Home for the Holidays

by Sue Moorcroft

  Carola had created a shortcut into the queue for the showground exit by bouncing over a kerb.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Carola, unperturbed.

  On the subject of The Angel, Ben had his own information to impart. ‘I’ve been in today and the plaster’s dry. Just in time –’ he paused theatrically ‘– for Gabe to come home and see it!’

  Alexia whooped with joy. ‘I began to think they’d never bash that infection on the head.’

  ‘The doctor who saw him today says he’s really turned the corner. I expect he’ll need a while to get over the fatigue but then it’s going to be a challenge to stop him from doing his winter digging or taking Snobby out for a drive.’

  ‘That,’ said Alexia fervently, ‘will be wonderful.’

  She ended the call just as Carola biffed another kerb; an ominous scraping noise suggesting that one alloy wheel was now less beautiful than before. ‘Is your husband particularly understanding about his car?’ she teased, tucking her phone away.

  A pause. Then Carola replied flatly, ‘He’s not particularly understanding about anything.’

  Alexia glanced at her, shocked to see that all of a sudden Carola was blinking hard. In fact, she had to stop the car in its slow progress along the queue to fish in her pocket for a tissue and blot her eyes. ‘Damn,’ she muttered. Then she began to edge the vehicle forward once more.

  Alexia gawked. ‘Carola? What’s up?’

  Carola offered only a silent shrug. Reaching the head of the queue, she indicated right and joined Oundle Road in the direction of Nene Parkway. Giving little sniffs as she gazed through the windscreen with single-minded concentration she was very obviously not all right.

  Before Alexia could decide whether to suggest stopping at the garden centre coffee shop at the bottom of Ham Lane, Carola heaved the steering wheel to the left and pulled up in a service road, putting the Land Rover in park.

  Then she burst into big, noisy, gulping tears.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Alexia laid a remorseful hand on Carola’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  Shaking her head violently, Carola brought out the tissue again. ‘It’s not you,’ she quavered. ‘It’s Duncan. My husband.’

  Alexia was pretty sure she’d never heard Duncan’s name before. Carola always referred to him as ‘my husband’.

  ‘Does he get shirty about his car?’ Alexia hazarded, though she wondered why, in that case, Carola didn’t look after it a bit better.

  Carola found a clean piece of tissue in which to trumpet. ‘He used to.’ She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. ‘He le-left me months ago. He dumped me and the village hall had to close, all in the same week. I felt totally sodding useless.’

  Horrified, Alexia pulled Carola’s slight frame into a gentle hug. ‘I had no idea! I’m so sorry.’

  With a long and mighty sniff, Carola regained control. ‘Nobody knew. I haven’t told anybody. Not even Charlotte and Emily know the whole story, but it turns out he’s been leading a double life. All those nights he stayed in London at what he said was the company apartment he was actually shacking up with his girlfriend in a perky little mews house in Chelsea.’ She tipped her head forwards so the wings of her silky blonde bob swung either side of her eyes, like blinkers. ‘When he finally decided between us, he said he had to take my car for a bit. Had to.’ Her voice wobbled pitifully. ‘Because the Defender won’t fit in her ga-garage and my sports car will. And mine’s no good for the girls because it’s a two-seater. His plan is to swap back when he’s found a bigger place to park and I’ve found a car with four seats.’

  ‘So that’s why you’ve seemed so accident-prone lately. You’ve been letting his get dinged up on purpose.’

  Carola nodded tiredly. ‘I know it’s vindictive and petty but he deserves it. Aside from dumping me, he hasn’t asked to see Charlotte and Emily once. He’s always been away a lot but does he expect them just to not mind that he’s gone for good? He hasn’t even asked to see them at Christmas. He’s just sent me money to buy their Christmas presents as if it’ll carry on being my department.’ Carola managed a watery smile, her face displaying the kind of red blotches that seemed to occur whenever tears met fair skin. ‘There’s no Christmas Fair in the village hall for me to organise so The Angel’s opening is the only part of Christmas I’m looking forward to. Then after Christmas I’ll have to get a job.’

  ‘That could be exciting, though. What sort of thing will you look for?’ Alexia’s heart ached for the woman she now thought of as her friend.

