In From The Cold

Tuesday 2/2

As Harry makes his way back through the main street, up ahead he can see the gently swaying figures of two older women, one in a thick blue coat and the other in a fur hat. He’d recognise those items of clothing if he were stranded on a mountain in the Himalayas and they were coming up the path to meet him.

“Bairbre!” he calls, hurrying forwards, and the woman in the blue coat turns. “Aislin!” The woman in the fur hat follows suit.

“Harry!” Bairbre replies brightly, her weathered cheeks spreading into one of the most genuine smiles Harry knows a person to be capable of. But Bairbre has always been like that, warm and mothering and always willing to slip Harry a free cupcake. She owned the bakery that Ed worked at, though she had retired from actually serving in the shop front a year after Harry had moved to town.

“Hello my love,” Aislin adds, reaching out to clasp Harry’s free hand as he balances the crate of bread rolls on his hip. Where Bairbre was sunshine and smiles, Aislin was the quieter of the pair, a little sharper and her tongue a little quicker. But the two had been lifelong friends since childhood, something of a package deal, even before their husbands had passed on.

“I’ve just been to round up some of your finest goods for my dinner table,” Harry says, and Bairbre chuckles.

“That Ed is a marvellous baker,” she says, and Harry beams, because the word ‘marvellous’ really only suits one type of person, and that type of person is Bairbre. “Tell me my dear, have you heard word from Eleanor?”

Harry shakes his head, suppressing an amused smile at the slight look of disappointment from the ladies. They’d no doubt been hoping for a scoop; Harry had been close to Eleanor for several years now, and while Ennis had a local paper, for those in the loop it was worthless compared to the speed at which Bairbre and Aislin acquire their knowledge.

“If I do, you’ll be the first to know,” he says. “But I’m sure you’ve heard about the reviewer that’s come to stay?”

Aislin grins, wiry intelligence dancing in her grey eyes. “Bairbre wanted to come to dinner at your inn tonight, just to investigate.”

“Oh hush,” Baibre says, swatting at Aislin. “We wouldn’t do that to you, my sweet. We don’t want to, what’s the term – cramp your style?”

“My what?” Harry asks, confused, but Bairbre just reaches out and pats him gently on the cheek.

“Say hi to Zayn for us, love.”

The two of them shuffle across the street and vanish down a residential lane before Harry can even think of a reply. It’s possible that the two women who’ve been his adoptive grandmothers in this town are on to him before anything has even begun. How they possibly could be, Harry hasn’t a clue.

*

Liam’s out the front of the inn when Harry returns. It’s lucky, really, because someone locked the gate on him and Harry is about to upend an entire crate of rolls on himself trying to jiggle the latch open.

Liam drops the weeds he’s pulling and rushes to help, taking the crate from Harry as though Harry was a damsel in distress. Which is probably distressingly close to the truth, but Harry is just going to bypass that.

“You can put the rolls down,” Harry says, but Liam shakes his head.

“Would be a shame if you’d made it all the way back with them only for them to end up on the garden path, Harry.”

To any random person, Liam’s earnest tone would be enough to make them think he was genuinely trying to help. But Harry knows Liam well enough that he can see the glint in his eye, the slight up-tilt of inflection on his sentence that means Liam is mocking him. So Harry responds the only way he really can one-up Liam in such a situation: he brings his fist down hard on Liam’s shoulder.