A Funny Thing Happened...

The wind rattled the window, shaking the glass in the frame and swirling cold air round the room. So much for the warmth coming up from the kitchen!

He tucked his face under the blankets and blew on his hands, trying to warm them, but all he managed to do was make the bed tepid and damp. In the end he tucked the blankets round his head, curled up in a ball and lay still.

There were no night sounds other than the wind. It was strange. He’d stayed with his grandparents just down the road in the summer once, and he could remember the sounds of the night—the owls hooting, the rustling of countless little animals—he’d used to sit on the windowsill and listen to them, and try and imagine what they all were.

His bed dipped, and something cold and wet pushed into his face. His eyelids flew up and his mouth opened to yell when a loud purr echoed round his head.

A cat.

Dammit, he’d nearly died of fright! It nudged him again, and he reached out a hand and scratched its ears and chuckled, the tension draining out of him. A cat he could cope with. It curled up against his chest, and after a moment the purring slowed down and stopped. The warmth seeped through against his chest, and, seconds later, he was asleep.

It was light when he woke—light with the sort of brightness that only happens with a full moon on snow. He shoved the cat out of the way, got stiffly out of bed and went to the window, peering at his watch.

Five-thiriy-and there was a light in the barn, a thin sliver of yellow seeping round the sliding door. He pulled on his clothes in the moonlight and limped down the stairs, hideously aware of every muscle, to find a note from Jemima propped up against a mug on the table.

‘Gone fishing,’ it said. ‘Didn’t want to disturb the cat.’

He smiled and put the kettle on. However busy she was, she’d have time to sip a cup of tea. The Rayburn needed revving up, and he studied the controls for a minute and decided that it probably needed some breakfast. He found logs in the lobby and pushed them through the little door of the firebox, and once it was packed he opened the vent to allow more air in.

The dogs watched him uninterestedly. Was he eating? No. Therefore they might as well sleep, curled up on the twin chairs. He scooped Noodle up and sat down, and she washed him vigorously before settling down again on his lap.

It reminded him that he needed a shave, but water was short and a beard might keep his face warm in the wind.

Not that it would have much chance to grow before the power came back on, whenever that might be. He put Noodle down and went into the parlour to phone the electricity board.

Still no further news, except that it would be some time and thousands of homes were out. He fiddled with a little radio on the kitchen windowsill and found a local station, which told him that a helicopter had flown into some power lines in the blizzard and knocked out half of Dorset.

So, still hand-milking, then—and hauling the water.

Great.

The kettle boiled and he made tea, pulled on his coat and boots and went out. It was cold and crisp, his breath making little puffs on the bright moonlit air, but the wind had dropped and the sun would be creeping over the horizon in an hour or so. Strange how fickle February could be.

He trudged across the yard towards the barn, slid the door back and was greeted with a smile that warmed him down to the bottom of his boots.

‘My hero!’ she said with a laugh, and she got stiffly to her feet, pressed her hands into the small of her back and stretched, giving a little groan.

‘Sore?’

‘Am I ever. I thought I was fit. How about you?’ He grinned. ‘Oh, I can feel muscles I didn’t know I had.’ He gave her her tea. ‘How are the hands?’

‘Better.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I never really thanked you—I fell asleep while you were doing it.’

‘It’s my magic touch—and anyway, you were already asleep.’

‘I wonder why?’ She buried her nose in her mug and drank a huge gulp of tea, then sighed. ‘Gorgeous. I was dying for tea. I thought I might finish the cows and come and get some, but they’re being really awkward. They just won’t let down for me this morning. I don’t think the water’s very warm any more, that’s the trouble.’

He drained his mug. ‘I’ll get you some. I put the kettle back on the hob.’

‘You’re just a regular sweetheart. Remind me to thank Mary for lending you to me.’

He leant back against the wall, arms folded. ‘Just as a matter of interest,’ he said slowly, ‘where is their farm?’

She coloured slightly. ‘Over the hill.’

‘About three or four hundred yards?’

‘Something like that.’

‘So I could have got there last night.’

To her credit she met his eyes. ‘Possibly.’

He smiled slowly. ‘Just think,’ he said, ‘what I might have missed.’

Something sad and a little desperate happened to her eyes. ‘Yes, just think. You could still have been in bed now.’ She handed him her mug. ‘Better get on.’

He went back to the kitchen, filled the bucket with hot water and poured her another mug of tea. She’d drunk the first almost in one gulp. He wondered why she’d looked sad when he’d talked about getting to his grandparents. Did she think he’d go? And leave her, with this lot to do?

She didn’t know him very well, he thought, picking up the tea and the bucket. After he’d delivered them he carried water into the house, some to the kitchen, some to the bathroom, and then he went back to the barn.

‘Fill the troughs?’ he suggested.

She looked at him in amazement. ‘Aren’t you going?’

‘Without my car? You have to be kidding,’ he joked, but she nodded, as if she thought it was perfectly reasonable.

‘In which case...’

Hope flickered in her amber eyes, and if he’d cherished any illusions about being able to escape, they evaporated like mist in the early morning. He couldn’t abandon her—and if he did, his grandmother would kick him straight back down here again before he was even over the threshold!

‘I’ll fill the troughs,’ he said, and wondered why the thought of shifting a hundred and fifty buckets of water made him want to whistle...

CHAPTER THREE

THE dawn, when it came, was glorious. The wind had gone, the sun sparkled on the snow and if she hadn’t been so phenomenally tired Jemima would have loved it.

Sam, for all his bucketing, seemed full of energy this morning, and she wanted to hit him for it. She’d listened to him whistling cheerfully as he brought the water up from the stream—seventy-five times, or thereabouts—and now he was shovelling snow away from the barn doors and making paths from the house to the hens, the calves and the stream.

Still, she wasn’t surprised. As a boy he’d never sat still for a minute. ‘There’s some sand somewhere you can put down on those paths,’ she told him, sticking her head out of the hen house.

He looked round at the farmyard. Snow had come straight off the field across the road and dumped itself on the yard, and Jemima took one look at his expression and hid a grin.

‘Any helpful suggestions where I should start looking?’ he said mildly.

‘Ah.’ She gave up and grinned. ‘How about ash from the bottom of the Rayburn?’ she offered.

His expression cleared. ‘Good idea. Got a metal bucket?’