  Carola sighed. ‘I did a catering course and worked in a couple of small restos before I married. Part of the reason I was so against you all at The Angel in the beginning was that because I always quite wanted a coffee shop and thought Middledip needed one. But you got there first. You don’t want to give me a job as a decorator, do you?’

  ‘Not as a decorator.’ Alexia had been withdrawing her arm from Carola’s shoulders as the worst of the tear storm seemed over but she stopped short as an idea fired across her brain. ‘Do you want to run the coffee shop for Gabe, though? He’s going to need someone. It’s a pretty important detail but one that’s been left because of Gabe being ill.’

  Carola pushed all her tissues into various pockets, still sniffing. ‘But isn’t Jodie doing it?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure she’s not.’

  Hope began to dawn on Carola’s still-blotchy face. ‘I’d need to update myself with the hygiene certificates and stuff you see up on the walls of coffee shops.’

  ‘It’s all on the Food Standards Agency’s website. Jodie used to do her training online.’ Alexia was beginning to be glad she’d made Carola cry if it brought about this neat solution to the running of the community café. ‘Shall I suggest you to Gabe and see what he thinks?’

  ‘That would be wonderful!’ Carola gave Alexia a beaming hug. ‘Sorry to have bawled all over you.’ She restarted the Land Rover, putting the blowers on full because the tears and hugs had steamed up the windows.

  They drove back to Middledip talking of more cheerful things like stopping at Carola’s for a count-up of tables and chairs and whether Carola fancied helping with the mist coat of the raw plaster at The Angel.

  By the time Alexia left Carola’s des res nearly two hours later they’d determined that if they had chairs and tables for about twenty more covers it would be enough for the Bar Parlour and the Public.

  Alexia elected to walk home from Little Dallas, wanting not just a breath of fresh air but to call in on Jodie on the pretext of confirming her intention not to run The Angel Community Café. Striding along New Street and rounding the corner into Port Road she was glad she had a reason to call on Jodie. A lot had happened for Alexia in the three weeks since Jodie had announced her pregnancy and they’d had a few text conversations but not a single real one.

  She strode up the garden path and banged the black horseshoe-shaped doorknocker that she’d clattered regularly all her life. It was Iona who answered, fluffy hair escaping from its clasp. ‘Alexia! How lovely.’ She beckoned Alexia in and called up the stairs, ‘Jodie, Alexia’s here!’ in the same cadence she’d always used. ‘JO-deeee, ALEXia’s here!’

  In seconds, wearing the first normal Jodie smile that Alexia had seen for ages, Jodie ran down the stairs.

  They hugged hello and Jodie immediately took her through to the kitchen so she could update Iona about Gabe’s progress. Everyone in the village, Alexia imagined, knew he’d been ill.

  Once she’d heard the good news that Gabe was on the mend, Iona said, ‘I’ll leave you girls to chat,’ and melted away to some other part of the house.

  Settled over a pot of tea, Alexia tried to give Jodie news of The Angel.

  Looking suddenly self-conscious, Jodie diverted the conversation to maternity clothes. Evidently beginning to eagerly anticipate the arrival of her baby, she looked almost shy when she showed Alexia she was wearing her baggiest jeans but could no longer do up the but
ton.

  Alexia exclaimed over this development, recognising the pleasure lurking in her friend’s eyes. She was happy and relieved to find Jodie so much brighter, her hair washed and her nails done but, after a while, not wanting the subject to be a no-go zone between them, she circled back to The Angel. ‘By the way, Gabe’s soon going to need someone in place to run the community café. A suitable person’s cropped up but I just want to check it won’t be treading on your toes if we go ahead.’

  Pink bloomed in Jodie’s cheeks. ‘Of course not, but thanks for checking.’ She took a breath, then visibly steeled herself to add, ‘Especially when I left you in the cart. Will you still open in time for Christmas?’

  Glad to be making steps in the right direction, Alexia just said, ‘We’re on course,’ and then told Jodie about the extraordinary invitation to appear on TV. Jodie was instantly bug-eyed with amazement and they spent a happy half hour speculating about whether it would all be amazingly glamorous and creating increasingly unlikely scenarios based around Antonio’s idea of viewers recognising Shane and Tim. It was almost like old times.

