Chapter 10
After the breakfast plates had been cleared away, they gravitated to the fire, sat around watching the flames, all except Jack, who was fiddling with his phone. Luke watched him pressing and swiping at the screen.
“You can’t leave it alone, can you?” he remarked.
“What?” asked Jack.
“Your phone. Picking it up and scrolling through pages is not going to miraculously produce a signal.”
“I just thought I’d check.”
“We should take this time as a gift,” Luke went on. “What fruits will we all yield from it, I wonder? Maybe it will bring balance to those in whom it is sadly lacking.”
“How very Zen,” said Bridge with a sniff. “But I want to get back to my other half, even if you aren’t in as much of a hurry to get back to yours.” One-nil to me, she thought.
“Ouch. Worrying isn’t going to solve this problem, so there’s no point in doing it,” Luke batted back, as calmly as his voice could manage, because he realized this would piss off Bridge more than picking up any weapon.
“You have a Norwegian state of mind,” said Mary.
“That’ll be my Viking blood,” said Luke. “You don’t get this coloring from Anglo-Saxons.” He pointed to his pale-blond unruly mop. “Or mad redheaded Celts.” One-all, he thought; that leveled up the score in his eyes.
“Mary is half Norwegian. She really knows what she’s talking about,” said Bridge, the inference that Luke hadn’t clearly implied.
Luke didn’t rise to the bait this time either, but sent an air fist bump across the table to Mary. “Go us Scandinavian pale and interesting types.”
“Pale and uninteresting in my case,” said Mary with a little laugh.
“I totally refute that,” said Robin. “We had a lovely chat in the kitchen. I found you very interesting.”
“What do you suggest we do, then, to pass the time best, our dear half-Norwegian Mary?” asked Charlie. “Although to be fair, I’m quite happy sitting in this armchair, staring into the flames and listening to Radio Brian. What a wonderful picker of music he is. I feel the most Christmassy I’ve felt in years.” He sighed contentedly.
“I don’t know really,” said Mary. “But Luke is right, worrying won’t help. We need to work with our present situation.”
“I think I’d like to take a look across there,” said Luke, pointing to the church and the cottages positioned around what, in normal weather, was probably a village green.
“I already did and there’s nothing to see,” replied Bridge.
“A fresh pair of eyes might unearth something you missed.” Luke grinned benignly at her.
“Like what? A bloke with a fully fueled light aircraft in his front room who’ll promise to fly you back to Manchester?”
“Maybe.”
Bridge shrugged. “Suit yourself, but you’re going to get cold and wet for nothing.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Jack. “Let me just get my coat from upstairs.”
“Use ours,” insisted Charlie, pointing to the two brightly colored snow jackets still hanging by the door. “They’re Arctic-friendly. They’ll keep you warm as toast. Jack, you’re bigger, so you take Robin’s orange one.”
Luke and Jack put on the two coats. Luke laced up his boots, Jack only had the one pair of shoes with him, which were very Arctic-unfriendly, but he needed to break up the boredom. He opened the door and all the snow that had drifted against it fell in and onto the bottom half of his legs.
“Fool’s errand,” said Bridge with a heavy sigh. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Luke didn’t answer her, but Bridge knew he would be determined to find something to prove her wrong. She also knew he’d be unsuccessful. She wasn’t stupid; had there been life out there in any shape or form, she would have discovered it yesterday.
“Anyone for a fresh coffee while we await the wanderers’ return?” she asked as the door closed behind them, a gleeful trill in her tone.
With every step they took, Luke and Jack got wetter and colder. Jack’s socks were saturated before they’d even reached the edge of where he thought the parking lot ended. By the time they’d crunched their way over the small bridge and arrived at the buildings, Luke had to check to make sure his nose hadn’t dropped off, because he could no longer feel its existence. He should have worn Carmen’s mittens, which were presently sitting on the bedroom radiator, and her furry cat hat. He stuffed his hands back into the deep warm pockets of Charlie’s brightly colored Alpine jacket.
“Let’s try the church first,” suggested Jack, his words leaving his mouth on a visible plume of breath. Luke stuck up his thumb. It was too cold to talk when he didn’t need to.
