Once Upon A Christmas Night...

‘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?’

CHAPTER FOUR

THE HOUSE WAS full of large, chilly rooms that could have been light if it weren’t for the heavy drapes at the windows and the dark wood panelling everywhere. Jess smiled politely and tried to see the best in it all.

‘What’s through here?’ She pointed to the door at the end of the corridor that led from the top of the stairs. If she could find some corner of this house that she could genuinely own up to liking, she was determined to do so.

‘It’s the inside of the old turret. I used to play in there when I was a kid.’ He strode forward, opening the door. ‘No one’s been in here for a while.’

The room was circular, with tall narrow windows that curved to a point at the top and a complex, many-angled ceiling above their heads. Dust sheets covered what looked like seating and occasional tables.

‘This is great, Greg.’ This time she could give unqualified praise.

‘You like it? It’s not very practical.’

‘It’s fun, though.’

‘Yeah, it’s definitely fun. I used to fight my way up and down those stairs quite regularly when I was a kid.’ He nodded towards the stone stairway, which followed the curve of the wall down to the ground floor.

‘Your very own medieval castle.’ Complete with a few ghosts from the past, if the memories flickering in Greg’s eyes were anything to go by.

‘Yeah.’ He was looking around, seeing things she couldn’t. ‘We had a film crew here once. It was just a B movie and I don’t think they set much store by historical accuracy but I loved it. I made my mother bring me here every day, just to watch.’ He grinned proudly. ‘I had a bit part.’

‘Really? Who did you play?’

‘A nameless, grubby urchin. Didn’t get any lines, but I gave it my all.’

‘I’m sure you did. So what’s the film?’

‘My mother has a copy. I dare say if you ask her, she’ll let you savour every moment of my time on the silver screen in glorious slow-mo.’ He went to turn but something stopped him. The ghosts weren’t done with him yet, and he seemed caught, unable to move, his breath misting white in the chill of the air.

‘Those memories are important.’

‘They’re… ’ He was making a visible effort to resist some beguiling force, but Jess couldn’t tell what, and it was difficult to imagine what Greg could want that he didn’t already have. His attention was suddenly focussed back onto her. ‘It’s cold in here. You’re shivering.’

So do something about it. Hold me. Keep me warm. ‘I should have packed a warmer sweater.’

‘I have a few here.’ He turned abruptly. ‘Come and pick one out.’

His sweater didn’t fit, but it was warm, and Jess could fold the cuffs so that her hands didn’t disappear completely. And it smelled of him. Warm and sexy, and not really hers. She’d packed her best jeans, on the off chance she might need them, and Greg produced a pair of wellingtons along with a pair of thick woollen socks from the cloakroom.

‘Are you sure it’s okay for me to turn up at your mother’s looking like this?’

‘I think you look rather fetching. Red suits you.’ Greg’s smile would have made her feel fabulous, even if she’d been wearing rags. ‘Anyway, you wouldn’t want to make me feel underdressed, would you?’

The idea was faintly ludicrous. His jeans were a shade of something between indigo and black, which you generally didn’t find on the high street. His sweater wasn’t new, but it was soft, thick cashmere, like the one he’d lent her. Coupled with those dark good looks, he was quality from head to toe and would have fitted in anywhere.

He caught his car keys up from the hall table. ‘I’ll get your coat from the car.’

They tramped across the fields, keeping up a brisk pace against the cold. Jess was glad of the woollen scarf and gloves that Greg had produced from the cloakroom, which was beginning to take on the nature of a magician’s cubby hole, from which it was possible to conjure up all manner of useful things that appeared to belong to no one in particular.

‘That’s where we’re headed.’ He pointed towards a house, standing on the outskirts of the village.

‘It looks lovely.’ Jess didn’t have to search for something nice to say this time. The yellow-brick, rambling farmhouse was everything that Greg’s father’s house wasn’t. Blending in with the trees and evergreen bushes that surrounded it, as if it had just grown there instead of having been brutally hewn from the countryside. ‘This was your real home, then.’

‘Yeah.’ His pace seemed to quicken, the nearer they got. As if he was leaving some burden behind. ‘Where did you grow up?’

Jess smiled. ‘Nowhere so grand.’

He twisted the corners of his mouth down. ‘This isn’t so very grand, is it?’

‘It is quite grand. We didn’t have our own medieval tower at home.’

‘It’s only mock-medieval—’ He broke off, grinning. ‘Yeah, I suppose the tower’s not your average home extension. But stop changing the subject. I’ve already spilled the beans.’

Maybe he had. Maybe he’d just told her what he wanted her to know and kept the rest back. ‘Not much to know. Just me and my mum. We had a little house in South London.’

He nodded. ‘No brothers or sisters?’

‘No. My father left before I was born.’ Jess shrugged. ‘I don’t miss him. I can’t, I didn’t know him.’

‘Can’t you miss things that you didn’t have?’

‘I’m not sure there were any.’ She answered too quickly. Maybe even a bit defensively.

He laughed. ‘May I have your autograph?’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve never met anyone who’s had everything they ever wanted before.’

Jess nudged her shoulder against his arm. ‘Don’t be dense, Greg. There’s not much point in wanting things you’re never going to have.’

‘No. But sometimes you have to acknowledge them.’

‘Because?’

‘Because you can’t start to work on what you need, unless you acknowledge what’s missing.’

Maybe. She’d need to think about that. ‘I guess I miss knowing about him. Silly things, like whether my eyes are the same colour as his. Whether there’s anything in his medical history that I should be watching out for.’

He chuckled. ‘Always good to know. Have you any idea where he is now?’

