Lisa answered instantly.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I was just worried about you and Izzy with all this snow. Is it bad out there?’ ‘Terrible,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’m going to be able to get out today at this rate.’
‘Have you got plenty in the cupboards?’
A hesitation. ‘Enough to keep us going.’ He knew that she hadn’t.
‘And the boiler?’
‘Still not working.’
How could the landlord be so bloody uncaring with a kiddie in the house? It made Rick’s blood boil.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’ll try to pop out and see you later. Bring some groceries. Is there anything in particular you need?’
‘Just some basic stuff,’ Lisa said. ‘If you can’t make it, there’s no need to worry about us.’
But he was worried.
Merak returned, and they had their soup and rolls together.
‘The snow is bad,’ Merak said. ‘I am glad that we are working near to home.’
‘Can you walk to your place from here? I’ve got to pop out at the end of the day. You’ll be OK?’
Merak nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Not thinking of going round roughing up our customers?’ he teased.
‘Not today,’ Merak dead-panned.
‘Thanks again for that, lad.’
He shrugged. ‘It is not problem.’
They returned to work and, after getting their heads down and cracking on, finished the floor at about three o’clock.
‘Want to go home now?’ Rick said as they loaded the van. The snow was still coming down thick and fast. It was freezing out here, too. Rick rubbed his hands together. Only a madman would consider driving in this. ‘There’s nothing else to be done today. Can I drop you off somewhere?’
‘No,’ Merak said. ‘I will walk.’
‘Take my coat, lad. It’s warmer than yours.’ It was the first time he’d noticed that Merak was wearing nothing more than a fleece hoodie. ‘Haven’t you got a warm coat?’
‘No,’ Merak admitted. ‘I have not.’
‘I’ll have a look at what I’ve got in my cupboards. There are enough coats in there to stock a branch of Millets. In the meantime—’ Rick slipped off his thick jacket and handed it over. ‘I don’t want you freezing to death.’
‘Now you will be cold,’ Merak noted.
‘I’ve got the van heater.’
‘We will swap. Take this.’ Merak handed over his fleece. Rick reluctantly agreed. It was so thin it barely made a difference. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t noticed the lad was walking round in nothing but this in the freezing weather. The boy was lucky he hadn’t got hypothermia. They must make them from tough stuff in Poland.
Merak shrugged on the warm jacket gratefully. He patted it down, admiring the fit.
‘Suits you.’ Rick thought that he might as well keep it. He was sure he had another one just like it somewhere. Juliet would be able to root it out.
‘I will see you in morning,’ Merak said.
‘We might have a slow start again, if this keeps up. I’ll text you.’
Then he watched Merak as he walked away down the High Street. The snow was up to his ankles, and it nearly covered his work boots. After a few hundred yards he had disappeared, and Rick couldn’t see him in the white-out at all.
Time was getting tight now. If he was going to buy some shopping for Lisa and run it over there, and be back in time to collect Juliet from work at half past five, then he was going to have to get a serious move on. He texted Lisa to say that he was on his way.
Then he slotted the van into gear and eased it out into the road. It slipped and slithered where the roads hadn’t been gritted – always a bone of contention. The first sign of bad weather in the UK, and all the gritters seemed to go into hibernation.
Following the path he’d trodden before, he headed to the supermarket. He braved the relentless battering of Christmas songs and filled a basket full of essentials and headed out to Cublington Parslow and to Lisa’s house.
The going was tough. The country lanes were treacherous. It was a hard job just to keep the van in a straight line, and not end up buried in a hedge or one of the rapidly growing snowdrifts. He crawled along at a pace that even a snail would be embarrassed by. The windscreen wipers were working overtime, just trying to keep the snow from piling up and blocking his view completely. It took him nearly two hours to complete a journey that would normally take him a shade under half an hour. A dozen times he nearly turned back, but it was the thought of Lisa and Izzy being cut off in that cold house with no food that kept him going. Some people would say that it wasn’t his problem, but somehow he had made it so, and he couldn’t just leave them to the mercy of the elements now.
