Lily struggled to put together a reply. ‘You’ve taken me by surprise,’ she admitted. ‘I just … well, I’m interested but …’ She licked her lips. ‘I’ll have to think hard about it in the current circumstances. I’m not going to waste your company’s money by coming out to talk to Los unless I can see a prospect of me being able to seriously consider it.’
Garrick instantly read between her lines. ‘Ah. You mean you’ll be interested if Harry gets over his snit?’ He sounded rueful. ‘He doesn’t get angry easily but when he does it takes a while for him to calm down. He’s only visiting Switzerland, so far as we know,’ Garrick added. ‘You’re more likely to trip over him in Middledip than in Schützenberg but I do think it’s a good idea to take your time thinking about it. Moving to another country and giving up your business are things you shouldn’t undertake lightly. Give me a call after Christmas.’
Garrick rang off, leaving Lily to stare out into the dark winter garden. At least being given a couple of weeks to consider Garrick’s shock, dream-job offer meant she didn’t have to completely call time on her and Isaac. Yet.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Although Isaac continued to serve drinks and food, make orders, check rotas and ensure the pub ran smoothly he felt so tired by the strain of acting as his ex-girlfriend’s carer that exhaustion would be an improvement.
Last night, unable to sleep, he’d lain in bed listening to the old building’s bones creaking as the wind tried to find a way under the roof tiles and he tried to make sense of his life. Though valiantly trying not to show her fear and to come to terms with the big change in her own life, Hayley had ended up between him and Lily as surely as if she’d spent months planning it.
She couldn’t know what she was doing. He’d said nothing and Lily certainly wasn’t acting as if two weeks ago they’d rolled around on each other as if hot, naked, sweaty sex was never going to be available to them again … as was proving to be the case.
When he’d tried to reconnect with Lily she’d reacted as if he was trying to cheat on Hayley. He’d scarcely made an attempt to persuade her otherwise because her wide, horrified gaze had warned him that doing so would have diminished him in her estimation.
Then she’d come into the pub a couple of evenings ago with Carola and the Middletones. They’d all seemed pleased to see him but despite spending most of every day together in Switzerland he’d felt distanced from them by more than the width of the bar. They were having fun; he was at work. It had felt almost inevitable when Hayley had wafted downstairs, drawn by their singing, to make what felt like another barrier between him and them. He hadn’t blamed her. Upstairs must feel like a prison. He’d rarely known her cry but now it was a daily purging judging by the number of times he saw red-rimmed eyes, weeping when he was elsewhere, as if to spare him having to react.
Almost as inevitable had been her seating herself quietly to listen and Lily and Carola joining her, drawing her into conversation. He remembered their sympathetic faces as Hayley gestured to her bag of goo, lifting her arm slightly to demonstrate her limited movement. And he couldn’t even feel resentful of her because in a lull in the bar’s hubbub he’d overheard Hayley tell Lily and Carola that Isaac and his family had been amazing and she was ultra-aware that she was incredibly lucky in the circumstances.
That was the only time Lily’s polite smile had not reached her eyes.
Hayley was being brave, even when, today, Vicky had rung to say their dad was still in a bad way and now their mum was going downhill as if unable to bear the shock and had to have someone with her all the time. They couldn’t come back and take care of Hayley.
Isaac had been the one who’d wanted to tut and swear and slam things about. If upstairs felt like a prison to Hayley, it did to him too, even if now she was over two weeks post-op he could grab an hour or so to run along the footpaths to try and expend some of his pent-up energy, Doggo loping merrily at his side.
This morning he’d made curry in the slow cooker in the kitchen. At seven he’d take a break to eat it with Hayley. Feel sorry for her. Run back downstairs to work. Be treated with conspicuously distant courtesy by Lily, who he actually wanted to take upstairs and slowly undress – or rapidly undress. Either would calm his restless, edgy frustration.
When Lily arrived ten minutes before her shift began at six, he gave her his best smile but the one she sent him in reply was, as usual, polite. He watched her take off her coat and hang it up. A silver and turquoise charm on a black cord glistened in the opening of her regulation black polo shirt. It made the blue of her eyes so compelling he couldn’t look away.
