The Snow Baby

by Chrissie Manby

‘Mr Shepherd,’ Kate joked. ‘That’s awfully impertinent. But you may tell the ladies I’m still auditioning. So far no-one has come up to my very exacting standards.’

  ‘Good girl,’ said Mr Shepherd. ‘You mustn’t settle.’

  ‘You’re quite right.’

  Though the chance would be a fine thing, thought Kate. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t have liked to have a boyfriend. But when would she find the time? The seniority of her position meant that even when she wasn’t officially working, Kate never really strayed far from the hotel. Though she worked in hospitality, she didn’t actually have what might be called a social life.

  Soon, Eugenie King was at the drinks table, having received the gossip from Mr Shepherd.

  ‘I can’t believe no-one’s snapped you up!’ she exclaimed. ‘How many years have we known you now? At least six. And still no handsome beau? Are you being too picky, Kate? What about the chef?’

  ‘Married,’ said Kate.

  ‘The head waiter?’

  ‘Gay.’

  ‘The manager?’

  ‘He’s married too.’

  Not that it had stopped Dave Baron from trying it on. Kate batted away the memory of an awful evening just a few weeks previously.

  ‘You should let me take care of it for you,’ said Eugenie, squeezing Kate’s hand. ‘I shall make it my New Year’s mission. There must be someone here amongst all these lovely young people who work at the hotel...’

  Kate could think of one person but she wasn’t about to tell Miss King for fear she would track him down and drag him right over. She kept his name a secret.

  ‘Thank you,’ was all she said. ‘You are very kind.’

  The champagne reception lasted for an hour before the guests were invited into the restaurant. Ordinarily, the restaurant would not have taken all eighty guests at once, but over Christmas the menus were changed from a la carte to set, which meant everyone would be eating the same thing at the same time, making the kitchen’s job that much easier. Extra waiting staff had been drafted in from local temp companies. As the guests were seated, they were already lining up in the kitchen, waiting to take in three plates a piece.

  Kate loved to watch the waiting staff working at a big gala event such as this. It was a real piece of theatre. In their smart black and white uniforms, they emerged from the swing doors of the kitchen like the corps de ballet taking the stage at the beginning of The Nutcracker. They all carried their plates in exactly the same way and set them down according to strict instructions, serving always from the left. Silver service, as it was known.

  The first course that evening was smoked salmon with a cream cheese and horseradish mousse. An easy crowd pleaser. Later that evening, Kate hoped she would have some herself in the kitchen. The free food was one of the best parts of her job. But for now she just watched as her guests tucked in, keeping a professional eye out for anyone who looked as though they needed something more – a dropped fork or another glass of wine. As soon as they so much as thought it, Kate would be on the case. Her attention to detail was what kept people coming back and back. A guest had once told her that being at The Stables for a couple of days was, or so he imagined, the closest thing to reverting to childhood. Every single desire the guests might have was so carefully anticipated and quickly fulfilled.

  The King Sisters were having a wonderful time already. Kate was glad to hear their laughter rise above the general hush as people tucked in. The room would get louder and louder as the evening progressed and more wine was consumed, of course. The sound of people enjoying themselves was music to Kate’s ears. It was as though their happiness could lift her heart too. At this time of year, Kate’s heart sometimes needed a bit of lifting.

  Chapter Four

  While the guests were tucking into their main courses – a choice of beef wellington or chicken chasseur – and everything seemed to be going smoothly, Kate took the opportunity for a little break. She’d been working non-stop since she came on shift at four o’clock. She needed a cup of tea. She also needed a breath of fresh air. It was terribly hot in the restaurant. Having made herself a mug of Earl Grey in the office she shared with Dave, Kate took her drink outside into the hotel grounds.

  It was a very cold evening and Kate immediately regretted not having picked up her coat on the way out. But she wouldn’t be outside long and if she went back in now, someone would doubtless collar her. Just a moment to herself, that was all she needed. She’d be all right in just her jacket. The warmth of the tea would keep her fingers from freezing at least.