There were cars abandoned everywhere on the rapidly disappearing road. One was upside down in a ditch. Rick narrowed his eyes, which were scratchy with tiredness, and peered through the rhythmic clack-clack-clack of the wipers and into the driving snow. Darkness was falling, and his fingers were cramped with tension on the steering wheel. This was hell. It was sheer lunacy even to attempt to drive in this weather.
When he finally reached Cublington Parslow, he could have wept with relief. He turned into Lisa’s road and slithered the last few metres to her house. The light was on in the front room, and he thought he’d never seen anything more welcoming in his life.
Parking the van, Rick noted that all the cars in view were fast being buried by the steady onslaught. Already he was too late to pick up Juliet. He punched her number into his mobile.
‘Hello, love,’ he said when she answered. ‘How’s the ankle?’
‘Better. Just painful rather than excruciating. How are you? Job finished? I was beginning to wonder where you’d got to.’
‘I’m just calling to say that I’m still tied up with work.’ He glanced guiltily at Lisa’s house. ‘I’m out in Cublington Parslow. I had a devil of a job getting here. It took me the best part of two hours.’
‘Oh, Rick. What are you doing there?’
‘Just a few loose ends to tie up before Christmas,’ he said, feeling bad that he was avoiding the question. ‘Can you ask Tom to pick you up after work, or jump in a taxi? It could take me another couple of hours to get back. I’m not going to be there in time to collect you.’
‘OK. I’ll try to find Tom.’
‘It’s bad on the roads,’ Rick said. ‘Tell him to take it easy. You might be better getting a taxi.’
‘I don’t think there’ll be many taxis out in this.’
Rick hadn’t thought of that.
‘I could walk if it wasn’t for this wretched ankle.’
He thought about his wife weaving about above him on the bed in nothing but her underwear and smiled at the memory. ‘Not a good idea. The pavements are like glass. I don’t want you injuring your one good ankle.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll take it easy. I’ll see you when I see you, then,’ Juliet said. ‘Be careful yourself.’
‘I will.’ He hung up and put his phone in his pocket. Rick wished that he’d said I love you, but it seemed silly to call her back just to say that now.
Instead, he jumped out of the van and, crossing the treacherous pavement, carried the shopping to Lisa’s door. It was already open when he got there.
‘We’ve been watching at the window for you for over an hour,’ she said. ‘I was worried you wouldn’t make it.’
‘Me too.’
‘I’m so grateful for this,’ Lisa said as she took the shopping from him and went into the kitchen. ‘The kettle’s on. I’ve already boiled it a dozen times.’
‘I can’t stay,’ Rick said. ‘I’m going to have to turn straight round and go back.’
‘But it’s taken you hours. You need to have a hot drink and at least a sandwich. You can’t go out in this without anything inside you. It could take you hours to get home again.’
‘A quick cuppa,’ he said. ‘Then I have to go.’
?
??Take a sandwich with you.’ She made the tea and handed it to him. Pulling the sliced loaf and packet of cheese out of the carrier bag, Lisa set about making him a sandwich. ‘Thanks again for all this.’
She looked at it as if he’d given her a bag filled with the Crown Jewels, not just a few bits and bobs of shopping. How she lived from hand to mouth was humbling. Perhaps it was the sheer glut and greed that this season encouraged in people that brought her circumstances into sharp contrast. If he had come across her at any other time of the year, would he be so concerned about their plight? It was a hard question to answer.
While he drank from his mug, Izzy handed him her battered dolly and slid cautiously to perch on his knee. The child’s face was always so solemn and unsmiling that it tightened the cords around his heart.
There was still no heating, and even the kitchen was freezing. ‘No word from your landlord?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t see him coming out in this either. Can you?’
‘Let me try.’ He indicated that she should give him her phone.
Lisa pulled up the number. ‘You can try, but he just doesn’t answer.’
Sure enough, the call went straight to voicemail and Rick left him a message asking him to ring. Perhaps he’d return his call if he didn’t realise it was on Lisa’s behalf.
