A Midwinter Match

by Jane Lovering

  The cold died. Warmth was flaring inside me again now. ‘Then why all the buggering?’

  He sniggered, such a down-to-earth sound that it gave me hope.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  He blew a long sigh that made the falling flakes flutter upwards on that melting sound. ‘I’m cross that I’ve got it so wrong. That I could even think you had – which is now becoming increasingly apparent that you wouldn’t – and I never even considered the caretaker coming in. I didn’t register him at all, which is giving me another moment of consideration.’

  He was standing quite close to me now, although it must have been me who moved because he was keeping his back firmly pressed against the protruding front of the darkened shop behind him.

  A man, shuffling his bag-laden way through the snow down the line of the street, detoured around us with a curious look and a preoccupied smile. Once he’d passed, slithering his way out into King’s Square, I spoke again.

  ‘I haven’t got the faintest idea what all that meant, Zac.’

  ‘It meant I’m sorry. I’m sorry I thought that you’d even consider giving me away. I’m sorry that I’ve given you the impression that I would hand over information about you that was given in confidence. I’m sorry that anything I have done has led you to believe that I am that kind of man.’ He took a step closer, so that we were pressed together now, with the snow creating a little broken barrier around us and crunching under our feet. ‘I am so, so sorry,’ he said.

  What was it? The golden streaks that backlit the Shambles, making the street look like a place lost in time? The isolation of the snow, throwing a blanket of quiet over us? The curious feeling that somehow we were outside the real world, caught in this bubble while the white fragments whirled around us as if we were in our own snow globe? Whatever it was, when Zac leaned further in, I forgot all the hurt and doubt that Gareth had left planted in my heart, and I moved towards him. Our lips met in a pressure of heat that made the snow sizzle on our faces. And the way our bodies reacted to each other with a leaping eagerness made me wonder if part of our friendship had been this all the time.

  Gradually, gradually we stepped apart, although not far enough for the snow to put a layer between us.

  ‘Well.’ Zac looked down to find my face looking back up at him. ‘Well, this was… unexpected.’

  ‘We’re both under pressure. It’s that time of the year. The festive atmosphere and all that,’ I gabbled, with the memory of his mouth on mine still at the forefront of my mind.

  ‘Don’t be daft. We fancy each other.’ A pause. ‘Don’t we?’

  I scanned his face. I would have been hard-pressed to describe it; there was a nose, a mouth, brown eyes and a chin, but all in a configuration so familiar that it had lost any kind of definitive features. It was just Zac.

  ‘We might,’ I said, and the realisation escaped in a bubble of laughter. ‘We might.’ I brushed some snowflakes from the front of his coat, where they were settling. ‘You realise this means that Priya was right and we’re going to have to listen to her being all smug at us?’

  ‘It’s probably worth it though.’ A slight, almost shy grin was breaking through now, lightening his eyes as they stayed fixed on mine.

  We were still just standing. Still close enough for there not to be much space for the snow between us, but it made up for it by drizzling its dizzy way around us and into our hair.

  A woman towing a small curly dog hopped around us, with a ‘Sooty! No!’ and a tug on the lead which slid the dog past us on braced legs, but there was nobody else about. Lights shone, but the shops stayed deserted and eerily quiet, the buildings leaning towards one another in every direction, like drunks on ice.

  ‘We should go back.’ Zac broke the silence. ‘It’s cold and we’ve probably got work to do.’

  ‘If we’ve still got jobs.’

  ‘You should be safe enough.’ He slid his arm around me and drew me forward, so we started walking into the whistling silence of King’s Square. ‘They’ve got the perfect reason to get rid of me now. Oh, they’ll be all sensitive about it, and it will be for my own good and all that. They wouldn’t want me under any unnecessary stress, after all.’ The arm around me tightened, half hug, half warding off the inevitable.

  ‘But I told you, Michael keeps saying that you are ahead. Why would they get rid of more successful you and be left with – well, me?’

  Zac looked down at me and I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. ‘Because maybe they are lying to us?’ he said and his gaze flickered off elsewhere.