The short, squat body of the church was out of proportion to the enormous square tower, and the snow sat on top of the roof like Carmen’s hat, thought Luke. The large wooden double doors were locked, of course, and when Luke knocked on the left one with the flat of his hand, it didn’t move at all, as if it had swollen into the frame and become one with the stonework.
Jack, at six foot three, was better equipped to look through the high-placed lancet windows, but they were too narrow to allow much view.
“See anything interesting?” asked Luke.
“Nope.” Jack attempted to scale up a few notches, using the relief on the stone as purchase. It didn’t work well, as he lost his footing and fell backward into the snow. It was two feet deep at least, but not as soft as it appeared.
“Let’s try round the other side,” said Luke, holding out his hand to pull Jack up. An unbidden picture flashed in his mind of holding his hand out to the woman sprawled in the snow, a woman with red Rapunzel hair and a green coat, her hand small and cold. What if he’d been steps in front of her instead of behind and never saw her fall, never stopped to help? He’d wondered that so many times over the years, how his destiny had been altered by a mere few yards, a few seconds.
They both strode around to the back where the silence seemed more pronounced and reverent in a graveyard that stretched as far as their eyes could see, looking eerily beautiful with all the snow-dusted crosses and stones. There was a smaller door at the bottom of the tower, the wood peeling and long stripped of its varnish, and banging on that yielded no response either. There remained only the row of cottages to try.
“Can I ask what we’re actually going to do if we do find someone in?” said Jack. “Apart from inquiring if their phone is working?”
Luke’s pace slowed as he pondered an answer. It was a fair question. They had food, warmth, and shelter over at the inn. They were in more of a position to give than to receive.
“I have no idea,” he said eventually. “Let’s just see if there’s anyone around first, and then when someone throws open their door and invites us inside, I’m sure we’ll think of something to ask them. Like, do you happen to have a spare snowplow or are you okay for mince pies because we happen to have plenty?”
There wasn’t a single occupant in the cottages, though, just as Bridge said. Peering into windows revealed either empty or sparingly furnished rooms. The cottages, it seemed, were abandoned for the winter, awaiting the summer season. There was no one in Figgy Hollow but them. Luke drew in a deep breath before he took his first step back in the direction of the inn, as he imagined the smug, told-you-so look on Bridge’s face.
“Well, Bridge was right,” said Jack, which did nothing to help.
“For once,” said Luke with a humph. “She does love a gloat.”
“Can I take it that you aren’t divorcing on the best of terms?” Jack dared to ask. “Just a vibe I picked up, despite the banter between you.”
“That’s an understatement and a half. It’s been an uphill slog to get where we are and I’m still not convinced that she won’t refuse at the last fence. Oh, bollocks.” Luke stood on a patch of ice that gave way and freezing water gushed over the top of his Timberland boot. Every mention of Bridge brought a small curse with it, like a free gift. “You ever been married, Jack?”
“God no,” said Jack, toppling against Luke as a gust of wind surprised him from the side. “I don’t seem to be able to find anyone who’s my type.”
“Ah, beware of holding out for ‘the type,’ ” said Luke. “If I’d have held out for Heidi Klum I’d have missed all the happiness that I’ve found with Carmen, and yes, I’ll admit it, the wild and wonderful years I had with Bridge. Two very different women, neither of them ‘ideal-type-Heidi.’ There are plenty of soul mates out there waiting for you, Jack. Don’t paint yourself into a corner waiting for ‘the type.’ ”
Jack had no idea what Carmen was like, but Bridge was tiny with hair that could probably be seen from Mars and, give or take the common numbers of head, arms, and legs, about as far away physically from Heidi Klum as it was possible to get. She was also, he suspected, quite terrifying if provoked, not the sort of woman he would match with the laid-back Luke. Or himself, for that matter. Small, dark-haired, and scary was how he remembered his mother being, although the image he had of her was probably colored by the portrait his father had painted of her over many years.
Sometimes Jack wondered if he’d ever find this mysterious creature: the soul mate. Looking at the weather, worsening by the second again, he had more chance of finding Bigfoot.