Wickham Hall: Part Four - White Christmas (14 page)

‘Sounds great,' Rosie said, stretching her face, a gesture
I recognized as stifling a yawn.

‘It is, honestly,' I protested. ‘Even Liam thought it was
good. Better than his will be, he reckons.'

‘You've shown Liam?' Her mouth gaped. ‘Have I taught
you nothing about office tactics?'

I gave her my o-ye-of-little-faith look. ‘Of course I have;
I wanted his opinion.'

My boyfriend of six months, Liam, was also my colleague
in the marketing department of Solomon Insurance in
Nottingham. We shared an office, which had worked
out just fine so far: not only did we manage to indulge in
illicit snogs occasionally at the far end of the office, but we
helped each other out with problems and pooled our best
ideas for the good of the company. Admittedly most of the
ideas came from me, but he was good at other things like
persuasion and flattery. And if you'd ever tried getting extra
printer paper from our office manager you'd know just how
important those skills are.

Rosie lowered her head to the table and groaned. ‘Oh,
Verity.'

‘Look, I know you want me to fight tooth and nail for
this job, but that's just not me,' I said with a laugh, laying
my hand over hers.

A few weeks ago, Solomon's had been bought out by an
American company which had sent in a man with a hatchet
to trim the fat from our friendly little firm. His name was
Rod Newman. He didn't talk, he yelled. He didn't listen, he
yelled. And he had the attention span of a goldfish. So far
three people from accounts, five from sales and two from
personnel had been deemed as ‘fat' and had disappeared
the very same day.

Tomorrow it was marketing's turn to display our leanness.
Liam and I both had to present a plan to improve
profits and we'd been warned that Ruthless Rod would give
one of us the heave-ho based on our performance. The
other would be promoted.

I'd questioned Liam about his plan, but he'd scratched his
head and said he was still working on it. He always did fly
by the seat of his pants. I didn't dare tell Rosie I'd offered
to help him pull his pitch together. If I got the job, fine; if
he got it, also fine. These days I just couldn't get worked up
about things;
que sera, sera
as Doris Day would say.

She lifted her head and gazed at me fiercely. ‘You are the
better candidate, Verity Bloom. Make it happen. Make that
job yours.'

‘Yeah, yeah.'

She sighed and strode into the living room and seconds
later I heard her boinging about to her celebrity fitness
DVD. I cleared my plate away and closed the laptop.

It was time for the bluebell walk with Gabe and Noah.

Five minutes later, I'd twisted my hair into a messy bun,
added a smudge of eyeliner to my green eyes and shoved
gifts of a bottle of real ale and a chocolate dinosaur in my
bag. I said goodbye to a puffing and sweaty Rosie and was
about to slam the front door when I remembered something
I'd almost certainly need . . .

‘Tissues, tissues, tissues,' I muttered under my breath as
I bent down to rummage through my half of the bathroom
cupboard, pushing aside bottles of conditioner and body
lotion. ‘Oh gosh!'

I dropped to my knees and stared at a new, untouched
box of tampons on the bottom shelf. I did a quick calculation
and my mouth went dry. No doubt about it; I was well
overdue my monthly visitor.

My heart thumped and a hand flew to my stomach automatically.

I couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to me before now;
it was so unlike me not to be on top of this sort of thing. I gave myself a shake and told myself not to jump to conclusions;
sure, the time of the month had been and gone, but
more than likely it was just a bit late. Perhaps, deep down,
I was more bothered about the threat of redundancy than
I realized? That would be it – stress. Very common. A baby,
though . . . A thrill shivered through me and my mind
whirled with the implications.

I focussed on taking deep breaths as I let myself out of
my little townhouse and into the golden sunshine. I jumped
into my small car, started the engine and set off in the
direction of the Trent Canal.

The thirty-minute journey was the perfect length to
examine my potential pregnancy from every angle. My
conclusion was this: practically speaking, I probably wasn't
having a baby, but if I was, I'd cope. Like always. This
wasn't the first time something unexpectedly life-changing
had happened to me and I doubted it would be the last. As
to how I actually felt about becoming a mother of my own
baby . . . I wasn't quite ready to let those thoughts in yet.

