Part 24 (1/2)

Suddenly it was dark and Bill was making up food parcels for Ram and Elsie, Liz and Declan.

'Look, we're closed till New Year's Eve. You might as well take all this stuff,' he said. And I realised that Bill knew they relied on the free meals they had at the bistro and a week without them would be tricky. He'd also ordered taxis to take them home.

Then there was just Bill and Mum and me. It seemed very quiet after all the laughter earlier. Bill was ripping open the paper from the sloe gin and chocolates.

'Wonderful!' he said, kissing my cheek. 'Just the thing to warm a cold winter's night. Now, I'll just get your presents.'

Then Mum said, quite tentatively for her, 'I have a present for you, but it's back at the flat. I thought you might come back with us.'

'Why, yes. Of course. Marvellous,' said Bill, looking stunned. 'What a good idea. Yes. I'd love to. I'll just get a few things...call a taxi...'

He rushed around in chaotic fas.h.i.+on, talking to himself, looking for things, picking them up, putting them down. He went into the kitchen and produced another ma.s.sive food parcel, while my mother watched on, amused. Finally, the three of us were in a taxi going back to Mum's flat.

As soon as we were in and settled, he handed me my presents-some perfume, a selection of offbeat travel books and a pair of silly slippers like spotty ladybirds. I sprayed some of the perfume, which was wonderful, enthused over the books and popped my feet in the ladybirds and admired them prodigiously.

'You can't be too grown up, you know,' said Bill. 'It's not good for you,' as I gave him a thank you kiss.

Then Mum went to the Christmas tree and produced a long box, which I had presumed was an emergency box of chocolates in case anyone unexpected turned up. But now I could see it was heavier. She handed it to Bill, who unwrapped it eagerly.

'A chess set!'

'You used to play. I remember you used to play in the old days.' Mum looked uncertain.

But Bill had opened the box and was looking at the pieces. They were made of heavy solid gla.s.s, beautifully smooth shapes, wonderful to look at, even if you didn't play chess. They caught the reflection of the Christmas tree lights and bounced them back so that the room was filled with warm, dancing colours.

'There's a wonderful little shop just near the physio's. When I saw that I just thought of you. And it's a thank you, too, for all that you've done while I've been crippled. I don't know that I could have coped without you. I didn't realise...'

Her voice tailed off. She looked at Bill hopelessly and I'd never seen her look so vulnerable. This was Frankie Flint somehow lost for words.

'Thank you,'said Bill, kissing my mother gently, 'it's beautiful.' In exchange he handed over an envelope. My heart sank. Oh no, I thought. Just when my mother has let her emotions show, revealed a bit of herself and actually admitted she has feelings, then Bill was going to reciprocate with a Marks and Sparks voucher. Please no. Let it at least be Waterstone's...

Mum was opening the envelope, her face clearly prepared to say a kind, polite 'How nice.' But instead she gasped, looked up at Bill and then back at the paper in her hands.

'I hear,' said Bill, gruffly, 'that the Zanzibar suns.h.i.+ne is just the thing for newly mended ankles.'

'Zanzibar!' I squawked. 'Are you going to Zanzibar?'

'If your mother would like to,' said Bill diffidently. 'I can always cancel.'

'No! I mean yes!' said Mum quickly. 'Bill, I would love to go to Zanzibar. With you.'

At which point I began to believe in Christmas angels and It's A Wonderful Life's Clarence getting his wings. And almost expected Tinkerbell to waft in on a cloud of fairy dust. My mother loving to go on holiday? She hates holidays. From the time I was old enough to go with school or with friends, we have never had more than a weekend break in Paris or Rome together-which I always felt she was doing strictly for my educational benefit.

But here she was, next to the Christmas tree, gazing at Bill and agreeing to go to Zanzibar with him. Maybe we'd all had much too much champagne. Maybe my mother had been s.n.a.t.c.hed by aliens.

'It's for the middle of January,' Bill was saying anxiously. 'I thought it would do you good before you got back to work properly.' He looked straight at my mother and grinned. 'Are you really coming? Do you want to? Are you sure?'

'Yes, yes and yes,' replied my mother.

