Chapter Twenty-Six
We Three Kings of Orient Are…
Lost Without Our Missing Star
Gemma scrambled from the booth, shoving her phone in her pocket as Matt returned, her mind racing.
‘Just popping to the ladies’.’
Putting the toilet lid down, she tugged out the phone and sat down to read the message.
I don’t know who you are, but stay out of things that don’t concern
you. I can see from your account you’re in Cornwall, and I know who else
is hiding his shady ass down there.
Gemma leaned back against the cistern. Fair enough; but, if Harry didn’t want to hear more, why hadn’t he blocked her as a follower? She skimmed the message again, then stood up, shoving the phone back into her pocket. She needed to think about a response but, as she washed her hands and stuck them in the air dryer, she mulled on the words. One thing was clear. Harry had clearly assumed she’d been referring to Matt in her cryptic comment, not his estranged wife.
‘You okay?’ Matt eyed Gemma warily as she slid back into the booth, unable to conceal her elation at having initiated contact.
‘Yes. Why?’ She picked up her mug and drained it, keen to get back home and compose a reply.
Matt brushed his fingers together over his plate, then leaned back against the leather seating. ‘Never have I ever seen someone flee to the loo so precipitously and return looking quite so… pleased with themselves.’
Gemma merely smirked at him. He could surmise whatever he liked, he’d never guess the truth.
Last Chance was somewhat laden by the time Gemma untied the ropes and pulled away from the mooring, what with their overnight bags, Matt’s guitar, the packages that had come in the post, the shopping from the fayre and a further bag of meals pressed on Matt by Anna.
The heavy frost from the previous day had returned, and the boat sliced through the dark-green waters of the river, cutting a swathe through the chilly mist hovering in the air. A small fishing boat passed by, heading towards the sea, and they exchanged a wave before Gemma steered them under the old stone bridge and upstream to the gap in the banks.
By the time they’d unloaded everything it was gone eleven, and Matt headed down to the studio.
Gemma put the food away, then headed upstairs and sank onto the bed, phone in hand. She needed to be careful what she typed next if she was to build on this tentative connection. Would feigning innocence of what he meant about Matt work best? Surely if she held up her hands, confessed why she wanted to connect with him, he’d immediately end all communication? From all she’d learned of late, she didn’t think the middle ground of trying to appeal to Harry’s sense of fairness – and innocent until proven guilty – would work. After all, he was already convinced of Matt’s guilt, and it wasn’t only the dodgy photos going against him. His own wife had pointed the finger, so what else was there for Harry to believe?
Gemma chewed on her bottom lip. This was a bruised man, feeling betrayed…
Something occurred to her, and she put aside the phone and opened her laptop, heading straight to Google and searching for the lyrics to the one song that had earned BorderLine Beat a Brit Award, ‘Deceiver’. It had been about someone who’d made the wrong choice between two people and the regret that followed. She skim-read the lyrics on the screen, her gaze returning time and again to the closing lines of the final verse.
‘You thought you were a believer, but you backed the wrong deceiver.’ Gemma mouthed the words, then sang the chorus under her breath. ‘The haze cleared from my eyes (too late, too late),’ ‘I’d fallen for the bait (it was too late, my fate).’
Quickly copying the lines, Gemma pasted it into a reply and hit send before she could second-guess herself. Hopefully, it would give Harry something to think about. If not, she could probably consider that avenue blocked.
The following week passed in a blur, with Matt mostly out in the conservatory – or down in the studio when he wanted absolute quiet – using the Logic software he’d once shown Gemma to build on his creative ideas, experimenting with sounds and slowly building a series of demos.
He appeared regularly for meals now and, although he never cleared a plate, Gemma was satisfied he was consuming sufficient calories to prevent him passing out again.
Gemma herself was determined to keep busy. She practised hard at her cooking, sometimes with her phone pressed to her ear as Anna advised her on how to improve her pastry making, or watching YouTube videos as she attempted a pasta dish. Peggy had also dropped off a soup maker and Gemma had been delighted to discover it was hard for even her to get it wrong.
Of Matt she tried desperately not to think beyond his being her employer, reminding herself constantly this had always been a temporary job and doing her best to focus on resuming her travels. If only her passport would materialise… but, though the strike had ended, there was now an alleged backlog of anything up to six weeks, which would eat into the remaining months of her sabbatical.
When not in the kitchen, Gemma kept to her bedroom – or rather, the one adjacent, which she’d purloined as a wrapping centre. Using the desk under the window, she laid out her tape stand, scissors, tissue paper and wrapping, along with a basket filled with tags and another with ribbons.
