Chapter 24 Two by Two
Two by Two
As I got into bed that night, rendered warmly fuzzy by two glasses of advocaat, something I had never had before but could possibly get addicted to, I thought it had been the most perfect Christmas Day ever!
Of course, Verity, who seemed to have a knack of unintentionally saying the wrong thing, had stuck her oar in once or twice at dinner. And then when Rhys and I had arrived back, she’d loudly exclaimed that they had all wondered where we had got to and were about to send out search parties!
For a minute it had felt as if I’d been dropped into the starring role in that scene in Pride and Prejudice, where Darcy and Elizabeth lose themselves on a country walk and reveal their true feelings to each other … although in our case, it was just me who had been lost – in a daydream!
Then Nerys said crisply, ‘Nonsense, Verity!’ and the awkward moment passed.
Other than that, it had been a wonderful day. Not, of course, for Opal, ill upstairs, but then, I’m sure Pearl wouldn’t have enjoyed herself half as much if her sister had been there.
I curled up in bed, warm and comfortable, and with the fun of tomorrow’s expedition to the Mountain Zoo to look forward to, and fell asleep with an old song running through my head about the animals going into the ark two by two …
*
The trip to the zoo was evidently another family tradition, for as well as Cariad, Rhys, Nerys and Timon, Noel came with us.
Opal was no better, but not, as Nerys said cheerfully after visiting her before breakfast, any worse, and she’d left her surrounded by boxes of tissues, since she had reached the snotty stage, and the box of vegan chocolates that had been her present from Pearl, and propped up in bed, with the TV remote to hand.
Pearl was in two minds about going to the zoo, but apparently Opal told her that she didn’t want anyone fussing round her.
Evie said that since she was staying behind, she’d look in on the invalid from time to time, and Verity very sweetly offered to take her up some soup at lunchtime.
‘I did the zoo last year in the summer and even then, once you got up there, it was freezing,’ Verity said. ‘I might as well start on another Still Life with Black Cat instead.’
‘Why not? That subject was always popular in Elizabeth Blackadder’s paintings,’ said Nerys, her face serious but her eyes twinkling.
‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ Verity agreed innocently.
She did seem a kind, good-natured sort of person who meant well, even if she did continually put her foot in it.
Kate, who was also staying behind, said tersely that she would be too busy working to even remember about Opal, but I didn’t think her sickbed manner would have done much for Opal anyway.
The sky was quite a clear pale ice blue as Nerys drove the minibus over the hills, although there were low cloud banks on the horizon. Timon did a sort of running commentary on the places we passed. It seemed that North Wales had a wealth of castles.
Rhys said he’d be happy to take anyone who wanted to see some of the local sights out in the afternoons.
‘I know that Ginny’s usual routine, like mine, is to work from very early in the morning till lunchtime.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘or at least until you reach that stage in a book where you can’t stop and then I just keep going and forget the time passing.’
‘That’s a great feeling,’ Toby agreed. ‘I’m not an early riser so I tend to work on a bit … and sometimes at night, too.’
About forty minutes later, we turned off the main road at Colwyn Bay and then drove up and up, by ever narrower roads, to the zoo entrance, which was indeed, it seemed, at the top of a small mountain.
The car park was already filling up, mostly with families, despite the freezing cold breeze up there – Verity had been right about that! The grass was still white and crisp in the shadows and there were one or two frozen puddles.
There was a panoramic view of Llandudno lying beneath us like a great Toytown, edged with a curve of beach and, beyond it, Nerys pointed out the steep slopes of the Great Orme headland.
We agreed to divide up and meet for lunch in the cafe.
Cariad wanted to show me her favourite animals first, before we explored the various steep paths around the zoo, but Nerys, Timon and Noel said they would confine themselves to the flatter top part of the zoo.
Nerys particularly liked watching the sealions through the great curved glass viewing windows of their pool, while Noel preferred the hot atmosphere of the crocodile house.
Cariad seized one of my hands and one of Rhys’s and dragged us off down a slippery grass slope to see the penguins.
She was indefatigable, and I think we went up and down every path and saw every single creature there was to be seen, although the more sensible ones were tucked up in their warm dens, under heat lamps.
We kept spotting Toby and Pearl in the distance, and Cariad pointed out that they were holding hands.
‘So they are, but the paths are a bit slithery here and there. That’s probably why,’ said Rhys. ‘I’ve had to grab Ginny once or twice to stop her falling.’
‘I thought that was to save yourself. These boots have good grips,’ I said, and he laughed.
I was certainly ready for lunch by the time we got to the cafe and met the others, but as we came out afterwards, we found the weather was starting to change. It felt even colder, and clouds of a strange leaden pinkish grey were moving in.
‘I think that looks like snow,’ said Timon. ‘Time to head for home, I think.’ However, at Cariad’s insistence he did allow us ten minutes in the zoo shop first.
Pearl and I bought hoodies and T-shirts – mine purple with sloths printed on them, and hers pink, with meercats.
I like sloths. I think it’s the way they seem to stop and think about things a lot.
Noel was persuaded by Cariad to buy her a large, cuddly orangutan, with Velcro pads on its hands, so its arms could be linked around her neck. It was nearly as big as she was and she fell asleep cuddling it as we turned out of the car park. A few fat snowflakes hit the windscreen.
‘I think I’ve had more fun since I came on the retreat than I’ve had in my entire life,’ Toby said, and Pearl and I agreed.
‘It’s been one delightful and interesting thing after another,’ I said. ‘But I must get down to some work tomorrow!’
Nerys said, with her warm smile, that she was glad we were getting the most out of our stay.
‘And storing up new experiences,’ I said. ‘You were right about the retreat filling up the creative well, because I keep having all kinds of new ideas for books.’
