A Cosy Christmas in Cornwall

I manage to get over the liquid brown warmth of his gaze enough to get the words out. ‘I’m not here on a social call, Will – I mean Bill – or whoever you are.’ Hopefully that’s shown him how little I’ve thought about him since 2013. Truly, Fliss doesn’t even know about him, and I tell her all my secrets. If he or anyone else ever found out the truth I’d die of shame. ‘This is a total coincidence, one of those “small world” moments …’ I’m dying at how trite I’m sounding ‘… I’m here for this year’s Christmas rental.’

His eyebrows shoot up. ‘Shit. Right. Really? Surely you can’t be, you’re a day early!’

He’s just got that air that suggests no one ever contradicts him so I force myself to stand my ground. ‘It was Mrs Johnstone-Cody who made the booking. Just so you know, she never makes mistakes, we are due today.’ Just saying. After three hundred and fifty-odd miles, I’d rather not come back tomorrow. Beautiful people stuff up too sometimes, and he has to be the one who’s wrong here.

A perplexed look crosses his face, then it’s gone. ‘Well, whatever day it is, it’s great to see you, Ivy.’ That’s the thing with super-attractive people like this – they mess up – then they move on seamlessly like nothing happened. His hand comes towards me, and I stare at it in horror for a second, then step close enough to brush the end of one dripping finger.

‘Now you’re here, how about coming in for a dip?’

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Castles, hot tubs, delicious guys coming out with the most ridiculous suggestions? It’s like I dropped into an episode of Made in Chelsea. ‘Absolutely not. Thanks all the same.’ I’m up for fun, but even I draw the line at jumping into a bath with someone I’d once have had difficulty keeping my hands off. Especially when he’s still hot as …

‘Your loss, it’s wonderfully warm, the bubbles are just starting to come through.’ As he dips down and re-emerges his muscular shoulders are tanned and gleaming under the lights, and his gaze is soft yet intense. And from the one slightly closed eye, I know he’s laughing at me.

I’m from the north, my mum and dad had tiny horizons, I didn’t hit the bright lights of London until I was in my twenties, so I’m used to cracking people up with my lack of social polish and the way I say ‘bugger’ not ‘bogger’. Come to think of it, me being a hilarious northerner was probably why there was all that laughing in Chamonix. If posh people taking the piss is what I’ve come to expect, it doesn’t mean I like it. If Bill’s like the rest of George’s extended social circle he’ll be one of those entitled guys who were weaned on champagne and assume the rest of the world was too. The kind who don’t even know what a back door is, let alone how to use one. Those cheekbones are the giveaway. That accent. I know it’s wrong to judge, worse still to write people off without knowing them properly, but after the way George walked out on me, any guy with tuned-up vowels can’t be trusted.

‘I’ll take your word for that.’ It takes me a second to change the subject. ‘So what’s with the music?’

‘Feliz Navidad? It’s so much less obvious than your usual Christmas tunes.’ Even though he’s pulling a face, he still looks like perfection on a stick. ‘On repeat in an attempt to get in the festive mood.’

That’s one way of looking at it. George saw continuous repetition as lazy, and a total lack of musical creativity. But there you go, it wouldn’t work if we all liked the same. George was entitled once, but by the time he hit thirty he’d fallen on hard times, which was where I came in handy. As a temporary interim. A stepping stone. A door mat to use on his way to better places. If I needed a lesson that normal people need to stay away from rich people, George was it. The minute he got his break he left me for someone more suited to his new, moneyed life. And things went seriously downhill after George. So far down they ended in the accident.

Nowadays I put all my energy into riding a better wave, and believe me, that doesn’t include guys. Especially ones who talk like they’ve swallowed a plum and luxuriate in bubble baths in Cornish castles when they know damned well they should be leaping out of the water and sorting their guests out.

But before you think I’ve written off the whole south of England, I haven’t at all. Meeting Fliss and being welcomed into her very southern family gently opened my closed northern eyes in the best possible way and I’ll always be grateful for that. Fliss wasn’t only my bestie and my party partner and next-room neighbour at uni. She was also my social translator. She held my hand as I discovered the scary world of student London and later hauled me up into my job at Daniels.

