Page 44 of The Christmas Retreat
‘That would be great. I collect recipes. I think the taste of my cake is due to my soaking the dried fruit in dark rum for five days, and then using butter in the mix.’
There was no sign of Timon, presumably still at the pottery, or Evie, who would be having tea at this moment with Noel at the bookshop and pumping him for information. But Verity was opposite me, next to Nerys, very, very slowly chewing each crumb of a tiny piece of cake before swallowing it, and I asked her if she had completed her watercolour of the flowers.
‘It still needs some finishing touches,’ she said. ‘But so many of the petals have fallen.’
‘I’m sure you can add those from the photos you took of the arrangement,’ suggested Nerys. ‘You work a lot from photos, don’t you?’
‘Only as reference points,’ said Verity, a little stiffly.
‘Iwork from photographs a lot,’ I said, ‘as well as from quick outdoor study sketches of plants and animals, but you can’t really sit there in the dark painting badgers, for instance.’
‘Good point,’ said Toby.
The twins had been silent until now, but Opal, who was nibbling a piece of cake even smaller than Verity’s – more of a crumb than anything – said, ‘Capturing our performances on film is part of our art form, but we ourselves are our points of reference.’
Since from what they’d already said, their work consisted of filming or photographing themselves in various situations, that was sort of blindingly obvious, but Opal said it as if she was imparting a great secret of her Art.
I don’t think Pearl heard her. She and Toby, who was sitting on her other side, were both demolishing large slices of cake and, in between bites, talking in an undertone.
Opal cast her sister’s averted and unusually animated face a basilisk glare, but the effect only seemed to work eye to eye, for Pearl carried on her conversation with Toby, a faint flush warming her pale little face.
Rhys got up from the table first, saying he had some things to catch up on, now that his brain was functioning again. Kate, looking disappointed, said she had hoped they could have a cosy little chat about her ideas for a new novel.
‘Some other time,’ he said, evasively.
‘Since we are all professional artists and writers, we must respect each other’s need to work during the day, although of course in the evenings we can discuss what we are doing, if we wish,’ said Nerys, and Kate looked deeply dissatisfied, as if she expected Rhys to be on tap twenty-four seven.
Verity, whose mother must have made her chew her food a hundred times, was still eating her cake and Tudor was clearing the table around her when Cariad dragged me off upstairs to look at her books.
It seemed Cariad had been an early reader, just like me, so her many bookshelves ranged from board books, including mine, through classic children’s fiction, toThe Hobbit,The Lord of the Ringsand T. H. White’s novels, includingThe Sword in the Stone.
Also, like me, she tended to go back and comfort-read favourite children’s books, between more heavyweight ones. Cariad’s shelves also held a variety of books on archaeology and ancient history.
‘I’ve got all your Mrs Snowboots books even though I’m way too old for them, because I love the illustrations,’ she saidseriously. ‘The same with the Hedgehoppers books. I want them all.’
‘That’s very flattering,’ I said. ‘Did you say my new Hedgehoppers book was on your Christmas wish list?’
‘Yes, Uncle Noel will give me that, and the new Mrs Snowboots one. I asked Daddy for the complete set of Harry Potter books because I’ve only seen the films and the books are never the same as those, are they?’
‘No, definitely not,’ I agreed.
‘My friend Mel likes books with ponies in. She’s a bit obsessed.’
‘I’ve got quite a lot of those myself,’ I admitted, ‘but they belonged to my mother’s PA, who used to be my nanny. She was brought up in the country and hated it, but she was given that kind of book and she still had them. But of course, I didn’t only read those. I’m like you, I read anything and everything, and as soon as I was old enough I started scouring second-hand bookshops. My mother buys me a book for Christmas every year too. She doesn’t go in much for present giving, so that’s it, but it’s generally on feminist art history, or poetry.’
‘My mummy used to send Daddy Amazon tokens so he could get me what I wanted,’ Cariad said.
‘Shesentthem to you?’ I echoed.
‘Yes, because she and Daddy divorced years ago and she lived in London after that. Daddy used to take me there sometimes to see her, but once when she took me back to her flat her boyfriend, Finn, was there and I didn’t like him at all. I could tell he was only pretending to be pleased to see me.’
‘That wasn’t very nice of him,’ I said, while trying to take in the information that Rhys had been divorced from his wife for years …
‘Yes, and when I told Daddy about Finn sniffing his sherbet up his nose through a straw instead of sucking it up with a liquorice wand like anyone else, he said perhaps Mummy should just come and see me here, on her own, instead. But she didn’t. We just face-timed occasionally after that, but then she had a car accident and was killed.’
‘That’s very sad,’ I said weakly.
‘I suppose so. Even though I hardly saw her, she could be fun when she was in the mood. Nerys says she was a very good sculptor, too – and of course, she was very pretty.’
