Authors: Trisha Ashley
Please reply, if this gets to you,
Adam x
His last kiss had turned out to be a Judas one. I stared at that kiss for so long that the screensaver kicked in.
It was a bit pat that he should suddenly pop back up so soon after Aimee had seen and recognised me, so I had to assume she was the ‘friend’. Jago might have managed to forgive Aimee for jilting him, but how much more did I have to forgive Adam for!
Ma, entering the kitchen and seeing me sitting there, said, ‘What’s up? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘I have – I’ve just had an email from Adam.’
‘What, Scott of the Antarctic?’ she said incredulously, her precious jade cigarette holder coming perilously close to falling on the kitchen floor.
‘The very same.’
‘What on earth does
he
want?’
‘He was politely enquiring if he was Stella’s father, since someone had helpfully mentioned to him that I have a little girl. I think it’s Aimee, trying to stir things up – remember I told you Jago’s ex recognised me?’
‘Sort of. All these exes popping back up again is a bit complicated.’
‘He says he’d like to see me again and presumably also Stella, but only if she really is his, of course.’
‘Are you going to reply?’
‘No,’ I said, but I was thoroughly unsettled and didn’t even protest when she broke off a big chunk of the giant chocolate bird’s nest and munched it while popping bread into the toaster. ‘Mmm, chewy,’ she said.
‘It was meant more as a table decoration,’ I told her. Then Stella woke and called me, so I quickly deleted the email again and decided to put Adam right out of my head. Perhaps if I ignored him, he’d go away.
Unfortunately, putting it out of my head proved impossible, so I rang Celia later when I was on my own to talk it through, though at first she thought I was calling about the cakes I was making for the Knitathon tomorrow. She chatted away quite happily until it suddenly dawned on her that she wasn’t getting much response and asked what was up.
‘I had an email from Adam!’
‘What, Adam your ex, Adam?’
‘That’s the one,’ I agreed, and then told her what he’d said. ‘I’m not answering it, of course.’
‘Oh … I don’t know about that, Cally. I mean, he is Stella’s father, so—’
‘Only biologically,’ I broke in, ‘not any other way. And I don’t want him in our lives, especially at this stage.’
‘I know you wouldn’t want Stella upset or unsettled, but she doesn’t have to be. I mean, perhaps he’s changed,’ she suggested. ‘If he’s heard about Stella’s problems from this Aimee, then he might feel guilty and want to help now.’
‘We’ve managed perfectly well without his help all these years, so he can keep it,’ I snapped.
‘Well, don’t entirely close the door on the possibility,’ she advised, and I wondered if Elizabeth Bennet ever felt like murdering her lovely, sweet-natured sister Jane?
Later Adam sent me another ‘Dear Cally’ email which, after a profound inner struggle, I opened. It said he hoped I’d got his first email and would I now give him my mobile number so we could talk and arrange to meet.
I did answer that one, but no ‘Dear Adam’ in
my
reply:
I was surprised to hear from you,
I wrote without any preamble.
My daughter is nearly four so you can do the maths yourself if you want to. We have managed perfectly well without you so far – and long may that continue.
Cally
I hoped that would do the trick, but I felt so ruffled that I phoned Jago when Stella was in bed that night and told
him
all about Adam’s contacting me, too, and his sudden interest in Stella. Actually, I’d been dying to tell him all day, but I didn’t like to unload
all
my troubles onto his shoulders.
But he said I should have called him earlier. ‘It must have been such a shock suddenly hearing from him – and I’m sure you’re right and he got to know about Stella through Aimee, and I feel that it’s my fault.’
‘Maybe he’ll think better of it now and that’ll be the last I hear from him,’ I said optimistically. ‘I told him straight that we’d managed fine without him all these years.’
‘I don’t know …’ he said doubtfully. ‘Perhaps he genuinely does want to apologise and to be part of Stella’s life, even if it took him a long while to get there?’
‘That’s more or less what Celia said,’ I admitted, ‘but I don’t want him to suddenly appear and then vanish again, which would upset Stella for no reason. I mean, she’s used to the idea that he lives at the North Pole and that’s why she’s never seen him.’
