Page 42 of The Start of the Story
‘What am I “really”, Chess?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice level. Connor was still grinning.
‘You’re really beginning to loosen up a bit,’ she said eventually, talking into the several layers of wool around her mouth. ‘Like, nicely, I mean. You’ve always been a bit keen on keeping the hours and all that.’ She glanced sideways at Connor. ‘Something is doing you good. You’re not nearly so much of a slave-driver these days.’
I felt a cringe of guilt begin. I’d had nothing else in my life, apart from work, so I’d made a habit of being here early and leaving late.
‘I mean, in a good way, obviously,’ she added quickly, although how one could be a slave-driver in a good way I quite failed to see. Maybe by using tea and cake as an incentive, rather than whips? ‘We’ve got an awful lot done in these past two years.’
I pretended not to be appalled, and handed over her Christmas present, before I dragged Connor out into the afternoon’s chill. He was still grinning.
‘So, you’re a fair slave-driver, then,’ he said. ‘But you’re loosening up. That’s a decent thing.’
‘Chess is overstating her case. She regards not being allowed to watchLoose Womenat work as being oppressive.’
The puddles cracked ominously under our feet as we crossed the car park. I glanced up at the sky, which was grey, darkening to a yellow tinge around the edges. ‘Oh, bugger, it looks as though it really is going to snow. I was hoping we’d miss it.’
Connor settled into the passenger seat. ‘Nice though. Very seasonal. Festive.’
‘You won’t be saying that when you’ve been stuck in the cottage for three days and the cheese is running out.’
‘Come on, now, you’re exaggerating. Nobody gets snowed in these days. There’s the big snow ploughs and… and… well, they come and dig you out, don’t they?’
I gave a dark and sarcastic laugh. ‘Well, it might not be too bad. It’s too early for much snow – we usually get it all in January if it’s going to come. We’ll get a covering, that’s all. You had better book your taxi to pick you up for the airport though. There’ll be loads of Christmas parties going on and they might all end up too busy to fetch you. And I’m not driving all the way to Leeds Bradford to drop you off, not when I’m on holiday.’
‘I’ll do that.’ He settled into the seat in a way that irritated me slightly.
‘You need to learn to drive, Connor.’
He turned to watch me easing us out of the little car park and onto the road. ‘Why would that be, now?’
‘Well, it’s… I mean, I don’t always want to drive and… there’s no public transport around here.’
Connor crooked up an eyebrow and turned to look out of the window, but I thought I saw a smile beginning before he did so. ‘I’ll be back in Dublin by April, and we’ve all the buses. There’s no need. Anyway—’ now he turned back to me with a straight face again ‘—by the time I passed my test I’d be gone. I’veseenme drive, Rowan, and it’s not something a couple of lessons and a bit of practice is going to sort.’
‘Of course,’ I said, feeling hot and stupid. Why would he need to drive? He was going back to Dublin. Out here in the wilds of Yorkshire, where buses were infrequent, the nearest railway station was fifteen miles away, the taxis had to come from the towns, people learned to drive early. Many a twelve-year-old could be found bombing around his dad’s fields in a clapped-out Fiat. They were on the road in tractors as soon as they were sixteen, test passed on their seventeenth birthday, and parents breathed a sigh of relief and opened a bottle of wine in the evenings.
‘What’s Dublin like?’ I asked, negotiating my way off the ring road and out into countryside.
‘It’s grand. Wonderful city. All-night bars, music and architecture and poetry and all that.’ I got another proper smile. ‘Buses too. Are you regretting saying you won’t come? You can change your mind, y’know. We’ll get you a ticket and we could be there for Christmas.’
Out of the corner of my eye I could see him sitting there, long legs bunched up and his ubiquitous big black coat wrapped around him, and I thought of Christmas in a house full of people. Company and shouting and children and coming and going at all hours; Eamonn, who had taken on a kind of Father Brown persona in my head, wandering about being kindly and a bit vague and possibly detecting crime in his spare time. Connor’s parents, who seemed to be a dichotomy between faith and high-flying, not quite knowing what to do with this odd, quiet friend of their son’s. And then there was Connor’s status as still being in disgrace for involving them all with a married woman who was being unfaithful.
‘I think I’ll stay at home this year,’ I said. ‘I’ve only just started to pick up my life where I left off when Elliot… well, Ithink I need to ease myself into things. I’ve spent three years basically being a hermit, so I think I ought to take it one person at a time.’
‘You’re finding life a bit better now, though? It’s getting easier?’ He was watching my face but I couldn’t return the look. This was a tricky bit where cars parked either side of a narrow road, there were no streetlights, and the road was slippery with the detritus of the long-gone autumn.
‘A bit,’ I admitted. ‘I think it’s having you around. It’s made me realise that I don’t like the quiet as much as I thought I did.’
‘Well, I’m glad I?—’
‘I’m thinking of getting a cat in the spring.’
He closed his mouth and raised his eyebrows. ‘Good that I can be replaced so easily.’
‘A big tom, all swagger and yowl, I thought.’
‘Is that me, or the cat?’
We lapsed into silence as we headed out across the dark countryside. A few flakes of snow dropped lazily into the headlights, and I concentrated ferociously on getting home before more arrived to join them. These narrow, twisty roads with a covering of snow over the ice that still crusted the puddles could be treacherous.
