A Winter's Wish

by Alice Ross

  ‘I should make you shave it off before I leave for Oz tomorrow,’ Rachel said, running her hands through it as they’d lain in bed during their last evening together.

  Phil’s stomach lurched. He wasn’t particularly vain, but well … his curls were part of him.

  ‘I’m only joking,’ she said, obviously sensing his distress. Then, she’d sat up, clutching the duvet to her chest. And the tears had begun. ‘It’s just that I’m scared you’ll forget about me, or find someone else while I’m away.’

  Phil balked inwardly. He really didn’t do the whole tears thing. ‘Don’t be daft,’ he replied dismissively. ‘Of course I won’t.’

  Rachel wrenched a tissue from the box on the bedside table. ‘I really wanted us to start our new life together. But now this job has come up, I’d be stupid to turn it down.’

  ‘It’s a brilliant job. You had to take it,’ he assured her. And it was. A fantastic job. After going straight into nursing from school, Rachel had gone on to train as a midwife. And Brisbane’s biggest hospital had offered her her dream job – as manager of the unit.

  She heaved a quivering sigh. ‘I know. But it just means things are happening much quicker than I’d planned. It could be months before you’re able to sort everything out here and join me.’

  ‘I’ll tie everything up as soon as I can.’

  As promptly as they’d started, the tears stopped. ‘So you’ll sell the pub to the brewery?’

  Phil’s heart stuttered. That hadn’t been what he’d meant at all. He’d had countless offers for the pub over the years but he wanted to sell it to someone like him. Someone who cared. Not some massive faceless corporation who’d rip out all the character to bring it in line with their “corporate branding”.

  ‘You know it makes sense,’ Rachel continued, the tearful scene obviously having finished as she began trailing kisses down his bare chest. ‘They’re offering you much more than anyone else would. And just think what we could do with all that dosh.’

  Phil sighed. Of course she was right. The ridiculous sum the brewery had tossed on the table would enable them to buy a house outright in Brisbane, and still leave a decent sum for him to set up some kind of business. That was one stipulation he definitely was sticking to. Other than his parents, he’d never worked for anyone else. Nor did he intend to.

  ‘Okay,’ he huffed, as Rachel’s kissing stopped just short of his groin. ‘I’ll sell to the brewery.’

  ‘Good move, baby,’ she cooed, her head disappearing under the duvet. At which point Phil forgot all about pubs and breweries, and anything that did not involve Rachel’s luscious lips.

  But that moment, as delectable as it had been, had been fleeting. As soon as the reality of what he’d promised had sunk in, Phil’s innards had been on a constant churning cycle. The rate of which had increased significantly following Rachel’s announcement last night.

  ‘I’ve found just the thing for you,’ her voice gushed across the ten thousand dividing miles. ‘A little pizza shop in the centre of town. They do wraps and everything.’

  Phil couldn’t have cared less if they sold deep-fried caviar on silver platters. He could picture it now: a gleaming white soulless space with red posters dotted about the walls advertising “a tempting range of toppings”. It was hardly likely to be at the heart of Brisbane society, unlike the Duck – the backbone of Buttersley.

  ‘I’ll send you the link and all the pictures I’ve taken,’ she enthused.

  ‘Great,’ muttered Phil, unable to inject so much as a smidgeon of enthusiasm into his tone. Rachel appeared not to notice.

  ‘I’m on nights for the next week, babe, so I’ll call when I can.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Phil on a sigh of relief. Thank God he had a bit of a reprieve. With her constantly in touch, he felt like he’d lost track of his own opinions.

  At least he had a bit of breathing space now.

  But space to do what, he had absolutely no idea.

  Chapter Four

  The first thing Amelia noticed when she awoke was her fuzzy head. The second was a strange sense of bewilderment. She couldn’t recall another Monday morning when she’d had nothing to do. In fact, she’d be hard pushed to think of any morning when she’d had nothing to do. Even on holiday she had a schedule: a swim before breakfast, a jog along the beach, a session in the gym. But this morning she had neither the energy nor the motivation to even slide out of bed. Perhaps she should just give into the urge and burrow under the duvet—

  ‘Thomas! Come out of there!’

