Snowflakes Over Bay Tree Terrace (Willowbury) Read online

  ‘Shit!’ Florence slammed on the brakes of her ancient Astra Estate, which, fortunately, she’d just had MOT’d. Heart thumping, she felt her face start to flame as a tall, fair-haired man loped over the stripes, throwing her an ironically raised hand in acknowledgement as he passed in front of her car. Florence smiled weakly, mouthing ‘sorry’ through the windscreen, but unsure if he’d actually seen her attempt at an apology.

  ‘Get a grip, Ashton,’ she muttered as she put the car in gear and pulled away, checking before she did that she wasn’t about to run over any more pedestrians. ‘You can’t go mowing people down just because you didn’t get any sleep.’

  Irritated, she again wondered who the hell was making the racket next door, and, resolve hardened, was determined to seek them out. After all, she needed all of her energy if she was going to tackle a new job and a new house; irritating neighbours just weren’t an option.

  2

  Sam Ellis had always suspected that his weakness for Ginsters pasties would get him killed one day. Just off shift, he’d pulled up on the side of the road opposite the Co-Op in Willowbury, driven by the urge to grab a carb-laden pastry before heading home for a shower and bed. The night shifts with the Somerset Air Ambulance were always hardest on him; he’d never quite got used to the rotations, and Ginsters were the only thing that would make the exhaustion better. He knew he’d have been better off having some of the granola dust that his sister Kate was always trying to foist on him whenever he visited her, but there was something about the way the pastry stuck to the roof of his mouth after a long shift that he just couldn’t resist. Perhaps he’d been too distracted by the anticipation of the pasty to look properly before he stepped out onto the zebra crossing, or perhaps the driver of the ancient Astra who’d slammed on its brakes just in time hadn’t had their mind on the road, but whatever it was, as he raised a hand in the driver’s direction, he realised that he’d just had a very near miss.

  Even with this knowledge, though, the lure of the pasty was too great. Not even waiting until he got home, he tore off the wrapper and sank his teeth into it, revelling in the salty meat and vegetable goodness for a bite or two, before dumping it down on the passenger seat, where it joined about five other pasty wrappers. He’d have gone spare if someone had left the cockpit of the air ambulance in that state, but in his own car he was far less fastidious.

  The drive home took only a couple of minutes more, and as he pulled into the designated parking space behind the row of terraced houses where he lived, he felt the tiredness overwhelm him. Experts on night working had advised him to try to treat his working day just like any other; not to go straight to bed when he got home, but to potter around, eat at leisure and unwind for a few hours, just as he would when he was working during the day, but he hadn’t quite managed to get into a routine as yet.

  Of course, it didn’t help that Aidan was king of the antisocial hours, and Sam never knew whether he was going to be awake or asleep when he got home. More often than not, Aidan was out and about when Sam got back and, being quite a private person, Sam didn’t mind this. He was used to sharing accommodation from his days on ship, so the notion of personal space was one he wasn’t too bothered about. The fact he had his own room was good enough for now.

  For now was as close as Sam had to a life’s mantra. After all, who knew what tomorrow would bring? That was something he’d learned the hard way over the past couple of years.

  Letting himself in through the front door, he smelt the rank odour of Aidan’s hand-rolled cigarettes and resolved to remind him that they’d agreed on a no-smoking-in-the-house rule. The trouble was, Aidan, like him, had his coping mechanisms, and Aidan often had more need of them. Letting Aidan get away with smoking a few roll-ups seemed a small price to pay, given what he’d been through.

  As he closed the front door behind him, he noticed a note that had been shoved through the mottled brass letter box. Stooping to pick it up, he smirked a little at the pink sparkly gel pen it had been written in, before his expression creased in irritation. The note read ‘Please can you keep the noise down in the early hours of the morning, as I have to get up for work very early. Thank you, Florence Ashton (number two).’

  It seemed that cigarettes weren’t the only antisocial habit Aidan was indulging in. He had a passion for the electric guitar, and although Aidan was a grown man and more than able to fight his own battles, Sam added it to the list of things to discuss with him. What was one more irritation, after all?

