Footsteps in the Snow and other Teatime Treats

by Trisha Ashley

  “Not just any old clothes, but vintage ones from famous fashion houses and in wonderful condition. This kind of thing can fetch a lot of money.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it,” he said. “Enough to get the roof fixed and central heating put in?”

  “Way more,” I assured him, reverently fingering a Worth dress … “She’s sitting on a little gold mine!”

  *

  I phoned Pam to tell her what had happened and I could hear her relaying the news to Minnie.

  “Auntie Minnie says to thank Carl for mending the pipe and she will pay him when she gets home.”

  “I’ll do that, though I’m sure he won’t want payment because he seems very fond of her,” I said. “But Pam, the exciting things is that when we went into the bedroom where the water was dripping, we found loads of amazing vintage clothes.”

  I explained the value of what I’d found and Pam passed that on to Minnie too.

  “You mean, people would pay good money for mother’s old clothes?” I heard her exclaim.

  “They certainly would,” I assured Pam, and then offered to catalogue them while I was there, just so I had an excuse to have another good rummage!

  *

  I enjoyed going through the clothes – and trying some of them on, though the blue beaded dress from the cabin trunk remained my favourite.

  Carl caught me wearing it one day, along with the matching satin shoes and a satin headband with a feather in it. I was in the kitchen, attempting the Charleston, watched by a slightly surprised Horace. He was even more surprised when Carl joined in, and so was I!

  “Amateur dramatics teaches you all kinds of strange things,” he explained. “You should see me jitterbug.”

  “I wish I could – and I wish I could afford to bid for this dress when it comes up at auction,” I said ruefully. “I’ve got a ticket for a fancy dress ball just before Christmas and it would have been the perfect outfit … though actually, I haven’t got anyone to go with so I probably won’t bother.”

  Then I blushed and changed the subject hastily, in case he thought I was hinting that he might come with me.

  *

  I got a lovely letter from Minnie not long after I got home, thanking me for telling her about the value of the clothes, which have now all been taken away to a famous auction house.

  Pam said her godmother had all sorts of plans for doing up the house. “In fact, if the auction goes really well, she’ll be able to stop worrying about the utility bills, too.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said. “She isn’t sad about her mother’s things being sold?”

  “Oh no, she’s quite unsentimental. When they come up for auction she’s going to go and watch – that neighbour of hers is going to take her.”

  ‘Carl?” I said quickly. I was surprised how much I was missing him …

  *

  But early next morning, there he was on my doorstep, the welcome bearer of a thank-you gift from Miss Marten: the blue beaded flapper dress, the matching shoes and even the satin headband.

  I was totally overcome, though it was a toss-up which I was happier to see, the clothes or Carl.

  He seemed equally pleased to see me again, and we talked for ages, comfortable as old friends. Then, on a sudden impulse, I asked if he’d like to go to the fancy dress ball with me and he said yes!

  I had my outfit and my man – Cinderella would go to the ball!

  *

  When I rang Minnie to thank her she said, “Not at all. You’ve made such a huge difference to my life that I wanted to give you something equally valuable in return. Carl told me you tried on that particular dress and it was a perfect fit. He said you looked lovely, too – and now I hear you’re off to a ball together?”

  “I – yes we are,” I stammered, slightly thrown by the revelation that Carl had said I looked lovely. “I’m going to wear the dress.”

  “I think that’s a delightful idea,” she said warmly.

  I thanked her again before ringing off but I didn’t tell her that sending Carl over with her gift might well prove the best thank-you present of all, because I think she’d already guessed!

  Read on for a first look at Trisha’s brand new novel Creature Comforts …

  Prologue: Halfhidden, West Lancashire, 1993

  That evening, Baz Salcombe’s old Range Rover, which was mainly used by his teenage son Harry and his friends, passed through the stone gateposts of the Sweetwell estate and paused briefly in the blackest of shadows by the turn to the Lodge, before pursuing an unsteady course up the dark, tree-lined tunnel of the drive.

