Once Upon A Winter (24 page)

It
was the third occasion Mum had had to remind Dad that she wanted to be called Nell. He seemed to be having a hard time getting used to it. In fact, he seemed to find it easier not to have to mention her name at all.

Joshua tucked into his choc nut sundae and stared out of the restaurant window at the canal. Beside him, Freya squirmed on the padded bench seat and picked at her dessert. Mum had had to spur her on to eat anything, as if she was ill. But Joshua knew his sister wasn’t sick; she was just sulking. She hadn’t wanted to have lunch out with Dad. Mum had
guilted her into it.

‘I’m not looking forward to it, either, sweetheart,’ she’d confided, ‘but do this one thing for me. Please, Freya . . .’

There’d been an argument, centred on the New Year’s party. About stuff Freya had overheard people say. Freya had a knack for eavesdropping. She’d said Dad had shown up and made a scene. Joshua thought it was more likely the other way around. That other people - like Aunt Em and maybe Daniel, by the sound of it - had caused a fuss about him turning up at the party. Dad appeared to him like the sort of person least likely to strut around in public shouting his head off.

There seemed a massive amount of restraint about the man sitting opposite Joshua; as if he had a lot to hold back. He spoke in a low, deep voice, and
on the whole kept what he had to say short and to the point. He was courteous with the waitress, who smiled at him loads, and very respectful when he spoke to Mum. He didn’t seem to want to argue back with anyone, even though Freya was doing her best to irritate him. It was obvious Mum was losing her patience with her for acting up.

Joshua caught his father’s eye again. Dad smiled, his wide, slim mouth curling up a tiny bit at the corners, and his gaze looking slightly less distant.

‘When you finish your ice cream, Joshua, would you like to go outside with me and look at the boats?’ he asked.

‘They’re called barges when they’re on canals,’ said Joshua.

‘No, they’re not,’ snapped Freya. ‘Barges carry cargo. Those boats out there are house-boats.’

‘You’re both right, and you’re both wrong, in your own ways,’ said Dad. ‘Those are
narrowboats out there. A type of very thin barge, you could say. People live on them, or use them for holidays. Barges are usually wide, flat-bottomed vessels, and they often do carry freight. That’s one of the ways cargo used to be transported around the country once, and why canals were even built in the first place. Canals have got towpaths because horses used to pull the boats along, back in the day.’

‘Back in what day?’ scowled Freya. ‘You make it sound like you’ve seen them for yourself. I thought this was lunch, anyway, not some boring history lesson.’

Dad regarded her for a moment, his eyes darkening as they crumpled into a frown. ‘Maybe I have seen them. Haven’t you? On television?’

Freya folded her arms over her chest. ‘No.’

‘Please, love,’ said Mum, ‘don’t be rude.’

‘I’m just saying.’ Freya pouted.

Joshua finished off his ice cream and put down his spoon with a tinkling sound. ‘I’ll come outside to take a look.’

‘Josh,’ said Mum, ‘it’s cold out there -’

‘I’ve got a coat.’ It was screwed up around his bum where he was sitting, but he quickly wriggled it on and stood up. ‘Let me get out, please,’ he said to his sister, who huffed and puffed and finally slid off the bench.

‘I need the loo anyway,’ she announced, and flounced off.

‘Girls,’ said Mum, smiling faintly at Dad as she slid along to allow him to get out. He put a hand on her shoulder briefly.

‘I’ll take good care of Joshua
,’ he reassured her. ‘Don’t worry, Ellena.’ He paused, and then said in that low, steady voice of his, ‘
Nell
.’

The smile vanished from Mum’s lips, as if someone had wiped it off with a napkin. She blinked up at him, and then plopped herself back down on the bench. Her cheeks turned pink.

Dad seemed to hesitate again, then turned to Joshua, resting a hand on his shoulder but keeping it there. ‘Come on, son.’ And he steered him towards the doors leading out of the pub at the rear and on to the decking.

*

‘Why are you being like this?’ Nell demanded, as her daughter slumped back down on the bench seat. ‘Did you remember to wash your hands?’

