I’m having the best dream of my LIFE and that’s no lie, swear down. I’m in space and then Mrs Atwell’s there but not Mrs Atwell but the DREAM Mrs Atwell and then wooshhhh I’m in the kitchen at home and mum and dad and Sandy are there and there’s a fire even though we haven’t got a fire but it’s still our kitchen with the same blue and white tiles and we’re laughing at something dad’s just said and he’s lifting me up to the top of the tree and I’m stretching and stretching and

Denny!

Everything goes a bit sideways then, like when snow comes down off the roof in great piles that Might Take Your Head Off If You’re Not Careful. That’s what mum says and she knows ‘cos she’s the Big Boss at The Royal, the cinema in town, and she’s always sending emails and talking about roof tiles and leaks and weather and money. Everyone at school always asks me for free tickets ‘cos I said I could get them once, but it was a lie and I can’t. The cinema needs to make money to stay open, and you don’t get money by giving freebies to All and Sundry. Fact.

DENNNNYYYYY!

Mum and dad melt into the light, while Real Life Sandy shakes the night out of me. My head hits the wall, and I bite the inside of my cheek while I wait for the sting of pain to hit. Then there’s the taste of blood AND pain, which is double worse.

IT SNOWING IT SNOWING IT SNOWING!

I was so excited when I found out I was going to be a big sister, but it didn’t last long. I don’t mind it too much now, but it’s still not my favourite thing in the world. That’s crisps. Mum says to imagine it’s like a rollercoaster and I’m climbing out of a trough towards a peak, but that’s a pretty stupid analogy – thanks Mrs Atwell – ‘cos I hate rollercoasters and cry the whole time, so there aren’t really any good bits for me.

Sandy’s six years younger than I am, which is a lifetime. We share a bedroom and she snores and shuffles about and moans about nightmares where bears chase her through the woods, which is totally the Gruffalo’s fault. Sometimes I wake up with her squeezed right in next to me, snotty thumb in her mouth and cheeks the colour of a post box. I almost quite like her then.

Until she wakes up.

SNOW SNOW SNOWWWWWWW!

The light from outside is an alien grey-white, the kind of colour that can’t be anything else. We bunch up together over the radiator and breathe against the window, fogging it up with little circles of warmth. This isn’t just snow, it’s like, the best snow I’ve ever, EVER seen. It’s like something off a Christmas card, a big, proper, thick blanket that’s filled in all the gaps and made the whole street long and level like a ruler.

Our house is the best in the street ‘cos we’re right in the middle. That means it’s double good ‘cos we get heat from the houses either side and there’s always people nearby if we need them. We’re the jam in the sandwich. It also means I can see all the gardens both ways, like a secret spy. I sit on the windowsill and watch people weeding and watering and dozing, guessing what their favourite crisps are and all the places they’ve been.

Janet (Prawn Cocktail, Finland) and Bob (Ready Salted, Skegness and Battersea) are out next door, and they’ve got the nicest garden I can see. Most of them are full of rubbish like bits of kitchen and carpet and brown Christmas trees, but theirs is

lovely with a proper path of rainbow-coloured gravel all the way to a greenhouse and a tree that drops so many red apples they leave them on the front wall in baskets for people to help themselves. Mum says they seem nice but we’re not really here to make friends, so let’s be friendly but not overfriendly because she’s a Busy Woman With A Cinema To Run.

When it snows, everything normal is scrubbed out. It brings its own rules.

Sandy wants to go out straight away, but I need food first. We go sliding down the stairs in our pjs, and mum’s already at the table on her laptop.

Well good morning you two!

Her laptop dings, and she pushes it away.

Good news for you both, but not so much for me. School’s shut. Boiler’s down, and as much as I don’t mind you working in your coats and gloves, Mrs Atwell says it’s cruel. So –

She pauses, sighs, sips her tea, sighs.

You’ll have to come in with me today.

Sandy starts crying, and I don’t even think she knows why ‘cos this is great news. I step round her with my toast and watch the top of Janet’s head moving about over the fence, her bright pink bobble wobbling against the sky. Then mum’s phone rings, and she runs upstairs so she can Hear Herself Think.

This tantrum’s a longer one than usual, but it’s just ‘cos Sandy hasn’t eaten or had her milk, which is fair enough for a three-year-old. I try to heat some up, but I don’t really know how to use the microwave and then she kicks out and knocks the whole carton from my hand, sending it glugging across the floor.