And thinking of nicer things, one mention of the ‘f’ for ‘festive’ word, and I’m glancing up, appraising the pergola. Okay, I put my hands up, I can’t help it, it’s my job. However slick and polished the outdoor space is already, in my head I’m already up the stepladders, festooning it with fairy lights. Pink and turquoise strands hanging from the wooden poles, moving in the breeze. They would work amazingly.

‘You haven’t got around to the decorations out here yet?’ I’m stating the obvious, expecting him to say it’s his last job, and maybe to share what he’s planning.

‘Decorations?’

I’m taking in his blank stare when two things hit me.

First, even though Merwyn is standing next to me, staring at Bill even harder than I am, I’m not actually holding his lead any more. How did that happen? And second, since I moved in and braved the crackling static of that finger touch, my (early Christmas present to myself) Russell and Bromley Chelsea boots (off eBay) have been kicking up against a towel. Except now I’m looking more closely it’s not just a towel. Dropped across the top, there’s also a pair of cotton boxers.

‘Ok-a-a-a-a-y.’ My voice has gone all screechy and as the words naked hot entitled hot man of my personal dreams in a hot tub zip through my brain I’m suddenly sweating inside my fair isle. As I look at the boxers, then look at Bill, Merwyn is following my gaze. And over the tub edge I can see Bill doing the same. There are times when the only way forward is to ignore the roaring of blood pounding through your ears and simply come out and say it like it is. So I take a deep breath and press ‘go’. ‘You’re not actually wearing any clothes in there are you, Bill?’

Bill’s grin is unrepentant. No surprise there then. ‘Good call, Ivy, I am totally in the buff here, thanks for getting that one out into the open.’ On the down side, him coming clean is even more disarming than plain old arrogant. ‘In my defence, I have to say, whatever Mrs Johnstone-Cody understood, I wasn’t expecting guests until tomorrow.’

I sniff. ‘I’ll take your word for that too.’ It’s good that he’s switched back to super-pleased with himself.

‘Great.’ Nice recovery there from Bill, we both know it isn’t at all. ‘So if you’d throw me the towel and my – ahem – shorts, we can fast-forward to your welcome tour.’

It’s a relief we finally got as far as him mentioning showing me round. ‘Lovely, I’ll do that now.’

Merwyn’s giving me one of his ‘I don’t believe a word and neither should you’ looks, but I’m not going to tell him off for cheek because Merwyn and I need to present a united front here. I’m in enough shit with my misplaced, completely inappropriate and bloody alarming flutters without starting an argument with the dog.

As I dip down towards the towel I’m mentally assessing the size and how much mannequin coverage it would offer if it were on a display in a Daniels department store window. Transposed to a Cornish courtyard, and the body I’ve been undressing in my head for years, the answer is, nowhere near enough. And then there are the – ahem – shorts. I’ve had plenty of practice after years of picking up George’s underwear. But as my hand reaches out towards the shorts the pale blue checks look as expensive as Bill does, and the thought they actually belong to him makes me freeze for long enough to mouth a silent O-M-G in my head.

And how I’ll come to regret that OMG. One moment of hesitation on my way down, and Merwyn picks up on it. He sees the minute space in time as a challenge, and goes for it. One dart, he’s grabbed the shorts, a swift turn and he’s off across the courtyard. Two more delighted leaps, then he’s shaking the life out of the boxers, haring off into the shadows with the towel and dog lead trailing behind him.

I run as far as the courtyard corner and see him disappearing into the shrubbery, but it’s no use going further because he thinks it’s a game. The more I chase the faster Merwyn will go.

‘Well, I did not see that one coming.’ As Bill shakes his head, there’s no clue if he’s being ironic or straight. From my experience it takes more than a pair of lost boxers to throw these hard-boiled guys off kilter even if the boxers are disappearing at a hundred miles an hour into the night.

‘If you’d had a decent sized bath sheet it would have been too heavy for him to do that.’ Just saying. So he knows for the future. But I can’t blame this on anyone other than me. Merwyn’s my dog, I have to take full responsibility here. Well, he’s not actually mine, but there’s no time to go into that now. ‘Give him a minute, he’ll be back.’ Or at least that’s what I’m banking on. What Merwyn hates most is being ignored, hopefully he’ll reappear any second to see why I’m not joining in the fun.

