The light woke her. Laura sat up blearily. Even without opening the curtains she could tell the snow had fallen hard.
She kicked the blankets off and the floorboards creaked beneath her weight as she went to the window to peer out into the world. There was probably a foot and a half of snow now. It was so deep that everything outside had lost its edges, blending shapes so that bird baths blurred with garden chairs, cars into garden walls. She remembered her old enemy Sugar and wondered how she was coping with the snow, in spite of her adaptability.
A shiver ferreted up her spine from the old, cold glass and she moved away to lean against the ancient radiator. It was only warm in the top-right corner, so she perched there whilst her brain slowly booted up and reminded her of the ruin that was her life now. Jack, Fee. It was Thursday. This would be the third whole day since she’d left home, the longest the three of them had ever gone without contact. She kept catching herself worrying about Fee – knowing she of all people couldn’t cope with silence – before remembering in the next instant how Fee didn’t need her concern. Fee had proved more than capable of looking out for herself and getting what she wanted.
Laura breathed slowly, painfully. She still hadn’t cried properly yet and was beginning to wonder whether she ever would. Maybe she just couldn’t any more; maybe her body couldn’t absorb any more hurt.
She washed at the sink and got dressed in yesterday’s clothes. She had no idea how she was going to get home today. She’d have to fit Monster wheels on Dolly to get her over this snow.
She could hear Kitty talking as she came down the stairs.
‘Well, I haven’t had an email or anything to say that school isn’t going to open, so I guess I’m going to have to try to make my way in,’ Kitty sighed, setting down the tea and a platter of sausages, bacon and baked beans. Scrambled eggs were in a separate bowl. She looked up at the sight of Laura in the doorway. ‘Good timing! Come and sit . . . Of course, the children will want me to pull them in on their sledges.’
‘Well, you’re not to, Kits,’ Joe said firmly from his high-backed chair. He didn’t actively acknowledge Laura’s presence, but he didn’t scowl at her either, which had to be taken as a positive step up in his books. ‘They’re too heavy now for you to be dragging them behind you like that. You’ll do your back in again. I’d take them myself if I didn’t have to clear the roads.’
Kitty looked over at Laura. ‘The council’s asked him to clear the local roads. It couldn’t have come at a better time, could it, Joe? A little more cash before Christmas.’
Joe gave a terse, scarcely perceptible nod. Laura already knew enough of the man to know he would abhor any kind of comment about money in front of strangers. ‘Don’t change the subject, Kit. You are not to pull them.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ his wife replied, busying herself with cutting her sausage into tiny pieces.
‘Kit!’ Joe warned, frowning at her. ‘I mean it.’
Kit sighed and stopped what she was doing. ‘Okay. I promise,’ she said, making eye contact with him. Laura quickly looked away, feeling strangely intrusive, pouring herself some tea from the pot.
Joe helped himself to another rasher of bacon.
‘Well, obviously I can help you,’ Laura said after a minute listening to everyone munching whilst she held her mug between two hands.
‘You’ve not got suitable clothing for walking around in these conditions,’ Kitty argued.
‘What are you talking about, woman? You’ve got loads of things she can borrow,’ Joe muttered. ‘She may as well make herself useful.’ He looked at Laura. ‘The roads are closed and there are no trains. You’ll have to stay here tonight as well.’
It was the most graceless offer of hospitality Laura had ever heard.
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.
Kitty peered over at Laura as she spread her home-made marmalade on toast. ‘Sleep well?’
‘Like the proverbial, thanks.’
‘Huh, that’s because you don’t have the literals,’ Joe mumbled.
Kitty’s phone beeped beside her and she picked it up. ‘Oh. There it is. Confirmation that school’s shut.’
A collective roar from the children made Laura jump. Kitty shook her head, smiling, as they all started dancing around the kitchen, jubilant. She raised an eyebrow at Laura. ‘How are your snowman-making skills?’
‘Rusty.’
‘Well, tuck in,’ she said, pushing the sausages towards Laura. ‘You thought skiing with Rob was hard core?’ She shook her head and gave a small snort of disdain. ‘He’s nothing compared to what my lot will expect from you in the snow.’
Laura sniffed loudly as Samuel wriggled on her lap. Lucie put her arm around her and squeezed tight.
‘Laura?’ Kitty frowned, peering her head round the door of the snug and finding her feral children sitting in a heap around Laura. They were supposed to be having ‘quiet time’ after lunch, but it appeared Laura was the one most in need of time-out.