That was two litres!

I say pointlessly, even though I know she doesn’t understand and it’s a stupid thing to say. I don’t even know how much that is, I just read it on the label. When I’ve finished clearing up as best I can, she’s quiet as anything, staring at herself in a long string of gold tinsel hanging out the Christmas decoration box. Kids are weird.

We’ll get them up soon, I say, jiggling it in front of her so it makes a hundred little Sandys, all grinning gormlessly. She laughs then, scrunching her fist up in the direction of her advent calendar. I suppose chocolate’s better than nowt.

Choc’late!

Magic word?

Choc’laatteeee!

The fist opens and closes dead fast, making a slapping noise. She sounds like she might take off.

PLEASE?

I say, very sternly, giving her my best Hard Stare. I see her cogs turning, sizing me up, thinking about the battle, the outcome, the winner. It’s a standoff.

Pweaseeeeee.

I edge Day 21 perfectly out of its dotted card and she smooshes it into her mouth like she hasn’t seen food for a fortnight. When mum comes back, still on the phone, Sandy belches and dribbles a thick, chocolatey river down her chin and all over the table. I take her upstairs to get ready before mum notices, leaving tacky, milky footprints all the way.

****

We thought it would be safer to walk the fifteen minutes into town, but now we’re out here, I’m not so sure. I could usually do it with my eyes shut, but the snow throws me off – it’s falling so heavily that we can’t see what’s in front of us, and even mum doesn’t seem sure which turn to take or the difference between the road and the pavement.

Her phone rings again as we’re walking, and she lets go of Sandy’s hand to answer. I hold onto her other one with both of mine, ‘cos she’s so little and daft I know I’d lose her in the blink of an eye.

Look, I say, as mum paces in circles. Sandy! Magic!

And I throw myself in the powdery snow and flap my arms and legs to make a perfect snow angel shape. I reckon it’s the best one I’ve ever done, and Sandy laughs so hard she falls over backwards and I almost lose her completely in the growing drifts. When I pull her out again, her face is red and her eyebrows and lashes completely white. I lie next to her and stare up at the grey sky, the endless snow falling and falling, and we stick out our tongues and listen to the deep silence all around us – no cars, no chatter, no bins pushed up and down the street… just stillness. I feel like I’ve landed here from somewhere a million miles away.

Right you two, mum says in the voice she uses when Things Need Doing. Change of plan. Andrew says power’s out across half the town. We’re going to have to open the cinema as a place people can come and get warm.

Then with a wink at me so I know the next bit’s a joke, just between us.

Hope you’re feeling talkative today, Denny. I might need to borrow some of your chat power…

Everyone knows I don’t stop talking, it’s a running joke. That’s all they ever say at school, stuff like, ‘Denny needs to concentrate more and chat less’ and ‘Denny and Judi have been separated AGAIN today because of talking.’ Judi’s my new best friend, but I’ve only known her three months so I don’t know if it’s a forever thing or a ‘just until secondary school’ thing. I’m trying not to think about it too much. I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube reels about ‘Living In The Moment’ which sounds sensible, but I don’t really know how to do it yet.

****

The Royal was the first place we visited before we moved here, even before we saw our new house. We came with mum to her interview and Andrew gave us colouring sheets and pencils while the owners were Sizing Her Up and showing her round. This is what I know: it’s very old, like 150 years old or something, and there used to be an organ that came out of the floor so people could listen to music during a break in the film. There’s a lot of red and gold which makes it feel fancy, like you’re in the heart of something safe, but people complain a lot about the seats being uncomfortable, small and too cold. It also leaks in about fifteen different places depending on the weather, and mum says it’s a Money Pit and she’s Had The Wool Pulled Over Her Eyes.

Judi also told me that Gavin Brooks told her that his mum told him there’d been an article in the paper about us moving and how mum used to run a theatre in the city and how would such a High Flyer adapt to life in a small Yorkshire town? When I asked mum, she just snorted and said Hobson’s Choice and then she cried a bit. I think she misses dad.

****

By the time we get to the cinema, we’re pink with cold. Andrew’s had the heating on full blast though, ‘cos it’s like an oven when we push the doors and stamp our way through the wooden entrance hall, snow coming off our boots in perfect jigsaw tread shapes. My skin prickles with the sudden heat and my hands and feet tingle all over like they’re electric.

There you are! Andrew says, smiling at me and Sandy as he pushes a rattling tea tray into a side room I’ve only ever seen used for storing junk before.

