“No, no it’s okay…” began Pete.
“I insist. You wouldn’t deprive an old man in his final innings a chance to help, would you? I’m building up my celestial store!” Thomas winked at Jen again, ignoring her troubled expression.
Pete shrugged, but Mr Hillman went on. “It’s so sad about little Freya, they’ve been through enough, but I’ll help where I can, and if little Freya up there is watching, I’m sure she’ll be ready to greet me, especially if I give her little sister chocolate!”
There would be nothing gained from arguing the point with Mr Hillman, so Pete grabbed a Milky Way and placed it beside his bottle. Mr Hillman added coins to Pete’s ten pence pieces and Jen counted out the money. Mr Hillman refused the change putting it into the Lifeboat fund’s battered moneybox instead. “There you go,” he smiled, “and that’s another one stored up there.”
Pete caught Jen’s distressed look and shrugged at her, she shook her head, but smiled.
“Thanks Mr Hillman,” began Pete.
“Call me Thomas, please. Time is too short for pleasantries…”
Jen sighed deeply as Pete picked up his milk and bar of chocolate and nodded to them as he left the shop. “Thanks Thomas,” he called back.
Pete stowed away the milk and paused for a moment looking back into the store, where Mr Hillman paid for his purchases and Jen smiled as she pushed back her hair. Pete smiled and picked up his helmet and climbed onto the bike.
The door jangled and Mr Hillman came out. Pete was ready to put on his helmet, but the grin that lit up Mr Hillman’s face stopped him. Old Thomas placed his shopping bags by the window and rubbed his hands with glee at the sight of the bike. “Now there’s a beauty,” he said, “Haven’t seen one of these close up for quite a while, always whizzing down the road these things.”
From astride the motorcycle Pete smiled.
“And if young Jen sees me admiring this…she’s worrying enough for both of us.” He took a quick peek back at the store window and waved his hand dismissively. “I can look, can’t I?”
Pete got off the bike to stand by Thomas. “That you can,” he replied.
“It’s big, all that fairing,” said Thomas, “What’s the engine?”
“It’s a 1200. Did you ever have one?”
Thomas nodded. “But not like this, I’ve not been on a bike for thirty years, or more, but I did have one. A Triumph Bonneville 750, many years ago,” he said with pride. “And its exhaust gleamed as much as yours!”
“I haven’t got anything better to do with my spare time,” laughed Pete.
“No woman then?”
Pete laughed again. “No, no woman, yet…”
“Got to find yourself the right one then, one that won’t make you give this up!” He pointed at the bike.
“Not so easy though is it?”
“Oh, they are out there, my Joan didn’t like the look of mine ‘til I took her out on it!” Thomas chuckled. “Then there was no getting her off it!”
“Then I need a woman like your Joan,” said Pete.
“She said it’d be the death of me, and I’ve survived the bike by more than thirty years!”
“And counting,” said Pete.
Thomas looked wistful for a moment. “And counting,” he agreed. “Do you know, there’s nothing I’d like more than another go…”
Pete raised his eyebrows. “At what?”
“Bikes, motorbikes…” said Thomas.
“Don’t you dare,” came a voice from behind them.
They both turned like guilty children caught with their fingers in the biscuit tin. Jen stood, folded arms across her chest, in front of the shop door.
“Don’t you go filling his head with silly dreams,” she said staring pointedly at Pete. “And don’t you go filling your head with them either, Thomas, they’ll be the death of you.”
Thomas shook his head and waved his hand again. “It’s not these that’ll kill me, I can assure you of that,” he said firmly, “But don’t you worry, my dear, no one’s going to take me on the back of a motorcycle are they?” He cast a quick glance up at Pete, who smiled and climbed aboard his bike again. “Just let me hear you start it up then,” he said to Pete.
Pete obliged, and twisted the handlebar to offer a thick, guttural growl. Mr Hillman chuckled again. “Off you go then,” he said as Pete put on his helmet and gloves.
Pete backed up the bike and saluted Thomas and Jen, before charging off down the road.
