Page 6 of Snug in Iceland
“I won’t put it all on, just the coat and boots to give you an idea,” she said putting the coat on, pulling the hood up and doing the zip right up to her chin. Then she put the snow boots on and stood back with her hands in her pockets, absolutely roasting hot. By this time, Adam had turned back to his work.
“Look!” she insisted.
He leant back on the chair with his hands behind his head, looking amused. “You’re clearly well equipped for sub-zero temperatures,” he said as he began to rifle through the packets of thermal underwear she’d plonked on the table. “Will you need snow boots if you’re in town all the time?”
“I don’t know, it’s best to be prepared. It will be snowy, I googled it.”
“Yes, but when it snows here it hardly ever settles in London. Maybe it’s the same in Reykjavik?”
“Well, maybe, but I’d rather be safe. Anyway, they’re really cosy so I’ll wear them even if there’s no snow because it’s going to be freezing.”
He pulled her towards him, wrapping her puffy cocooned body in his arms and kissing her. “You look the part even if you don’t look like my usual Rachel. I guess White Stuff don’t do a snow range.”
“No, they don’t but I think this is quite fetching, don’t you?”
“Oh, God yes. Especially the thermals. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of those later.”
“You are so cheesy.”
“But adorable?” he whispered, barely taking his lips away from hers.
“Mmm. Completely,” she murmured back.
He pulled away. “I need to finish checking this document tonight.” And the spell was broken.
In the absence of anything else to do, Rachel decided to ring her mum and dad. She hadn’t told them about her promotion yet and she ought to tell them she’d be leaving the country for a few weeks.
Rachel’s parents were great and she enjoyed spending time with them but they didn’t understand her relationship with Adam. They liked him and she knew they appreciated that, in their eyes, he looked after her but they thought they should be getting married and settling down ‘properly’. ‘You are over thirty, Rachel. I was talking to Mrs Busybody at WI and her daughter can’t get pregnant and she’s the same age as you.’ That’s the type of conversation she had with her mum. All the time.
Her older brother, Ben and his wife Lucy had her nephew, Albert (Rachel called him Bertie; they didn’t) two years ago, so she’d thought that would take the pressure off her to provide a grandchild but as they lived in Canada, her mum and dad didn’t see much of Bertie so it didn't help. It also didn’t help that whenever she decided to visit her parents, Adam more often than not couldn’t make it, which didn't go down well with them. It didn't go down brilliantly with her either and she ended up defending him when really, she agreed with her parents that he ought to make the effort once in a while.
Occasionally they would come to London to stay but because her dad was still working they could only come at weekends and were not impressed that Adam always had some work to do or something work-related to attend even though he had ‘visitors’.
So, Rachel rang her mum and explained about the promotion.
“Alan! Rachel’s got a big promotion at work!” she yelled, while Rachel was still talking. “Oh, your dad’s so pleased, love, well done! We’re so proud of you.”
She then carried on about something marvellous Rachel’s brother had done recently; he was always their more impressive child. Then she went into great detail about the last time she had ‘spoken’ to Bertie, the most incredibly gifted two-year-old in the world and Rachel hadn’t realised that her mind had wandered until…
“I know! I’ll come up and spend a couple of days with you before you go, sweetheart,” she said, and before Rachel could protest, she started shouting again, “Alan! I’m going up to London for a couple of days to see Rachel this week, we haven’t got anything on have we?”
Rachel could tell her mum didn't even have the phone to her ear anymore to hear her objections but could hear her dad shouting back that no, there was nothing on the calendar.
“Yes, that’s fine love,” she said, “I’ll come to you.”
“Mum, I’m really busy at work getting ready for the trip because it’s only me going, so there’s loads to do. I won’t have the chance to have any time off if you come and I’ll be working late every night this week.” She felt guilty but it would be so stressful trying to entertain her mum when she had so much on. “Why don’t you come and stay once I get back because I’ll be able to take a few days off then and we can spend some time together.”
“Alright, yes that’s fine,” her mum said in a pinched, uptight voice that meant it wasn’t fine at all, but Rachel wasn’t going to back down.
“I’m really sorry, Mum, I did want to visit but I’m just not going to be able to fit it in.”
“No Rachel, work must come first. Speaking of work, how is Adam? Is he happy about you going off to Iceland?”
She was still cheesed off, Rachel could tell, but she wasn’t going to rise to it. They were very much alike when it came to an argument; both of them had difficulty letting things go.
“Yes, he’s really pleased for me,” Rachel said. Not entirely a lie now, she thought, also deciding not to mention that he was probably going to visit her in Iceland at some point, just in case it put any ideas into her mother’s head. Her parents were big fans of a city break, she was just hoping that Reykjavik wasn’t on their radar.
In need of a pick-me-up after the call to her parents, she decided to ring Anna to let her know they’d have to wait until she got back for their next night out.
