Neatly, methodically, she wrapped up and labelled each gift. Then she packed them in Mo’s little car along with a backpack and a medium-sized case. When she judged her parents would have finished breakfast she drove to their house and was surprised to find Nan there.
‘Brett and I need a break from each other,’ she confessed. ‘Your mum fetched me last night because I didn’t want to butt in on your evening but today I thought—’ Then, slowly, her wrinkles sagged as she gazed into Hannah’s face. ‘What’s the matter?’
Hannah slumped onto the sofa that her parents bought when she was about sixteen and closed her eyes. ‘I thought something was happening with Nico. But it’s gone wrong.’
‘Oh, Hannah! Nan whispered to me that there was something between you.’ Mo dropped on the sofa beside her. ‘Get her a strong brew, Jeremy.’
Slowly, between sniffs, sobs and sips, Hannah unravelled the whole story. ‘So it looks as if his wife’s back and we won’t spend Christmas together,’ she finished dolefully.
‘You spend it with us,’ Mo urged. ‘Dad’s got the tree out of the loft and we’ve begun decorating it. We’ll bake mince pies and have a cosy village Christmas.’
Hannah was already shaking her head. ‘Thanks, Mum, but it’s too … raw.’ She blew her nose, then looked at her dad. ‘Can I ask a really, really big favour?’
Instantly, Jeremy proclaimed, ‘Nothing’s too big for you, Han.’
‘Can I borrow The Bus?’
‘Borrow The Bus?’ he repeated faintly. Then, as if it weren’t his pride and joy, ‘Of course.’
‘I’ll treat it beautifully,’ she said, too desperate to escape to have qualms about borrowing something she knew he wouldn’t normally lend. ‘I want to be on my own for a few days and not be … bothered. The girls are too important not to be given the chance of two parents. I know that. I just need time to come to terms with it.’ She gulped. ‘I don’t want to hang around for explanations, even if he thought it was a holiday fling.’ That might even be too polite a term for what he’d thought. His damned mother-in-law had certainly made her feel like a little tart. She blotted her tears with her sleeve.
Nan shook her head. ‘A holiday fling? Nico’s too mature to sow his seeds in a garden he didn’t wish to tend.’
Hannah gasped a shocked laugh. ‘Nan! Is that as rude as it sounds?’
Nan stuck out her chin. ‘It’s euphemistic.’ She scratched beneath her cast, which was grubby at the edges now. ‘Don’t you think you ought to talk to him, duck? You never know—’
‘I want to go away, if you can spare me,’ Hannah interrupted firmly.
Mo put both her soft, comforting arms around Hannah. ‘I can help Nan now. Don’t worry about that. But you will come home for Christmas?’
‘Maybe.’ Hannah laid her cheek on her mum’s shoulder. ‘I’ve brought my gifts to leave here, in case I don’t. If – if you see Nico and the girls, will you give them theirs, please?’ She rushed on. ‘You’ll have Rob and Leesa and Nan. Everyone at The Three Fishes and The Angel you’ve known your whole life long. They’re here for you.’
Jeremy chirped up. ‘And for you, Hannah. Don’t forget that. And for you.’
Hannah nodded, then arranged her Christmas gifts beneath their half-decorated tree and spent an hour driving The Bus under Jeremy’s instruction. ‘Such an old gal has her little ways,’ he explained, as they sailed sedately up Main Road and past the cotton-wool snowman outside the school. ‘I’ve fitted a quick shifter so she won’t shake you to bits when you change gear. Go gentle with her. Fifty’s top speed or you’ll blow her up.’
‘I’ll take it steady,’ she promised, wondering whether she’d blow up if the engine did and if she’d care.
In freezing rain that matched Hannah’s mood they filled up with fuel and checked tyre pressures. Jeremy showed her how to transform the seat into a bed. ‘And, see,’ he said. ‘The radio looks retro but it’s repro and has iPhone connectivity and DAB.’
‘Wow,’ said Hannah, mechanically.
She hugged everyone goodbye, battling guilty tears at white, anxious faces, then drove carefully back to Nan’s, feeling strange and high up compared to her normal driving position. The engine was at the back and clattered like a giant sewing machine. At the cottage, she flung in her bags and bedclothes and didn’t bother connecting her phone to her dad’s smart radio. She got in as stiffly as if