  The road beyond the first sharp bend hunched itself up and then dipped deeply into a hollow, but either the driver had forgotten that or was recklessly convinced that the car would fly over it, for it suddenly leapt forward with a roar – then the brake lights flashed and it swerved, flipping sideways into the trees with an almighty crash.

  The ominous sound, together with the incessant blaring of the jammed horn, carried as far as the Lodge and set off a cacophony of barking from Debo Dane’s Desperate Dog Rescue Kennels. Judy Almond, her friend and housekeeper, who was starting out for the local pub to collect Debo’s niece, Izzy, stopped dead with the car keys in her hand, heart racing.

  Tom Tamblyn was even nearer, halfway down the woodland path that led to his cottage by the Lady Spring, but Dan Clew, Baz Salcombe’s gardener, was first on the scene, for he’d been so close by that he actually felt the resonance of the impact through the soles of his feet. Arriving at a run, he found the crumpled car lying on its side in a thick tangle of old trees, wheels still spinning and the headlights blazing out at a crazy angle.

  The uppermost doors had burst open and, to his great relief, he saw his son, Simon, climb out and then stagger up the bank, where he slumped with his head in his hands. A girl was screaming hysterically and even before he’d fished out a torch from his pocket and investigated, he guessed it would be Caro Ferris, the local vet’s daughter.

  Caro, her face masked with blood from a deep cut, was already frantically scrambling out of the back seat and it looked as though she’d had a lucky escape, for a branch had impaled the car from front to back, as if preparing to spit-roast it.

  Dan moved the torch beam to the front and could see at a glance that his boss’s son had taken the brunt of the collision and there was nothing to be done – and the crumpled figure of the girl next to him had a bad head injury and didn’t look in much better shape. He paused for a moment, looking over his shoulder as if to check for any sign of other rescuers, before reaching in and gathering up her small, slight form.

  Tom Tamblyn was just in time to see Dan lift the unconscious figure out of the front of the car, before laying it down on a bit of flat turf next to the drive.

  ‘Is that young Izzy Dane?’ Tom gasped, still panting for breath, for he was somewhat beyond the age of sprinting up steep paths. ‘Eeh, she looks bad – and you shouldn’t have moved her with that head injury, Dan.’

  ‘Thought I’d better in case the car goes up – there’s an almighty stink of petrol,’ Dan said shortly, looking up. ‘She was in the front with Harry and they had the worst of it – my lad and the Ferris girl were in the back and got themselves out.’

  He nodded at Izzy. ‘If you think she looks bad, you should see Harry.’

  ‘Like that, is it?’ Tom got out his own torch, took a look inside the car, and came back, shaking his head.

  ‘Poor lad,’ he said. ‘But he’s in the passenger seat so … are you saying young Izzy was driving? She’s not old enough to get her licence yet.’ He took off his old tweed jacket and laid it over the still figure on the grass, after checking her airways were clear and she still had a pulse.

  ‘She was in the front next to Harry – it’s clear enough what happened.’

  ‘Your Simon always drives them back from the pub though, doesn’t he?’ Tom said. ‘On account of being teetotal.’

  ‘Not this time.’

&nb
sp; ‘This is all Izzy’s fault!’ Caro exclaimed hysterically, the wadded hem of her t-shirt held to her bloody face. She’d scrambled up the bank and was sitting next to Simon, who was still slumped with his head in his hands. ‘I’m going to be scarred for life – and Harry?’ Her voice rose shrilly. ‘What’s happened to Harry?’

  ‘It was Howling Hetty’s ghost that did it!’ Simon slurred, looking up with a face as milk-pale as any wraith, and then he threw up copiously into the grass next to him, narrowly avoiding Caro.

  Tom blanched and said uneasily, ‘Nay, never say you’ve seen her!’

  ‘Of course he hasn’t! Simon, pull yourself together and ring for help, if you haven’t already,’ Dan snapped. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Teetotaller or not, he’s drunk,’ Tom said, fishing an ancient mobile phone the size of a brick out of his trouser pocket and dialling 999.