I didn’t add that Jago was fast becoming the dependable father figure in her young life, so any sudden attempt by Adam to assert himself in that role would just confuse her.
‘You’re right, it’s tricky, and your instinct as a mother is to do what’s best for Stella, whatever that is. We are a pair, with our exes trying to muscle back into our lives as if nothing ever happened!’ he said ruefully.
‘But unlike you and Aimee, I don’t even want to be friends with him. I don’t want to
see
him, come to that.’
‘Actually, I’m fast starting to feel the same way about Aimee,’ he confessed. ‘I began by feeling sorry for her, but now I’d prefer it if she forgot all about me. She hasn’t rung me, apart from that message asking me to forgive her, but she keeps sending little text messages.’
‘They aren’t covered in smiley emoticons, are they?’
‘How did you know?’ he asked, surprised.
‘She and Adam seem to have come from the same mould. A shallow one, with chipped edges. Oh, well,’ I sighed, ‘I’ll just have to wait and see what happens with Adam.’
‘But do tell me straight away if you hear from him again. You don’t have to worry about anything on your own, when you can share it with me,’ he said, and I felt a warm and fuzzy glow round my heart.
I hoped to discuss things with Celia a bit more next day, but the Knitathon event was such a success that there was little opportunity to talk.
The garden was full of people sitting crocheting on the grass, on garden chairs, on fold-up ones borrowed from the church hall up the road, and even perched on the stone toadstools like terribly domestic fairies. They were all sponsored for every square they produced, but lots of other people had simply paid their entrance to sit about under the shady trees and have tea.
The sun shone on the righteous. Will had put up a gazebo with trestle tables near the house, where my home-made cakes and scones were spread out, and volunteers trotted in and out with fresh pots of tea and coffee and jugs of cold drinks.
Stella spent most of her time with Jenny and Mrs Snowball under a shady tree, eventually falling asleep on Jenny’s lap, and only woke up when everyone was going.
Long shadows moved across the grass as the volunteers folded the chairs ready for collection and carried dirty crockery and cups into the house. The day had produced a great mound of crocheted squares in a rainbow of colours and I asked Celia what she was going to do with them.
‘The ladies at the church up the road that we borrowed the chairs from are going to sew them into blankets and then distribute them among the elderly locally just before Christmas,’ she said, which seemed a lovely idea.
‘We must have made loads of money just from the entrance fee,’ Will said, staggering past under a mound of multi-hued wool. ‘Then there’s the sponsorship money to come in, too. I’d say it’s been a
huge
success.’
‘Yes, me too,’ I agreed. ‘Thank you so much, both of you!’
‘We’re only a small part of the fundraising programme, going by Hebe Winter’s constant updates,’ Celia said. ‘There seems to be some event or other now practically every day till autumn!’
‘I think that might be a slight exaggeration, but a lot is happening and we still have the biggest events, the fête and the auction, to go.’
‘I confidently predict you’ll double your target and so you can stop worrying about any new expenses that crop up,’ she said. ‘Will’s sorted your tickets, visas, hotel booking, insurance …’ she ticked off each on her fingers. ‘All the arrangements are made at this end and the hospital here is in contact with the one in Boston, isn’t it?’
I shivered suddenly, though it was still warm. ‘Yes, they update them constantly on Stella’s condition, and Boston has just emailed me all kinds of information about the treatments she’ll receive and about how children recover after major heart surgery.’
Celia gave me a hug. ‘It will all go well and she’ll bounce back to health, you’ll see. And never mind what I said about Adam: you were right and I was wrong, because he’s a complication you don’t need at the moment. Maybe when Stella’s fit and well again you might let him visit her and play some small future role in her life, if that’s what she wants, but don’t worry about it till then.’
‘So long as
he
doesn’t worry
me
,’ I said with a wry smile.
It wasn’t surprising that Stella was tired and fractious during her next hospital appointment, though they were a little concerned about her so we went straight home afterwards instead of into Ormskirk.
But Jago came out for tea, bringing her a gingerbread pig, which she said was even more fun, even if she didn’t get to see her friends the Graces … and actually, I thought so too.
By Saturday she was herself again, her small reserves of energy restored and so when we took Toto out for a walk we went by way of Honey’s to see how the students were doing with the big clear-out. Jago didn’t have a wedding cake to make, luckily, so was going to be there all day, supervising.