‘Izzy and I have been sleeping on the sofa under the duvet, so we’ve been able to keep the fire on all night. It’s not been too bad. I’m dreading the bill, though.’
‘There’s no need to worry about that,’ Rick said. ‘I’ll see you right.’
‘You’re too good to us,’ Lisa sighed. ‘We really do appreciate it.’
‘Are you going to be OK for a few days?’
‘We’ll be fine,’ she assured him. ‘Now that we’ve got this.’ Lisa glanced for the hundredth time at the shopping as if she still couldn’t quite believe her luck. ‘I can’t thank you enough. We’d have been stuffed without it.’
Tea finished, he stood up. ‘I’d better go.’
She scooped Izzy into her arms. ‘Say goodbye to Rick.’
‘Bye-bye,’ Izzy said. ‘Come again soon.’
He laughed. ‘I will.’
At the front door, Lisa kissed him gently on the cheek. ‘Drive carefully.’
But, as the snow showed no sign of letting up, he realised it could be some time before he reached home again.
Chapter Forty-Three
‘How did you hurt your ankle again?’ Robin asks.
‘I tripped over the dog.’ I wipe the condensation from his car window and peer outside.
‘Taking strong drink is a very bad idea,’ he laughs.
My boss doesn’t need to know how I actually did sprain my ankle. That can stay a lifelong secret between me and my husband. ‘It was a nice evening. A lot of fun.’
‘Yes,’ Robin agrees. ‘It was. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.’ Judging by the monumental hangovers that most of Robin’s staff had today, I think he’s probably right. I doubt that very much work was actually done at the various branches of Westcroft & Co. at all. Most of my colleagues spent the day slumped over their desks in a state of extreme inertia. I’m sure I wouldn’t have been missed if I’d stayed in bed for the day.
‘Thank you for offering to take me home.’
‘I wouldn’t hear of anything else.’
When Robin overheard that Rick wasn’t able to pick me up at the end of the day, he jumped in at once to rescue me. I’d phoned half a dozen taxi firms but with no luck and, of course, Tom was nowhere to be found. Robin had insisted he drive me home. Now, we’re sitting in a queue of traffic that snakes down the High Street and have been for some time. The traffic reporter on the radio is working overtime, and it looks as if everything in Buckinghamshire has come to a grinding halt. Had I been able, it would have been infinitely quicker to walk.
‘We could go for a drink and wait until this dies down,’
Robin suggests. ‘There’s a parking space right outside the pub.
You wouldn’t have to hop too far.’
‘I’d better not drink for a few days,’ I say. ‘I’m taking tablets.’ Only out-of-date anti-inflammatories, but Robin doesn’t need to know that either. I think it’s better if my boss and I aren’t involved in any more cosy, solo drinking sessions. I don’t want Robin to get the wrong idea. ‘But thanks for the offer.’
We inch forward, following the stream of red tail lights, mesmerised by the windscreen wipers. Robin turns off the radio.
‘Rosemary didn’t come home last night,’ Robin says into the silence. He looks straight ahead. ‘Not at all.’
‘From book group?’
‘I don’t think she was there after all.’ He tries a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. ‘Unless it was a particularly riveting book.’
‘Is she all right?’
A weary sigh. ‘Oh, I think she’s just fine.’
I was having visions of her lying in a ditch somewhere, but obviously Robin is imaging her lying in someone else’s bed.
‘You must have been out of your mind with worry.’
‘There wasn’t much sleep had in the Westcroft household.’ Robin tries another smile, but the result is as far off the mark as the previous one. ‘I could have phoned round her friends, but there didn’t seem much point in dragging them from their beds. I managed to get hold of my wife just before lunchtime. She told me it was none of my business where she’d been. That couldn’t really be considered a good thing in a marriage, could it?’ Now he looks at me.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t think it could.’
‘Any advice?’
‘You have a right to know where she’s been and if there’s someone else involved.’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I think I do.’
