by Rhoda Baxter
“Bitch.”
He didn’t seem to hear. “That made me angry, you know. If she was so unhappy, she could have said something. She didn’t have to go see some other guy behind my back. The next day, I went to work and... got through the day somehow... and thought fuck it. I’ll go anyway. So... ” He carefully closed the sketchbook. “Here I am. Quite pathetic now I say it out loud.”
Tracey leaned across and put a hand on his arm. “That’s terrible. Mind you, it sounds like you had a lucky escape from her.”
He looked at her hand. She removed it, feeling awkward.
“Nah,” he said. “I’m glad I came. This place ... ” He made a gesture that encompassed the house. “This place and the dreadful internet connection and pathetic phone signal... it meant that I had to slow down. I’ve been forced to relax.” He smiled, properly. “It’s been really good for me. I’m actually feeling a lot better than I have done in a long time.”
“Oh, I’m glad,” she said. “Trewton tends to have that effect on people.”
“It’s such a weird place. It’s like it’s stuck in the set of Last of the Summer Wine.”
“That’s in Lancashire,” she said. “But I know what you mean. It’s the whole 1950s vibe.”
“Yeah. Even the shops. I mean the village shop and the bakery is fairly standard, but the craft shop. I half expected it to have disappeared by the morning.”
Tracey giggled. “I know exactly what you mean. It does feel like of those shops. The lady who runs it, Minnie, she’s totally bonkers. Wouldn’t surprise me if she was some sort of modern witch.”
He nodded. “Me either.” He put the sketch book on the table beside him. “What about you? How come you’re in sleepy Trewton Royd? You don’t look the type... if you don’t mind me saying.”
“Angie’s my aunt. I needed a break from... work. I used to spend all my summers here. It’s home from home, really. And you’re right. It’s not what I would have chosen, but it’s exactly what I needed.” She frowned. “What do you mean, I don’t seem the type? What type do I look like?”
He held up his hands, as though in surrender. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I’m not offended. Just curious.” She leaned forward. “What type do I look like?”
“You seemed... the sort of person who would play computer games?” He looked down, a little sheepish. “Sorry. That sounds terribly judgemental. I thought you seemed like the sort of person who was more comfortable indoors than out.”
“Huh.” She was, really, more comfortable indoors than out. But then again... “Well, you don’t look like an outdoorsy person either,” she pointed out.
“I’m not. Or rather, I’m not now.” He got out of his seat and leaned over the fire to put another log on. “I used to hike and stuff when I did Duke of Edinburgh... while I was still at school. I even did a bit of walking when I was at uni. I stopped once I had a job.” He shrugged, looking into the fire. “It’s one of those things, I guess.”
“And the drawing?”
“That stopped when I was at uni too...” He put his head to one side. “Actually, no. I took a couple of evening classes when I was first at work. But then I met Hayleigh and... life got in the way.” He puffed out his cheeks. “Wow. I really did let my relationship define me.” He flopped back into the sofa. “Enough about me. Tell me about you. What DO you do when you’re not hanging out in pubs in rural Yorkshire?”
“I’m a software engineer. I make... made... apps.”
“Anything I’d have heard of?”
“Nifty Gift It?”
“I’ve heard of that. Never tried it though. Sounds like it could be useful. What did you do with it? Did you write it?”
She nodded. He looked impressed. It was satisfying to see, especially in someone who had no real idea what it was. The trouble with being the tech genius was that everyone you met knew it. They were either trying to take you down... or happy to bolster your ego. No one ever said what they meant, did they?
“Do you like it? What you do, I mean?”
No one had asked her that. Not in the longest time. She’d started work on the app because it was unthinkable not to. The idea nagged away until she had to either get to it or go mad. Once she’d started, she couldn’t stop. Refining, testing, more refining. Trying out ideas that Giselle sourced from the customers. It all kept her busy. Did she like it? Oh, she did. Code was her language. When it worked it was... fantastic. Progasmic.
