Short Stack

by Lily Morton

  I bite my lip. I hope I’m not letting the side down. It’s been hard to acclimatize to being a couple with someone who factors high in a lot of people’s lives. He owns a lot of land here, and everyone seems to know him. His family have their own pew in the church, for God’s sake, and his ancestors are buried in the chapel here. I have to say they don’t look any less grim in marble than they do in oils, but still, he has a place in the county and a family history that dates back hundreds of years, while I have none.

  “You alright?”

  I jump and find Silas staring at me enquiringly with a hint of worry in his eyes. He holds out his hand, and the worry eases a little when I immediately take it. I don’t even look around to see if we’re bothering people, which is one almighty plus from being with Silas, as he blatantly doesn’t care about people’s opinions. Part of that comes from being an aristocrat, but a large part is him. He doesn’t judge people and accepts them on their own merits and quite simply expects that back.

  He’s loved around here because of the contribution he makes to the community. I know for a fact that he’s always being hit up for a loan and rarely refuses despite his own financial situation. I want to shake my head at him, but I can’t because I love him, and his open generosity and sense of responsibility are what makes him the man I love. So, I allow him to take my hand and lead me down the aisle towards the family pew. I’m sure there are some haters, but everyone I’ve come into contact with since I moved here has been lovely.

  I slide into the pew closely followed by Silas. “It’s busy,” I mutter, looking around.

  He grins. “You sound surprised. Did you think we’d all be off making wicker man statues?”

  “No, because Christopher Lee isn’t a resident,” I say primly.

  He laughs, and it’s loud enough to make people around us smile. He leans in closer. “What would you have been doing this time last year?”

  I nudge him. “Silas, we’re in church. You can’t ask those sort of questions.”

  He pats my knee. “Well, don’t worry, I’ll endeavour to keep to your traditions later on. You know your heritage is important to me.”

  Luckily my laughter is drowned out by the vicar starting to talk, and I sit back, aware of the warmth and solidity of Silas’s body next to mine and the calluses on his palm as he cradles my hand in his. The service is surprisingly beautiful, and I feel a warmth in my chest as I look around at the congregation singing the words to the beautiful old carols. Candles gutter and burn in the windows, making the stained glass glow like jewels, and the church is filled with the smell of pine from the wreaths.

  Just as with Chi an Mor I feel a startling sense of kinship here, like I’m finally where I’m meant to be, with the person intended for me. It makes me mellow in too many ways for me to count.

  When the service is finished, we wait in the pew while the rows behind us start to empty. “Did you and Henry sit here every Sunday?” I ask idly.

  He smiles. “Yep. Every single Sunday. With my mother and father on either side of us pretending we were one big happy family.”

  I squeeze his hand. “Well, part of that equation is right. You and Henry are a happy family.”

  He lifts my fingers and drops a casual kiss on them. “With you and Ivo, yes, we are now.”

  I shake my head. “Sometimes I can’t believe how posh you are, Silas. This is your very own pew.”

  “You contribute what we have to the upkeep of the church, and you can have one too.”

  “I want gold letters spelling out my name,” I say in a pompous voice. “And I want music to play when I sit down.”

  “I can think of certain circumstances when I’ve heard music playing when you sat down on me,” he says casually.

  I gasp and elbow him. “Silas Ashworth, we’re in church.”

  He grins. “We weren’t that posh anyway. Look at the pew in front of you.”

  I bend down, and for a second I can’t see what he’s pointing at, and then I snort. “Oh, my God!”

  He laughs. “Yep. Henry wrote on the family pew, ‘Henry loves Ivo.’”

  “It’s not so much the words as the fact that he actually bedazzled them,” I say in an awed voice. “How long did that take?”

  “Weeks,” he says happily. “Henry is very dedicated when it comes to certain things.”

  “Like graffiti and defacing Church of England property. How did he not get found out?”

  “Because my father was usually drunk when we got here and my mother was too busy looking down at the peasants.”

