The Barn on Half Moon Hill (2 page)

Love,

Cariad x

*

Greetings from Winterworld!

Just a quick one to let you know that I've settled in and how my first three months have gone. I totally LOVE managing The Carousel, that's what they call the ice-cream parlour. The
owner – Violet – is absolutely lovely and my, the ice-creams!!! Oh, you would have to try every flavour. My favourite is the sugar plum.

I'm sharing a house with two new friends. Well, I say ‘friends': Becky is two years older than me and works in a bank in Leeds and Lacey is my age and is a gym instructor. They
are both very pretty and fit and are sort of friendly when it suits them but I know they laugh at me behind my back. They make a lot of jokes about living in Dolgellau, like ‘Do you have
electricity there?' And their favourite joke at the moment is, ‘How many Welsh people does it take to change a candle?' Ho-blinking-ho. And I caught them looking through my
wardrobe and having a good giggle at my clothes once. They like all those designer labels you see, whereas I make a lot of my own. Always have. We never had a lot of money when I was growing up so
Mam taught me how to sew. Becky's boyfriend Josh reminds me of Harry Bell-ender. He makes a lot of sheep jokes. He touched my bum last week in the kitchen but stepped back just when I'd
spun around to slap him. Becky walked in and I knew she thought we were ‘having a moment'. ‘What are you doing with Josh?' she asks, blaming me! You'll laugh at the
next bit. I said, ‘You are joking, right? I could have Franco Mezzaluna and you think I'd be looking at your boyfriend?!' I didn't mean to. It just slipped out. Well, you
could have heard a pin drop. Then they all burst out laughing. I can't say I blame them really. My mam would have slapped my legs for lying. They started throwing questions at me but I just
walked off and said, ‘Look, Franco and I have known each other since we were kids, I don't care if you believe me or not.' Well obviously, they don't. I thought they'd
get tired of joking but I was wrong. They call me Mrs Mezzaloony all the time now. Lacey's boyfriend is called Aaron. He's one of those blokes who thinks he's God's gift but
I think he looks more like he's been bashed in the face by a wok. He was the one who thought up the Mezzaloony name.

Anyway, this is a really big ask I know, but if there is any way you could send me a signed photo and write on the corner – ‘To My Cariad' – I'd be ever so
grateful. Oh, and put a kiss on it. I've never asked for anything before and I really shouldn't now but I've got myself in a mess because they've spread it everywhere that I
know you personally.

Hope you are well. Kyra Taylor looks so much softer than Mary-Jade Wild so hope that romance works for you.

Lots of love,

Cariad x

*

Dear Franco,

Well, here's a letter I didn't think I'd be writing. Guess what, I have made South Yorkshire my home. I love it here. So much beautiful countryside and the people are so warm
and friendly. Well, apart from Becky and Lacey. I do wish I had enough money to move into a place of my own. If I had a genie's lamp, I would rewind to the moment when I suggested that you
and I knew each other. It was such a stupid thing to do and I've never lived it down. Six months after I said it and they're still referring to it. You're the only person I can
tell about how unhappy they make me, which is a bit tragic. My mam is just delighted that I've settled here and I don't want to tell her that they're the blight on my potato. I
daren't tell my uncle Effin because he'd go bonkers and he's under enough stress as it is with all the builders he has to manage. Sometimes he turns so red, I think his head is
going to explode. I'm surprised you haven't heard him shouting over there in America.

I had a date last week. A plasterer called Wesley. He is one of Josh's friends but he didn't seem like a dick. He came to the flat and we had a cup of tea and a chat and he was
really nice. He asked me out so we went for a drink and I was wrong about him – he is a prize idiot. I got the impression that it was all a set-up, a fake date. Becky has a very strange sense
of humour. She reminds me of that really nasty girl in the film ‘Carrie'. I tried to rise above it but it upset me. (I wished I were Carrie so I could have made a bucket fly into her
head, but I'm not.) Anyway, I'm a big girl so no moaning. On to the important part of my letter.

