Читать книгу Dad’s Christmas Wish - Julia Williams - Страница 6

“Emily’s no happier,” Kenneth said as he pottered in his greenhouse, ripping out last year’s tomato plants, clearing up the canes, and chucking the old compost on his vegetable patch. It was hard work and he was soon puffed out. Perhaps Emily was right and he should get down to the gym more.

“I don’t know, Mags, this lad of hers – she says they’re not together because of what’s happened – but she’s still got it bad. Much worse than with that waste of space, Graham. I just want her to be happy, you know? Yes. Yes of course you do.”

Kenneth stopped and stood breathing in the fresh air. The weather had improved somewhat, and though it was still cold, the unforgiving grey had lifted and the sun shone clear and sharp in a crystal blue sky. It was the sort of day he and Maggie had loved to spend together here, working side by side in companiable silence. It was all too easy, even after all this time, to imagine she was still there and would emerge from the back of the hut, covered and dirt and cursing that she’d been scratched by the brambles she’d been cutting back.

His Maggie, as lovely to him as when they’d first met, aged 20 and he’d bought her an ice cream at the local fair. They’d been so happy together, and he so wanted Emily to find that kind of happiness too. But so far it seemed to have eluded her.

A lone bee hovered by the water butt.

“You’re early, lass,” Kenneth said, “watch out or you’ll die of frostbite.”

The frost had put paid to Kenneth’s strawberries which he’d planted out in a fit of enthusiasm a couple of weeks earlier. Maggie would have shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes and told him he was too impatient. Which he was.

But there was no response, just the gentle breeze blowing in the trees, and the sound of Alfie barking in the allotments somewhere chasing rabbits.

What did he expect? Maggie was dead and buried. He had to do this alone. But as he went to put his tools back in the shed, he found another white feather on the floor. He picked it up and put it with the other one.