Hope you’re up for some chatting today. Especially you, young lady.

Andrew has the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s so old they almost disappear in the wrinkles, and mum says he’s volunteered at the cinema for fifty years now. He knows everyone’s names, and I’ve never seen him wear anything but a red cardigan and yellow bow tie, even when we just see him shopping.

****

The junk room isn’t full of junk any more, and it might be the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen in my life, swear down. All the tables have been pushed together and covered with white tablecloths, with thick gold candles flickering in the middle. There must be a hundred – no, like, a THOUSAND – cups and saucers, all with different patterns, and Andrew and two twinkly ladies are setting out lines of cakes and biscuits wrapped in cling-film.

Go on, grab yourselves a handful, one of them says, holding a big silver plate out in front of us. We’ve got a big day today, you’ll need plenty of energy!

Sandy hides behind me, so I take a custard cream for each pocket and two for her and two for mum, just in case they fancy them later. Then people start coming in, so I smile and chat and offer to show them round if they’re not sure What To Do With Themselves. Some of them have never even been in before, which is mad. When I’m grown up, I’ll come to the cinema every day and watch films and eat popcorn. Adults are so weird.

When it gets too busy for us to move, I sit Sandy on my lap in the very corner of the room and just watch. People come in stamping their feet and blowing on their hands, folding scarves and hats over the radiators and pursing their lips at the hot drinks, cradling them like they’re treasure. I see people from our street who I almost don’t recognise out of their dressing gowns, and then there’s Janet shouting cheerfully across the room (‘Bob’s not here, he’s been up all night with tummy problems. Too much cheese already and it’s not even Christmas!’) and Judi with her dad and some other people from my class I’ve never played with before, but they all smile and wave. Everyone’s laughing and hugging and chatting like they haven’t seen each other for years. I bet it looks magical from outside.

This place is ace! It’s so old! Is it haunted? Judi says, spraying me with crumbs that bounce off my coat and onto Sandy’s head. She looks up at me for the longest time, then reaches up and puts one in her mouth. Judi pulls a face and we both laugh.

I can’t believe your mum runs this. That’s so cool.

Yeah, it is pretty cool, I say.

Then we climb up on the chairs and draw hearts and stars on the fogged-up windows until Andrew asks us to take our seats because the film’s about to start.

We sit right at the back, and I’ve never seen the cinema so full, ever. The most I’ve seen is like, twenty people. I guess this is what it must have been like when it was first opened, ‘cos people didn’t have phones or even televisions or radios or Netflix or anything like that then.

When we used to stay over with dad in hospital, mum put a couple of films on an old iPad and me and Sandy watched them over and over again until I knew them pretty much word for word for ages. The nurses used to try and get us to sit in the Family Room which had a TV with loads of channels, but it was full of other kids crying and the lights hurt my eyes. I liked the iPad better ‘cos we were together with mum and dad for the last times, and when we all hugged, he was the jam in the sandwich.

****

The film today’s a special Christmas one that mum says upsets her, so she’ll stay in the office until everyone leaves because she doesn’t like crying in front of anyone. She’s a really ugly crier actually, so that’s fair. Her chin shakes and makes little red craters like the surface of the moon. Andrew says it’s a black and white film about an angel who makes a sad man feel better and gives him hope. But the angel looks like a normal person, so that’s a bit confusing when everyone knows they have wings and halos and holy music that follows them around. I’m really good at watching stuff though, even boring stuff – I don’t fidget or anything – so I’m not bothered it sounds weird.

Sandy’s already sleeping on my lap, and when the lights dim, I feel my eyes get heavier. Then Mum slips in the seat next to me, looping her arm through mine. She smells like coffee and perfume, and she gathers us both up in a hug that I never want to end. I can feel her tears dripping on my head and down my cheek, but I don’t look ‘cos I know she doesn’t like me seeing her moon crater chin.

Thanks for today, she whispers. I was watching you, chatting away. I’m so proud of you. Made me realise… I need to be out here more, not hiding away. This is what’s important. Us.

I wrestle the biscuits out of my pocket, wrapped in a creased napkin. They’re smashed into a million pieces, half of them just crumb, but mum takes one anyway and makes me eat the other two even though I’ve eaten like, a hundred or something this afternoon.

We’ll get the tree up when we get home, she says as the film starts. And you can put the star on, eh? Dad always said you’re the best at getting it straight.

