Barbara Taylor Bradford - Power of a Woman

“A little of everything,” he told Cappi, who was hovering around the sideboard, where the turkey, ham, and quail were arrayed on large platters, alongside all the accompanying vegetables. “And only dark meat, please, if you’re giving me turkey.”

“And what about vegetables, Sir Derek?”

“Mashed potatoes would be lovely, and stuffing and gravy, but that’s it, thanks, Cappi. Must watch the waistline, you know.”

Miles moved slowly around the table, pouring the red Bordeaux, a Château Gruaud-Larose, his favorite Saint-Julien. It had been bottled in 1989, a good year, and he commented on this to Miles, who nodded and smiled. “Chosen specially for you,” Miles told him with a conspiratorial wink.

Chloe followed on her brother’s heels, filling their water glasses; Blair passed around the basket of homemade breads and Stevie offered cranberry sauce. Then at last they were all served, and they settled down to eat.

Derek ate slowly, savoring his food, saying a word or two occasionally. Mostly he listened, and observed everyone.

He was very content to be here today, enjoying this respite from his work, enjoying being with his family. Part of his family, at any rate. He could not help wishing Gideon were here, and Nigel and Tamara with their two children, and then they would have been complete. A true family all together under one roof for once.

This was his second family; long ago there had been his daddy and his mam, his brothers, Owen and David, and sister, Gwyneth. The family of his blood, whom he had loved so much when he was growing up in Ystradyfodwg, that little parish that was the Rhondda. The Rhondda…how he loved the sound of it, loved rolling the name around on his tongue. The place of his heart…where all his hopes and dreams had been born…another of the great industrial valleys of South Wales, where coal mining was the main industry.

The pit. The dreaded pit. The giver of wealth, the taker of life.

His daddy had worked in the pit all his life, from being a young boy until the day he died. Claimed by the pit. It was an explosion in the belly of the earth that took so many of their men and ravaged the town. His daddy had died with the others when the walls of the mine had collapsed and water had flooded the shafts.

His brother Owen had not been on the same shift as their daddy that day, and so, thankfully, he had been spared. Spared to become the breadwinner for them all.

It was because of his elder brother that he had been spared. Owen, and Gwyneth too, had seen something special in him when he was a boy. Eventually they had come to calling it “the gift,” and as it turned out, it was just that, something deep within himself that he could draw on and that would eventually take him to great heights as an actor, although he had not known it then. Nor had he or they known at that time exactly what this gift was, not really. They could not define it. But, very simply, his brother and sister had discerned something in him that made him different, lifted him high above the mediocrity of the crowd.

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