There was no sign of life at the front, so we went round the corner and up the unmade bit of lane at the back, where the rusted corrugated iron gates had been wrenched wide open to allow entry for an enormous skip.
Already it was half full of flattened cartons, rotted curtains and carpets and crumbling lino. A line of students carrying stacks of old newspapers were scurrying down the metal staircase from the flat like a procession of ants.
Jago came out of the garage holding a bundle of old sacking and the rusty jerry can and tossed those into the skip, too.
‘Hi,’ he said, then as Stella clambered out and would have run to him, added quickly, ‘No, don’t touch me, Stella – I’m filthy!’
‘Do you need a bath?’ she asked, stopping dead.
‘Yes, but I’ll have it when we’ve finished the clearing.’
‘How’s it going?’ I asked.
‘We’ve emptied the house and annexe and they’re just starting on all those newspapers in the flat, so pretty well, actually. I’m going to break up and bring out the kitchen units in the annexe in a minute, and when I can get near the ones in the flat, I’ll do the same with those. Then that should be it.’
‘You haven’t thrown out that lovely Belfast sink from the kitchen, have you?’
‘No, I’m leaving all the sinks and the baths and stuff until I get a plumber in.’
‘Good, because when you turn the washhouse into your utility room it’ll be really handy. Or if you don’t want it there, then they make nice planters in the garden.’
‘I’ll probably have it in the utility room, then, if you think it’s a good idea,’ he promised. ‘The good news is that now I’ve had a better look at the garage, it’s not as bad as I first thought, so I’ll have it repaired and painted when I have the gates replaced, and a gravel hard parking area, too.’
Then he went off to rip out cupboards, but promised to come round later when he’d been back to the flat and showered off the grime.
‘Come for dinner,’ I invited.
Stella nodded, so that her silvery curls bounced. ‘Pink fish,’ she offered enticingly.
‘Salmon
en croute
,’ I said, ‘salad, then raspberries and ice cream. It’ll be just us, because Ma’s off to the pub again with Hal – it’s getting to be a habit.’
‘OK, that sounds irresistible!’ he said, and so was the smile that went with it.
Stella obviously felt the same because she beamed at him and said, ‘I love you, Daddy-Jago!’
He was exhausted when he arrived but pleased with the day’s progress and updated us about it over dinner.
‘What will you do with the shop window?’ I asked.
‘Display a model croquembouche in it, like the one at the Happy Macaroon, and probably one of David’s party pyramids too, since we’ll take orders for each other.’
‘You’ll need a new blind, that one’s never going to rise again.’
‘It certainly won’t – I put it in the skip,’ he said with a grin. ‘But the next thing on the agenda once the cleaning service has been in is to get the woodworm treated. Because of all the chemicals they use it’ll need to air for a few days before the other workmen go in.’
‘There’s an awful lot to think about.’
‘I know, and I’ve also had to apply for change of use from a haberdasher’s shop to a bakery, so there’ll be various checks, certificates and health and safety hoops to jump through before I finally open my doors. Still, I’ve been through all that with David when he opened the Happy Macaroon, though that’s a shop open to the public, of course, and mine will only be open by appointment.’
He’d brought more paint charts and some wallpaper samples and we pored over those later, after Stella was in bed.
To keep the house light, we decided that most walls should be emulsioned in a warm cream shade called Linen, with the occasional feature wall in a Morris print of fruit and foliage to give a nod towards the house’s Victorian features.
‘I’ll keep the stained wooden floor in the seventeenth-century bedroom, and the panelling, of course,’ he said. ‘But we can paint the walls above and I can put down a couple of rugs to warm the room up.’
He sighed, shuffling the brochures together. ‘There seems a long way to go before I get to the redecoration stage!’
‘I suppose it will take ages, but meanwhile you can start getting adverts ready to go into the wedding magazines and brochures, and order business cards …’ I began.
‘And have leaflets printed to leave in local shops,’ he continued. ‘I must get onto the Sticklepond Saunter tourist trail leaflet too. Then I want the name of the business painted on the side of the van – I’ve ordered a new shop sign already.’