I feel a warm, happy burn rise up in my throat, and this time, I’m properly awake. When we walk home, I don’t know if the snow’s full of crystals or just reflecting billions of pin-bright stars from the inky winter sky.

Damn it, but he should have said something. He’d held his tongue for years, and now look. Frank sighed. He fetched down two mugs, and put one back. He watched snow settle on the fells, and fussed with a drawer that wouldn’t shut. It was a simple fix, decanting packages to the cupboard under the sink, but they were slippery in their virgin skins, and his knees unyielding. Self-moulding sneakers. A holographic messenger. A Babel Player. It was none of it wanted and just that morning, another had arrived.

The latest was a silver case which, in its neat lettering, proclaimed: “See things differently.” Inside was a pair of sunglasses, the kind that were always sold out, though why seemed a mystery. Frank thought they looked as appealing as safety goggles. The iridescent lenses curved round, forming cups that fit over the eyes. When he put them on, the room vanished as though pinched between two fingers. There was an endless dark, an effect so dizzying that he went to snatch them off his face – and then, ever so gently, the light returned. It came from the edges first, falling across the table and the sunflower drapes. Bit by bit, the room brightened and soared. Outside, the clouds kept their huddle, but in the kitchen the sun rose a second time, falling gladly on corners and cast iron, and across the powdered hills. It was a clever trick, Frank admitted. They weren’t sunglasses at all. They didn’t keep the light out – somehow, instead, they brought it in.

He splashed his tea in the sink. The glasses went to the drawer. “I mean,” he told Molly, “what do they do that a flash light doesn’t?” There was no invention any more, not like light bulbs and telephones.

“Emert,” he wrote on a scrap of paper. He stopped to think, his eyes drifting to the window and the misted peaks. He fussed his fingers and grew irritated. “Thanks for the glasses,” he concluded, folded the letter, and stuffed it in an envelope.

It was a Tuesday, and there were ridges of ice in the gutters and along the gravel track. Carvers End was scattered among grey hills and black earth, but the village proper was a solitary ribbon. The butcher had stayed because folk need to eat, don’t they? Likewise Tom Brothers Auto, Dodgson’s Livestock, the Horse & Harrier. Carvers Books was small animal feed, the post office in its spare corner. Bits and Things had soapy windows, and a paper For Sale sign that rattled and whipped in the breeze. Frank stopped to run his thumb along the loose edge, and the old man came out of Mercer and Miss to watch him.

“He’s back,” Mercer grumbled. “Never knew a fella write as many letters as you.” Frank raised a hand, but Mercer persisted: “I don’t blame you for it. It gets so you wonder you’re not the only one left.” He started coughing, and Frank nipped into the alley and away. He was striding fast despite his leg, and reached Molly’s workshop before he could think to go the other way. The narrow house was leaning on its foundations, its slate and stone beckoned back to the hills. Grey curtains slumped in the windows. The sign above the door still had its scissors and bobbin, but the lock had been kicked through, and other people’s waste had piled up in the hall.

Frank stood at the railing, recalling the resinous scent of the office, its heavy day book balanced on the side. He didn’t go in. The fitting rooms were upstairs, and the stairs so steep you were best going up on all fours. You had to open the windows such a way or they wouldn’t fasten afterwards. He didn’t go in – what was it the bell used to chime, that old tune? Mal Carsini dropped a hod of bricks in the yard that time and shattered the concrete. Probably was like that still if you cared to look – but he didn’t, and he didn’t go in.

To the left of the workshop, the road began to climb, and even on his leg, Frank was glad of the effort. It was a peevish sun that peeped through, and a light was on in the last of the low houses. In the garden, the grass had grown up and over a plastic swing set, and brushed against the window sills. He heard the bright bark of the front door, and quickly turned away.

“Hello? Is that you?” It was a woman’s voice, tremulous, as though forced through a reed.

“It’s not,” Frank said, walking on. “Sorry.”

“I don’t mind you looking in on the garden. You never see anyone, not any more.” He heard her open the gate. She was coming out. Was she coming out?

“I’ve to head back,” he called over his shoulder.

“Oh, will you wait?” she called in her terrible, thin voice.

“I can’t just now. I’ll knock when I’m next down.” He made a show of checking his pockets, and turned his face to the hill. He heard her calling after him, the melody sliding under his boots and up the scree: “When do you come down? When next will you call?”