  I smile, but I nestle closer to him. His childhood sounds so awful that I can’t believe what good men he and Henry turned out to be. “I’m sorry for that,” I whisper.

  He just smiles and kisses my forehead. “I’m not. It made me appreciate what you give me all the more, which is the way it should be.”

  I smile at him, full of so many emotions that I feel I could float off. I love him so much, I can’t say. I settle for hugging him instead, and from the way he hugs me back I think he gets the message.

  Half an hour later, I sit in the car outside the Chinese takeaway in Padstow. The car is warm and cosy, Bing Crosby is warbling about a White Christmas, and if he were here, he’d be pleased after looking out of the window. Snow is falling in fat, fluffy flakes dancing down onto the car only to be whisked away by the wipers. I’ve lapsed into an almost hypnotised state, so the sound of the door opening makes me jump.

  Silas puts the bag of food on the back seat, and I inhale the delicious scent as my stomach rumbles. He climbs into the driving seat and grins at me. “Brrr, it’s coming down hard.”

  “Do you think the others will have a job getting here?”

  He flicks the indicator and pulls out slowly, but even so, the wheels catch on the new snow. “I’m not sure,” he says consideringly. “The motorway will be clear, but the back lanes might be a problem.” He shoots me a look. “Don’t worry, darling. It’ll all be fine.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “I know,” he says peaceably. “I just said it.”

  I snort and poke him in the ribs. Then I stare out of the window. “I’m not a local boy, Silas, but we appear to be heading in the wrong direction.”

  He smiles at me a little anxiously. “Do you mind if we don’t eat at home?”

  “No,” I say slowly. “But where are we going that they’ll let us eat takeaway?”

  “I was thinking about it while I was in the takeaway. I’ve always meant to do this with you, but I really want to do it now while the weather’s like this.” He bites his lip. “I just want to make a memory.”

  I squeeze his leg. “I’ll go anywhere with you, and it will always be a memory, and if it goes wrong, then it’ll be an excellent funny story.”

  “You’ve got a lot of Irish in you.”

  “You can have a lot of it in you, if you carry on like this,” I say just to listen to him laugh.

  He takes the car down winding lanes with high hedges which send crazy shadows over the car. The snow is still falling, but the Land Rover copes perfectly with the roads. Finally, he indicates and turns, and I peer out of the window. At first, I can’t see anything, but then we come out onto a road and ahead of me is the massive dark expanse of the sea.

  “The beach?” I say.

  He shoots me a smile as he pulls neatly into a parking space facing the view. “Do you mind?”

  “Of course I don’t,” I say slowly. “What an amazing view.”

  The sea is a dark mass, and the sandy beach looks white in the eerie, snow-filled night.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the beach with snow,” I say.

  He laughs. “Come on. Let’s have a walk down it and then come back. I asked for some forks from the takeaway. We can eat with a view.”

  I grin back at him, shrugging into my coat before climbing out of the car and joining him. He pulls my hat closely over my head, and I button his coat, and the simple gestures make me smile
and feel warm inside. I’ve never had anyone take care of me like Silas. It’s never an obligation but always done with a sense of wonder on his part.

  We set off down the beach with my hand in his pocket. The wind gusts around us, flinging the snow about like confetti, and it’s magical to walk like this. The snow isn’t settling on the sand, but it makes the beach look almost monochrome in this strange light. We’re the only ones here, and it almost feels as if we’ve come to the edge of the world. We walk from one end of the beach and back again, and I wonder at the way my life has turned out.

  I smile at the thought.

  His gaze stays on me as he flings our wet coats into the back of the car and retrieves the takeaway bag. “What’s so funny?” he asks.

  “Just marvelling at the way my life has changed from one year to the next. This time last year I was in London going into a club.”

  “And now you’re eating Chinese takeaway with plastic forks looking at the beach after Christmas carols.” He shoots me a sideways look. “Happy?”

  I spear a prawn in my sweet and sour and look out at the snow-swept landscape and then back at the face that’s so dear to me. “So very happy,” I say decisively.

