Let It Snow

by Sue Moorcroft

  ‘Is she OK?’ he asked, concerned about the quiet, gentle woman who’d been trying her hardest to get to the end of her pregnancy successfully.

  A pause. ‘Nobody’s told me yet. Fingers crossed.’ Then she asked again about Hayley and he told her the facts, being circumspect about making it clear how hard he was finding things just in case Hayley happened to shuffle past the door and hear.

  Lily sighed. ‘What a difficult time for you both. I’d better let you get back to her.’ Then she hesitated and added in a quiet, flat voice, ‘Bye, Isaac. Look after yourself as well as Hayley.’

  He stared at the dead phone in his hand with absolutely no idea of what to make of the Lily he’d just spoken to. Gone had been every vestige of her usual vivacity and drive. She’d sounded dreary. Deeply unhappy.

  Could she be furious with him for abandoning her in favour of Hayley? If so, why had she been his travel agent, minder and cheerleader in getting him on a flight last night when he’d gone into a flat spin?

  It didn’t make sense.

  He wasn’t going to be fobbed off like that.

  He called her back.

  But she didn’t pick up.

  Chapter Twenty

  Maybe Zinnia had been right. Lily should have told Tubb who she was as soon as she’d located him.

  But … if she had, he would have never let her work with him and get to know him. Love him like a brother. At least the way she’d done things she had the couple of years they’d worked together, built a relationship. It was something.

  Up early, Lily found it incredibly lonely to be alone with Doggo in the annexe, Franciszka presumably staying with Neil. She took her canine companion for a tramp up out of town where traffic had kept the road clear and she could walk at the edge. The morning light cast lilac shadows on the six-inch blanket of blinding white lying over the hills and gullies. Doggo plunged around as if starring in his own snow globe. No snow was falling but the sky was heavy with more and the tops of the surrounding peaks had vanished into the clouds.

  She gazed around her, at the beauty that was Switzerland, the place she’d worked so hard to see. The majestic, beautiful peaks, the acres of snow glistening in the morning light. Drearily, she replayed the events of Friday and Saturday evenings. Isaac leaving. Garrick greeting her real identity with horror. Tubb furious and betrayed.

  Neither of her brothers had contacted her.

  Today had been designed as a relaxation day at the end of the trip but now it yawned ahead of her and all she wanted to do was go home. Problems awaited her there too, with her parents’ relationship struggling and her own relationship with Zinnia to be restored, but despite that she felt a massive pull towards them, to their hugs, their warmth.

  Not caring that it wasn’t yet eight a.m. she called Carola and told her what had happened with Ona last night.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Carola gasped. ‘I hope everything’s OK with the baby.’

  ‘So do I,’ agreed Lily. ‘Max is the link that brought us all to Switzerland so I hate to think of anything bad happening to his family.’ She paused before adding tentatively, ‘Thing is, I don’t want to be in their way and now it’s down to me to drive I’m looking at the weather forecast and it’s due to begin snowing again at lunchtime. Heavily.’

  Carola made a considering noise. ‘I can imagine that’s a worry. I’m really sorry all the driving has fallen on you.’ After a hesitation, she sighed. ‘Actually, we had a drama of our own yesterday evening. Duncan, my ex, has been calling the girls so much recently that they’ve remarked on it. We got a call last night to say he and his girlfriend are splitting up.’

  Lily thought how that would seem to two teenaged girls. ‘So they feel as if he chucked everything away for no good reason?’

  Carola gave a short laugh. ‘They haven’t said that but … He says he’s really, really missing them and the girlfriend was always difficult about it or he would have seen them more …’ Carola’s voice shook. ‘He destroyed our family for a woman who doesn’t like him seeing his own children. He was always aloof, always working too much, but now he’s feeling sorry for himself and says he wants to move back to live nearer the girls.’

  ‘That’s certainly a change of heart.’ Lily hadn’t met Duncan very often as the girls usually visited him in London but she’d heard plenty from Carola over the past couple of years. Duncan had been pretty callous in the way he’d left his family when he’d fallen for somebody else three years ago.