Bill’s got one eyebrow raised. ‘Time flies when you’re in a hot tub, you could come in for a dip while we’re waiting?’ This is exactly what I meant by hard boiled – totally unflappable, ignoring the concerns of the entire rest of the world, getting straight back to his own hedonistic priorities.

‘For the second and last time, I’m NOT coming in. Thanks all the same.’

‘Message received, loud and clear. In which case I’ll use the time to suggest you settle into a room in this part of the house tonight, then I’ll show you around the rest in the morning.’

‘Fine.’ There’s no point in arguing. He’s also called it a house not a castle, but I’ll let that go for now. It’s one more sign he’s used to a place the size of Downton Abbey.

‘There’s food if you’re hungry, wine if you want to unwind, or if you want to get completely wiped out there are vats of gin.’

Seriously, as if the signs weren’t all there already, you can’t trust anyone who offers you that lot. ‘For a handyman you’re really going the extra mile.’

He’s looking at me through narrowed eyes. ‘Let’s hope you still feel that way in the New Year when you’re writing your review.’

‘Actually, I’ve got supper in the car.’ It may take a couple of days to stop my insides feeling like hot syrup sponge every time he looks at me. Hopefully by the time everyone else arrives at the weekend, I’ll have had so much practice I’ll be entirely impervious to his charms.

‘I’m pleased to hear it.’

When was I ever this confused about someone being serious or joking around? ‘You do have a microwave?’ My mouth’s watering at the thought of my mac and cheese ready meal, I’m so pleased I bought the big size.

‘That wouldn’t be very authentic.’ The uncertain frown is back, making furrows on Bill’s forehead.

I can’t stay silent about this. ‘Said the man in the twenty-first century hot tub.’

‘Don’t worry, Ivy-star, I’m sure the Aga will do the same job.’

Ivy-star is Fliss’s nickname for me which came from the first boss we had at Daniels who used to bark, ‘Ivy Starforth, what a STAR!’ every time I had a good idea. I’m flinching that Bill’s remembered George calling me it enough to pull it out here seven years on. I’m still standing mentally scratching my rather bemused head, desperately trying to pull my wobbly bits together when I hear the sound of paws galloping on gravel.

‘Merwyn!’ I brace myself to swoop him into a ‘welcome back’ body slam. Somehow as I’m squatting trying to dodge the licks we end up on the floor, but at least I’ve got him by the collar now. As I scramble back to standing I can’t help feeling proud to be proved right. ‘See, I told you he’d be back.’

‘Covered in mud, without my shorts or my towel, I might add.’ Bill’s shaking his head. ‘Do you know how much Calvin Kleins cost? I can’t afford to let dogs bury them.’

‘Down to the last penny as it happens. I also know Calvin Klein doesn’t do boxers in that particular check. Never has, as far as I can remember.’ There are advantages to knowing your way around the entire men’s underwear department inside out. Strictly business of course. As for Merwyn, his cute brown furry face is caked in dirt clumps all the way from his nose to his ears. His paws and legs too. He has to have been digging. I’ve never actually seen him this filthy, but I’m not going to play it up. So for once he’ll have to go without a telling off. ‘Someone’s going to need a bath.’

Bill gives a grunt. ‘Let’s hope he’s less water averse than you.’

It’s been a very long day. I’m still reeling at the shock of finding Bill/Will here and there’s a limit to how much a woman can take. To be honest, I wasn’t completely certain Merwyn was going to come back. But now he has, all I want to do is clean him up then collapse into a comfy chair. Preferably at the opposite end of the castle to anyone called Bill. As blasts from the past go, this is the equivalent of that Icelandic volcano that erupted and brought worldwide air travel to a standstill due to the dust in the atmosphere. The aftershocks from this could go on for weeks.

‘Isn’t it time we were going inside?’ I’m screwing my eyes closed, slipping off my jacket and thrusting it in Bill’s direction, because someone has to move this on here. It might as well be me. ‘Just get out of that tub and wrap up anything that matters in my coat. Tell me when you’re covered, and I’ll follow you in.’