The path curled around Little How, its familiar blade of water rushing below. At first, the way was watched by the greater peaks, but after a while came the flattened quarry, a blackened stretch between the crags, with only forgotten chains and chimneys to glimmer on the valley.

Home was on the height, between banks of narrow birch, with no sight of the dead quarry, and only two neighbours in hollering distance. The walk into Carver had been souring, though, and Frank scratched his neck as he came in, as though the itch was on him.

He set to work on the crack that ran between the stove and the sink, scraping out plaster crumbs and tamping paper into the hole. The shape of it was a drained lake, and he got to thinking of the flooded valleys, whole villages sunk to slake the thirst of the factories. They were still down there, the cobbled streets and shingles, but when Finneas was first back from America, he’d said what people here didn’t realise about the Great Lakes there was their enormity. “You’d take them for oceans,” he’d said. “They’ve swallowed freighters, bones and all. The ones here are just puddles.” But so what, Frank had thought; carrying on as though you’d made any lake, big or small.

“You’re the puddle,” he muttered.

It was drab in the corner, where daylight was wanting, and he broke off to fetch the silver case. With the glasses on, it was no job at all, and he finished it whistling. The last he’d heard, Finneas had moved to a place called Drunan’s Bay – lakeside, of course – but that was years since, and Emert only just coming along. Now it was only Emert that kept in touch. Frank didn’t mind, but he had nothing to say to the lad, and the correspondence had lapsed into one of things, on the one side, and thank-yous on the other. He should write properly, Frank thought, and with no urgency to do so, flattered himself he would do it.

That evening, the sun flashed and fell behind Bow Head Crag, and Frank reached once more for the glasses. It was just an idea, he told Molly – why shouldn’t it work? It was unpleasant, though, like falling through the house and into the black earth. He held his breath until the glow came, a soft flame that sprang across the tiles in the hall. Outside, the yard and the far hills nestled under a raven’s wing, everything dark, and everything swirling with light. The tree by the fence was an ebony lattice, but its leaves a broad halo of gleaming blue. The corries of the greater pikes gleamed as though rinsed with neon, their powdered tops dusted with teal. In the long grass, scattered buds of saxifrage shook their heads and burned.

Frank followed the track, stepping lightly on blue-veined moss. Electric threads dazzling on the slope were a pair of foxes and their prey. Around the bend, the quarry was an ink spill cradling within it the universe and its countless stars. Far below, the old mines were being mapped and sealed by autonomous robots, and in the wordless night, Frank could hear their hum, as though they murmured amongst themselves. They seemed to say: these were never places for people. They were burrows for slithering, sweat pooling in the small of your back. You never knew if the hill would hold its weight and yours; every night you dreamed of fire screaming through the vents. There were no certainties, in the dark.

When next Frank went down to the village, the woman was in the garden of the low house. She was a tiny thing, most of her height wasted in the spine. She was wearing open-toed sandals under a winter coat, her face rumpled enough for a walnut. Frank couldn’t place her. Likely she’d lately come from Feldham or Saltbeck, or any of those places that, one after the other, fell away.

“Is it sunny,” she wanted to know.

“Not so much,” Frank admitted, and slid the glasses off. “My nephew – Emert likes this kind of thing.”

“Emert? I don’t think I know him.”

Frank laughed. “No reason you should.”

“I knew your Molly,” the woman said, but her expression was lost among the folds.

“Did you,” Frank said. “Must have been a while ago. Emert’s never known Carvers End. He’s only lived in America.” As he said it, he realised he didn’t know if it were true, and grew first rattled, then indignant. He’d taken the woman for a stranger, but she knew things about him, and talked as though she’d earned her curiosity.

“Oh, how wonderful,” she was saying. “Do you see him often?”

“Not often, no,” he heard himself say. He wanted to ask, but the words were outsize and alarming.

She was looking up at him, bright and determined, like a bird with a breadcrumb. Frank’s cheeks were tight and the smile fell away. He was burning, suddenly. Inside. The heat of it was in his throat, and he couldn’t speak. He left her in the garden calling after him: “Hello?”

Afterwards, came a different kind of anguish. Frank was crouched by the sink stacking packages. There was a before and after to Emert’s gifts, he’d realised. These days they were gaudy baubles, flashy and boastful, but there had been a theme to the earliest of them. The holo watch, a tap-to-talk: they were invitations, weren’t they? To say more. The lad had sent him all the pieces of a conversation, and he’d packed them away. He couldn’t say why, not credibly.

