Chapter Sixteen
Homely this Christmas
‘Oh my God! Matt!’
‘What, what?’ His voice was faint, but a rush of relief that he was conscious swept through Gemma, and for some ridiculous reason tears pricked the backs of her eyes.
‘What happened? Did you trip?’
‘Ow!’ Matt put a hand to his face, then drew it away. ‘Why am I bleeding?’
‘Come on, let’s get you into the house.’
It was a slow job. Matt was extremely unsteady on his feet and leaning heavily on Gemma. Despite his wasted frame – and contrary to how easy the movies made such things look – he was almost a dead weight on her, his arm draped round her shoulders as he stumbled and lurched up the steps.
‘Hold on to the rail,’ she snapped, more out of fear for his safety than anything. ‘If you go over, you’ll take me with you and then we’ll be in a fine mess.’
A faint laugh came from Matt. ‘You sound like Laurel. Or was it Hardy?’
It was a relief to hear his voice returning, but he wasn’t making much sense.
‘I’ll be either. Whatever you want, only grip that handrail. Come on, two more steps.’
Matt almost fell over the threshold into the conservatory, landing heavily on the nearest chair, which rocked momentarily.
Gemma closed the door and flicked on the light. ‘You’re green! Do you feel sick?’
‘No!’ he said, indignantly, and promptly threw up over his socks.
An hour later, Gemma raced down the steps to the lawn, this time to greet Anna and Oliver, who’d arrived in their boat.
‘Could he be concussed?’ After her recent experience, it was all she could suggest.
‘Was he out cold when you found him?’ Oliver held the door to the conservatory open as Anna and Gemma filed back into the house.
‘I’m not sure. He spoke when I found him, so he may simply have been lying there.’
‘And the cut on his cheek’ – Anna’s concern was obvious – ‘you said it stopped bleeding.’
‘Yes, I think it’s just a graze. I’ve cleaned it up as best I could but not put anything on it. What did the hospital say?’
‘To bring him in to get checked over. Precautionary.’ Oliver checked his watch. ‘I’ll go and help him.’
He disappeared into the house and Anna sank onto a chair, wrinkling her nose. ‘Bleach?’
Gemma took the chair opposite. ‘I had a bit of cleaning up to do. Anna, what’s going on with Matt? Do you know?’
‘In what way?’
‘He was so desperate to get back to the studio for a specific time. Fraught to the point of carelessness. It’s as though he’s beholden to something or someone.’
Anna paled, a hand going to her throat. ‘God, you don’t think it’s gambling? Oliver always says Matt’s only addiction is to the past.’
Gemma preferred not to voice her suspicions of Matt feeling lost. ‘It may be tied up with the revival of his career. I wonder if— oh, here they come.’
The door swung open and Oliver entered, an arm supporting Matt, who’d changed into clean clothes but was still decidedly wobbly on his legs. At least his skin had lost the green tinge, but the graze on his cheek looked red and angry.
‘Right, let’s get going.’
Oliver led the way, and Anna turned back to Gemma as he helped Matt into the boat. ‘Will you be okay here alone? Do you want to come back to ours?’
‘No, thanks. I’ll be fine. Let me know how he is and if you need me to come and fetch him. Tide should be good for a few hours, but if not I’ll pick him up tomorrow.’
Gemma watched them leave, relieved Matt was on his way to get medical attention, then turned back to cross the lawn.
Dusk had taken hold now, slinking down over the creek and casting shadows everywhere. Gemma unloaded Last Chance , stacking all the boxes on the table in the conservatory. After all, it wasn’t as though she needed to lay it for dinner this evening.
Even though concern still lingered over Matt and what had caused his fall, there was some relief in having the evening to herself to put up Christmas decorations without a sarcastic commentary. She picked up her bag and headed down the hallway. She’d light the log burner in the cottage, get changed and then come back over and make a start.
All this fled from Gemma’s mind, however, when she opened the boot room door to cross to the cottage.
It looked like the root ball hadn’t been the only thing to collapse on the previous night. A tree from the steep wooded hillside had landed neatly into the embrace of the cottage roof.
Gemma woke to the sounds of a chainsaw and rolled over to squint at the time on her phone. Gone nine in the morning.
Dropping back onto the pillows, she stared at the ceiling in the half-light filtering through the gap in the curtains in the unfamiliar room. It had been a late night – nearly midnight when Oliver messaged to say they’d returned home with Matt and he was staying with them overnight – and Gemma had found it difficult to settle.
In the meantime, she’d had a busy evening. Peggy had arranged for someone to come and assess the damage to the roof the next morning, and Gemma had gingerly entered the cottage, thankful to find the tree hadn’t intruded through the ceiling despite the obvious roof damage. Grabbing her possessions, she had stuffed her bags and lugged everything over to the main house. Matt wasn’t around to ask for permission, but she’d have to sleep there for now. She selected a room up the set of stairs opposite his.
After a makeshift meal, Gemma had opened some of her purchases, but for some reason the thrill of Christmas eluded her. Ignoring the parcel from her mum, which she knew contained a few of her favourite decorations from home, she’d curled up on one of the leather sofas and lost herself in a book until her lids drooped.
