As she said the words, Tania couldn’t help but slide her fingers to the back pocket of her jeans. Gull’s note was still in there, the edge of the envelope standing proud of the seam. She shoved it down, hiding it from sight.
Madeleine was watching her. Tania was beginning to get the feeling that Madeleine was one of those people who appeared easy-going and unobservant but was the complete opposite.
‘If you could, though, would you want to?’ Madeleine asked.
She crushed the smile that tried to curl her lips upwards, the tell-tale reaction to the fact that her stomach had a strong answer to that question, turning itself into a washing machine at the thought. She pushed the little glass of génépi to one side, not at all sure adding a strong liqueur to the mix would be a great idea.
Until she’d seen the note, Tania had convinced herself she’d made the right decision. Shehadmade the right decision, there was no way she could make a stranger more important than her friend. However, the interesting– and frankly new to her– reaction her body was having every time she thought about Gull was a surprise. She tried to recall another time when someone she hadn’t even touched had elicited a similar response. She couldn’t. There wasn’t anyone.
She looked at Madeleine, her generous almond eyes still trained in her direction. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it? I don’t have any way of finding him again.’ She pressed her lips together, hoping Madeleine would leave it alone.
Instead, Madeleine turned to the others, her expression brightening. ‘I’ve had an idea.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Rose said.
‘As you’ve all been so good at putting up with my appalling attempts to learn to ski, why don’t I treat us all to lunch, tomorrow?’
‘That sounds like a lovely idea,’ Clara said.
‘Well,’ Madeleine said, ‘the offer comes with a couple of caveats.’
Rose snorted a laugh. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me.’
‘Number one. You’ll have to put up with me for the whole day, tomorrow. Today’s lesson was my last one.’
‘How come?’ Clara asked.
‘The instructor realised she’s never going to improve and they’re cutting and running while they still can,’ Rose said, with a grin.
‘Cow,’ Madeleine said, with affection. ‘No. I can’t really afford any more, so I’m afraid I’m at your mercy from here on in. But I want to say thank you, to Tania primarily but to all of you for being so welcoming.’ Madeleine looked around the room, then her gaze settled onto Tania. ‘Snow Pine Lodge, this resort, this whole experience is, quite frankly, rather surreal for a dental nurse from Brockborough to take in. Surreal, but in a good way.’
‘It’s been my pleasure,’ Tania said. She hadn’t thought it would be, she’d thought Madeleine would end up being a spare wheel, a cog which didn’t fit anywhere. She’d been wrong.
‘What’s the other caveat?’ Rose asked.
‘Our lunchtime destination tomorrow. I want to go to the Cocoon.’
‘Fine by me,’ Rose said. She lifted her glass of génépi into the air. ‘Cheers.’
‘Bottoms up,’ Madeleine said, swigging at her liqueur and then coughing a little. She recovered herself and swung around to face Tania. ‘Plus,’ she said quietly, ‘what better place to go to start the search for the man who may buy you a dog one day?’
Chapter 19
2 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS
Clara woke early the following morning. She always woke early, these days, unless she’d had a skinful the night before. Then she woke later, which was a good thing in some ways, except that she had to deal with the fallout of a hangover instead of the empty hours.
For a while, after Mike and Poppy died, drinking until she passed out had been one of the only ways to go to sleep at all. She still did that, more often than she should. But the thing with going to sleep was not so much the sleeping part, it was more the waking up bit. And that happened either way.
It had been particularly challenging this morning. The upward spiral into consciousness was always accompanied by those few seconds of freefall when she had to remember, all over again, why Mike wasn’t beside her. Why Poppy wasn’t stood at her bedside, tapping at the side of her face to wake her up. That momentary suspension in reality took longer to negotiate today, before it all crashed back in on her, like the seventh wave in a winter storm.
The crash had been particularly vicious this morning. Maybe it was because she’d enjoyed herself yesterday. For the first time in such a long time she’d enjoyed being alive. This must be the punishment, she supposed.
Perhaps she should have asked to share a room with someone. Would that have made the yawning chasm of the morning’s realisation that her family were gone easier to bear? Or would that have achieved nothing more than filling the silence with white noise? They were still gone, noise or no noise.
She stayed put for as long as she could bear to. Then Clara slipped from the bed and got on with the mechanics of preparing for another day.
Upstairs, Tom was slicing a fresh baguette and arranging the pieces into a wicker basket. She could smell croissants in the oven.