Frank tipped the holo watch out of its box, only to find its ports were no longer compatible with anything in the house. The tap-to-talk had leaked corrosive fluid across its smart, velvet case. A paired pen turned on and flashed lights up and down its barrel. How did it work – did both pens need to be active at the same time? Or would messages be stored somewhere sub-orbital, until such time as they could be delivered? He upended the watch box and wrote along its bottom edge: Hi Emert. It’s Frank. He found the delete button on the pen barrel and pressed it. Hi Emert. It’s Uncle Frank. Are you receiving me? Over! Save. Send.

The pen stayed on the high shelf, and Frank checked it every day that week. When the message counter stayed resolutely zeroed, he scratched his cheek. It was foolish to think the lad would have kept his half of the set after all this time, never mind turn it on. Frank had never written back anything of worth, never sent birthday greetings on the Atlantic Pathway. It was to the lad’s credit he’d kept in touch regardless. Lad. He probably had kids of his own by now. Frank wondered about calling him direct but the thought, too, went to the high shelf. In the end, he had the girl in the post office pack a paperweight and send it with one of the orbital carriers.

Heavy snowfall, beautiful and blinding on the peaks, severed the high roads. Christmas came and went and, for the first time, there was no gift from Emert. Frank built a snow replica of the farmhouse in the yard. The shingles were strips of bark, and he sank a terracotta pot for the well. With his glasses on, the little house sparkled merrily, as though its residents ran through the rooms with candles and torches. By the time the depot van edged up the track, it was a grey lump, its chimney collapsed and the porch a gaping mouth. There was no package from Emert, and the paperweight, having ridden the clouds, was returned unopened: “Declined By Weight. Letters Forwarded At Discretion.”

Emert, like most folk, had what they called an Always Address, a digital code that forwarded mail, messages, and phone calls to the recipient, wherever they were – but those services ran on efficiency, not pick-and-choose. And why shouldn’t Emert accept Frank’s gifts, if he thought to send them? Where could he possibly be that only the thinnest of words could reach him?

Eventually, he tapped Emert’s AA code into the screen in the kitchen. To his surprise, it didn’t divert to a profile page or voicemail, but began dialling out. Frank took the call. Afterwards, he sat at the table and watched Bow Head Crag in its red-and-gold finery. Even without the glasses, it was a kaleidoscope, a wonder, but Frank’s thoughts circled back to the call. It had been answered by a company called HeartSent: “Gifts for all occasions, all price points, all over the world.”

They wouldn’t tell him much, but the bones of it were enough. The earliest gifts, with their handwritten letters, had doubtless come from Emert direct. Later, to his credit, he’d wanted to keep it up – but who has the time these days? So he’d delegated the task to a subscription service, and then it was no job at all.

Did it matter? Lying in bed, Frank said it didn’t. He’d not asked for gifts, and had neither use nor space for them. He’d not asked for a pen pal either, and the lad was a stranger.

“So I’m spared the fuss,” he told Molly, but in the dark, his cheeks burned for all the letters sent. End-to-end, the words wouldn’t fill a sheet of paper, but they were his own, at least.

The glasses were on the night stand, and when he put them on, the bed drifted, oak dark, beneath a sapphire sea. There were stars down here, and pearls floating against the coving.

“You’d prefer the mountain,” Frank murmured, shutting the glasses in their case, “plain and as it comes.”

Emert’s parcel came in the morning. Frank left it on the side with the others, and trudged down Little How, his face turned over the valley. When he reached the stile, he followed the dry stone wall a little way and, finding a gap between the slabs, pushed the silver case inside.

He called on the low houses, but the woman wasn’t in the garden. He knocked twice and she didn’t answer. It fussed Frank, who had no credible reason for coming down. He found a scrap of paper in his pocket, and thought to leave a note. But saying what? He huffed his breath and grew hot. “You weren’t in,” he wrote, and signed it “Frank.” He was tucking it under the door when it opened.

“Is it you?” she asked. She was in sandals again, and slow on her feet. Her hands had a rhythm of their own.

“Your grass needs doing,” Frank said.

She looked at him side-on, uncertain. Frank took off his jacket and set it by the step.

“Oh, how nice,” she said at last. And she smiled, burnished from the inside, as though she glimmered and glowed.

Hello readers, sorry it’s been so long since I last posted. Life got away from me – you know what it’s like, one minute it’s September and then you blink, and it’s Christmas!