‘Seren Bach is my creative well,’ Rhys said.
He was driving and the windscreen wipers were now slowly pushing snow off the windscreen.
‘Even when I was trying to make a living writing articles, stories and poetry in London, I had to come back here as often as I could to recharge my batteries. In the end, I realized I needed to make it my home base.’
Which was where, I thought, remembering what he had said after the Solstice ceremony, he differed with Annie, just as I had with Will …
For a moment, I felt the ghost of Annie there with us again, this time as I had last seen her, the light going out of her beautiful face, and felt for a moment as if she was trying to tell me something.
I shivered and hoped it was just my over-active imagination, and I wasn’t turning psychic!
*
The snow was falling more heavily by the time we got back, but the narrow road from St Melangell had been gritted. The day had turned dark early too, but the house was warm and welcoming.
Snookums was yapping from the kitchen, but distantly, from upstairs, came a deeper barking, like a sealion.
Nerys must have read my mind, for she said, ‘Poor Opal seems to have reached the chesty stage, doesn’t she? When they start barking like that, I never know whether to throw them a fish or pour a hot toddy.’
‘You are a wicked woman,’ Timon told her affectionately.
‘I’d better go straight up and see how she is,’ said Pearl, who appeared to be emerging from a happy daze that had enveloped her since the trip to the zoo, and Nerys went with her.
I went up to my room to jot down some ideas, change and dream a little, until Cariad, refreshed, came to drag me downstairs with her.
I’d pinned my mistletoe brooch to my cord tunic.
It was my new favourite thing, like a talisman, which I wanted to wear all the time.
Pearl came down in the pink hoodie and meerkat T-shirt she’d bought at the zoo, which looked strange teamed with a snot-green skirt and leggings, but gave her face a rosy glow.
Or that might just have been happiness, because she and Toby kept exchanging glances, and there had been the hand holding …
I hoped if they were falling for each other, Opal didn’t get well too soon and put a spanner in the works.
*
We had another wonderful, celebratory dinner, with bubbly and crackers, almost the same as the previous day’s except that the turkey and stuffing were cold and we’d eaten up all the Christmas pudding, although not the sherry trifle.
Nerys assured us that this would positively be the last we saw of the turkey, until much later in our stay, when it might reappear in the form of curry or casserole.
Verity seemed to have even less appetite than usual and finished eating before the table was even cleared – a first. She’d been very quiet too, and her pale Madonna face looked a little flushed, so I hoped she wasn’t going down with the flu too!
Cariad was almost asleep on the table after the day out and was sent to bed immediately afterwards, while Pearl took up more soup to her sister and also, at Bronwen’s suggestion, some ice cream, which she thought might slip down easily.
‘But no fish,’ Nerys said gravely, and when we giggled, Kate and Verity looked puzzled.
Only Evie, going by her grin, got it.
In the sitting room, looking round at the now familiar faces, I thought how quickly I had come to feel at home here and used to the various foibles of the other guests.
Evie and Noel were talking together, and Kate had managed to buttonhole Rhys and was pouring into his ears the plot of her new book, while Verity had produced a small embroidery ring and was stitching some pale flowery design that she said, when I politely admired it, was her own.
The log fire burned and flickered realistically. The room was cosy and festive, and I felt I’d like to capture the memory of that moment to take away with me.
When Pearl returned and Timon had poured drinks for us all – I seemed to be developing an advocaat addiction – Nerys raised one final toast, summing up what I and, I’m sure, most of the others were feeling.
‘To Christmas – and many more happy ones. And to success in your work during the rest of your stay at Triskelion.’
‘Yes, I’m sure we’ve all reached a point where we can feel our work ethics tightening again and we’re ready to get back to it,’ agreed Evie, as if it was some kind of invisible corset.
‘I must get down to it properly tomorrow morning,’ I said, and there was a general murmur of agreement.
‘Some of us have been working steadily throughout our stay,’ pointed out Kate, then added, ‘but even so, I really must go flat out to finish my edits tomorrow so I can concentrate on the new novel!’
‘And I have a wealth of material to collate, and online research to do,’ said Evie.
We all, it seemed, were ready to get back to work in the morning. Or almost all, for Pearl, sitting next to Toby, was looking a little lost.
‘The pottery itself and the cafe and gallery will be closed for a few days,’ Timon said, ‘but since my studio is there, I’ll be going down.
So Pearl, if you’re at a loose end until your sister is better, why not come and try working with porcelain?
You said you’d enjoyed ceramics in your art foundation year and wished you had gone on with it. ’
Her face lit up. ‘Could I? Are you sure I wouldn’t be in the way?’
‘Not at all. My studio is open to ceramic artists during the summer retreats, and it doesn’t bother me.’
He smiled kindly. ‘That’s agreed then.’
‘I’ll be off home in the morning,’ Noel said. ‘The bookshop will be closed for a couple of days – or more, depending on how much snow we get – but visitors are always welcome.’
He twinkled at Evie, who said with a grin: ‘Providing they buy something!’
‘As I said earlier, since you and I usually work in the mornings, Ginny,’ said Rhys, ‘we could have some expeditions in the afternoons once the snow has gone, so you can see some of the local sights – and anyone else who fancies the idea too, of course.’
‘That’s a good idea, Ginny, because it might help persuade you to settle here, at least temporarily,’ said Nerys. ‘Cariad would be delighted. She’s really taken to you!’
‘I think that’s just because I’m one of her favourite authors,’ I said, laughing.
‘Not at all – I know we’d all love you to come and live nearby,’ said Rhys, smiling at me in that devastating way of his … and as always I found myself unable to look away …
Verity once more broke the spell by exclaiming: ‘Ginny, how can I have forgotten? You had a phone call while you were out and I promised faithfully to tell you about it as soon as you came back!’