Authors: Trisha Ashley
‘You give me a bell when you’re ready for your reading,’ she told me. Then she gave Jago a wicked glinting gold smile and told him that
he
could give her a ring any time and she’d do him for free.
I tried gently explaining to Stella that Penguin Daddy was coming to visit her soon, but she didn’t seem terribly interested.
‘Is he coming for my birthday, with a present?’ she suggested.
‘No, it’ll be a little before that, and I don’t know if he’ll bring you a present or not. He’s really looking forward to seeing you, though.’
‘Is he?’ she said absently, wandering off, so I thought he’d been a storybook person for so long, she couldn’t take in that he was real and about to appear.
I wasn’t sure
I
could, either, and the thought of him turning up was making me feel really edgy …
Not that I didn’t already feel edgy anyway since I’d started arranging Stella’s birthday celebrations, because it had brought back memories of when I wasn’t entirely sure she’d even make it to her first birthday. I was so thankful that she had and that this time next year, if all went well, she’d finally have started school and be running round with the rest of the children, even if I had to scale a mountain of emotions to get her there.
Zillah Smith accosted me in the street one day, when I was heading home from a walk with Stella and Toto, and reminded me about my tea-leaf-reading prize, then said tomorrow was as good a day as any and she’d expect to see me then. So I decided to go once Stella was in bed, with Ma to listen out for her. Ma even said she’d watch the telly in the sitting room for a bit so I needn’t hurry back, if I didn’t want to, so I arranged to meet Jago in the Falling Star for a drink afterwards.
The house attached to the Witchcraft Museum, where Zillah kept house for Gregory Lyon, was Victorian and decorated in period style, though in the kitchen there was a bright red Aga and one of those huge American-style fridges to match. They were incongruous but yet sort of fitted, and Zillah’s taste obviously held sway in there, because the tablecloth and soft furnishings were very bright and there was a huge TV at one end of the room with a comfy chair covered by a patchwork throw.
Zillah made me drink tea from a wide, fine porcelain cup and then swirled the dregs about a bit before informing me that someone from the past would turn up, but it wouldn’t make any difference to the course I’d set.
That was pretty spot on for Adam’s coming visit, which she couldn’t possibly know about. Then she said difficult times were drawing to a close and the future was all rosy, with wedding bells.
‘Do you think that means Stella will be cured and she’ll get married one day?’ I asked eagerly
‘This is
your
fortune, not hers,’ she pointed out. ‘Though of course, her future is bound with yours to some extent, so it wouldn’t be bright if she
didn’t
make a full recovery after the operation, would it?’
‘No, that’s true,’ I said, relieved and wanting now to believe that she really could foretell the future.
‘Is a tall, dark stranger about to come into my life?’ I asked half-seriously.
‘Not unless you bumped into my great-nephew Jasper on the way in?’
I shook my head.
‘Tall, black hair, Goth, glooms about a lot with his girlfriend when he’s home in the university holidays,’ she said. ‘But he’s a good boy and a great help to Gregory in the museum. The girl, Cat, lives with her parents in that converted barn up past your mum’s cottage.’
‘Really? I haven’t seen them to talk to, only driving past, because they never seem to walk anywhere.’
‘That’s townies for you,’ she said, and then we had another cup of tea and a chat, without any more fortunes, before I walked up to the Falling Star and told Jago all about it.
Adam emailed to say he was driving up on the Saturday morning, so would be with me just after lunch. He’s booked himself into the Green Man for the night.
I felt really on edge and unsettled, despite Zillah’s comforting predictions, but I tried to carry on as usual, going to the supermarket early that day, leaving Ma with Stella. I’d told her her Penguin Daddy might pop in later, but she only asked me if Jago was coming too.
‘Later, probably for dinner,’ I said, because he’d told me he’d wait until I rang him to say the coast was clear before coming round.
Stella went down for her nap after lunch and Ma went up to the studio with instructions to tell her when Adam had cleared off.
‘Can you take Toto with you? He hated Adam and I don’t want him to bark and wake Stella up before she’s ready.’
‘All right. What are you going to do while you’re waiting for him to turn up?’ she asked.