  Amelia jack-knifed up as her bedroom door flew open and in bowled a miniature Darth Vader brandishing a flashing lightsaber. Pip, red tinsel around his collar, followed, leaping onto Amelia’s bed with a great sense of purpose.

  ‘Gosh, I’m so sorry,’ apologised Annie, scuttling in after them. She scooped up her son with one hand and dragged the dog off the bed with the other. ‘I’ve told them to be quiet and stay away from your room but—’

  ‘It’s all right. I was just about to get up,’ lied Amelia.

  ‘You honestly don’t have to,’ said Annie. ‘You should have a lie-in. I would if I could. I really shouldn’t have had that last glass of wine last night.’

  ‘Me neither.’ Amelia didn’t normally drink so much. In fact, she rarely drank at all. A couple of glasses of champagne at work functions was as much as she ever risked. You couldn’t run an actuarial department without a razor-sharp mind. But she wasn’t running an actuarial department now, was she? She wasn’t doing anything. For the first time in her life she was completely without purpose.

  ‘So, any plans?’ Jake had asked her in the pub.

  Amelia had toyed with a chunk of aubergine on her pasta salad as tears, once again, stung her eyes. ‘Er, no. Not at the moment,’ she’d managed to reply.

  ‘That’s not like you,’ Annie had pointed out. ‘You always have a plan – always striving towards your next career goal.’

  I don’t have a next career goal, Amelia had wanted to wail. Thankfully, though, the attention had shifted to Mr Russell – the owner of the newsagent’s, who’d scuttled over to tell them he’d be closing the shop for a few days over the holidays as he was going to visit his family down south. As soon as he’d tottered off Amelia, unable to face more interrogation about her own sorry situation, had steered the conversation onto the much less emotive subject of Annie’s new tearoom.

  ‘Breakfast’s ready if you’re coming down,’ Annie informed her, whisking the interlopers out of the room and closing the door behind her.

  Well, given she was now fully awake, Amelia concluded she might as well get up. Dragging herself out of bed, she padded over to the en suite and examined her reflection in the mirror. God! She looked terrible: skin the colour of putty, dark shadows beneath her bloodshot eyes, and not an ounce of her normally high-voltage energy. With a heavy sigh, she turned on the shower and whipped up a bottle of shampoo.

  Half an hour later, showered and dressed in black designer jeans and a grey cashmere jumper, she wandered down to the kitchen. Sophie sat at the table in a blue gingham dress and navy cardigan, her hair in two fat bunches, spreading what looked like an entire jar of strawberry jam onto a tiny piece of toast. Cereal boxes and soggy cereal remnants, as well as a smattering of crockery – some clean, some used – a rack of wholemeal toast, and a half-full cafetière covered the table.

  ‘Hello,’ said Amelia.

  Abandoning her toast-smearing for a moment, Sophie lifted her head and gazed at her aunt with huge green eyes. ‘Hello.’

  Amelia immediately felt awkward – on the back foot. For heaven’s sake, she chided herself, she regularly presented to groups of highly educated, intelligent people. How on earth could a seven-year-old make her feel so self-conscious?

  Resisting the urge to turn on her heel and shoot back upstairs and under the duvet, she pulled out the bench opposite her niece and plopped down onto it. She cleared her throat.

  ‘So. Are you,
er, going to school today?’

  Her earnest gaze still fixed on Amelia’s face, Sophie nodded.

  ‘Do you like school?’

  Sophie nodded.

  ‘Do you have lots of friends there?’

  Sophie nodded.

  ‘Right. Well, um, that’s nice.’ At a loss as to what else to say, Amelia reached for a slice of toast.

  ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ Sophie piped up.

  Amelia’s toast slipped from her fingers, landing on a couple of Coco Pops, which had seen better days.

  Before she could reply, Annie waltzed into the room, Darth Vader scuttling behind her.