I’m not the best person to dole out advice when I can’t confront the present situation in my own relationship. Perhaps I should take a little of my own medicine.
We carry on in silence and, eventually, arrive at Chadwick Close.
‘That was a bit of a marathon,’ I apologise. A ten-minute journey has taken over half an hour, and I wonder just how long it will take Rick to make his way back from Cublington Parslow. ‘I’m sorry to take you out of your way.’
‘It’s not a problem, Juliet. It’s always a pleasure. I’ll see you safely to the door.’
‘Come in and have some tea, or something. I have mince pies.’
‘Tempting as that is, I think I need to go home and talk to my wife.’
‘That’s probably a good idea.’
Robin comes round and opens the door for me and helps me out. My foot can take most of my weight now, though it still feels weak. He escorts me along my icy path to the front door. We stand facing each other in the snow.
‘I do love her, you know,’ he says.
‘Then I hope that you manage to work things out.’
He kisses me on the cheek. ‘Thanks, Juliet.’
I watch as Robin goes back to his car and swings out of the close. Then I let myself inside the house and try not to trip over the dog.
Chapter Forty-Four
Rick had tried every way out of the village possible. In the brief time he’d been here, the road he’d come in on from Milton Keynes was now so covered with deep snowdrifts that it was impossible even to see where the edge of the tarmac finished and the fields began. There was no going back in that direction. The next lane he’d travelled down had such a steep hill that he simply couldn’t get up it no matter how hard he tried. Every time he took a run at it, even in a low gear, the wheels just skidded beneath him. Cars and vans that had similarly failed before him littered the verges.
When he turned round and attempted the other route – which would take him on to the main road – there was a lorry jackknifed on a sharp bend, which had completely blocked the road. Three other cars had crashed in its wake. With the snow still coming down at the rate it was, Rick was sure that little lot wasn’t going to be cleared in a hur
ry.
There was no choice. He wouldn’t be able to get back up the other hill into the village either. He was stuck here in this dip for the foreseeable future, and was just going to have to stay in the van and sit it out until the road cleared, even if that took until morning – which was looking the most likely scenario.
He pulled over into the adjacent lay-by so that he was out of the way of the carnage – only the bright yellow waste bin by the side of it giving him a steer on where the lay-by stopped and the ditch began. It was cold – already below freezing he’d guess, even though it was still not yet six o’clock in the evening. The van would only hold its heat for a few minutes, and there was no point wishing now that he had his thick jacket to wear instead of Merak’s thin hoodie, which was about as much use as a piece of tissue paper.
Rick called Juliet to tell her not to worry.
‘You’re going to stay in the van?’ she said, in response to his plan. ‘But it’s freezing.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘You won’t,’ Juliet insisted. ‘You’ll die of hypothermia. If you really are stuck, can’t you walk back into the village and see if there’s a pub? They might have a room.’
That was a better idea. He’d seen a pub by the crossroads, The Bird in the Hand, or the Bush, or something like that. Even if they didn’t have a room available, he could stay in there until closing, which would minimise the time he’d have to spend in the van. Perhaps they would have a roaring log fire. He could almost see it.
‘I will,’ he promised. ‘Perhaps I can get a hot meal too.’ As nice as the cheese sandwiches were that Lisa had made for him, they might well keep him from starving but they wouldn’t warm him up any and already he was starting to shiver.
‘Phone me again,’ Juliet said. ‘Let me know that you’re all right.’
And so, moments after he’d rung off, Rick found himself zipping Merak’s hoodie right up and reluctantly venturing out into the snowy landscape.
As he climbed out of the van, the snow was coming down thick and fast. Crunching it underfoot, Rick headed back towards the village as he’d promised Juliet he would. Within seconds, he put up his hood and jammed his hands deep into his pockets. Gloves would have been a useful addition. And a woolly hat. Maybe a sled and a pack of huskies. The walk back to civilisation felt like a million miles, though it could have been no more than two. The bottom of his work jeans were soaked through, and he was glad of his heavy boots as his feet were sinking deep in the fresh snow.