I swear I did not foresee the view of rippling butt cheeks that offer was going to result in. Or how disturbing I’d find it to see my furry navy blue cuffs bumping off his calves as he ran. Or think about the water marks on the lining. But sometimes you have to take short cuts and live with the consequences.

We’re just coming up to a broad planked, disarmingly normal-size back door when Bill reaches up to a little niche in the stone, and the music stops. But instead of the expected silence of the middle-of-nowhere in the countryside, there’s a peculiar sound – a kind of weird repeating rumble, like the wind in a storm, only louder.

‘Oh my, what the hell is that noise?’

Bill gives me a hard stare that’s very uncomfortable. ‘That’s the waves crashing up the beach, it’s what you get if you stay in a castle by the sea.’ And then he laughs, which is somehow even worse. ‘Welcome to Cornwall, Ivy Starforth, I hope you won’t be grumbling about it because that’s one noise we can’t turn off.’

And when I hear that low rumbling laugh, and see the light dancing in those dark brown eyes, I have the strangest feeling we might all be in big trouble here.

Even Libby.

Thursday

12th December

2.

Merry

and (not so) Bright

The last thing I do after I’ve bathed Merwyn and before my phone battery dies is to text Fliss:

Arrived safely, currently tucked up in castle listening to sound of sea, more soon xx

It’s short, but it feels like the best cover-all until it’s light enough to check out both the details and the bigger picture. Seeing as we share all our worst moments she’ll be desperate to hear about every last caretaker horror too, although I’ll be missing out the full implications of where he fits in. But I’ll save all that until I’ve got a better idea of what’s here. Then I go up to my teensy room by an even tinier kitchen staircase and when I crawl into bed l barely notice that it’s less fortress, more seventies pine lodge. Actually I do, because that’s what I’m like, but by that time I’ve given up giving a damn, and anyway this is only a temporary bed in the caretaker’s flat. I admit that I fall asleep wondering about how Will slash Bill came to be here. When I wake up ten comfy hours later I’m actually thinking even if I am offered a princess and pea four poster mattress stack later, I’d be mad to give up on the memory foam.

By the time Merwyn and I have done a morning circuit of the castle grounds, the kettle’s boiled on the Aga, and soon after I’ve filled up my insulated reusable coffee mug. A couple of cranberry and macadamia nut breakfast bars later, I’ve come round enough to perch on a stool at the kitchen bar without falling off. I’m just checking my phone when Bill walks in.

‘Morning, Ivy, how are you today?’ He’s taller and all-over bigger than I remember, with his shoulders bursting out of his Barbour jacket and his denims tight across his thighs. ‘You do know you’re wearing your hat inside?’

I’ve had ten hours to bolster my defences, so when I’m faced with the overall hunk effect this morning I’m ready to take refuge in flustered grumbles. But my heart sinks that this is where he’s landed.

The hat … Well … that … I’ve been wearing seasonal variations ever since I cut my face, even at work. My hair’s grown to a rather ragged side parted bob, but I still need a hat to keep my swept over fringe in place and hide the long jagged red scar that curves from the middle of my forehead and down to the start of my right ear underneath my hair. I try not to dwell on it or tell people about how it happened. But as I close my eyes for a fraction of a second to blink away the pictures whirring through my brain, my head starts to spin so fast I have to cling onto the work surface to steady myself. A year on, I’ve pretty much got the flashbacks under control. But when they happen, like they are now, there’s nothing I can do but go with it.

Suddenly I’m in the car again, careering backwards through the darkness as we leave the road and start to roll. By hanging onto the granite of the island unit really hard and locking my neck I might be able to stop the images flashing through my brain before the bit where it feels like we’re being spun in a washing machine … before the part where the tree branch crashes through the windscreen … before the glass explodes and comes raining down like a storm of tiny diamonds. Before the bit where I’m reaching out in the blackness, finding the warmth of Michael’s shoulder rammed against the steering wheel. Asking him if he’s okay. Racking my brain as to how to get someone I’ve only known for an evening to stop sleeping and talk to me. How I can’t move, all I can do is count the tracks, because even after the car has been tumbled over and over the early hours radio is somehow still playing. And I keep on asking him to wake up, but he never replies. Because what I don’t know yet is that he’s never going to talk or wake up again. Because his neck’s broken and he’s already dead.

