Once Upon A Christmas Night...

‘Here you are!’

A woman’s voice sounded, and for a moment Jess couldn’t work out which direction it had come from. Greg turned and made his way towards the back of the hallway.

‘We stopped for breakfast.’ He spared Jess the indignity of mentioning why. ‘What are you doing here?’

A laugh. The first piece of warmth that Jess had met in this place. A figure emerged from the gloom, walking towards her. Mid-fifties, tall and slim. One of those women that made style look like a fortuitous accident.

‘I popped in to turn the heating on and put some food in the fridge.’ The woman ducked around Greg and made straight for Jess. ‘You must be Greg’s friend. I’m Rosa.’

‘My mother.’ Greg was grinning. ‘Who never misses a chance to check out who I’m associating with.’

Rosa dismissed him with a casual movement of her fingers. ‘Don’t be so parochial, darling. Your friends might want to check me out.’ She grasped Jess’s hand, holding it in both of hers, and leaned in to kiss her. ‘There. Both cheeks.’

‘The Italian way.’ Greg was leaning against the heavy stone balustrade which enclosed the stairs, his hands shoved into his pockets.

‘Don’t listen to my son. I hope you’ll come over to my home for something to eat.’

‘You live near here?’ This was Greg’s father’s house. He’d said that his mother and father had divorced when he’d been a child, but she seemed very much at home here.

‘Two miles in that direction.’ Rosa flicked her fingers towards the dark recesses at the back of the hallway. ‘You can walk across the fields, it’s a nice day.’

Jess shot a questioning look at Greg. Perhaps this wasn’t in his plan for the weekend.

‘Have you made cannoli?’ Greg was smiling at his mother.

‘Of course.’ Rosa turned to Jess. ‘Did he think to tell you to bring any walking shoes?’

No, he hadn’t. Jess wasn’t sure how well her own shoes would stand up to a cross-country walk. ‘Perhaps we can go by road.’

‘If you want. Or I think there may be a pair of wellingtons in the cloakroom. If they’re too big I’m sure that a couple of pairs of socks… ’

‘We’ll manage.’ Greg looked at his watch. ‘When do you want us?’

His mother shrugged. ‘Whenever you’re hungry.’

‘How does one o’clock suit you?’

‘Perfect. Make it one-ish. Don’t worry about being a little late.’

Greg rolled his eyes and kissed his mother, helped her into the waterproof coat that was slung on a low settle in one corner of the hallway and bade her goodbye. Alone again with him, the temperature in the cavernous, empty space seemed to drop a couple of degrees and Jess drew her jacket around her.

‘Sorry, Jess. My mother wasn’t really checking you out, she’s not like that.’

‘It was nice of her to come by, this place could do with warming up a bit. I didn’t realise that your mother lived so close to your father.’

‘My father wasn’t here much.’ Greg’s mouth twitched downwards and he turned away, moving to the door at the back of the hallway where his mother had appeared from. ‘He lived mostly in the States, but he came over here three or four times a year to take care of his business interests in Europe.’

‘He kept this place empty, then, most of the time?’ It was a huge house, even for a family. For one man, who was hardly ever there, it was ridiculous.

‘He used to entertain a lot when he was here.’ There was a trace of bitterness in Greg’s voice.

‘I suppose it was handy to see you as well.’ Jess followed him into the large, well-equipped kitchen, which could have accommodated an army of caterers.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘He was mostly working. Mum used to bring me over, and half the time we’d just make our own entertainment because my father was locked away in the study, on the phone.’

‘But she still brought you.’ A picture of Rosa, walking her young son across the fields so that he could see his father, floated into her head. How must she have felt when the boy was ignored?

‘My mother was an eternal optimist where my father was concerned. She always encouraged me to see him.’ He dumped the kettle down onto the range and lit the gas underneath it.

In this house, he seemed surrounded by things he didn’t want to talk about. But he’d come here. He’d brought her here. On some level he must be aware of that, and that the seemingly complicated tangle of his relationship with his father wasn’t going to straighten itself out all on its own.

‘So this is where you grew up?’ She settled herself onto one of a long row of kitchen stools.

‘Yeah.’

‘And you didn’t see much of your father.’

‘Nope. Not a lot.’

She’d hit a sore spot, but she kept pressing. Sometimes you had to do that. ‘But your parents were on good terms?’

He barked out a short laugh. ‘Yeah. She loved him, and in his way he loved her. They just had very different priorities. And it’s not particularly easy to maintain a relationship with someone who only has about five uninterrupted minutes a day to spend with you.’

‘No. I imagine not.’ Jess wondered whether Greg was talking about his mother’s relationship with his father or his own. Probably a bit of both. ‘Neither of them married again?’

‘Not straight away. But that doesn’t mean they were secretly yearning to get back together. My father had his share of women friends. They loved the lifestyle for a while and then realised that they’d always be playing second fiddle to his work. And my mother remarried when I was fifteen. The local doctor. You’ll meet Ted when we go over there.’ There was sudden warmth in his voice.

‘So it was his footsteps you followed in.’

‘Guess so. Mum made him wait, but he was always there when I was a kid. He’d take us out somewhere every weekend, we used to have great adventures together.’

‘But they never moved away from here?’

‘Why should they? Ted’s practice is down in the village. This is my mother’s home much more than it ever was my father’s.’ He shrugged. ‘Although he came back here at the end.’

‘You mean he died here?’

Greg nodded. ‘He hadn’t told anyone that he had cancer. But when he turned up here, two days after Christmas last year, it was obvious that he was ill. My mother called me, and I arranged for him to be seen by a specialist. My mother looked after him, right up until the end.’

‘That was a nice thing to do.’

‘Yeah. She’s a nice person. I think somehow my father reckoned that he could correct some of the mistakes he’d made, but it was too late.’ He poured the tea and set a cup in front of her on the marble worktop. ‘Does that cover it?’

‘I don’t know. Does it?’ Greg’s secrets ran deeper than this. Nothing that he’d said explained the eight-month absence after his father’s death. Or the air of weariness that broke through whenever he talked about his father.

‘Difficult to say. Would you like to see the house?’

‘Why not?’

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