  Wandering through to the kitchen to make a quick cup of tea to take up to bed with him, Sam noticed the washing-up still in the sink from two days ago when he’d last had dinner at home, and a row of empty lager bottles by the back door waiting to be put out into the recycling bin. Some of them had been his, but most of them belonged to Aidan.

  He sighed. Things were going to have to change around here. He felt too drained from a night shift that had involved a long, protracted wait on a local football pitch before a high-speed dash to the helipad at the top of Bristol Royal Children’s Hospital with a young casualty to enter into a discussion on housekeeping right now, but he resolved to raise things with Aidan the next time they were both home and vaguely awake.

  As the kettle boiled and he sloshed the water into a mug with a tea bag in it, the last clean one in the cupboard, Sam shook his head. This wasn’t quite how he’d imagined his life would be at thirty-two years old. But then, he hadn’t imagined ever leaving the navy, either. If it hadn’t been for Aidan, he’d probably still be on a ship somewhere.

  Wandering up the creaky wooden stairs to the still uncarpeted landing, Sam noticed that Aidan’s bedroom door was still open. As he poked his head quickly around the door, he saw Aidan slumped on his bed, a half-empty bottle of whisky beside him on the chest of drawers, and the amp, still plugged into the guitar, humming away in the semi-darkness of the room. It was light outside now, but Aidan’s curtains were still closed. Sam sighed. It wasn’t the first time he’d come home to this.

  Creeping across the bedroom floor, taking care to avoid the worst of the noisy floorboards, he turned the switch on the amp and glanced at the bed. Aidan was out for the count, still fully clothed and snoring his head off. Sam assumed he’d had another one of his frequent bad nights. Slipping out of the room again, he pulled the door closed and then padded off down the landing to his own room.

  He realised, as he put the tea down on his own bedside table, that he still had the note from the neighbour in his back pocket. Taking it out again, he reread it, and then put it alongside his tea. He’d deal with it when he’d had a good sleep, he thought. Hopefully he’d be able to tackle Aidan about it before he had to head out to work again, and then he’d pop round to see the writer of the note and apologise.

  It’s not your problem, a little voice in the back of his mind told him, as he slipped off his shoes and unbuttoned his jeans. Aidan was a grown man and should be able to conduct himself sensibly. It wasn’t as simple as that, though, Sam knew. Things were never simple as far as Aidan was concerned.

  As Sam rapidly undressed down to his boxer shorts and lay back against the pillows, sleep overcame him, leaving his tea to go tepid, then cold, in the chilly air of his bedroom.

  3

  Florence had grown used to moving around constantly as she was growing up – her family had been posted to seven different locations in fourteen years, including Germany at one point – so she had no trouble acclimatising to a new job. As luck would have it, the year-long part-time post at the newly built Willowbury Academy had been advertised in the Times Educational Supplement fairly soon after Florence had inherited Aunt Elsie’s house. Although she was not a great believer in providence, this opportunity still seemed too good to pass up, and after a successful interview in the early spring of that year, she’d accepted the post when it had been offered to her.

  As she settled into her new department’s office and chatted with her colleagues, she kept having to remind herself tha
t it was the West Country accent that was dominant now and not the lilting Yorkshire tones she’d spent nearly a decade enjoying. She was sure there was going to be a whole new set of teenage slang words to memorise as well, and hoped that she’d be up to the task.

  While she was filling out her planner for the next day’s teaching, and familiarising herself with where the set texts were, her thoughts were interrupted by a cheery ‘Hello!’ as another colleague came into the office.

  Glancing up, she saw the new arrival was a friendly-looking but slightly harried woman with a cascade of long, unruly dark hair, messily tied back in a loose ponytail. Struggling with a box of books and her oversized handbag, she slung them down on the conference table to the side of the door and let out a huge sigh.