  ‘I’d better go down to the lodge and tell them …’ Dan stopped, glancing at Izzy, still lying unconscious on the grass.

  ‘No need, they’ll have heard that damned horn and be here any second,’ Tom said. ‘The whole of Halfhidden will have heard it.’

  And he was right, for the sound echoing urgently up and down the valley was a siren for a disaster that had ended one young life and would forever change those of the other occupants of the car that night, but most especially Izzy Dane’s.

  Chapter 1: All Fool’s Day, 2012

  ‘Izzy – just the girl I need,’ Harry said as I came level with the Range Rover, heading towards the steep path up through the Sweetwell woods to the Lady Spring and, beyond it, the Lodge where I lived.

  He was leaning his tall, skinny frame against the open door of the car, as if he might fall down if he didn’t – and going by the sparkle in his green eyes, he’d drunk more than enough for that.

  ‘Who, me?’ I asked, pausing uncertainly.

  *

  My recurring dream reran its usual course, a brief video clip of a golden evening and four young lives full of hopes and aspirations.

  Harry and his friends had seemed so grown-up and sophisticated to my sixteen-year-old eyes. They were all about to go their separate ways: Harry to medical school and quiet, unassuming Simon to study horticulture at a nearby college, while Caro, who’d grown as tall and thin as a beanpole, had only days before been spotted by a top modelling agency and, much to her parent’s dismay, was poised to turn down her place at Oxford.

  I always wished I could hang on to the dream long enough to see exactly what madness made me get behind the wheel of that car, but instead I usually woke suddenly, jerked right out of the past, just as I’d been summarily ejected from Heaven when I was in a coma in hospital after the accident …

  But for once the picture dissolved as slowly as morning mist in the sun and I swam back up into wakefulness and the rattle of the ceiling fan in my Mumbai hotel room … and the unwelcome memory of last night’s phone argument with my fiancé, Kieran.

  Well, I assumed he was still my fiancé, though that might change once we met up at his parent’s house in Oxford on Monday and I laid on the line exactly what I intended to do next and, more importantly, where I wanted to do it.

  It was ironic that our relationship had only gone pear-shaped once we’d finally decided the time was right to stop working abroad and settle down together in the UK. And last night, when I’d told him I’d already invested some of the small legacy left to me by my father into commissioning stock for the online retro clothes shop I was going to set up, he’d been furious, even though I’d never made any secret of my plans.

  He was even angrier when I added firmly, ‘And don’t count on the rest, because I’ll probably need all of it to bail Debo out – the kennels are having a huge financial crisis.’

  ‘Your aunt’s affairs are always in a financial crisis,’ he’d said dismissively. ‘She overreaches herself, taking in all the dogs that are too vicious to be rehomed, so there’s no point in throwing good money after bad.’

  Then he’d said we’d agreed to use my legacy as part of a house deposit, even though we’d never so much as discussed it. And at that point I started to wonder if he’d ever taken in a single thing I’d said to him!

  And until we’d visited his parents in Oxford the previous year, he’d certainly never mentioned to me that he had any intention of going back there to live and work.

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go and pack. We’ll discuss it all on Monday, when I’m back,’ he’d snapped finally, then put the phone down on me.

  I felt angry, confused and very upset. Why, over the course of our six year engagement (though admittedly mostly spent on separate continents), had I never realised that the laid-back, good-natured, popular and cheerful Kieran I’d tumbled headlong into love with only existed as long as everyone else was falling in with his plans?

  *

  It was unfortunate that I could never sleep on planes, since the long flight back gave me way too much time to think. Appropriately, it was due to arrive in the UK on All Fool’s Day.

  I was jammed between two large, sweaty, heavy-drinking businessmen in suits and they sprawled thoughtlessly, legs wide apart and arms akimbo, as if the seat between them was empty. I might have spent the whole journey bolt upright, with my feet together and arms clamped by my sides, except that although small and skinny, I have extremely sharp elbows … and also an unfortunate habit of kicking intruding ankles very sharply.

  After a few mutterings and dirty looks, to which I responded with sweetly smiling apologies for my nervous tics, they gave in and subsided in opposite directions away from me and I was left to my unwelcome reflections.

