At the next possible opportunity, Rosie cornered Rhianne – determined, despite the inevitable awkwardness, to ask her what had happened to Aled.
Rhianne looked pained when Rosie finally caught up with her by the recycling bins. ‘I know what you’re going to say, Rosie,’ she groaned, ‘and I think Mouth Almighty here has already done enough damage to your budding romance. I can’t get involved – Al was very adamant about that. He says I’ll only make things worse, and for once I completely agree with him.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m worried about him. He’s completely disappeared. He’s not answering my messages. At least tell me if he’s staying with you.’
‘He isn’t.’
‘Would you tell me if he was?’
‘Oh god, I don’t know,’ Rhianne said. ‘Probably? I’m not clear what the rules would have been on that, he wasn’t specific … Or maybe I’d just stopped paying attention by that point. In any case, he isn’t at my flat.’
‘Right. So where is he?’
‘I’m not supposed to say. He seemed broken, Rosie – totally devastated. He doesn’t want to see anyone, or be anywhere that reminds him of you. A suitably poetic reaction, I’m sure you’ll agree.’
‘Reaction to what?’ Rosie said, balling her hands into fists. ‘We had a horrible argument, but it wasn’t so bad that he needed to run away. Is that what this is? Has he just left, sailed off into the sunset at the first sign of trouble? Is he even still in the UK?’
‘In fairness to him, it was more than just one argument, wasn’t it? What about the whole proposal drama?’
‘What?’ Rosie said, her frustration audible, her voice a low growl. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘He said he came to see you at the hospital. To check you were all right because you weren’t responding to texts or calls. He said James was there, declaring his undying love for you … on one knee, with a ring.’
‘Oh my god. Oh my fucking life.’
Rosie felt cold panic grip her as a vision of hugging James slipped into her mind – felt the mad rush of adrenaline as it seeped into her bloodstream and told her heart to kick faster, beat harder. ‘What are you saying, Rhianne? That he thinks I’m back with James?’
‘I told him it was unlikely – insane, even,’ she said reasonably. ‘I said he should speak to you before jumping to any conclusions. Did he not?’
‘No, he did not!’ Rosie barked. Rhianne’s eyes widened.
‘Rhianne, I adore you,’ Rosie said, ‘you know I do. But if you don’t tell me where the man I love is right now, I might have to get violent with this potato masher.’ She seized the shiny metal implement from a nearby pot of utensils, brandishing it as if to signal serious intent.
‘All right, all right. Took you long enough to admit how you feel,’ Rhianne said, nodding in approval. ‘He’s gone home to Wales. To his mam’s. The school term was done, after all.’
‘Who’s gone to Wales? And why do you two look like you’re re-enacting a scene from Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares?’ came a voice.
Rosie turned and saw Niamh. She was gesturing at the potato masher, still held aloft in menacing fashion.
‘Brilliant – you’re here,’ Rhianne said with satisfaction. ‘I knew we’d need you – though I had no idea this one would get so het up she’d start waving my equipment around.’
‘Put the masher down, Rose, and let’s talk about this calmly,’ Niamh said. ‘At least lay off Rhianne. If anyone deserves a whack with that thing, it’s me. I’ve been a total dick. Though you better believe I am livid that you didn’t tell me your mum was poorly.’
‘Sorry,’ Rosie said, sliding the potato masher back into position between a fish slice, a pair of tongs and a pasta server. ‘Did Rhianne let you know?’
‘No,’ Niamh said. ‘I found out on Facebook. Michael really doesn’t hold back on the personal updates, does he?’
‘He does not,’ Rosie said grimly, shaking her head. ‘The good news is, Mum should be OK. She’ll have to live with the angina but there’s no reason to think she’s in immediate danger. The more pressing issue is that I am madly, deeply, irrevocably in love with someone who thinks I’m either engaged to my idiot ex, or at least considering it.’
‘Why on earth would Aled think you were back with James?’ Niamh asked, scrunching her nose in distaste.
‘Because James appeared in the corridor outside my mum’s hospital room and proposed to me,’ Rosie said, rolling her eyes. ‘On one knee. And Aled – who had come to be with me, to see if I was OK – apparently saw enough of this that he thought, he genuinely thought …’ Rosie’s throat choked up, and her best friend filled in the rest for her.
‘He thought you were hedging your bets, hoping to win James back the whole time.’ Niamh winced. ‘God, what a moment for that knobhead to make good on my prediction! Only he could finally try to win you back in a way that fucked up your new relationship.’