Anyway, I thought I’d post a very special recipe to start the year. Yes, I know it’s almost spring already, but now that all the winter festivities are long behind us and the weather here is still a bit too cold and miserable for my liking, I figured we needed something to warm us up.

Now, I’m going to be honest with you here, and it feels a little embarrassing to admit at my age, but I’ve never been very good with spicy food. My Darren was very much a meat-and-potatoes man, and we never even went out for a curry. Ironically, it wasn’t until he couldn’t eat any food that he started craving the stuff. Funny how the human mind works!

But anyway, I decided it’s a new year, new me, and technically I am a single woman these days so I can eat anywhere I want to. Seeing as I didn’t have any plans for New Year’s I thought I would treat myself, and booked a table at a local Indian restaurant that had just opened down the road. The staff are lovely there, I would recommend it, but they did offer to place a large teddy at the table so I wouldn’t be eating alone. I told them no –  I would actually die from the embarrassment of being a fifty-year-old woman eating with a humongous teddy bear, but they weren’t to know that.

I ordered the tikka paneer as I’ve never really liked the taste of a lot of meat and I’ve always enjoyed the sound of paneer. As my long-time readers know, I’m a big cheese fan! However, as I was eating it, while it was delicious, it was much hotter than I anticipated. My nose started streaming a little, and somewhere in trying to deal with that I must have dabbed my eyes with some of the sauce still on my fingers, because there I was, crying in the middle of the restaurant.

It’s then that I heard a voice next to me.

“Are you okay?”

There was a gentleman around my age, who was sitting at the table beside me.

“Oh yes, I’ve just got a bit of sauce in my eye.” I told him, hoping I couldn’t be more embarrassed than I was.

“Oh I’ve done that before. It makes me look like I’ve just been watching Titanic!” He laughed before handing me a napkin. “At least your eye will taste great now though.”

“What?”

“Never mind. It was a silly joke.” Then he looked a little embarrassed, and I felt bad then. He was just trying to make me feel better.

“Thank you. I’d best wash this out before I have to wink at everyone in this restaurant.”

“You don’t know, some people in this restaurant might like it!”

 It was my turn to laugh.

“Not from me, they wouldn’t!”

“You don’t know that.”

I didn’t know how to reply to that, but at this point, I really did need to wash my eye out, so I went to the bathroom. When I returned, my new friend’s lady friend had returned to his table and they were talking. I finished the rest of the meal dry-eyed once more, although as I got up to go, I could have sworn the gentleman winked at me. I headed home, finished an unopened bottle of Cremant I had originally bought for me and Darren’s pearl anniversary, and fell asleep watching the Hootenanny.

However, despite the burning of my tear ducts, I had enjoyed the flavour of the tikka, so a week or so later, as I was doing my shopping in town, I walked past a Thai restaurant I didn’t recognise and decided to go in. This time I ordered the Tom Yum soup – how far wrong can you go if it has Yum in the name, surely?

I took my first sip, and true to the name it had the most incredible flavour. However, a second later, I felt familiar flames kick past the back of the throat. It was so tasty I couldn’t help myself from having more and more spoonfuls, but soon my entire mouth felt like it was ablaze. I was about to order my second Thai Iced Tea (which is also very good, I can recommend) when I saw a familiar face just sit down on one of the tables opposite.

“The saucy lady!”

“Excuse me?” I asked between coughs.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise how that would sound until I said it out loud.”  The gentleman from the Indian restaurant was smiling apologetically at me. “We met on New Year’s Eve, didn’t we?”

I nodded between another gulp of iced tea. He offered a hand, but I wiped my hand on my napkin first.

“Just to be on the safe side. We can’t both be crying again.”

He nodded.

“Very wise. My name is Jay. What is yours?”

I gave him my name and he looked back to his table.

“I don’t suppose you’d want any company would you?” He asked me. “Although if you just want to finish your soup in peace, that’s fine too.”

I took a long breath out of my nose (the soup was not getting any less spicy).

“Is your…friend not joining you today?” I had to ask – after all I didn’t want to be some form of accidental home wrecker.

“No, no. Just me. Since my wife passed away I tend to eat most of my meals by myself, so it’s nice to have company.” He looked so very sad for a moment before putting on a smile again. “Also, someone to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre if it all goes wrong!” He joked.

I offered him a seat before taking a large gulp.

