuit (Gemma figured that she was eating more these days because it was so bloody cold in the house), she flipped the laptop open. A bit of Facebooking was always amusing, but Gemma had a more serious purpose in mind: Cal’s ancient computer tended to run very hot, and with it balanced on her knees she would have an extra layer of warmth.

Reaching for her fifth biscuit (which didn’t really count because she wouldn’t have any dinner), Gemma scrolled through her home page, liking a picture of Angel’s sister Andi and her partner all glammed up for a charity ball, and then doing a quiz to find out which Muppet she was. Was Oscar the Grouch a worse result than Miss Piggy, she wondered? Fat or grumpy? Which was the bigger sin? Grumpy people could still fit into a size twelve, she supposed, whereas her waistbands were a little snug lately.

She reached for another biscuit. She’d get healthy again after Christmas and her birthday. There was no point before then, was there?

Having caught up with her friends, it was time for a bit of Facebook stalking. Gemma checked out the pages of several exes and a couple of girls she really hadn’t liked at school before the mouse hovered over the link to another page. She knew that clicking on that particular person’s page was emotional masochism but she found it impossible not to look. Like the biscuit eating, it was compulsive and very, very bad for her.

Aoife O’Shaughnessy

Click
went Gemma’s finger, and just like that she was plunged into another woman’s life – and not any other woman either, but Cal’s childhood sweetheart, the apple of his mammy’s eye and, according to Moira South,
the one who got away
. Gemma knew that she shouldn’t look, but when it came to the saintly Aoife she just couldn’t help herself.

Back in the dark ages, at about the same time that St Patrick had driven snakes out of the Emerald Isle, Cal had dated the girl next door.

“Sure, and it was just a teenage fling,” he always said to Gemma. “Haven’t I dated loads of girls since, and don’t I love you the best, me darlin’?”

He had certainly dated lots of girls – this came with being a footballer – but Gemma was (mostly) certain that he did love her the best. The problem was that Mammy South didn’t. No, Mammy South, who was more terrifying than any comic creation Brendan O’Carroll could come up with, disapproved of Gemma with a capital D and in complete inverse proportion to her idolisation of Aoife.

Aoife was such a good Catholic; she went to Mass every week, she helped the poor and she said her rosary. You’d think she was on first-name terms with Pope Francis too, Gemma thought wryly, the way that Cal’s mother went on. The daughter of the family from the next-door farm, Aoife had been an honorary part of the South family for years and everybody had thought – had
hoped
, Mammy South had sniffed, shooting Gemma a beady look from her curranty eyes – that one day she and Cal would get together. But for some mysterious reason this had never happened.

“Sure, and it wasn’t so mysterious,” Cal had told Gemma when she’d once asked him why. “Aoife went to Trinity to read law and I was shagging my way through all the WAGs. Anyway, me and Aoife? That’s never going to happen.”

“Why not?” Gemma had asked. “Apart from being with me, of course?”

Cal had shrugged and then given her a hug. “Aw, Gem, she’s just not my type.”

Gemma hadn’t bought this. Aoife O’Shaughnessy was tall and slim with a cloud of ebony hair, eyes as green as Irish shamrocks and skin like milk. She also had a killer brain, great boobs and possibly even a halo too. And his mammy loved her – and Cal, like most men, revered his mother. It didn’t make sense. Girls like Aoife were every man’s type.

“Why not?” she’d pressed.

Cal had merely shaken his head. “Because she really isn’t my type, Gem, and I’m pretty certain I’m not hers either. Aoife’s just a good friend.”

Just a good friend
had slowly nibbled away at Gemma’s peace of mind. Whenever they visited County Cork, Cal’s mammy couldn’t resist dropping in some little snippet about how Aoife had been home recently (“such a good child, Cal, she visits her poor mammy more than twice a year”) or had been promoted or had split an atom during her lunch hour. OK, maybe not quite that, but you got the drift. It was as obvious as the giant picture of the Pope in the Souths’ kitchen that Cal’s mum wanted Aoife as her daughter-in-law and wished Gemma were on the moon. No matter how many times Cal reassured Gemma that he loved her and that there was nothing between him and Aoife O’Shaughnessy, Gemma couldn’t help feeling insecure.

It was mad, she knew it was, but since when had jealousy ever been rational? That would have made Othello a very dull play. Realistically, Gemma knew that she
should
be jealous of some of the stunning models and actresses Cal had dated during the good old, bad old days of his Premier League glory. There was Laura Lake the pop princess – famous for her tiny shorts and suggestive dancing, which regularly sent the morality brigade into fits of outrage (“Sure, and didn’t she have the smelliest feet?” said Cal) – or Fifi Royale (“Jaysus, she had more hair extensions than brain cells!”), both of whom were gorgeous with flat tummies and flicky hair. But Gemma never worried about them. Neither did it bother her when some kiss-and-tell slapper came out of the woodwork (“Feck, I probably did shag her, Gem – but, Jaysus, I was so off my face back then it could have been Sister fecking Wendy and I wouldn’t have noticed”). Gemma was only human and she wasn’t a fan of any of this. Still, she loved Cal and this meant accepting that his past was more chequered than a chessboard. Besides, she knew that what they had ran far deeper than the shallow trappings of fame or looks or whatever made great PR. Even more importantly, none of those girls could make a cream sponge to match Gemma’s.

Aoife O’Shaughnessy, however, was in another league altogether. She was beautiful, intelligent, Irish and a Catholic; she shared Cal’s history, she’d been his childhood sweetheart and, here was the crux of the problem, Mammy South had put her on a pedestal. What would happen if one day Cal realised that, much as he loved Gemma, she would never really be the good Irish colleen he needed?

Gemma sighed. She was being bloody ridiculous. Cal wasn’t interested in Aoife. He’d told her that enough times, almost to the point of exasperation. She flicked through the Facebook pictures – for somebody so smart Aoife had rubbish security – hoping against hope that she’d see a picture of the gorgeous Irish girl with a man. There were always male friends but Gemma had yet to see Aoife snuggled up to somebody or, better still, snogging his face off. Gemma’s page was crammed with images of her and Cal, although she had to admit that some of these were quite old. But maybe Aoife was far too professional for all that?

“Get a grip!” she told herself furiously. This was becoming an unhealthy obsession.

Leaving Facebook, she tried to distract herself with the property porn on Rightmove, but today cute cottages and converted barns weren’t doing it for her. A few days ago she’d Googled a cottage outside Falmouth that she’d liked. Maybe she’d check it out again, now that the dream of Penmerryn Creek was over? The browser history should have saved it.

Hang on. That was odd. Apart from today’s trawl round Facebook and Rightmove, the browser history was empty. Somebody had cleared it. An icy hand clenched Gemma’s heart. She certainly hadn’t deleted it, which meant only one thing: Cal had. She frowned. This was really odd. Why would Cal do that?