‘OK?’ she asked him, pausing warily.
He knew she meant ‘What’s up with you, staring like that?’ but deliberately pretended that she was enquiring after his wellbeing. ‘Reasonably OK, in trying circumstances. You?’
Her gaze dropped. ‘Fine, thanks.’ She began to turn away but then swung back. ‘I can do the desserts for Christmas lunch now, if you want?’
He barely had time to say, ‘Thanks! That’s great—’ before she nodded and hurried off without giving him an opportunity to ask how or why her plans had changed. As it meant he could spend part of Christmas Day with her he was just pleased. He watched her behind as she swung off in the direction of the bar because there was no one to see him enjoy a lecherous moment and for two seconds it made him feel better.
It didn’t last.
A group of two women and three men came into the bar just after Isaac’s meal break and found a table near the door. He didn’t know them and none of the regulars said hello so he assumed they weren’t villagers. One of the men, tall and blond, took one look at Lily and assumed an expression of naked lust. He smoothed his hair as he approached the bar, gave her a smouldering smile and kept his voice low so she had to pay close attention to him in order to catch his words. In his thirties, he was good-looking and not wearing a ring. There was no reason he shouldn’t stare at Lily with open admiration, nor to pull up a bar stool and try and engage her in conversation but Isaac had to stop himself from marching over and telling him to piss off. He wanted to remove Lily, find her a job in the back so she wasn’t exposed to the customer’s smile, his admiring eyes, but he could only continue to do his job.
Lily treated the guy with the same pleasant but cool manner she was using on Isaac these days, which was some comfort.
At nine, Hayley wandered down into the bar. Isaac couldn’t blame her for getting thoroughly sick of her own company upstairs. Isaac hoped Hayley would at least sit near good-looking-and-ringless guy and distract him but she tucked herself at one end of the bar against the wall, talking to Lily when she came within range, sipping mango juice. Gabe was nearby too and nobody could resist his good nature and total lack of guile if he decided to talk to you. Then one of the guys from the garage, the quiet one, Jos, joined them, and Hayley seemed to relax in their company.
Isaac could hear her talking about her schedule, about the dreaded results she was due on Monday. How they would seal her fate regarding further treatment. Lily was listening, Isaac was pretty sure. He watched the slight turns of her head as she glanced Hayley’s way and then back at whatever drink she was getting.
‘Getting results on the 23rd of December might at least mean a happy Christmas,’ Gabe observed, pushing back his long silver ponytail. ‘Fingers crossed for you.’ Nobody mentioned that bad results on the 23rd would mean a very unhappy Christmas indeed.
Lily finished up with her customer and went out to the dining area to clear tables.
The good-looking guy turned to watch her move across the room. Isaac crossed to his area of the bar. ‘Are you waiting to be served?’
The guy hardly spared Isaac a glance. ‘No thanks, mate.’
Isaac noticed the man’s four companions grinning. They didn’t seem to mind him sitting alone at the bar. Maybe it was all a bit of a game for them to watch him make his move.
Sure enough, as Lily threaded her way through the
customers with a stack of plates on one hand and three pint pots in the other the man slid from his stool and stepped into her path.
She paused with a look of polite enquiry.
He said something in a low voice, smiling in a way Isaac found nauseating.
Lily smiled back neutrally. ‘Thank you, but I can’t.’
Sidestepping him, she whizzed around the bar and vanished in the direction of the kitchen. When she made the return trip the smile the man turned on her was more knowing. ‘Can’t? Or won’t?’
‘Won’t,’ Lily said briefly and headed for a table waiting to be cleared.
The man’s companions’ grins widened. Obviously they enjoyed watching him strike out. He turned back to the bar and waggled his empty glass at Isaac. ‘Is she involved with someone?’ he asked at Isaac’s approach, indicating Lily with his head.
Isaac, feeling immeasurably cheered by Lily’s chilly reaction, took the glass and placed it beneath the lager pump. ‘Got some idiot mooning after her,’ he said, which he knew to be the utter truth, and let the guy take that as he would.