  ‘Christ, I didn’t think I was ever going to get away from home this morning!’ she exclaimed, digging in her handbag for a coffee mug and wandering over to the sink on the back wall of the office. ‘Nick’s supposed to be taking our son Jacob out to Crealy Park today, but Jake was still in his PJs as I left.’ She grinned. ‘Good luck to them!’

  Florence got the impression that this was one of those women who clung onto organisation by her fingernails, but couldn’t help smiling as, coffee made, she headed back towards her.

  ‘Josie Sellars,’ the woman said. ‘We didn’t meet when you came for interview as it wasn’t one of my working days, but it’s nice to meet you now.’

  ‘Florence Ashton,’ Florence replied. ‘It’s nice to meet you, too.’ Dredging up some of the information that the Head of Department had given her at her interview, she continued, ‘You live in Willowbury, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Josie said as she pulled her laptop from her bag and flipped the lid. ‘It’s quite handy for this place, only ten minutes by car, which is a definite result. Do you know the town?’

  ‘I’ve just moved here,’ Florence replied. ‘Into my aunt’s old terraced cottage at the foot of the hill.’

  ‘Oh, you’re Elsie Barnett’s great-niece, aren’t you?’ Josie grinned. ‘She was the scourge of the local coffee shop – it was about two years before darling Jack managed to get her Earl Grey right.’

  ‘All I found in her cupboard when I moved in were boxes and boxes of Earl Grey,’ Florence laughed. ‘And a bottle or two of gin, of course. She loved both.’

  ‘Were you close?’ Josie asked as the familiar tones of her work laptop jingled the air.

  ‘I spent a lot of summers in Willowbury when I was a kid,’ Florence said. ‘And she was, believe it or not, great fun when she forgot to be strict.’

  ‘Well, she must have enjoyed having you to leave you the house.’ Josie sipped her coffee thoughtfully, then flushed slightly. ‘Sorry – I tend to speak without thinking.’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ Florence said. ‘I was as shocked as anyone, but it was a lovely gesture. Although it’s going to take some work to bring it into the twenty-first century. Aunt Elsie must have stopped decorating in the nineteen sixties!’

  ‘With a bit of luck, being only three days a week here you’ll get plenty of time to sort it out,’ Josie said. ‘Although part-time teaching isn’t quite all it’s cracked up to be as I’ve found out over the past year or so. You still tend to take the same amount of work home with you.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Florence laughed. ‘But at least, with this place being so new, there are only five, rather than seven, year groups to worry about at the moment. And I love teaching years seven to eleven anyway, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.’ There were plans to increase the size of the school to include a sixth form as the numbers of students increased.

  ‘Speaking of which, we’d better get a wriggle on.’ Josie stood, picked up her coffee mug and her teacher’s planner and glanced at the itinerary for the inset day. ‘Oh great,’ she muttered. ‘Just what we need on the first day back, an hour of health and safety and admin, followed by some outside speaker, who, doubtless, will patronise us to the nth degree about how to do our jobs.’

  Florence looked at her own copy of the itinerary. ‘I’ve heard this bloke before,’ she said, clocking the outside speaker’s name. ‘He came into my old school last autumn after our exam results took a dive. He’s quite entertaining, actually.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ Josie said drily. ‘After all this time in the classroom, admittedly with a few years off to be a dreadfully disorganised stay-at-home mother, I do tend to be a little jaded about so-called experts, but I’ll try to reserve judgement this time.’

  Picking up her own cup of coffee and a notebook (she hadn’t had time to grab a new planner from Admin yet), Florence felt a lot more relaxed. Josie seemed like a lot of fun, and she was beginning to feel more settled in her new school already.

  An hour later, after a lengthy update from the School Business Manager about new buildings on site and the precautions that staff and students needed to take, Florence was looking forward to escaping the auditorium, where all the school’s staff was seated, largely grouped by department. Ironically, teachers aren’t the best at sitting still and listening to other people for great chunks of time, and as she glanced around the hall, she could see several of her new colleagues doodling in their planners, sending surreptitious text messages or muttering under their breath to the person next to them.