When I heard that you were coming to England for your film premiere next month, I thought my heart would burst open with excitement. I was going to take the day off work and come down to London
and queue up, overnight if I had to, to see you in the flesh at long last. Even if I had to skive off and risk losing my job, I was still going to. Then I found out you are coming to Yorkshire.
THEN I find out you are coming to open the new lagoon in Winterworld. I thought I was going to die with joy.

Then I started to panic because I haven't admitted my lie about knowing you but as soon as you turn up to Winterworld, everyone will find out the truth and I'll be a laughing stock.
Becky tried to question my uncle Effin when he came round a couple of weeks ago to put us some window locks on, but he said that he wouldn't be surprised if me and you were an item and made
some nice comment about me being able to attract anyone (bless him, because it obviously isn't true).

I'll be there in Winterworld when you come and because I'm staff, I'll be right at the front of the stage. I'll be wearing a pink top and a pink hairband. If there is ANY
(oh, please) chance that you can say, ‘Hello, Cariad, see you later' and give me a wink, I would be so grateful. Obviously, if you don't, I'll realise – eventually
– that you never read my letters and this will be the last you hear from me.

Either way, I hope you have continued success. Sorry to hear you are on your own again. Okay, here's the truth now. I think Kyra Taylor has dodgy eyes. She could see around corners with
the left one. Might do you good to have a break from women for a while. I miss Wyn terrible, I do, but he let me down when I needed him most and I can't have that, can I? My da always said
that if you can't value yourself, how can you expect anyone else to. He was lovely my da. I wish he were still here with his words of wisdom.

Love,

Cariad x

PS – don't worry about not sending the photo, I totally understand that you're busy.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Epilogue

Franco tucked the letter back into the envelope bearing the small red dragon on the top left corner. Every one she had ever sent bore her ‘signature'. He
wouldn't reply, he never did. And now, after all these years, the letters were about to stop and that flicked hard at something deep within his ribcage.

‘You listening, Franco?' His agent Sonny called out to him again. ‘Hey, Franco.'

‘No, I wasn't listening. What did you say?'

‘Another letter from your stalker?'

‘She's not a stalker,' Franco snapped, causing Sonny to hold his hands up in defence.

‘Whoa whoa. What's bitten you on the ass?' Sonny laughed, sending his chins juddering.

‘She's a sweet kid.'

‘. . . who's been writing to you for . . . is it thirteen . . . fourteen years now without getting a single reply? And yet you still ask me to look out for that red dragon on the
mail and not pass it over to the fan-club girls to deal with. Why is that?'

Franco shrugged an ‘I don't know'. Although he did know.

‘As I was saying, the schedule is tight. You will only be able to stay at that park place for two hours max. Logan will have a car on standby to take you to the airport . . .'

Sonny's voice dissolved into white noise as Franco's thoughts returned to Cariad Williams and her letters. Ridiculously, she had been the woman who had hung around most in his life,
even more than his own mother had. Cariad Williams had written to comfort him when his father died, not long after she lost her own dad. She'd written a list of tips for coping with grief and
he'd followed it and it had helped. And she'd made him smile more than she could ever guess at whenever he broke up with whichever temporary screen darling happened to be gracing his
arm. None of his romances ever lasted very long. His PR team invariably steered him towards the beautiful self-promoting starlets and their PR teams steered them towards him and sometimes they had
fun for a while. ‘Aerosol-cream relationships' he used to call them, because they looked great for a very short time before collapsing and sinking to nothing.

‘You hearing me?' Sonny's gruff New York voice barked at him.

‘Yeah, I hear you.'

‘He's a war hero.'

‘Who?'

Sonny exhaled loudly and impatiently. ‘The guy I've been talking to you about for the last five minutes. The owner of the Winterworld theme park you agreed to go and open.'

‘It's open already, Sonny. They're having a Half-Christmas celebration because it's exactly six months to Christmas Day, and it seemed a good time to open the new
attraction – the lagoon which they want me to christen.' He made the sign of the cross in the air as if he were executing a papal blessing.

‘Hallelujah! He does hear me.' Sonny fluttered a pair of big meaty jazz hands.