  I faltered, one foot slithering on unseen ice. ‘I suppose we aren’t allowed to dynamite the whole building, are we?’

  ‘Sadly, it would merely be seen as confirmation of our unsuitability for the job,’ he said, with what sounded like real regret. ‘Otherwise I’d be first up there with the detonators.’

  Our bodies bumped together companionably as we crunched our way back towards the office, rounding the corner to see the building still sitting amid the twisted layout of the other ancient buildings, with the shadow of the Minster laying over them all.

  Ice crusted along eaves and snow cushioned and pillowed the roofs, merging all the buildings into one entity. The only indication of difference between our offices and the café was the light spilling out of the latter, while ours was barricaded behind the bars on the windows, escaping in meagre stripes onto the precinct. That and the happy Christmassy music that the café let out every time the door opened. It looked like a jewellery box next to a prison.

  ‘So, what do we do now?’ I pulled Zac to a stop before we got to the car park entrance.

  He sighed. ‘I’m willing to bet that they are drawing up my redundancy plan right now.’ He jerked his chin towards the office. ‘I might as well start clearing my desk.’

  I stared at him, aghast. ‘But you can’t! You need the job, you said so!’

  He gave me a slow, sad smile. ‘I’ll find something else,’ he said. ‘I’m qualified. Hell, I can work in McDonald’s if I have to.’

  ‘But McDonald’s won’t help pay the fees for where your mum is, will it?’ I didn’t know why I was pushing this. He knew the options.

  ‘Maybe if I work twenty-four hours a day?’ He was trying to sound cheerful. ‘Honestly, Ruby, there will be work out there. It might take a while, but…’ he tailed off. I knew why. He didn’t have ‘a while’. Like me, those bills needed paying. Redundancy pay wouldn’t buy much more than a month’s breathing space, I guessed. ‘I’ll think of something,’ he said.

  We moved apart and he went on ahead as we entered the warmth of the seasonally illuminated building, but I could still feel the ghost of his kiss on my lips. That lift in my heart as I realised that this was far, far more than friendship.

  This wasn’t fair. He’d kept my secret. I had to do something.

  I caught up with him in our office. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I thought I might go up and see what kind of redundancy package they’re going to give me, if I offer to take it voluntarily. It’s likely to be better than if I wait to be pushed.’ He’d taken off his coat but the steely flecks of melting snow still dotted his hair.

  ‘Don’t. Please.’

  ‘Ruby.’ Zac smiled a gentle smile. ‘It’s fine. It will be fine. Honestly.’

  ‘Please. Just give me an hour. I’ll come up with something.’

  ‘Something to counteract their belief that I’m one paper cut away from a breakdown?’

  I gave him my steadiest look. ‘None of us know how far we are from the edge, Zac. I never thought I was particularly fragile until Gareth… well, did what he did. And Priya was right, I should have seen it coming, I should have been less demanding, shouldn’t have tried to drive a relationship that wasn’t a real relationship, but I could never have foreseen it all leaving me with this dreadful anxiety and the panic attacks.’

  Zac stared at me.

  ‘What I mean is, they shouldn’t judge you
or make you lose your job just because you have a problem, should they? Because that’s like saying you can’t do your job because you broke your leg or because you’ve got toothache!’

  Zac sat down on the corner of my desk. I was reassured that he wasn’t immediately ignoring me and stomping off upstairs to throw himself on his sword, but he was still staring at me in a way that made me feel slightly uncomfortable.

  ‘You’re right, of course you are,’ he said. ‘But what should be doesn’t change anything. They want one of us out, they’ve got stuff on me. All you have to do is keep your head down and the job is yours.’

  ‘Not if I can make us equal.’ I looked around the room, desperate. There had to be something… My bag lay sprawled beside the desk. ‘Miriam.’

  Zac twitched. ‘Where? Shall I hide?’

  ‘No, I mean, she half-hinted… something…’ I tipped all the forms that I’d spent the evening staring at onto my desk. ‘If you can do something about Miriam, do you reckon that would be enough for them to keep your job for you?’

