Chapter 63
SIXTY-THREE
Pembrokeshire was five hours away, so she had to wait until the next day, when Matt was working from home and could mind the children, who were breaking up for Christmas.
She’d never been to the Preseli Hills, and was surprised to find herself, towards the end of her journey, on a high, wild, empty moor, scattered with massive rocks of blue granite.
A brooding peak loomed over the village where, according to her satnav, Fawr Carreg was located.
But, when she got a little closer, the farm turned out to be nestled in the foothills – still a harsh environment, but it would be glorious when the sky was blue.
Today, though, it was as dark as Welsh slate, the December wind blowing cold and sharp.
It looked like it mostly blew in this direction, in from the sea: the trees were shaped into elaborate quiffs, leaning forward on their trunks like so many inquisitive skulls.
She’d emailed ahead to say she was coming, but not why.
She’d used her full name – she didn’t want this conversation to be based on any kind of subterfuge.
So she wasn’t surprised when Tessa opened the farmhouse door and, in response to Kate introducing herself, nodded and said, ‘Yes, I know who you are. Jamie could talk about no one else before Dad’s funeral. After it, too, for that matter.’
‘I’d say I’m flattered, but it wasn’t all favourable, I imagine,’ Kate said as she followed Tessa into the big farmhouse kitchen she’d seen on the website.
Tessa smiled, and for a moment she reminded Kate of Rosemary. ‘Not all of it, no. The fact that it’s a woman who’s got the temerity to refuse to hand back his childhood home makes it even worse. So, you see, I was favourably predisposed towards you from the start.’
That was promising, Kate felt. ‘You’ve heard the recent news, I take it?’
‘About poor Martina?’ Tessa nodded. ‘I still have friends in the village. How horrible, to think she was there all that time. Do you want something to eat? I missed lunch, so I’m going to have some soup while we talk.’
‘That would be lovely.’ She watched as Tessa cut two slices of sourdough to toast on the Aga’s boiling plate, warming a large saucepan of soup on the other one.
‘It’s all our own,’ Tessa said matter-of-factly as she gave the soup a stir.
‘Potatoes and leeks from the veg tunnels, bread made by Gareth. And this is my contribution.’ She placed a slab of white cheese on the table.
‘Home-made feta from the goats. Crumble some into the soup – it’s great like that. ’
It was all delicious. ‘I once spent a very happy few days learning to make jam with your mother,’ Kate said, cutting more bread. ‘She was going to show me how to make wild garlic pesto, too, though I don’t suppose that’ll happen now.’
‘Dad did love that pesto,’ Tessa said, smiling. ‘I used to pick the leaves every year with Mum. It’s too rocky for wild garlic here, unfortunately. But I make a herb pesto sometimes.’
Kate hesitated. ‘I was thinking about something, on the way here. Back in the summer, Jamie invited your parents to Washington, for Christmas. Rosemary told me they weren’t sure they could manage it, what with Paul’s wheelchair. But, looking back, I think she didn’t really want to go.’
Tessa shrugged. ‘She probably didn’t. But I doubt she’d have admitted it, even to herself. She knows Jamie’s a total shit, but she wants everything in and about Trade Cottage to be perfect. So she pushes it out of her mind. Her Rosemary-tinted spectacles, I used to call it.’
She caught Kate’s look of surprise. ‘Sorry. But if you didn’t come all this way to hear me dissect our family dynamic, why have you come?
And, yes, if you’re thinking it’s just sibling rivalry, you’d probably be right.
Jamie’s love-in with Dad was a hard act to follow.
Particularly as I never had the height for rowing. ’
‘That was pretty much my reading of the situation, too,’ Kate said. Tessa was more waspish than her mother, she thought. Not abrasive, exactly, but certainly forthright. It must have made for some interesting arguments with Jamie, growing up.
‘I suppose I mostly came to find out about Martina,’ she added. ‘Whether Jamie ever hung out with her – went out with her, even – and if so, what they were like together.’
Tessa shook her head. ‘They certainly never “went out” in any formal way. And I didn’t see them together much – I was only fifteen or so when she was around.
But you’ve got to understand what a toxic twosome my brother and Guy Pelham were.
Always egging each other on to say or do gross things, particularly about girls.
I think, after a while, they barely noticed they were doing it. ’
‘What sort of things?’ Kate asked, curious.
‘Oh . . .’ Tessa thought, then said wearily, ‘Well, they were completely obsessed with cum. I was there once when a girl called Fenella Croft said something about her mother getting a facial. God – Jamie and Guy thought that was so hilarious. But what they thought even funnier was making Fen realise what she’d said, then embarrassing her in front of everyone.
After that, she was “Fenella Facial” for life.
Guy used to tell me he’d give me a pearl necklace for my sixteenth birthday, and wouldn’t that be nice?
Luckily – or unluckily – you couldn’t be around my brother for long and not know what that meant.
So I just told him he wouldn’t have enough for a bracelet, let alone a necklace. ’
‘Ugh . . . So what did they say about Martina?’
Tessa shrugged. ‘To begin with, it was stuff like “double bagger”.’ She caught Kate’s puzzled look. ‘That’s a girl you’d sleep with, but only with a bag over your head in case the bag over her head broke. Later on, it got even more unpleasant . . . I’ll spare you the grisly details.’
‘But either Guy or Jamie definitely did sleep with her?’
‘Well, I never asked Jamie directly – he’d only have told me in graphic detail. But what Jamie wants, Jamie usually gets. Guy, too.’ Tessa hesitated. ‘In fact, I think they might even have done it together.’
‘A threesome?’
Tessa nodded. ‘One of the things they used to go on about was something they called a “spit roast”. I mean, I don’t know for sure that happened. But, afterwards, they started calling her Miss Piggy behind her back, or making oink-oink noises whenever her name was mentioned.’
‘But, if something like that did happen . . . they’d have used condoms, surely?’ Kate said, aghast. ‘They’d have been mad not to.’
Tessa nodded. ‘You’d think. But they were shagging the same girls, anyway. And Jamie always hated condoms. Said they were a waste of a good facial.’