‘Send off that article for “The Cake Diaries” about Summer Puddings and then finish making the prinsesstårta for Zoë, which I started yesterday, because she’s coming round for it later. Raffy’s going to christen her sister’s baby after one of the services tomorrow and then they’re having a bit of a party. I’ve baked the cake, now I just have to layer on the confectioner’s cream and cover it in marzipan.’
‘That should keep you occupied, then.’
‘Adam’ll probably be here any minute so he’ll have to talk to me while I’m working,’ I said, but in the event it was ages before he rang to say he’d arrived at the Green Man.
‘It’s Adam – I’m here. Can I come round and see you now?’
‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘But I’m up to the elbows in cake, so you’d better walk round the side of the house to the kitchen door and let yourself in.’
I gave him directions, then wiped a blob of confectioner’s cream off the phone with a bit of kitchen towel before carrying on with what I was doing, though there was a sick churning feeling in the pit of my stomach and my heart was doing ominous little flips.
I was just about to smooth the pale pink marzipan over the domed cake when some sixth sense made me look up and spot him through the top of the glass door, just before he turned the handle and let himself in. It was like a snapshot from the past.
‘Hi, Cally,’ he said with a smile, as if we’d only parted the day before.
I think he’d have come and kissed me if I hadn’t pointed my wooden rolling pin at him and said, ‘Just sit there while I finish covering this cake: it’s special and I want only good thoughts to go into it.’
One side of his mouth twitched in amusement in a way I remembered, and he obediently sat down on the chair opposite.
‘Same old Cally – and you look cute even with flour on your nose.’
‘Icing sugar,’ I said, rubbing it off with a corner of my apron.
‘What kind of cake is that? It looks weird.’
‘It’s a prinsesstårta and it’s going to be the christening cake for a very special baby – she was premature and so tiny it’s a miracle she’s made it.’
‘Well, I’m sure that’s great, but do you think you could stop and give me your full attention for five minutes?’ he said
‘No, because I want to get this finished before Stella wakes up. But I’ll listen while I’m working.’ I smoothed down the pale pink marzipan covering and then began creating a little crown to sit on the top.
‘Stella’s still asleep? Isn’t she a bit old for a nap?’
The marzipan crown in place, I looked at him properly for the first time and noticed that his boyish good looks now sat oddly on the face of a man in his forties, like an ageing Peter Pan.
‘Stella’s not quite four and lots of children still have a nap in the afternoon at that age. But in Stella’s case, of course, she gets tired really easily because of her medical condition and needs lots of rest.’
He looked blank. ‘
What
medical condition?’
‘You mean … Aimee didn’t tell you that Stella had a heart condition?’ I said, startled.
‘No, she never mentioned there was anything wrong with her,’ he said, looking totally taken aback. ‘I mean, is she …?’
‘She was born with a complex condition affecting the heart and one of the arteries going into it,’ I said. ‘She was operated on right after she was born and then she had another operation later, but I’ll spare you the details because you’re going green.’ I added unkindly.
‘Well, it’s a bit of a shock.’
‘Yes, well, considering all that
Stella
has suffered with it, I think you could brace up and listen to me tell you about it without keeling over,’ I said tartly. ‘Perhaps it’s time you grew out of your phobia about illness and hospitals?’
‘So, didn’t the operations cure it?’ he said, ignoring that.
‘No, they were more of a temporary fix while she got stronger. I hoped they’d be able to do something more, but then just before last Christmas they said they’d run out of options other than palliative care and as she got older and her growing body put more strain on her organs, she’d eventually succumb to some infection and …’ I stopped and turned back to my cake, carefully positioning a tiny baby in a cradle inside the marzipan crown.
‘Oh my God!’
‘But just because they couldn’t do anything more in this country didn’t mean that no one could, and there’s a surgeon in the USA who’s successfully pioneered an operation for rare cases like Stella’s. He’s agreed to treat her.’
Adam was still looking faintly green, but I had to give it to him, he persevered. ‘So when is this operation?’
‘It was supposed to be just before she turned five … and really I hoped by then there would be something in this country and we wouldn’t have to go to Boston. But she had a serious infection that weakened her in January and they brought the date of the operation forward to the start of November this year. I’ve been raising money to fund the trip and the treatment ever since.’
