Author's note: all disclaimers apply.
Christmas had been miserable. In a world filled with happy people celebrating with family and friends, Barbara Havers had sat at home, alone. She had avoided the seasonal fanfare. There was no tree, no wreath on her door, no presents, no candlelit dining table festooned with holly and certainly no fancy dinner with turkey and pudding. She had eschewed the television with its sentimental merriment, chortling carols and jolly programmes filled with laughing children and tail-wagging dogs.
Since finishing work a few days before she had been hibernating in her flat. She had only gone out for an hour on Christmas Eve to pick up milk and ice cream. It had been a quick dash to the supermarket trying to avoid rotund Santas and shop assistants dressed as elves. Her only concession had been to throw five pounds in the bucket of the Salvation Army band who were sitting in a circle outside the store playing recognisable but tortured carols on their shiny brass instruments. When she returned there had been a box of chocolates left propped up against her door. She knew instantly who they were from and she debated throwing them away. But they were chocolates after all, and good ones. She had a pang of regret that she had missed him but it mainly brought back the pain of their argument.
She had avoided as much of the actual day as possible. She had slept until noon then stayed under her bedclothes hiding from the world until late afternoon. She had unplugged her landline and allowed her mobile to run flat. Her only concession to the day was the toasted ham sandwich she had eaten for dinner followed by a whole jar of chocolate coated sultanas and nuts.
Normally she would have read and lost herself in a fantasy world created by someone far more imaginative. This year though she could barely see. She was not at all happy with her new glasses. There was a thin band at the top for long distance that functioned fairly well if she lowered her head. Another band in the centre gave her middle distance but finding the sweet spot was like trying to win the lottery. As for reading she was frustrated that she could only see a small ring of print no matter where she tilted her book. She had to move her head back and forth like a demented typewriter to read anything. She cursed the optometrist for talking her into them with his promise that it was easier to adjust to them while her prescription was moderate than it would be to continue as she had been with just the reading glasses that he had confiscated. "Liar!"
She would have put them in the corner but the simple truth was she needed them to see clearly. Her eyes were failing rapidly. It is 'part of the aging process' everyone told her but that was no comfort. Even Tommy had told her she was getting past it. She knew he was teasing her but his words had stung. She had needed his understanding and sympathy but her best friend had let her down.
In reality the glasses were only a symptom of the depression that had crept up on Barbara over recent months. There was no specific trigger but simply an insidious change in her attitude. At first she had been frustrated and angry with the world; annoyed that the best part of her life was behind her and the future held slim prospects. Her life was draining away to pointlessness. She wanted to achieve something or do something that was worthwhile but most of all she wanted to have a relationship that fulfilled her. Her major obstacle was that the man she loved was never going to see her as anything more than his friend and yet he had spoiled her for any other man. Her career was going nowhere, not because she was not capable of more but because she could never willingly leave Tommy. She was effectively trapped in a world of much-treasured friendship and unrequited love.
Then things had begun to change. Activities she once enjoyed like her favourite television crime show or a series of books she read avidly now had no attraction, no meaning. She found food a necessary chore but her appetite dropped away. She even began to hate seeing Tommy every day because that thrill of first seeing him each day had gone. She wondered if she still loved him; if she had ever really loved him. The more she doubted herself the more she withdrew. First she felt sad but then it petered into a far worse state - she felt nothing. And with the blackness came the need to retreat; to curl up deep inside her mind where a faint glow of feeling still resided; a place where Tommy loved her and protected her from herself.
Now she had to face the most sentimental night of the year. Drunken people would dance and sing and cheer off the old year, good or bad, and countdown the new one with gusto. Everyone was looking forward with excitement to good times ahead while Barbara felt anything but optimistic. Her future had never seemed bleaker. She had all the material things she needed to survive and by many standards was doing well. She knew others had a far harder life but logic could not change her emotions and feeling of hopelessness.
