Another Day in Winter

by Shari Low

  ‘Oh, bugger,’ Shauna added, chasing after her.

  Lulu banged again.

  ‘Right, there’s no one here,’ Shauna pointed out the obvious. ‘Let’s go before we get arrested for casing the joint and harassing innocent householders.’

  ‘Nope, not giving up yet,’ Lulu said, before reaching over a waist high fence and banging on the door of the next house along.

  An irrepressible fit of giggles consumed Shauna. ‘Christ. This is like the million times we played “chap door, run away” when we were kids. And I was always the one that got caught. There’s no one…’

  Her words were halted by the opening of the neighbour’s door.

  A woman in her thirties, in jeans and Converse, with a toddler on her hip, pushed back some stray hairs into her ponytail as she spoke. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘We’re really sorry to bother you,’ Shauna stepped in, ‘and I know this is a long shot, but I think my grandmother and her family used to live in this house and I was just hoping that someone from the family still lived here?’

  Shauna could hear how crazy that sounded. It was almost sixty years after the last letter was sent. The chances of the same people still living there were miniscule.

  The woman shook her head, dislodging the stray hairs again. ‘No, it’s a family from down south that lives there. Been there a couple of years, same as me.’

  Shauna’s heart fell as she shrugged. ‘Oh well, thanks anyway. And sorry again to have troubled you.’

  ‘Hang on a minute there, Cagney,’ Lulu said, digging her in the ribs, before addressing the woman again. ‘Is there anyone in this terrace that has lived here forever? An elderly person maybe?’

  The woman thought about it for a moment. ‘I don’t think so. These are four bedroom houses so they’re probably too big for an old person to manage on their own. That’s why my gran passed it down to me before she moved on.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry to hear that,’ Shauna said, desperate to get away before they upset this lovely lady by dragging up memories of her dearly departed granny.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry to hear that your gran passed on,’ Shauna repeated gently.

  The woman laughed. ‘She didn’t. She’s at the Sunnyvale Care Home. She’s probably leading the bingo right now.’

  Shauna sagged with relief. ‘Thank God, I thought we’d just upset you there. Listen, thanks anyway. We appreciate your time. We’ll get out of your way before we do say anything stupid.’ She gave Lulu a pointed glare.

  ‘Not at all. It was nice to meet you.’

  Shauna gave her a smile of gratitude and was just about to turn away, when the neighbour spoke again.

  ‘Was the person you were looking for called Mrs McGinty?’

  Shauna and Lulu stopped in their tracks. Turned.

  ‘I’ve no idea. I just knew her maiden name. Flora Butler.’

  ‘Yes. I think that’s her. Flora was Mrs McGinty’s first name.’

  Shauna’s heart swelled. ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘I spent most of my childhood here. She was Gran’s neighbour for decades.’

  ‘Do you know where she is now?’

  ‘No. I lived abroad for years and only came back when Gran gave me this house. The folk next door were already there by that time. But you should ask her.’

  ‘Ask who?’

  ‘My gran. Isa McNair. She loves a visitor. Sunnyvale Care Home on Clyde Street. She’s sharp as a tack and as bolshy as they come, but I know she’ll be happy to help if she can. Mrs McGinty was lovely.’

  Shauna experienced a swell of… something. Happiness. Relief. Excitement.

  She’d only ever been her parents’ daughter, Annie’s granddaughter, Colm’s wife and Beth’s mum. Now she could be Mrs McGinty’s niece – if her aunt would have her.

  Six

  Tom

  The office was unusually quiet, due to the fact that most people had opted to “work from home” today. Tom knew there would be little work actually getting done, but his team put in heavy hours all year round, so he was happy to cut them some slack. It was a fair assumption that they wouldn’t be of much value today anyway, given that some of them were still tweeting this morning at 5 a.m. after the office Christmas party. Zoe had texted him at eight o’clock and he wasn’t sure if she was just getting up or just going to bed.