  He grins at me as we fall on our food.

  I come awake with a jerk as Silas moves away from me in bed. The cold air rushes into the spot where his body was, and I grumble. “Where are you going? Come back.”

  “The phone’s ringing,” he whispers, piling the covers back around me. “Go back to sleep, darling.”

  “Not on Christmas Eve,” I mumble, and he strokes my hair back before grabbing his phone.

  “Silas Ashworth,” he says and then stands up as the person on the other end talks. “I’ll take this in the bathroom,” he whispers, kissing my forehead.

  The covers are a warm nest around me and full of the scent of our lovemaking, and for a few minutes I drift, caught between dreams and waking. I come fully awake at the click of the bathroom door which sends light washing over the floor.

  “What’s happened?” I ask, sitting up and squinting at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “Bill Langley’s horse has gone into labour and Theo can’t get to him because of the snow.”

  “And you can?”

  Silas nods, stepping into his boxers and pulling a set of navy scrubs from the chest of drawers. He slides his legs into the trousers. “Yes, it’s not far from here. I won’t have a problem.”

  “But it’s Christmas Eve,” I groan. “You might not be back for Christmas morning.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he says again, regret deepening his voice. “I hate that I’m spoiling our first Christmas.”

  I blink awake and mentally slap myself. This isn’t his fault. It’s his bloody job. “You’re not spoiling anything,” I say robustly. “You’ll be back when the horse is okay, and whenever that is, we’ll open presents.” I look out the window where the snow whirls against the mullioned glass. “It might just be us anyway.”

  He crosses to the window. “You might be right. The snow’s thick.” He comes to the bed, hugging me and burying his face in my neck. “Go back to sleep, Pika. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “I won’t notice,” I say, throwing the covers back. “Because I’m coming with you.”

  “What?”

  “That incredulity in your voice is rather loud,” I say tartly.

  “Darling, it’s a horse birth. You’ll hate it.”

  “I’ll hate it more not being with you on Christmas morning. Anyway, I’ve watched One Born Every Minute. I think I’m prepared.”

  “No, Maggie watched it in the kitchen, and you had to put a tea towel over your eyes and have a lie-down afterwards.”

  “Fluids, Silas. There were fluids. That’s all I have to say.”

  He watches me throw my skinny jeans on, and an old black jumper of his which is thick and soft and almost comes down to my knees. I pull socks on and stamp my feet into my old combat boots and then wind a red scarf around my neck before pausing to stare at him. “You okay?”

  He jerks as if I’ve startled him. “I like seeing you in my clothes,” he says and pulls me to him. “Are you really coming with me?” The wonder in his voice makes my heart bang in my chest.

  “Of course I am,” I scoff. “Where you go, then so do I.” He blinks, and I grin up at him. “But maybe put a shirt on. I don’t think Mr Langley will appreciate the wonder of your chest in quite the same way I do.”

  When we emerge from the bedroom, Chewwy is waiting, sitting and staring dolefully at the door. “I swear he knows what’s going to happen,” I coo, petting him and kissing his head. “We could market him as a canine seer like that octopus who predicted the World Cup.”

  Silas shakes his head. “He’s always outside the bloody door. I tell you he’s just waiting for when you have a weak moment and let him in the bedroom. Then he’ll never leave.”

  “I would never do that,” I protest, conveniently forgetting last week when Silas had been away for a night and I’d let Chewwy sleep on his side of the bed.

  Knowing me as he does, he just shakes his head again and pulls me after him. The house is silent apart from old creaks and groans. Every day, such sounds are becoming more familiar to me, and I’ve learned not to jump as though there’s a ghost behind me. When we get to the back door, I pause and look at Chewwy who is contemplating sinking into a deep depression. “He’s going to be so sad that we’re going without him.”

  “I can’t let him anywhere near a horse giving birth.”

  “That’s okay,” I say brightly. “I’ll just give him one of his Christmas presents.”

  “One of them?”