‘Er – Rosie …? I don’t mean to interrupt whatever this is, but the lunch rush is starting and I might need some help,’ Tobi said from the doorway, sounding a little flustered.
‘Shit – sorry. I’ll be right there,’ Rosie promised. ‘Though I might need to head off a bit early today. As soon as you can spare me, Rhianne. Is that all right?’
‘Of course,’ Rhianne said, grinning. ‘Got somewhere to be?’
‘I have,’ Rosie replied, certain that Rhianne already knew the answer. ‘I’m going to Wales.’
‘How are we getting there, then?’ Niamh asked an hour or so later, over her frothy cappuccino.
‘We?’ Rosie said.
‘Obviously,’ Niamh sighed. ‘Unless you don’t want me with you.’
‘I always want you with me,’ Rosie said, giving her a quick, tight hug. They were still at the deli, but Marcus had arrived for his afternoon shift and Rhianne had urged Rosie to get going.
‘Do you think a train might work?’ Rosie asked.
‘I checked, and there’d be a fair few changes, I think – the nearest station to Aled’s mum’s guest house is Colwyn Bay, which is way up on the north coast – it’d be a long journey, which we’d most likely spend standing up.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s three days before Christmas,’ Niamh said. ‘The trains out of London will all be packed.’
‘Oh god, of course.’ In all the drama of the past few days, Rosie had completely lost track of the date. ‘OK, we’ll take my car then. It’s fine. I mean, I’ve no idea where I’m going and pretty much the only place I’ve driven in the past five years is to my mum’s, but how hard can it be? This is what smartphones are for, right? We’ll Google Map it or something.’
‘Exactly,’ Niamh said. ‘We can do this. I’m ready when you are.’
‘But what about the kids? Work?’ Rosie asked, winding a soft woollen scarf around her neck and pulling on her gloves.
‘Brendan has the kids until further notice, and work isn’t an issue.’
‘In what way not an issue?’ Rosie said, mildly concerned but also relieved. Niamh looked much more like herself again – calmer and happier than Rosie had seen her since the summer.
‘I’ll tell you in the car,’ Niamh said, swiping at the screen of her iPhone. ‘We’re going to have … ooh. A good four hours to talk about it.’
When she got back to the flat, Rosie put down some extra food for Springsteen and threw some essentials into an overnight bag. Whatever happened with Aled, her chances of getting back here before tomorrow were virtually non-existent – so it made sense to be prepared.
It was drizzling and already getting dark, and for the first time it occurred to Rosie that this journey was going to involve navigating unfamiliar roads in weather conditions that could only be described as less than ideal. She pushed the thought aside, dropped a goodbye kiss on Springsteen’s head and made for the door.
Niamh had gone on ahead to grab her own pyjamas, toothbrush and change of clothes from Wanstead. Just as importantly, she had declared, she would pick up a selection of ‘road trip’ snacks before returning. When she arrived at Rosie’s front door, she was proudly clutching a plastic carrier bag full of food and a cardboard tray holding two takeaway cups.
‘Peppermint hot chocolate with whipped cream, sprinkles and crushed candy cane topping!’ Niamh announced, brandishing the tray with pride. ‘It’s amazing, try it.’
Rosie took a tentative sip through the hole in the plastic lid and couldn’t help grimacing. ‘It tastes like type 2 diabetes,’ she said.
‘Delicious, in other words!’ Niamh trilled happily.
With some trepidation, Rosie peered into the top of the bag Niamh was carrying. Inside was a box of mini yule log cakes, a bag of iced ginger biscuits shaped like Christmas trees, a sizeable sack of red and green marshmallows and a pack of ‘Christmas pudding-flavoured popcorn’.
‘Is this some sort of experiment?’ Rosie asked, aghast. ‘Are you trying to prove you can rot a mouthful of healthy teeth in the time it takes to get from London to north Wales?’
‘You’ll be glad of the odd energy burst when you’re an hour or two into a monotonous motorway drive,’ Niamh said. ‘And I got us a Lindor Santa each. Big ones. They’re in my overnight bag.’
‘Touché – and well done,’ Rosie conceded.
Getting out of London seemed to take forever. As Rosie’s little car crawled through urban sprawl, they turned the heat up until they were toasty and listened to Christmas songs on the radio. Niamh tunelessly joined in with ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’, holding a gigantic marshmallow in front of her mouth as if it were a microphone.
‘So come on,’ Rosie said when her performance was over. ‘Are you going to tell me, or what?’
‘I need to apologise for being a total bitch first,’ Niamh said. ‘I kind of haven’t done that yet.’
