Chapter 1 A rainy Sunday
A rainy Sunday
It is two days later and Malcolm is in the community swimming pool café, staring out at a very different scene; sodden grass and, through the blur of rain, the old railway station opposite – now converted to a bistro and cinema.
The icy snap has been swept away by a front of damp, blustery weather.
The café where Malcolm is waiting is warm and comfortable, smelling strongly of chlorine and vaguely of feet.
Malcolm rearranges his cup of black coffee in front of him, lining it up with the shortbread he has bought from the servery.
He wonders whether he should buy additional drinks.
But what if they take longer and they go cold?
Or maybe Ruth might like a hot chocolate rather than her normal cappuccino?
Turning from the window, he peers through the panoramic glass screen onto the swimming pool below. No sign of them.
Then suddenly they are there. Appearing behind his left shoulder.
He experiences a glow of recognition that is particularly precious because it has now become a familiar thing to him.
Ruth is there with a towel wrapped around her head.
Really that woman could not care less what anyone else thought.
And beside her is Jo, hair damp and tousled, a pink waterproof jacket only part concealing her bump.
As he goes to rise, Rev. Ruth pushes him back in his seat.
‘I’ve got this, Malcolm; you talk to Jo.’ She turns to her companion, ‘Hot chocolate?’
‘Umm,’ Jo agrees, leaning over to kiss Malcolm’s cheek.
‘Ooh they have a Christmas special. Dark chocolate with orange zest, lots of cream and nutmeg. What d’you think?’ Ruth asks.
Jo nods, ‘Well it is nearly Christmas.’
A shimmer of panic ripples through Malcolm. There are only twelve days to go! Then he reminds himself he has very little planned for Christmas – nothing that can’t be sorted by a bigger-than-usual supermarket shop. He can’t quite decide if he feels relieved or disappointed by this thought.
Rev. Ruth bustles away, calling over her shoulder, ‘Fancy a hot chocolate, Malcolm?’
Malcolm is still not comfortable calling out over an open café, so he just shakes his head and points at his coffee cup. Even though he thinks dark chocolate and orange might be rather nice.
Jo manoeuvres herself onto the seat opposite him, giving his hand a warm squeeze. ‘Lovely to see you, Malcolm.’
Even after all this time, Malcolm is surprised to find that she really sounds like she means it.
Jo and Ruth normally meet every month for an open-water swim, but the cold weather and Ruth’s concerns for Jo’s swelling bump had led her to suggest meeting at this indoor pool, asking Malcolm if he would like to join them afterwards – ‘like old times.’
Relaxing with a big sigh, Jo looks about her, ‘They’ve done this place up since I was here last, and they seem to be doing more food.’
‘I believe the centre has given the contract to an RAF veteran who is very keen to source his ingredients from local suppliers.’
It really was amazing what you overheard in a bookshop. The bookshop where Malcolm now works part-time.
‘But enough of that,’ Malcolm continues. ‘How are you, Joanne?’ He leans forward, concentrating his gaze on his friend.
‘I’m really good, Malcolm. I’m finding I’m getting more tired with this pregnancy than with Eliot.
And the baby moves around a lot more …’ She smiles, and Malcolm thinks how well she looks.
‘Especially when I’m swimming. Maybe she will be a real water baby.
That would be nice.’ She laughs, ‘Eliot wants me to have a water birth. Some idiot at nursery told him about it. I don’t think he has any idea of the mechanics of it, just thinks a paddling pool inside would be great for his boats and dinosaurs. ’
‘How is he?’
‘Good. He’s just gone up into pre-school with the other three-year-olds. You might see him later; Eric is coming to pick me up in a bit.’
‘Now that would be nice,’ Malcolm remarks, bowing his head slightly.
Ruth appears, carrying a tray with three mugs piled high with cream sprinkled with nutmeg, and a slice of glazed orange poking up through the dairy mountain. She shuffles in beside Malcolm, ‘Thought you might change your mind,’ she says, handing around the mugs and giving him a wink.
Oh, how well this woman knows him.
‘Ah, shortbread. Perfect,’ she exclaims, settling down.
Both women shrug off their coats and Ruth unwraps the towel from her head, giving her hair a final rub.
‘Now this is nice,’ Ruth and Malcolm declare in unison.
‘You two are like an old married couple,’ Jo laughs, spooning a dollop of chocolatey cream into her mouth.
‘Not much chance of that,’ Ruth nudges Malcolm’s shoulder. ‘Somehow I don’t think I’m Malcolm’s type.’
‘Nor me yours, dear lady,’ Malcolm returns politely.
