Let It Snow

by Sue Moorcroft

  Doggo regarded him pityingly.

  Isaac wanted to race after her but a glance at the clock told him it was nearly eleven already and he needed to have a shower and a shave and put on his shirt and tie. He took out his phone but neither a call nor a text seemed to him the right medium through which to continue their conversation.

  As she’d said, they’d see each other next time she was on shift.

  Chapter Nine

  The last days of November were trudging by as if deliberately holding back the fun and sparkle expected in December. More than a week had passed since Lily suggested an ‘adventure’ to Isaac.

  And had been turned down.

  She felt like an idiot, even though she kept telling herself not to, to feel only regretful – though ‘regretful’ might not be the perfect term. ‘Put out’ or ‘annoyed’ might be more apposite. He’d initiated their kiss and seemed pretty damned enthusiastic about it, the heat of his mouth curling her toes, but he’d prioritised his personal relationships-at-work code above sleeping with her …

  She was a woman who’d told a man what she wanted and been turned down. Deal with it, she told herself over a consolatory lemon meringue at the Angel Community Café. Her situation was not the same as Isaac’s. She was part-time bar staff, only a step up from a casual, and he was the full-time manager, bearing responsibility for the business, its premises and its staff while the owner was out of the country. Responsibility was something he appeared to take seriously. Also, it was perfectly true what she had told Isaac about Sergio. Female staff at Bar Barcelona had given him the come-on. Apart from making him feel awkward with his wife working alongside him he’d been wary of leaving himself open to trumped-up claims of harassment.

  She hated to think Isaac might view Lily in the same light. Hated it.

  Fortunately, she’d been able to avoid being alone with him on this week’s shifts. Tina had been on for much of the time and Lily had stayed in her vicinity as much as possible, brushing past Isaac with a sunny smile and pretending not to hear when he’d twice murmured, ‘Lily—’

  Last Sunday, having had a conversation with everyone in the Middletones about having proper cold-weather kit because what they wore in a UK winter would probably be insufficient for Switzerland in December, she drove Neil, Eddie and Alfie to Mountain Warehouse because none of them had remembered to buy boots. Carola decided she, Charlotte and Emily needed thermal base layers and came along in another car. Charlotte and Emily bought their base layers in what Carola described as ‘screaming pink’ while Carola chose what Charlotte decried as ‘sensible black’.

  Stepping into Costa for a drink before setting off home, Alfie suddenly gave a great squawk. ‘Look! It’s snowing!’ While fellow Costa patrons gazed out of the window at a fine day, puzzled, the Middletones crowded around Alfie’s iPhone on which he’d brought up a snow cam at Schützenberg that was showing, from a vantage point on a slope above the town, a white layer on every rooftop.

  Lily gazed at the grainy picture with bubbling excitement. ‘What excellent timing! Only a week before we get there. I can’t wait.’

  Carola tapped at her own phone. ‘Look,’ she squeaked, turning the screen to show Lily a row of clouds and snowflakes. ‘The forecast is for snow for when we get there.’

  ‘Yay!’ the teenagers all cheered.

  Neil was the voice of practicality, eyes smiling through his dark-rimmed glasses. ‘Thank goodness the college minibus already has snow tyres or we’d be forking out a fortune.’

  Lily stifled a pang of something perilously close to alarm, remembering that she would be the only driver and it would be down to her if the minibus tobogganed off a mountain. ‘Max says the Swiss are brilliant at keeping roads clear. It’s not like here, where we don’t get enough snow to learn to cope with a Pest from the West let alone a Beast from the East.’

  On Monday she telephoned Don, the site supervisor at Acting Instrumental, and arranged to visit the college to have another little drive of the smart but serviceable minibus – white with comfy grey seats – and get an idea of how much luggage space they had to play with. She also handed over a copy of her driving licence and completed the insurance paperwork. Don showed her how the rear three seats, a single and a double, could be removed to provide stowage for luggage for nine people for nine days plus the guitar, keyboard, leads, pedals and attendant PA system. She asked each Middletone to restrict her or himself to one suitcase and one backpack.