“I actually learned a way you can perform the manoeuvre on yourself…” And so I told him about the videos I watched (which you can watch at this link here), and then we ended up talking in that restaurant for almost four hours! You’ll be glad to know we left a hefty tip of course, and then I had to get the bus home. We swapped phone numbers before he hugged me and sent me on my way at the bus stop.

I think I must have had some remainder of the soup or something on my hands again when I was on the bus, because I started crying again. It’s funny how that happens, right? Darren would have hated that place. He would have complained about needing some PeptoBismol the whole way home, then spent the rest of the evening locked in the bathroom. But instead the house was quiet and empty, and I had the bathroom all to myself. He always said we should have gotten two bathrooms instead of two bedrooms, but it makes no difference now.

I received a text from Jay the very next day.

“I don’t know about you, but eating out all these times is getting quite pricy. I don’t suppose you’d like to come over for some home cooking? I’m very good at enchiladas, although I promise we can make it less spicy.”

Part of me wondered if I should offer to cook, as I am supposedly the food blogger. I could make something milder like a casserole, but then I remembered this is a New Year, New Me.

“Enchiladas sound great, I’ll be there!” I told him.

Now, a top rule that my mother taught me, is that you never turn up to a guest’s house empty-handed.  My mother’s go-to was a bottle of wine, but while she may have drunk like a fish, these days you never know if someone is sober. I certainly wouldn’t judge them if they were. So I brought a jar of my homemade onion chutney (you can find the recipe here – it’s vegan!) and also a bunch of carnations. I read somewhere that the only time men get flowers is their funeral. And people deserve more than a ghastly technicolour wreath from their cousins in the shape of “Dazza”.

Jay had a lovely home, with two large dogs and two bedrooms and bathrooms (Darren would have been impressed).  He was still finishing up cooking when I arrived, steam billowing and condensing against every window. He very kindly asked me if I wanted to taste the sauce to check if the heat level was okay. I told him it was perfect. As he finished up, of course, I did a little snooping around. There was just one photo on the mantelpiece, a noticeably younger version of Jay and a woman who looked a similar age to him. That must have been his wife. They were standing in front of a mountain somewhere, surrounded by lush green fields.

“That was taken in Switzerland.” He said from behind me. I nearly leapt out of my skin. “I believe in Zermatt.”

“That’s very fancy. I’ve never been further than Halifax. Are you a big hiker then?” I asked.

“God no. I complained the entire time we were walking. I think she nearly threw me in a lake once or twice.”

“Why did you do it?”

He shrugged.

“It made her happy. Pinot?”

He brought out a bottle of wine and we chatted about all sorts. We both loved reading and hated that the volume on TVs is too loud these days. He loves action films, I’m more of a period drama woman, although we can both agree that Top Gun and the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice are excellent to watch on a lazy Sunday. We also both agreed that our ideal holiday would be lying in the sun somewhere. Just all trivial things. It was lovely. It wasn’t until we finished eating that I asked him what made him choose enchiladas. He told me his wife hated them.

“It’s funny when they’re gone, you suddenly have the freedom to do all this stuff you could never do with them, right?”

He paused. I replied.

“But you don’t want to do any of it, do you?”

“No.” He whispered. “I would never have enchiladas again if it meant she didn’t have to go through what she went through.”

I took his hand.

“I know how you feel.”

For a long time I thought I knew what my future looked like. And then the last year completely destroyed that and it feels like I’ve been staring at a big icy plain with nowhere to go and no direction to start in. But there I was, sitting in the cosy warmth of this stranger’s couch, holding his big rough palm and chilli still burning on my lips. It certainly wasn’t a terrible start.

I have to say, I wanted to thank all of you readers. I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to update you all. I know these intros were always way too long and most of you just skip to the recipe, but please know that I didn’t forget you at all. Having this little corner of the internet where I could speak freely and tell you all about my days really got me through the last year.

So you’ll be glad to know that Jay drove me home the next morning and we decided to stay in touch. I’ve been going to the cinema and the library a lot more lately, as well as trying lots of lovely new restaurants which I will tell you all about in good time. I also now see the benefit of having two bathrooms. Sorry Darren. And now I’ve finally got my first passport, I’ve been looking at holiday deals online. If anyone has any good culinary city break recommendations, especially for spicy food, me and Jay are all ears.

In the meantime however, here is Jay’s recipe for enchiladas, kindly shared with his permission. Serves two, but simply double the amount to serve more. And of course you can adjust the heat level, but I like mine extra spicy!