Now, she spent time teaching other people how to mess with her product. Jared’s guys were good. The best. He had hinted that they could use someone like her. Not working on Nifty Gift It — she was too close to that — but on some other project. It wouldn’t be the same. She missed her little app. It wasn’t hers anymore. She didn’t think she could bear to stand around watching it belong to someone else.
She looked at Vinnie and saw him watching her, eyebrows raised. When she still didn’t answer, he nodded.
“I take it the answer’s no,” he said.
“I like my work. It’s just... different now.”
“Work would be so much easier, if it didn’t involve people,” said Vinnie. “I think that all the time. Contracts — nice, easy things. Fun, even. But the clients...” He shook his head. “Of course, without clients there wouldn’t be any contracts, so we have to grin and bear it.”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
The wind screamed and a window rattled. Tracey looked at the fire and thought how lucky it was that Vinnie had been renting the cottage. If it had been empty. Or he had been out... ugh. It didn’t bear thinking about. It would have taken her hours to get back, slip sliding in the darkness that looked the same in all directions.
It could have all be awful, but it had turned out rather well, instead. She was warm now and comfortable. Vinnie was nice too. Easy to talk to. When was the last time she’d sat companionably on the sofa with a guy? Or with anyone. Even chats with Giselle had petered out. She missed having Giselle to talk to. Ever since the sale, things had been slowly eroding. The money was a pain too. She’d done sensible things — paid off her mortgage, cleared her other debts —she was her father’s daughter. But there was still far too much of it left. It sat there, like a rock in the background whenever she met new people. If she told them, she started wondering if they were only being friends with her because of it. If she didn’t tell them, it sat in her chest, a little chittering monster of a secret. She couldn’t get away from it.
“Vinnie,” she said. “If you had a million pounds, what would you do?”
He looked thoughtful. “A million pounds isn’t an awful not these days. I could spend that easily.”
“What on?”
“Well.” He stretched out his legs and settled back in his seat. “I’d pay off my mortgage, then my sister’s and my brother’s. That’d wipe out half of it. I’d put a decent chunk of it in a pension fund so that I could retire whenever I felt I’d had enough. That’s not going to leave more than a couple of hundred thousand... I’d probably see if I can do something useful with it like give it to a charity to do a specific thing. Or maybe set up a scholarship fund for gifted kids who needed help getting an education. Or a start-up fund or something like that.”
“You’d give it away? That’s nice of you.”
He gave a little half smile. He had, she noticed, a very nice smile. Warm. Sexy.
“My mum was brought up Buddhist and they have a saying... that some of your salary you should spend, some of it you should save and some of it you should give away... or something to that effect. Funny really. All that stuff you never really considered when you were growing up. It sort of seeps in somehow.”
“You’re Buddhist then?”
“Me? Oh no. Mum and Dad — she was brought up Buddhist, he was brought up Catholic. Neither of them particularly believed, so they decided we could choose when we grew up. We all chose not to. Although my sister had a brief flirtation with shamanism. That wasn’t so muc
h about religion as dope, I think.” His smiled widened when he mentioned his siblings. “She was a bit wild, my sister. I think she was trying to figure out who she was. She’s settled down a lot since.”
“Sounds like you’re close.” She had no siblings or cousins. Coupled with her own social awkwardness, it made for a lonely childhood. Being the clumsy kid with the bulbous glasses meant that she didn’t have many friends at boarding school. Her parents were well off, but not influential enough to get her any cache with any of the school cliques. Here, in the village, people had placed her: Angie’s niece, the lass from the pub. It was more neutral. She wasn’t close enough to anyone for them to judge her and they accepted because they liked Angie. It was probably why she loved it so. They made room for her and their community joined up seamlessly around her. “Must be nice having brothers and sisters.”
Vinnie shrugged. “I suppose,” he said. “We annoy the hell out of each other if we’re together for more than a few days, but I guess, deep down, we’re pretty fond of each other.” Another smile.