  ‘Never mind keeping my job, I’d probably get a knighthood. Or the head of the benefits office will come down and give me a big kiss.’

  The memory of that kiss outside in the snow hit both of us at the same time and our eyes met over the top of secretive smiles.

  ‘Then give me an hour. I stared at them all evening, something will dawn on me.’ I put a hand on his arm. ‘Please, Zac.’

  He reached out and touched my cheek, I hadn’t realised how cold my skin was until I felt the heat of his fingers. ‘But what about you? You need this job as much as I do.’

  I thought about my options. About my life. ‘I do, but I’ve got more ways out than you. Hell, I can always throw myself on my parents’ mercy, move back home and get a job in… I dunno, I can always do cleaning jobs – I’ll get by, Zac. Honestly.’ I looked around the office, where I’d felt so happily complacent until his arrival. Had that complacency stopped me from realising that the job wasn’t worth it? ‘I’m just a bit sick of the way this place is treating us. Making us turn against one another to keep our jobs. It’s hardly ethical or… kind. And I want a job where I help people, not where I’m forced to shove them into any job going, just to keep my own.’

  ‘Well, the turning against one another thing isn’t working out too well for them, at least.’ He laid his hand against my face again. ‘We might just salvage something rather pleasant out of it all. In the end.’ His phone buzzed then and he fished it out of his pocket. ‘Oh. Bob is here,’ he said, standing up and looking reluctant. ‘I bet he’s blown another interview. Ah well.’

  ‘You talk to Bob, I’m going to stare at these forms.’ I stood too and gave him a little push. ‘Go on. Go.’ I needed him to leave. I needed time to process what had happened between us, and also, if he didn’t go, I was worried I might just start kissing him again.

  ‘You and I—’

  ‘We can talk about that later. Go.’

  With a jerk of his head that seemed to indicate a mixture of reluctance, attraction, and resignation, he went out, carefully closing the door behind him and leaving a Zac-shaped hole in the room that I had previously not been aware of.

  That kiss. I ran a finger over my lips as though I could recreate the feelings of that moment in the snow. Despite a chilly draught that worried my ankles and the dampness that was the flakes in my hair melting down my neck, I couldn’t recapture it. But just remembering it made my heart feel as though it were suddenly taking up more space in my chest.

  Okay. Okay. Concentrate.

  Last night, looking at the forms spread out, I’d felt that I was standing on the edge of a discovery. All I had to do was recreate that situation. I tipped the papers out of the file and laid them out on the floor like a very neat jigsaw.

  ‘Something. Something,’ I muttered, walking around and around them, narrowing my eyes as though the resultant blurring of the image would make something significant jump out, like a magic eye puzzle.

  ‘Oh, you’re back.’ The air from the door opening caught all the papers under their edges and drifted them into a heap. ‘Where did you go?’ Priya stuck her head and one shoulder into the office. ‘It’s horrible out there.’

  ‘I went after Zac,’ I said, without really listening to myself. ‘He walked out.’

  ‘Oh.’ The rest of Priya came in and she closed the door behind her in a meaningful way. ‘Did you find him? Did you snog?’

  ‘The second of those questions is redundant if the answer to the first is “no”,’ I wasn’t really involved in this conversation, I was concentrating too hard on the mass on the floor.

  ‘And why does this place look as though you’ve tipped up a bin and you’re dancing on loads of people’s files?’

  ‘Not loads, just Miriam’s.’ I looked at Priya now. ‘And what makes you think I’d snog him?’

  ‘Unresolved sexual tension,’ she responded, snappily. ‘Forced to the forefront at moments of high drama.’

  Nettie lectured in Women’s Studies at York University. Sometimes the lectures leaked.

  ‘Well, for your inform— What did you say?’

  Priya gave me a Look. ‘Unresolved sexual tension. The air was so thick with it in here that I could only get in with scissors.’

  ‘No, not that. The files. Different people?’

  She looked down at the paperwork at my feet. ‘Err?’

  When I looked now, it was obvious. ‘I think you may just have got it,’ I said slowly. ‘I bloody love you, Pri.’