He got up and paced about a bit, brow furrowed. ‘This isn’t quite how I thought it would be …’ he muttered.
‘It isn’t quite how I thought it would be, either!’
Looking down at my slightly trembling hands, I found that quite without realising what I was doing, I’d neatly trimmed the edges of the cake. I popped it under a cover in Ma’s larder, in case Moses decided to investigate when my back was turned.
When I came back, Adam had regained some of his colour. ‘The thing is, Cally,’ he began portentously, ‘I’ve already told my parents that I’m mad keen to get back with you and that I hope you’ll give me another chance so we can slowly become a family.’
‘You’ve
what
?’
‘I told you I’d got a job and a flat and I was looking for you,’ he pointed out. ‘They’re desperate for grandchildren, so when Aimee let fall that they already had one, they were delighted. I mean, they realised it would take time for you to forgive me, and for Stella to get to know me, but—’
I was dumbfounded! How could he possibly assume that I’d welcome him back with open arms after what he’d done? He’d been so disinterested in the outcome of my pregnancy that he hadn’t even known if I’d had a boy or a girl, let alone about her illness. But because he’d suddenly decided he wanted to play Happy Families, he’d assumed I’d just fall in line at his command.
‘You must be quite mad!’ I told him, incredulously. ‘I didn’t even want to
see
you, let alone get back with you. You weren’t there when I needed you and now you’re a stranger to me and
to Stella. The baby you didn’t want, remember?’
‘That was then and this is now: I told you I’d changed.’
‘You didn’t tell me you’d gone gaga, though,’ I said.
‘You should have told me about Stella’s problems when she was born.’
‘I might have done, if you hadn’t changed your email address.’
‘You could have got in touch through work or my parents.’
‘You’d made it plain that if I went on with the pregnancy, I was on my own.
And
you were sharing an igloo with someone else.’
‘I had a right to know,’ he said stubbornly.
‘You would have known if you’d stayed in touch and been supportive. It’s entirely your own fault.’
‘Well, I suppose there’s no point in splitting hairs at this point, and at least now I can help you raise the money for the operation.’
‘There’s no need, because I’m doing fine without you. I raised the bulk of it by selling my flat, and the whole village is rallying round to get the rest. Everything’s planned and I – we – don’t need you. And I don’t
want
you either, especially if you upset Stella in any way.’
As if on cue, I heard Stella crying. Sometimes she woke up a bit grumpy and sad, though it didn’t last long.
‘There’s Stella, I’ll go and get her up,’ I said, fetching her beaker of juice out of the fridge. ‘Come on, you’d better wait in the sitting room.’
‘Why is she crying?’ he asked, looking slightly alarmed and as if he’d rather fly the country than follow me.
‘She’ll be fine when she’s up and has had a drink.’
‘Perhaps I should come back later …’ he was saying, but I ignored him. He could please himself.
I gave Stella a cuddle and then told her she had a visitor.
‘I’ll just brush your hair while you have a drink,’ I suggested.
‘Is it Daddy-Jago?’ she asked eagerly.
‘No, not Jago. Do you remember I said your real daddy was coming to see you?’
‘Penguin Daddy?’ she said doubtfully.
‘That’s the one,’ I said with a cheerfulness I didn’t feel. ‘All the way from the North Pole just to say hello.’
I carried her through to where Adam was now sitting on the edge of a chair and looking as if he was in the dentist’s waiting room.
‘Here’s Stella,’ I said, sitting opposite on the sofa with her on my knee. She was not normally a shy child, but after one quick look at him, she turned her face to me and sucked her thumb, while fingering a strand of my hair.
‘Hello, Stella,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you too big to suck your thumb? And aren’t you going to come and say hello to your daddy?’
Stella stopped sucking and turned to give him a comprehensive but silent stare, from top to toe.
‘Mummy, I think he should go back and finish counting the penguins,’ she told me finally. ‘I don’t need another daddy.’
‘What did she say?’ he demanded.
‘Nothing,’ I said hastily.
‘I love Daddy-Jago,’ Stella explained helpfully. ‘He’s my Moominpappa.’