  But not quite.

  Oh, they laughed together but so much had changed. Jodie didn’t grab a bottle of wine from the fridge to share. There was no current man in Jodie’s life to whisper about – unsurprisingly.

  Most tellingly, Alexia found she had absolutely no desire to divulge that there was ‘a thing’ going on between her and Ben. Maybe it was because the discovery of the scam had got in the way of her ever telling Jodie about that first night with him.

  Or was it because it seemed unfair to Jodie, approaching unplanned single parenthood, to flaunt her relationship-or-whatever-it-was in front of her?

  Or, Alexia realised as she walked home after a last cup of tea, pulling up her hood because the evening was raw, because she simply no longer felt close to Jodie.

  She had to stop walking in order to confront the idea, watching freezing drizzle eddying in the halo of light from the streetlamps. It was wonderful that they were friendly again … but the trust was no longer there.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  At home in bed, Ben struggled awake, realising that his phone was ringing.

  By the time he’d fought off the quilt, sucked in his breath at the frigid air and staggered across the room to where he’d left the phone on charge, the ringing had stopped and the illumination from the screen was fading away.

  His brain functioned sufficiently to fire off alarms. Was something wrong with Gabe? He was supposed to be going home in the morning. In his anxiety he fumbled, knocking the phone off the polished surface and then struggling to locate it in the darkness. He had to feel his way, shivering and cursing, to the light switch before he could locate it on the floor.

  He sought the sanctuary of his bed before tapping the home button at the bottom of the screen. The phone lit up. Missed call Imogen. 3.04 a.m.

  What the hell?

  Burrowing further into the bedclothes he returned the call, willing to run the risk that somehow she’d rung him in her sleep or it had been a pocket call.

  After five rings, the line opened up. Then it was a couple of seconds before Imogen spoke. ‘Ben?’

  ‘I’ve just been woken up by a call from your phone. Is anything the matter?’

  She sighed. ‘I just wanted to say I’m sorry.’

  He hesitated, trying to replay her voice in his head and capture what he’d heard there. ‘Why are you sorry?’ he asked more gently. ‘What’s up?’

  A sound, perhaps the breath of a laugh. Or a sob. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘I was being silly. I wanted to ask you something but I’ve been on a Netflix binge and I hadn’t realised what the time was. Then I did, so I rang off.’

  With more words to base a judgement on, he worked it out. Her voice was as controlled as she could make it but it was there in the over sibilance of the ‘s’ sounds. She was drunk. ‘As I’m up now, you might as well ask me whatever it was.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ben. I’m so, so sorry. I don’t want to hurt you again.’

  He screwed up his eyes as he tried to get a handle on what was going on. ‘Well, I’m awake and listening so why not just go ahead and ask me?’ He tried to sound encouraging, as if this were a perfectly normal time to chit chat with the ex-wife he’d only seen once in months, on which occasion she’d sneaked off and left him sitting alone in a pub like a prize idiot. He remembered his burning quest for knowledge that had consumed him then. Before Gabe got sick. Before he took on extra responsibility in the form of The Angel.

  Before he began whatever he’d begun with Alexia.

  She was silent for so long that he began to suspect she’d fallen asleep. When she did speak again, her voice trembled. ‘Do you think – do you think there’s even the tiniest chance that we might get back together?’

  The world rocked slightly. What she suggested seemed such a foreign concept now. ‘I thought we both agreed we should divorce.’

  A sound like a sob trying to escape. ‘I wasn’t sleeping with your brother, I swear.’

  Frustration roared back. ‘Then what the fuck happened that night? I don’t understand why you or Lloyd won’t just tell me.’

  Her voice began to shake. ‘You haven’t answered my question. If I know there’s no chance, I’ll know what to do.’

  A great wave of pity swamped the frustration, doused it. Pity for the beautiful woman he’d loved, bearing the scars of a night that had changed everything for both of them. Searching for a phrase that would leave her in no doubt of the situation without being overly blunt, he made his voice soft. ‘I’ve moved on.’

