Christmas At Willowmere. Abigail Gordon

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      They’d met at a disco organised by their respective colleges when she’d been taking a nursing degree and Glenn had been studying to be a doctor. The attraction between them had been instant. They’d spent every spare moment together from that night and as graduation day had drawn near in their last year, they’d begun to make plans for a future they intended to spend together, blissfully confident that nothing was ever going to separate them.

      As they faced each other Anna’s heartbeat was like a marching army thudding in her breast. On a cold and snowy morning Glenn had appeared in Willowmere again.

      He was close enough for her to see that he’d changed since she’d last seen him. He was thinner, his face almost gaunt beneath the dark thatch that lay upon his head, but as their glances held she saw that his eyes, the same deep blue as violets, were the thing about him that had changed most.

      There had been enthusiasm and purpose in them once, now there was uncertainty there. The look of someone who wasn’t sure of his welcome.

      As for the rest of him, he was still tall and straight-backed, and was sporting a tan which looked out of place in the snow of an English winter.

      ‘I just thought I’d look you up,’ he said evenly, reminding her of the question she’d gasped out at the sight of him…

      ‘You were that sure I would be here after such a long time?’ she said quietly.

      ‘I was pretty sure, yes, after you informing me the last time we met that you’d had second thoughts about us and wanted to call it off. That we’d been apart too long, and you needed to help your brother with the children after they lost their mother in an accident.’

      Please, don’t remind me of that dreadful day, she thought. He would never know what it had cost her to tell him she wanted to finish with him.

      ‘So what has brought you back home?’ she asked, without commenting on what he’d just said.

      ‘I’m taking some leave from the job and thought I’d look up my old friends and acquaintances. I left London in the early hours and arrived here just before eight o’clock. Saw what looked like the local hostelry, a place called The Pheasant, and booked in there for a short stay before I did anything else just to be on the safe side, as it’s hardly the weather to have to sleep in the car.’

      So she’d been delegated to his list of friends and acquaintances, Anna thought, and could she blame him after what she’d done to him? She was drowning in the joy of seeing him in the flesh again instead of in her dreams, but at the same time was hoping she would be able to disguise her delight so that Glenn wouldn’t guess that she still cared.

      As if reading her thoughts, he said, ‘I haven’t come to butt into your life, Anna. I expect you’ll have settled down with someone else by now, though the young ones you were with would be your brother’s children, I imagine, as they looked the right age.’

      ‘Yes,’ she told him steadily, ‘Pollyanna and Jolyon started school in September and, no, I’m not with anyone else.’ Before he could comment on that she went on quickly, ‘I call them Polly and Jolly. They live with their father in the house where he and I grew up next to the surgery. My home is the annexe on the other side of the building. It’s a convenient arrangement. I’m near when needed and yet it gives James and I our own space.

      ‘He manages very well under the circumstances, with a busy practice to run and the children to take care of. Obviously they come first in his life and in mine too because they are so young and vulnerable.’

      Glenn was staggered to hear her matter-of-fact description of what her life had become, and even more so when he asked about her father and was told, ‘Dad died not long ago. He never got over losing my mum. James is in charge of the practice now. I’m employed there from nine o’clock until three now the children are at school, and it is where I should be now. I must ask you to excuse me as we are always busier than usual in this kind of weather.’

      ‘Hop in, then,’ he said, turning back to the car. ‘I’ll take you.’

      ‘It’s only a short distance. I’ll be there in minutes,’ she protested.

      ‘Nevertheless, I’ll take you. For one thing, it’s bad underfoot and you’ll be no use to anyone if you fall and hurt yourself.’

      ‘All right,’ she agreed, and slid into the passenger seat, so aware of his nearness she had to look away. She felt her manner had been too abrupt and as she pointed the way to the surgery said, ‘I’m sorry I’m in such a rush. I wish you’d let me know you were coming.’

      He raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Would you really have wanted me to?’

      She didn’t answer. Anna was content with her life up to a point as long as she didn’t dwell on the fact that she wasn’t going anywhere fast, because if she did it made her think wistfully of the full and exciting life that Glenn must be leading in Africa, yet when she looked at Pollyanna and Jolyon secure in happy childhood, there was comfort to be had.

      But now she’d just discovered that Glenn wasn’t in Africa. He was here in Willowmere, near enough to touch, and it felt unreal.

      As she was debating whether to invite him to call when he was passing to make up for her lack of cordiality, he forestalled her by saying, ‘Would you feel like joining me for a drink at The Pheasant this evening? It would be nice to have a chat. I’ve been wondering how things were with you.’

      ‘Er…yes…I suppose I could,’ she said slowly, ‘and everything is fine.’

      It wasn’t, of course. The secret she’d kept from him would make sure of that, but Glenn was never going to know about the thing that lay so heavily upon her heart…

      ‘On weekdays the four of us have our evening meal together at Bracken House,’ she explained. ‘It will be eightish before I’ve cleared away and done a few chores.’

      ‘Whatever time suits you will suit me,’ he said easily.

      This polite chit-chat was weird, Anna was thinking as he stopped the car in front of the surgery. Did Glenn remember how they used to be when they were at university?

      When his lectures were over he would cross London to where she was based and come knocking on her study door. Once inside he would coax her away from her books and they’d go to a café or the students’ union and would be so engrossed in each other they wouldn’t notice what they were eating.

      He had been the idealist, eager to use his medical knowledge to put the world to rights. Unlike her, he hadn’t had any family to consider. He’d been an only child. His parents had divorced when he’d been quite young and he’d spent his childhood being passed from one to the other. He’d lost touch with them once he’d turned eighteen and had become quite self-sufficient as a result.

      They’d planned that if they got the degrees they wanted they would go to Africa to join one of the aid programmes. At some time in the future they would get married, either out there or back home, and then have children, something that Glenn saw as very important, having had no proper family life of his own.

      That had been before her mother had died unexpectedly from a major heart attack, leaving her father, who had been senior partner at the surgery for many years, frail and inconsolable.

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