‘Mufasa just died,’ Laura hiccupped, pointing towards the TV. It was the third film she’d watched in a row and she was almost cross-eyed with grief.
‘Ah yes . . . The Lion King. One of my top-five films of all time,’ Kitty said earnestly, watching her closely. Laura had started weeping the second the opening credits had come up and basically hadn’t stopped.
‘Mine too. After Nemo and Toy Story,’ Laura sniffed again.
‘I think Toy Story 2’s better,’ Finn piped up from under her arm. ‘We’ll watch that next.’
Kitty smiled at him. ‘Well, do you think I could borrow Aunty Laura for a bit first?’
Laura nodded and got up. Instantly, five sets of arms wrapped around her. ‘No!’ the children cried.
‘I’ll have her back before Scar does you-know-what,’ Kitty winked.
They fell back on to the little green sofa reluctantly.
‘What’s up?’ Laura asked weakly, her nose red, as they tiptoed out of the snug.
‘Is everything all right, Laura?’ Kitty asked, placing an enquiring hand on her arm.
‘Absolutely,’ she sniffed. ‘Why d’you ask?’
‘Only the fact that you’ve been crying for two hours solid.’
Laura swallowed. ‘Disney,’ she said, thumbing back towards the door. ‘Killing me. I don’t know how the kids do it. They are so hard. How can they not sob when Mufasa is betrayed by his own son like that? His own son, I ask you?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Kitty watched as a fresh veil of tears fell. ‘Well, listen, I was going to ask whether you wouldn’t mind doing me a favour. But if you’re too upset, I —’
‘No, no, no. Anything. What can I do?’ Laura asked, wiping her nose with a piece of kitchen roll that Samuel had given her – only to discover the little devil had used it himself. ‘Ugh!’
‘I’m just finishing the costumes for the nativity tonight, but I’m out of ribbon for Martha’s headdress. Joe’s going into town to get some more salt, but frankly he wouldn’t know a petersham from Peter Jones. I don’t suppose . . . ?’
‘Of course.’
‘Great! I’ve got a small sample you can match. I need three point two metres.’
‘Sure.’
‘Oh, you are a love. Joe’s just getting the tractor. Take my ski jacket from the porch. I’ll just go get that sample for you.’
Laura nodded, sniffing again as she slipped on Kitty’s jacket and wellies by the door.
‘Here you go.’ Kitty handed over a small strip of cinnamon-coloured grosgrain ribbon. ‘See you back here shortly. I should have pretty much finished by then and we can have a cuppa.’
‘Lovely.’
Laura marched into the snow. It had been well compacted down thanks to their strenuous activity in the morning – a snowman competition: yes, why stop at one when the children can have one each? – followed by a particularly vigorous and evil snowball fight that saw the children target Laura with a well-planned ambush campaign, resulting in handfuls of snow being shoved down her back. And when she’d fallen, laughing, in the snow, the children had followed suit, swinging their arms and legs out to make snow angels.
Joe’s blue tractor rumbled around from the barns at the back and he threw open the door for her without cutting the engine and the cab wobbled perilously on its hyper-suspension. Laura clambered up, looking around for a seat belt, and found with alarm that there wasn’t one. The snow-plough Joe had used earlier when he’d been clearing the roads was still fitted, and Laura watched, mesmerized, as they pulled away and the fresh falls parted before them like a holy sea.
‘You’re quiet,’ Joe muttered after several minutes of silence.
‘Am I?’ she replied, staring out of the panoramic windscreen.
‘Yes, given that every time I pass, you and Kitty are always chatting away like you’ve known each other for years.’
‘Well, I’m sure Kitty’s like that with everyone. She’s so friendly and warm.’
Joe shot her a sideways look. ‘You’d be surprised.’
Laura looked across at him. This was almost passing as a conversation. ‘Are you saying Kitty’s shy?’
‘I’m saying she’s not as robust as she comes across. She gives too much and she gets easily hurt. That’s what I’m saying.’
Laura frowned as the tractor swept down the lanes. The comment felt targeted. ‘I would never hurt her, if that’s what you mean.’
‘No?’ Joe looked dead ahead. ‘That’s what her other friends said too, till their lives took off and they dumped her like a sack of potatoes because she wasn’t rich and thin and glamorous enough to fit into their shiny new circles.’
‘Do you mean Cat?’
‘Who else?’ he snorted.
‘She’s just . . . abandoned her?’