  Though it had been bright and sunny all day, clouds had started to roll in after dark and the air that night had a promise of snow to it. Kate was glad the snow had held off for all her arrivals. If it snowed on Christmas Day, she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone getting stuck on the way to the hotel. Most of the full-time staff lived in. The kitchen and bar were well stocked. If the snow came that night, it would be a bonus rather than a nuisance, making the beautiful hotel look even more picturesque than usual, adding a sprinkling of fairy dust to everybody’s memories.

  Whenever she had a moment to stop and reflect, Kate was usually very grateful for her job at The Stables. How else might she have had the opportunity to live in such a lovely part of the country, getting to see the seasons change in such beautiful gardens, eating wonderful food fresh from the hotel’s Michelin-starred kitchen and meeting so many different people? It was a great job.

  The only fly in the ointment was Dave Baron.

  When Kate first joined the company, she’d done her best to get into Dave’s good books and he, in turn, seemed very kind, making great efforts to ensure that Kate settled in quickly and well. After that, there was a period when Dave pretty much left Kate to herself. He wasn’t bothered what she did, so long as she was happy to work whenever he wanted to go out with his golf buddies, which turned out to be often.

  But golf wasn’t Dave Baron’s only passion. Though he had been married to Elaine for almost twenty years, that didn’t stop him from indulging his desires. His affairs with junior staff members were an open secret, so frequent they had almost ceased to be gossip-worthy. They always ran the same course. Dave’s chosen girl, who was always a newbie, would find herself quickly promoted. She’d work all the same shifts as him but could rarely be found actually doing her job. And then she would suddenly disappear. If she were lucky, Dave would go to the effort of finding her a position at another hotel in the chain. That had recently happened with Jade, who joined the hotel staff as a chambermaid but quickly rose to head of housekeeping. Two months before Christmas, she had accepted a position at the hotel chain’s latest opening, in the Lake District. But the tears she shed at her leaving party were about more than leaving her colleagues, everyone knew. Dave did not attend.

  Kate was surprised when Dave turned his attentions to her. Surprised and horrified. After so many years as his assistant, Kate had come to believe that she was immune. Either Dave didn’t fancy her or he was clever enough to realize that shunting someone as senior as Kate off to another hotel would not be so easy as finding a new position for a junior receptionist.

  But it turned out Dave wasn’t that clever.

  It happened in the small hours of a Saturday morning. The hotel was short-staffed so Kate was doing the whole night shift, though she’d already been working since lunchtime. Dave was officially off-duty. He’d been out with his golfing friends, propping up the bar of the clubhouse until closing time. But he didn’t go home to his wife. Instead, he stumbled into the hotel at three in the morning and asked Kate if there were any spare rooms, where he could sleep off his binge. That wasn’t unusual. Kate found him a standard double at the top of the house. But half an hour after she’d sent him up there, he called down and asked her to bring up some aspirin. That was when he pounced.

  The memory of Dave trying to force his furry, smoky tongue into her mouth was still much too vivid for Kate. She shuddered to think about it. She had pushed him off and
fled back down to reception. When Dave emerged for breakfast, eight hours later, Kate was still on duty. She was waiting for Dave to take over, after all. He didn’t mention the incident or apologise for it. He affected the air of someone who had been so drunk he didn’t remember anything had happened at all. But Kate knew he did remember, because he had been vile to her during the past few weeks. And Kate didn’t dare raise the incident herself because The Stables wasn’t just her place of work, it was her home. If she lost her job, she would have to find somewhere new to live at the same time. As winter approached, it was not a prospect anyone would relish.

  Forgetting Dave for a moment, Kate carried her mug of tea to the edge of the car park to look out over the low-perimeter fence towards the Cotswold ridge. By day or night, it was a magnificent view.

