A Merry Mistletoe Wedding by Judy Astley Page B

been in the shops for weeks now. Wrapping paper too. You have to get in quick with paper. Leave it last minute and they’re clearing the shelves ready for Valentine’s,’ June warned, peering into Thea’s shopping bags.
    â€˜Oh,
Christmas
shopping, you meant. Sorry,’ Thea said, the fog of incomprehension beginning to clear.
    â€˜Yes, of course I meant Christmas. What else would I mean? They’ve been having a visiting Santa in Asda for weeks now. You can feel it in the air, can’t you?’ June pulled her coat close round her and shivered a bit to emphasize her point. ‘In the mornings, it’s properly dark. I like dark in the mornings. I don’t trust those long summer days. You shouldn’t be getting up hours after it’s already broad daylight. It’s all wrong.’
    â€˜You’d be a happy bunny in the Caribbean then, June,’ Thea told her, trying to gather as many carrier bags together as she could so as to avoid making two trips into the house and back. ‘It’s pretty much twelve hours of day, a quick sunset and a precise twelve hours of night, all the year round. Very organized.’
    June sniffed. ‘Organized but very hot. We British aren’t meant to be hot. It makes us itch. It’s why we like Christmas: lots of woolly things to wear and plenty of good traditional food.’
    â€˜So you’ll have got your Christmas cards already then?’ Thea said, slamming the car boot shut.
    â€˜Me?’ June laughed. ‘Oh, of course, dear. I always buy mine in the January sales and most of the presents as well. You can’t be too far ahead of yourself, that’s what I always say.’
    â€˜Christmas is ages yet, June. There’s plenty of time,’ Thea said.
    June gave her a look that told her she was in serious Season Denial and started to haul the little dog over the road to her home. ‘It’s not ages at all. Especially at my age. Time races on and it’s all you can do to keep up with it. But if you don’t, you fall off the edge. And you’re not getting any younger either; before you know it, time will have caught up with you too. Make sure you don’t leave everything to the last minute.’
    Well, thanks for that, Thea thought, feeling a bit unsettled as she trundled her shopping through to the kitchen. Thanks for the big reminder that the old biological clock was ticking ever more loudly in both ears. If that’s what June actually meant. She probably did. Once a woman was into her mid-thirties people seemed to think it was perfectly acceptable to comment on her lack either of a husband, baby or both. Only a week ago, the head teacher Melanie had told Thea that if she was thinking of leaving the job, then to remember to give a full term’s notice. Thea hadn’t even hinted about leaving: as she’d said to Jenny, she wouldn’t want to leave her class halfway through the year. It would feel irresponsible not to take them through the full three terms. So where did that comment come from? Anyone would think they were back a hundred years ago when women had to give up teaching if they married. She was on the lookout for jobs in Cornwall though, and if the perfect one came up then maybe she’d just have to jump at it.
    With or without Emily on board, if they were to go ahead with getting married at Christmas, she needed to get on with preparations. She’d heard that Emily was not only refusing to go to the wedding but was now hardly venturing out of the house. Thea had tried texting and emailing her – she wouldn’t respond to phone calls – but had had no response.
    She and Sean were opting for the lowest of low-key events because neither of them liked fussy weddings, but even this would need some effort. Paul, Sean’s partner in the Cove Manor rental business, had taken over the running of his father’s ancestral home, Pentreath Hall, and its