Christmas at the Beach Cafe(7)

The card. The spiky handwriting. I knew there was something ominous about it. ‘Who’s that from?’ I asked, my voice sounding high and unnatural.

‘Melissa,’ he grunted, chucking it down on the table and going back to his granola.

Ahh, Melissa. The scheming bitch he’d been married to; the evil cow who’d tried to completely screw him over. Sorry, Melissa, I thought sourly, picking up the glossy red card with distaste, but it’s going to take a bit more than one poxy Crimbo card to make Ed forgive you, love.

Dear Ed, I read inside. Great to talk to you! Have a wonderful Christmas. All my love, Melissa and Violet xx

Violet. That must be her baby daughter – Ed had said something about her getting pregnant when she’d cheated on him. I dropped the card as if it were radioactive. Er . . . hello? ‘Good to talk to you’? ‘All my love’? Kisses at the end? I must be missing something here. Why had I not been sent the memo about my boyfriend making friends with his nasty, unscrupulous ex-wife? And wait . . . why was there no mention of Aidan, the guy she’d shacked up with?

‘I didn’t realize you two had been in touch,’ I said, feeling unexpectedly heart-poundy.

‘Well, yeah,’ he said, not meeting my gaze. ‘But only to discuss money, dissolving the business, getting divorced. It wasn’t exactly friendly chit-chat.’

My lips twitched. ‘Her card seems pretty friendly to me,’ I said before I could stop myself.

‘Evie . . . I’m in the process of getting a divorce from her,’ he said, sounding exasperated. ‘You don’t seriously think there’s anything more than that between us, do you? I can’t stand the woman.’

‘You could have told me she’d been in touch,’ I said in a small voice.

‘I didn’t think there was any point,’ he said. ‘Do you tell me about every single phone call you have?’

‘No, but – ’ Has she broken up with Aidan already?

‘There you go then.’

Tears pricked my eyes as he resumed mixing, his face cold, his body turned away from me. Ed and I never argued. Never! ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, then pulled on my coat and went down to the beach, needing to escape the conversation before it became any worse. My breath felt tight in my lungs as if I couldn’t release it properly, and my eyes were swimmy as I marched along the sand, the wind tugging at my hair.

I picked up a smooth grey pebble and hurled it far out to sea. Then another. Then another. Bugger off, Melissa, I thought savagely. You’re not welcome here. Take your phone calls and Christmas cards and slanty handwriting and shove them.

Ed came down to find me later, with a Thermos of coffee and a blanket. ‘Sorry,’ he said, wrapping the blanket around us both and hugging me close. ‘I didn’t mean to take it out on you.’

I leaned against him, grateful for the apology as well as the warmth. ‘It’s all right,’ I muttered.

‘She doesn’t mean anything to me,’ he said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, even though this wasn’t strictly true. Of course she meant something to him: she was his ex-wife, the woman he’d once been madly in love with, the woman who’d broken his heart and tipped his life upside-down. There was no way you could walk away from a relationship like that and feel indifferent to the person involved. And now she’d sent this nicey-nice Christmas card and we were both left confused.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, as if reading my thoughts. ‘Really. Don’t worry. I’m with you now. You’re the one I love.’

I snaked my arms around him and squeezed him. ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Because I love you right back.’

Up yours, Melissa, I thought, as we stood there for a long few moments. It’s me and Ed against the world, and nothing can stop us.

We sat down on the rocks together, still snuggled in the blanket, and shared the coffee. ‘We’re going to have a brilliant Christmas,’ I told him. ‘I just know it.’

A week went by, which saw us put up not one but two Christmas trees: a towering and gloriously scented blue spruce from Tregarrow Farm which looked positively magnificent in the far corner of the café, decorated with white fairy lights and silver baubles; and a little artificial tree for our flat, which was far less tastefully adorned with colourful tinsel, flashing Santa baubles and chocolate decorations. By now, I was feeling extremely Christmassy. I was playing my Christmas hits collection at any opportune moment, we had stocked up on booze, and Ed and I had just crossed off our last event of the year: doing the catering and photography for a gorgeous winter wedding in Carrawen Village Hall. We’d got quite a good business going between us now, with both of us doing something we loved: him taking care of all the food, and me with my trusty camera, filling the pages of wedding albums with hundreds of beautiful photos.