I must have been standing there with my jaw dropping open, because Mum looked at me and said, 'I've been doing a lot of thinking while I've been hopping around. Life's too short to waste. You can't dwell on the past; you have to make the most of now. Seize the day. Carpe diem. I'm just so lucky to have had a second chance, and even luckier that Bill never gave up on me. G.o.d knows he was ent.i.tled to.' She turned to Bill. 'Thank you for looking after me these past months, but more than that, thank you for looking after me all these years-even, especially when I didn't want you to. Thank you for never giving up.

'I'm just glad you kept coming back. Zanzibar sounds wonderful.'

'Champagne!' said Bill, as he hugged my mother and then me, kissing us both. 'We must have champagne!'

'Well actually,' said my mother, 'what I'd really love is a cup of tea.'

Next day the fog had lifted as if by magic. The sky was a sharp cold blue and a film of ice covered the water b.u.t.ts. Matilda stretched up to grab the was.h.i.+ng line as the wind snapped it up out of her reach. After days of the damp and dark, this dry wind was just what they needed, cold as it was. The children played out in the yard, wrapped up, rosy-cheeked, happily chipping the ice off puddles.

Someone was walking down the track. Matilda looked intently, hopefully, but could soon see it was one of the Calverts who lived in the chaos of the midden-like houses of Bottom Row. This time Calvert didn't look as though he were begging favours, wheedling food for his children. Instead he looked jaunty, as though he'd had too long in The Miners' Arms.

'Morning, missus,' he said, touching his cap with mock politeness.

She nodded at him, curtly.

'So you won't be having your photographs taken no more then,' he said.

'Will I not?'

Her hand shook as she pegged a thin blanket on the line, refusing to look at Danny Calvert, though she knew he was standing there, hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels, full of himself. She was glad of the battle with the wind, the line, the blanket, the clothes pegs.

'You see, yesterday,' he said, with an air of great importance, 'yesterday I was working for the coroner.'

The coroner...The end of the blanket whipped out of her hand. She groped after it, resisting the urge to turn round and demand the information from Calvert. The coroner. Please, G.o.d. No...

'In the fog, must have been the night before last. Photographic man and his pony and trap went straight over Skutterskelf Edge. Reckoned they'd been there all night. Old Richards had to shoot the pony. Photographer was already dead though. Jim Dinsdale and me got him back up, took him to the Black Bull. He's laid out there now, in the outhouse. Got the cart and pony up too. Cart's not much good for else but firewood. But the coroner gave us some money for our trouble, from the public purse, he said.'

Dan Calvert told his story with a particular relish. 'The photographer took a picture once of our Billy and granddad cutting peat. But he took lots of you, didn't he, missus? Well, he won't be coming back no more, that's for sure.'

Matilda fastened the flapping blanket onto the line. Her heart felt as cold as her frozen hands. But she would not let anyone see. Ever.

'He was a good man, Danny Calvert,' she said turning round. 'And if you've not drunk all the coroner's money away, be sure you give some to your Mary so your bairns don't go hungry again.'

One of the grandchildren had fallen and was screaming. She turned back to the yard to pick him up, her long hair falling in its plait over her shoulder. She tried not to think of the photographer lying cold at the bottom of Skutterskelf Edge with the ruins of his cart and cameras scattered around him. All night, in the fog.

She tried not to think of his kindness or the solidness of his presence in her small house. Of the sense of possibilities...

Now he would never know that she had changed her mind; that she wanted to be his wife. They had never got their second chance. Too late.

Work. There was always work. Plenty of that to distract her. She set her shoulders as she carried her grandson back into the house and took up her many tasks. When she saw the pack of ribbons sitting on the shelf, for one moment she was tempted to hurl them in the fire, let the flames destroy them as her hopes had been destroyed. But even as she went to throw them, she stopped, wrapped them carefully back up in the tissue paper and pushed them to the back of a drawer. Waste not, want not. Some day someone might need those ribbons.

Chapter Thirty-One.

Carefully, I filled in all the s.p.a.ce on one side of the card with little stick men waving flags and sort of jumping up and down. Lots of little speech bubbles too, saying 'Hooray!' or '2-1'.

Yes, Shadwell had won a match, their first since Halloween, and it was now late January. I'd been trying to do some work on the computer, but I kept clicking on to the sports sites to keep track of the match. I was excited enough when I thought it was going to be a draw, but when Clayton scored the winning goal, I cheered out loud. And now I was sending him another postcard. The last.