  On Tuesday evening Lily met Roma, Patsie, Zinnia and George in Peterborough for a family dinner. Lily liked George, with his floppy hair and toothy smile. He was quiet and measured, the opposite of Zinnia’s assertive and impulsive, which probably explained how they’d made their relationship last for three years now. He was the one who’d taken on the pragmatic task of laundering just about everything in their house while Zinnia chivvied up the insurance company and the organisation replacing their kitchen appliances.

  On Wednesday Lily went out with Zinnia to buy replacements for smaller items like utensils and plastics that had melted in the kitchen blaze and Wednesday and Thursday evenings there were rehearsals for the Middletones.

  Friday evening rolled around and Lily turned up at The Three Fishes for her shift with a renewed rush of embarrassment at having to face Isaac again, but a fervent hope that he would have realised from the way she’d avoided him last weekend that her suggestion for a Christmas adventure was not to be revisited.

  Unfortunately, Tina was off work with a heavy cold so Isaac tended the bar all evening. He tried to talk to her almost as soon as she came on shift but she sidestepped him. ‘I don’t think I should leave Baz alone in the bar.’ A couple of hours later he tried again and she whipped off with, ‘Sorry, there are loads of tables to clear and the kitchen needs stuff going through the washer or they’ll run out.’

  It was as the kitchen staff were beginning to leave that, with misgivings, she heard him say to Baz, ‘You can go off at eleven tonight. Lily and I can clear up.’

  Lily sent Baz a meaningful look. ‘But if you want the extra half-hour’s money, Baz, I can be the one to finish early.’

  But Baz just beamed. ‘Nah, it’s epic if I can get off ’cos I’m going clubbing and there’s a girl I like.’

  ‘And they say youth’s wasted on the young,’ Isaac murmured. By the time they’d closed up and Baz had shouted ‘Bye!’ as he scooted out of the back door, half in and half out of his coat, Lily had decided attack was the best form of defence.

  She turned to Isaac just as he approached with a purposeful look in his eyes. ‘I’m glad to have this opportunity to talk,’ she said crisply. ‘I shouldn’t have said what I did about Tubb having a relationship with Janice because you’re entitled to choose whether to get involved with someone and I’m not entitled to try and pressurise you.’

  His expression flipped to one of astonishment. ‘That’s not what I was going to say,’ he began.

  Face crimson, Lily cut him off. ‘But, see how right you were! Even this conversation is making us both uncomfortable – exactly what everyone says is the pitfall of workplace dating. Please can we just pretend the whole scene never happened? I’d really appreciate it. I only have two more shifts after tonight and then I’ll be off to Switzerland.’

  His dark, unsmiling eyes remained fixed on her face for what seemed like hours. ‘You don’t seem to be leaving me a choice,’ he said eventually.

  ‘That is the general idea,’ she answered gently. ‘I honestly think it’s for the best.’

  ‘I see.’ He waited, but when she said no more he nodded once and she cleared the bar while he took a till reading and carried the drawer away to cash up.

  Saturday was the final day of November. Lily woke slowly, feeling an unfamiliar weight in her chest. Isaac had barely spoken after she’d pre-empted whatever he’d intended to say last night. She’d said goodbye when the clock had shown eleven thirty and he’d replied politely, ‘See you tomorrow night.’

  Sh
e got up and showered, dressing in a blue jumper depicting a reindeer with a red sequinned nose, and ate brunch. To cheer herself up she did most of her packing for Switzerland before they began rehearsal at two, the last one before they met at Carola’s house at eight thirty on Monday morning to pack the minibus. What went into her case was mainly jeans, jumpers and thermal base layers along with her padded waterproof overtrousers. Nightclothes and underwear went around the edges and her Middletones black overshirt and red hat and scarf lay carefully on top. She stuck a nightshirt and underwear in her backpack for the overnight stop in France along with her sponge bag.

  Much of the allotted rehearsal time was frittered away with everyone going over and over the arrangements. ‘Mum’s dropping me off on her way to work.’

  ‘Who am I sharing with in the hotel in France?’

  ‘Do we get breakfast at the hotel?’

  ‘Is it still snowing?’

  ‘Are we taking posh clothes?’

  Lily took charge. She perched up on Carola’s breakfast bar so everyone could see her. ‘Yes, we get breakfast at the hotel in France, which is at Chalons en Champagne. Sharing rooms: Carola, Charlotte and Emily in a family room, Neil with Eddie, Alfie with Warwick, me with Franciszka.’

