Cathy Kelly 3-Book Collection 2: The House on Willow Street, The Honey Queen, Christmas Magic, plus bonus short story: The Perfect Holiday

Tess unexpectedly found she had a lump in her throat.

‘She did love you, you know,’ he said.

‘I loved her too,’ Tess said, beginning to cry. ‘I’ll miss her so much. I know it’s better that she won’t have to endure the living hell she was in—’

‘That’s what I said to Cashel,’ Riach interrupted her. ‘I don’t know if he agrees, though. She was the one person he could come back to, you see. I’ve got Charlotte and the kids, he has no one.’

There was silence. A long time ago, Cashel’s someone had been Tess.

‘You should be there, though,’ Riach went on. ‘I’ll call you when it’s all organized. You’ll have to see him, but I’ll tell him you’re coming.’

Tess wasn’t sure what was worse – Cashel knowing in advance that she was going to his mother’s funeral, or him suddenly seeing her there after all these years.

That evening, just as Tess was locking up the shop, Kevin sent her a text.

We need to talk, the message said. Are you in later?

She had an inkling of what he wanted to discuss. The depression in the building trade meant that even brilliant carpenters like Kevin – Tess had to admit that he was a genius at what he did – weren’t able to find work. Before he’d left, they’d sorted out the finances in a general way, neither of them touching the joint account but agreeing that, since Kevin would be living basically rent-free in his mother’s little apartment he could afford to put more money into the mortgage. Clearly that was now becoming too much.

She dialled his number. ‘Hello, Kevin. The answer to your message is yes,’ she said into the phone. ‘I’ll be in later tonight – where else would I be going?’ she laughed.

And on the other end of the phone there was a slight nervous chuckle that didn’t sound like her husband at all.

‘Yes. Where,’ he said.

‘It’s about money, isn’t it?’ Tess said finally. ‘Go on, tell me. You want to change things. Listen, Kevin, maybe …’ she paused, on the verge of saying, Maybe this has all been a mistake, maybe the separation has shown us what we really needed to know: that we were supposed to be together …

Something stopped her.

‘But we’ll talk about it tonight,’ she said breezily. ‘Do you want to have dinner? We’re having shepherd’s pie – not very exciting, I know, but I made double last week so I’m defrosting.’

‘I’m not sure … I’ll probably already have eaten,’ said Kevin.

‘OK,’ Tess replied, startled. Kevin loved her shepherd’s pie. Anna Reilly had taught her how to make it. And even though Tess could hardly claim to be a cordon bleu cook, she had mastered all the simple dishes she’d learned from Anna. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘What time do you want to come up? Before dinner or after? If you want to come after, could you bring some biscuits? I’ve run out and there’s nothing nice in the house to go with tea.’

‘Maybe after,’ Kevin said quickly. ‘And when Kitty’s gone to bed we can talk.’

It had been a strange day, Tess thought as she closed the shop and started to walk home with Silkie dancing around at her feet. The odd tone in Kevin’s voice. The news of Anna Reilly’s death. The thought of Cashel returning to Avalon. It had all shaken her.

In the nineteen years since Cashel had left, they’d met only once: a horrible stand-off in the pharmacy, he clutching at what had to have been one of Anna’s prescriptions, she trying to choose some small present for Vivienne for her birthday. It had felt like touching the live wire on an electric socket. Tess had been rooted to the spot, staring up at Cashel’s dark, stormy eyes. Stormy was the only word for them. He had lost that air of warmth and kindness he’d had when he was young. No, that was all gone. As he looked back at her, his jaw set, every inch of his body had been tense with repressed anger.

Tess had been about to say something, to break the horrible cycle. It was so long ago, she wanted to say, can’t we be friends? After all the time we spent together and being each other’s first love … But as she’d opened her mouth to speak, he’d given her a look of such venom that she’d felt it as intensely as if he’d pierced her side with a sword, then he’d turned and walked out.

And now he’d be back for Anna’s funeral. Nevertheless, Tess had to go. She wouldn’t be frightened away by him. Anna was her friend, her dear, dear friend. She had to go for her sake, and her father’s. He would have wanted her to go. That was what the Powers did. No matter how uncomfortable something might be, they went through with it anyway.

So no matter that Cashel would be glaring at her with those stormy eyes of his, Tess was going to be at that funeral.

On the way home, Tess stopped by her mother-in-law’s house to collect Kitty. Helen minded Kitty two days a week and Lydia, a childminder, picked her up from school the other three. Occasionally Kevin would finish work in time to drop Kitty home, but most of the time Tess went to get her.