Freya rolled her eyes like a surly teenager. ‘Yes. I always do. And you know why I’m being like this. I don’t want to get to know him. I hate him.’

Nell jolted at this, glancing around, anxious at being overheard. She leaned across the table, the polished wood tacky against her skin. ‘Freya . . . sweetheart . . . “hate” is such a strong word . . . And whatever else he is, he’s your father -’

‘I don’t care. He’s ruining everything. Why can’t he just go away again? Can’t he see that he’s upsetting you? You said meeting up with him was our decision, mine and Josh’s, but just because Josh wants to see him, that doesn’t mean I need to get dragged along, too. It’s not fair! And I don’t know why Josh is so hot on getting to know him. He knows what he did. He knows he left us.’

‘Your brother thinks differently from us,’ said Nell, selecting her words with the same solicitousness she might have used in a job interview. ‘And boys . . . they need a male role model in their lives. It’s part of their chemical make-up - their nature - to drift towards an older male. Someone they can look up to, like a mentor.’

‘He had Dan, didn’t he? Dan’s a much better role model.’

‘But he’s not your dad.’ Sighing, Nell rummaged for her phone in her bag, checking there was nothing from Nana Gwen. Emma had said that she would be going over to Bryn Heulog for a few hours anyway, but Nell always fretted when she was any great distance away, as if the more miles she put between herself and her grandmother the more likely the risk of some emergency.

She hadn’t wanted this meeting to take place in Harreloe, either, though. Not in full view of everyone. It would only generate more gossip. Nell had chosen somewhere off the beaten track, a fair drive away, to somehow make it more of a day out for the children.

‘Anyway,’ said Freya, ‘don’t you hate him, too, Mum? You don’t want to be married to him any more. You’re getting divorced.’

‘Yes, but . . . Just because two people decide they don’t officially want to be a married couple any longer, that doesn’t mean one of them hates the other. I mean, I hate what your father
did
, when he left us. I won’t ever forgive him for it. But I need to be sensible about it, and I can’t overlook other things he maybe didn’t do. Because he was never a
bad
husband or father, when we were together . . .’ Nell tailed off, and fiddled with a beer mat.

‘You’re going to say grown-up
“romantic” stuff is complicated.’ Freya frowned. ‘That’s what adults always say. It’s a massive cover-up.’

Nell shrugged helplessly. ‘Well, real-life isn’t like a movie.’

‘People think it’s simple in movies and books, but if it was, there’d be no plot.’

‘I think, Freya, that maybe you’re reading above your age-group.’

‘Mum, I’ve got the reading age of a fourteen-year-old, according to Miss Perry. I get bored easily. You know none of the stuff I read has S,E,X, in it. Not proper S,E,X, anyway.’

Nell brushed a strand of hair back behind her ear and felt her face heat up again. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have in public with her nine-year-old daughter.

‘I’m thirsty,’ she said instead. ‘That gammon made me thirsty. Aren’t you thirsty, too, Freya?’

The girl regarded her sceptically, with one eyebrow hooked. Nell could see Silas in that look. It was disturbing. She craned her neck, and searched for their waitress. The young woman with the giant hoop earrings was lolling against the bar. Nell put up her hand, trying to attract her attention. The girl straightened up, and came towards them, but instead of stopping, she walked right past them to another table beyond. She took an order, and walked straight past Nell and Freya again on her way to the kitchen.

‘She was quick enough to come running to Dad the minute he wanted her,’ pointed out Freya.

Nell wished her daughter wasn’t quite so observant. Silas’s ability to attract women had been a sore spot in their marriage, although Nell had never raised it with Silas - not with any great seriousness - and it was only with hindsight that it had become such an issue in Nell’s head. He had never capitalised on the fact when they were out together; never flirted back, or made Nell feel substandard. Silas had always been attentive and considerate towards her,
which had only seemed to irritate the other women, obviously wondering what someone like him was doing with a shrinking violet like Nell.