The wind beat against the window again. Vinnie went over and looked out. “It’s still coming down,” he said. “It’s a good eight inches already.”
She joined him at the window, peering out. If she pressed her face against the cold glass, she could make out the light from the streetlamp. Just. More telling was the layer of white that had collected on the sill. Vinnie was right. It was already several inches deep. She drew back and was suddenly aware of how close he was.
He was still leaning into the window, his hands cupped around his temples so that he could see out. He was close enough to touch. It wouldn’t have been an issue, if it wasn’t for the fact that she suddenly wanted to touch him. She wasn’t entirely sure why. Just because he was warm and human and standing there? Or was there more?
“If it carries on like this,” he said, still looking out. “You’ll have to stay here tonight. I can sleep on the sofa.” He pulled back and turned. “You can have the bed.”
Up close, she could see how long his eyelashes were. And the deep molten brown of his eyes. He was, she had to face it, attractive. She took a step backwards, away. Very attractive. But still pretty much a stranger. And she knew that she and attractive men were never a great combination. They made her nervous and being nervous made her clumsy.
“I’ll take the sofa,” she said. “You shouldn’t be turfed out of your bed just because I was stupid enough to get caught in the bad weather.”
“It’s a freak snow storm, not regular bad weather and I don’t mind, honestly.” He gave her that half smile again. “It’s nice to have company, to be honest. Stops me brooding.”
“Right. Well, if I need to stay here, I will take the sofa. I’m smaller. I’ll be more comfortable. Your long legs won’t fit on here.” Drat. Why did she have to mention legs? Now she wanted to check out how long his legs were. And she’d just drawn attention to how short her own were. Bugger.
Vinnie seemed to be grappling with some sort of internal dilemma. “Okay,” he said finally. “Fine. You have the sofa. There’s lots of spare blankets and lots of cushions and things.”
“It’ll stop snowing soon anyway and I’ll be off.”
“Yes. Good.” He stood by the side of the sofa for a minute, awkwardness stretched between them. “Um... shall we see what’s on telly?”
“Yes. Let's.” Something else to focus on. Good idea. She watched as he sat down again and pointed the remote control at the telly. He was a nice man, she decided. She’d met nice men before. She’d never been particularly attracted to one... not before.
She sighed. She was getting weird and man obsessed now. That’s what happened when she had nothing to focus on. Her mind went off and noticed unsuitable things about how attractive blokes were. Even if they were, strictly speaking, blokes she didn’t know well enough to be attracted to. She didn’t know anything about flirting, so she tended to go weird on them until they lost interest. Or worse, they kept buying her drinks until there were fumbling kisses, booze fuelled sex and awkward exits in the morning.
She glanced at Vinnie. He probably wouldn’t fall into the ‘take advantage of the weird girl’ camp. Which meant she’d have to stay away from him. Great. She’d have a crush on this poor man now, until she got over it. All she could do was hope he didn’t notice.
He flicked through the channels until it came to Midsomer Murders. “I like this program,” he said, half apologetically. “I haven’t watched it in ages. Do you mind?”
“Not at all. I think I might have seen this one already...” She knew who the murderer was. Midsomer Murders was one of the few things she watched — mainly because it was on at a time when she couldn’t work any longer and needed to watch something to get her brain to stop fizzing.
“Oh.” He reached for the remote control again.
She put her hand out to stop him. “Don’t worry. I can’t remember who did it.” Her fingers grazed his arm. They both looked at it. She snatched her hand back. He pointedly looked at the telly. Awkward. Awkward, awkward.
Tracey kept her eyes on the screen and eventually sank into the story. At the next ad break, she glanced over and saw that Vinnie had fallen asleep. He looked gorgeous in repose, with his long lashes and honey toned skin. His features were sharp and well defined. It was as though he’d been drawn with a Sharpie in a world of people drawn in soft pencil.
