Chapter 11
SARAH
Sarah was helping Nanna make the evening meal.
Grumps had marinated some beef, and they were in the kitchen preparing the vegetables and the potatoes to make a rosti.
Meg had been in her room all day, working on her laptop, which was a shame because since their walk into town and the chocolate shop Sarah had started to bond with her auntie.
Her grandparents seemed to approve, but nobody mentioned Chrissie and Sarah didn’t want to ask Nanna what her mum would say when she found out.
She didn’t want to upset Nanna. It had to be hard enough having two daughters who were estranged.
Nanna took the peeled potatoes and rinsed them in the colander. She didn’t say anything other than, ‘If you need to talk, about anything, Sarah, you know where we are, don’t you?’
Mid-peeling a carrot, Sarah leaned across and kissed Nanna on the cheek. ‘Thank you.’ This was why she’d come here. She had her grandparents to talk to if she wanted but they’d also leave her alone, which was what she really needed.
Once they’d done as much as they could in the kitchen, Sarah went upstairs to read.
Except she couldn’t focus. She lay on the bed in the familiar room – she always stayed here when she came.
It had the same double bed with the denim blue duvet cover and patchwork quilt at the very end for when the nights got so chilly you had to pull it up and over you, the same slightly battered white dressing table with empty drawers for her things, and the sheepskin rug that her toes sank into when she got out of bed.
She looked up at the snowflakes hitting the skylight before they splodged into different shapes entirely.
And she stayed there until Grumps announced that dinner was ready.
Dinner was a sociable affair. She and Meg talked about the chocolate shop and more about Sarah’s job, and when they all turned in reasonably early, Sarah left her bedroom lamp on and went over to the window to stare out at the darkness and the snow still falling.
Without letting the patchwork quilt fall from around her shoulders, she took a quick photograph and sent it to Rhys.
Snowy rooftops almost hid some houses, obliterated the divide between homes and roads for now, at least until the snow ploughs came round in the morning or cars squashed the snow away.
She loved gazing out at the view. They didn’t have much to look at out of the windows in the flat she shared with Rhys in Oxfordshire, unless you wanted to look in other people’s windows or to the bins down below.
She was about to close the curtains and climb into bed to read for a while when she spotted Jonathan outside. He had a wide shovel and was clearing the pavement in front of their chalet. Then he moved up the path to begin clearing that too.
He looked up and Sarah almost ducked out of the way as if she’d been caught spying, but he raised a hand, waved as if he knew her.
Did he remember her? Her dad?
She smiled, waved back, and then he carried on shovelling and clearing the snow.
She climbed into bed at the same time her phone pinged with a message from Rhys thanking her for the photo. He was impressed with the snow. He asked if she could chat.
She replied that she was in bed but said that they’d talk tomorrow and he sent back a row of kisses.
She loved him so much. But she was twenty years old and the closer it crept towards the wedding, the more unsure she was of whether she was ready for what came next.
* * *
Sarah had set her alarm to make sure she was up earlier than she’d been waking since she arrived in Winterbruck.
The sun wasn’t even up yet, and after she threw back the covers and tiptoed over to the window, she pulled back the curtain and peered out.
There were only a couple of street lamps, with this being a quiet road, but those and the lights from other chalets illuminated the scene enough to show that snow had fallen pretty heavily overnight.
The scene was unspoiled apart from what looked like a few footsteps out front of the chalet opposite.
She pulled on a pair of fleece-lined leggings, a T-shirt and a jumper, then went downstairs. Nanna and Grumps were in the kitchen, dancing around each other as Nanna made porridge and Grumps made the coffee.
Grumps’s face lit up when he saw Sarah. ‘I didn’t hear you get up.’ He lifted a mug in the air, indicating the offer of coffee.
‘Not yet, thanks,’ she said, before giving him a good-morning hug.
‘You’re up early today,’ Nanna chimed, giving Sarah a quick hug as she passed to the sink while Nanna cooked at the stove.
‘I’m going to go outside and clear the path before Jonathan can.’ She filled a glass of water from the tap.
‘Nobody expects you to do that,’ said Nanna as she added a little more milk to the pan of thickened oats. ‘Jonathan seems quite happy doing it for us.’
‘Let her help if she likes,’ said Grumps. ‘She’s young and fit, and a bit of manual labour won’t hurt.’
