Page 47 of The Winter We Met
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Lynn went to pick up the rucksack, containing refreshments, but I beat her to it. Talking of backache I knew she suffered, having spent a lifetime making beds and manoeuvring residents who needed help with personal care. She smiled gratefully and I was just about to put it on, as we all made our way outside, when Nik reached out his hand.
‘It’s okay, thanks,’ I said, having grown up fiercely determined to manage on my own. Only Oliver had chipped away at that, letting me see that sometimes accepting help from men didn’t have to end with regrets.
‘You’d be doing me a massive favour if you let me carry it,’ he said. ‘It’ll inject some manliness into my reputation in front of Alf – being the carthorse might make up for the fact that I drink sherry.’
I hesitated. ‘Well, if you’re sure?’ I handed the rucksack to him and took Buddy’s lead from Lynn. He slipped it onto his back and held the door open to let the residents go through. I held back and indicated for him to follow the residents outside, before me. He gave a thumbs-up and headed out, me behind him wondering what it would feel like to stroke the back of his neck.
Springhaye Forest was a favourite spot with the more mobile residents during the summer. It was the other side of the canal. The woodland walks were flat and paths had been trodden into shape over the years and before you entered there was a large grassy area, with picnic benches and a car park for people coming from the other direction. On the edge of that tarmac usually stood an ice cream van in the summer. I’d push Gran this far in a wheelchair during the summer months and we’d both enjoy a 99 flake. To get there we turned left out of Willow Court and slowly walked the short distance to the end of the high street, passing some shops that already had Christmas trees in the windows and jolly festive music escaping onto the street whenever it had the chance. There we turned left again, at the book shop that used to be the video store Betty’s husband worked in, and strolled over a bridge. The residents sat down at one of the picnic benches to re-energise. I let Buddy off his lead and he followed the trails of various scents leading to holly bushes sprinkled with bright red berries.
‘I’m worn out already. Wish I wasn’t so jolly unfit,’ said Fred. ‘I wouldn’t be able to lift so much as a fire hose these days, let alone a ladder.’
‘What about giving a fireman’s lift?’ I teased.
‘If I had to. If it meant saving a life. No question about that, I’d do anything,’ he said gruffly. ‘I was thinking the other day about one blaze… all this talk of Christmas reminded me. A young couple had overloaded the plug board with fairy lights in their lounge. They were upstairs putting their little one to bed and a fire started. A right mess it was, afterwards, everywhere black, with melted patio doors and a collapsed ceiling. The full shebang. I never got used to that. Not when a building had been someone’s home. Me and my colleague had to pull all three of them out of a top window. Domestic smoke alarms weren’t so common back then.’
‘Were they all okay?’ I asked and glanced at Glenda. The way she was staring up at Nik and pursing her lips I knew she was bursting to talk about the robbery he’d bravely got involved in.
‘Damn lucky they were. Of course the whippersnapper was too young to understand that and couldn’t stop crying because the Christmas tree and presents had gone up. Me and the crew had a whip-around and bought him a bike. He joined the service twenty years later, just as I was retiring.’
‘What a terrific story,’ said Pan. She adjusted her purple beret having dressed up for the occasion with a slash of red lipstick and glossy handbag. Even her wellies were leopard print. Gran had bought them for her last Christmas as Pan liked to walk along the canal.
The residents got up and we headed onto the woodland path, Buddy back on his lead. I breathed in the earthy smells of damp soil and rotting leaves. Bare beech trees, oaks and silver birch still looked beautiful against the blue sky despite their lack of leaves. Evergreen pines added fragrance and colour to the landscape and more holly bushes added a festive feel. Moss covered nearby rocks that lay next to a family of sepia-coloured fungi. A squirrel darted up a tree trunk. Alf gave an enormous sneeze and a roost of starlings flapped their wings. Buddy barked. Nik and I looked at each other. Our appreciation of the forest didn’t need articulating.
‘I love fairy lights,’ said Pan. ‘I know it’s a health and safety matter but I’ve always wished we could have them in our rooms at Willow Court.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll have a whole bunch up for the party,’ said Lynn as she circumnavigated a puddle.
‘I remember visiting Paris one Christmas with my husband, before we got married,’ said Pan. ‘We’d only been seeing each other for six months and were still in that first flush of love…’
My eyes were drawn to Nik as he helped Glenda over a tree root.
‘We found ourselves in a super little cocktail bar, on the… the… this big fancy street in the centre of Paris…’ She frowned.
‘The Champs-Élysées,’ said Nik.
‘Yes! And after watching a play in a theatre in Montparnasse. It had gone midnight. We were the last customers. The staff had turned off all the lighting near us apart from twinkling fairy lights across the window. We sat there telling each other those things, those secrets, you only tell someone when you begin to realise that maybe, just maybe you might have a future together. We hadn’t realised closing time had passed and apologetically got up to leave. However the manager came over, smiled at us both and put down two coffees and a tray of biscuits for us, whilst he cleaned. I’ve never forgotten that night.’ She stopped walking. ‘I hope I never do.’
I went over to her side and we linked arms. ‘Look,’ I said and pointed at a branch. ‘Doesn’t that bird look pretty, puffing out his chest? It reminds me of pop-up book we’ve got in the shop, all about a robin and a worm.’
‘His red bib is marvellous,’ she said and pointed to a nearby bush. ‘Like those little berries.’
‘They’re called hips,’ said Alf. ‘That plant is Wild Dog Rose. And don’t be impressed – I only know that because the missus knew more about gardening than Alan Titchmarsh. In fact, Maisie saved a neighbour’s cat once. Her friend Shirl had been laughing about how her tabby wouldn’t stop chewing the Christmas tree and she had no doubt it would have a go at the mistletoe she’d just put in a vase on the cat’s favourite window sill. She hurried home after Maisie told her mistletoe was toxic for many pets.’
‘Talking of heroes…’ said Glenda and she caught Nik’s eye. He shook his head very slightly. She sighed. ‘I… I watched a new show, last night,The Coffee Shop Mysteries, and one character—’
‘I was telling Gran about that,’ I said swiftly.
Lynn pulled a black dustbin bag out of her pocket and I pulled out a smaller one to collect items for Under the Tree’s next window display. Nik and I did the bending down as the others pointed out objects that would make perfect decorations. Fred used his stick to point to the fallen cones he could just about make out as we approached a cluster of conifers. Pan had an eye for small fallen branches that once sprayed, would be perfect for hanging homemade decorations on. Alf spotted more holly and, well-organised as ever, Lynn delved into the rucksack for secateurs. He also noticed a white feather and managed to bend down and pick it up.
He held it out to Glenda. ‘Could be an angel looking out for you. Who knows?’
‘What a lovely thought,’ said Nik.
Glenda looked at Nik and hesitated before taking it from Alf. She put the feather in her coat pocket. Lynn put a finger to her lips and pointed to a rabbit. It stood rock still for a few seconds, then twitched its nose and ran off, giving flashes of its white bobtail. We started to make our way back. Temperatures were dropping.
‘I watched a YouTube video about how to make a card holder out of twigs by binding them together into a slatted pyramid shape,’ Glenda told Nik as we walked on.