  Franciszka, her hair brushed back into a floppy sort of ponytail, smiled at Lily and wagged her finger. ‘No snoring.’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘In Schützenberg,’ Lily went on, to cut through a flurry of teenaged jokes about farting being worse than snoring, ‘most of you are at the Little Apartments, which are like hotel rooms with a kitchenette in the corner. Franciszka and I are being put up in an annexe in the garden of the CEO of British Country Foods, Loris, who is known as Los.’

  ‘Los the Boss.’ Eddie grinned.

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Lily. ‘He’s Max’s boss and also Garrick’s boss, and Garrick is Tubb’s brother. Los is the one who gave the green light for the whole trip and the sponsorship from BCF, so we all need to be really, really nice to him. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ they chorused.

  Carola, who’d been frowning, clapped her hands. ‘But you know this stuff and we can go over it again in the minibus. Let’s sing! That’s what we’re here for.’

  Lily wasn’t the only one to blink at the snap in Carola’s voice. Warwick and Eddie moved slowly to plug in their instruments while Charlotte muttered, ‘Wow, chill, Mum.’

  Her good nature did seem to return once they’d begun because there was something about singing that was especially good for the heart, and they finished in time for Lily to get ready to go to work. Only two more shifts, she said to herself. The awkwardness between her and Isaac would surely be forgotten by the time she got back.

  She turned up on time, as always. Tina still wasn’t at work and Lily was on with Vita and Isaac. ‘The dining area’s booked out tonight,’ he greeted her. ‘Lorna cleared the tables and replenished the dumbwaiter before she left at lunchtime, but can you check the bookings and put out reserved notices?’

  ‘Will do.’ Lily shot off and the first half of the evening hurried by in a whirl of serving drinks and clearing tables. Gabe was perched on a bar stool chatting to everyone he knew – which was most people. The men from the garage and their wives had taken over a corner table. Ratty, the garage owner, sat with his arm around his wife, Tess, playing with a lock of her long strawberry-blonde hair. Jos, the quiet one, held hands with his wife Miranda, who had new glasses in navy blue. Pete and Angel, both fair-haired, cracked jokes and made the others laugh.

  The blokey blokes were monopolising the dartboard, as usual, all sporting the shaven-head-and-stubbled-face look. Lily had understood from Janice that the blokey blokes had been a bit of a hazard for female bar staff in the past but of late they’d mellowed and, happily, were nothing like the red-faced abusive darts player of a few weeks ago.

  The whole time, Lily was aware of Isaac just along the bar from her.

  By nine thirty the rush had slowed and Lily served Carola a glass of white wine. ‘You OK?’ she asked as she pushed the glass across the bar to her landlady and friend. ‘No Owen tonight?’

  Carola jutted out her bottom lip. ‘Haven’t heard from him for a few days.’

  ‘Oh. That’s not like him.’ Lily took Carola’s money and rang it up.

  Carola gazed down into her wine. ‘He’s blanking me.’

  Lily stared in surprise. ‘But you two are crackers about each other! Maybe there’s a reason for him not to be in touch – maybe something’s happened to his mum or he’s ill?’

  ‘Too ill to answer a text?’ Carola looked woebegone.

  It was hard to know how to answer that because someone would indeed have to be really ill not to answer a text. Lily was thinking of something comforting to say when the door opened and Zinnia strode in, hair flying. Diverted for a moment, Lily beamed at her sister. ‘I didn’t expect you tonight.’

  Her smile faded as she took note that not only did Zinnia not smile back but that her eyes were emitting furious sparks. ‘I hope you’re happy now!’ she hissed. ‘You just had to go ahead, didn’t you? And fuck everyone else.’

  ‘Ooh!’ said Carola, giving Zinnia an affronted look. Carola disapproved of the F word.

  Jaw dropping, Lily gazed at Zinnia in astonishment. ‘Pardon?’

  Isaac was suddenly at her side. ‘Perhaps you should take this conversation somewhere quieter?’ he murmured, and swivelled his eyes in the direction of the back area.

