Page 60 of The Cornish Christmas Book Clu
‘Anything I can do to help?’ Josie popped her head around the kitchen door.
‘You can put the kettle on.’
‘When are you and Pixie going to stop behaving like five-year-olds who’ve fallen out over a favourite doll?’
‘I’m not discussing that.’ Apart from Gage, no one knew the full story of why she’d thrown in her job and hadn’t ventured inside the pub since. ‘I’d rather talk about what you think we can do to help Melissa.’
‘Fine. Be that way.’
She busied herself fetching a selection of sparkling waters and fizzy drinks from the fridge and setting them on the countertop. ‘Melissa claims she’s not bothered about the baby thing, but I don’t believe it.’
‘Sometimes people find not facing up to the truth the only way of coping. I see it with patients all the time. The secret is trying to work out if they want to be pushed into it, or not.’
‘So, what’s your opinion in her case?’
‘Yeah, do share.’ Melissa marched in with eyes blazing and her American accent significantly stronger than usual. ‘Am I tonight’s group pity-project?’
‘It’s not pity and you know it.’ Josie sounded quite fierce. ‘We care about each other and if one of us is hurting, we all hurt. If we can help, that’s what we try to do. You know we share our joys too. The whole package.’
‘As I told Ms Nosey here—’ a dismissive nod came Tamara’s way — ‘I’veabsolutely accepted that it’s extremely unlikely Nathan and I will ever be parents.Hedoesn’t seem able to do that.’ Melissa shook her head. ‘Ironic, isn’t it? I was the one full of having a baby in the first place, whereas he was happy either way. That’s why I never mentioned the possibility of IVF, adoption or even surrogacy to him. Now he doesn’t understand why I won’t consider either. I simply want to enjoy the wonderful life we already have. If a baby comes along, that’s great, but if not it’ll be fine. I expect Chloe and Toby will have kids one day, so we can look forward to spoiling them instead.’ Her smile was unnaturally bright. ‘By the time I come back from visiting my family, I hope he’ll be more... accepting. Then we can move on together.’
‘When are you going?’
‘In a couple of weeks. For Christmas.’
‘Without Nathan?’ Tamara couldn’t hide her dismay and Josie looked equally bamboozled.
‘We’re married. Not joined at the hip.’ Melissa bristled. ‘He’s fine with me going alone.’ She glanced at the food on the table. ‘I’ve lost my appetite, so I’ll leave y’all to dissect me over the mince pies.’ With that, she flounced out of the house.
‘I’d say we well and truly put our gigantic feet in it.’ Josie picked up the ladle and sloshed mulled wine into two red heatproof cardboard cups, then passed one to Tamara. ‘Drink that. There’s no way we can share this in front of Monica, so it’ll have to go around the phone tree later.’
They’d set up a cascading list for passing on critical group messages — more often than not, gossip they didn’t want the others to miss out on. The lines would burn up later.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘I’ll be up as soon as I’ve locked the shop for the night.’ Gage kissed Tamara’s cheek.
‘Okay. I’ll put the kettle on.’
He stepped outside first to enjoy one of his favourite parts of the day. It’d become something of a habit to take a few moments to soak up the village’s increasingly festive vibe. Today, the house three doors up from the shop had fixed a couple of gaudy plastic reindeer, a sleigh and Father Christmas to their roof. Presumably because, at least in their view, the giant inflatable candy canes and Christmas stocking on the front lawn didn’t make enough of a show.
He glanced towards the brightly lit village tree and smiled. No one had dared to mess with it again, probably because they knew the wrath of most of the locals would come down on them.
The sound of Noddy Holder’s raspy voice drifted out from the pub’s open door. If Gage never heard Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ again he’d be a happy man.
He wished he could come up with something to get Tamara and Pixie back on speaking terms. Nathan hadn’t been any help the other night because he was too caught up in his own misery. Instead of bringing him and Melissa closer, their inability to get pregnant was straining the marriage. His friend had teetered on the edge of breaking down when he’d mentioned his wife’s travel plans. Tamara had naturally shared what had happened at book club, so he knew it wasn’t all in Nathan’s overactive imagination.
‘Goodness me, GG, you do look miserable. Not that it’s any wonder in this place. Whatever made you bury yourself here?’
‘Victoria?’ His ex-wife materialised in front of him and he noticed the taxi she must’ve arrived in pulling away. ‘What on earth are you doing here? I thought I made it clear that you weren’t to come.’
‘I needed to talk to you.’
‘That’s what phones are for.’
‘In person. I need a favour.’
A trickle of uncertainty edged into her voice and his heart sank. Whatever it was, Gage was pretty sure he didn’t want to hear it.