Jen leaned down and picked up Mr Hillman’s bags. He took them with a twinkle in his eye. “Nice lad, that one, and Jen, my dear, it’s those silly dreams that keep us alive.”
The first snow fell in November, and Freya watched helplessly as her father stepped out into the cold night air, and moved through the softly laying snow to his wife.
“Come inside,” he whispered, his warm breath caressing her cold ear. He slipped off his jacket and placed it about her shoulders. “It’s late.”
She nodded and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. “It is it’s too late.”
He glanced at her face. She stared blankly then raised her face to the falling flakes. He wasn’t sure if her face was wet with tears or snow, but her eyes glistened and her nose was red.
“Rachel,” he whispered.
She sniffed, and bit her lip. “It’s too late,” she repeated quietly, “too late for Freya.”
“Rachel.” Joe moved in front of his wife and put his arms around her.
“She won’t see the snow, won’t build another snowman, won’t…” her voice cracked, “won’t…”
“Rachel…” Joe couldn’t speak.
“She’s gone, it’s her birthday next week. Eight, she’ll be eight.” Rachel looked into her husband’s eyes. “I went through the shops last week looking for birthday presents that she’ll never have. I even put some in the trolley, had to put them back.”
Joe met her eyes and tears blurred his own vision.
“Joe, I miss her, oh, I miss her so much!” Rachel grabbed hold of her husband and buried her face in his shoulder. “What can I do?”
Freya’s mother wept, noiselessly, while the snow fell, until Joe, his heart as wrung out as hers, gently took her elbow and guided her back indoors.
Freya stood alone, in the garden, as the world rapidly turned white.
Freya knew Megan missed her as she sat with her elbows in her hands at Megan’s desk watching her best friend. Meg’s tongue peeped out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on the pair of scissors and the folded circle of paper in her hand. Meg paused and stared blankly at the paper. She sighed with frustration then deliberately began to cut. The scissors moved this way and that, snipping and trimming, and when Meg was finished she dropped the scissors and eagerly opened the circle.
Meg’s sigh and grunt betrayed her disappointment as she held the freshly cut snowflake in front of her. “Oh, that’s beautiful,” said Mrs Atkins cheerfully.
“Mmm,” mumbled Meg, “s’okay, but it’s meant to have hearts all over it.”
“What was that sweetheart?” asked Mrs Atkins.
“It’s meant to have hearts in it, Freya could do hearts, she knew how to make hearts in the paper.”
“And stars,” said Steph leaning across the table, “she could do stars too.”
“That’s nice,” said Mrs Atkins as she moved on and pasted a bright smile on her face before she picked up William’s ‘cut to bits’ snowflake. “William, this is lovely!”
Both girls screwed up their faces and giggled. “William, this is lovely!” they mimicked as Mrs Atkins moved swiftly to the other side of the classroom.
William threw them a sour look and began to fold a new circle. When they didn’t stop laughing, he picked up the scissors and brandished them at Meg. She squealed and Mrs Atkins was back at their table in no time.
“Come on girls, I want lots of snowflakes for the windows and you can choose your favourites to decorate your Christmas cards.”
“I’m going to do small ones for my card,” said Steph picking up a handful of pastel coloured circles, half the size of the ones Mrs Atkins wanted for her room decoration.
“Me too.” Meg agreed.
Freya watched as Meg began again thinking deeply about the pattern as she cut. Again Meg released a disappointed sound and let the snowflake drop from her fingers.
“I wish Freya was here, she could do this!”
Freya herself, was there, and wished she could help, but her fingers just slid through the scissors and there was nothing she could do.
She had watched Megan over the past few months. Meg had suffered the loss of her best friend with such anguish that her mother had not known how to deal with it. There aren’t many textbooks on ‘How to perk up your child when their best friend dies in a car accident’, and Mrs Frost had decided to take the approach one might take if a family pet passed away. It was easy to cajole and distract, and a few carefully chosen school friends had been invited over to tea, one by one, as if Meg would suddenly nod and choose one to be her new best buddy.
