Ours is the Winter: a gripping story of love, friendship and adventure. Laurie Ellingham
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could have gone in Erica’s place?
If only he knew.
The shhh of the boiler humming into life spurred Erica to keep moving. Six a.m. She had to get out of here. Erica shifted the weight of her rucksack further onto her shoulder and, avoiding the creaks, she zigzagged silently down the stairs.
Daylight slipped through the porthole glass in the front door and the gaps in the living room curtains. The light illuminated the polished wood floor stretching across their open-plan living room – the colourful plastic toys heaped to one side, and the empty wine glasses on the coffee table.
Erica slipped her feet into the fluffy wool of her thermal socks and stuffed them into her boots. She caught her reflection in the mirror and smiled. For once it wasn’t the lines crinkling around her green eyes that Erica focused on, it was the excitement dancing inside them. She touched the brittle edges of her dark red hair where it skimmed her shoulders.
Did she really look any different than when she was twenty-nine? Her hair was a shade darker, thanks to the addition of a colour at the salon she visited every six weeks, and no thanks to the appearance of more than a few grey hairs. Her hair and skin were a little duller than she remembered. A trick of the light perhaps, or just a decade of long hours making her way up the career ladder to the Senior Producer of daytime news at Channel 6.
Erica blinked and for the smallest of seconds she saw her mother’s face staring back from the mirror. Erica shook her head and stepped close enough to see the spattering of freckles across her nose. The past ten years had disappeared in the blink of an eye. She’d got married, she’d bought her first house, she’d had a child, and yet time seemed to be perpetually on fast-forward. She was still the same person though. Twenty-nine or thirty-nine, she was still the same.
It grated her insides that not everyone could it, see her. Was she just a number now? Erica had just as much ambition as she’d had ten years ago. She was just as motivated, just as hard-working. She was just as smart; except now, she was experienced too. Erica was good at her job. One of the best. That counted for something. At least it should. More than any number counted, anyway.
Erica sighed and with a final glance in the mirror she stepped to the front door.
The old wood stuck in its frame for a moment as she tugged the handle. Then it opened with a shudder, blasting fresh cold air onto her face, and with it came a burst of adrenaline. She was going. Finally.
‘Hang on,’ Henry’s voice shouted from above her.
Something dropped inside Erica’s stomach. Could she pretend she hadn’t heard? Erica pulled the door open wider and made another step towards freedom. She didn’t want to leave with last night’s argument hanging between them, but she didn’t want to say goodbye either. She hated goodbyes. Besides, what difference did it make if she left now? If she stayed they’d only argue again.
Who’s fault is that? The voice came from nowhere. His voice in her head, or her own conscience, she couldn’t tell.
‘Erica, wait,’ her husband bellowed.
She sighed as Henry’s blue-check pyjama bottoms appeared at the top of the stairs. Too late now.
Erica pushed the front door shut and leaned against it for a beat before fixing a smile on her face and turning around.
Isla unleashed a squeal of delight at Henry’s jiggling run down the stairs. The wide-eyed joy of their thirteen-month-old daughter melted Erica’s heart and suddenly it didn’t matter if she argued with Henry; Erica got to see, hold, be with her daughter one last time.
Isla was wearing a bubble-gum pink Baby-gro covered with red strawberries – one of a dozen garish gifts Henry’s mother had given them in the last year. The curve of a smile poked out from either side of Isla’s orange dummy and spread across her chubby cheeks.
‘Sorry, did I wake you?’ Erica asked, allowing her rucksack to slip from her shoulder and drop to the floor with a light thud.
‘No, but you should have done. I thought your flight wasn’t until this afternoon?’ Henry replied, reaching the hallway and shifting Isla’s weight onto his other hip before using a free hand to smooth down tufts of his wayward hair.
‘It’s not, but I thought I’d pop into the office first and make sure everything is set for my week away,’ she lied, lifting Isla out of Henry’s arms and into her own. ‘Anyway, you know I hate goodbyes.’ She buried her face in the creases of Isla’s neck, as much to breathe in the precious scent of her daughter as to hide her face from Henry.
He smiled then, the tension in his face gone. ‘Have breakfast with us first. Isla will be grouchy all day if you go without a proper goodbye.’
Erica glanced down at the shining eyes of their daughter, staring across at Henry’s face with a mix of wonder and adoration, and doubted she’d be missed.
‘Erica,’ Henry said. The one word spoken just so – half pleading, half warning – in the way only her husband seemed able to do.
She nodded and wriggled out of her boots. So much for freedom. So much for escape.
***
The house – a four-bed Victorian terrace on a tree-lined street in Walthamstow – was the perfect family home, according to the estate agent who’d sold it to them eight years ago. And with the kitchen extension they’d added, it really was perfect.
Even with Isla’s toy collection growing larger, noisier, and more colourful by the week, the high ceilings and large rooms still had a spacious feel to them. Erica loved their home; loved being a tube ride away from the city during the week, and a short stroll to the park and high street at the weekend. The house didn’t fill her with the same sense of peace she got from sinking into the chair behind her desk for another long day in the studio, but it was close.
In the kitchen, spring sunshine fought through the clouds, and streamed like spotlights through the French doors that led into a long narrow garden. The bottoms of the glass doors were smeared with Isla’s handprints and the oval shape of her lips where she’d kissed the glass. Erica fought the urge to dig out the window cleaning spray and wipe them away.
Fifteen minutes, thirty max, and she was gone. The smudges would no doubt be back again when she returned. Cleaning them now would only piss Henry off, and she didn’t want that.
‘Mummy, Daddy, woof, porri,’ Isla gabbled, pointing to the high chair.
‘That’s right, honey, porridge.’ Erica smiled, placing Isla’s feet to the floor a metre away from the high chair. ‘Go on,’ she said as Isla let go of Erica’s arms and stood statue-like for a moment. ‘You can do it, baby. Go on, walk.’
Isla lifted a foot from the floor and held it in the air for a moment before her legs gave way and she dropped onto her bottom with a soft thud.
‘She’ll do it when she’s ready,’ Henry said, scooping Isla up into his arms and strapping her into her high chair.
She’ll do it when you give her the chance, Erica thought. ‘I know,’ she said instead.
Erica stepped to the coffee machine, moving around Henry as he heated porridge for Isla, and she made the coffee.
‘I’m sorry about last night,’ Henry said, stopping for a moment and touching the side of Erica’s arm. ‘I didn’t mean to pick a fight. Too much wine and … we’re going to miss you, is all.’ He shrugged.
She nodded. ‘I know. I’ll miss you both too.’
‘I still don’t know why you’re going,’ Henry said, his tone light and devoid of the anger she’d heard last night.
‘Because I said I would. And anyway, it’s not for me – it’s for Molly.’
‘Seriously, Erica. After the way she treated you at the funeral, you don’t owe her anything. When was the last time you even spoke to each other?’
An