  That Christmas Eve, the lights of the town down below seemed a little brighter than usual. Kate imagined the street-lamps complemented by the Christmas decorations. She knew there was one street in a town not far away where the residents competed to have the most extravagant display, covering their houses and gardens with thousands of coloured bulbs and inflatable snowmen. She’d read about it in the local paper. Kate fancied she could tell where it was by the intensity of the glow.

  Other people’s Christmases, thought Kate. So many houses. So many living rooms. So many Christmas trees. So many people she hadn’t met and would probably never meet, all of them preparing for the following day. So many excited children putting out mince pies and brandy for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph, just as Kate had once done herself. Except that Santa never had a chance to drink the brandy in Kate’s house. Once, her father had knocked back the double measure in the very best glass before Kate even went to bed.

  ‘Santa won’t mind,’ Kate’s father assured her. ‘If he drank the brandy left out for him in every house, he’d be too drunk to drive his sleigh.’

  Just as her father was often too drunk to drive his car. It didn’t always stop him.

  Kate shivered and not just from the cold.

  Then she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  Chapter Five

  Kate almost jumped out of her skin.

  ‘What the…! Oh, Gabriel, it’s you!’ she exclaimed.

  Gabriel was The Stables’ night guard. He had been working at the hotel for just six months and this was his first Christmas in the job. Gabriel was from Australia, staying in the UK on part of a world tour. Kate had grown quite friendly with him though she often reflected, with regret, that friendships in the hotel business were fleeting. People were always moving on. Having spent seven years at The Stables, Kate was considered a veteran. She was practically part of the furniture.

  ‘Gabriel, you scared me,’ she said, letting out a deep breath to steady her nerves.

  ‘Sorry, Kate, but we’ve got a problem,’ he told her.

  Kate looked at him quizzically.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Come this way.’

  He took her by the hand and gestured with a finger to his lips that she should follow him in silence. For a moment, Kate could only focus on the fact that he had taken her hand and the sudden contact was doing more than warm her fingers. Gabriel was not just kind and friendly. He was, Kate hardly dared admit to herself, also just her type with his broad smile and his floppy brown hair.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she whispered.

  ‘Ssssh,’ was all Gabriel would say.

  The Stables had once been exactly that: a riding school with ten resident horses. The same family owned the business for years, until the line dwindled right down to one horse-mad spinster, who died in her riding boots. After that, the house passed to a distant relative in South Africa who sold it, without ever visiting, to Overton Hotels – the international chain that operated The Stables now. The old house and most of the outbuildings had been turned into the hotel and spa, but there was still one old barn that had yet to be renovated. It was earmarked to be turned into a gym but for now it remained untouched and growing more derelict by the year as the hotel’s owners tried and failed to get planning permission to extend, excavate and otherwise alter the nature of the landscape. Apparently the barn had special significance. It predated all the other buildings by a century and the local council was keen to keep history intact, even as the barn itself crumbled a little more with each passing year.

  Kate liked the old barn. From time to time, as she walked by it on her way to the staff car park, she would take a peep inside. Far from being a dead building, it was always full of life. In the late spring, swallows made their nests beneath the eaves. Mice lived in the walls. One summer evening Kate had actually ventured in and stood for a while on the dirt floor, watching dust motes play in the light let in by the broken roof shingles, imagining what it must have been like when this barn was in use. Imagining what had gone on in there. Kate had recently read a novel in which the heroine lost her virginity in a bed of hay. It sounded quite romantic, but she thought that in reality it was probably quite uncomfortable and very smelly too. Hay and straw were terribly scratchy.

  ‘It’s like this,’ Gabriel whispered as they drew nearer. His mouth was so close to Kate’s ear that she struggled not to wriggle through ticklishness. ‘When I was doing my rounds, I thought I heard voices. And then I saw a light. There’s someone in there. Just a couple of people I think, from what I could see through a gap in the door. Should we call the police? Or should we deal with them ourselves? I reckon we could. Between us.’

