Page 23 of The Cotswolds Christmas Fair

Standing in her rumpled pyjamas, she crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself in a futile attempt to keep warm, and glared into the hopeful face of her sister.

Because Julia was here. Interrupting the last morning of her celebratory weekend with her friends, dragging her from the cosy bed where she’d been happily sleeping off the indulgences of the previous night.

And Julia was not supposed to be here.

‘. . . checked the app,’ she was saying, her voice tremulous with hope. ‘And nothing’s running, you see, everything cancelled, and they’re forecasting more, it’s going to be really heavy, they’re saying, quite a blizzard actually, so I—what we were thinking, was . . .’

The wind picked up, whipping a dusting of snow from the ground and swirling it into the air, piercing through Jen’s pyjamas and prickling her skin, stealing her breath. She stamped and hunched, willing her sister to bugger off so she could get back into the warm cottage.

‘I don’t know what you want, Julia, but whatever it is you’re too late, I’m about to go home, so—’

‘But you’re not, that’s what I’ve been saying.’ Julia shifted a wriggling George as he sat on her hip and stroked the fringe that poked out of Amy’s bobble hat. ‘The trains are all cancelled. Because of the weather.’

‘What? Oh sh—’ Jen glanced down at Amy’s big brown eyes blinking at up at her. ‘Oh, shredded wheat!’ It was the best she could think of under the circumstances. ‘Well, there must be one later, I’ll get that.’

Julia was shaking her head. ‘No, everything’s cancelled, and they’re saying the storm’s going to get worse. I think we could be snowed in for a while.’

Jen glowered at her. This was not a situation to be pleased about, and Julia’s demeanour was distinctly chirpy.

‘So that’s why we came. I was—we were thinking . . . we’d love it if you came to stay with us for a while.’

Julia stared at her, eyes wide and hopeful, lip caught in her teeth. Jen had the impression that she was holding her breath, everything on pause as she waited for Jen’s response.

And, despite all this, despite the stirring of the closeness she’d felt with Julia in the past and her constant dull sadness at the loss of it, she was going to say no. She would always be able to refuse Julia. The distance between them was Julia’s fault, after all.

But just as Jen opened her mouth, George finally wriggled so hard that Julia put him down, and he tottered over in his starfish suit, a red one this time, and flung his arms around Jen’s legs. Amy approached her too, a little shy at first, but she also wrapped her arms around her.

‘Please, Auntie Jen,’ she said, her voice both hesitant and hopeful. ‘Please, please come and stay with us. We’ve got the spare room all ready and nice for you. Please come.’

Julia looked down at the two little upturned faces, gazing at her with their big eyes.

She didn’t have it in her to refuse them.

The chaos the snow caused did not make for a relaxing last morning with her friends.

When Jen went back into the house to report the terrible news about the trains, everyone was already up and busy tidying. She began emptying the dishwasher, pausing only for long enough to check the train app and confirm that Julia was indeed right, and nothing was running.

She had seemed so bloody excited about it, too.

Lou was on the phone to her husband, who was issuing warnings about driving safely in the snow, and Rich was checking local news on his phone for information about road closures.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Looks like we can just about all get through if we leave now. Another snow dump coming at lunchtime, they’re saying, and then everything will be pretty much impassable. You know they never grit these country lanes.’

‘OK, well, I think we’re done here, aren’t we?’ Ted asked, glancing around the immaculate kitchen and taking the tea towel from his shoulder and returning it to the peg on the wall.

‘Yes, all set,’ Lou said. ‘Let’s go, it’s going to be a slow journey and I promised I’d be back for the twins’ lunch.’

They all bumped their bags downstairs. Only Jen’s room wasn’t already tidied, and she rushed around stripping the bedsheets and picking up the wet towel she’d left on the floor and placing it in the bath, as requested by the Airbnb owners. She dragged on her clothes, stuffed her pyjamas into her bag, grabbed her hairbrush from the bedside table and glanced around. Nothing left behind. And, she thought miserably, it wouldn’t matter that much if there was; apparently, she was going to be trapped in Babblebrook for the rest of the day, so she could collect anything she’d forgotten.

‘Come on, slow coach!’ Rich called from downstairs. ‘We’re all waiting and we need to get home.’

‘All right, all right, I’m coming.’

She dragged her bag, half-zipped and with the arm of a jumper flapping out of the side, down the stairs, bumping the banister and almost missing her footing as she did so. No time to admire the beautiful tree twinkling through the doorway to the living room one last time, her friends were waiting in a tense huddle at the bottom of the stairs, their smiles tight.

‘At last!’ Rich said, not very graciously, as he took Jen’s bag from her and carried it to the door, shoving the arm back in and zipping it up fully. ‘It’s been great seeing you all, and happy birthday, Jen.’ He pecked her on the cheek. ‘Safe journeys, everyone. At least we all live a stone’s throw away.’

‘Not all of us,’ Jen said pointedly.