  Always a tough crowd, she thought, feeling a pang of empathy for the visiting speaker, who was due up after the break.

  Gagging for another cup of coffee, especially after being kept awake for so long the previous night, she was glad when the session broke and it was time for caffeine and tray bakes. She was definitely going to have to make sure that her annoying next-door neighbours had got her hastily scribbled note when she got back tonight.

  Lost in thought, she jumped when Josie’s voice broke into her reverie. ‘How are you doing?’ Bearing Florence’s travel mug, which she’d taken to get refilled in the school dining room, and a large slice of flapjack – ‘you’ll come to rely on these when term really gets started!’ – Josie settled down at the lunch table where Florence had taken a seat. ‘How are you finding it?’ Josie asked, once they’d both taken a sip and a nibble.

  ‘OK so far,’ Florence replied. ‘I wish I’d got a bit more sleep last night, but the coffee’s definitely helping.’

  ‘Was it the usual pre-teaching anxiety dreams?’ Josie grinned. ‘I always end up either stark naked in front of a class or shouting at the top of my voice while they all run riot!’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Florence admitted. ‘Although, with my luck, I’ll end up having those tonight. It’s my neighbours. They’re rather… energetic in the early hours.’ At Josie’s suggestively raised eyebrow, Florence burst out laughing. ‘No, not like that! One of them plays electric guitar, and last night he obviously forgot to plug in his headphones before he started. I can’t say I share his taste in music.’

  ‘Even if you did, late at night is no time to be playing it,’ Josie said stoutly. ‘Have you had a word?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Florence sipped her coffee. ‘They never seem to be at home when I am, but I’ve put a note through their door. I can’t imagine Aunt Elsie putting up with that kind of noise, although she was pretty deaf in later years.’ So much so, Florence thought, that she needed to install a dog flap on her back door to let Hugo the Highland Terrier out at night when she couldn’t hear him barking.

  Poor Hugo had died just before Aunt Elsie, and part of Florence wondered if she’d died of a broken heart. She’d been more devoted to Hugo than any human companion she’d ever had, so far as Florence knew. Given that she’d only ever known Aunt Elsie as a somewhat irascible older lady, she couldn’t imagine her as part of a romantic couple, anyway. She certainly hadn’t been hugely keen on her great-niece consorting with the local boys when Florence had come to stay, and had raised an eyebrow at the holiday romances Florence had embarked upon while staying with her.

  ‘Well, everyone knows everyone in Willowbury, so if they continue to be a has
sle, give us a shout and I’ll see what I can find out.’ Josie glanced at her watch. ‘We’d better get back to the auditorium – this speaker guy’s going to be on soon. Since you’ve said he’s all right, I’ll blame you if I fall asleep!’ Josie’s eyes twinkled.

  ‘Thanks,’ Florence rolled her eyes. Finishing off her flapjack, she picked up her coffee cup and headed back to the hall. She felt a prickle of excitement about starting this new phase of her career, and she hoped the rest of the afternoon would be good preparation for actually meeting the students tomorrow.

  4

  Sam woke to the sound of an insistent rapping on the front door. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and still clad only in his boxer shorts, he swung his legs over the bed and reached for the T-shirt that he’d shed before crashing out. He could have just ignored it, of course, but some sense of discipline still remained from his navy days, and he felt it best to deal with whoever it was head on.

  Peeking out through a crack in the blackout curtains in his room, which just happened to look directly down to the front door, he noticed a blonde mane of hair tied back in a loose ponytail.

  ‘All right, I’m coming,’ he muttered as he saw her raise her hand to the smeary brass door knocker again. Still in his bare feet, he jogged downstairs and through the rather chilly hallway, toes feeling the cold of the Victorian tiles of the hall.

  Whipping back the chain (the visitor didn’t seem like much of a threat from upstairs), and pulling open the door, he came face to bleary eyes with a serious-looking, but nonetheless very attractive, woman. She looked to be in her late twenties at a guess, and was casually dressed in skinny jeans and a checked shirt, which was unbuttoned over a tighter black top.