Page 115 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm
‘Mum!’
‘This isn’t about her though, is it?’ her mum asked.
It wasn’t, but all the doubts that Gemma had put there, and all the ones Jodie already had that Gemma had tended and nurtured, were still in her head. Pavel’s presence had made them quieter, but now he wasn’t here they were screaming at her once again. ‘I hurt him, badly.’ That was the truth. ‘Whatever I do next it won’t be with him.’
Her mum wrapped her arms around her and pulled the blanket up to her neck. ‘It’s getting cold.’
‘Do you think it’ll snow?’
‘Not down here. Lucky you’re not still in Scotland.’
Jodie turned to her mum. ‘Why?’
‘Big storm coming.’ Her mother smiled slightly. ‘Storm Gemma, I believe.’
Jodie didn’t reply. For Lowbridge, at least, Storm Gemma had already hit.
Chapter Nineteen
The wind was starting to get up as Pavel and his mum walked back over the Low Bridge towards the village. He pulled his phone out and checked the weather forecast. The storm warning that had been yellow that morning had been upgraded to amber and they were right on the edge of a red zone. ‘Better just check the boat’s secure,’ he said.
Pavel never slept on stormy nights. He never had. He remembered his granddad always staying up listening to his old radio, and checking the shoreline to make sure all the boats were in. Pavel would sneak downstairs and curl up on the sofa next to him, feeling comforted by his presence.
His granddad would open the curtains in the lounge and they’d sit together listening to the lash of the wind, watching the lightning and counting the gap between the flash and the rumble of thunder as the storm rolled by them. Pavel would never admit to being scared, but big storms still made him feel small. They made him feel out of control. That put him on edge.
When his granddad had been here he’d always seemed like he had everything under control. Right until the end, when he seemed to shrink away, but even then he’d still made Pavel lean in close to him so he could whisper his words of wisdom. With his granddad around everything had felt calmer and like someone was looking out, not just for Pavel, but for everyone. That was the man Pavel had always wanted to be.
He sat up on his sofa, curtains open, and watched the dark clouds roll over the loch. Just after midnight his mum came up, raincoat wrapped around her. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said. ‘Wind’s too loud.’
He shifted over to let her sit down next to him.
‘Your granddad would have been in his element,’ she said.
‘Yeah.Heloved storms.’
His mother let out a laugh. ‘No, he didn’t.’
‘What?’
‘He hated them. He used to do all that faffing around with the radio and checking in on everyone to keep himself busy.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Distracting himself from the big, dark scary thing.’
That couldn’t be true. ‘Really?’ Pavel asked.
His mum nodded.
‘But he always seemed so in control.’
‘That’s what he did wasn’t it?’ His mum sighed.
‘What?’
‘Keep calm. Run around after everyone else. Push whatever he was worried about way down.’
‘Granddad didn’t…’ he started, and then stopped. Nearly all of his memories of his granddad were of him in action. Out on the boat, sleeves rolled up in the kitchen, driving the van. He was always doing something. Not quite always. ‘He talked a lot about wanting to visit Warsaw again. At the end, when he was ill.’
‘I think he missed the family over there more than he said,’ his mum replied. ‘Especially after his mum and dad passed. I think he felt a bit rootless.’
‘He never said that,’ Pavel murmured. ‘He seemed like he belonged here.’
