Chapter 41
Roo was really was going to miss that little bathroom with its surfeit of wood, shiny brass, fancy glass and top quality smellies, she thought as she dried herself after what could be her last shower in it.
She wished she could take the robe home, she might have been tempted to nick it if it wasn’t so fluffy that it would take up a full suitcase.
With her next wage, she’d decided to buy herself a nice quality one.
It would give her an excuse to throw away that cheap shitty waffle one Aaron had bought her.
Ooh, a thought of him that didn’t bring a stab to her chest, she realised.
Result. She was, as her new friends said, better off without someone who could do to her what he did. She was worth so much more.
She opened the cabin door slowly so as not to wake Elizabeth, but she was already up and dressed.
‘Roo, I feel awful,’ she said urgently, as if she had been waiting for her to make an appearance so she could tell her. ‘I never asked you how you were feeling, about… your ex. You were so full of fun yesterday and yet I know you must still be hurting terribly…’
Roo was touched. ‘Thank you. I’m okay, I think.
Or at least I will be in time. Not sure I would have been if I’d ended up on my tod in Whitby, but I’m on a train that would probably cost me a gazillion quid to stay on, with lots of lovely people, Santa Claus, a chef and an escaped convict.
So I’ve had a bit of distraction from my thoughts. ’
She and Elizabeth both snorted.
‘I have plans now, things to look forward to,’ said Roo.
‘I’m going to move, find a better job, write material.
Not sure what to do first though. It’s not so easy when you’ve got no money, no real skills to sell so I’m just going to have to leap into the unknown and hope for the best. But it’s deffo happening. ’
‘You’re so brave,’ said Elizabeth, who had money and skills to sell, but changing everything would be no less monumental for her.
She couldn’t guess how long she had lain in bed last night fantasising about a different life away from Reading and everyone she knew there, but to get to it she’d have to negotiate so many obstacles, the biggest being the wrath of her father and the meltdown of Gregory who was incapable of changes that weren’t on his terms, so lord knows why he thought a career in politics, toeing a party line, would suit him.
Where would she go? What would she do? It would be impossible to jump ship; almost too big a dream, even for her imagination.
‘Did your dad leave you any money at all, Roo?’
‘Not much. He had forty-three pounds and ten pence in his wallet. He hadn’t paid the rent for a month, he’d cancelled his life insurance.
I found an old pension fund from the short time he actually worked and the death benefit half-covered the cost of his funeral.
I took out a loan for the rest. A couple of his old girlfriends contacted me wanting to help but I said no, though one of them insisted that I have the wake at her pub and she put all the food on which was kind of her.
I honestly don’t know what he had, my dad, but he could always get a woman.
They all adored him and tried to sort him out, but it was only ever one-way traffic. ’
It was one-way traffic with Gregory too, Elizabeth finally admitted the fact to herself.
He didn’t love her, even though he said it occasionally and she’d wanted so much to believe there was sentiment behind the words.
But she didn’t feel it. She’d tried to see it in his gifts of jewellery, or the showy gallantry when they were out in public, but she knew it wasn’t really there.
He’d never reached for her hand once, that would have said so much more.
She imagined that Vincent would be someone who would take his lady’s hand, hold it firmly, raise it to his lips… She cut off that thought quickly.
Roo pulled up the blind and looked out at the whiteness. Her eyes were drawn to the solitary tree and she saw that the snow had melted off the branches.
They were last to the dining room where Frank was spooning out large potatoey clods from a frying pan onto the lovely blue and gold Yorkshire Belle plates. The whole carriage smelt absolutely delicious.
‘Good morning,’ everyone greeted them.
‘Take a seat, ladies, you are just in time for the Boxing Day mash-up,’ said Frank.
‘I was hoping they’d stay in bed, then there’d be more for me.’ Vincent rubbed his hands in expectant hope while giving the latecomers a cheeky lop-sided grin.
‘I can’t wait to try this,’ said Elizabeth, sitting next to him on the only vacant chair, seeing as Roo had quickly claimed the one between Henry and Tim.
‘Isn’t Brian joining us?’ asked Grace.
‘Ooh yes, he must. Go and fetch the radio if you would please, Roo,’ Jane asked her. ‘He’s still in the bar from last night.’
‘How hungry are you?’ Frank called after her, his big spoon poised over the pan.
‘Think a cross between a starving elephant and a Tyrannosaurus Rex,’ replied Roo.