  The sound of her breathing grew louder, quicker. ‘Oh.’ A hesitation. ‘So you won’t be hurt if I do the same?’

  He tried to answer the question as honestly as he could. ‘I expect it will feel odd but I think I’ve done all my hurting. And we don’t live in the same town any more. We won’t see each other.’

  ‘But what if we did?’

  ‘Then I would have to deal with it.’

  ‘I see,’ she whispered. ‘Who is she?’

  An annoying shaft of guilt shot through him. ‘I think the divorce means you no longer have the right to ask me to explain myself.’

  Silence. She’d ended the call.

  He fell back on his pillows, irritated at ending up, once again, with more questions than answers.

  Imogen’s middle-of-the-night call couldn’t just be about drinking too much. She was searching for something. Instinct suggested that it was something more abstract than truth. Encouragement? Hope? Permission?

  Permission. His mind seized on that one. Maybe she’d simply met someone else and, on some level, needed Ben’s blessing, as it were, to go ahead? The habits associated with being married could be hard to break, but why she couldn’t just say ‘I want you to know I’m seeing someone’ was beyond him.

  Except … he hadn’t done that, had he? She’d given him the opportunity to tell her he was seeing Alexia and he’d replied obliquely, whether out of misplaced guilt at admitting such a thing to a woman he’d been married to, or a wish to avoid causing her pain.

  He wished he’d stayed with Alexia tonight. Her warm body against his would make it easier to resist being the man who brooded on his hurts until they swamped him. Alexia the Uncomplicated. Apparently capable of giving and receiving affection without any subtext whatsoever.

  On the other hand, the interchange with Imogen would’ve been a strange conversation to have with Alexia listening. ‘Uncomplicated’ didn’t mean ‘without feelings’.

  Finally, he got out of bed, dressed quickly and drove to Gabe’s to ensure the house was as welcoming as it could be for him. He changed Gabe’s bed and turned on the ancient radiator, having to cajole the valve to open. He cleaned the kitchen, filled the range and also the scuttle beside it. Then, as it was still before six, he grabbed his coat and drove through the sleeping village to the twenty-four-hour supermarket in Bettsbrough and bought grocerie
s to stock Gabe’s fridge, freezer and food cupboard.

  He drove back through the steely pre-dawn, patches of frost revealing themselves in the beam of his headlights. Nearing the turning into Gabe’s track he saw light beaming from Alexia’s kitchen window.

  Without giving himself time to examine his actions, he pulled over.

  She answered his knock cautiously, her hair on end and pyjamas peeping out from under her white fluffy dressing gown. ‘Ben!’ Not even questioning why he was there, she skipped back to let him enter. ‘Coffee?’

  He remembered the frozen food in his truck as he followed her into the warmth of her kitchen, which smelled of toast and butter, and slid his arms around her and pulled her body against his. ‘No time. I just wanted to remind you that I should be fetching Gabe after doctor’s rounds.’ He couldn’t think of a more convincing reason for his visit and was aware of a false heartiness to his voice.

  Apparently, she heard it, too. ‘What?’ she said, nestling into him without taking her eyes from his face. ‘What’s up?’

  So he told her all about Imogen’s call. ‘It was a bit weird,’ he admitted. Then he saw a troubled light dawn in her eyes and wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

  Especially when she said, ‘Are you sure that you don’t want to – to go and talk possibilities with her about this?’

  ‘Yes.’ He kissed her, holding her close. That’s all he’d wanted, really. To hold her. ‘How about celebration shepherd’s pie with Gabe tonight? Or, better yet, why don’t you come with me to pick him up?’

  She smiled, though the hint of anxiety didn’t completely leave her big Betty Boop eyes. ‘I am working at home, so I could, I suppose. We could take my car. It would be more comfortable for Gabe than your truck.’

  ‘Great. I’ll ring you when he lets me know what time he’s being discharged.’

  He drove around to Gabe’s track, wishing he hadn’t suffered the moment of weakness and need that had prompted him to confide in Alexia. A few hours ago he’d been valuing the fact that she was uncomplicated and then he’d gone and complicated things.