Later – it felt like much later – Isaac sent Lily home and mechanically performed his final duties: locking up, cashing out, checking the CCTV was on. Wearily, he climbed the stairs. On the landing he hesitated, seeing a light in the kitchen and wondering if Hayley needed anything from him before he crashed down onto his bed and tried to sleep. Two weeks and four days post-op she was managing dressing better but still needed someone to hold things and steady her when she washed. Her dressing was off her reconstructed breast now and she tried to keep it with its thin, red, diagonal scar and missing nipple, out of his line of sight. If she could only get that last drain out then she wouldn’t need him in the bathroom at all.
Then she was there in the kitchen doorway wearing black pyjamas, a steaming mug in her hand. She’d bought the PJs especially for her post-op period, button fronts to make it easy to thread herself in and out of along with elasticated front-opening bras she called ‘over the shoulder boulder holders’.
‘Need anything?’ he asked.
‘I’m good, thanks.’ She hesitated. ‘Isaac … tell me to butt out if I’m overstepping but I’m getting that feeling again about you and Lily. If you’re not watching her when her back’s turned then she’s watching you. She enters the room and I can hear your heart beat.’
His heart lifted a notch to hear Lily was watching him but how was he going to handle this? Hayley was so vulnerable now.
Perhaps reading something of his thoughts in his hesitation, she flushed. ‘I’m not asking out of some misplaced feeling of ownership of you. I was just thinking … I must be in the way?’
Her voice held a forlorn note that touched his heart. Bad enough she had cancer that required invasive surgery, worse the only person able to look after her was her ex-boyfriend, now she was feeling in the way as well. With a smile he took her hands and tried to frame the truth in a palatable way. ‘The most important thing here is that you get well. This situation won’t continue and I think we’re both doing an OK job of making the best of it. Lily and I, yeah, we did start something in Switzerland but we’ve hit pause. Don’t worry about it.’
Hayley blinked hard. ‘But I am spoiling whatever you started.’
He tried hard with the diplomacy. ‘If it doesn’t survive then it wasn’t meant to.’
She frowned. ‘You could go to her house for a couple of hours here and there. Or tell me when she’s coming here and I’ll make sure to give you space.’
Gently, Isaac shook his head. ‘This isn’t something you can control, Hayley. Lily, she has her own rule book and it’s not up to you to rewrite it.’
Miserably, she flushed. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Just concentrate on getting well.’
Nodding, she freed her hands. As she turned to head back to the kitchen she murmured bleakly, ‘I’m sorry.’ Tears were thick in her voice.
Reluctantly, Isaac went after her, searching for something to say that might soothe her feelings. ‘I wouldn’t normally discuss this with you before I have the vital conversation with her but I have plans, and those plans include Lily. I’m not giving up on my career change but I’m going to rejig things – do my training in this country and have Middledip as my base, at least until I see where it’s going with Lily. I have plans to talk to her on Christmas Day, after lunch – only four days away. I have a special present for her. It arrived today.’ The moment he’d chosen to execute the plan was about wanting to know Hayley’s results and how much support she’d need rather than about the special present, but Hayley didn’t have to know that.
She managed a smile. ‘Really?’ She stared at him through her tears as if deciding whether he was telling her the whole truth before adding, ‘Go home with Lily after Christmas lunch. I’ll be fine for the rest of the day.’ Her smile slipped a notch. ‘Hopefully by then we’ll know my results are OK. If my treatment means more surgery or something then I’ll have time to regroup before it actually happens, to make proper plans for my own care. Nic and Vicky will be back or I’ll have enough notice to be able to book nursing care.’ She put up a hand to stem his reply. ‘Isaac, I’m not having any more negative effects on your life.’ With a nod, she slipped inside her room and closed the door.
Right. That felt almost like light at the end of the tunnel, Isaac thought as he let himself into his room, loosening his tie and kicking off his shoes. He turned his attention to the parcel waiting for him on his bed. He’d taken it from a delivery lady this afternoon and popped it up here, knowing what it was. Lily’s Christmas present.