‘This is wonderful, thank you.’ Henry plunged his fork again into his mash-up.
‘Bit different to the food inside, Henry?’ asked Tim.
‘Oh, just a smidge.’
‘You’ll be out soon, I hope, and enjoying more of this.’
‘My mum used to make me kippers every Sunday. I’d give anything to sit down at a table with her and have our breakfast again.’ Henry smiled, but there was a sad wistfulness in his eyes. ‘She hasn’t been well recently, too poorly to visit us and my dread was that I’d never see her again.’
‘Couldn’t you get to her while you’re out? Or maybe ring her? I wish the phones worked here,’ asked Grace.
‘Surely that’s the first place they’d look for him,’ said Tim.
Roo bounced in with the radio which she had already switched on. Bing Crosby was singing ‘White Christmas’.
‘You know who that is, Roo?’ asked Tim.
Roo pulled a face as if that was the most stupid question ever.
‘Course I do. Lovely song this, isn’t it?
I’d like to meet someone with a voice as deep as that who’d whisper nice things in my ear.
And before anyone asks, no, Aaron Ewerin didn’t.
His was quite high-pitched for a bloke. As if someone had grabbed his gonads and was continually crushing them, which I would be doing if I had a chance. ’
Grace coughed because Roo had made her chuckle as she was swallowing and sent it down the wrong way.
‘Isn’t that the most beautiful song?’ said Brian.
‘Although it has quite a sad background. The composer Irving Berlin lost his baby son on Christmas Day and because of his religion, he didn’t celebrate Christmas himself but he and his wife would go and visit their son’s grave on the anniversary of his passing.
And many believe the melancholy in his heart was the fuel that helped him write it.
It’s a song that inspires all different feelings in people, isn’t it? ’
Under the table Frank took Grace’s hand and held it, squeezed some of his strength into it. Giving always, never expecting to take.
‘He’s right, it always makes me a bit sad,’ said Roo. ‘But then, I’ve never really enjoyed Christmas that much, it was always too full of let-downs.’
Elizabeth didn’t say ‘me too’, because she didn’t have financially deprived Christmases but the presents she’d received weren’t those that parents who truly knew their child would have chosen.
She’d been given a pony one year, even though she’d had no interest in riding.
But she’d loved him as a pet, got attached, and then the following year she’d walked into the stable to find him gone – sold with no advance notice.
She could still get emotional about that if she thought about it too much.
‘May all your Christmases be white ones is an interesting thought, isn’t it?
’ said Brian when Bing had finished. ‘I mean, we’ve had a lovely lot of snow in our corner of Yorkshire but I must confess I’m now glad it’s going at the rate it is.
I do hear that the further north you go, the fiercer the thaw.
It’s as if it never happened in Darlington, so I hear. I worry about flooding now…’
All of them looked up and through the windows of the dining car.
‘Is he on a different planet to us?’ asked Vincent. ‘I mean, how is that a fast thaw?’
‘The snow on the tree has melted, so it’s definitely warming a bit,’ Roo told them.
‘After we’ve had this, I’m going out and I’m walking to that big building over there,’ said Frank, nodding his head at the tall, square structure they could see. ‘I’m intrigued and also I want to burn off some food. My trousers are getting tight.’
‘You’re too good in the kitchen, Frank. This is absolutely divine.
’ Elizabeth couldn’t believe such simple fare could taste so good.
She wished she could be somewhere next Christmas where she could have this again.
Well, you can be if you make it happen, said a voice in her head.
She’d ignored that voice too many times, even though it always spoke sense.
‘I’ll come with you. I’d like to stretch my legs,’ replied Tim.
‘If you don’t mind, I would too,’ said Jane. ‘I’m no liability. I’m as sure-footed as a mountain goat in the right footwear.’
‘I’ll stay here in case the crew come back,’ replied Roo, nibbling on a sprout; Frank had given her extra in her portion. ‘If Brian’s telling us the truth they might turn up and we don’t want them driving off without us.’
But from the vista they were looking out at, that still seemed an extremely unlikely prospect.
As Roo was doing the washing-up, everyone else was getting ready to head out to the building in the fairly near distance.
There were some wellingtons in one of the cupboards in ‘Pummerin’ – all sizes, for Mr Ingleton’s guests, no doubt.
All new, never been worn, though Jane preferred to trust her safety to her familiar, faithful boots.