  ‘There’s more to it,’ sniffed Carola. ‘Apparently his contract in London isn’t being renewed, which is a huge shock. Most of his money went into joint accounts with his girlfriend and “until we’re sorted out” she’s whisked it away into accounts in her name alone.’

  ‘Can she even do that?’ demanded Lily, scandalised.

  ‘Well, she’s done it, apparently. Act first, argue through solicitors later seems to be her strategy. Duncan had already moved out to stay with some colleague in Havering when she did it so he’s in a bit of a spot.’

  As Carola paused, Lily asked cautiously, ‘You’re not going to let him move back in?’

  ‘No I’m bloody not!’ Carola all but yelped. ‘The girls would begin to hope it was permanent – which it would not be – and it would make things very difficult with Owen. The situation’s made the girls very restless though. Despite the fact he didn’t exactly put their happiness first, Duncan’s their dad and now that he’s upset they want to see him.’

  It was the perfect opportunity for Lily to say what had been spinning dismally in her head. ‘How do you think the others would take to us starting home today? Bearing the heavy snow in mind too?’ she queried experimentally.

  ‘My vote would be yes,’ Carola said promptly. ‘And Emily’s still moping about Warwick so I think she wants the trip to be over. Let me ring round and ask everyone. I’ll come back to you as soon as, OK?’ And Carola was gone.

  Lily turned Doggo round and strode back down the hill towards Schützenberg, feeling more settled. She’d start to pack. She’d have to pack Isaac’s stuff too. Presumably Doggo’s documents would be there somewhere. She hadn’t given Isaac a chance to coach her through the doggy passport control process last night because a storm of tears had been building in her chest as she talked to him, not wanting to tell him about what had happened with her brothers when he had so much to deal with already. But, oh, she felt so bruised and so sad that she’d barely been able to keep it together to say goodbye.

  After ending the call she’d cried and cried, venting her pain at being so thoroughly rejected by Tubb and Garrick and the disappointment of Isaac’s absence. Listening to him outline the situation he’d found himself in, the severity of Hayley’s incapacity and the fragility of her emotions, she’d realised with a slowly sinking heart that he was in it for more than a couple of days with Hayley.

  She didn’t know what else she’d expected but somehow the reality that he was living with his ex-girlfriend in their own home had hit her like a freezing cold wave.

  Would he ever return to The Three Fishes? He’d talked about Hayley needing somebody with her ‘for the next few weeks’ so he wouldn’t be able to abandon her while he worked. Tubb might replace him or limp along with Tina at the helm until the pub was sold.

  Her stomach turned on a fresh thought. Even if Isaac found a way to return, would Tubb want Lily working at The Three Fishes now? She was living proof of his dad’s mistakes and, judging by his reaction when she’d finally fronted up to him, not a welcome addition to his family.

  Events were conspiring to keep her and Isaac apart. The precious slice of time they’d awarded themselves to be together before he went on to a new life was being used up.

  He’d tried to ring her back several times but she hadn’t answered. She’d been crying too hard, hurting too much.

  It was a less buoyant minibus load of Middletones that set off home a couple of hours later, Carola having been online to change their bookings at the hotel and on le S
huttle. Neil and Franciszka took the front seat so Neil could work the gear stick for Lily if her hand hurt too much.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure you’re OK to drive like this?’ he demanded, his kind eyes concerned behind the lenses of his glasses.

  Lily gave him a beaming and totally contrived smile. ‘I wouldn’t do it, otherwise.’ She was in no doubt that the traffic police would be completely unimpressed with the system but how would they ever know? She was desperate to get away. Nobody seemed to mind leaving early and, as if to back up their decision, the snow came two hours before forecast, tumbling into the windscreen as Lily drove.

  They stopped less often than on the outward leg as Lily wanted to make the hotel by evening despite their late start. Her hand began thumping almost as soon as she began driving but she gritted her teeth, took paracetamol and ibuprofen – codeine not being an option if she wanted to stay awake – and accepted Neil’s help with the gear lever when she needed it. She breathed a sigh of relief when she was on a motorway and had only to steer.