  Last night’s argument with Kieran, unsatisfactorily conducted over a patchy phone line, only added to the feeling of acute cold feet I’d recently been developing about our relationship. Now I suspected there was more than a hint of frostbite setting in around my toes.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t still have feelings for Kieran – a vision of his blunt-featured face with its slightly wonky, rugby-bashed nose, under a mop of sun-bleached fair hair popped into my mind and slightly weakened my knees, if not my resolve – but did he love me enough to change his plans, rather than assume it would be the other way around?

  I suspected not.

  When we first met, it felt so right that I thought falling in love with him must be part of my preordained destiny. My best friends, Lulu and Tamblyn, might tease me about my conviction that I had a near-death experience and went to Heaven while I was in a coma after the accident, and was only sent back because I had some important purpose to perform in life, but I know it was real. Since then I only have to tune inwards to the voice of my guardian angel from time to time to check I’ve taken the right turning … only with Kieran, I think I must have fallen for him so hard that I misread the message.

  My path through life had appeared clearly marked till then, for after studying Textiles and Design, I’d accepted a job with the Women’s World Workshops Foundation, which sent me on assignments all over the world, though the majority were in India. The pay was minimal, but the job satisfaction immense: discovering the skills and artistic heritage of each area and finding a way of utilising them into the making of something beautiful and saleable that could transform the lives of the local women involved in the scheme and, through them, that of their families and even communities.

  And all the time I was amassing a huge portfolio of colours, designs, patterns, ideas and contacts, ready for the day when I would finally go home for good to Halfhidden, the small village in west Lancashire where I grew up, and set up my own business selling retro-inspired clothes.

  Yes, the way forward had unrolled in front of me like an inviting magic carpet … until I literally bumped into Kieran in Pakistan, where he was working as a doctor for a medical charity and I was helping some enterprising local women to set up a co-operative making woven jackets.

  It seemed like sheer serendipity that we should have been in the same place at the sam
e time … though not so serendipitous afterwards, since we rarely managed more than snatched days together whenever we could make our leaves coincide.

  Perhaps if we’d spent more time in each other’s company, we wouldn’t still be engaged?

  I’d always believed that Kieran was a wonderful doctor who loved his work as much as I loved mine … it was just that until a few months ago, he hadn’t mentioned that he’d always intended joining his family’s GP practice in Oxford. When I discovered this, he’d suggested that I could just as easily set up my business there as anywhere else.

  But although Oxford was a lovely city, it wasn’t my city. I’m a country girl, used to living on the edge of moorland, a short drive from endless expanses of beaches, not a hemmed-in-by-dreaming-spires one.

  And then, Kieran’s parents were a bit of a shock, too. Miranda, his overbearing mother, and Douglas, his sarcastic, know-it-all father, not only assumed I’d fall in with Kieran’s plans, but had already started to look for a house for us. Now Miranda was even trying to take charge of my wedding, checking out reception venues at stately homes within easy reach of Oxford. That was the last straw!

  ‘I think you’re being very ungrateful, when my mother’s taking all this trouble,’ he’d said, when I’d rung him, furious. Then he’d added that since I was always banging on about my destiny, I should realise that joining his parent’s GP practice in Oxford was his.

  We’d had so many arguments recently and last night’s had reached a sort of crisis point, so that although I intended going straight from the airport to Oxford, as we’d arranged, when Kieran arrived tomorrow the discussion was not going to go the way he so clearly expected it to.

  For suddenly my inner voice was telling me, loud and clear, to go home to Halfhidden and that I was needed there – not only by Aunt Debo, but also by my friend, Lulu.

  She’d been living in France for years, in an increasingly abusive relationship with an older man called Guy, who’d turned out to be an alcoholic – and since he had his own vineyard, that gave him rather a lot of scope. He hadn’t been physically abusive to her, but instead sapped her spirit and self-confidence over the years with the drip, drip, drip of criticism. Tam and I had both worried about her, but there wasn’t a lot we could do.