  ‘Of course.’ Lily lifted the counter flap and motioned her sister through. Feeling oddly shaky, she marched her to the corner near the back door so they wouldn’t be on the route between kitchen and bar and folded her arms. ‘This better be good for you to come storming in here—’

  ‘Mum and Roma are splitting up.’ Zinnia planted her hands on hips, cheeks boiling red. ‘I’ve just come from their place. They’re having a trial separation and it’s Mum who’s packing. You knew your friggin’ mission to find your precious brothers was putting a strain on them. You knew it raked up old grievances but still you had to bulldoze on.’ She put on a falsetto voice that, presumably, was meant to be Lily. ‘Just let me find my brothers. Ooh, no, I daren’t actually tell the one I’ve found who I am. I’m just going to hang around him and make the family I grew up with feel as if they’re not enough for me.’ Her voice returned to her own, but hoarse with grief. ‘So now look what you’ve done!’

  Nausea swept over Lily in a cold, sweaty wave. ‘Splitting up?’ she repeated through cardboard lips. ‘Mum and Patsie?’ She clapped a hand to her mouth in horror.

  ‘Oh, yes. And it’s your fault, you with your blind spot about your brothers, putting them – virtual strangers – ahead of your real family, the people who may not all happen to share your DNA but who have shared your life from the moment you were born, the people who loved you and protected you.’ Zinnia’s words hit Lily like bullets.

  ‘Zin, wait.’ Lily tried to catch her sister’s arm but Zinnia, having said her piece, was now heading off like a train back the way she’d come. ‘Zinnia!’ Lily cried in frustration, forcing her legs, wobbly with shock and grief, to carry her in her sister’s wake.

  Zinnia, though, fuelled by her righteous anger, steamed through the open counter flap before she turned with a snarl. ‘You’ve smashed the fucking family, Lily.’ Then she grabbed the counter flap and crashed it down.

  Isaac, who had been crouching to reach for mixers from beneath the bar, was already surging up saying sharply, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, cool it!’ He couldn’t see the counter flap descending with strength of Zinnia’s rage behind it.

  ‘Stop!’ yelled Lily, seeing, as if in slow motion, Isaac’s head rising to meet the slamming wooden flap. Blindly, she thrust out her hand … then screamed as the flap smashed onto her delicate fingers. It felt as if her hand had burst into flames, the fire shooting up her entire arm.

  Dimly, she heard Zinnia shout, ‘No! Oh no, Lily!’ and a chorus of horrified gasps.

&n
bsp; All the background noise in the bar was suspended apart from Isaac hissing through clenched teeth, ‘Get out of the way and let me see to her.’ Lily’s hand was suddenly free but the agony stormed on, pounding and scalding through her. She tried to clutch her hand to her chest but someone had her by the wrist.

  ‘Don’t, sweetheart,’ said Isaac’s voice. ‘Vita, get me two clean tea towels and fill one with ice. I’ll get her to hospital in Peterborough. She’ll need X-rays.’

  Then Zinnia’s voice, low and shaky. ‘I’ll take her.’

  Isaac snorted, an ugly, jagged sound. ‘You’ve done enough.’

  Lily fought for breath to bear the fiery, pulsing thing her hand had become. She was aware of being cradled, drawn into the back area, a chair being found for her, Isaac crouching to gently cocoon her hand in a towel filled with ice that did seem to cool the burn a bit but at the same time increased the throbbing. Vaguely she was aware of the kitchen staff standing in the doorway in their chef whites. Someone brought her coat and he helped her slide her right arm into it and tuck it around her left shoulder. Isaac issued instructions to Vita to stop serving though it was before ten because there would be no licensee on the premises and he wouldn’t be able to return if needed. ‘As soon as people have drunk up, please can you take Doggo outside and then give him a Bonio to take to bed?’

  ‘I could take him home with me,’ Carola volunteered. ‘Give him a quick walk round the village first.’

  ‘That would be great.’ Isaac sounded properly grateful. Amidst a flurry of murmured good wishes, he helped Lily up and, an arm around her, guided her out of the back door to his car in a corner of the car park.

  He shut the door behind her. Lily, shaking, but the pain not as all-consuming as it had been, heard him talking to someone. The driver’s door opened as he said to whoever it was, ‘If you’re going, take your own car.’ Then he was in, checking she was coping then driving away with swift, decisive movements.