As I parked in the lane by the canal I made a deal with
myself. I'd buy a pregnancy test on the way home so that I
could stop all this speculation. But in the meantime I was
putting this new development on hold and concentrating
on what really counted, today, this minute, which was being
here on this special day with the Green men. (That's Gabe
and Noah's surname, by the way, not their skin tone.)

I crossed the grassy bank and started along the towpath.
It was bliss to be outside in the warm early evening air and
I felt the tension in my shoulders melting away with every
step. A row of pretty barges decorated with hand-painted
signs and cheerful flower pots stretched along the water's
edge, and as I got closer, I spotted the
Neptune
.

‘Daddy, she's here, she's here!' I heard Noah squeal.

My three-year-old godson, dwarfed by a bright yellow
life-jacket, was bouncing up and down on the deck of their
blue and silver boat. Gabe scooped him up into his arms
and the two of them waved like mad.

I felt my heart swell with love for them both. Gabe with
his tousled curls, baggy jumper and shorts, and Noah, a
miniature replica of his father. And all I could think was
how incredibly sad it was that Mimi was missing from the
picture. Suddenly, the feelings of grief that I'd been holding
back all day rushed to the surface and my eyes began to
burn.

Today was the anniversary of my best friend Mimi's death.

Two years ago, Gabe had found his wife dead on the
bathroom floor. Sudden Death Syndrome at only thirty
years old. Gabe lost his childhood sweetheart, baby Noah
would never remember his mum and the sunshine had disappeared
from my life in a flash. No warning, no explanation
and no time for goodbyes . . .

I blinked furiously, plastered on a smile and raised my
hand high.

‘Hello!' I sped up to meet them.

Gabe lowered Noah to the deck and held out a hand to
help me climb on to the boat, and I sent a mental message
to my lovely girl.

Oh Mimi, I miss you so much. I'm here with your family and you're
gone and that makes me feel terribly guilty. The irony is that you'd love
this: all of us getting together for a walk in the woods . . .

‘Welcome aboard the Neptune, landlubber,' Gabe said
with a lop-sided smile. He stooped to wrap his arms round
me.

‘Thank you, Captain.' I hugged him, feeling the rough
wool of his jumper against my cheek. ‘How are you doing?'
I murmured, looking into his soft grey eyes.

He shrugged and laughed softly. ‘Noah gets me through.
As ever.'

Noah tugged on my jacket. ‘Auntie Vetty, did you know
chocolate is in your bag?'

‘Noah Green,' I said, holding his hands and standing
back to examine him, ‘I think you've grown even taller
since I last saw you. And yes, I do know that.'

His eyes grew wide when I gave him his chocolate dinosaur.

‘You're not too big for a cuddle, are you?'

He launched himself at me and I picked him up, squeezed
him as tightly as I dared and buried my face in his baby
curls. He was such a precious boy.

‘I do love you, little man. You know that, don't you?' I
laughed as he wriggled free.

Tears threatened again as I remembered how much Mimi
had longed for a baby, and how devastated she'd been when
she'd discovered she was infertile. I'd been there every step
of the way with her, determined to help her get her wish,
whatever the cost. Gabe too, of course. Team Baby Green,
we'd called ourselves. We'd stuck together through the
disappointments and the tests and the drugs. Our collective
joy knew no bounds when Noah was born and Mimi had
so loved being a mum to the tiny bundle of boyhood. Only
to have her life wrenched away from her a year later. Tragic
didn't begin to cover it . . .

And now I had to love her son especially hard to make
up for the loss that he didn't yet fully understand.

I met Gabe's gaze and we shared a sad smile. Life could
be very cruel sometimes.

‘I hadn't even had the chance to say I loved her that day,'
Gabe murmured, rubbing a hand across his face.

‘But she knew,' I whispered, squeezing his hand. ‘We all
knew that.'

‘Next time I'm in a relationship, I'll tell her I love her
every day.'

My ears pricked up; this was new.

‘So there'll be a next time then?' I asked.