  Isaac phoned. As Lily hadn’t thought to pair her phone with the Bluetooth system Neil answered for her, beginning with, ‘Lily’s driving,’ and gathering the information in return that things had not changed at Isaac’s end.

  When they stopped for lunch, just over the Swiss-French border, the snow had stopped falling and there was little on the ground. Neil put the minibus into reverse gear for Lily, and Franciszka hopped out of the minibus to guide her as she parked.

  As they crossed the car park towards the service station Carola asked, ‘Has anyone had news about Ona and the baby?’

  Lily had been wondering about them but she hadn’t contacted Tubb, Garrick or any members of their family since the horrible scene yesterday, not knowing if they’d want to hear from her. The same went for Janice’s family. She tucked her throbbing hand into the pocket of her parka as she saw a neat way out. ‘I’ve texted official thanks to Los from the Middletones to BCF but maybe you could thank Max for everything he’s done, ask about Ona and the baby and explain that we decided to leave early.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Carola took out her phone.

  They were lumbering back out onto the motorway half an hour later, having filled up themselves with brioches and cakes and the minibus with diesel, when Carola received a reply. ‘Whoopee! Ona had another little boy by C-section late last night. They’ve called him Ainsley. He’s gone into neonatal care because he was three weeks early but he and Ona will both be fine.’

  Unexpectedly, although little Ainsley was not a blood relation, Lily felt her eyes fill with tears and had to dash them away to see the traffic. ‘Give them my love and best wishes,’ she called to Carola when she could speak. Then she settled down to covering the next couple of hundred miles.

  By the time they reached the hotel, the same they’d used before, her hand was slightly swollen. She bumbled her way through check-in and joined the others for a meal, eating a big plate of chips, not because she needed them but because it seemed as if she deserved a treat. Then she pleaded tiredness, which wasn’t dishonest because she’d slept badly last night and driven for much of the day, and took dear Doggo out for a long walk to make it up to him that he’d been shut in his cave again.

  They walked on the verge next to a main road because Lily didn’t fancy the dark areas she’d walked along before, when Isaac had been with her. Doggo seemed quite at ease, his thin tail waving in time with his stride, his nose to the ground.

  Back in her room she showered, then soaked her hand in freezing cold water for fifteen minutes in an effort to stop it ballooning. She’d put the TV on a music channel and her heart clenched when Jennifer Paige’s ‘Just a Little Crush’ came on, her eyes filling with tears that seemed all too near the surface at the moment. When she sniffed, Doggo came to lay his chin comfortingly on her thigh, gazing at her with melting dark eyes.

  ‘I’ll see him again,’ she told Doggo dolefully. ‘I’ve got you.’

  Doggo’s tail thumped.

  ‘It’s all right for you to look so pleased,’ she told him drearily. ‘But I have no idea how you deal with a guy you had one fantastic night with before he took on looking after his seriously ill ex. Do you know your two humans are together at the moment?’

  Doggo’s ears pricked sharply, as if this were unexpected but welcome news.

  ‘This could be nice for you. Your family’s a family again.’ Lily stroked his silken head. ‘Whereas my families … well, my very existence seems to cause problems.’

  From where she’d left it charging on the bedside, her phone began to ring and on the screen she read Isaac.

  Isaac paced around what he still thought of as the spare room, listening to the international ringing tone. It rang six times and then Lily picked up. Relief flooded through him. ‘Lily! Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ she said composedly. ‘Well …’ Then she gave him a long story about her confessing to Tubb and Garrick after all and it not going well.

  Isaac listened between making sympathetic comments, his heart going out to her as the story unravelled but feeling as if there was a lot more going on behind her carefully toneless delivery than she was giving away.

  ‘So I’m feeling a bit sad but I’ll get over it,’ she ended. Without giving him a chance to speak she rushed on. ‘I was just wondering when you’ll want Doggo back.’

  Evidently she was intending to control the conversation but Isaac was intent on bringing out what he wanted to. ‘You know I had no alternative but to run off the way I did, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she replied lightly. ‘But now we need to think about what happens once I get home. Do you want Doggo in Peterborough with you? I expect you do. Hayley will want to see him again too.’

