Page 110 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm
‘What are you talking about?’ Her mum had gone mad. Gemma had been great for Jodie. She’d been a calming influence, a maturing one and Jodie had messed everything up.
‘I didn’t say anything to start with because I hoped I was wrong, and then by the time I knew I should say something you’d stopped coming to see us.’
‘But that’s because we were in Reading and I’m a grown-up. You don’t want me coming back here all the time, do you?’
Her mother’s mouth gaped open. ‘When have we ever given you that impression?’ she asked.
‘Well…’ When? ‘You didn’t exactly but…’
‘But it’s what Gemma told you?’ her mum suggested.
Of course not. Gemma had tried to help Jodie. She’d tried to help Jodie do better and cause less chaos and make less mistakes –fewermistakes, Jodie corrected herself automatically in her head.Gemma’svoice corrected her automatically in her head.
‘I just wonder if maybe being with her made you feel so bad about yourself that you lost sight of all the good parts of you.’
‘That’s not right. It’s not…’ Jodie couldn’t finish the denial. All of the pillars in her head that were holding up her understanding of the last few years, the last few weeks, of who she even was, had shaken slightly, and nothing felt certain any more. ‘I need to go,’ she said.
That afternoon Jodie stepped off her train in Newquay, after spending most of the journey googling and trying to remember where Gemma had said she was going when she walked out all those months ago. She remembered Royal and she remembered Sea View and she remembered that it was a mini boutique hotel chain in the south-west. Unfortunately those sorts of words cropped up in hotel names like unwanted Bountys in a Celebrations box.
After a lot of research she’d narrowed it down to one chain that was headquartered in Plymouth, which had already denied any knowledge of a Gemma Bryant, and another whose biggest hotel outside Newquay was near a hamlet called Kestle Mill. And that was where her taxi, which the meter told her was eating through her remaining cash at an alarming rate, was taking her now.
‘Don’t get so many tourists this time of year,’ the taxi driver commented.
‘I’m visiting a friend who works down here.’
‘Nice. Close friend, is it?’
‘Used to be. Actually an ex.’ Jodie didn’t need to tell him that, did she? But why wouldn’t she? No lies. Get it all out. ‘It’s a sort of apology visit. I messed things up.’
‘Trying to win him back?’
Jodie didn’t correct the pronoun. There was honesty and then there was self-protection in the company of red-faced men with tattoos on their knuckles. ‘No. Just a chance to say sorry.’ And prove her mum wrong. ‘Closure, you know?’
The driver nodded. ‘Closure matters. I had a cleansing ritual done when my ex-wife moved out. Woman from Perranporth came over and waved sage all about the place.’
Jodie reassessed her mental picture of her driver. ‘Did it help?’
He tilted his head. ‘Maybe. Mostly it made me want a roast. House stank of stuffing for days.’
‘Right.’
‘Your place is just up here. I’ll go down the drive and drop you at the end of the car park, if that’s all right?’
‘Thank you.’
She hopped out and paid the fare.
‘Good luck, my bird. I hope you find what you’re looking for.’ He handed her a receipt on the back of his card. ‘Ring if you need another ride. Yeah?’
The hotel in front of her had ivy around the door, and gardens extending out to the side, quiet in December but ready to burst into spring blooms as soon as the sun returned. Jodie pulled her case behind her and pushed through the revolving door. She wasn’t even sure Gemma worked here. Probably she should have asked the taxi to wait. Even if this was the right place, she was probably way too important to be hanging around the lobby.
‘Jodie?’
Or maybe not. Gemma Bryant, the real Gemma Bryant, was right in front of her, behind the reception desk. She looked the same as Jodie remembered. But nothing was the same. The pull that Jodie had felt for weeks after Gemma left, the desperate phoning and texting, the need to contact her, was gone. It was Gemma, but she wasn’t Jodie’s Gemma any more.
‘Hi.’
‘What are you doing here?’