  Kate hesitated. Two people? Could Gabriel be sure there weren’t more? Kate wasn’t so sure they were in such a good position to deal with the intruders without police back up. Kate was small. She was wearing the high heels that were part of her uniform. She had never been much of a fighter. And the way Gabriel had come to ask for her advice suggested that he wasn’t really sure he would come out terribly well in any physical encounter either.

  ‘Call the police?’ Gabriel asked again.

  ‘That’s probably best,’ said Kate. ‘Have you got your phone on you? I left mine in the office.’

  Gabriel fished in his pocket.

  It was almost certainly just some kids, drunk on the local cider. There was nothing in the barn worth stealing, but if they took it into their heads to burn the place down, that would be an altogether bigger problem. They must have lit a fire already. Kate could definitely smell wood-smoke as they drew closer. The last thing she needed was for the barn to go up when she had a hotel full of clients. It would almost certainly mean having to evacuate the lot of them. Some, like the King sisters, would see it as an adventure. Others, she wasn’t so sure. She could already imagine the Trip Advisor reviews.

  Gabriel got out his phone.

  ‘999?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, it isn’t really an emergency,’ said Kate. ‘Better dial the local station direct. They won’t take long to get here.’ In the meantime, she was very glad she had Gabriel alongside her.

  While Gabriel looked up the number for the local station on his phone, Kate finally got close enough to put her eye to a gap in the wooden planks that made up the wall of the barn.

  But the unwanted visitors were not what Kate was expecting. They weren’t teenagers from the nearby estate, using the barn as a place to hide from their parents while they downed illegal booze. It was the couple she had seen begging outside the bank that morning. Kate recognised them at once.

  She couldn’t help starting at the coincidence. She whispered, half to herself, ‘It’s them.’

  So she had been wrong about the beggars having a place to stay for the night after all. The couple sat in the middle of the barn, next to a small, spluttering fire. They were wrapped in the dirty blanket they had been draped in when she first saw them in town. The woman had her eyes closed, as she rested her head on her companion’s shoulder. He stroked her hair and seemed to be singing some sort of song. They looked very peaceful in the glow of the firelight and something about the obvious tenderness between them brought the sting
of tears to Kate’s eyes.

  ‘Who’s them?’ Gabriel asked.

  Kate blinked hard and stepped away from the gap to answer him. ‘A couple of rough sleepers I saw in town this afternoon. I don’t think this pair will be too much trouble, but we’ve got to get in there and put that fire out. Health and safety.’

  Gabriel agreed.

  ‘In the first instance, I think you and I should just go in there together and ask them to leave, nice and polite. Let’s not call the police just yet. In fact, if we can possibly avoid getting the police involved at all, I’d be grateful. You get one guest tweeting that they saw a police car turn up here in the middle of the night and it will set the rumour mill in motion. Are you ready?’

  Gabriel nodded.

  ‘OK.’ Kate straightened up her jacket, as if the neatness of her uniform would help give her authority, and headed for the barn’s entrance door. It was never usually locked but that night the door was barred. She gave it a shove. It would not budge. Gabriel could not get it to move either.

  ‘Hey!’ Kate hammered on the wood. ‘Open up.’

  She put her eye to another knothole and saw that the man was already sitting upright, disturbing the woman so that she woke up too.

  ‘Open up,’ Kate said again. ‘You’re trespassing. This is private property.’

  ‘Please, do as we ask,’ said Gabriel.

  At the sound of a man’s voice – an especially deep voice – the woman looked up at her partner with big, worried eyes.

  ‘If you open the door,’ said Kate. ‘Everything will be fine. We don’t want to get the police involved but you can’t stay here and you definitely can’t have a fire. Please,’ Kate continued. ‘We promise that if you leave quietly, we won’t take any further action. Just let us come in.’

  The man was already getting to his feet. He looked defeated, Kate thought. His shoulders were hunched and he was even thinner than she remembered. The woman remained by the fire, with the dirty blanket clutched tightly around her. Her eyes were full of fear.