Her little car was an overseas import with four-wheel-drive, and Elaine had insisted every year that Emily change the tyres to expensive winter ones, a practice common in Europe and other parts of the world which had a proper winter, but not so much here in England. However, as she carefully negotiated the snowy road out of the village she felt none of the nervousness most drivers felt as they crunched over fresh snow. Elaine had needed deliveries done at all times of the year, and in the past few years that had been Emily’s responsibility. Within a few minutes she had made her way out of the icy tangle of roads surrounding Cottonwood and was driving steadily along a far less snowy duel carriageway.
Despite speed restrictions and a couple of spun cars slowing things down, Emily made it back to the teahouse just after lunch. Here in Birchtide the passing storm had left only a sprinkling of snow compared to the heavy fall it had unleashed on Cottonwood to the south. Emily parked in the driveway and walked up to the teahouse, feeling a little lonesome at how forlorn and abandoned it looked. Despite the cold, weeds had sprung up around the entrance steps—something Elaine would never have allowed—and the windows were beginning to collect a layer of grime.
When she reached the door, she found several former regulars had voiced their frustrations in the form of messages taped to the glass. We need our cakes! How long are you going to keep us waiting?! read one particularly irate message. While the events in Cottonwood had restored part of the confidence lost with Elaine’s death, now Emily felt the old doubts creeping in. Could she be true to her grandmother’s memory? Perhaps she really should do the unthinkable, and sell up, allow another owner to make their mark. It wasn’t like she needed the money.
She stared at the messages until the cold began to creep under her jacket. Finally she headed inside, picking up the huge pile of unopened Christmas cards on the mat. She filed through them, checking mostly for bills and messages from suppliers. She would pay or answer them all, keep Elaine’s slate clean until she was ready. Maybe that time was soon, maybe not. Emily’s stomach felt knotted at the thought of the decision she needed to make.
It was in the loft where she found what she had come for. A collection of earthenware bowls covered with greaseproof paper held down with elastic bands looked like a giant honeycomb when viewed in the light of Emily’s phone. Elaine’s yearly collection of Christmas puddings, made every January and left to mature in the loft until December. Emily counted thirty in all, then began carrying them down the stairs and out to the car. She had made a decision about a stall she herself would run, and the puddings were a necessary addition. However, unable to shake a feeling that she was getting rid of a final part of her grandmother, she left the last few in place. If she did decide to reopen, they would still be perfectly edible in a year’s time.
Her car felt loaded down with twenty-five Christmas puddings on the floor and in the boot. After a brief stop at a supermarket for a few more bits and bobs she couldn’t buy locally, she headed back. The day had got away from her again, and twilight had come as she took the Cottonwood turning off the duel carriageway. The country lanes, formerly a snowy wonderland, took on a grim iciness in the gloom beneath the setting sun. Pulling up out of a valley over a frozen ford, Emily felt her wheels spin before gripping and launching her forward, only for another patch of ice to catch her front tyres and angle her toward the hedge.
She caught herself just in time, but the journey had certainly become a challenge. She threw all her thoughts aside and concentrated on the road ahead, leaning low over the wheel as the car crunched over snow turned hard.
The forest fell away behind her, the sky lightening with one last cast of daylight before the sun set. Emily pulled round a corner, past a small side turning, only to find the road blocked by a fallen tree. Frustrated, she left the car idling and climbed out, wondering if she could perhaps move it. However, while it only looked like a sapling, it was far too heavy and its branches had become entangled with the hedgerow it had fallen upon. Alan likely had some cutting equipment, but Emily would have to go around.
She got back into her car and reversed up the road, taking the side turning. Unplowed, the car could only move at a few miles per hour as Emily bumped over the hardened snow, the wheels spinning and jerking with each undulation. She passed a gateway and saw a line of houses at the top of a snowy field, the village so close she could almost touch it. The road, however, wound back downhill, passing below her own holiday let, then a while later Nathan Trower’s place almost hidden by a rear screen of trees. Then, after the last gateway had passed behind her, she descended down into forest.
In the icy gloom parted only by her headlights, she might as well have been in the wilds of Siberia, a million miles away from the joyous preparations for a Christmas event. The road ran on and on, and while the snow was less under the trees, in places, where snowmelt had run across the road and frozen, her car slipped and slid, only ever a couple of feet away from getting stuck in a ditch.
‘Come on,’ she muttered to herself, trying to summon the spirit of the snow-loving Reverend Billingham. ‘Shouldn’t I be enjoying this?’
She turned a corner, wheels spinning, and found herself heading back uphill. In the far distance, her headlights illuminated the silhouette of a man walking along the road. As a matter of habit she reached across and pressed down the door locks, but as she got closer, she became more certain that it was Nathan Trower, out walking in the dark.
Emily shook her head. The man was an enigma. Down here in the forest, on the icy roads beneath the gloom, he was walking with his hands in his pockets and with no sign of a torch. Without her car lights he would be walking in near darkness, yet he was moving with an ease that suggested he felt no concern at all.
He appeared to walk faster as she gradually gained on him, briefly disappearing around a corner before reappearing up ahead a minute later as Emily made the turn. They were out of the woods now, but the light had almost gone, and through her side windows the towering hedgerows were dark sentinels.
How Trower knew where he was going, Emily guessed came down to a lifelong familiarity with the area. She felt similar about Birchtide, recognising the outline of trees, gateways, the angle of the road, even in the dark. Even so, on a night like this she would have been curled up on the sofa watching the TV.
Finally Emily came to a crossroads where a slightly larger road led back to the village. Trower should have turned left, his own house just half a mile back along the road, but to Emily’s surprise he headed straight across, taking the road which led around to Rowe Farm. As Emily made the turn, she frowned at the last sight of him, walking fast, head bowed, hands in his pockets. Despite her car trailing him for the last half a mile, he hadn’t turned back to look, not once.
It was as though he had other things on his mind.