Sue Moorcroft - Let It Snow

On the plus side, rent at Carola’s wasn’t high and Sergio had bought Lily out of their apartment, which had given her a modest nest egg and him a bigger mortgage with a Spanish bank.

It was after nine when she turned from ringing up two large glasses of white wine and a Hendrick’s gin with elderflower tonic, and a smiling woman ordered half a pint of lager. As Lily passed her the change she asked, ‘Is Isaac O’Brien around, please? Will you tell him Flora’s here?’ Her brown hair was pulled into a knot at the nape of her neck and her expression was open and friendly.

Lily smiled back, thinking ‘ Another pretty woman looking for Isaac?’ before answering cheerfully, ‘He’s around somewhere. I’ll find him.’

She whizzed out of the bar and discovered Isaac talking to Chef. His eyes lit up when he heard Flora was waiting. ‘I’ll be right there.’

Lily did as requested, then went out into the dining area to clear plates. From there she was ideally placed to see Isaac arrive behind the bar, open the counter flap, hug the brown-haired woman and usher her through. When Lily took the same route, a pile of plates and cutlery in her arms, she glanced all around the back area on her way to the kitchen but there was no sign of Isaac and his visitor.

Perhaps he’d found a replacement for the glamorous Hayley already? Good-looking men never need be short of company.

It was meant to be one of Isaac’s days off but Monday didn’t seem to have got that memo. He’d already taken a call from the wholesaler to order soft drinks and bar snacks, shown his face in the bar at lunchtime to see Tina was OK and to check the beer cellar. He was a better build than Tina for hauling beer kegs and firkins around.

Back upstairs, he went into the kitchen, which was the only part of Tubb and Janice’s accommodation he used. His own space was a nice bedroom with en suite, once one of two sets of guest accommodation, but it had nowhere to make meals or do laundry. He made a cup of tea and a chicken sandwich and sat down at the table to phone Tubb, who was unused to leaving his pub in the hands of others for long and got antsy. After reassuring the owner that everything was hunky-dory, Isaac called his parents and invited them to The Three Fishes tomorrow evening. ‘Flora’s offered to drive you over,’ he added. They’d moved into Peterborough when Isaac’s dad had had to give up farm work so maybe they’d enjoy a trip to the country, even if just for an evening.

He ate his lunch, Doggo watching fixedly. ‘There’s time for a good walk today. Really stretch our legs,’ Isaac told him, popping the last of his sandwich into his mouth without sharing. ‘I’ve printed a map of the area from footpathmaps.com. I need to think about getting myself ready for the instructor courses I’m taking. A fast eight-mile walk will do today and maybe tomorrow we’ll drive off into Derbyshire and find some hills.’

Doggo wagged his tail.

‘I’ve moped around long enough, feeling adrift. I don’t have an exact end-date for this job but it’s an OK stopgap. I cannot wait to leave the atrocious hours and perilous rewards of the hospitality industry behind forever. Losing the Juno made me want out.’ The Three Fishes was informal and laid-back after the Juno but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Being with Hayley for so long had made him so bloody aspirational that he’d almost forgotten how it felt to jog along within his comfort zone.

He rose, causing Doggo to bound to his feet too, and went into his own room. It hadn’t seen heavy use before he arrived and, decorated in cream, brown and blue was a pleasant enough place to live. It looked over the car park and the playing fields. With not much in the way of household tasks to weigh him down and no girlfriend to worry about he was enjoying an uncluttered style of living. Much of his personal stuff was stored in Flora’s loft and he’d worked things out with Hayley financially rather than take any of their furniture. His career-in-waiting as an outdoor pursuits instructor would take him to pastures new and would include staff accommodation.

Beyond work, Isaac was pretty isolated these days. The mates from before he met Hayley had faded away over the years. Although initially intrigued by his glam older girlfriend, his friends had come to think that Hayley was too focused on her career and what it brought her and that Isaac had grown the same, especially once he was running his own business. He’d seen it more as going into a shared future and increasing his capacity to earn … but all that had been before he’d failed to meet Hayley’s gold standard, of course.

She certainly had exhibited no need of his friends. Her own good friends numbered just Vicky and Nicola, a pair of sisters who were so similar to each other and to Hayley in dress and attitudes that they might as well have been one person. Hayley had been tight with them since uni days when her own parents had died and she’d spent a lot of holidays at their home. Vicky had a husband, Adie, and Nicola a Colombian boyfriend called Javier, but though Isaac had got along OK with all of them, he wasn’t in touch post break-up.

It was nice to have an excitedly wagging Doggo around for company. Isaac pulled on boots and a jacket and threaded Doggo into his harness. He slid his map into a plastic sleeve and clipped it to a lightweight backpack containing hat and gloves and added a couple of water bottles, enough for Doggo too, though Doggo generally seemed to prefer puddles. Plugging his earphones into his phone he found his ‘walking’ playlist, then jogged downstairs and out of the door at the side of the building to the rousing sound of ‘Goldfinger’, heart lifting to be striding out, first across the playing fields and then over Port Road and onto the first bridleway. He let Doggo’s lead reel out and picked up his pace, the chill air nipping at his ears.

As he strode, he mentally planned fitness building. His first course would be Outdoor Instructor’s Training in Wales, including navigation, climbing, first aid, water sports, orienteering, cycle training and group communication skills. Next would come Survival Training in the New Forest and then he’d move on to France to develop his climbing skills. After that he’d start looking around for work because he’d need an injection of cash, though he hadn’t lost quite all his money over the Juno closing.

Just all of his pride.

He marched faster as if to outdistance the sense of failure, then decided to jog for thirty seconds out of every sixty for the next ten minutes. Interval training would toughen him up and the faster beating of his heart might help him go forward rather than look back. As he increased his pace Doggo looked around, eyes bright and tail whipping as he joined in too. Once he got running Doggo flowed like a black-and-white cheetah but he began with a plunge like a rocking horse. It made Isaac grin.

It was dark and a few minutes after six o’clock opening time when Isaac arrived back at the pub, returning the way he’d come over the playing fields and car park. Pleasantly tired, he’d dropped his pace to a stroll, giving his muscles a chance to cool down. Doggo wasn’t even panting as he flattened his ears neatly against the wind.