  ‘Got to dash, I’m afraid,’ she said, whipping most of the detritus from the table. ‘It’s completely manic up at the manor at the moment. Portia’s rather gorgeous, and very generous, boyfriend, Jed, surprised her with a two-week holiday in the Caribbean, so while she’s sunning herself on a beach, the rest of us are running around like the proverbial blue-bottomed flies.’ She began bundling up the children in coats and scarves, then swiped up their accompanying baggage and headed for the front door.

  ‘If you want to take Pip for a walk, his lead and stuff is in the utility room,’ she called through from the hall. ‘Jake will be back at lunchtime. He’s up at the manor preparing for his next writing course. Come up later if you like. I can show you round the house, in all its newly refurbished glory. And you can sample our coffee and cake. I’ll leave a key on the table here for you.’

  And with that, off they went.

  No sooner had the door closed, than an eerie silence settled over the house, which suddenly seemed far too big. Unnerved by the dramatic change in atmosphere, Amelia spotted a radio on the kitchen bench. She wandered over and flicked it on. Stone Cold Sober by Paloma Faith floated out. With her back against the bench, gazing out into the frost-covered garden, she contemplated Sophie’s question.

  Did she have a boyfriend?

  Of course, for most people, the question would elicit a simple Yes or No. But not for Amelia. Her love life fell unreservedly into the “It’s Complicated” category. And yet again, there was no one to blame for that but herself …

  ‘Anyone sitting here?’ a gangly youth with dark floppy hair had asked on her first day at Cambridge. All the freshers had been summoned to a meeting on “Keeping Safe” in one of the lecture theatres.

  Amelia had shaken her head, far too taken aback by how devastatingly good-looking he was to add any words to the gesture.

  He plumped down on the bench alongside her. ‘I hate all this induction stuff, don’t you? Can’t wait to get it all over with and get down to some serious drinking. You coming to the meet ’n’ greet thing at the pub after this?’

  Amelia hadn’t intended going to the meet ’n’ greet thing. She’d been planning on scrutinising her reading list for what must have been the twenty-seventh time, making doubly sure she’d crammed in as much as she could before lectures started. But, gazing into those sparkling hazel eyes as he awaited her response, she found herself nodding.

  ‘Great,’ he said, delicious lips stretching into a grin. ‘I’m Doug, by the way.’

  ‘Amelia,’ croaked Amelia, simultaneously wondering how her throat was suddenly lined with sand, if she’d managed to get her name right, and why all previous thoughts of reading lists, colleges and induction lectures had suddenly left the building, replaced with an overwhelming urge to kiss that delectable mouth.

  For the next hour, while the speaker droned on about keeping away from the river if “one had partaken of alcohol”, and how bikes should be “secured at all times”, Amelia was aware of nothing more than Doug’s firm body squashed up against hers. She’d never had any interest in the opposite sex before – had been far too focused on achieving the grades for Cambridge to even think about having a boyfriend. But that hour sitting beside Doug proved an epiphany. Now she understood perfectly what all the girls at school had been clucking about. Because, for the first time in her life, something was happening to her that she couldn’t control. Something exciting that made her stomach flutter.

  Having dreamt up dozens of ridiculously romantic scenarios around the pub meet ’n’ greet, when she really should have been listening to the dangers of leaving your laptop unattended, the reality of the occasion unfortunately came nowhere near her naïve and unrealistic expectations. Firstly, because she’d never been out drinking before: crowded pubs and copious amounts of alcohol were an entirely new – and extremely overwhelming – experience for her. And secondly, because the moment Doug fought his way over to her, another figure appeared at her side.

  ‘Hi. I’m Imogen Forster-Brown,’ said the tall willowy girl, shaking back a sheath of platinum-blonde hair. She ran a cursory glance over Amelia before turning cool blue eyes to Doug. ‘My friends call me Immy.’

  Ten seconds in the girl’s presence was long enough for Amelia to know that she would never be calling her “Immy”. But for all Imogen continued her hair-flicking, gazing at Doug all the while with huge blue eyes, his hazel ones, much to Amelia’s astonished delight, seemed far more interested in her. He’d asked her out in the second week and Amelia had been so happy she’d thought her heart might burst. Over the ensuing months, they spent every spare moment together, and every day Amelia toppled further and further in love. Thanks to Doug, her first year at Cambridge became the best of her young life. Until she received her end-of-year exam results.