  ‘Don’t tell Nettie, she’s very territorial. She might pee on me,’ Priya replied calmly. ‘You carry on your bonkers paper sorting, I’m back off to my own office. I only came in for salacious details, but I’ll get those later.’ She wiggled her eyebrows. ‘When you’ve got further than the snogging.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘And you still owe me a shirt.’ She backed out, her face one enormous grin, and I heard her shout ‘I told you so!’ from the safe distance of the corridor.

  But I couldn’t worry about Priya’s smugness now. My brain had finally made the connection, and I pulled the nearest bit of paper up towards my face, found the telephone number on it and dialled.

  The roads got cleared, despite the near-constantly falling snow, and we all made it to our respective homes that night, although I stayed on late enough to make sure that Zac actually left the building, hustling him out and locking the door behind the pair of us.

  ‘What are you doing for Christmas?’ he asked me as we crossed the car park.

  ‘I haven’t really thought. I’m more concerned with just getting home tonight.’

  ‘I could drive you…’

  But things were different now. Yesterday’s Zac had been a workmate, a friend. There had been well-defined boundaries between us. Now – and I flicked a glance at him – now, since that kiss, new boundaries needed drawing up and I didn’t think I could do that sensibly if he was in the house with me.

  ‘It’s fine. I’ve got an Uber coming.’ I checked my phone. ‘It’s only two minutes away.’ I’d put it on the work’s account, I’d rationalise it if I needed to, but, with the way they were treating me and Zac, twenty quid of Uber was the least they deserved.

  ‘So. Christmas?’ He was standing very close to me. That boundary had been well and truly crossed.

  ‘I hadn’t really thought. Mum and Dad have already gone up to Durham, they spend Christmas with Eva and her family. I could go up there, I suppose, join them once the office closes.’

  Zac looked pointedly at the snow. ‘Isn’t it worse north of here? You’d risk being snowed in with your family?’

  ‘Well, they are my family, not werewolves or something. I’d probably survive.’

  ‘Ah. Only I wondered…’ Zac tailed off, staring across the wilderness of the snowy car park. The caretakers had been out shovelling and scraping and spreading and the surface had an odd, piebald look. ‘Up until this year… I mean, well, last year Mum
came home, but this year, they think it’s best if she stays where she is. They don’t have the staff to help settle her when she gets back, everyone’s on holiday, you see.’ He spoke in a rush. ‘I can visit her in the morning, but… I mean, I’ll give her her present and stay for the carols, but…’

  I had a sudden image of Zac going back to the emptiness of his house. I’d never been there, never even seen pictures, but in my imagination it was chilly with lots of deserted rooms and forgotten things. One of them being Zac, of course. All those tiny sweaters.

  ‘Why don’t we do something? Together, I mean. Sophie and Cav go home – at least, I think Cav goes home, he may just set up camp outside the local bike shop window. We could…’ thoughts of what we ‘could’ do made my face go hot. ‘Cook dinner together,’ I finished, in case his mind had gone there too.

  He relaxed. It was the answer he’d hoped for, I could tell by the way his face creased into that grin that I’d always found a bit annoying before. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and there was weight to the words. As though I’d rescued him from drowning.

  Zac. That kiss. That kiss…

  13

  The next day, Miriam was there before me again. Haunting the corridor outside the interview room with the smell of old smoke and Chanel, she was tapping up and down as though she were anxious.

  ‘Yeah, okay, I’m here,’ she said. ‘What’s the big hurry? They’re not firin’ you, are they? You’ve got to keep your job, I mean, never mind you being shafted by some bloke, you’re the only one daft enough to keep talkin’ to me. Did you look at the forms?’

  ‘That’s why you’re here,’ I said, shaking snow off the fluorescent jacket. I’d had to come on Cav’s bike again and I was still a bit out of breath. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘Long as there’s coffee and it’s free.’ Miriam began unwinding her scarf. ‘You’re payin’ for me to be here and all. Keep goin’; the kids is fightin’ over Xbox and it’s quieter here.’