A Cornish Christmas Read Online Free Page A

drool.
    â€˜Days surely? And, no, she wasn’t; she hid with me in my shed,’ he insisted, in mock horror.
    â€˜More like an hour or two and if by “shed” you mean your man cave outside with your Xbox, well... Muppet knows where you keep the crisps,’ I laughed.
    Muppet gave me a rather scornful look, followed by a bulldog huff. All she saw, apparently, was that we were ignoring food, food that could be coming to her.
    I took the food outside while he went to fetch the bottle of red and my cranberry juice. Later, after we had finished dinner and cleared up the kitchen and were relaxing and watching the last remnants of the sunset with its wash of pink and gold, Muppet snoring loudly, I remembered the missing paint, and considered the possibility that I had in the emotional residue of the day just overlooked it in some way. Though I didn’t see how that was possible.
----
    J ust before bed , my mobile rang. It was 12.30 p.m. Turning to look at the screen, I stifled a groan.
    Genevieve. Stuart’s mother.
    Let’s just say that taking her only son to live far away from London was causing her some distress – no matter how much Stuart pointed out that the move was his idea, she remained, resolutely, unconvinced, and since he refused to answer her calls in general, she phoned me instead. Because there was the faint, very faint possibility it could be important, I invariably answered. I blame my own mother for this; I find it hard to be rude due to years of her coaching against bad telephone manners and so I habitually find myself on the receiving end of countless marketing calls... and endless tirades from his mother. I never learn.
    In the months since we’d moved, Genevieve had found several, admittedly creative, ways to try to get us to change our minds. As if selling our old house, working out the notices on both our jobs, buying a home over five hours away, and packing up all our belongings hadn’t been decisive enough.
    The trouble was that Stuart turning sustainable farmer was not how the Everton men were meant to go, apparently. As far as she was concerned, she’d indulged him long enough. Yes, that’s what she termed it, an indulgence . Which was laughable really, as Stuart didn’t and wouldn’t ever ask for her indulgence in the first place.
    Thankfully, John, Stuart’s father, didn’t seem to share her opinion. In fact, every time he visited he seemed to stay just that little longer, with a look in his eyes of unmistakable longing. When he’d suggested that they consider retiring down here, she’d snapped, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, why would I ever retire?’
    He never pointed out that maybe he would like the opportunity. Which, to me, was the saddest part. When I’d opened my mouth to tell her, Stuart had said, ‘Just leave it.’
    John would either stand up for himself or he wouldn’t. Though why we should stay out of things that weren’t our place when she never gave us the same consideration was at times beyond me.
    â€˜Hi Genevieve,’ I said, attempting and failing to stifle a sigh. ‘Everything all right?’
    â€˜Yes, of course,’ she replied in her customary clipped tones, completely oblivious to the hour. I could picture her sitting in their London manor house in Knightsbridge (one of several homes here and abroad), in her velvet-lined Queen Anne chair, twisting her Cartier watch around her wrist, legs crossed at the ankle (naturally) in their silk trousers. Her bobbed hair neat in its no-nonsense style – the same one she’d been sporting in every company brochure since the 1990s. A CFO for a large global firm she co-founded called ‘Women in Finance’, Genevieve was so well-used to issuing orders and subsisting on her customary five hours of sleep a night – a source of baffling pride to me – that it would never occur to her that other people would feel