Last Christmas by Julia Williams

Author:Julia Williams
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781847560865
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2009-10-29T00:00:00+00:00

This Year

Chapter Seventeen

The sun shone as Gabriel took his ewes and lambs down the lane and out to pasture. He’d delayed getting them back on the hills because up until Easter Monday the weather had been so dreadful. But spring was definitely sprung, and it was a fine clear morning to be out on the hillside. He whistled as he made his way up the valley. He loved these early mornings here, the freshness of the air, the vast blue arc of sky above him, the gentle sound of sheep baaing, the rooks cawing in their rookeries, and the soft spring of the heather under his feet. And the colours on the hillside never ceased to amaze him, ever changing with the seasons. In summer he knew the soft pinks and purples of the heather would become lost in a blaze of glorious gold and green, and by autumn the hills would be red and orange, before fading to the muted soft greens of winter. He felt lucky to be here, at one with nature, enjoying the view.

And since the Monday Muddle he felt luckier still. Marianne seemed to be slotting into his life in a comfortable and easy way. If Stephen had a late club at school, she often walked home with him and stayed for a cup of tea. The three of them had driven over the hills to an isolated country pub for Sunday lunch and then a long yomp across the fields. It had felt natural and right and, when they’d swung Stephen between them, Gabriel had realised with a jolt that this was what he had always been missing with Eve. Precious family moments had been few and far between, either because Eve couldn’t ‘cope’ with Stephen, so Gabriel had taken him out alone, or because, when she had come with them, invariably something would happen to create tension and he and Stephen would have to be on tenterhooks for the whole day. Gabriel tried and failed to think of a single day spent with his wife and son that had been this easy.

He whistled as he wound his way into the valley near the proposed eco town. He could see that work had started already but was amused to notice that the foundations of the proposed houses were deep in mud, and the new back gardens, which led down to the river, were awash. When would they learn? This was such a bad place to build, any fool could see it. Although the weather had perked up of late, the river banks were swollen, and the last few weeks in March had brought severe flood warnings that so far hadn’t come to pass. But if they did, Gabriel was fairly sure the river bank wouldn’t hold, and the eco town might get swept away before it had even been built.

A few hours later, Noel was standing in the same muddy field looking round him in dismay. By dint of fudging things so that the

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