‘You admitted you’d been a dick,’ Rosie said. ‘Which you were. But I said some pretty harsh things to you in return. I’m sorry I was so brutal. I was angry, but I’ve also been really worried about you, too.’
‘I know. It was hard to hear, but you weren’t wrong about any of it. Since Rory and Eva were born I’ve been determined to do everything the way I’d always planned – to be a great mum, but also not to become one of those people: the people whose lives are turned completely upside down by offspring.’
‘Isn’t that all people?’ Rosie asked, indicating to pull onto the M1.
‘You’re so wise, Rose,’ Niamh sighed. ‘It probably is. However, I had this idea that becoming a mum would be like learning a new skill. Like, it would add another string to my bow – as if it was the equivalent of becoming a qualified first aider or learning to play the piano or something. You know: here’s another thing I can do now!’ She did jazz hands, and Rosie laughed.
‘I knew having the twins would change things day-to-day,’ Niamh went on. ‘The house would always be messy, we’d have to go to restaurants that served chicken nuggets, we’d become obsessed with Julia Donaldson books. What I wasn’t prepared for were the changes it would cause in here.’ She pointed at her head. ‘Becoming a parent isn’t about learning a new skill. It’s more like learning to be a new person – or a new version of yourself. When I went back to work, I had to face the fact that I wasn’t the Niamh I used to be. Not only could I not stay at the office until eight o’clock on a busy day, I genuinely didn’t want to. I didn’t want to win accounts that would take me away overnight, or organise corporate events that would see me miss five bath-and-bedtimes in a row. And it isn’t that I don’t want to work, or that I want to stay at home all day, every day with the twins – it’s just that my old job isn’t right for the new me.’
‘Wow,’ Rosie said. ‘That’s a lot.’
‘Yep. And I don’t think I’d have got there if it wasn’t for your rant,’ Niamh admitted. ‘At the very least it would have taken longer. Brendan’s been trying to talk to me about all this since September, but I kept refusing to engage. He’s been super worried – it’s driven a bit of a wedge between us.’
‘But you’re OK now?’
‘Better than in months,’ Niamh said. ‘I resigned from the agency last week, and Brendan and I have agreed that in the new year I’ll set up as a freelancer – work for myself planning mostly local stuff, and on a small scale to start with. If it goes well and I get to a point where I’m able to expand or take on employees, I’ll be able to do it on my terms – and in a family-friendly way that will make it easy for other parents with young kids to succeed.’
‘That sounds incredible,’ Rosie said sincerely. ‘I’m so proud of you. I haven’t a shred of doubt that it’ll go brilliantly.’ She hesitated, and then decided to go for it – a bubble of excitement forming about her own decision, which had been somewhat eclipsed by recent events. ‘Actually, on the career-slash-personal development front, I have some news of my own.’
‘Spill the tea,’ Niamh said, gulping from her minty hot chocolate cup.
‘I’m going to apply to go back to university,’ Rosie said, testing how the sentence sounded out loud. Saying the words felt good. ‘I’ve no idea where yet – I need to do some research – but I think I’m going to look at psychology and counselling courses. Maybe do it part-time, so I can keep working as well.’
‘YES!’ Niamh cheered. ‘This is AMAZING. This deserves a yule log. Or would you prefer a handful of Christmas pudding-flavoured popcorn?’
‘Let the record show that I am very dubious about the popcorn,’ Rosie said, pointing at the yule log packet in Niamh’s hand. Niamh passed her a bite-sized chocolate mini roll adorned with white icing. Presumably this was supposed to look like snow.
‘OK, so now the work stuff’s out of the way and we’re besties again, I need you to tell me about how you fell in love with Nameless Neighbour,’ Niamh said. ‘Start at the beginning and do not leave anything out.’
‘I reserve the right not to answer graphic or anatomical questions,’ Rosie warned her.
‘Spoilsport. You must be really gone for him if you won’t share all the dirty details.’
‘As you put it, the train has left the station. I think it chuffed off a lot longer ago than I realised, to be honest.’
‘I’m settled in for the full story,’ Niamh said, snuggling down in the passenger seat and tearing open the odd-flavoured popcorn.
As she and Niamh joined in with Chris Rea crooning ‘Driving Home For Christmas’ through the car stereo, Rosie couldn’t help thinking that was precisely what she was doing. She’d thought her flat was home: her vintage prints, her second-hand coffee pot, her antique furniture and charity shop finds. But without Aled there, it had all felt wrong. Empty.
It turned out home was a feeling – not bricks and mortar or bric-a-brac, but a sense of belonging, of being complete.
Now, on this dark and rainy motorway, she was on her way to find it.