  For the first time, he hadn’t attended the annual bash, worried about two devastating possibilities: the first being that his grandfather would slip away with no one at his bedside, the second being that he’d have a couple of drinks, his inhibitions would lower, and he’d punch his partner, Davie Bailey, in the face for being a duplicitous bastard.

  Even thinking about it made his nerve endings pop to the outside of his skin and his fists clench. Tom had never punched anyone in his life. He wasn’t prone to rages, didn’t have a temper, but as he strode into the office, he never wanted to deck someone more.

  Davie Bailey. A school acquaintance who’d become his best mate at uni, a brilliant creative mind, risk taker, the life and soul of every party. He was also a Porsche driving fast talker, up to his arse in debt, prone to competitive petulance and the most self-indulgent, egotistical twat Tom had ever known. Not to mention that he was on his third divorce, a serial womaniser who was currently seeing a woman that he’d had an affair with during his last marriage. Tom and Davie were yin and yang. Tom was the calm, steady, strategic thinker, and Davie was the wild chancer who forced them to aim high. It was the perfect partnership and Tom had loved him like a brother. Until yesterday, he’d thought that was reciprocated. How wrong he had been.

  Davie wasn’t in yet, so Tom went into the office to check yet again what he’d seen yesterday. He switched on Davie’s computer, watched it fire up, clicked on the Facebook page, into the messages section and, yep, there it was.

  Thank you. I’m looking forward to tonight too. Chrissie.

  He’d first spotted it yesterday, when they’d been brainstorming ideas for the HoopSport campaign in Davie’s office. HoopSport were one of their biggest clients, a basketball kit supplier that was fast rising up the ranks of sportswear companies in the UK, thanks to their comprehensive, cutting edge range of designs and imports. Tom and Davie had been discussing the prep for the next pitch yesterday afternoon, when the ideas started flowing.

  Davie, shirt sleeves rolled up, lying flat out on his sofa, had looked over to Tom, who was perched on the edge of Davie’s desk. ‘Can you type these up? You know I’ll have forgotten them by tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re a lazy bastard,’ Tom had teased, as he duly slipped into Davie’s chair and clicked the mouse to wake his computer. They’d spent the next two hours pulling ideas and concepts together, before Dex Jones, the head of their art department, had put his head around the door.

  ‘We’re just heading out for some pre-party drinks, if you’re interested.’ It was enough to make Davie levitate off the sofa.

  ‘Indeed I am. Hang on for me – I’ll leave the car here and come with you guys.’

  ‘Tom?’ Dex had asked.

  ‘Sorry, mate. Going back to the hospital tonight. Just do me a favour and try and keep this one out of trouble, out of jail, and out of the bed of someone he meets at the bar.’

  ‘I create magic, not miracles,’ Dex had drawled. In the office, Davie wasn’t entirely popular with the staff – too quick to fly off the handle and too single minded. But Party Davie, the one with the company credit card, was always in demand for out of hours activities. Tom didn’t mind. It kept morale high and he reasoned that was always good for creativity.

  ‘You leaving now, too?’ Davie had asked, picking up his jacket, raring to get the party started.

  Tom shook his head. ‘Soon. I’ll just stay and format this lot into a game plan,’ he’d said, pointing at the screen. ‘Then I’ll head off. Have a good night, mate.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure I’ll manage that,’ he said with a wink, before heading out of the door.

 
; Zoe waved through his office window and blew him a kiss as she joined the mass exodus, and within ten minutes, the vibrant buzz of the office had fallen to nothing but the sound of Tom’s fingers on the keyboard.

  Until the ping.

  One ping.

  One life changing, friendship wrecking, fucking ping.

  In the corner of the screen, up popped a notification from Facebook.

  You have a new message from Chrissie Harrison.

  Tom blinked. It couldn’t be right. He looked again. Still there.

  You have a new message from Chrissie Harrison.

  A new sound now, a thunderous thudding in his head caused by a heart that was pounding out of his chest. How long since he’d seen that name? Not that he hadn’t thought about her, because he had, every single bloody day since…

  His breath was coming heavy and fast, like a sprinter after a ten second hundred metres.