Joe looked straight at her. ‘Nail on the head.’
‘And that’s why you’ve hated me on sight. It was nothing to do with Pocket’s diet at all. You feel I’m perpetuating the glossy myths around her, when all she’s done is hurt your wife.’
Joe was silent for a minute. ‘It breaks my heart to see her talking up that woman like they’re still so close. Reminiscing about their glory days when, in reality, Cat hasn’t bothered with her for years.’
‘But they got on so well in Verbier.’
‘Yes. Because Mrs High and Mighty had an audience.’
‘I really don’t think Cat’s like that,’ Laura said quietly. ‘She went out of her way to be friendly to me when she really could have just ignored me altogether, and there’s no agenda there – she doesn’t have any idea that I’m doing the necklace for her.’
‘Then there’s another reason she’s currying favour with you. Cat Blake doesn’t do anything for anybody unless there’s something in it for her. Kitty outlived her usefulness years ago.’
Laura fell quiet. There was no point in arguing the toss. He’d known Cat since childhood. Who was she to tell him he was wrong? He didn’t need her to lecture him that friends very often do just grow apart. She watched him discreetly as he stopped at a junction and pulled out on to the main road. His chin was thrust forward defiantly, proudly. She might not like what he was saying about Cat, but she liked what he was doing for his wife. And for the first time, Laura began to understand what it was that Kitty saw in him.
Laura leaned against the wall, her clasped hands resting against her mouth – partly to stop her from laughing, partly because the scene in front of her ranked as one of the most adorable she’d seen in her life. On the darkened stage, the children of Ottersbrook Primary School were singing ‘Little Donkey’ in joyous tunelessness and Kitty’s chaotic homemade costumes. The shepherds had tea towels fixed down on their heads, jam jar-style, the donkey was boasting a Rasta mane Bob Marley would have been proud to call his own, and poor Mary and baby Jesus were being completely upstaged by the stars – the pretty little girls in reception who were twinkling gloriously in white tutus and LED fairy lights. Laura had so far successfully managed to identify Lucie, Kitty’s second, who was the inn-keeper’s wife, Tom, who was a king, and Samuel, who was a rather blotchy-faced sheep. The fact that he was holding on to his companion duckling for grim death suggested he had thrown a major tantrum backstage and refused to go on without it.
Kitty and Joe had managed to bag seats in the third row, but Laura – despite Kitty’s entreaties that she sit with them – had insisted on not taking a place intended for proud parents and was perfectly happy leaning against the back wall instead. She could see equally as well from there, she’d said.
It was just as amusing for her to watch the families as the children anyway. Before her lay a sea of inclined heads – some greying, some balding, many blonded – the shoulders beneath them hunched with anxious anticipation until lines had been safely delivered. The dark space running up to the stage was lit up like a circuit board as hundreds of red blinking lights recorded the play for posterity and absent grandparents. Five, eight, ten years earlier, these very people would have been holding up white lighters at festivals and concerts, but this performance – better than anything they’d ever seen at the O2 – marked their new life stage as clearly as stretch marks and baggy eyes.
She let her eyes swing over the audience like a beam of light, watching their profiles as women leaned in to whisper to their husbands during the carols, or their hands fluttered to their mouths nervously as their children spoke their lines. This was what it was to be a mother, she saw – pride and fear intermingled with something fierce and tender all at once. Something complicated, something universal, but uniquely theirs all the same. Had she been wrong to walk away from it so lightly? Had Jack? If she had been pregnant, would he really have left her?
Laura searched out Kitty again, and she noticed Joe lip-synching as Tom delivered his lines. She watched for a couple of minutes, enchanted. The man was secretly soft!
And then she saw him – Rob – sitting two rows back, slightly further to the left so that he was almost directly in front of her. It was his curls, so identifiable even from behind, that she noticed first. To his right was Cat, hair gleaming as though the lights were trained on her. Even from behind they made a beautiful couple. Laura looked back at Rob again, feeling her heart galloping like a thoroughbred. All day last night’s veiled conversation had lingered in the back of her mind like a shadow on her heart. What had he wanted to say to her in the hall? She had lain awake for hours afterwards, wondering, wincing as she heard the front door close twenty minutes later.
She watched him tilt his head to listen to something Cat was whispering in his ear, and he appeared to frown and shake his head in reply. Suddenly she lost them as the weighted hem of the curtain landed on the stage with a thwump! and they were swallowed up by the upsurge of cheering parents who took to their feet.