  “He’s got a stocking and so has Boris and Mabel the cat. We can’t leave our hairy babies out,” I say, bustling over to the corner cupboard. Opening a drawer, I remove the bright red felt stockings embroidered with dogs wearing Santa hats. I extract a small present and look at Silas. “Do you want to open it?”

  “Oh no, I couldn’t deprive you of the pleasure,” he says, watching me with his lips twitching.

  “You’d better not be laughing at me,” I say warningly.

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  We leave Chewwy nosing his new rawhide bone, and then the two of us walk out into a winter wonderland. The snow is thick and shimmering in the glow from the moon, and the trees and bushes sparkle. The snow has stopped, and, helped along by the blustery wind, the clouds have cleared so patches of stars can now be seen. I inhale the clean, cold air and follow Silas, stepping into his footsteps as he ploughs his way through the deep snow.

  When we reach the car, we’re both wet, and I know I have red cheeks from the wind. We fall into the car and Silas starts the engine.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  I nod enthusiastically. “This is brilliant. It’s like an adventure.”

  He cups my cheek. “Love you, Pika,” he says affectionately.

  I nuzzle his palm. “I love you too.”

  The journey is a little dicey occasionally, and the car skids a couple of times, but Silas handles it with all the confidence of someone who hasn’t failed their driving test three times. Finally, we pull up in front of a low-slung farmhouse whose windows are glowing in the dark, spilling golden lozenges over the snow. As Silas switches the engine off, the farmhouse door opens and the burly figure of Bill Langley, a local farmer, appears and picks his way towards the car.

  As Silas opens the door, they exchange greetings. “Thanks for coming, Silas,” he says in his deep Cornish voice. “I’m a bit worried about the mare. But I’m so sorry I’ve pulled you away from your bloke at Christmas.”

  “You haven’t.” Silas grins. “He’s come with me.”

  I step cautiously out of the car and smile at Bill Langley as he comes to take my hand in a firm handshake. “I’m pleased to meet you, Oz. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “You have?”

  “Aye.” He smiles. “My br
other-in-law’s a builder. I think you might know him as Barry.”

  I groan at the thought of the builder who I clashed with over the summer. “Oh, dear. Nothing good, then.”

  He claps his meaty hand on my shoulder, nearly knocking me into a snowdrift. “Plenty good, actually.”

  “Really? I’ll have to re-evaluate our relationship.”

  He laughs. “I can see he was right.” He looks over at Silas as he removes his big canvas bag from the car boot. “You ready, lad?”

  “I am,” Silas says, taking my hand and walking towards a large barn. I sneak a look at the farmer, expecting to see a look of disgust on his face. Instead, I find a warm smile directed at me.

  “I’ll let Silas take a look at the mare, and I’ll get my wife to rustle up some coffee. Are either of you hungry?”

  Silas shakes his head, but I nod enthusiastically, making him snort under his breath. Bill leaves us at the door and we enter the barn, giving grateful sighs at the warmth that awaits us. It’s a stone building, and it glows in the wintry landscape. Lights are ablaze, and the air smells faintly sweet, which I think might be the hay. A radio on a table is playing Christmas carols.

  Silas walks straight over to the nearest stall where a horse who is a rich brown colour is pacing about. “Here she is,” he says in that calm, sweet voice I’ve heard him use before on calls. “How are you, Nutmeg?”

  “That’s a perfect name for her,” I say softly, coming to the side of the stall and resting against the door, watching Silas as he pets the mare. Her belly is huge and the whites of her eyes are showing, but she whickers gently, pushing her nose into Silas’s hand and bumping him affectionately.

  “How is she?” I whisper.

  He grins. “I’ll tell you in a minute, but she looks quite calm at the moment. I’m hoping it’ll go okay, but she had a bad delivery last time, and I know Bill is fond of her, so he’s naturally worried. I’ll take a proper look at her.”

  He removes his coat and jumper and rolls up the sleeves of his scrub top. I hold my hands out for his clothes, and then he pulls on some elbow-length surgical gloves and retreats back into the stall.