‘Sweet Jeeesus,’ Jo murmurs softly, and the laughter ripples around the table.
‘Has Ruth still got you helping out at the church?’ Jo asks.
‘She most certainly has,’ Malcolm replies, with some asperity. ‘Tomorrow afternoon it is the school nativity practice, I believe.’
‘You could always say “no” to her,’ Jo tells him.
‘Have you ever tried that, Joanne?’ Malcolm enquires incredulously, and Jo grins her acknowledgment of a point made.
Ruth turns to Jo and explains, ‘The reception teacher, Miss Poole, cut her hand on a mandolin and can’t play the piano for the nativity run-through.’
Malcolm vaguely knows the primary school teacher, a woman in her thirties with a taste for colourful jumpers and bright red lipstick. He approves of Miss Poole but, now he thinks about it, he can’t imagine her strumming the mandolin. He mentions this to Ruth, who snorts with laughter.
‘The mandolin thingy you slice vegetables with,’ she says, adding, ‘blooming lethal.’
Jo winces, ‘Was it a bad cut?’
‘No, no. Just needed bandaging,’ Ruth assures her, ‘but accompanying is out of the question.’
Malcolm gives a helpless shake of the head. A gesture of accepting the inevitable. ‘How’s business going?’ he asks, changing the subject.
Jo started her stationery shop, Dear Wilbur, in Ilkley, but has since opened a second branch in Harrogate, where Eric also has his optician’s practice and where the family now live.
‘Good – in fact, really good. It helps that I have a fantastic manager in Ilkley. I’m always worried she’s going to leave. But I’ve got her involved in helping design our own range of cards and journals, and we’re both loving that. So, fingers crossed.’
‘Your Uncle Wilbur would have been very proud,’ Malcolm tells her.
‘I think he would be astonished; but yes, I do think he would be happy for me.’
‘And happy you are so close to your parents,’ Ruth adds.
‘Mum really is amazing. I don’t know what I’d do without her, what with running the shops and everything. Not that Eric isn’t great,’ Jo is keen to assure them. ‘He and Eliot love hanging out together. But not a lot else seems to get done.’ She shrugs helplessly.
Malcolm cannot imagine what it must be like to bring up a young family.
Would he have liked it? He hardly knows.
His life had taken such a different course.
His mother and he had certainly been a family.
Maybe families came in all shapes and sizes.
Would a relationship with one other person, maybe a friendship that grew into something else, ever constitute a family?
His mind drifts to Padam, the owner of the bookshop where he now works.
He stops himself there and focuses back on his friends.
After everything they have been through, weren’t the three of them like a family?
‘What are you thinking?’ Ruth asks, eyeing him. ‘Trying to work out how to get out of the nativity practice?’
‘Not at all, Ruth. Not at all,’ he says earnestly, turning his body towards her.
And he finds he means it. After all, didn’t families help each other?
‘What more do you have planned?’ he asks.
Then wishes maybe he hadn’t. It sounds too much like an open invitation.
What else will this tricky woman sign him up for?
Not that he has other plans for the Christmas period.
There is his shop work, his campaigning for the local conservation trust, and meetings at the Historical Society – but that was only once a week.
It strikes him how quiet life would be if Ruth didn’t cajole him into helping her.
And hadn’t he met many of his local acquaintances through her?
Was that why she did it?
Ruth finishes off her shortbread biscuit which she has been dunking into her hot chocolate. ‘Well,’ she says meditatively, ‘what am I up to? Not that much, now I come to think of it.’
‘Really?’ Jo and Malcolm chorus in astonishment.
‘No!’ Ruth laughs out loud. She starts counting out on her fingers, ‘There are the carol services – town, Rotary, school and WI; there’s the Christingle, nativity, carol singing, early Christmas Eve crib service and midnight mass; then we have a funeral next week and a wedding in the week before Christmas.
’ Ruth pauses, ‘I wouldn’t normally say “yes”, but her uncle’s a bishop and he rather insisted. ’
‘What’s the bride like?’ Jo asks.
‘Bossy.’ Ruth grins, ‘Like the bishop.’
‘Oh, Ruth,’ Jo says sympathetically.
‘Ah well, I will make sure it’s a lovely day for them.’
And Malcolm knows she will. ‘What else is going on?’ he prompts.
‘There’s the Christmas craft coffee morning to raise funds for the pensioners’ Christmas lunch; obviously then there’s the lunch.
After that we have a children’s party at the women’s refuge.
Oh, and we’re involved in a service with the local RAF station and another with the Royal Yorkshire Regiment, and that is before we get to all the services on Christmas Day. ’
‘Oh, Ruth, that—’