Laura craned to see them in the crowd, but it was impossible to keep tabs on anyone as mothers cried, grandparents roundly congratulated, children ran into outstretched arms, and fathers swapped cordial handshakes for their ‘good to see you’ once-a-term meetings. Over the crowd, she could hear Kitty, boisterous in her happiness, as she tried to simultaneously congratulate the music teacher and round up her brood. All around her, people jostled and laughed and chattered, children darted past her knees, and her toes were run over several times by mothers with sleeping babies in prams.
‘Aunty Laura, Aunty Laura,’ a little voice called up, and she felt a strong tug on the hem of her jumper. She looked down to find Martha squinting up at her. ‘I can’t find Mummy.’
‘What? Oh, but she’s just down by the stage,’ Laura replied distractedly, her eyes falling upon Kitty, who was conducting an impromptu nit-check on Tom.
‘People keep treading on my toes,’ Martha whined.
‘Well then, just stay here with me. Let’s just . . . let all these people get through first, shall we?’ she said, taking Martha by the hand and gesturing towards the bottleneck of people shuffling through the narrow doors, only to find, just twenty feet away, the Blakes.
Rob’s eyes met hers a split second before Cat’s.
‘Laura!’ Cat gasped, waving a manicured hand across the sea of heads. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Snowed in!’ Laura called.
Cat cupped her hand to her ear. ‘Sorry?’
‘I’m snowed in!’ Laura shouted. But it was useless. They were being swept away by the nativity tide.
‘Meet us outside!’ Cat called as she disappeared from sight.
Laura nodded, squeezing Martha’s hand excitedly. She let the crowds rush past, and Laura looked back for Kitty and Joe, just catching sight of them as they disappeared through the emergency exit beside the stage.
‘Oh, come on, Martha. Let’s go this way.’
‘I always knew Tom would make a great king,’ Kitty was saying proudly, clutching the poor mortified boy by his shoulders, as Laura and Martha met up with them in the car park. It was all but deserted – no one was stopping to chat in the freezing night temperatures. Fluffy snowflakes were fluttering down, illuminated in the pools of light thrown out by the lamp posts.
‘He’ll make a better farmer,’ Joe snorted.
‘And as for Lucie – I mean, the way she delivered her lines. I never had that kind of composure when I was her age.’ Kitty had her hand smacked over her heart in utter amazement.
‘She was great!’ Laura beamed, stopping next to her. ‘And I loved Sam holding his duckling too. So sweet.’
‘Huh! That’s what you call it,’ Joe muttered.
Kitty rolled her eyes. ‘Ignore him, old Misery Boots,’ she mouthed.
But Laura just gave him a knowing smile. His secret was out with her. She hadn’t forgotten his quiet pride beaming out in the dark hall.
‘You really ought to have sat with us, though,’ Kitty tutted. ‘There was honestly no need for you to stand at the back.’
‘No, it was packed in there. I was fine. I had a great view.’
‘You could have sat with us, Laura,’ Cat smiled, looking richer than the Three Kings in a honey-coloured sheepskin coat. ‘There was plenty of room next to us proud godparents.’
Laura shrugged, wishing she hadn’t borrowed Kitty’s coat – a Millets fleece-lined parka that was better suited to fell-walking in Cumbrian rain than Christmas plays in the Home Counties.
‘So how come you’re here?’ Cat asked her again. ‘Are you staying with these guys?’
‘Yes. I got snowed in. Apparently I was the only person in the country not to know that it was going to snow this week and decided that driving cross-country to London and Surrey was an absolutely cracking idea.’
‘What were you doing in London and Surrey?’ Cat asked.
Laura stalled. It was a reasonable enough question, but Laura couldn’t answer it – not without giving away Rob’s secret present. She saw Rob shift his weight nervously.
‘Oh . . . you know . . . visiting friends,’ she nodded.
Cat looked between Laura and Kitty, and Laura saw the flash of hurt that she hadn’t been included in the grand tour. ‘You must have seen Laura last night when you went to get the cakes?’ Cat asked Rob. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
He gave a careless shrug. ‘Laura went to bed early. I didn’t think to mention it. What was there to say?’
‘I would have liked to know! I could have come over today for some girly chat and some of Kitty’s world-famous cake.’
Kitty puffed up with pride. ‘Well, if you want to come over tom—’
‘How long are you staying for?’ Cat asked Laura.