He shrugged casually enough but I noticed a flush to his
face. ‘One day, yeah. I hope so.'

‘Well . . . good,' I said brightly, looking down at my shoes.

Gabe had never been able to contemplate another woman
in his life. It looked like he might be ready to move on and,
truthfully, I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

A few minutes later, I'd kissed Noah's entire collection of
soft toys, marvelled at the no-sew curtains Gabe had made
for the living area of the houseboat and the three of us
had gone back on dry land to begin our expedition to the
woods.

Gabe and I each held one of Noah's hands as we ambled
along the towpath, both of us content to listen to his cheerful
chatter.

The sun's rays sparkled across the surface of the water
and the boats strained gently against their moorings. Birds
tweeted merrily in the cluster of hawthorn trees which
lined the path as they settled themselves in for the evening.
Many of the boating people were out on deck, some
sipping beers, a few cooking food on barbecues and calling
to one another from boat to boat. There was almost a
holiday atmosphere along the canal and I felt my happiness
gradually returning.

This was heavenly, I thought, which was apt considering
the spiritual nature of our excursion.

month after Mimi had died, Gabe and I had trodden
this path with Gloria, Mimi's mum. Noah had been but a
babe in Gabe's arms. Our solemn little group had scattered Mimi's ashes in her favourite place – a clearing in the
woodland where the bluebells bloomed – and we'd each
spent a few moments alone with our thoughts.

Shortly after that, Gabe had sold up the family home,
abandoned his law career and moved himself and his baby
son on to the canal and into a narrowboat just a stone's
throw from Mimi's woods. He'd retrained as a French
polisher and now he restored furniture for a living and,
while Noah stayed with his grandparents, Gabe also made
extra money taking stressed-out city-types for weekends on
the waterways.

Our bluebell walk had become an annual thing and a
lovely way for us all to gather and remember happy times.

‘Shame Gloria couldn't be here,' I said, during a lull in
Noah's running commentary.

‘Hmm,' Gabe frowned. ‘I've hardly heard from her since
her plans to open a cookery school took off.'

Mimi's mum, a former food stylist, had decided at the
age of sixty-five to open a cookery school in the Yorkshire
village of Plumberry, half an hour outside York where she
was originally from. It was from her mum that Mimi had
inherited her love of cooking and I guess it had rubbed off
on me too. Not that I cooked any more. Not since Mimi
died.

‘You don't approve?' I looked at him sharply.

He wrinkled his nose. ‘I think she's taking on too much
at her age.'

‘I hope you haven't told Gloria that?' I grinned.

Mimi's mum was one of the most independent women
I knew. I couldn't see her taking kindly to that sort of
comment.

He lifted a shoulder. ‘No. But she's too busy to see us
these days, too busy to even make it here this evening because the fitters are late putting the ovens in or something.
And the building she's taken on . . . it's an old mill,
well, half of one. That's some responsibility.'

I nodded sympathetically but I could see both sides.
Gloria had felt so bereft after losing her only daughter
that she couldn't bear not to be busy. She'd been involved
with food her whole career and when I'd spoken to her
at Christmas, she said opening a cookery school would
be a new way to use her skills and spread her passion for
cooking.

Funny how grief affects us all differently. Mimi and I
used to post videos on YouTube of ourselves making stuff
in the kitchen. Just a bit of fun, neither of us was professionally
trained, but we had a laugh doing it. But as soon as
she died, I closed the channel down and deleted the videos.
My
passion for cooking died with Mimi; there was simply
no pleasure in it without her.

We turned off the towpath, crossed the wibbly-wobbly
bridge where Noah insisted we threw sticks into the water
and then waded through long grass to the edge of Mimi's
woods.

Spring has definitely sprung, I thought, as we delved
under the canopy of the woodland. The trees were covered
in a froth of pink-and-white blossom and now and then
petals floated down through the shafts of sunlight, giving a
magical illusion of snowflakes in springtime. The path was
lined with tall stems of frothy white cow parsley and zingy
lime ferns and I let my fingers brush gently against their
feathery fronds as I walked.