Chapter 8 #2
Meg seemed lovely. As Sarah ate, she tried to think what could have gone so wrong between her and Chrissie.
The Meg here now, enjoying fondue and chatting, was relaxed.
She seemed fun, she was friendly, and not at all the way Sarah had expected.
All these years she’d thought Meg must be awful, rude, perhaps a woman with a mean streak, but as far as Sarah could see, she was none of those things.
‘I feel like I’m really in Switzerland now I’ve had your fondue,’ said Sarah as she sat back, satiated.
Did Rhys like fondue? She’d never asked him.
There were a lot of people who didn’t. Some thought it too cheesy or not a proper meal, and others panicked about the hygiene of sharing a dish.
But there was no double-dipping here; they’d joked about that already, Meg telling them a tale of her high-school boyfriend whose little brother had done it constantly.
‘The family didn’t bat an eyelid,’ she told them. ‘I said I had a tummy ache and stopped eating. He had a runny nose—’
‘Meg.’ Grumps’s reprimand made Meg grin and Sarah laugh.
Nanna confided in Sarah, ‘When Meg was younger, she was obsessed with watching these hospital shows. She’d tell us all about them in graphic detail at the dinner table.’
Meg laughed the criticism away. ‘Do you still live at home, Sarah?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘I live with my boyfriend – fiancé,’ she corrected.
‘Mum said you were engaged and getting married on New Year’s Eve. Congratulations.’
‘Thank you.’ She took a mouthful of water, hoping she wasn’t going to get umpteen questions about the wedding.
‘You don’t have long now,’ said Meg.
She smiled. ‘I wanted to come here and see Grumps and Nanna as they won’t be able to make it.
’ She didn’t want to talk about it any more and she definitely didn’t want to make her grandparents feel any worse, so when she zoomed in on the boxes of chocolates from The Cocoa Cupboard on top of the sideboard, she changed the focus.
‘What about you? What brings you here for Christmas? Nanna says you’re always really busy at the chocolaterie this time of year. ’
‘We are. But Grant can look after things. I’ve done much of the chocolate-making already, so he and the other staff will be fine.
I don’t normally take time off at this time of the year, but to be honest I had the urge to see my parents too.
’ She looked across at Grumps and Nanna, whose hearts looked full in this moment.
‘It also has the added pleasure that I get to try Swiss chocolate again. I’ve already visited a chocolate shop in Bern, and I’ll do it again here in town. ’
‘So, research?’ Sarah poured water from the carafe on the table into a glass for her and another for Grumps when he nodded her way. ‘That sounds like it would be a total pleasure.’
‘You could take Sarah with you,’ Nanna suggested and Sarah definitely didn’t mistake the panic on Meg’s face.
‘I don’t want to be a tag-along and in the way,’ said Sarah.
But Meg smiled and replied, ‘It’s fine by me. I’ll start in Winterbruck if you’re interested.’
It was just a shame that Sarah felt sure there was a reticence behind those words – probably due to the situation between Meg and Chrissie.
Part of Sarah felt like she was betraying her mum but the other part of her longed to spend time with Meg and get to know her.
Grumps insisted he clear up the dishes, and he and Meg disappeared into the kitchen while Sarah and Nanna had a glass of wine each.
Sarah was about to ask whether Nanna was sure Meg wouldn’t find her tagging along annoying, and more to the point whether this wouldn’t make trouble if Chrissie found out, when she heard a noise beyond the window at the front of the house.
She walked across the room, past the sofa, to see what was outside. There was a man clearing the path.
‘Who is that?’ she asked Nanna.
Nanna came to join her. ‘That’s Jonathan.’ She knocked on the glass and waved and the man waved back.
Sarah felt it rude if she didn’t wave too. ‘Does he just clear the path and go on his way?’ It seemed odd that he didn’t knock.
‘Not always. Sometimes he’ll say hello, but quite often he’ll just get on with it.
He’s our neighbour, moved in after his parents, the Lawsons, passed away.
He’s been good to us. He’s taken us to appointments seeing as we don’t have a car any more.
He does odd jobs around the property and makes sure we’re still alive and kicking.
And every day, often twice a day, he does this and clears the path and out front for us. ’
‘That’s really kind.’
