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14

Jacob

‘Well, that went well, I thought,’ Aunt Marjorie said, sliding across the lock on the tearoom door. ‘I mean, more or less. Apart from that little incident with the milk … but she was nice about it, wasn’t she?’

Jacob looked down at his feet. ‘She didn’t slap me. That’s something.’

‘And there was enough left for tea. It was only the one carton that broke, wasn’t it?’

‘Luckily. I suppose.’

‘Talking of which, let’s get a nice cup of tea, shall we? You’ll feel better then.’

‘I’m fine now,’ Jacob said, somewhat indignantly.

‘I can’t understand why you chose to go in around the back anyway,’ Marjorie said. ‘You usually come in the front.’

‘It looked busy,’ Jacob said with a sigh. ‘I thought it would look unprofessional in front of the customers.’

‘That step out the back gets icy, doesn’t it?’

Jacob sighed again. ‘Yes, it does. I really should put a mat on it, if we’re going to get a long spell of snow like this.’

‘I suppose we’ll see how it is in the morning. Perhaps it will have melted by then.’

Jacob glanced out of the window, where streetlights illuminated heavily falling snow. With snow making the roads impassable, the street was completely car free. A few lines of footprints were all that marked a pristine line of snow. Across the street, in the window of an estate agent, someone was hanging Christmas lights.

‘I’ll just make the tea,’ Aunt Marjorie said.

Jacob stared out at the snow. The back of his trousers still felt damp from falling over, but far worse was the feeling of utter embarrassment that continued to linger. Charlotte had apologised as though it had been her own fault for coming out of the back door, but Jacob knew the truth. He had been rushing, the single plastic bag overloaded, and had been over eager to make up for not responding to Aunt Marjorie’s message.

Charlotte’s best friend had given him a piece of her mind, pointing out, among other things, that Charlotte’s shoes were expensive, that it was her grandmother’s wake, and that she was extremely fragile right now. Christmas was a difficult time—she didn’t elaborate why—and the suggestion was that he should have known all these things, perhaps by way of mindreading or sixth sense. All of this was communicated in a rather overtly, borderline-shouting way, in the tearoom’s back corridor after Charlotte had returned to the wake and Aunt Marjorie had rushed off to make the overdue tea.

Feeling suitably chastised, Jacob had been unable to face Charlotte again, opting instead to help out in the main tearoom, while Aunt Marjorie attended to the wake in the backroom.

His hopes of getting to talk to Charlotte had been dashed.

He had kept himself busy, trying to keep his mind off things. When the wake had come to an end and Charlotte had come through to the kitchen to thank Aunt Marjorie, Jacob had scooted around her and her best friend—flanking her like a royal guard—and got to work clearing up.

‘So, what exactly was it that made you so late?’ Aunt Marjorie said, coming back with a cup of tea and putting it down on the counter. ‘It’s not like you to just disappear. I was about to call the police.’

‘I was with the police,’ Jacob said. ‘Some of the time at least.’

He gave her a shortened version of what had happened with Nora, how he had found her unresponsive, called the ambulance, and then gone with her to the hospital. ‘I have to go up to her place after this to collect some more stuff for the hospital.’

Aunt Marjorie sighed. ‘Oh, Jacob. I had no idea.’

‘I forgot to charge my phone. I’m sorry.’

‘If you need any help, just let me know.’

He nodded. ‘I’m not sure what I can do. It’s just … it’s nearly Christmas, isn’t it?’

Aunt Marjorie smiled. ‘It’s going to be a busy one, that’s for sure.’

The snow was so heavy that Jacob had no choice but to push his bike back up to Nora’s place after the tearoom closed. He had arranged to meet a fireman there, and found them repairing the door. With no one else to give one to, the man let him have a set of keys, then wished him good luck.

Inside, he couldn’t resist doing a little tidying up. He bagged some rubbish, found a dusty hoover in a cupboard, and then washed up as best he could, using the trickle of water coming out of the hot tap. Then, with the rubbish cleared out of the way, he took more pictures of the threadbare carpets, the damp on the walls, the fraying light fittings, and another video of the low water pressure on the kitchen tap.