  Chrissie.

  Surely it couldn’t be his Chrissie? And if it was, why would she be messaging Davie? Was something wrong? Was she looking for him? Why hadn’t Davie told him that she’d made contact?

  He’d been unable to stop himself looking further. He’d opened up the message history, his hand trembling on the mouse as he read the chain of communication.

  Davie had initially messaged her on Facebook two months ago. Two. Months.

  At first it had been friendly chat.

  How are you? Good to hear from you. Do you still keep in touch with anyone from school?

  Chrissie had asked that question and it left no doubt that this was the same Chrissie Harrison who’d filled his thoughts since the last day he set eyes on her. Tom’s gaze had immediately jumped to Davie’s answer.

  Not much. Bump into some of the guys every now and then. Don’t really move in the same circles.

  Why would he lie? Bastard.

  Tom and Davie had known each other at school, but they’d only become friends when they’d found themselves in the same dorm room at University, shortly after Tom had returned from spending a year in Australia.

  Even after all that time, he was still devastated about the break-up. Davie had been on the same side of the bar when Tom had talked about Chrissie over and over, he’d watched as Tom searched for her, saw his desolation when he’d drawn a blank again and again. He’d been there as the years passed and Tom had been totally disinterested in a long term relationship with anyone else, because, well, they weren’t Chrissie.

  Now Davie had been in touch with Chrissie for two months and he hadn’t said a word. Tom read the rest of the messages. They’d gradually become more and more personal, culminating in Davie asking her to meet him for dinner. She’d resisted at first, but Davie had worn her down, using the same bullshit chat that Tom had heard him use on countless other women over the years.

  An uncharacteristic tsunami of rage had consumed him then, but that had immediately dissipated when he’d clicked on to her Facebook page. He didn’t use Facebook, or Twitter, or any other social media for personal use, but he’d googled her name and searched all the social media sites for her over the years. There had never been any mention of her. Now there was. Although he wasn’t on Facebook, he was familiar enough with it to find his way around her profile and timeline. There was no personal information at all and very few posts, just a couple of photographs of her, one from school and one more recent, laughing as she stood in the window of a shop next to a bikini clad mannequin. She was clutching a surfboard and a beach bag, wearing huge sunglasses and a big floppy hat, clearly joking with the person taking the picture. Her hair was a bit longer, and he couldn’t see her eyes behind the sunglasses, but even from that one photo he could see that she was exactly as he’d remembered her. Gorgeous, funny, always the first to joke, usually at her own expense. She’d also been self-conscious, self-deprecating, and totally unaware of how special she was.

  How long had he searched for her after she fell off the face of the earth? And how long had he beat himself up about what he’d done to her? It was his fault. All of it. He’d broken Chrissie’s heart because he’d been too weak, too young, too stupid to stand up for them against their parents and he’d spent the last twelve years paying for it.

  He’d stared at the picture for so long, yet he’d almost missed the significance – the fact that she was in the window of a shop. It had finally dawned on him that there was a good possibility that she worked there.

  He’d clicked on the image, blew it up, studied it, and there it was. The shop sign wasn’t in the picture, but there was an advertising board in the background of the window display.

  Find everything to make your trip the stuff of dreams, at www.sunseaski.com

  He’d looked it up and saw that it was an online store and travel blog, but based in a shop in Glasgow. He clicked another link, went on to Street View, and there it was – the window that Chrissie had been posing in.

  So she was still in the city and that’s where she worked. What was even crazier was that it was only a few streets away, in the Merchant City, in a row of shops he’d visited many times. In fact, he got most of his clothes from a men’s store called Camden that was right next door to it. She was in touching distance. How long had she been there and he didn’t know it?

  He hadn’t slept a wink last night. He’d sat by his grandad’s bed, desperate to tell him what had happened, but George had looked so peaceful he had decided against it. Meanwhile, Davie bloody Bailey, serial shagger and man without a moral conscience, was partying the night away, before his date with Chrissie.

