Home for the Holidays

by Sue Moorcroft

  ‘Not really.’ Carola looked surprised that anyone would think she could.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ben answered Gabe’s door expecting the caller to be Dr Worthington, Gabe’s GP, who was due to call after his surgery at the clinic. Middledip only got a doctor’s surgery on Wednesdays so Ben had had to take an hour off to be there. It was frightening how the weight was dropping off Gabe, leaving him looking too frail to battle the cough that threatened to shake him apart.

  But it wasn’t Dr Worthington who stood at the door. It was Alexia’s old boyfriend, Sebastian, wearing a cautious expression. ‘I’ve come to walk Gabe’s pony as per our text conversation.’

  Ben stared at him. ‘But it’s dark. And Snobby’s black.’ The way Sebastian looked past him into the kitchen confirmed Ben’s earlier suspicions that his volunteering to walk Snobby had been much to do with catching a glimpse of Alexia.

  Sebastian shifted from foot to foot. ‘I work during the day. Don’t worry. I’m used to ponies. Snobby’s got a high-vis rug, hasn’t he? I’m wearing a high-vis jacket and he’ll only be near the traffic for five minutes if I walk him straight across The Cross and into the bridleways. It’s a clear night so we’ll see our way OK. Snobby knows me.’ Then he added, as if he couldn’t resist trying to stake a claim. ‘I came here with Alexia enough.’

  Ben debated no longer. It wasn’t his business whether Seb’s offer came from a genuine desire to help Gabe or a grasping at the straws of encountering Alexia. Gabe had already okayed Sebastian as a pony walker and, even as elderly as Snobby was, it didn’t seem fair to keep him cooped up in his paddock when there was an offer of company and a chance to stretch his stubby legs. ‘He’s wearing his head collar. I’ll get the leading rein and rug.’

  Ben grabbed what he needed from the barn and a carrot from the store then the two men hurried through the chill to the paddock. Once aware of the bribe Snobby was perfectly amenable to being caught and Ben had only to spectate as Sebastian folded the reflective rug to place over Snobby’s withers.

  A car rumbled slowly up the track. Ben turned to check it out. ‘I think this is the doctor.’

  ‘Go, I can manage one little old pony. Tell Gabe to get well soon. We all miss seeing him round the village.’ Sebastian fastened the straps across Snobby’s shaggy chest. The pony nuzzled Sebastian as if frisking him for additional carrots so Ben felt that Snobby was comfortable with his walker. Tossing back brief thanks, Ben loped up the track, catching up with the car as the doctor climbed out, bag in hand.

  Dr Worthington was a pleasant, direct man, not given to wasting words. ‘How are you finding your uncle now?’

  Ben let him into the house, his stomach giving the unpleasant kind of lurch that went with voicing worries. ‘Worse. Still coughing up a lung every few minutes, burning with fever, sleeping all the time.’

  Dr Worthington raised a brow. ‘Is he in bed? I’ll go up.’

  Minutes later, having taken Gabe’s temperature, examined his sputum and listened to his chest, Dr Worthington sat down beside the bed, his expression at once grave and comforting. ‘It’s turned to pneumonia, Gabe. No wonder you feel lousy. I’m going to hit it with more antibiotics but you might have to go into hospital if you deteriorate further.’

  Gabe coughed until he retched, then gasped, ‘Rather stay here.’

  ‘We’ll try and keep you at home.’ Dr Worthington pulled a prescription pad from his battered bag. ‘But it’s very important that you keep your fluids up, get plenty of rest and take the antibiotics exactly as prescribed. I’ll leave you four of these in this little pot so your nephew doesn’t have to go out to Bettsbrough to fill the prescription tonight.’

  ‘OK.’ Gabe lay back on his pillows, exhausted and shining with sweat.

  Dr Worthington patted Gabe’s shoulder and rose, pausing to speak to Ben. ‘I’d like you to continue to keep an eye on him. I’ll come back on Friday, after my Port-le-Bain clinic. If you’re worried between then and now, ring 111. Are you staying with him?’

  Ben watched the doctor’s pen skate across the prescription pad. ‘Yes. I’m wondering whether to get my mother up here, though – Gabe’s sister. She’s offered and I work Monday to Friday and can’t always get back for his lunchtime meds. If she can come up I’ll move back to my own place so she can have the spare room.’