Bit by bit, she wrapped her offerings for her parents, sister and young nieces, ferrying them in batches over a couple of days to the post office in Polkerran, before turning her attention to those closer to home.
She also curled up some days in one of the armchairs opposite the tree, so that she could admire it every time she raised her head from writing Christmas cards.
In the evenings, the conversation usually centred around any progress Matt had made, which they talked openly of now, and, if he pressed her, she pretended she was busy writing up her journal and planning her itinerary for when she could resume her travels.
There were times, however, when Matt seemed to fold into himself still. Moments when she would catch him staring at nothing, his expression conflicted; others, when his hazel eyes rested thoughtfully on Gemma. Except she wasn’t sure he actually looked at her; rather, she was in the way of his unfocused gaze.
Matt admitted he’d put aside his studies for now, but promised he would resume them once the new year came round, and, as he seemed so inspired by creating his demos, Gemma didn’t press him on it.
If she came across him once too often speaking warmly to someone called Sophia, she tried to ignore it. After all, Matt wasn’t hers, was he?
On one of Gemma’s trips to Polkerran, she’d met up with Phoenix, who’d finished the commission and handed over the pen and ink sketch Gemma intended as Matt’s gift. She’d smuggled it in under a coat in case he happened to look out of the studio windows, and hidden it in her room.
About ten days after the Christmas fayre, Gemma returned from yet another foray to Polkerran with the last few parcels she’d had delivered to her aunt. It was a cold, crisp morning, and she rubbed her mittened hands together as she moored up in the creek.
Depositing two of the packages on her bed, she opened the third. What Matt would make of it, she didn’t know.
Once back in the kitchen, she turned on the oven and removed the quiche she’d bought from Shari’s from its brown bag. The rolls she’d also picked up were still warm, and she placed one on each side plate on the table in the conservatory. There was no sound from the studio, and Matt’s MacBook was nowhere in sight. Had he fallen asleep?
‘There you are,’ she exclaimed when he walked into the sitting room as she extracted the now-warmed quiche from the oven. ‘Perfect timing.’
‘What’s that?’
Gemma glanced over as she attempted to remove the malleable pastry from its metal tray. ‘Ah,’ she said with a small smile, returning her attention to the task at hand and managing to get the quiche onto a large plate without too much damage. ‘It’s for you.’
Matt eyed the box warily. ‘It’s a… gingerbread house?’
Gemma walked into the conservatory with the quiche, but when she turned round to go back to the kitchen she stopped.
‘Oh!’
Matt had followed her and stood right in front of her, clutching the box.
‘It’s real gingerbread pieces, see?’ She pointed at the back of the box, trying not to notice Matt’s closeness or the yummy aftershave he often sported. ‘And icing and sweets for decoration.’
She scooted past him, not wanting to see the mocking look sweep across his features, but to her surprise he began to laugh.
‘You’re serious? You bought this for me?’
He followed her back to the kitchen, placing the box on the counter.
‘You seemed a bit put out when my gingerbread house wasn’t edible, so I thought I’d get you one of your own.’
‘You’re mad,’ Matt said, but a frisson of joy shot through Gemma as he squeezed her shoulder on passing behind her to get to the fridge.
‘It’s been said before. Mostly by you.’
Hiding her pleasure, Gemma followed him back to the table. Now all she needed to do was get him to have a go at building it so she could send a photo to Anna.
It was another week later, with mere days to go before Christmas, when Matt came up from the studio and told Gemma not to prepare anything for lunch.
‘Why?’ she challenged, hands on hips. ‘I thought we’d— what are you doing with that?’
Matt held her travel journal, open to a page. ‘I’ve been reading it.’
‘Isn’t that a little presumptuous?’
‘I like to think of it as research.’
Gemma frowned and walked over to retrieve the book, glancing at the open page. It was from her recollections of the visit to Lake Como. It had been such a mild, autumnal day, she’d taken off her jumper and sat cross-legged on the grass beside the crystal-clear lake, surrounded by tall pines and terracotta rooftops and a distant vista of the Alpine range separating Italy from Switzerland. She’d scribbled a little poem, the words coming so easily to her, and even done a sketch. Not that it was recognisable as anything much, and it was no loss to the art world when the fire consumed the book. The other night, however, in her continued attempts to keep her mind off Matt, Gemma had been browsing her photos of Italy and trying to recall some of the lines of the poem, adding them to the new journal.
‘It’s rubbish. I couldn’t remember the right words, they were inspired by the moment, the sights and the smells.’
Matt rolled his eyes at her.
‘Come on. We’re going out for lunch.’