Page 44 of So This is Christmas

SOPHIE

She was home. She tugged off her coat and hung it on the door handle instead of the hook in the hallway so it could drip onto the mat rather than the carpet.

It had been raining when her flight touched down at Heathrow, and the grey skies had refused to let up on the taxi journey back here.

She’d got soaked just pulling her suitcase up the garden path and fumbling in her bag for her house keys.

She turned up the thermostat in the hallway to take the chill off the empty house, which was devoid of any Christmas cheer even though it was Boxing Day, and put the gas fire in the lounge on too, although it lacked the same cosiness as the beautiful, old fireplace in Walter’s apartment.

Alone again. No Hayden. No Walter, no Jennie, and no Nick. She’d been close to the Wynters so briefly, and the way Jennie had looked at her when Amber revealed the truth had hurt more than she could bear. She hadn’t been able to read Nick’s expression. Shock? Dismay? She had no idea.

And what did it matter now?

Home. This was where she should be. She had a life to live and it had been silly to go to Vienna and try to shoehorn herself into someone else’s.

On the flight back to England she’d thought about Bea and the day she’d told her dear friend everything.

She wished Bea had told her about the connection when she realised it – they could’ve handled this differently – but Bea, Greta and Walter had thought they were doing the right thing.

It was just that their plan had come unravelled.

Late last night, when Sophie realised she never wanted to have to face the Wynters again, she’d scrounged a couple of big brown envelopes from the woman at the reception desk at the apartment hotel, as well as some notepaper.

She’d put her address in England on the front of one envelope that she folded and put inside the other, along with a letter to Walter and Bea’s puzzle-piece necklace.

She hadn’t wanted to leave the necklace, but knowing Greta was the one who had bought it originally and that the Wynters now thought she’d obtained it in a dishonest way, perhaps the right thing to do was to leave it in Vienna with the Wynters.

After several balled-up attempts at a letter to Walter, Sophie had settled on a couple of pages taken up thanking him for everything – for trying his best, for welcoming her into their home, for the fun she’d had making the comfort teddies she hoped were already beginning to find new homes.

She told him the truth about the shoplifting allegation that was really a misunderstanding in her confusion after losing her husband, she told him all about Amber and that she’d had it in for Sophie ever since Sophie had launched an official complaint at work.

She wrote about the day she was fired. She left nothing out.

It was all she could do. She’d signed off with a wish for them all to have a safe and happy new year and wrote that she’d enclosed the necklace.

She added in a final line to say that she’d enclosed another envelope for them to mail her phone back if they could possibly do that, as well as twenty euros to cover the cost of postage and any additional packaging they might need.

On her way to the airport, Sophie had had her taxi stop at the apartment where she’d buzzed a couple of bells until someone let her in so she could leave the envelope at Walter’s door.

She’d knocked and left as quickly as she could when she heard his footsteps, run down the spiral staircase, out onto the street and back into the taxi.

With a cup of tea, she stood at the back door of her little house the way she’d often done over the years.

It was the place she’d done a lot of her thinking, first when it was overgrown with weeds and she wondered what they’d taken on, then when she was pregnant and daunted at the enormity of it all and unsure whether she could actually be a mother.

She’d stood here more times than she could count after Martin had died and she tried to get her head around her devastating loss.

The view of the garden, no matter the season or the weather, was her little haven and she always stood right where she was now whenever she needed a moment to just let everything sink in.

An hour or so after she got home, with the house finally at a comfortable temperature, she switched to practical mode and took out her laptop.

There were no replies from her previous job applications and no new job ads either.

She was getting the feeling that her best option would be to do agency work for a while.

It might be sporadic but it would be well-paid and flexible.

When there was a knock at the front door she put down her laptop.

She opened up to find Jessica on her doorstep.

‘You’re back!’ Jessica stepped inside and enveloped her in a hug.

Sophie reached past her and closed the door to the wet and windy weather. ‘Don’t act so surprised, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know I was home. Come to think of it, how did you know?’

‘I saw Monica at work earlier, she told me she’d seen you getting out of a taxi when she came past here.’

‘I can’t get away with anything, can I?’ Monica’s parents lived a few streets away from here – Sophie had dropped her over to their house a couple of times.

‘What’s going on? I thought you were staying in Vienna for New Year?’ She undid her coat buttons and took off the rain-spattered garment. ‘You were having a great time, the last I heard. When Monica told me I thought she must be mistaken so I called you. Why didn’t you pick up?’

Sophie hung up her friend’s coat. ‘It’s a long story.’

Jessica flapped her polo neck. ‘It’s warm in here.’

‘It wasn’t when I got back.’ She led the way to the kitchen. ‘Cup of tea?’

‘That would be lovely.’ She followed Sophie and her words came out softly when she said, ‘We heard what Bea’s likely cause of death was.’

Sophie turned to face her friend rather than the cupboard from which she was about to pull out a couple of mugs.

‘Was it another stroke?’ Bea had had one prior to moving into the care home, and when Sophie found her that day she’d wondered if that was what had happened.