‘Ivy, are you okay?’ Bill’s voice cuts through the darkness in my head. ‘I was asking about your hat. You do know you’ve forgotten to take it off?’

I ignore the bit about the hat, drag myself back to the kitchen, and go with the rest. ‘Message failed to send.’ I remember now, that’s what I was about to say. ‘It’s not the best start to the morning, but I’m sure I’ll get over it.’

As for the accident, one lift back from an early Christmas party wasn’t ever meant to go so wrong. A whole year on, I still can’t rationalise that I walked away and Michael died. The only way I can attempt to live is by not thinking about it every waking minute. And the best way I’ve found to do that is by working non-stop and trying my best to do things for other people, not myself. If I put all my effort into making Christmas for Fliss and Libby and their families wonderful, for a few days it’ll let me blank out the terrible bleakness of the mistakes I made that night.

Bill blows out his cheeks. ‘Messages failing is a Cornish thing. Don’t worry, by the time you go home, you’ll be used to it.’

‘You’re saying there’s no signal?’ I can’t believe what I’m hearing, although it’s less of a surprise that he’s shrugging off someone else’s problem. It’s a good thing I skipped the niceties, there’s no time to lose on this. It’s also a relief to have wrenched myself out of my own personal abyss of blackness and get back to the mundanities of other people’s everyday concerns.

‘It’s more that the signal comes and goes, you have to move to find the hot spots. The top of the south tower’s usually your best bet.’ Again, he’s a lot less concerned than he should be.

I let out a snort but I’m not letting him off the hook because I’m feeling really indignant on everyone else’s behalf. ‘I can see why you had peak-time availability. How do you cope living here?’

He pulls one of those perfect-on-a-stick faces. ‘I find the views and the size of the kitchen more than make up for the lack of communication technology.’

Which reminds me, I’ve been so tied up with the unimportant distractions, I missed out saying how wonderful it was to peep out of my bedroom window when I woke up and see the lawns behind the castle running straight out onto a long sandy beach with the sun glinting off the pale blue water beyond. Through the wide kitchen doors there’s a similar vista, out onto the wide sweep of the bay, and a distant cluster of buildings which must be where I saw the lights from my room last night.

I take the long way round the kitchen island to avoid passing him, and end up where I’ve got a better view through the kitchen doors. ‘Is that the nearest town along there, then?’

As Bill’s lips twitch into a smile, for some ridiculous reason I’m reminded of that fragrance ad where the guy walks through and the women all fall down and have orgasms. Which isn’t the best thought to end on when he’s opening his mouth to say something.

‘St Aidan village is just around the bay, and to answer every Londoner’s first questions, it’s fifteen minutes’ walk along the beach, and it has all the bars, fish and chips and surf shops most people need, complete with a double dose of picturesque.’

I ignore the jibe about ‘most people’ and grin down at Merwyn who’s leaning against the legs of my stool. ‘There you go, that’s a date for later this afternoon.’ Merwyn’s got my back here.

As for Bill’s kitchen, it might be short of a microwave, but it’s got two four slice Dualit toasters, a massive Aga, an island unit and a long table as well as some chunky distressed leather sofas. Not forgetting a high slanty ceiling and lashings of characterful beams. Bill’s right – if I were a handyman and this was where I lived, even if my second home was Downton Abbey, I would not be giving my notice. At the same time, if I imagined his house – if I’m honest, I have done every now and again – it wasn’t ever like this. There’s just something very impersonal about what’s here. As I scan the walls and shelves for clues about his life there’s nothing to land on other than the fact he must like toast.

‘So if you’re ready, I could show you around now?’ Now he’s less hidden behind steam clouds I can see his stubble shadow is bordering on a beard, and his brown hair is just as wavy and crumpled as it was last night. When his gaze locks with mine, I’m suddenly so hot I’m wishing I’d saved my polar bear white fluffy polo neck for later.

‘Great idea, I thought you’d never ask.’ I ease myself down to follow him, and as I gather up Merwyn, his lead and our coats and pull down my hat I glance at my phone and see it’s already past ten. ‘It’s lovely to find loaded people in the country really do start work half way through the morning.’