Carefully, he slit the tape on the box and checked the contents.
He fully intended to use every trick he had to bring him and Lily together again.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Working alongside Isaac left Lily feeling stretched and thin. So near. So far. So touchable. So not.
If she’d been thinking of weakening over the memory of Isaac’s kisses, Hayley’s cautious movements and anxious expression on Friday evening had strengthened her resolve. Imagine if they were together and Hayley shouted for Isaac? Or rang him? Lily’s tummy curled at the thought.
At least the Sunday lunch planned as ‘early Christmas’ with Roma, Patsie, Zinnia and George gave Lily something to focus on, even if it was also a reminder that none of her family members would be around on Christmas Day. In addition to the chocolate, glass, scarves and wooden ornaments she’d purchased in Schützenberg Christmas market, for Zinnia and George she’d bought a voucher for a nice restaurant in Peterborough – reasoning that they’d already be saving up for baby stuff – and a squashy rabbit in a Santa hat for the baby. Wrapping that up seemed unreal. Zinnia a mother? Wow.
For Roma she’d selected a book of Escher’s drawings and a garden centre voucher. For Patsie, tickets to a symphony orchestra concert, hoping it would be Roma she’d take with her.
She slipped into a favourite skater dress in amethyst purple, plaited the top of her hair and left the rest loose, slipped into sassy ankle boots and drove to the appointed pub between Bettsbrough and Peterborough.
Roma and Patsie were there already, sitting across from one another at a table by the fire. Roma’s curly mop was wilder than usual; Patsie’s dark chignon was sensible. Roma’s maroon tunic over leggings was made of satin and lace in crazy panels; Patsie looked as if she were going into court and had picked the plainest dark dress John Lewis had ever sold. Lily felt like demanding, ‘How many navy dresses do you need? Red looks really great with dark hair, you know! Or treat yourself to stripes or checks.’ But didn’t. If Roma had dressed as if to make people think she was absolutely fine and Patsie had chosen something that made her invisible, there was no upside to Lily commenting.
Once Zinnia and George arrived swinging a black bin bag of presents the atmosphere lifted a notch. Everybody chatted and joked as they read the menu and decided on wine.
Lily enjoyed being with her family but fe
lt ultra-aware of Roma and Patsie not touching and Zinnia and George constantly mentioning the baby. It was such a contrast: one negative and one positive. Maybe others felt the same because they all focused like mad on Zinnia’s pregnancy, evincing interest in every detail of morning sickness, maternity leave, medical appointments and scan dates.
Roma and Patsie gave the baby an envelope filled with cash for the furnishing of the nursery – what used to be the spare room/gym/study/dumping ground – and a Christmas card that promised the baby ‘all the love we can give you’, which brought tears to Zinnia’s eyes.
‘Lucky baby, if he or she gets the amount of love we were showered with,’ Lily said huskily, which made everyone else tear up too.
‘We’ve been very lazy,’ Roma smiled when she’d wiped her eyes, passing envelopes to Zinnia, George and Lily too. ‘You’ve all got cash.’
‘Always welcome,’ said Lily, thinking of her dwindling bank account.
Zinnia and George, having had to pay their excess on the fire insurance, had bought all their gifts from charity shops. Roma’s was a rainbow velvet jacket, Patsie’s an eclectic collection of decades-old books of poetry by people like Charles Hamilton Sorley and Laurence Binyon, and Lily’s a ski jacket the colour of lapis lazuli which still had its tags. ‘That’s gorgeous!’ breathed Lily, putting it on immediately.
‘I knew it would bring out the blue of your eyes,’ Zinnia said with great satisfaction.
The lunch, as really lovely family lunches seemed to, lasted so long that it slid well into the afternoon. Finally, Lily checked the time and announced, ‘I need to get home and changed for work. Have a wonderful Christmas, everyone.’ Emotion squeezed her throat shut at the thought of Roma and Patsie going off on their own and she gave them each a big, silent hug.
Let It Snow Page 28