  ‘I’m afraid you’re really going to have to pull your socks up if you want to stay here,’ her tutor had warned.

  Amelia had fled that excruciating meeting and headed straight to her room, where she’d spent the next thirty minutes throwing up. Of course she’d known she hadn’t been working as hard as she could – realised she was spending time she should’ve been studying with Doug. But, erroneously it seemed, she’d thought she might, for once, be able to balance the two – have some semblance of a normal life rather than dedicating every minute of the day to her work. Obviously she’d been wrong.

  Doug, needless to say, had sailed through his exams, even achieving the highest grades in his year for his Economics studies. He was one of those enviable souls to whom academic prowess came easily. Unlike Amelia who had to slog for every one of her achievements. And slog she had – all the way through school to achieve this place at Cambridge. Just imagining the ignominy of being kicked off her course – of feeling a complete and utter failure – was enough to make her tremble from head to toe.

  And so, two days before they packed up for the summer break, she made a momentous decision. For the sake of her entire future, she had to finish with Doug. She hadn’t come this far, she’d reasoned, to have it all snatched away from her. And there wasn’t only her to think about. Her parents would be devastated, along with the committee who’d painstakingly selected her for the prestigious scholarship. Indeed, even if it wasn’t a condition of the award, Amelia would feel obliged to pay back the generous contribution.

  When she’d informed him of her decision, Doug had been gutted, pleading with her to change her mind but, despite falling apart inside, Amelia had stuck to her guns. And to avoid any temptation of jumping on a train and going to see him over the summer, she’d headed straight out to Goa where she’d spent the entire break with her parents. It had been the worst four months of her life, the ache in her chest and the hollow, sick sensation in her stomach increasing daily.

  Dragging herself back to Cambridge that autumn had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. The moment she’d spotted Doug as he walked around the quad, she knew she’d made a terrible mistake. Her entire body flooded with longing for him. She couldn’t believe how much she’d missed him, how much she ached to be in his arms again, how much she yearned to tell him she loved him. Because she did. Passionately. Absolutely. One hundred and ten per cent. Okay, so they’d have to restrict the time they spent together, and she wouldn’t come out with the first-class honours she’d always dreamed of, but so what? She’d settle
for second or third class if it meant keeping Doug in her life.

  She began to run after him, desperate to tell him all of this, when another figure appeared alongside him – one with a sheath of platinum-blonde hair. Imogen. Amelia came to a sudden halt as she watched them wind their arms around each other and exchange a passionate kiss. The hideous sensation that had suffused her, she could only describe as having a javelin pierce her heart.

  And, once she’d firmly established that Doug and Imogen were indeed a couple, that feeling stayed with her for the next two years. Employing every strategy she could not to bump into them, she moved out of college and into a flat, a bus ride away from the university, avoided anything of a social nature, and launched herself into her studies. At the end of that torturous time, her resultant double first, which she once would willingly have offered her right arm for, seemed pointless, but it had at least made her parents proud and the scholarship committee congratulate themselves on selecting such a model student.

  From Cambridge, she’d gone straight to Providential where, yet again, she’d thrown herself into her work. She’d had to. There’d been so much to take in that at times she’d thought her head might detonate. But, terrified of receiving another “you’ll have to pull your socks up” lecture, petrified of being found wanting and exposed as a fraud, she’d had to give it her all. Plus, completely absorbing herself in Statistical Methods meant less time to think about Doug, and absolutely no time to so much as contemplate another relationship, despite receiving numerous offers. Her heart had been well and truly shattered. And although the situation had been entirely of her own making, there was no way she would ever risk putting herself through that torture again.

  So Amelia dedicated her entire life to her career – a concept most men, thankfully, appeared to find a turn-off, and most women found intimidating. Over time, she grew to accept that state of affairs – became resigned to being alone. And that was the way she’d imagined things would continue, until ten months ago.