Chapter 5 A Strategic Retreat
A Strategic Retreat
‘Where?’ I said blankly.
‘Triskelion, Ginny. It’s the name of Cosmo Caradoc’s former home in Seren Bach, where his descendants still live, so I’ll see what I can dig out from them about Arwen’s time there.’
‘You didn’t tell me what the house was called – but you know, the name Triskelion does ring a faint bell …’ I said slowly, frowning over it.
‘It’s now owned by Cosmo Caradoc’s great-granddaughter, who is an artist called Nerys Matthews, and she runs several writers’ and artists’ retreats there every year.’
‘Of course, that’s where I’ve heard it! But I think they’re terribly highbrow, aren’t they? I mean, for literary writers and established artists, not amateurs.’
‘That’s the place and, by great good fortune, they not only run an annual Christmas retreat from 20 December to the day after Twelfth Night, but when I contacted them they’d just had two last-minute cancellations.
Fate is obviously on my side and I can work on my book and dig around for clues to Arwen’s stay there at the same time. ’
‘I think you were very lucky, because I’m sure they must get booked up months in advance. Come to think of it, it’s odd they didn’t have a waiting list for cancellations.’
‘They did, but I just happened to ring them at the moment they had had the cancellations and, of course, it is very last minute – the retreat starts next week. I had been prepared to use my distant connection with the family to swing it, but I didn’t need to, so I will hold my fire on that one till an appropriate or strategic moment presents itself. ’
I know Evie is hard to refuse when she is set on something, and you certainly couldn’t say she wasn’t highbrow.
She continued: ‘As soon as I put the phone down I had a brainwave, and I got Liv to ring them back and book the other place.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought there would be much for Liv to do for you there.’
‘There isn’t, so Liv is going off to a spa hotel near Bath instead. The other place at Triskelion is for you. Liv booked it in your name.’
‘Me? I can’t go there!’ I exclaimed, panic making my voice high and shrill.
‘Why not?’ Evie asked reasonably. ‘You’ve already told us that the workmen are making your life in the cottage almost unbearable.’
‘Yes, but, I mean, goodness knows what would happen if I left the place empty.’
‘You can’t spend Christmas under siege. This will give you a break and you can help me dig out any family gossip about Arwen’s stay there. There will be lots of time for your own work, too.’
‘But I only write children’s books!’ I blurted. ‘I mean, I’m not a literary writer or—’
‘What do you mean, only? How do you expect to be valued by others if you don’t value your own work?’ she said severely. ‘Anyway, you are working on turning your sketchbooks into a series of non-fiction books, aren’t you? You can bring all the material with you and really get down to it in peace.’
That was a little more enticing, but the thought of leaving my home and going to live, even for a short time, in a large house full of strangers was daunting. Something else bothered me too.
‘I’m not sure I like the idea of going there to ferret out Arwen’s connection with the family: what if we find something … not so nice? A skeleton in the family cupboard.’
‘I’ll ferret things out and you can disown me,’ she said. ‘They don’t know you are my daughter and you needn’t mention it if you don’t want to. We can pretend we’re complete strangers.’
‘I don’t think my going there under false pretences would be any better,’ I said, but she carried blithely on.
‘You know, it could work really well, because people open up to you much more than they do to me. Really, I could do with an oyster knife to get information out of some of my sources.’
I gathered myself together to resist. ‘But I don’t want to come at all!’ I began just as the penetrating, high-pitched sound of trees being felled in the woods suddenly seemed so much closer – right at the back of the cottage, in fact.
I walked through into the studio, still holding the phone and looked out at my now tiny back garden.
In the distance I saw the top of the huge old plum tree sway and then, with infinite slowness, topple sideways and vanish, leaving only a cloud of dust and debris to hang in the air where it had been.
It was like losing a beloved old friend and somehow, it changed everything. It was only sheer stubbornness that had made me determined to hang on at the cottage till the very last minute, but it was obvious now that there could be no final quiet Christmas farewell for me if I did.
‘Are you still there, Ginny, or am I talking to myself?’ Evie demanded.
‘I’m here,’ I said. ‘And yes, I’ll come to Triskelion.’