‘Exactly,’ Sarah agreed. ‘I want to earn my keep.’ She’d thought about knocking on Jonathan’s door, asking whether he remembered her dad, but she wasn’t confident enough to do that.
Instead, she was hoping she might bump into him more casually.
Her mum had always told her whatever she wanted to know about her dad, as had Grumps and Nanna, but to ask a total stranger, someone else who’d known him, even if only briefly, felt like an unexpected jewel she’d discovered.
She hoped he could remember something, anything.
She unhooked her coat from the peg in the hallway.
‘I might do Jonathan’s path for him while I’m out there.
’ She knew from other days that whilst he did his and her grandparents’ every morning and again late afternoon, the first stint was usually after the sun came up. And it was only just beginning to rise.
‘He’ll appreciate that,’ said Grumps as she wrapped a scarf around her neck.
‘Actually, I’ll do his first, that way he won’t see me and do it before I get the chance,’ she said.
Grumps put up his thumbs. ‘Good thinking.’
Nanna hollered from the kitchen, ‘If you see Jonathan, tell him there’s a big bowl of porridge waiting for him if he’d like.’
‘Will do,’ she called back, and once she had her hat and coat on, she went out.
The wide shovel was in the unlocked shed at the side of the house, along with a bag of grit and a broom that, according to Grumps, she could use to clear any powdery snow that lingered after shovelling. She’d seen Jonathan doing this process and it looked easy enough.
Holding the shovel – she’d go back for the rest of the things she needed to do a proper job – she walked carefully down their path, along the pavement and then up the path towards Jonathan’s front door.
His chalet was similar to her grandparents’ place: both were two-storey and each had the same olde-worlde Swiss charm with heavy timber and sloping roofs.
Each chalet had a balcony that stretched right across the front of the property and Jonathan’s had a second one at the back as well, whereas their chalet didn’t.
She started at the end of the path closest to the front door, the sun continuing to rise and proper daylight not too far away.
It was surprisingly easy pushing the shovel along, probably thanks to Jonathan’s regular clearing, which meant the snow wasn’t deeply packed.
It wasn’t long before she’d got all the way to the end of the path and she turned when she heard a voice behind her.
‘Hey, Sarah.’ Jonathan greeted her like they knew each other. And he was coming towards her in a big parka-like jacket that showed he was no stranger to continuous days of temperatures below freezing and heaps of snow. He had two mugs, one in each hand, and steam curled into the air from each.
‘Hey,’ she replied, happy to stop for a moment. ‘I thought I’d repay the favour.’
‘You really didn’t have to.’ He handed her a mug. ‘It’s Glühmost.’
‘Glühmost,’ she repeated, lifting the mug to her nose. ‘It smells good. What is it?’
‘It’s a hot mulled apple juice – this is the no-alcohol version. It has spices in it and it’s a great winter-warmer.’
She leaned the shovel against the nearest tree and took a sip. ‘It’s pretty good. I usually have a tea or a coffee, but I think I might be converted.’
‘I tend to have some in a thermos on standby while I’m clearing and stop for a small cup every now and then.
’ He looked around at the wintry wonderland.
‘I get up at the same time every day, even though I’ve taken early retirement.
This is when the town is at its most beautiful.
It’s pretty perfect out here like this, isn’t it? Unspoilt.’
‘Almost.’ She indicated the bit she’d cleared.
‘I’ll just look at the rest of it.’ He made an appreciative noise after another sip of his own drink.
‘It’s definitely beautiful this early,’ said Sarah. ‘But when I’m on holiday and I don’t have to go to work, I’m usually under a duvet until well after the sun makes an appearance.’
He laughed. ‘Yeah, I guess I must’ve been the same at your age. How old are you now?’
‘I’m twenty.’
He whistled between his teeth. ‘I haven’t seen you since you were a young girl.’ He smiled. ‘I remember you being pretty scared of Schmutzli.’
‘What’s a Schmutzli?’
‘You don’t remember?’
‘I don’t think so.’
But it was good that he did. That meant he might remember something about her dad too.
‘I don’t blame you,’ he said. ‘Probably better to block out Samichlaus’s dark-robed companion.’
She was only puzzled for a moment until she remembered Samichlaus – Father Christmas – and then a memory followed on at his mention of the dark robes. ‘I saw them at the parade in town!’
‘That’s right, you did.’
‘I was so frightened when I saw Schmutzli.’ She remembered now that he appeared each year in early December, along with Samichlaus. ‘Did they turn up on a donkey?’