It started snowing outside Charlbury, so thanks to the British rail network being unable to cope with even the slightest fluctuation in weather, Harry’s train is an hour late into Paddington. He should have listened to Anna and got the earlier one, but he couldn’t bear to leave the quiet warmth of Charlotte’s house, the frost catching in the corners of the windows like cobwebs while Alfie snored in his bed by the AGA.
He’s going to be late to meet Charles at seven, he realises as he checks his watch. He wouldn’t be if he didn’t have to go back to his flat and change (a pointless ordeal given that he won’t be dressed for long), but Charles is a creature of habit. He likes Harry in the black Prada suit, likes him to wear Floris and the cufflinks he gave him with the wrong initials engraved on them, so he won’t approve of his skinny jeans and jumper.
It’s almost six o’clock so Harry needs to move his arse, which won’t be easy. Trying to get out of Paddington in rush hour is impossible at the best of times, let alone two days before Christmas. But Harry manages to maneuver his way through the clumps of giggling friends in Santa hats and the grey looking businessmen sneering at them with Scroogian contempt. He even has time to call his mother. Actually, he doesn’t, but he’s aching to hear her voice so when she answers, the bells on her Christmas earrings shivering as she does, Harry smiles for the first time in days.
‘Sweetheart!’ she sings and he can almost smell the mulled wine.
‘I just wanted to let you know that I’m back in London and it’s snowing.’
‘Typical!’ She tuts. ‘As soon as I leave the country, there’s a white Christmas.’
Harry never thought about that and his heart does that thing again, where it stops dead in his chest as though someone’s kicked it. Not because he’s thinking about the things he should be thinking – snowball fights with Gemma and building a snowman in the garden with a red chili mouth – but because he’s thinking about Zayn’s wedding. Until then he thought getting married on Christmas day was a ridiculous notion, the sort of thing little girls daydream about as they twirl around with pillowcases on the back of their heads. But as he walks towards the exit and sees the soft flutter of snow in the distance, he can’t help but think how beautiful it will be, Zayn in his tux with snowflakes in his eyelashes. And the thought hurts, hurts so much that he misses a step, because as if she didn’t already have it all, now she’ll have snow as well.
‘It won’t last until Wednesday,’ Harry says, stepping around someone with a trolleyful of luggage. ‘It’ll be gone by tomorrow.’
‘Bah humbug!’
‘What do you care? You’re not here to see it.’
‘And neither will you.’
He can see her wagging his finger at him and that makes him smile again.
‘I’ll be on the first flight out of Stanstead tomorrowmorning, I promise.’
‘Promise promise?’
‘Promise promise,’ Harry says and he means it. He’ll fucking walk to France if he has to. There’s no way he can be in London for the wedding.
‘You’re not going to get too drunk with your editor tonight?’
His stomach twists painfully. ‘Of course not.’
‘Because I’m thrilled that you sold your book for that much money, but I don’t want you doing an Ernest Hemingway on me!’
She laughs, but Harry can’t. ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ he says, forcing himself to laugh in case she notices, but it sounds wrong – broken – his stomach twisting again at the lie. ‘With all of this crack I’m doing, I don’t have much of an appetite for booze.’
‘You’d better be joking, Harry.’
He laughs for real then. ‘See you tomorrow, Mum.’
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Keep the Car Running (Zarry AU)
FanficBelieve none of what you hear and only half of what you see. That’s what his father always tells him with that smile of his, the one that says, I’ll tell you that much, but the rest will cost you. Harry never knew what he meant, but he gets it now t...