‘Of course you will,’ she said, as if it had been a foregone conclusion. Then she suggested I packed up the cottage and put everything into storage before I left.
‘Or just let the removal firm pack everything for you after you’ve gone. That neighbour of yours could take the keys, couldn’t he?’
‘Eli? Yes, he’d do that, but I think I want to pack everything myself,’ I said. ‘And … I won’t ever come back again.’
‘A clean break will be much less painful,’ Evie agreed. ‘Perhaps you’ll fall in love with Wales and rent a cottage there while you look around for somewhere to buy.’
‘It’s a thought,’ I said. ‘It’s probably time I got in touch with my Welsh heritage, now I know I’ve got one through my great-grandfather.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ she approved. ‘I’ll email you the details of the retreat they’ve sent me.
Will you drive there? I don’t think I’ll have room for you in my car, because I’ll have all my research materials with me.
I’ve discovered another female artist who was working in Seren Bach at the same time Arwen was there and she sounds worth looking into as well. ’
I shuddered at the thought of being driven anywhere by Evie, who talked non-stop as if addressing one of her lecture audiences and frequently took both hands off the wheel to gesticulate.
‘I’ll drive myself because I’ll have a car full of stuff, too.’
‘I don’t suppose it would be full if you had a decent car instead of that ridiculous little Fiat,’ she said, then rang off.
As so often when I had finally fallen in with some plan of Evie’s, I felt as if I had been steamrollered into it, although this time there was also a sense of relief.
A way out of a now intolerable situation had been opened to me and I’d have too much to occupy me till then to panic about going there, or to think about the future beyond it.
*
Evie pinged over the information about the retreat as soon as she rang off, and I discovered Triskelion to be a large, rambling white-painted stone house, set among trees.
There was a potted history of the retreats, which had been going now for many years, and the information, which I already knew, that Triskelion had once been the home of renowned artist Cosmo Caradoc.
The retreats were still a family affair, led by the well-known painter Nerys Matthews, a descendant of Caradoc’s, and her husband, the ceramic artist Timon Matthews, who also ran the nearby Triskelion Pottery.
The number of guests to the Christmas retreat was limited to only six, so Evie had clearly been lucky to secure places.
I was not sure she had bothered scrolling down and reading all the details, however, because I saw that guests lived as part of the family and were invited not only to celebrate Christmas with them, but also take part in traditional local ceremonies to celebrate the season.
That sounded intriguing, but I wondered how Evie would react to the idea that she might be expected to join in with all those Christmas festivities that she had always deplored.
*
I suppose my feelings of panic at the prospect of being catapulted from my hermit-like existence into a full-blown festive house party full of strangers worked on my subconscious and triggered The Nightmare.
While I’d still been getting occasional flashbacks to the night of that dreadful car accident I’d witnessed just before lockdown, it was some months since I’d been visited by the ghastly and graphic nightmare that transported me back to the terrible moment when I had been driving along a narrow country lane at night and, after hearing a horrific bang, had rounded the bend to see a car smashed up against a large tree.
But once again, in my dream, I was right there, crouched in the road by the open, crumpled door of the crashed car, the scene eerily illuminated by my own headlights and those of a car that had been coming the other way.
I could hear a man’s voice phoning for an ambulance, for help, but all my attention was focused on the pale, beautiful, strangely familiar face of the dying woman in the driver’s seat.
I was struggling to hear her whispering voice over the blare of her jammed car horn.
When I’d first reached her, she’d murmured something about hares running in circles – and I’d had a glimpse of the rabbit on the road she must have swerved to avoid.
After that, I’d tried to keep her conscious by asking her questions, as if the frail thread of speech could bind her to life until help arrived.
Her voice had a faint Welsh lilt and there were a few disjointed words, slow and halting, which I’d struggled to catch.
‘I’m Annie … Tell Rhys … all … very … sorry … cariad.’
In that moment, I realized who she was and that Welsh endearment, the last word she spoke, was almost unbearably moving.
Then her hand went limp in mine and I saw her eyes go blank. I’d had no previous experience of death, but it was unmistakable: she had gone and I was sure, even as the siren of an ambulance came closer, that nothing could bring her back again.
*