Franco's new film was called
Winterworld
and was set in a post-apocalyptic landscape filled with snow. He had press interviews in London, which coincided with the date of the
opening of a lagoon in a park, also called Winterworld. It was owned by an ex-soldier and his wife. Franco's PR office, hearing about it, thought it would be a great idea to volunteer his
services, especially as there was a tide of newspaper grumbles about stars only ever visiting the capital. Sonny went nuts with them. Chasing a no-fee appearance, what were the idiots thinking of?
He didn't buy all the crap they were telling him that going to the North of England would make the film star a hero of the people. He ran it past Franco, expecting him to blast the idea out
of the water, and couldn't believe it when Franco agreed to do it. It didn't cross Sonny's mind Franco's decision could be anything to do with a crazy Welshwoman who had
been writing to him since they were kids.

Meanwhile, at Winterworld, Jacques, the war hero, studied Eve, his wife, as she stood stroking the head of Ivan, one of the snow ponies. He was a young colt who had been found
in a shocking state on a farm. He wouldn't have lived much longer if the owner hadn't been reported. Ivan had really taken to Eve and whinnied to her when he saw her nearby. He would
have let her stroke his head all day, nudging her for more like a demanding cat when she stopped.

There was something on Eve's mind, Jacques could tell. Something big that was coming between them and though she insisted she was fine, he knew her better than she knew herself. Whenever
she felt troubled or stressed, she spent more and more time with the animals, though he was sure she wasn't even aware that she did. It was as if she took comfort from them that a human
couldn't give her. She was shutting him out and he didn't know why, but it didn't bode well. He had learned that the harder her shell, the more the inside of her was broken crumbs
and he was worried.

From behind him, he could hear Effin Williams ranting again at both his own team of builders and the Polish lads. A stream of angry Celtic guttural sounds that his workforce listened to
patiently with their eyes rolling. The Welsh lads would translate his words into English and the English-speaking Poles would then wearily translate it to their fellow workers. Not that they needed
to because they knew that Effin would be calling them useless in his own unique way.

‘S'dim byd fedrwch chi wancyrs ddim cocio fyny'n llwyr, y ffycars rhyngwladol ddiwerth
?' He was screaming at them.

Is there nothing you wankers couldn't totally cock-up, you worthless international f**kers?

Any other day, Jacques would have laughed, but smiles weren't on his horizon at the moment. Eve turned and Jacques waved to her, moving forwards as if he had just arrived and had not been
standing watching her.

Poor old Huw Jones the engineer was getting forty lashes from Effin's tongue now for some adjustment or other that he'd made to the Nutcracker Express. The train either ran at a
snail's pace or warp speed, he couldn't seem to find any middle ground.

‘Fedri di ddim wancio heb gyfarwyddiadau, fedri di, Huw Jones?'

You couldn't wank without instructions, could you, Huw Jones?

‘What are you up to then, wifey?' Jacques bellowed, forcing a light cheerful note in his voice.

‘Oh, nothing much,' said Eve. He noticed that her green eyes were too bright, as if she'd been crying recently. ‘Just brought an apple up for Ivan.'

‘He's better fed than me,' said Jacques, reaching over to scratch the pony's head. ‘He fancies you.'

‘He's an animal, Jacques,' tutted Eve. ‘He wants my apples not my body.'

I want your body
, Jacques was about to say but clamped his mouth shut.

‘Effin's going to have a heart attack with all that shouting,' she went on, hearing a fresh salvo of vicious-sounding Welsh. Strangely enough, Effin's thoughts were in
harmony with hers.

‘Cocs Cymreig a phrics Pwyleg . . . newch chi fastads roi harten imi rywddydd!
'

Welsh cocks and Polish pricks . . . you bastards will give me a heart attack someday.

Jacques smiled. ‘He just wants everything perfect for our guest of honour.'

‘I can't believe you actually managed to get Franco Mezzaluna to come here.' Eve shook her head, as she had so many times before at this. ‘And for free? You really can
charm the birds off the trees, can't you?'