Now, it was time to face a new day.
‘Come on. Make the most of the down time.’
Kicking back the covers, Gemma got up and padded over to the window to open the curtains to a new view of the creek, looking directly towards the gap where it flowed in and out of the river. A low flat-bottomed boat containing a hoist was moored near to the cottage.
The skies overhead were the palest of blues, and the sun had yet to move round to cast its winter glow on the creek. It looked cold, the fields on the opposite bank of the river dusted with frost, and Gemma cleaned out the grate and picked up the empty basket, stuffing her feet into boots and heading out to the log store.
‘Morning!’ she called, waving to get the attention of Douggie as he picked up a chunk of wood from the path by the cottage.
‘Alright, my lovely?’ He removed his ear defenders and gestured to the two men putting chains round the section of trunk that now lay resting across the path. ‘Jago an’ Cobber will ’ave this blessed thing away, dreckly.’ He rubbed his chin as he assessed the damaged roof. ‘Not so sure you’m gettin’ that repaired any day soon, mind.’
Gemma chewed on her lip. Lovely as the main house was, she much preferred going home to somewhere that wasn’t work. ‘Can you do anything?’
‘We’ll put a girt tarpaulin on, it’ll keep the rain out for now.’
He accepted Gemma’s offer of coffee for the team, and she headed back into the house, shot upstairs to throw on some clothes and ferried a tray out, adding a plate of Anna’s shortbread for good measure.
She’d been correct in thinking it was cold, and Gemma shivered as she returned to the warmth of the house. Munching on some toast and drinking her coffee, she checked her phone for an update on Matt, but there was nothing.
Then she showered and put on a playlist of Christmas music, lit the log burner and started to unpack her purchases.
‘Fudge!’ she exclaimed, as she lifted out six boxes of 1,000 fairy lights. ‘Would help if I’d remembered to get a tree.’
She hurried back to Douggie with a plea, delighted when he said they’d cut a suitable fir from the bank behind the property, and soon she was busy decorating the house, beginning with threading the pre-lit garlands she’d bought through the spindles on both staircases.
With the men lunching on pasties they’d brought with them, Gemma took a call from Anna.
‘Matty’s fine. They recommended he didn’t return to such an isolated location for forty-eight hours, so he’ll be back tomorrow. He says he’s not sure what happened, but thinks he felt a bit dizzy.’
‘He still doesn’t eat properly.’
Anna sighed. ‘I don’t know what else to do to overcome that, or why his moods are so up and down.’
She sounded so dejected, and Gemma rushed to reassure her. ‘I promised I’d keep an eye on him. Don’t worry, let’s get Matt back here first. Let me know a time that fits the tide, and I’ll pick him up.’
By evening, Gemma was in her element. A six-foot tree had been installed in the vast living room – she’d assessed both windows, the long rectangular one and the circular one Matt tended to sit beside, before asking them to place it in front of the former. Jago and Cobber had fastened it securely into a half-barrel and had even carried in a stepladder and held it while Gemma put the lights on the top branches and added a star topper.
Decorating the tree for Christmas was one of her favourite things, and she sang along to Christmas songs, dancing round the tree as she found spaces for all her ornaments, finishing it off with some sparkly shells and starfish she’d found in the local shops.
Two garlands were draped across the top of the kitchen wall cupboards, and the ones up the staircases elicited a joyful glow as she popped upstairs to collect her book, her mind busy with the centrepiece she intended to create for the dining table.
When she went to fetch Matt she’d purchase a couple of wreaths, one for each door. Should she get one for the studio? Matt would hardly appreciate it, but it was tempting… So was the urge to get masses of tinsel and paperchains and absolutely festoon the bloody place with so much festive crap, he’d have nowhere to go to escape it!
As dusk fell, Gemma went outside to wave off the men. The tide was in again, and they were able to manoeuvre the boat across the creek, bearing some of the wood that they’d chopped up. The rest was stacked neatly in the woodshed.
Tomorrow, she’d phone Peggy, see if she’d had any news on the roof repairs. In the meantime, Gemma was stuck in the main house.
She peered out of the window. Dusk had fallen in earnest; she could see the red port-side light of a boat heading upstream passing by the gap. She tugged the curtains closed as her stomach let out a rumble of protest.
‘Sorry.’ She patted her middle as she padded to the door. ‘How I forgot to feed you at lunchtime, I don’t know. We’ll get something for you now.’
Soon Gemma was tucking into a beef madras in front of the TV, watching a rerun of Friends , her gaze drifting now and again to the tree, which shimmered with light by the window. She’d left the curtains behind it open, and the lights twinkled in the reflection like stars in the night sky. With a satisfied smile, she wrapped a throw over her legs and picked up a book, only for her phone to ping.
Matt.
She snatched it up, barely registering a frisson of eagerness as it sped through her.
Man suffering from too much care to be released into the wild.
Requests transport to safe house at soonest opportunity.
The edge of Gemma’s lips curved upwards, the smile widening as she looked around the prettily decorated room.
Shall I meet you at Anna’s?
No.I’ll be on the quay at high tide. Night.