  Her tone was chatty, as if they were back to being just work colleagues. He felt anger flick at him. Their incredible night together was less than forty-eight hours ago and she was talking to him as if it hadn’t happened. ‘I know I’m hardly in a position to advance our relationship right now—’

  ‘I understand,’ she said quickly.

  In his other ear he heard Hayley’s phone ring and her voice answering. In his throat the words ‘but things will change’ dried. He wasn’t sleeping with Hayley but, unavoidably, he had to be in the bathroom holding her drain bag – the ‘bag of goo’ as she called it – while she washed. She’d turn her back to him but she was naked and he was right there. It brought her close to tears but she’d had to accept his help. It was an intimacy that made it feel odd to make plans with Lily.

  ‘We could arrange to pass him over on Tuesday,’ Lily said now in his ear.

  ‘Doggo?’ he replied. ‘I have to take Hayley for her drain and dressing check but—’

  She broke in, still in that light, bright tone. ‘I expect you’re working things out as you go along. I’m happy to keep him for a few days. Why don’t you get in touch with me when you can have him back?’ The tiniest of pauses and then she rushed on, ‘Sorry, I’ve got a call waiting. Give Hayley my best wishes.’ Then she was gone.

  Isaac was pretty sure there had been no call waiting. Putting down his phone he went into the kitchen and made coffee. Hayley had finished her conversation and accepted the cup with a wan smile. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘OK if I go make another phone call?’ he asked. ‘Need anything first?’

  Hayley let her head rest on her fist. ‘I’m OK, thank you. I know I’m not at my lovely best because I really didn’t want or expect to rely on you, of all people. I’m sorry when I’m grouchy because I’m in pain or I’m embarrassed. I do appreciate what you’re doing.’

  He shrugged. ‘You couldn’t foresee what happened to Nicola and Vicky’s dad.’

  She went on, frowning, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Hopefully the drain under my arm comes out on Tuesday then the other one a week later. I should begin to pick up after that. Unfortunately, the consultant’s on holiday so I don’t get my results till the 23rd.’ The life went out of her ey
es again, perhaps as she realised today was only the 8th. ‘I need a lot of help until after Christmas I’m afraid. But maybe Nicola and Vicky will come back.’

  The wave of compassion that swept through Isaac at seeing this bright, self-sufficient woman having to cast around for help in her hour of need took him by surprise. ‘I’m here as long as you need me,’ he said, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to abandon her until she could manage alone. He cast around for something positive to say. ‘Do you think you’ll be OK to have Doggo around?’

  Her eyes lit up. ‘Oh, yes! He’ll have to learn not to stick his head in the bag of goo though.’

  Glad he’d put a smile back on her face Isaac continued. ‘Maybe, once you’re better, we could dog share? I’m more than happy to keep him but if you only gave him up because of the cancer—’

  ‘But aren’t you going abroad?’ she broke in, a puzzled frown puckering the bridge of her nose.

  For a moment, Isaac froze. He’d got so caught up with the Middletones trip – and, especially, with Lily – that his plans to work abroad had sunk to the bottom of his mental fish tank. ‘I suppose my plans are still fluid,’ he said. Then his phone began to ring and he saw Harrison Tubb on the screen. ‘Sorry, I need to take this.’

  ‘Sure.’ Hayley reached for the TV remote.

  In his room, Isaac closed his door as he said hello to his employer. ‘Glad to hear the baby arrived safely.’

  ‘Yes, he’s in an incubator for a day or two but he should be all right,’ Tubb replied. ‘Sorry to call on you when I know from the others why you left Switzerland early but I need to know whether you’re able to return to work on schedule.’

  Isaac blew out his cheeks. ‘Sorry. I should have been in touch with you already but I’m trying to see my way forward. I do have a lot to work around and I might not be able to do all my hours, but I’ve got half an idea. I need to talk to Hayley first, and probably her breast cancer nurse so can I call you back tomorrow? I’m not due back at work until the day after anyway.’