‘Tell me.’
‘You took us to see the Christmas lights every year. We’d drive to the best streets and we’d be out for hours.’
‘You loved the Christmas lights. You’d wrap up all warm, mittens on, scarf across your mouth and nose – you needed it up north; it’s colder there than where you are.’
Gio had joined the Whistlestop River fire brigade eighteen months ago, relocating from Lancashire to the county of Dorset. Last Christmas, he and the crew had been out on a shout and on the way back to the fire station, had driven down some of thebest decorated streets he’d ever seen. Families crowded the pavements to take a look, fathers had kids lifted high up on their shoulders, mothers had their arms around excited toddlers, and everyone had a smile on their face. It had reminded him of the good times with his mum, when the three of them would take in the festive scene together in the local area no matter how cold it was, whether it was blowing a gale or pouring with rain. Their mum had always been excited for the Christmas lights every year – she’d never let the boys miss them either, not until the drinking started, anyway. Even the year he twisted his ankle, she’d insisted they still went out and she’d borrowed a wheelchair from the local hospice where she volunteered to read to patients once a week.
‘What are the lights like in Whistlestop River?’ she asked, leaving him discombobulated that they were having a proper conversation. ‘I’ll bet they’re something to behold.’
Behold? His mother didn’t use words like that and Gio’s shoulders sagged with relief because he could always tell when she’d been on a bender and tonight definitely wasn’t one of those nights. He wished he’d realised sooner so he could’ve enjoyed their conversation a little bit more but he’d been focused on keeping her calm, getting through the call from start to finish without a big blow-up.
‘Last year, they were pretty spectacular.’ He almost wanted to addyou should come and see thembut the words couldn’t quite reach his lips. Should he feel bad that although he loved his mum, she came with so much stress that it was better to hold her at arms’ length?
He shivered again. ‘I have to go, I need to get to bed.’
‘Silly me, I forgot the time. I was chatting away…’
‘Mum, it’s fine, honestly.’
‘Gio, I…’
A pause. Which wasn’t a good sign.
She was going to do it, wasn’t she? She was going to ask for money; that’s what the whole rekindling of memories about the Christmas lights had been about, the talk about sparklers and triggering nice thoughts before she went in for the kill.
So he got in there first. ‘Goodnight, Mum.’ And he hung up the call before switching his phone to silent to give himself a break.
He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and an old top, too wired to sleep. He headed down to the lounge, pulled the curtains, flicked on the television for some company and made a cup of tea.
As the kettle boiled, he took the rubbish outside to the wheelie bin before the inside bin overflowed. The cold bit at his arms and woke him up all the more but not so much as the noise of the air ambulance flying overhead.
He looked up into the night sky; he couldn’t help it. He wondered, was Bess inside the helicopter?
Bess, a friend. A really good friend. At least from her perspective.
Gio had no shortage of women interested in dating him, he’d had more flings than he cared to remember – the uniform helped – but the one relationship that had stuck was the platonic one he had with Bess. They’d known each other since they were in their twenties and they’d lived under the same roof. Over the years since the house share, whenever they met up, he found himself thinking more and more about her: the way she smiled, her laugh, her constant chatter, her confidence and her calm and the intelligence she seemed to downplay. That was the thing about a woman like Bess: her appeal was in the things she didn’t realise about herself. He’d delivered compliments enough times but she only ever seemed to accept them in a friend capacity. And for a while, he’d been thinking about more than a friendship.Ever since they’d both attended the wedding of a mutual friend where they’d danced and he’d held her in his arms, his feelings had shifted. Did she feel that way too?
Who was he kidding? She’d danced with someone else right after him that night and he’d gone to the bar for a beer, watching her from afar.
It had been Bess who’d suggested a move to Dorset, after a conversation they’d had at the wedding that alluded to how much stress he was under still living close to his mother. And while the deciding factor to head this way to Whistlestop River was when he received a job offer, he never would have even looked to move had it not been for the way he felt about Bess.
Sometimes, he asked himself whether with Bess, it was the thrill of the chase. Was he after her because she didn’t fall at his feet, flirt with him or make it obvious she was interested? Was that why he couldn’t get her out of his head?
Surely he wasn’t that shallow, even though some people probably thought he was.
When they’d both attended the road traffic collision a few days ago, even those snippets of time with her had been something he valued. He’d always thought she was beautiful, not just the way she looked with her dark curls and captivating green eyes but her personality. And it was a special form of torture being with her but knowing it couldn’t go any further.
He thought about Bess’s reaction to her mum being at the scene. She was good at her job, she hadn’t let her personal life get in the way, even though seeing her mum with someone new had been a shock. He could understand what it felt like too – he and Marco had seen their mother with new partners more times than he wanted to recall. None of the men she’d picked had ever been right for her. He wished she’d stop trying to have a relationship, wished she’d sort herself out first before she brought anyone elseinto the equation, but it seemed neither of those things were on her agenda.
Back inside and settled on the sofa, his eyes grew heavier as he finished his tea. An American cop show carried on in the background and although he should’ve taken himself off to bed, he made the mistake of lying down and pulling the nearby blanket over his body.
He was out for the count until morning when a knock at the door woke him.
When he opened it, he thought he was seeing things.
Life had just become a whole lot more complicated than it had been less than twelve hours ago.
4
