Hannah's Angel is Still on the Go.

As usual at this time of a weekday morning, the pavement outside the local Primary School was heaving with mothers having just dropped off their darlings; or anyway, heaving with those mothers who didn’t see fit to choke up the road with their Land Rovers and 4x4s. It was a very chilly late December morning; the 20th to be precise and the last day of the School term. The steel barrier outside the school and the tops of the railings surrounding the school playground were still rimed with frost and the gossiping mothers, gloved, scarved and hatted against the biting wind, exhaled thin wisps of vapour as they chatted to each other.

Jane scanned the sea of faces and, sure enough, her friend Morna was there, dressed and made up immaculately as always and sporting a magnificent fur coat and matching hat. She was standing a little aside from the other women and staring wistfully towards the school, watching the children file inside under the harassed supervision of an underdressed teacher who was shivering from the cold and vainly trying to keep warm by hugging herself.

All the glass in the car was steaming up and Jane leant over and wound down the passenger window. “Morna,” she called out above the nattering horde. Morna dragged her gaze towards the voice, with an almost palpable show of reluctance and stared myopically at the idling car.

“I wish she’d wear her bloody glasses,” thought Jane. “The woman’s as blind as a bat but she’s always been far too vain to be seen out in public wearing them.”

She sighed and called out again. “Over here Morna. It’s me, Jane.”

Morna gave a weak smile and walked over to her friend’s car. “Hi, Jane. I’ve just dropped Hannah off and I wondered if I’d see you. I didn’t see your Johnny though.”

“No,” Jane said noncommittally as she didn’t want to explain his absence. “Have you time for a coffee and a chat?”

“Of course, dear. Why don’t we go to my place. I’ve been baking and I’d like your opinion of my mince pies. Hannah and her father haven’t touched them and I’m worried that I’ve overdone the port a little too much.”

“Hop in then,” Jane offered, pushing open the passenger door and sweeping maps and other bits and pieces from the seat onto the already cluttered floor. “Please forgive the mess. I’ve been rushing around most of the week and haven’t had a chance to tidy it up.”

“That’s fine, really,” Morna said as she eased herself carefully into the car. The look on her face belied the words but Jane was already pulling away from the kerb and failed to notice the air of distaste.

“So how have things been with you?” Jane enquired as she drove slowly down the tree-lined suburban lane that led up to the school.

“Oh, fine really,” Morna replied in a distracted manner. She was idly watching a pair of women chatting amiably outside a small shop on a street corner. Both had very small children grasped firmly in gloved hands, presumably to prevent them rushing headlong into the road; or perhaps rather, into the sweet shop.

“Of course, the lead up to Christmas is a very busy time with a small child,” she continued and gave again her signature weak smile; the one that dimpled her cheeks but always somehow failed to reach her eyes. “With Tom so busy at work, it’s very difficult to do all the shopping necessary. Sometimes I think I really ought to learn to drive.”

“Yes, you should,” Jane said firmly. “It would give you greater freedom during the day for running errands and such.”

“Ye-es, perhaps,” Morna seemed reluctant at the thought even though she had raised the idea. “Perhaps in the new year, after all the excitement has died down.”

The rest of the short journey was conducted in silence. Jane took the opportunity to steal several surreptitious glances at the woman beside her but Morna just stared fixedly ahead.

After less than five minutes, Jane announced in a bright tone, “Well, anyway, here we are!” She crashed the gears in her ancient Ford Fiesta and swore as she reversed into a short driveway, half-hidden between a Volvo and a new People Carrier. They were in a quiet cul-de-sac, resplendent with tall and imposing, but presently leafless, horse-chestnuts and sycamores. On either side of the street stood two-storied, detatched, mock-Georgian mansions; all identical apart from the colours of the front doors. Even the Christmas trees showing in the front windows seemed to be duplicates of each other. Jane shivered involuntarily. It was just so monotonous! The look of Morna’s house and the street outside always felt to her like a scene straight out of Stepford.

Jane followed Morna up the path to the front door and waited while the latter unlocked and opened it. “Come in then, do,” Morna said as she removed her coat and hat, hanging them on hooks in the small porch. “It’s quite warm inside so you’d better hang your coat up too.”

Jane did as she was bid and saw the sense of the suggestion as Morna opened the inner door. They were met by an assault of heat that wouldn’t have disgraced the Sahara. Jane felt prickles of sweat instantly form on her upper lip and her glasses turned opaque with fog.