She’d hoped it had been quick, whatever it was.

‘The doctors think so, yes.’

Sophie nodded. ‘Then it would’ve been quick.’

‘She didn’t suffer,’ said Jessica. ‘And she was happy until the end.’

Sophie smiled. ‘She really was.’

They let the moment sit until Jessica said, ‘Now, I need to know what went down in Vienna, why you’re back, and why you didn’t tell me.’

Sophie took out the mugs from the cupboard. ‘I didn’t plan to be home yet. I left Vienna suddenly.’

‘The plot thickens.’ Jessica pushed up the sleeves of her jumper.

‘Do you remember that guy turning up at work, having a go at me in the car park?’

‘Vaguely.’

She’d never shared the full story with Jessica, only Bea, but she was tired of being ashamed and of the weight of responsibility she’d felt for someone else’s actions.

As she made the tea she told Jessica everything about Caleb, the accident, the way he’d tried to implicate her and say it was her fault. She recapped him turning up at the lodge and having a go at her in the car park before she handed Jessica her mug of steaming tea.

Jessica frowned. ‘What does that have to do with Vienna?’

‘Well, that’s where the plot – in your words – really does thicken.’

Jessica’s jaw dropped when Sophie told her the rest.

‘I thought Amber was capable of low acts, but that sort of revenge on you is on a whole other level.’ Jessica shook her head.

‘It was horrible. She had it out for me, but now, she has nothing over me.’ Her heart still sank. ‘Actually, she does – she threatened to give me a bad reference if I crossed her.’

‘Is that so?’

Why was Jessica smiling? ‘What’s so funny?’

‘Oh, you’ll get your reference.’

‘I’m not sure I will.’

‘I am. And I know you’ve been through a horrid experience by the sounds of it… but I do have some news that might make you feel better.’

‘I’ll take anything on offer at this stage.’ She sipped her tea.

‘Brace yourself… because Amber’s day of reckoning is coming. We have a new manager at the Tapestry Lodge… me.’

‘You?’

‘You’re not annoyed, are you? I mean, you’ve been there almost as long as I have, you’re just as good, you?—’

‘Shut up!’ She threw herself at Jessica and hugged her tightly. ‘I’m so pleased for you, you deserve it. But wait a minute, what happened to Amber? Did she resign?’

‘Even better – she was fired!’

‘Fired?’

‘It seems we weren’t the only ones who noticed her pilfering along the way, her dishonesty, her attitude.

There’s a lot of evidence already despite what you and I will add.

Three families had put forward official complaints right before she went away.

They appear to have teamed up behind the scenes and did it at the same time.

All of them have said how frustrated they’ve been with the management at the lodge. ’

‘How do you know all this?’

She tapped the side of her nose. ‘I can’t say, not for now, don’t want to get anyone in trouble. But I know, that’s what matters. And a few of us, including me, are willing to make statements.’

‘I’ll do it too.’

‘I don’t think she’ll ever work in the care sector again,’ said Jessica.

‘She shouldn’t. Nobody deserves their final days to be at the mercy of someone like her.’ Her heart thumped. This was a good thing. Amber wouldn’t be able to prey on anyone else, but it didn’t feel as good as it should because Sophie had still lost the Wynters’ trust and respect.

Jessica put her empty mug down next to Sophie’s half-full one on the coffee table. ‘Sophie, please say you’ll come back to the lodge. We miss you there.’

She took a deep breath. ‘It’s a possibility, but I’m going to see what else is out there first. I might do some agency work, keep myself flexible. It feels like the right thing to stay away from the lodge, for a while at least.’

‘Not many happy memories, I suppose.’

‘There were plenty – Bea and the other residents and all you guys – but I think it’ll be good to take a break.’

‘Well, if you ever change your mind, I’ll put a good word in with the new manager,’ she teased. ‘And this manager is very happy to give you a glowing reference.’

They talked more about Vienna, the city itself, the Wynters, Greta’s passing and Walter taking on the letters himself, before Jessica had to go. She was due at work in under twenty minutes.

‘Listen, about?—’

‘I won’t say a word about any of what you told me, Sophie. It’s your business.’ She hugged her friend. ‘I’m really sorry things went tits up in Vienna.’

‘I wish it had worked out differently too.’ She pulled away to see Jessica to the door. ‘And thank you for coming here to tell me about Amber. I feel kind of happy knowing she’s getting her comeuppance. Does that make me a terrible person?’

‘If you’re terrible, then we all are.’ She put on her coat, turning up her nose at its wetness still lingering. ‘I’m only sorry none of us took it further sooner before she ruined things for you.’ Before she stepped outside she asked, ‘What are you up to for New Year?’

‘I think I’ll have a quiet one.’

‘Same for me. I’m working in the day but in the evening I’m free. So come over, if you fancy it. No pressure.’

‘Thanks.’

She watched her friend run down the path towards her car parked on the street and closed the door quickly on the cold and the relentless rain.

She wondered whether the Wynters would send her phone back. Perhaps it would be a better idea to assume it was gone and start over again.

It felt like that was what she was doing in so many ways.