  ‘I try and wake up but I can’t always rouse myself,’ Gabe rumbled from the bed, coughing harshly, then turning weakly on his side and apparently falling straight to sleep. He looked awful. His cheeks had sunk with the loss of weight and he hadn’t felt much like washing his hair so, free of its ponytail, it lay in dull strands across his pillow. Dr Worthington watched him for several moments before he left his bedside.

  His troubled expression fuelled Ben’s anxiety. Immediately he’d seen the doctor out, Ben snatched up the landline phone from the windowsill and dialled. While he listened to the ringing tone he one-handedly filled a nearby mug with water and sloshed some into the pots of herbs lined up behind the sink. They were looking almost as dry and gaunt as Gabe.

  ‘Hello?’ said someone at the other end of the phone.

  Ben paused, mug poised over the coriander. The voice wasn’t his mother’s. It wasn’t his father’s. But he knew it well.

  ‘Lloyd?’

  A hesitation. Then, ‘How are you doing, little brother?’

  Carefully, Ben returned the mug to the draining board. ‘Are you home on a ROTL?’ Instantly, he corrected himself. ‘No, you only come out on temporary licence for weekends. So you must be out? You’ve served the custodial part of your sentence?’ And nobody told me. Mum might have known last time I rang. He tried to count the days in his head. It was probably about a fortnight ago.

  ‘That’s right. My house has a tenant in it, and as I’m not currently gainfully employed I need the rent. Mum and Dad said I could stay here so it could be written into the terms of my release.’ Then Mum definitely knew last time I rang.

  In the background, Ben heard his mother, her speech rapid and high. He kept his own voice even and neutral. ‘How long have you been home?’

  ‘Five days.’

  Emotions roared up inside Ben. Anger and hurt that, even supposing his mum had been frightened of jinxing Lloyd’s release date by stating it aloud to Ben on the phone, she’d had five days since Lloyd got out. Sadness that Lloyd had had five days to call Ben himself and offer to continue their conversation.

  Following more sedately behind came relief that Lloyd was free.

  He opened his mouth to vent but just as quickly sucked the words back, shoving the emotion on the back burner because Gabe had to be his priority for now. Would Penny agree to leave her golden child to travel to Cambridgeshire and look after her older brother? Was Ben even going to ask it of her?

  But what of Dr Worthington’s uneasy expression as he’d watched Gabe sleep? What would be best for Gabe?

  ‘So, how are you?’ Lloyd asked in his ear. Then, when Ben didn’t reply, ‘Did you want to speak to Mum? Or Dad?’ Another pause. Lloyd’s voice dropped. ‘Are you still there, Ben?’

  Penny’s anxious voice asked something. Lloyd’s voice fell away. ‘I can’t hear him. You try.’

  Penny’s voice came on, tentative and worried. ‘Benedict? Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes.’ No, it isn’t. ‘Well … the doctor’s been to see Uncle Gabe because he’s much worse. I feel as if he’s fading away in front of my eyes.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’ She hesitated and Ben waited for her to repeat her offer to come. Insist that she should, even. But she said, ‘Give him our love and tell him we hope he gets better soon.’

  ‘Will do.’ Suddenly resolved, Ben ended the call without asking her to come. That way, nobody would be hurt if Penny refused. Cracks in family relations wouldn’t be widened. Ben wouldn’t be more disillusioned that he was already.

  He wasn’t even surprised, he realised as he filled the mug with water again, noting that it trembled as he lifted i
t to his lips and drank, cooling his thoughts, easing the tightness in his throat. An explosion of coughing came from upstairs and he gazed at the ceiling as if he could see through it to check on Gabe as he lay in bed. The thought that Gabe’s care was down to him made him feel as if someone was filling his stomach with ice.

  He wasn’t frightened of much but he was frightened of making a mistake with Gabe.

  He picked up his mobile to call Alexia.

  She answered on the second ring. ‘What did the doctor say? Pneumonia? Oh, no!’ She sounded appalled, scared, all the things Ben himself was. ‘Can I come round?’ Then, as if anxious she had to justify the request, ‘I’ve got a little prezzie for him and we can work out how much of the next couple of weeks we can cover between us. Jodie or Carola might even pitch in a bit if Gabe can put up with them.’

