Page 76 of A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews
‘Should we phone Posy?’ she asked Tom, who was face-deep into his croque missus and just shrugged. ‘Do I start on the pig-in-blanket rolls? Are there any signs of life outside the mews, Sophie?’
Sophie said that the gritters had been out on Grays Inn Road and Theobald Street and as she’d continued her ‘perilous journey’, there had been quite a few people grimly trudging the streets.
‘It’s quite fun, this, isn’t it?’ Cuthbert said cheerfully. ‘Blitz spirit and all that. I’m sure a bit of snow won’t stop people from getting on with their Christmas shopping.’
‘Nothing stands in the way of rampant capitalism,’ said Tom, who’d finished his breakfast. ‘Though I’m not looking forward to running Happy Ever After single-handed. Mind you, Sam should be all right to come in. He only lives round the corner. I’m going to WhatsUpp him now and then I’d better do a tweet to let people know we’re open.’ He eyed his shiny shop iPad with some distaste – he much preferred his trusty but ancient Nokia. ‘Sometimes I feel like Schubert.’
Sophie looked at Mattie and mouthed, ‘What the hell is he on about?’ Mattie shook her head.
‘Schubert?’ she echoed.
‘When he got to heaven the angels gave him a laurel wreath because no one had appreciated his gifts when he was alive,’ Tom said sadly because he was a ridiculous drama queen.
‘I did make you a croque missus,’ Mattie reminded him, then jumped to her feet as the door opened and two of her regulars came in, stomping the snow off their feet as they did so. ‘Good morning!’
‘Cold enough for you?’ asked Gerald, who owned the sweetshop on Rochester Street.
‘Quite balmy, I thought,’ Mattie said, walking towards the counter. ‘Your usual, Gerry?’
They weren’t run off their feet like they were most mornings, but there was a steady enough stream of regulars and non-regulars grateful that they were open and serving hot coffee, that Mattie decided that she’d better get cracking with her lunch bakes and make as many pig-in-blanket rolls as she could manage single-handed.
By ten o’clock, there still wasn’t a single member of the Happy Ever After staff to be seen, apart from Tom, who kept popping into the tearooms with a martyred expression so he could fill them all in on the onerous duties he was expected to perform all by himself.
‘It’s a pity that the internet hasn’t been snowed in,’ he noted sourly on his latest excursion. ‘All these people with their last-minute website orders because it’s almost the final posting day before Christmas. They should have been more organised.’
Rather than being annoying, Tom’s put-upon airs were actually quite endearing, Mattie decided as she sent him packing with yet another flaky pastry to keep his strength up. By rights, he should be the size of a house.
She walked over to the tearoom door to look out on the mews. It had almost stopped snowing. There were just the laziest of flakes drifting down and coming through the mews was a familiar figure who, predictably, laughed in the face of appropriate cold-weather gear.
Nina was wearing one of her trusty leopard-print fake-fur coats, a black beret perched at a jaunty angle on her platinum-blonde hair and on her feet were her beloved motorcycle boots. Though Mattie wouldn’t have been surprised if Nina had been wearing her four-inch day heels because she really believed in committing to a look.
Nina looked up and waved when she saw Mattie standing in the window. Then she did a little shimmy and when Mattie smiled, Nina couldn’t resist turning that shimmy into an extravagant slide like she was Tom Cruise skidding along a highly polished floor inRisky Business.
Except, there was no highly polished floor but cobblestones, which Tom had tried his best to clear of snow and then grit, but were still very slippery in the bits that hadn’t been gritted.
And Nina kept on sliding, her grin transforming into a panicked scream as she frantically pin-wheeled her arms and tried to keep her balance. She hit one of the benches in the middle of the mews with such force that she went flying over the top of it, landing in a heap.
Mattie yanked open the door, expecting Nina to be sitting up and swearing profusely but she was motionless, just a heap of leopard print and platinum hair against a backdrop of snowy white.
Mattie was out of the door in an instant but Tom had beaten her to it, flying out of the shop door to reach Nina’s side while Mattie was still gingerly taking her first steps.
By the time Mattie had picked her way over, Nina had her eyes open and was moaning wordlessly.
‘Where does it hurt?’ Tom asked her gently, taking her hand in his. He didn’t seem to realise or care that he was kneeling in the snow as he cradled Nina’s head in his lap.
‘Everywhere,’ Nina said faintly. ‘Everywhere.’
‘Nina! Oh my God, Nina!’ Mattie turned to see Sam plodding steadily towards them, both arms held out for balance. ‘Is she all right?’
‘She’s bleeding. Head wound,’ Tom hissed at Mattie, who tore her eyes away from Nina to see the little patch of bright red staining the snow. ‘Go and call an ambulance. I’m pretty sure she’s got a couple of broken bones.’
‘I’ll never dance again,’ Nina said in a tiny, wheezy voice. ‘They’ll have to find another ballerina to go on in my place.’
‘Also possible concussion,’ Tom added.
There was a long wait for an ambulance. Apparently people, a lot of them much older and needier than Nina, were dropping like nine-pins, so once again they had to call on the services of Cynthia, who got there as quickly as she could after Cuthbert’s urgent summons.
Cynthia, wearing a spectacular orange wool coat and matching hat, quickly assessed both the situation and Nina.