‘Hopefully I’ll get back tomorrow. I need to start getting everything ready for the launch party.’
Cat’s face fell. ‘You’re going so soon?’
‘I’ve imposed far too much as it is. I’m eating these guys out of house and home, using up all the hot water . . .’
‘Nonsense!’ Kitty admonished. ‘We love having you to stay.’
‘Well, if it’s a bother for Kitty, I’ve got a fabulous idea,’ Cat gasped suddenly.
‘But it’s not a b—’ Kitty tried.
Cat’s hands gripped Laura’s forearm excitedly. ‘There’s a big charity auction tomorrow night at the Mandarin Oriental. And you’ll never guess who’s chairing it.’
Laura shook her head. She was quite sure she wouldn’t.
‘Bertie What’s-his-name.’
‘Penryn, Cat,’ Rob muttered. ‘Christ, why can you never remember his name?’
Cat swatted his arm lightly. He wasn’t the one in her sights. ‘What do you say? Come with! It’ll be the perfect opportunity to introduce you, and then we can work on him to come to the party next week.’
‘Oh, Cat, it’s so kind of you, but I couldn’t possibly. I’d be a gate-crasher and, I mean, I don’t have anything to wear—’
‘So? We’ll go shopping! And I’ll take you for lunch at my favourite place.’
‘But it’s far too late notice. Surely there are seating plans organized, and I probably can’t afford a ticket anyhow.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about all that! Rob’s company’s taken a table. We can have whoever we want.’ She pointed her finger at Laura, Kitchener-style. ‘And I want you!’
She burst out laughing, and Laura giggled nervously, star-struck and stunned. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Rob, tell her.’
But Rob did nothing at all other than shake his head and stare at his feet. The last thing he was going to say to Laura was that he wanted her too!
‘Tch. Ignore him. He’s just worried about his Amex bill. Oh, please say you’ll come.’
‘But how are we supposed to get into London from here? There are no trains running. The auction might even be cancelled, mightn’t it?’
‘We’re not relying on public transport, Laura. Heaven forbid. They can scarcely do the job on a summer’s day. We’re hitching a lift in a friend’s chopper. They’re shooting in Lincs, but sweetly said they’d drop us off at Battersea heliport on the way past.’ She tipped her head pleadingly. ‘What were the chances of me bumping into you like this? It’s a sign. I know it is. You’re meant to be there.’
Laura looked from Rob to Joe to Kitty. It was hard to say who looked more thunderous. She had no such conviction that she was supposed to be anywhere other than her studio in Suffolk in the middle of a creek.
‘In fact, let’s make it easier still,’ Cat said, clearly on a roll. ‘Come back with us now. That way, you’re out of the Bakers’ hair and we’re all ready to go straight off in the morning.’
Laura looked over at Kitty, who was holding a child on each hip. Martha was leaning against her legs and sucking her thumb. The poor woman could scarcely remain upright.
‘I suppose it would make things easier for you guys if I skedaddle off,’ Laura said.
Kitty opened her mouth to say something but then appeared to think better of it, and closed it again.
‘You’re right. You go,’ Joe said coldly, wrapping an arm tightly around Kitty’s shoulders. ‘It’ll mean we can turn the heating off in that room tonight.’
‘Great!’ Cat beamed. ‘So it’s all sorted, then. We’ll take Laura off your hands and give you guys a break.’ She leant over and kissed Kitty roundly on each cheek before ruffling the children’s hair. ‘And you kids were superstars tonight. Well done, you!’
Laura hung back awkwardly – Joe’s body language was warning her not to hug his wife. ‘Thanks so much for everything, Kitty,’ she nodded lamely. ‘I’ve loved staying with you. And you really were all brilliant tonight, you lot. You really were . . . superstars.’ Five pairs of blue eyes blinked back at her warily.
‘Come on, Laura, the car’s over here,’ Cat said, looping an arm through hers and leading her away.
‘Oh, Kitty! Your coat,’ Laura said, suddenly stopping and turning back as she remembered she was wearing the parka.
‘Keep it. You’ll need something to wear in these temperatures,’ Kitty said quietly.
‘Don’t worry about that. I’ve got loads of coats Laura can borrow,’ Cat interjected.
Kitty took the coat from Laura without a word as Cat led her towards the gleaming black Range Rover, chatting away excitedly. The doors closed with an expensively muffled dock sound and she looked out through the tinted windows at the big, bustling family standing unusually still and quietly in front of the little village hall.
A helicopter, huh?