  Chrissie. Just thinking her name made something ache in his gut.

  What should he do now?

  She wouldn’t want to see him, he was sure of it, yet…

  He’d gone there this morning. On the way from the hospital to the office, he’d stopped for his usual morning coffee at a new location – a little café directly across from Sun, Sea, Ski. He’d only been there a few minutes when he’d seen her arrive, watched her through the window, then, just as he’d stood up to pay, she was ushered out again and down the street by two other women. She was laughing and he could hear the sound in his head, despite the trio being far out of earshot. Chrissie. His Chrissie.

  He’d loved her. The only woman he’d ever loved. No one else had ever come close. Yet, he’d left her. She was both a reminder of the best time of his life and the worst thing he’d ever done.

  And that prick Davie was meeting her tonight and had told him nothing about it.

  Eight p.m. An Italian restaurant.

  How the hell could his so-called mate do this to him? And what could Tom do about it?

  Rational thought was a struggle, but he knew he couldn’t go barging into Chrissie’s life, show up where she worked without any warning, but he could speak to Davie, find out what the fuck was going on.

  He went into his own office, the one next to Davie’s, and sat, seethed, waited, as the clock ticked. He tried to focus on other things, but nothing worked, all he could picture was Chrissie laughing in that shop window.

  It was close to noon when the main door finally opened and his teeth instinctively clenched in fury until he realised it was Dex, not Davie, who had arrived.

  He attempted to de-escalate his rage.

  Dex came straight to his office and groaned as he opened the door. ‘Never again. My head feels like it belongs to a middle-aged alcoholic who’s been drinking paint stripper every day for a fortnight.’ Political correctness wasn’t Dex’s strong point.

  ‘Good night then?’ Tom joked, using every ounce of discipline to appear as normal as possible.

  ‘Great night. And morning. It’s still going on over at Davie’s flat. It’s a mess. There was the added bonus of a 6 a.m. drama when Roxy came home and caught Davie in bed with Carina from accounts.’

  Tom closed his eyes and tried to breathe. Davie’s standard behaviour. And now he was planning on adding Chrissie to his list of conquests? Over his dead body.

  Dex wittered
on. ‘I’m just grabbing some stuff from my desk – my laptop, my keys and my dignity would be a start – and heading back home. Merry Christmas, boss.’

  ‘Merry Christmas, Dex,’ Tom replied, trying to keep his frustration out of his voice.

  There was no point waiting here any longer. His partner wouldn’t be in today, and there was no way he was going to Davie’s apartment to discuss this in front of an audience. Fuck.

  He had three hours until he had to be at Glasgow Airport to pick up his parents. He should really go and do some Christmas shopping or get some work done, but he was in the mood for neither. He could send Chrissie a text. Or call her. She’d put her mobile number on one of the messages she’d sent Davie. But this wasn’t the kind of thing that could be done without planning. Or perhaps at all. He was very aware that he was the last person she’d ever want to see again.

  No, the only place he could bear to be right now was at the hospital with George.

  He was on his way out of the door, when his plans were changed for him.

  ‘Hi baby!’

  The sound of Zoe’s cheery greeting stopped him in his tracks.

  ‘You look surprised to see me,’ she said, laughing as she kissed him on the lips. ‘Did you forget we were having lunch today?’

  Yes.

  ‘No. Sorry, I’m just…’

  ‘It’s fine. Let’s go. I booked a table in Princess Square and I’ve got all the gossip from last night. It was a train wreck.’

  He weighed up the options. He didn’t want to go to lunch. He didn’t want to hear the gossip. But he knew without a doubt that he had to have a difficult conversation with Zoe, so this was as good a time as any.

  ‘Lead the way,’ he said.

  He had a sinking feeling that by the end of lunch, there would be another name to add to the list of women who considered him to be a complete arse.

  Seven

  Chrissie

  ‘Absolutely not! No way! The world definitely does not need to see this much of my pasty flesh,’ Chrissie argued, taking in the disgruntled faces of the two women in front of her.