Meg had not nodded, but had pulled so far away, that her friends had done the same.
Returning to school in September had been fine for Meg; she was desperate to escape her mother’s worried looks and anxious hugs. Mrs Atkins was much more sensible, and ignored Mrs Frost’s pleas for special treatment. Instead she placed Meg at the same table as Stephanie and let them get on with it.
Steph had risen to the occasion and allowed Meg precious space to breathe.
Right now, Meg watched as Steph expertly cut her snowflake. “Can you do hearts too?” she asked her.
Steph paused then nodded. “Freya showed me how to do them,” she told her, “and stars too.”
“And stars,” murmured Meg in admiration. “She showed me too, but I just can’t remember how.”
Steph put down her small snowflake and picked up a larger circle, she folded it in half, then a quarter, then once more. “Look,” she said leaning across the table to Meg. “Start here, you’re starting too far up, you run out of space before you can make it…start here, and cut in diagonally.” She moved her scissors deftly. “Then cut round at the top, but down a bit too, look…”
Meg slid closer over the table and watched as Steph rounded the top of the shape on the outside edge. Steph let the scissors slip out of her hands and unfolded the paper. “Look,” she said and there sat a little heart, cut intricately into the white paper.
Meg smiled. “It’s as good as Freya’s.”
“You try it.” Steph refolded the paper and handed it to Meg.
Meg sighed deeply and flourished the scissors. “Like this?” She cut into the paper and paused, Steph nodded and Meg’s tongue escaped her lips again as she fed the folded paper through her fingers. “And round? And like this?”
When she finished she unfolded the snowflake with a worried expression, which dissolved into delight as the second heart shape stared at her from the snowflake.
“And stars?” said Meg hopefully.
“And stars.” Steph grinned.
Freya sighed wistfully as the two girls concentrated on the Christmas snowflakes, and smiled to herself as the pile of fringed, heart and star filled flakes began to grow.
Mrs Atkins completed her circuit yet again, and stopped as she approached the table. She smiled to herself with the satisfaction of one who’d scored the winning goal, and lavished the girls in praise. “You have certainly got the best and biggest pile, this will really help us to win the best decorated classroom!” she told them. “Have you chosen the ones you want for your cards, or are you making more?”
“Making more, Miss,” said Steph, reaching back into the stack of paper Mrs Atkins had just replenished.
“I look forward to seeing them, these are the cards for your mums and dads,” she told them.
Steph nodded. “I’m making blue ones, different blues…”
Meg sucked her lip between her teeth as she chose, but picked up pastel green, blue and pink. They began folding, cutting and snipping in earnest.
Steph finished first and jumped down from the table to get folded card to mount the paper snowflakes. “What colour do you want?” she asked Meg.
“White, like snow,” said Meg.
When Steph returned they got stuck in and soon had two Christmas cards ready and waiting. They stood up their cards and grinned at each other.
“You’re too fast!” groaned William, “I’m never gonna finish. My mum will get a card with a blizzard…no snowflakes, just white paper!”
The girls laughed then Steph glanced surreptitiously at Meg. “What are you thinking?” she asked.
Meg twirled her finger in her hair and leaned across to pick up a glittery circle of lilac. She smiled thoughtfully. “Freya would’ve chosen this.”
Steph nodded. “She would.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Meg, her eyes shining.
“I might be,” replied Steph with a half-smile playing on her lips.
Meg leaned conspiratorially toward Steph. “What about making one…”
“For Freya,” concluded Steph.
Meg nodded and Freya grinned.
“We could make one for her Mum and Dad,” said Steph, “because she can’t.”
Freya shivered; she had already picked out the colours she would have chosen as they had amassed their stack of decorations, for a moment she wondered if they’d read her mind.
Meg lowered her face. “Wouldn’t they be upset?”
“I don’t think so,” said Steph. “C’mon, let’s.”
Between them Meg and Steph chose three paper circles; lilac, blue, like Daddy’s t-shirt, and pale, shiny gold, like the stars on Freya’s white dress. They snipped until they had three intricately cut snowflakes then they mounted them on pale blue card, and stood Freya’s Christmas card up in front of their own.