‘In a manner of speaking. He was killed in a car accident fifteen years ago. Someone came to tell Mum.’ Jess remembered that day well enough. The stranger who’d knocked on their door, and who her mother had taken into the kitchen to talk with privately. The silence in the house, and then the sudden resumption of normal life, as if her mother had made a conscious decision to put all of that behind her and never speak of it again.

Greg’s pace slowed and he found her hand, tucking it under his arm. They fell into step together almost automatically. ‘Did anyone ever say they were sorry? For that loss?’

‘No. No one ever thought it was one.’ It was what Jess had told herself, too.

‘I’m sorry. For your loss.’

‘Thank you.’ She smiled up at him. He must have repeated that phrase any number of times in his career, but he always seemed to mean it. It came as a surprise to find how much it meant to her, too.

‘Can I ask you a question, Greg?’

‘Since when did you need permission for that?’

‘How did you feel when your mother remarried? I mean… did you mind?’

‘Mind? Well, Ted was practically living with us anyway. And we all went to Italy and had an enormous party, and I got to stay with my aunt, while they went off on honeymoon. I kissed a girl, broke my arm coming off my cousin’s motorbike and generally had a whale of a time. My mother was horrified when she got back.’

‘I bet she was. How old did you say you were?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Hmm. My mother married when I was twenty.’

‘And?’

‘And her husband’s a really nice man. He gives her the life she’s always deserved and she’s happy with him.’

‘That’s nice. And?’

He waited. Laid his gloved hand over hers, tucking it more firmly into the crook of his arm.

‘I don’t know if I should even say it. It sounds so stupid… ’

‘Oh, go on.’ He chuckled. ‘You can’t leave me hanging now.’

Why not? He’d done the same to her. But if Jess gave a little, maybe he would. ‘It was just a bit confusing. All my life she’d been telling me that we could manage on our own, that I didn’t need a father and she didn’t need a husband. Then all of a sudden she upped and got married.’

He chuckled. ‘Must have been love.’

‘Yeah. Suppose it must have been.’ Jess wrinkled her nose.

‘Did you look that disapproving when she broke the news?’

‘No! Of course I didn’t. I’m happy for her, of course I am. I just… When I was little I used to think that it would be me who would get a great job, find somewhere nice for us to live. That I’d be the one to make sure she was comfortable.’ Jess forced a smile. ‘I’m just being silly.’

He shrugged. ‘Sounds reasonable enough to me. You know the trouble with people—families in particular, I’ve noticed—is that you have these great plans for them, how you’re going to make everything right and so on, and then they just go out and do it all on their own. It’s frustrating.’

Jess couldn’t help laughing now. ‘Is that a touch of megalomania I hear?’

‘More than a touch, I imagine. Aren’t all kids megalomaniacs? That’s what growing up does to you, makes you realise that you can’t control the world.’

‘Oh, so you’re saying that I need to grow up, are you?’ Jess suspected that she probably did.

‘Don’t you dare. Stay as you are.’ He grinned at her and quickened his pace. ‘Only perhaps you could walk just a bit faster. We’ll be late if we don’t hurry.’

Being late didn’t seem to figure much in Rosa’s household. Dinner was cooking on the range, and Greg and Jess were both kissed and seated in the warm, bright kitchen. Ted arrived, kicking the mud from his boots at the back door, and Greg rose to meet him, their handshake giving way to a hug.

‘I hear you’re a doctor.’ He accepted a glass of wine from his wife and sat down, next to Jess.

‘Yes. I’ve been specialising in cardiology for the last year.’

Ted nodded. ‘Interesting. I expect you’re at the sharp end of things, working down in London.’

‘The department’s done some groundbreaking work in the last couple of years. I’m very junior, though.’ Jess grinned. ‘But I get to watch sometimes.’

Ted laughed. ‘Best way to learn.’

‘She’s being modest,’ Greg broke in. ‘She’s a rising star in the department.’

‘A young woman with a bright future, then.’ Ted was watching her thoughtfully and Jess felt herself flush.

The meal was served and eaten and Jess was forbidden from moving when it came to clearing the plates away. Rosa and Greg busied themselves with the washing up, leaving Jess to talk to Ted. ‘Your practice must serve quite a big area. In comparison to London.’

‘Yes. There are three of us, and we cover about sixty square miles. We keep busy.’

‘It must be demanding. Not many of you to go around.’

‘It has its moments.’ Ted reached for the pot to pour himself a second cup of coffee, and the sharp note of a phone sounded.

‘Oh!’ Rosa made a splash in the washing-up water with her hand. ‘Really?’

Ted smiled. ‘Looks like it.’ He reached for the phone.

‘What?’ Everyone but Jess seemed to know what the call was about before Ted had even answered the phone.

‘Ted’s an immediate care doctor. Means he’s on call for any emergencies where ambulance personnel need support at the scene. That’s his alert phone.’ Greg had put the dishcloth down and was waiting, watching Ted.

‘Okay. Yes, tell them I’ve accepted the call.’ Ted snapped the phone shut and looked at Greg. ‘There’s a pile-up on the motorway. Want to take a ride with me?’

Greg was already reaching for his jacket and grinned towards Jess. ‘Are you coming?’

‘If that’s all right?’ She shot a querying look at Ted.

‘I never turn down a helping hand.’ Ted turned to Rosa. ‘Sorry, darling.’

‘Go.’ Rosa was clearly used to this kind of thing. ‘Just come back again.’

Ted chuckled. If Rosa’s return smile was anything to go by, they’d worked this one out a long time ago.

It was beginning to get dark, shadows reaching across the lanes in front of them, as if to smother what was left of the day. Ted joined the motorway and hit the siren, speeding towards the site of the accident.

‘There, look.’ Greg indicated a slew of stationary headlights up ahead.

‘I see it.’ Ted guided the SUV into a space and got out. Jess could see flashing blue lights approaching from the other direction, and hoped that it was an ambulance.

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