Baby It's Cold Outside. Kerry Barrett
to Mum’s old grumpy cat Bella. ‘Come and sit down.’
I made myself comfy on the end of the bed, pulling Harry’s crocheted blanket over my legs and leaning back against the iron bedstead.
Harry and Lou were sitting up, looking at me expectantly. Harry was wearing cute silky pyjamas in a dark grey that suited her swarthy colouring and looked more glamorous in her nightwear than I did on a night out. Louise was wearing Harry’s old Harvard University T-shirt.
I pushed aside the papers Harry had been frowning at when I came in the room – she never stopped working. Louise had been reading a leaflet, which she’d pushed under her pillow as I entered. Now she smiled at me.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked, her pretty face concerned. ‘Is Jamie okay?’
She and Jamie were old friends from their university days and they shared an easy affection that I’d once been very jealous of. Now though, I had bigger things to worry about.
‘He’s a bit floored, I think,’ I said. Harry squeezed my hand sympathetically.
‘Not surprised,’ she said. ‘Is the wee boy definitely his?’
‘Looks like it,’ I said. ‘I don’t see why she’d lie.’
Louise looked serious.
‘You’d be amazed what people will do,’ she said. She knew what she was talking about. Her job as a DI in the Edinburgh police CID brought her into contact with all sorts of unsavoury characters.
I grimaced.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But she seems genuine.’
‘So why is she here?’ Harry asked. ‘Is she still here?’
I nodded.
‘The snow’s too bad for her to go now,’ I said. ‘And that’s another reason I think she’s genuine. She’s staying in the spare room.’
‘Ohhhh,’ said Harry.
Lou looked bewildered.
‘What?’ she said. ‘What have I missed?’
Harry nudged her affectionately.
‘I forget you’re an outsider,’ she said. ‘We don’t have a spare room here, do we? Think about it.’
‘We’re in here,’ Louise said, counting on her fingers. ‘Ez and Jamie are next door, Tess is down the hall and Suky’s in the attic room.’
She looked from Harry to me in confusion.
‘So where’s the spare room?’
‘It’s next to the airing cupboard,’ I said. ‘It’s nice. The house has obviously made its mind up.’
‘Sometimes, if we need an extra room – and the house thinks we deserve it – one appears. Just for as long as we need it for,’ Harry said.
‘And does this happen often?’ Louise said.
‘I only remember it happening once before,’ Harry said. ‘When we had a huge family get together one Halloween. Remember Ez?’I shuddered. I remembered it well. It was back in the days when I was trying to shrug off witchcraft and anything related to it – including my family – and I’d not lasted long at the party.
‘And once, when I was little – Ez you were tiny so you probably won’t remember – a friend of Gran’s came to stay. The house didn’t make an extra room for her. I don’t know why.’
Louise shook her head.
‘Just when I think I’m getting the hang of this stuff,’ she said, smiling. Then she looked at me, her expression more serious. ‘But what about you?’ she said. ‘What do you think about all this?’
‘Don’t be nice,’ I said, looking up at the ceiling and blinking furiously. ‘Don’t be nice or I will cry.’
Harry patted my leg through the crocheted blanket.
‘Come on fatso,’ she said. ‘Tell us what’s going on in that ugly head of yours.’
It was my turn to shake my head.
‘I have no idea what to think,’ I wailed. ‘This Tansy has arrived and she’s smart and gorgeous. And Jamie’s got a child. And the little boy has some disease that Jamie might pass on. And we’re supposed to be getting married!’
‘Breathe, Esme,’ Harry said. ‘What do you mean the little boy has a disease? Is he ill? Does she want Jamie’s kidneys or something?’
‘That’s what I thought,’ I said. ‘But apparently the kid’s fine now. But it’s some inherited thing that Jamie must carry and she thought he should know.’
‘Gosh, that’s nice of her,’ Louise said. I gave her a death stare and she shut her mouth.
‘It’s not like we haven’t both got a past,’ I said.
‘Well you certainly have,’ Harry pointed out. Quite unhelpfully, I thought, though she had a point. Jamie and I had been teenage sweethearts but we’d split up and lost touch for a decade largely because of my pig-headedness. Then when we finally did meet up again, a few years ago, I’d been involved in an unhappy office romance with a married man. Yes, I know, it’s horrible and I wasn’t proud of that one. We finally got it together, only for me to ruin it all again. Though this time it wasn’t entirely my fault – I’d been under a bad spell and it had made me act – well, let’s just say… completely out of character. But we were back on track now, planning our wedding and our future together. A future that was now in question.
Harry realised she’d gone too far. She gave my leg a reassuring rub.
‘You and Jamie are rock solid, Ez,’ she said. ‘You’ll get through this.’
‘She’s right,’ Louise said. ‘It’ll be fine. Just make sure you and Jamie work together on this and it’ll all work out.’
‘Promise?’ I asked.
Harry winked at me.
‘I promise,’ she said. ‘I promise we’ll help you however we can.’
I heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
‘That’s them,’ I said, freezing. ‘I’m not going out there until I know she’s gone.’
We sat in silence, listening as the door to the new spare room opened and closed, then opened again. I heard Tansy’s footsteps padding along the hall to the bathroom, water ran and the toilet flushed, then the spare room door opened and closed again, and all was quiet.
I leaned over and kissed first Lou and then Harry.
‘Thanks for listening to me,’ I said. ‘Maybe it will all seem better in the morning.’
‘Maybe,’ said Harry, but she didn’t sound very certain.
I slid off the bed and quietly crept down the hall to my childhood bedroom – the room I was now sharing with Jamie. I opened the door and went in. Jamie was sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. He looked up when I entered.
‘Oh Esme,’ he said. ‘What are we going to do?’ His voice cracked and my heart melted. I stood in front of him and wrapped my arms around him. He rested his head against my chest and I bent and kissed the top of his blond hair.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ I said. ‘We can work this out if we stick together.’
He looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes.
‘Are we okay?’ he said. ‘Me and you?’
‘Of course we are,’ I said. ‘Of course we are.’
Jamie slumped against me, relieved and exhausted. Like he was a child, I helped him pull off his T-shirt and jeans