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‘Well, she does have a point. It’s freezing today, and if it snows and there’s black ice on the road tonight she’ll have a devil of a problem getting back up Slip Hill. It hasn’t got that name for nothing! I don’t blame Lucy for taking precautions, especially as it’s Christmas Eve tomorrow...’ Ruth stopped speaking, suddenly noticing her chicken salad no longer contained any chicken. ‘That damned cat!’
‘What did you say?’ The man at the other end of the line sounded incredulous. ‘Do you mean Lucy?’
Ruth laughed. ‘Of course not. Lucy can be difficult, but I wouldn’t call her a cat. No, I just realised that cat of mine has stolen my lunch. While I was making it Fred started trying to knock the shed down.’
‘Real demolition expert, that goat of yours!’
‘I wouldn’t mind, but I only locked him in to save him dying of exposure if the snow came, but the ungrateful creature refused to stay shut up and began crashing his horns into the wall. I rushed off to deal with him and while I was gone Cleo ate my chicken and scattered the salad all over the table. I shall have to get myself something else.’
‘Pets are just a nuisance. I don’t know why you keep them! They give you a lot of work and cost a lot of money At least Gwen took that stupid pink poodle of hers when she went.’
Ruth was startled to hear him mention his ex-wife. For months after Gwen ran off with a golf instructor of twenty-six her name had not passed Henry’s lips. He had been bitterly humiliated. Fifty years old himself, it must have been a traumatic shock for him to be deserted for a man only half his age.
Gwen had only been thirty-eight, but she’d looked much younger, with bright red hair, although Ruth suspected she kept grey out of it by dying it from time to time, and she wore far too much make-up. She had the enamelled look of a doll. Ruth had never liked her. They had had nothing in common.
Gwen cared only about herself: her looks, her clothes, her jewellery, her red sports car. She had never seemed to care much about poor Henry, and she’d positively disliked all his patients, spoke sharply on the phone if you rang up, gave people indifferent nods when they greeted her in the village and never got involved in any of the busy social life everyone else enjoyed.
Ruth had had to ring Henry far too often during her mother’s long illness and Gwen had made it unpleasantly clear that she resented Ruth’s constant pleas for help. Once she had even accused Ruth of being obsessed with Henry.
‘It doesn’t bother me, Miss Nicholls, lots of middle-aged spinsters have crushes on their doctor, or their vicar,’ she had drawled. ‘But you’re embarrassing my husband, although he’s far too polite and kind-hearted to tell you so.’
Ruth had gone dark red, shaking with rage and shame. ‘It isn’t me who needs your husband, Mrs Trafford!’ she’d furiously ground out. ‘It’s my mother. She is in great pain today and she needs an emergency injection. But never mind, if Dr Trafford doesn’t want to come to see her I’ll call another doctor.’
She had hung up and stood there, trembling, muttering words she had not even realised she knew and had certainly never used before. It was a cathartic experience. Afterwards, though, she had felt empty and cold, and she remembered it with self-disgust. It was sickening to lose control like that.
Of course Henry had come as soon as his wife passed on the message. His face had been pale and grimly set. Neither of them had mentioned Gwen, for which Ruth had been deeply grateful, hoping that he had no idea what his wife had said to her. They had gone up to see Ruth’s mother, Henry had given her a pain-killing injection, and in short, merciful time she had been peacefully asleep.
Henry had left, saying with a pat on her shoulder, ‘Not long now. You know that, don’t you? Ring me whenever you need me, Ruth.’
Ruth hadn’t pointed out that his wife wouldn’t like it. She would have been too embarrassed. Gwen’s accusation had hurt her, not least because there was some truth in it. Ruth did need Henry; he was all that kept her sane now, towards the end of her mother’s illness. She was always so tired, so sad, and she felt so useless. There was so little she could do except try to make her mother’s last weeks more comfortable.
But in another sense Gwen was a million miles from the truth. Ruth was not a fool. She knew she was getting old; old and ugly. Her face was thin and angular, her only asset a pair of wide hazel eyes; she had a skinny, lanky body, short, dull brown hair, showing traces of silvery grey. She was not going to make a fool of herself over any man.
She had no close friends in the village, either, because the last five years of her life had been spent looking after her widowed mother. Ruth had rarely left her alone. Crippled by a stroke shortly after the death of her husband, Mrs Nicholls had needed constant nursing until her death a year ago, and Ruth and Dr Trafford had been thrown together by a mutual desire to make her life bearable.
Ruth owed Henry Trafford a good deal. She had felt very sorry for him when his wife ran away with her young boyfriend; she knew how badly Henry had taken it. He had hidden it as well as he could, but Ruth knew him very well. She had seen the lines of pain and humiliation bitten deep into his skin. He knew everyone was talking about him behind his back; some of them laughed, some pitied him. He hated both reactions. Ruth paid him the compliment of never mentioning the subject. She behaved exactly the same when they met. It was all she could do for him.
The divorce had come through in the summer. If Henry was able to mention Gwen without wincing maybe he was coming to terms with what she had done to him.
‘Fish,’ he said. ‘Fish are the only sensible pets to have. Silent and practically trouble-free, and their food is very cheap.’
Ruth laughed. ‘Boring, too! Fish are no fun. And Cleo would eat them if I got some.’
She looked over her shoulder as Cleo began caterwauling outside the closed kitchen door, and saw white flakes whirling past. ‘Oh ... the snow’s started, Henry! I’d better go. Cleo is screaming to come back indoors; she hates getting her fur wet.’
‘Get a fish!’ he advised again. ‘Bye, Ruth.’
Dylan didn’t even notice the first flakes of snow. She was too busy crying. Anger had given her adrenalin for the first half-hour after leaving home; as she drove she had muttered furiously to herself. She wanted to kill Ross. She hated him. And that woman. Why couldn’t she leave other people’s husbands alone? She had a husband of her own. She should think about him for a change. Dylan hated her. Hated Ross.
People she drove past on the narrow country roads leading to the motorway gave her very funny looks. She knew what she must look like. Talking to herself, a dishevelled woman in the last stages of pregnancy. They probably thought she was crazy.
Maybe she was crazy, leaving Ross. She might hate him, but she loved him, too. But she couldn’t stay, knowing he was having an affair. Her pride wouldn’t let her.
She began to weep silently, helplessly, as she drove. Luckily, the motorway was almost empty as she eventually joined it and turned south towards the Lake District, so the tears trickling down her face weren’t as much of a
hazard as they might have been if she had been driving on a crowded road. However, her vision was distinctly blurred, and for a minute or two she thought she was imagining the whiteness blowing across the windscreen of her car.
When she realised it was snowing she brushed a hand across her wet eyes and switched on her windscreen wipers, but they did little to help; the snow was falling faster and more thickly every minute. This was a blizzard, not just average snow, she thought, and by now there was far more traffic on the road.