She remembered her grandmother who had spent the last six months of her life tidying up her affairs and preparing to die. It was as if she had known and accepted it as fact but her grandmother could not possibly have known she would be killed by a random accident. Or could she? As Barbara lay huddled under her bedcovers she wondered if perhaps her life was ending soon. Perhaps it was all over. In a way she would not mind. She was tired and feeling old yet there was still a fine thread that kept her tethered to life - Tommy. Of course she still loved him, always would no matter how he behaved or what he did. As she flicked through the TV guide she knew she had already forgiven him. Their argument had been her fault. He had just been the person she lashed out at in frustration.
He was probably in Cornwall, riding his horse or walking the cliffs and not giving her a second thought. She wished she had accepted his invitation. At least she would have had more to think about than herself. She walked to the fridge and selected a tub of Black Forest ice-cream. It was nearly nine o'clock in the morning and the BBC news service would broadcast the fireworks from Auckland soon. Barbara liked fireworks. She settled under a blanket on the couch, opened her tub of sugary delight and settled in to follow the new year around the world.
Tommy Lynley, Eighth Earl of Asherton, was not used to sitting in airport gate lounges with the hoi polloi. It was not that he considered himself superior but he could afford to be a member of the airline lounges and preferred to use them. He travelled a minimum of business class when he needed to fly, justifying it based on comfort and his ability to pay.
Travelling to New Quay from City Airport though had few luxuries attached. He had avoided making a decision about going home for New Year until the very last minute. He had stayed in London for Christmas in some vague and vain hope that Barbara might start talking to him again and they could share lunch together. She had returned none of his messages and had not answered her door when he went over to her flat on Christmas Eve. He had no reason to suspect this would change today so had woken early and booked the flight.
He and Barbara had bickered and argued almost constantly over the years but the one on their last day of work had been bitter and personal. He had known she was sensitive about her glasses. Normally his teasing made her laugh but she had taken his comments about being 'a middle aged woman now' to heart. She had visibly brooded in the car and when he had tried to apologise she had said she had wasted her life running around trying to keep him out of harm's way. Tommy knew that his angry retort 'no one asked you to, least of all me' was the worst thing he could have said. She had gone silent and nothing else he said that day brought anything more than a professional response when it was required. When he had gathered his things and went to her desk to take her for a drink to apologise properly she had already left.
Even at the time he felt the axis of the world had shifted. He had phoned and sent texts but she had not replied. He had taken chocolates over on Christmas Eve hoping to bribe his way back into her heart but she had not answered her door. It distressed him to think she was upset and it pained him to know he had contributed to, or maybe even caused, her hurt.
The hard, grey, plastic chair dug into his ribs as he shifted to get comfortable. A family were sitting at his feet with a Monopoly board spread out between them. They were laughing and joking and the boy kept leaning back against Tommy's leg. Beyond them a man was tapping on his thigh to the beat of music in his headphones and startling everyone with a random 'oh yeah'. The young woman beside him was using the camera on her phone as a mirror while she brushed her hair. He was pleased when the phone disappeared until the woman reached over to gather her mane into a ponytail and whacked him on the chin. With a muffled half apology she swung her hair up and out then back, straight across his face like a horses tail swatting it's rump. The apple-scented hair tickled as it dragged across his mouth. Tommy moved seats.
Now he was being stared at by a man in a fawn sweater two seats down the row. Tommy looked away but the man moved closer into the seat adjacent to him. The eyes never left him. "Do I know you?" Lynley asked politely.
"No. Would you like to?" The man licked his lips and smiled showing his missing teeth.
Tommy smiled to be polite then stood and went to the gents. He rinsed his face in cold water and stared at his image in the mirror. He looked as miserable as he felt and it had only one cause - he missed Barbara. She was what made his life worth living. Without her to nag him and berate him he was lost because underneath that was her support and dare he even think it, love. He had come to understand this week that he loved her too; not in the platonic way that he once had but totally. Now he fretted that it was too late and that she may never forgive him. "And running to Howenstowe is not going to fix it," he said to the mirror.
Tommy pushed his way to the airline counter and cancelled his flight. He had no bags to collect so with his carry on in his hand he went to the taxi rank and gave the driver Barbara's address.
