Chapter 7 Rosie
Rosie
A re we lost?” Declan peered at his phone. “There’s no signal.”
They’d been driving all day with just one brief stop to eat the sandwiches Rosie had packed. Now it was dark and both of them were tired.
“We’re not lost.” Rosie was driving, navigating her way more through instinct than knowledge.
They’d made surprisingly good time driving up north but then the weather had worsened and so had the traffic.
With visibility reduced, the road conditions deteriorating and too much traffic, accidents had been inevitable.
The fields and trees were coated with snow, the landscape ghostly in the pale winter light.
“Isn’t it beautiful? Don’t you just love this time of year? The snow is luminous.” Rosie sighed as she scanned the frosted landscape. “It transforms everything. It even makes ugly things beautiful. Like that building over there in that field.”
Declan squinted. “You mean that abandoned cow shed?”
“Is that what it is? Doesn’t it look magical?”
“Um—it looks like an abandoned cow shed. Are you sure you know where we are?”
“Well, not exactly where we are, but roughly. I know we’re going in the right direction. We’re not far from home. An hour maybe?”
Declan put his phone down. “There is a lot of snow.”
“I know. Isn’t it fantastic? It makes me think of winter fairy tales and carol singers and tramping across snowy fields with my mother to get to school because the bus wasn’t running.
” She allowed herself a dreamy moment of nostalgia and then glanced at him and saw that he was frowning. “What does it make you think of?”
“Train delays. Frozen pipes. Dangerous roads and multiple accidents.”
“Oh.” She came back to earth. “That’s very pessimistic. Is my driving making you nervous?”
“No. You’re a good driver.”
It wasn’t the compliment she would have chosen, but she’d take it. “Thank you. My brother taught me. And Will.”
“Who is Will?”
“Jamie’s closest friend. He was at our wedding.”
“I remember. Tall guy. Glasses. He sat next to Becky.”
“That’s him. He’s mad about cars, and he took me out in snow a few times after I passed my test. Either he has nerves of steel, or he thought I was a good driver.
” Rosie slowed down at a junction and saw a signpost. “I know where we are! We’re about forty minutes from home.
It’s going to be fine. There’s a great pub near here.
They make the most incredible cauliflower cheese.
It has this crunchy topping and it’s so delicious and creamy it should probably be illegal. ”
“Sounds good. I’m starving.”
“Me too, but we’re not stopping. In under an hour you will be facing more food than you know how to eat.”
“That’s hard to imagine. You’re sure your mother will have cooked a meal, even though she doesn’t know what time we’re arriving?”
“Of course. My mother is relaxed about that kind of thing. Probably because my father was always being called to see a patient just as she was about to serve a meal. She’s very flexible and there’s always masses because she over-caters. You will be fed until you beg for mercy.”
“I remember Becky saying food was a big thing in your house. She told me you ate breakfast and dinner together, sitting at the table, although your dad wasn’t always there if he was working.”
Occasionally he’d say things like that and she’d be reminded that his friendship with Becky predated their relationship by several years.
She’d wonder how he could possibly know something so personal when she hadn’t shared it, and then it would occur to her that he must have talked about it with Becky.
In some ways Becky probably knew him better than she did.
It was an unsettling thought.
“We ate together when we could. Dad was rarely there for breakfast but tried to make dinner. That was when we talked.”
“Talked? About what?”
“About everything. About our day. It was our family time. You didn’t do that?”
He stared straight ahead. “No. We lived pretty independent lives. We mostly did our own thing.”
She glanced at him briefly although she couldn’t see his expression in the darkness. “Your stepmother isn’t a keen cook?”
“No. In our house it’s more casual. Everyone fends for themselves.”
She couldn’t imagine it, and now she was worried that he’d find her close family dynamics uncomfortable. Would he feel stifled?
Apart from the wedding, he’d never spent time at her family home.
Her parents had visited them in London a few times since the wedding, and there had been a week in the summer when they’d planned to go to Northumberland, but then Declan had been given an urgent work project to deal with so Rosie had gone home alone.
“I’m sure it was nice to have that freedom.