Kitty loved going to Granny’s after school, not least because Granny was not too fussed about homework being done and was all too eager to fill Kitty with her home baking. As a result, come dinnertime Kitty would have no appetite, so she’d stare at the vegetables on her plate and moan, ‘I am not even a teeny-weeny bit hungry and I am not eating broccoli.’

Kitty wanted her mum to come into Granny’s and stay a while, as she often did, but today Tess felt so weary from the double-edged sword of hearing about Anna’s death and the thought of Cashel coming home and glaring at her, she couldn’t face it. ‘Sorry, Helen,’ she said. ‘I’d stay for a cup of tea, but I’m absolutely zonked tonight.’

‘No problem, love,’ said Helen. ‘See you tomorrow, chicken,’ she added, planting a big kiss on Kitty’s head.

At home, Tess checked her daughter’s homework, put the shepherd’s pie in the oven, sorted out vegetables, did a bit of tidying, emptied the dishwasher. All the normal everyday stuff. Zach came in tired from his day in school with a bag of books so heavy that Tess didn’t know why all schoolchildren didn’t have major back problems.

‘It’s fine, Ma,’ Zach protested, ‘I’m strong.’ He held up a muscle and flexed it. She laughed. He was strong. How amazing to think her baby had turned into this seventeen-year-old-giant.

‘I’m strong too,’ said Kitty, flexing her skinny nonexistent little-girl muscles.

‘Yes, you are, darling,’ said Tess. ‘Super strong. And you’ll get even stronger if you sit down here and eat your dinner.’

‘But, Mum, it’s shepherd’s pie. I hate shepherd’s pie,’ moaned Kitty.

‘Last night you said you hated roast chicken and you promised you’d be really good and eat your dinner tonight,’ Tess pointed out. ‘Come on now, you made a pinkie promise.’

If you hooked baby fingers and said ‘pinkie promise’, there was no going back on your word. A pinkie promise could not be broken.

‘OK,’ moaned Kitty, with all the misery of someone being forced into a ten-mile trek in the dark.

Zach wolfed down his dinner and came back for seconds, while Kitty pushed hers around the plate. Tess was too tired to argue with her.

‘Eat one bit of broccoli and you’re done.’

‘Do I have to?’ moaned Kitty.

Tess gave up.

She was washing the dishes when the doorbell rang.

‘That’s your dad,’ she said. ‘Will you get it, Zach?’

Zach hurried out to open the door. A few seconds later Kevin appeared on the threshold of the kitchen looking awkwardly around him as if he needed to be invited into the room.

‘Come on in, Kevin, sit down. Do you want a cup of tea? Did you bring any biscuits?’ she asked.

‘Erm, yes. Here, they are.’ He handed a package to Tess formally.

What was wrong, she wondered. He looked uncomfortable and unhappy. It had to be money. One of his big jobs had been cancelled, that must be it. How were they going to cope? Paying the mortgage was hard enough already. Now, with her business down on last year and Kevin’s income taking a dive, it was hard to see how they could manage. Maybe she really would have to give up the shop and try to find other work.

Kevin sat at the table and chatted to Zach and Kitty. He was like his old self with them, and that made Tess feel better. Children needed a father and she needed … Well, she liked having him around. She wasn’t in love with him, but she did care about him, and perhaps that was enough. All this talk about pure true love that would survive anything and still be as fiercely strong twenty years later – that was just fairy-story rubbish, or maybe movie-story rubbish. In movies, people adored each other for ever. Of course, in real Hollywood life, staying together for even seven years was considered a record-breaking marriage.

But in Tess’s life, normal life in Avalon, perhaps loving and respecting the man you were married to was enough. Everyone got irritated by their husband or wife. Everyone sometimes wondered if there wasn’t more to life. For a brief second, she thought of that wild passion she’d had with Cashel, then she reminded herself: look where that had got her. Wild passion didn’t last. Wild passion ended badly. No, security and love and raising a family together were the things that counted. She resolved to say it all when they were alone. As she made the tea, she rehearsed in her mind how she’d explain it:

Kevin, I’m sorry, I was wrong about the whole separation thing. It was a stupid idea, but it’s shown me that we should be together after all, that what we have is wonderful. Please come back and we’ll start again.

By the time the tea was ready, Zach was gathering up his gigantic bag ready to trundle off and do his homework.