  ‘Come,’ Ben responded even before she’d finished speaking. Again he wasn’t surprised at the answer he’d received – but this time in a good way.

  Waiting for her to arrive, he helped himself to a handful of digestive biscuits and a cup of coffee, putting out two clean mugs and the teapot for Gabe and Alexia ready for when she arrived.

  While he ate he wished his family could have heard Alexia and perhaps have learned how people reacted to the serious illness of someone they held in affection: with warmth and kindness, breathless with concern, putting aside their worries, perhaps even their hidden agendas and secrets, to help.

  Within ten minutes she was bursting into the kitchen, unwinding her scarf and bringing with her the scent of a frosty evening. ‘Flipping Seb! He was on the track and I almost slipped over on an icy puddle when he suddenly spoke! He said he wanted to tell me that he’d just put Snobby back in his paddock but somehow that turned into a lot of sighing over “the old days”. I got him to leave Snobby’s rug on because I nearly turned into an icicle while he kept me chatting. Brr.’ She gave a theatrical shiver, dumping Snobby’s leading rein on the quarry tile floor. ‘Is that all you’re having for dinner? I haven’t eaten and was hoping to scrounge something a bit warmer and more satisfying than biccies.’ She flung off her coat and hung it beside his on the door hook. ‘I’ve brought Gabe some wondrous tea from a posh new shop in Bettsbrough.’ She tugged the packet out of her bag, finger combed her spiky curls and turned on Ben an anxious smile. ‘How is he?’

  Ben felt his muscles unscrunch just in reaction to the energy Alexia brought with her. It was impossible to feel alone when she was near. He updated her on Gabe’s condition against a paroxysm of coughing from upstairs, adding, ‘If I raid Gabe’s supply of frozen pizzas and bung some in the oven and you brew a pot of your special tea we can take Gabe some while the pizzas cook.’

  Plan followed, they carried their drinks upstairs to keep Gabe company. Despite the earlier coughing he’d fallen heavily asleep again and Ben had to wake him to drink his tea. He drank half, listened to them chat for a few minutes, then his eyes gently closed once more.

  Alexia placed her hand on his forehead. ‘You could fry eggs on him.’ She sounded very subdued.

  Sombrely, Ben nodded. ‘It must be the fever that’s burning the flesh off him. If he doesn’t turn the corner soon …’ He wasn’t sure what would happen but it was with a feeling of dread that he led Alexia back downstairs.

  When the pizzas were bubbling and golden – one pepperoni and one Hawaiian – Ben cut them into slices and they sat at the table to munch, burning the roofs of their mouths on the molten cheese.

  Ben allowed himself to be distracted from his anxiety by Alexia’s tongue darting out to capture stray strings of cheese as she mmmed appreciatively and made her first slice vanish in short order. ‘By the way,’ she said, when the second slice had followed the first and she’d slowed her consumption rate from starving to merely famished. ‘I can work from here tomorrow and Friday so you needn’t bother haring back at lunchtime. I’ve got a big costing to do for Elton. He asked if I could rush it so I moved some other stuff around and put a premium of 20 per cent on what I’m charging him. Ha!’ She looked as triumphant as a woman could when wiping tomato from her chin.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said with real gratitude. ‘I’ll be here evenings and at the weekend so that’s all four doses of Gabe’s meds covered for four days.’ Surely by then he should be showing some improvement? ‘You’re a friend,’ he added.

  Her glance was so fleeting that he would have missed it if he’d blinked, but something flickered in her dark eyes and then was gone. She picked up another slice of pizza and became absorbed in the even distribution of its pineapple pieces.

  Awareness see-sawed through him. Did she dislike the label ‘friend’ after they’d been lovers? Shying away from such a grey area filled with landmines he told her about Lloyd picking up the phone at his parents’ house.

  She wiped her hands on a piece of kitchen roll. ‘Wow.’ If he’d thought she’d been having trouble meeting his eyes then apparently she was over it as her gaze was openly compassionate. ‘How do you feel?’

  He chose to interpret her question as ‘What are your conclusions?’ ‘My parents must really want me to let sleeping dogs lie. If Lloyd intends me to know something, then he wants Imogen to be the one to tell me. Or he doesn’t want Mum and Dad to hear.’