Quietly, she padded across to the window to check on the weather. Things had calmed down somewhat, but snow still drifted down lazily. It wasn’t as heavy as before, but it was still going. There was at least a foot of snow already and it would only get worse in the night. Who knows how deep it would be by morning. Staying overnight in the warm cottage, with the hot man, was tempting, but it could mean that they were snowed in. She looked over at Vinnie. He ate his breakfasts in the pub and tended to buy lunch from Pat’s Pantry. She was willing to bet he had no provisions in the cottage, save a few bits of bread and cheese. If they ended up snowed in here, they would starve.
“Vinnie?”
He woke up with a start. “Wha—?” He looked around. “Oh, sorry. Fell asleep.”
“Vinnie, how much food do you have in?”
He shrugged, rubbing his eyes. “A few bits and pieces. Nothing much. Why?”
“The wind’s died down, but the snow is still coming. I think it might be a good idea to head down to the pub before it gets so deep that we can’t get out the front door.”
“What?” He came over to stand beside her and look out the window. “Oh. Right.” He gave her a quick glance. “Are you sure?”
“It’ll be pretty horrible getting out there tonight, but it’ll probably be worse trying to wade through waist deep snow tomorrow. At least the wind’s gone and we can see where we’re going at the moment.”
“I don’t know. What if it gets worse again...”
“Either way, we can’t get stuck here. There’s nothing to eat.”
He stared at her for a moment, frowning, then sighed. “You’re right. Bugger it. I’ll have to get into my manky walking things and go out again. Bugger.”
“You should probably bring a change of clothes. If it gets really bad, you could be stuck in the pub for a while.”
He nodded. “Give me a minute.” He sighed again and disappeared upstairs.
While he was out, Tracey quickly changed back into her trousers. They were still damp, but they were warm and clammy, rather than cold and clammy. It wouldn’t last long once they got outside, but small mercies and all that.
When Vinnie returned, he brought her coat with him. They zipped themselves up and pulled on hats and gloves like polar explorers. Finally, Vinnie turned out the lights and opened the front door. A packed ridge of snow about a foot high greeted them. Tracey stepped over, placing her feet as far forward as she could, to minimise the snow coming in. It didn’t help. A small slide of snow ended up on the carpet. She trudged out. Her feet sank into the new snow.
All sound
s were muted by the blanket of white. Her footsteps sounded unnaturally loud as she crunched her way to the road. She could hear Vinnie crunching along behind her. When she reached the road, the steepness of it took her by surprise and she ended up falling backwards, arms out, on the snow. Vinnie helped her up.
“Are you sure this is the best idea?” he said.
She nodded. “I’ve seen it before. This valley is like a bowl, snow just piles into it. You can be snowed in for days.”
They started down the hill cautiously. It was slow going. The snow compacted underfoot, which made it easier to walk on, but the slope was so steep that they had to hold onto the wall to keep upright.
“I wish I had a toboggan,” Vinnie said. “We’d get down this hill in no time.”
Tracey laughed. She’d had that very thought. “Except, we wouldn’t be able to stop and we’d end up in the stream.”
“Yes, well, that is a risk.”
She slid and lost her balance. He grabbed hold of her, helped her upright, and let go. The next time she slipped, he took her arm and tucked it into the crook of his elbow. They relaxed into each other’s company, keeping each other upright as they walked. As the road evened out, they were even able to chat. Tracey told him about the harsh winters in Trewton and he told her about the classical beauty of winter in Oxfordshire.
Chapter 9
It took them ages to get to the village. The street was deserted, but there were signs that other people had walked through the snow. The prints all seemed to be going towards the pub, which glowed like a beacon in the darkness. Snow fell gently on them as they walked up the path.
Now that there were buildings to give her a bit more perspective, Tracey felt less disorientated. She didn’t try to remove her hand from the crook of Vinnie’s arm. He didn’t seem to notice.
The door to the pub opened to a blast of warmth and noise. Tracey and Vinnie staggered in, half blinded by the sudden light. When her eyes had adjusted, Tracey realised that most of the village had congregated there.
