A Week in Winter(57)

‘You’ve changed very much since you came back from that cruise ship,’ his father began.

‘I thought you didn’t approve of it. You suggested that it wasn’t real medicine,’ Henry said huffily.

‘I did say, and I’ll always say that you should have specialised. You could be a consultant by now, all the chances you had open to you.’

‘We just want you to be happy. That’s all, dear,’ his mother explained.

‘Nobody is happy,’ Henry said, and he went out to their garden to throw sticks for the old dog.

So Henry’s parents decided to speak their minds to Nicola. They caught her in the kitchen as she was sipping a cup of tea and looking into the middle distance.

‘We don’t want to interfere, Nicola dear,’ Henry’s mother began.

‘I know, you never do, you’re really great,’ Nicola said admiringly, wondering whether she could evade the ‘but’ that was approaching.

‘It’s just that we worry . . .’ Henry’s father didn’t want to let the discussion end before it had begun.

But Nicola had a bright, empty face. ‘Of course you worry,’ she agreed, ‘that’s what parents do.’

‘You’ve been moping around for over two years, settling to nothing. Look, I know it’s not really our business but we do care.’ Henry’s father was begging to be heard.

Nicola turned and faced him.

‘What do you want us to do? Just tell me straight out. Perhaps we just might do it.’

There was something in her face that frightened him. He had never seen her so angry. He immediately tried to row back.

‘All I was saying . . . what I was going to say was that . . . that . . . you should have a holiday, a break of some sort . . .’ His voice trailed away.

‘Oh, a holiday!’ Nicola sounded hysterically delighted with the idea. A holiday she could just cope with. Just. ‘It’s funny you should say that because we were talking about having a holiday. I’ll talk to Henry, and we’ll let you know our plans.’ And she fled from their kitchen before they could say any more.

She mentioned the holiday to Henry as they drove home that evening.

‘I don’t think I have the energy for a holiday,’ he said.

‘Neither do I, but I had to say something to get them off our backs.’

‘I’m sorry. Your folks don’t go on nagging at us like that.’

‘Yes they do, but not in front of you. They’re a little afraid of their son-in-law, you know!’

‘Would you like a holiday, Nicola?’

‘I would like a week somewhere before the winter settles in but I don’t really know where we would go,’ she said.

‘Well, neither of us wants to go to the Canaries for winter sun, that’s for certain,’ Henry said.

‘And I don’t want winter snow, either. I’d hate skiing,’ Nicola said.

‘And I’m not crazy about a bus tour,’ Henry offered.

‘Or Paris. It would be too cold and wet.’

‘We’ve become very crotchety and difficult to please, and we’re not even forty,’ Henry said suddenly. ‘Lord knows what we’ll be like when we really are old.’

She looked at him affectionately. ‘Maybe we’ve got to get through this elderly phase first, and then eventually we might become normal.’ She spoke lightly but there was general wistfulness in her voice.

‘I know what we’ll do,’ Henry said. ‘We’ll go on a walking holiday.’

‘Walking?’

‘Yes, somewhere we’ve never been before; the Scottish Highlands, or the Yorkshire moors.’

‘Or Wales, even?’

‘Yes; we’ll look up a few places when we get back home.’

‘We don’t have to stay in youth hostels, do we?’ Nicola pleaded.

‘No! I think we should find a warm hotel with lots of hot water and good food.’

Nicola sat back in the passenger seat and sighed.

For the first time in two years she believed they might really have turned a corner. A week’s holiday in winter would not solve all their worries and end all their woes but it might just be the beginning of some journey back.

Later that evening, when they got back to their house in Esher, it was very cold. Henry lit a fire in the small grate, the first time he had done this for two years. He saw the surprise in Nicola’s face.

‘Well, if we’re going to take the huge decision of choosing a holiday, let’s break every other tradition as well,’ he said in explanation.

Nicola brought them hot chocolate. Another first. Normally when they came back from visiting either set of parents they felt exhausted, but tonight they seemed to have more energy. They brought the laptop to a small table near the fireplace and began to search for a holiday.

There were some extraordinary places on offer. A farmhouse in Wales, miles from anywhere. But too remote. They didn’t want to be quite so isolated. Log cabins in the New Forest where wild ponies might come up to your windows? Yes, maybe. But would they tire of wild ponies after a day or two? An old coaching inn near Hadrian’s Wall? Certainly a possibility, but they weren’t instantly convinced.

Then they saw a picture of a house in the West of Ireland. A big stone place on a cliff looking down over the Atlantic Ocean. It offered walks and wild birds and peace and good cooking. There was something about it that seemed to draw them.