‘It is.’ She stepped away from the window. ‘He’ll knock on the front door if he wants to, but he knows we don’t always expect it. He has his own life. But I do repay his kindness with food.’
‘I’ll bet he appreciates that.’
Nanna smiled. ‘I think he has enough of my cinnamon rolls in his freezer to last well into the New Year.’
Sarah suddenly took pause. Grumps had mentioned their helpful neighbour before in his letters, but Sarah hadn’t really registered his name. She didn’t remember ever having crossed paths with him on her visits, but now she felt sure the name Jonathan was somewhat familiar.
Meg had appeared behind them both without them realising and now she was looking out of the window too. ‘The guy clearing your path is hot, Mum. He looks like he’s got some muscles under that coat.’
Sarah giggled. ‘How can you tell?’
‘Intuition,’ said Meg with a conspiratorial grin. ‘His stubble suits him, and he’s tall.’
‘That’s enough now, girls,’ said Nanna as if Sarah and Meg were the same age. ‘Meg, close the curtains, keep the heat in. And stop talking about Jonathan.’
Meg reluctantly closed the curtains and then flopped down on the sofa.
Sarah turned the name Jonathan over in her head a few more times before something came to her and she said to Nanna, ‘Jonathan met my dad, didn’t he?’
Nanna nodded. ‘Jonathan was staying next door with his parents, and it was on one of the Christmases you came here with your mum and dad. Anthony spotted a proper wooden sledge by the Lawsons’ front door one day and he went across to talk to Jonathan about it.
Turned out Jonathan had made it himself.
He and your dad got chatting and the next thing we knew Jonathan had offered to make one for you. ’
Sarah’s eyes widened in surprise and her emotions churned.
‘The wooden sledge I got when I was seven years old. I was so happy when I saw it by the tree. We took it out every day that we were here.’ And the memory had stayed with her ever since.
Her mum had once told her as she got older that her dad had made it with someone’s help.
Someone called Jonathan. She’d forgotten all about it until now.
Nanna kissed Sarah on top of her head. ‘Your dad told me he was useless with making things, but when he saw that wooden sledge, he’d wanted to give you one just like it.’
‘That was a really kind thing for your dad to do,’ said Meg. ‘And it was good of Jonathan to help.’
Nanna smiled at Sarah. ‘You were so excited. It was a great year for Christmas snow fall and you took it to Frostkinder Hill.’
‘The sledge is still in Mum’s loft. I wanted to keep it, give it to my kid one day. You know.’ Something her dad had helped to make, something she’d had as a little girl. She’d pass it down and it would be even more special because of its history.
‘I remember Frostkinder Hill,’ said Meg. ‘Chrissie and me spent hours there the first winter we were here. And we made a snowman family – or snowpeople. Not sure what you say.’
‘Snowpeople, I reckon,’ said Sarah. ‘Do you have pictures?’
‘Probably… somewhere.’
Grumps must’ve been eavesdropping because from behind them came, ‘I’ll get the albums.’
And that was how they found themselves looking at old photographs from over the years, pictures Sarah had never seen.
Her mum had a few of herself and her family, but nothing like these collections.
These showed her mum as a teenager, Meg too.
Sarah had a laugh at her mother’s terrible perm that apparently had been all the rage back then, and on the next page they saw Meg had done the same to her hair.
‘It was trendy.’ Meg laughed as she defended her choice and nudged Sarah to make her point.
‘Look at this one, this was the time I was telling you about. It was our first winter in Winterbruck.’ It was a photograph of the four of them huddled together in front of the chalet, big smiles on their faces, a wreath on the door behind them tied with a tartan bow.
The next few pictures were of Chrissie and Meg in the snow – making snow angels, forming snowballs on the ground, another of their laughing faces as Chrissie launched a snowball and it was caught on camera, mid-air.
There were more shots of them sledging, each of them solo, and another with the sisters on the same sledge, Chrissie sitting in front with Meg behind her, wrapping her arms around Sarah’s mum.
They’d been happy sisters once, and Sarah wondered whether she’d ever get to find out what happened to drive them so far apart.
They had precious little family as it was. Why would her mum push anyone else away?