“Freya would’ve made that!” Meg smiled and Steph nodded, and Freya tried to understand the twinge of both jealousy and gratitude.
Later, at the end of term, Meg and Steph emerged from school together, clutching bags of Christmas decorations and projects. Steph pulled her mother across the playground toward Meg.
Mrs Frost stood with a snowflake card in her hand and an apprehensive look in her eyes. “I’m not sure…” she said as Meg stared up at her, her eyes full of reproach.
Steph’s mum strolled up with a huge smile and asked. “Let’s see this wonderful card then.”
Mrs Frost let it slip from her fingers and Steph passed it to her Mum, who enthused without reservation. “Oh it’s beautiful, so lovely, girls. So when will we deliver it then?”
Mrs Frost’s expression altered from apprehension to unease and Meg shot a gloomy look at Steph. Steph grinned as her mother winked at her and addressed Mrs Frost. “Can Meg come over for dinner tonight? I’ll drop her back with you by seven.”
Meg pulled on her mother’s arm and Mrs Frost relented seeing a quick way out of the awkward visit she had envisioned. “Tonight? Of course she can, seven is fine.”
Meg and Steph grabbed each other’s hands as their mums swapped phone numbers and addresses, then whooped in delight once Mrs Frost was safely back in her car.
The ‘awkward visit’ was anything but. Freya’s mum opened the door with Jasmine on her hip. She looked tired and emotional, but she smiled as the cheerful woman on the doorstep introduced herself.
“Hi, I’m Olivia Turner, Steph’s mum, and the girls have something very special they’d like to share with you…”
Freya watched that cold, winter day as the Christmas card she should have made took pride of place on the mantelpiece, and two very special friendships began.
It felt quite bizarre to Freya to watch Meg visit more often than she had when Freya was alive, when Meg had been her best friend!
Mrs Frost, however, was over the moon that Meg had acquired a new friend and was doing her best to support it, even if that
meant allowing Steph over for tea once in a blue moon. She was relieved though, that both Meg and Steph preferred disappearing with Olivia, Steph’s mum.
Where Mrs Frost disapproved of the colourful Olivia, Rachel relished the friendship that had developed since she turned up on her doorstep with two nervous little girls and paper snowflakes.
There had been no more snow that year, except the flakes on the Christmas card and it now stood beside the lacy, purple and red heart valentine that the two girls had made for Rachel. “They want to make you the cards that Freya would have, just for a year.” Olivia had confided in Freya’s mum. “They don’t want you to feel left out, but it’ll only be for a year, though they’ll probably forget about it after Easter. Is that before or after Mother’s day this year?”
Rachel had shrugged and shaken her head with a smile. The cards were lovely and she really appreciated the sentiment, but she wasn’t sure how easy it would be to accept a Mother’s day card, when the time came…
At first Rachel wasn’t sure about making new friends, she had become much more introverted since her daughter’s death, and Olivia had looked like she might just be too much hard work, but Olivia wasn’t to be deterred, and she made it her business to visit frequently, and more often than not, she would bring along both Steph and Meg. This delighted Jasmine who missed Freya and still wondered out loud when she would come home.
So while her first visits were tolerated, Rachel soon came to look forward to Olivia Turner turning up.
It was Steph who, when Jasmine was plucking snowdrops out of the earth, helped her to dig up a baby hellebore instead to give to Daisy next door. Jasmine left a trail of squashed snowdrops en route to Daisy’s back door, accompanied by Steph and Meg.
“For Daiseee,” said Jasmine, clutching a muddy brown pot to her chest, as they knocked on the door.
Steph and Meg stood behind her. The door opened and Daisy smiled. “Hello girls,” she said. “And what can I do for you?”
“More fowers,” said Jasmine, “The uvver ones broked.” Jasmine cast her eyes behind her to the snowdrop trail and offered up the pot.
Beneath the Rainbow Page 7
