Saturday, last shopping day before Christmas
Sophie was up early, rousing Marina out of bed while it was still dark outside. Thick clouds had built up during the evening, keeping the frost at bay and with a relatively warm, wet, wind it had rained heavily during the night and virtually all the snow, so dominant of the landscape for the past two days, had gone. There were just those compacted piles left where people had cleared their drives or front paths as evidence of the unseasonal early winter blizzard.
"Oh! It looks like we're not going to get our White Christmas after all," she complained to Marina after looking out the window at the scene before her. All the snow in the middle of the front yard had completely disappeared, washed away into the pea gravel. Only traces of rather sorry looking and dirty ice clung tenaciously to the sheltered edges under the hedgerows.
Marina roused herself from her warm and inviting bed to peer out the window, as Sophie tucked her arm into the older woman's arm. It still looked cold out, despite the thaw, with what appeared to be a biting wind ruffling the crinkly leaves still clinging to the beech hedge, marking the boundary of the garden from the narrow lane at the front. Overhead the sky was steel grey and overcast all the way to the horizon. It was dull, dripping drabness compared to the brilliantly lit crystal clear white of the previous day.
Daniel had the coffee brewing and a saucepan of porridge bubbling on the hob by the time they reached the cosy kitchen. He greeted his youngest daughter with a hug and a kiss on the lips plus a hug and delivered a brush of his lips on both cheeks for his blushing house guest. They had all agreed the previous evening that they would make a start for London straight after finishing their breakfast, allowing for the early morning rush hour to die down at least a little. Daniel had smiled at the time, saying that the village hardly had much of a traffic problem except during harvest time. But he readily agreed that once they hit the London road it would be choked with London-bound traffic.
When they had loaded up all the brightly packaged presents, and with the main constituents of the Christmas Day dinner neatly packed away in a cool box in the boot, Sophie insisted that Marina sit up front with her father, while Sophie spread herself luxuriantly along the back seat.
"I am so tired that I feel I could do with spreading myself at full stretch out here in the back. It's almost certain that I will snooze most of the way up to Ginny's."
"You can lie down and snooze if you like, young lady," Daniel told her sternly, "but you'll buckle up safely somehow before you do."
Sophie poked her tongue out, but giggled too.
The car was soon warm inside and Sophie did manage to stretch out on the back seat, wrapped in one of the three thick blankets left there, rolling the other two up as pillows. Marina thought it was warm enough in the car, with the climate control turned up to a comfortable level, but then she was perhaps more used to the cold. Daniel smiled at Marina and rolled his eyes to Sophie's parting "Goodnight, Daddy, goodnight Aunt Marina."
"She has always slept in the car, wherever we went on long car journeys." Daniel whispered to Marina with a smile. "When she was a baby and teething, we often used to bundle up both Ginny and Sophie and drive around and around the lanes until she eventually settled. Then we'd carry her in without disturbing her and she would sleep through the rest of the night."
"It sounds like you enjoyed those early days, better than more recent ones I expect."
"Yes, it has been difficult," he admitted, "But then you lost your mother when you were a child and you had to cope with bringing up your brothers and sisters. The youngest ones were only babies, weren't they?" He saw Marina nod, he continued, "That was a lot more than anything I had to endure."
"Oh, I don't know that was any more difficult than any other family, to be honest. Pretty soon you get into a routine and simple routine makes everything easy because you know exactly what to do and what is expected. First thing in the morning I would get the house straight after Dad came in late from the pub. Sometimes he was sick, sometimes not, sometimes he was in bed."
"That must've been tough."
"I even found him unconscious on the floor a few times. I'd have to try and move him on my own, otherwise the kids would be upset seeing him like that. Sometimes I had to get Sand- er, Alex up to help me. She was the next oldest, two years younger than me. Then I made the breakfasts and sandwich box lunches, got the kids up, then got them dressed and off to school. I would change the babies, feed them, then do the washing up and get the washing machine going, make all the beds, do the hoovering, hang out the washing to dry, cleaning, ironing, change and feed the babies before making the dinner for the evening."
"It still sounds a hell of a lot of work."
"You don't mind when it's family. It was the non-routine things that would always throw me, though, like not being able to pay the electric bill because there was not enough money in the bank, Dad having already spent it on booze. In a very short time I had to become a diplomat and negotiator, a regular down the Citizens Advice for help fending off debt collectors, but I also had to remain under the radar because I was only 12, a truant from school and didn't want the Social Services to break my family up. I simply had to cope."
"I think you were brilliant. I remember being so impressed by you at the time we got to know each other. You know, I really looked forward to our chats about your family life at the hotel. You made everything seem so real."
"A little too real, sometimes. I suppose, in between you serving drinks and me dishing out snacks and clearing tables, we managed to chat quite a bit. I, I must admit looked forward to those lunch times, too. Nobody else spoke to me as you did, like I was an adult."
"You're a bright woman, Marina, you always have been. I believe that you've always been an interesting person to speak to because you're always passionate talking about the events going on in your life."
They were quiet for a time, comfortably occupied by their own thoughts, as they rolled out of the country lanes onto the main road and the traffic around them built up, slowing down their hitherto steady progress. At times, Marina thought she could hear Sophie softly snoring on the back seat.
"Marina." Daniel eventually spoke again, "While you've stayed with us you have made such a positive impact on Sophie, that she seems like she's a different girl, more like she used to be. Losing her mother at the age of seventeen completely floored her. When you came, just a couple of days ago now, and you took her under your wing, she has responded so positively to you. And you were so modest about the impact you've made, you seemed only concerned that by staying with us you were imposing on Sophie and I."
"Yes, I did. I didn't want to over -"
"You weren't imposing on us, Marina, not one little bit. In actual fact it has been an absolute delight for me, having you with us. It has allowed me the chance of getting to know you all over again, reaffirming that you are just as you always were."
"Yes," she chuckled, "it has been fun, I've enjoyed my stay. It's been a pleasure for me, too, to meet you again after all these years. I never forgot you, but I never thought I would ever see you again, to be able to find out how you were doing. Before we part, Daniel -"
"I hope you are not too anxious to get away from us?"
"No, of course not, I have felt very comfortable with both of you at your lovely house."
"Hopefully, we will keep in contact, I don't want you completely disappearing without trace again."