  She sat back, brows knitted. ‘It seems to me it would be much easier for him if you were simply never to know.’

  ‘True. But now he’s got me deeply curious.’ Ben picked up his phone, flat and black in his hands.

  She paused. ‘Are you going to make a call? I could leave.’

  ‘No.’ He sent her a smile. ‘I’m just going to poke a sleeping dog. Or two.’ He composed a text:

  Ben: Now the custodial part of the sentence is over, there’s nothing to prevent you from telling me the truth about what happened that night, is there?

  He sent it to Lloyd and to Imogen, then showed it to Alexia.

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘A text is easy to ignore. Wouldn’t a visit pay more dividends?’

  ‘I don’t think the text will do anything but make them slightly uncomfortable,’ he admitted. ‘But it will have to be enough for now because I can’t leave Gabe to go chasing off after their secrets.’

  She got up and reached the tea down from the cupboard, demonstrating an easy familiarity with where things were kept in Gabe’s kitchen. ‘I could spend the weekend here, if you want to go.’

  He stared at her back, slim and straight, the fit of her blue jumper following the indent of her waist. ‘Aren’t you full on with The Angel and supervising Carola?’

  A pause. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I don’t think so. But thanks.’

  In silence she completed the making of the drinks and returned to the table with a steaming mug in each hand and a smile that seemed to him more distant than before. ‘Actually, we ought to have a business meeting. I need a decision about the electrics.’

  Ben watched her not looking at him and a prickle ran up his spine. He’d learned enough about her by now to know that when she didn’t look at him it tended to relate to their night together or to Imogen, as though she wanted to keep him from reading her feelings. Which sort of suggested that her feelings about them were something to do with feelings for him. Unwanted feelings, he was pretty sure.

  He felt the same. He wanted to obey the pull between them, that frisson of awareness when they were together. But he also wanted to resist, put it in a compartment in his heart marked ‘too difficult’ or ‘if only things were different’ or ‘give me time’. So he resisted. He wasn’t going to risk his heart. He wasn’t available. Okay he was available, in that he wasn’t in another relationship. But not emotionally available.

  Alexia, as if to validate his choice, became particularly businesslike. ‘I don’t think you can justify the expense of putting in fifty-amp cables for commercial ovens unless you’re committed to letting it out as a commercial kitchen.’

  ‘I agree. But I took on board what you said before about the possibilities
of letting, so I think it should have its own circuit. If that’s more expensive then at least it’s justified.’

  Nodding, she made an entry on the Notes app of her phone. ‘The screed’s gone down so we’ll be able to walk on it just in time for the plumber and electrician to get into the Public and the Bar Parlour. It’s good that the consumer units were going in the foyer anyway and weren’t affected by the floor. OK for me to move the plasterers in upstairs now?’

  ‘Shit.’ He scrubbed his face with one hand, tired by the number of balls he had to juggle. ‘I haven’t finished knocking the plaster off the last wall Freddie marked up.’

  ‘Then they’ll have to do it.’

  ‘No, it won’t take more than half a day. Let me do it this weekend. By the way,’ he added, to try and lighten the atmosphere, ‘I had a look at those boxes of tiles we unloaded. Did you mean to buy several different colours?’

  Her eyes crinkled as she tapped another note into her phone. ‘If you buy from end-of-range tile warehouses you have to be adaptable. They’ll be laid randomly. Ivory, cream, brown, and a beautiful sea green to match the chairs. Our look will be eclectic.’ She put down her phone and stretched, easing her back.

  Ben tried not to look. Then he absolutely looked because he was a man and that’s what men did. And he was cautious about women, not blind to the amazing shape of this one.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she said. ‘If I’m going to work here tomorrow then I need to get my stuff together tonight.’

  He rose too. ‘Is that the business meeting over? I’ll come out with you and check on Barney. He’s old enough to stay outside but I get antsy about him.’

  She brightened. ‘Then I can say hello to him before I go.’

  They zipped themselves into their coats and Alexia wound her jaunty green scarf around her neck while Ben got the torch to illuminate the area between the house and outbuildings before they headed out and crossed the yard to the temporary owl house. With the torchlight wavering it was hard to see Barney for the shadows cast by the branches Ben had wedged at various heights between the walls of mesh.