Page 65 of The Christmas Invitation
River answered and said he was all set to visit his friend Gregory Warlock in Sticklepond on Monday, before coming on to the Red House.
‘I’m sure you remember me mentioning him. Besides having the museum of witchcraft in the village, he has written some works on ancient sacred sites, as well as novels.’
‘Yes, I do remember,’ I agreed.
‘I’ll have only a short journey onwards to the Red House from Sticklepond.’
I told him all about my visit to Flower and then he asked how the portraits were coming along.
‘Clara’s is completely finished and I’ve just started Henry’s. I’m hoping they’ll let me put them in my February exhibition.’
I hadn’t asked them yet, but I was sure they would agree.
‘I look forward to seeing them – and you too, my dear Meg,’ he said, then gave me his usual Goddess-inspired benediction and rang off.
Before I could turn my phone off again, Fliss caught me and I told her about Rollo’s behaviour and that I’d told him I never wanted to see or hear from him again.
‘I told you you should dump him, right after the accident,’ she said.
‘I know and I wanted to, but he seemed to feel so guilty that I ended up agreeing we could stay friends, just to show I didn’t blame him for what happened. And he did visit me several times while I was in hospital.’
‘Only to inflict all those sad poems he’d written about howhefelt on you.’
‘Yes, there was that. And though he insisted he’d have supported me and the baby if I hadn’t miscarried, that was easy enough to say then.’
Even now, I felt a pang of anguish fill my heart: the loss of the baby was something I’d learned to live with but would never be able to forget.
‘Never mind, you’ve cut him out of your life now, that’s the main thing,’ Fliss said.
‘I just hope he doesn’t turn up after this event he’s doing in York anyway, because I wouldn’t put it past him.’
‘After what you’ve just told me you said to him, he’d have to have the hide of a rhinoceros to do that,’ she said, then asked what else had been happening.
I described the trip to Terrapotter and how Lex hadn’t seemed so antagonistic this time, but Al and Tara had made up for him.
‘Lex was cross with Al for telling Tara what happened in the past – or what he imagines happened. And he didn’t know until I told him about Al having a go at me that time in college, after Lisa died.’
‘Though, of course, Al wouldn’t have done that in the first place if Lex hadn’t talked to him about that evening, would he?’ she pointed out.
‘No, that’s true, though I suppose Al could have put two and two together and made five all on his own, when he found Lex was with me.’
‘I suppose it’s made you even more determined to leave after the Solstice?’
‘No, actually it hasn’t,’ I confessed. ‘I’m painting really well here. Not only that, I’ve fallen in love with the idea of Christmas, too! And,’ I added determinedly, ‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t stay, whatever Lex thinks of me, because I’ve done nothing to be guilty about … or not much.’
‘Nothing,’ she assured me. ‘And I think you’re quite right: it’ll be fun! The people you’re staying with sound a bit mad … but interesting.’
‘They are. Clara’s just made a major breakthrough with a clay tablet inscription in cuneiform.’
‘What’s that, when it’s at home?’
‘An early type of writing: it looks a bit like a bird has walked across damp clay.’
‘Like runes?’
‘No, not at all like runes,’ I said, from the depths of my new, if sketchy, knowledge of epigraphy.
‘I’ve been invited to visit the owner of the local manor house tomorrow,’ I said, changing the subject.