” She didn’t think it sounded that nice, but it felt rude to say so and she didn’t want to do anything to shake this new truce between them.
She was relieved that they were speaking again and that the atmosphere in the car had warmed a little over the journey.
Still, she would be glad to get home. They’d been lucky to be able to leave the motorway just before the traffic started backing up.
Not long now and she’d be hugging her parents and Percy and warming herself in the big cosy kitchen of the Mill House.
And with luck Jamie would already be there, which would give her a chance to have a quiet word with him before the party.
“Thank you for coming with me. And I’m sorry about your party.” It felt like the right time to say it. “I didn’t understand how much it meant to you but now I do.”
He shifted in the seat, as if he’d forgotten she was there. “What?”
“Your Christmas party. I thought it was work for you. Duty. Why didn’t you tell me how much it meant to you? If I’d known, I would have gone.”
“But you made it clear you would have hated it.”
“That was when I thought it was just a work obligation.”
He kept his eyes on the road. “It is work, but they’re also my friends. Good friends. It doesn’t matter. Let’s forget it, Rosie. Move on.”
How could he say it didn’t matter when it obviously did?
“It’s unusual, the bond you all have. Normally colleagues come and go. It’s rare to be working with the same people for five years.” The people she worked with changed regularly, and many of them were freelancers.
“It’s a great company, we work well together and we all like it there. And people do leave sometimes.” He paused as they approached a tight bend. “Like Becky. She left.”
Becky.
Becky had been part of his close group of friends. Becky would have gone happily with him to his Christmas party and they wouldn’t have ignored her. She would have joined in the conversation because she spoke their language.
Long-suppressed emotions bubbled up inside her, and Rosie kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead, trying to control her thoughts.
Growing up, she had often felt inferior to her sister.
No matter how hard she tried, maths and spreadsheets just didn’t make sense to her.
It was all very well for her parents to reassure her that everyone had different talents but it was a fact of life that some talents seemed to be more highly valued than others.
What had she excelled at? Making clothes for her dolls.
Because she and Becky were twins, there had been the inevitable comparisons, particularly at school.
They look identical, but she’s nothing like her sister.
To be fair, her parents had never made that comment and had always encouraged her creative side. But every time she’d heard a teacher say those words, she’d shrunk a little because they were true. And no matter how hard she worked, she was never going to be her sister.
She’d scraped through the exams she’d been forced to take and then dropped those subjects in favour of the arts, which suited her better.
She’d been thrilled when she’d graduated and immediately landed a job with the ballet company, and hadn’t cared that she was probably paid a fraction of what her sister earned.
And she knew she was good at what she did.
There was skill involved in creating costumes for the dancers, but most people never thought about that.
They watched the performance onstage and had no concept of the work that had gone into making sure everything was perfect.
With costumes there were so many elements to consider.
The dancer had to be able to move fluidly, to feel good in the costume and forget about it completely when they were dancing.
Recently she’d been working on The Nutcracker , one of her favourite ballets and a staple of the festive season.
It always made her feel Christmassy. It used over a hundred costumes and this time she’d made a new tutu for the Sugar Plum Fairy, spending hours sewing together multiple layers of tulle and embedding crystals that would sparkle and gleam under the lights.
That costume had inspired the dress she’d made for herself to wear on Christmas Day.
She’d been excited about wearing it, but now she wondered if Declan would just think it was over the top. She was conscious that she dressed very differently from all the people he mixed with during his working day.
She hated the idea that he wasn’t looking forward to Christmas. But maybe that was because his own Christmases hadn’t been that special. Perhaps he didn’t know what to expect.
“I think you’ll like spending Christmas at the Mill House.
It’s always festive and my mother is an incredible cook.
Her turkey will be the best thing you’ve ever eaten, I guarantee it.
” Was she being too cheery? Trying too hard?
“All the other Christmas lunches you’ve ever had will fade in comparison. ”
“I’ve never had a particularly memorable Christmas lunch so that won’t be hard. Not that I’m suggesting your mother’s cooking is anything other than sublime,” he said. “It’s just not a meal that has ever made much of an impression on me.”