Once they were on the bus, Gio felt his mum reach out to him and put her hand over his.
‘Thank you for looking out for me.’ She said it quietly enough that only he and nobody else could hear. ‘I’ll keep looking; something will turn up soon.’
‘I’m sure it will.’ And when they passed a house with a man out front looping Christmas lights around his front fence, Gio pushed the bell conveniently located right near their seats and got up gingerly. He knew where they were and what was close by.
‘Where are we going?’ Marianne asked.
‘You’ll see. Come on.’
Once they were off the bus, they walked about a hundred metres and when they turned into the next street, her face took on a warmth that was hard to look away from.
‘It’s the best street in Whistlestop River for Christmas lights,’said Gio. ‘And you don’t have to worry about me racing too fast and you not getting to see enough,’ he added, noting the crutches.
‘Oh, this is wonderful.’ Her eyes lit up like she was a five-year-old waiting for Father Christmas. ‘Look at this one, the polar bear, the penguins. Oh, Gio!’
They hovered outside every single house like that on the busy street with other people doing exactly the same. And the only thing that made Gio sad was that Marco wasn’t here to share this with them.
And so when his mum was watching a moving Father Christmas climb up a ladder on a roof towards the chimney, a big sack slung over his shoulder, Gio sent his brother a message along with a photograph of Marianne, her face almost as bright as the lights, and told him again that this time, it was different. This time, she really had got herself together.
His brother’s text came back in seconds:
We’ll sort a date soon.
It was all Gio could ask for.
14
Bess had eaten a fish finger sandwich when she got home from the pub last night and when she came downstairs this morning, she cursed herself for having not rinsed her plate straight away because the smears of HP sauce were stuck fast and her dishwasher had gone on the blink, as if it wanted to have the last laugh at her finances. She was limiting the amount of time her hot water was on these days too, anything to save a bit more money, and it had already gone off. She put the plate to soak in cold water – who knew, maybe it would work – and made some toast to have quickly before Maya picked her up and took her to the pub car park to collect her car on the way to the airbase. As far as anyone at work knew, she was just rubbish at planning, hence the one beer last night turning into three as she relaxed and made the decision to leave her car. She shouldn’t have been there at all with her lack of money but she’d wanted to block out her troubles, turn her back on them, just for the evening. And it was nearly Christmas, after all.
‘Last night was good.’ Maya beamed when Bess climbed into the passenger seat. ‘I’mglad you came.’
‘Me too.’
Maya pulled away from the kerb after Bess fixed her seatbelt. ‘All right, out with it. Something is going on with you.’ She was doing her best to both read Bess’s expression and keep a good eye on the road, impossible multitasking even she couldn’t manage.
‘No, everything is fine, honest.’ She’d thought she’d done a good job of hiding her problems. Obviously not.
‘You know how I know it’s not fine? When you say the wordhonestafter the claim.’
Bess watched the wintry world go by out of the window. The pavements were slippery today; she’d come down the path very carefully when she heard Maya pull up. ‘Thanks again for taking me to get my car this morning. I only intended to have one beer last night.’
‘You’re very welcome, but don’t think I’ll drop this, Bess. You wouldn’t if you thought something was on my mind. So, we’ll talk about it. It doesn’t have to be now.’
The low-hanging winter sun had them both flipping their visors down as they turned the corner and pulled into the pub car park, where Bess thanked Maya again and rescued her car.
It was action stations soon after they arrived at the airbase and a call came in.
Maya had already brought the helicopter out of the hangar and onto the helipad, Bess had just taken delivery of bloods from one of the Whistlestop River Freewheelers and went to retrieve the cool box, and Noah got the details of the job.
Within minutes, The Skylarks were up in the air.
One of the parts of her job that Bess really loved was its unpredictability. They could be called out to roadside, by a river, near offices or residential homes or, as today, the beach.
‘My favourite place to land,’ Maya declared on the approach to the south coast sands. ‘Even in the winter, the sea looks glorious.’
‘Not if you’re in it,’ Noah said from the back. ‘Do you know, Bess, this one wants me to try cold-water swimming?’
Bess spoke into her microphone attached to her headset. ‘She tried to get me to do that last year but she’s all yours now, I think you’re going to have to take one for the team. And what happened to stand-up paddleboarding?’
