‘This feels like the first night we spent together, do you remember? We watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show and you were too shy to try it on.’
Hailey mumbles something about grainy peacocks as I lie on my back and look at the ceiling. I feel Ed smiling below.
‘I wasn’t too shy,’ he answers quietly. ‘I was waiting for you to do it . . . which you did.’
‘I did.’
‘You did it very well as I recall.’
‘You weren’t too bad yourself.’
I close my eyes and remember that night, how soft his lips were when I kissed him, how gentle he was . . . as though he didn’t want to break me.
‘You were so gentle,’ I say quietly.
‘I’d waited a long time. I’d fantasised about that girl standing on the train platform, one arm raised in a right angle behind her head, eyes looking off at something or someone further up the platform, not at me . . . you only glanced in my direction as the doors closed.’
I hear Ed shifting himself onto his back and rolling Oscar onto his side towards the wall. ‘I wonder what you were looking at,’ he muses.
‘Another man,’ I reply, deadpan.
‘He was probably more your type too . . . dark hair, brooding eyes—’
‘Intelligent, mysterious . . . Nah, I was probably looking for Kerry. She was always late.
‘What happened when the doors shut? Did you stare out of the windows like a lost puppy? All sad eyes and palms against the window?’
He laughs quietly. ‘No . . . but I do remember hitting that girl with a door.’
‘You made me see stars.’ I hang my head upside down over the edge of the bed, my hair falling down towards Ed’s smirking face.
‘How else was I going to make an impression?’ He raises his eyebrows.
‘Do you ever wonder how different our lives would have been if you hadn’t decided to buy flowers that day?’ I ask, returning my head to my pillow.
‘Truth?’ he asks.
‘Truth.’
‘I think if it hadn’t been that day, it would have been another day. I think it was fate.’
‘I love you.’ I yawn.
‘I know.’
From nowhere, I think back to the day I had gone for a run, when I met Richard – the man from Hayworth Hill – his words from that conversation so long ago replaying in my mind: ‘I don’t think there was anything I could have done to change my life even if I wanted to,’ he had said.
But what if I don’t want to?
What if I don’t want to change my life? What if I want to keep my sister and my family?
Chapter Seventy-Five
Ed
It’s fucking freezing. I mean cold, like I’ve never ever felt before. I’m not sure if my fingers and toes are still attached, but I look over to where Jen and the kids are beaming from the sleigh, and I don’t care about the fact that beneath my clothes my extremities could very well be perishing. Christ, I hope Jen isn’t expecting me to perform later; I doubt she’ll be able to find my boy beneath all these layers, and even if she does, I suspect he may be hunkering away, shying from the cold.
‘Come on, Daddy!’ Hailey shouts, her cheeks red, her eyes bright behind her glasses. Oscar is fidgeting with his scarf and puffing out steam through his nostrils.
‘I’m coming!’ I jog/stomp my way over to them through the snow. I’m not sure my knees will ever recover from this trip.
I shuffle forward in the snow; soft flakes are falling from the sky again. The sky is blue. That sounds like a simple explanation, but what I mean to say is, it is every shade of blue; above me it is deep blue . . . That’s not better, is it? The only way is to describe it by the Crayola crayons that are currently broken in half in the kids’ cupboard. If I was to get a fresh new pack and lay out all the shades of blue, they would go from baby blue to periwinkle blue to ruddy blue, to . . . what colour does Oscar use for Aquaman? Ultramarine – you get the idea – until they end with white . . . next to the horizon, the blue sinks into white.
Snow cushions my footsteps, the sound swallowed, like I’ve hit mute on the controller. Everything is so quiet here. Well, apart from the sniffs of the huskies, the squeals and creaks of the kids as they sit huddled beneath a fur throw.
My heart swells inside my chest, well, not actually swells because I’m sure that would give me a heart attack and that is the last thing I want to happen here, could you imagine how fucked up that would make my kids? I mean that I never thought being here would be as magical as it looks in the brochures. I felt pretty damn cynical about the whole thing, but as I look at the excitement and joy on their faces . . . no, my heart isn’t really swelling but my love for my family is. Just look at them. I reach up onto the sled and stand behind them. Jen is sitting with the kids Cool Runnings style, Hailey between her legs, Oscar between hers. My gloves hold on to the driving bow – the arch of wood like a handle.
Ahead of us the snowmobile motor ticks impatiently, ready to clear our path; the snow is falling at a steady pace, but the staff aren’t concerned. I’m glad to watch the snowmobile from afar; yesterday Jen persuaded me to let her on one.
In front of the sled the dogs, all eight of them, are impatient to get going.
‘OK?’ I ask Jen, her face turning and tilting up to me. Isn’t this magical? Isn’t this amazing? it says, and I match her expression. The forest ahead of us is . . . Christ, it is amazing; the trees are covered in snow, some of the green patching through the fir, but others are gleaming. When we first got here, I reached up to one of the trees and gave it a gentle tug. I expected the ‘snow’ to stay still, so convinced was I that this was all fake. The snow on this tree was white – crystal white – like the fake stuff that is already on the pop-up trees from the supermarket. But it fell from the branches, landing with a thud on top of me, a great source of amusement to the kids.
‘Ready?’ the guide asks. The snowmobile revs its engine and begins and then with a tug the sled starts moving. It’s moving fast, like really fast. The kids are squealing, Jen is wooohooo-ing and me? I’m looking down at my family, as we power around bends, following the snowmobile, part of me desperately wanting to enjoy the moment, but as we fly forward, the magic turns into something else: fear. I’m suddenly terrified. What happens if there is a fault with the engine ahead of us? What if it bursts into flames, if we fly into a ball of fire, or swerve, the sled turning on its sides, the fear sending the huskies rabid, my family trapped while being ravaged? The squeals of joy continue as the sled picks up pace. My breath is coming fast, my hands gripping the handle; it seems to go on and on, the paws of the dogs pounding, the rush of the wind in my ears and ice in the air, the snow hanging from the trees; on and on the ride goes.
Eventually, as things do, our journey comes to an end. I step off and, in a few strides, my wife, my daughter and my son are in my arms. They’re safe; we’re all together; we’re all alive.
Chapter Seventy-Six
Jennifer
I can’t stop smiling; my cheeks are stuck, but they’re not frozen in place – I don’t think – I’m just happy. Ed disembarks the sled and pulls me and the kids into his arms; his body is shaking from the adrenaline that I can still feel hammering around my own. The kids are yelping and screeching about how amazing it was and asking if they can stroke the huskies.