‘I’m not putting up with this,’ she grumbled under her breath. As the waitress walked past again, Nell stuck out her hand and caught the edge of her apron. ‘Excuse me,’ she said sweetly.

‘Yes?’ The girl looked down at her with mild impatience.

Nell gave her a saccharine smile. ‘I’ve been trying to get your attention, but my daughter and I seem to be invisible.’

‘Er - no -’ the girl stammered, then raised her gaze, staring out of the window towards Silas and Joshua.

‘I’m right here,’ said Nell, keeping her tone dulcet, yet firm, ‘and if you could please just stop drooling over my husband for one minute, I’d appreciate it if you could bring us a jug of water and four glasses. Thank you.’

The waitress’s head snapped back down, her surprised gaze flicking over Nell. ‘Um . . . Of course. Right away . . . So sorry . . .’ And she scurried off.

Freya sniggered into her paper napkin. Nell calmly folded up her own.

‘Don’t put up with behaviour like that, Freya,’ she said quietly. ‘Don’t let anyone ever make you feel second-rate.’

Freya grinned. ‘Way to go, Mum.’

Nell leaned across the table. ‘And please don’t tell anyone I called him “husband”. I know technically he still is, but I only said it because that girl was winding me up. And there’ve been plenty of others just like her in the past, gawping over your dad.’

‘He’s not even
that
good-looking,’ said Freya sniffily, after a pause, following Nell’s gaze through the window. ‘His nose is a bit too pointy.’

Nell narrowed her eyes
appraisingly. Then she turned to Freya, and for the first time since they’d sat down, she actually wanted to laugh, rather than just endure.

*

‘Do you like boats, Joshua?’ Silas asked, studying the short, slight lad leaning against the railing.

The breeze ruffled the boy’s shiny black hair, pulling it over his pale face. There was a ghost of a smile on Joshua’s lips, but it was a wistful look, as if he was happy but knew he shouldn’t be.

In a few years, the boy would shoot up fast; grow tall and strong. His shoulders would broaden and his voice would deepen and then, one day, as quickly as it had begun, the process would simply slow down again.

Silas had been initiated by his own father. Taught the rules, the expectations. It had seemed an easy task to pass it on to his own son, yet now that the time was upon him to begin, Silas found himself floundering for the right words.

‘I like boats,’ said Joshua.

‘One day,’ said Silas, ‘I want a boat of my own. A sailing boat, not one of
these.’ He pointed to the vessels moored at the canal-side. ‘But I want to sail it where the sea is so blue you think it must be full of sapphires, and the sun on your back is like a shower of liquid gold.’ He paused, imagining it. Dreaming of it, as he had for so long. ‘Do you like the sound of that, Joshua?’

The boy tilted his head to look up at him. His smile widened. ‘That sounds awesome.’ A thought seemed to strike him, though, and he sighed. ‘But I get burned really easily. Mum always has to cover me in loads of sun-cream in the summer. And I need to wear a T-shirt and a hat.’

‘I burned easily, too, as a boy,’ Silas confided. ‘Your skin won’t always be so pale or delicate.’

Joshua was clearly relieved. ‘Will I look like you
do now when I grow up?’

‘I’m almost certain you will.’

Joshua gazed pensively down towards his feet, clad in blue suede trainers with orange laces. ‘You know, I wanted to come and visit you at the Gingerbread House. Like Freya did. But Mum told us not to go down there on our own. I did want to see you before today, though.’

‘Your mother’s right to shield you. The world can be a hazardous place.’

The boy peered up at Silas again. ‘She said you thought she was being over-protective.’

Silas brushed his hand lightly over the rusted railing. The frown on his brow felt heavy. ‘I had no right to judge her. Mothers are like that. When I think back, the ones I’ve known were all the same. Their first instinct was to protect their child, at whatever cost to themselves.’

Silas was beginning to realise that Abe Golding had been right. This would not be an easy battle.

‘Was your own mum like that?’ Joshua asked.

Silas closed his eyes briefly. An image flashed across his memory. A small portrait, just a sketch really; long since locked away for safekeeping.