“Jesus Christ, Morna,” she gasped as she rubbed desperately at her spectacles with a paper hankie that at once turned soggy. “It’s like a bloody sauna in here. How can you stand it?”

“Oh, I’ve always preferred to feel warm and as Hannah catches cold so easily, I like to keep the central heating on full blast. But please come through to the kitchen. It’s a little cooler in there, being at the back.”

As she walked through the house toward the kitchen, Jane noticed materials and dress-making paraphernalia scattered over a large table in the dining room. There was an old Singer sewing machine all set up there too.

“Have you started dress-making again, Morna?” Jane asked hopefully.

“Not really,” Morna replied and halted for a second to regard the things strewn all higgledy-piggledy across the wooden surface. She looked back at her friend with a soft smile but an unfocussed gaze; almost dreamy, Jane thought. “I’ve a few things to mend and a pair of curtains that need adjusting. However, the main thing is that I haven’t finished the costume yet. Hannah’s angel is still on the go. She’s playing the archangel Gabriel in the School Nativity play, you know.”

* * * * * * *

As Morna had said, the kitchen was a shade more temperate than the rest of the house and Jane heaved a sigh of relief as she entered. She sat on a stool and laid her palms onto the granite work-surface. That at least, was reasonably cool to the touch. She re-placed her glasses on her nose and looked around the room as Morna prepared to make coffee.

“You’ve had this re-decorated since last year, I think” Jane said, looking around her. “I like the new wall colour – a kind of soft terracotta is it? It goes really nicely with the black granite.”

“They call it ‘Sunshine Spice” apparently,” Morna replied and regarded her kitchen as though seeing it for the first time. “I had a man in to do it in the summer as Tom is so useless at DIY.”

“It’s lovely and very professionally done – you must have been pleased with it.”

“I suppose so,” Morna said in an off-hand manner, her eyes emptying of emotion as she spoke. “It needed doing anyway. But more importantly, have a mince pie and tell me what you think.” So saying, she placed a large plate before her friend on which was piled a heap of lightly browned pastries, liberally dusted with fine sugar. There must have been at least a dozen of the things and Jane baulked at the sight. “Well, bang goes the diet,” she thought philosophically as she picked one up and bit into the buttery crust.

“Mmmm,” she murmured, needing no pretence of politeness or manufactured appreciation. Morna certainly knew how to bake. These were perfect. “Beautiful as always, Morna. You’re a bloody genius – do you know that?”

For the first time that day, Morna smiled properly. Compared to her earlier distracted or forced efforts, it was like a clear and bright ray of light. Jane was suddenly reminded of the breezy, vivacious young woman she had once known and a silent tear formed, unwonted, in her eye.

“I’m so glad you like them,” Morna almost gushed. “Would you like to take away a batch for little Johnny and Bill? I’ve plenty and we’ll never get through them all. I do so abhor waste.”

“Yes, please. That would be lovely.”

* * * * * * *

It was approaching four o’clock before Jane was finally able to take leave of her friend and it was already quite dark. It was getting even colder too; frost was beginning to form on the cars parked down the road and Jane had thought for a brief moment that it had snowed. But no such luck. She’d only ever experienced one really severe winter in her life when she’d been a little girl in London and had lost hope of ever seeing a proper White Christmas. Even that year, which she still remembered fondly, it had only started on Boxing Day.

She unlocked her car and opened the driver door with some difficulty; it was wickedly iced up and tended to stick in the best of weathers anyway. She climbed into the car and turned the ignition while saying a silent prayer. “Yes!” she proclaimed in triumph as the engine started on the third attempt. She turned up the heating to the fullest extent and lit a much needed cigarette while she waited for the vehicle to reach a level above its current, almost arctic temperature.

While she smoked, she thought about her friend. She would generally see her a few times during the year and they would usually chat amiably enough but ever, as the year wore on towards Christmas, Morna would become morose and her eyes increasingly vacant. Jane now always made a special effort to see her in December.

But today? She had to admit that Morna’s behaviour had shocked her and the poignant little scene on the dining room table most of all.

“It’s such a shame,” Jane said to herself. “Morna used to be so full of life.”

She wound down the car window and discarded her spent cigarette. As she let out the clutch and pulled away, she thought about that awful night, twenty five years before, when pretty little Hannah and her father had been the victims of what the police had glibly described as a road traffic accident. A drunk driver had lost control of his flash, new car and mounted the pavement just outside the school. Two lives lost in a moment … and a third condemned to a lingering destruction, year upon pitiless year.