Zinnia, supposedly helping Lily decorate The Three Fishes, had so far done no more than fidget with a fistful of silver tinsel and give Lily earache. ‘We’re your family!’ Zinnia declared, shoving her fingers through her chestnut hair. ‘What you’re doing could hurt Patsie and Roma.’
Lily climbed on a stool and began to feed the string of lights through hooks above the bar. ‘They understand it’s my decision. You know this, Zin. Let’s not press “repeat” on the conversation.’
Zinnia bulldozed on. ‘Aren’t we enough for you? You and I grew up sharing a bedroom! We’re sisters—’
‘And you’re the loveliest sister in the world.’ Lily hoped popping in a positive note would distract Zinnia. She jumped down, scraped her stool towards the next few hooks, gave Zinnia a hug then clambered up again. ‘How about twisting that tinsel around the ivy swags along the mantelpiece?’
‘Lily!’ Zinnia tossed the tinsel onto the polished wooden bar. ‘I know you! I’m where you come from. I understand how it feels when people think we’re weird because we come from a single-sex family.’
‘I know,’ Lily agreed gently. ‘But there’s more to my life than that. It’s the part you don’t share that’s the problem, isn’t it?’ Plus the fact that a couple of years ago Lily had visited the village to find her half-brother and had ended up applying for a job in his pub, finding somewhere to live in Middledip – and here she still was. Zinnia was particularly upset by that.
Zinnia didn’t offer a direct reply to the question but her voice softened. ‘You’ve completed your mission and met him. You should either tell him the truth or leave the poor guy in peace.’
By ‘he’ Zinnia meant Harrison Tubb of course, almost universally known as Tubb from the pub, and her stomach clenched at the idea of him discovering the truth before Lily was ready. If she ever was. She left the Christmas lights dangling and slid off the stool to stroke Zinnia’s arm. ‘I’ve completed half my mission and I’ll complete the other half next month,’ she pointed out, with a little leap of excitement that there was a half-brother yet to meet. ‘I understand that you’re concerned I’m somehow trying to leave our family – which I’m not – but my relationship with our mums isn’t affected by where I’m living or who I mix with. If my relationship with you is suffering then it’s because you’re letting it.’
Zinnia tried another tack. ‘You’re worth so much more than working in a crappy village pub.’
‘It’s not crappy.’ Lily moved her stool along again.
‘In the two years since you came back from Spain you’ve been wasting your time in this village. You don’t seem to want to be near your family—’ Zinnia halted, as if realising she might be painting herself into a corner. ‘We’re your real family, Lily,’ she clarified.
‘Families have more than one branch.’ Lily hooked up the end of the string and got down to judge whether it was hanging evenly.
Zinnia’s dark eyes saddened. ‘Just get telling him over with so it’s not hanging over us all. I feel like telling him myself—’
‘That would affect our relationship. It’s up to me when, and if, I think the time’s right for me to spill the beans.’ Lily had to fight to keep anxiety from her voice, newly aware that Zinnia, through calling at the pub to see Lily, knew Tubb and could actually have blabbed Lily’s secret at any time. ‘You don’t agree with the way I’m doing things, but this is my business.’ Not yours hung unspoken in the air.
Before Zinnia could argue further, a calm voice came from behind the bar. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’
Both Lily and Zinnia swung around. Lily forced a laugh. ‘You made me jump, Isaac. This is my sister, Zinnia. She’s helping me with the Christmas decorations. Zin, this is Isaac O’Brien the relief manager Tubb appointed while he was away.’
Isaac, his eyes as brown as apple seeds, hair several shades darker, a single small gold ring in his ear, reached across the wooden countertop to shake Zinnia’s hand. His eyes returned to Lily. ‘I didn’t realise you were coming in this afternoon to do this.’
Lily flushed. She’d learned enough about Isaac in the past fortnight to know he was politely asking why she hadn’t cleared it with him. He’d come from a trendy venue where he’d managed dozens of staff and probably brought in an outside company to put up Christmas decorations. ‘Janice asked me if I’d do it as she’s in Switzerland. They’re normally up at the beginning of November and it’s the seventh already … I assumed she or Tubb had communicated with you.’ Janice had a pretty free hand at the village pub and becoming an item with Tubb last Christmas had only elevated her status.
‘We open in less than an hour,’ he pointed out.
‘Right.’ Lily covered up a flash of alarm that so much of the interval between closing after lunch and reopening in the evening had been eaten up. ‘We only have little trees on the bar rather than a great big thing so the rest won’t take long.’
‘Thanks.’ He gave them a smile then turned and headed in the direction of what was usually referred to as ‘the back’, the area of the ground floor that encompassed a place to hang coats, the cleaning supplies cupboard and the mixers store, along with doors into the beer cellar, kitchen, car park, upstairs accommodation and staff loos. There was also a desk in an alcove where Isaac’s laptop often rested.
‘Wow,’ Zinnia breathed, eyebrows waggling as the sound of his footsteps died away. ‘He’s easy on the eye. Tubb will never look quite the same.’
Lily pictured Tubb’s wiggle of hair at the front and his smile that turned down instead of up. ‘Yes, Isaac’s hot,’ she agreed in a low voice as she dragged one of the small Christmas trees out of its box. She now had less than sixty minutes to get the bar to a presentable state and if Isaac’s appearance had diverted Zinnia from her crusade to reshape Lily’s life it might be a good thing. ‘His last job was in a hipster lounge in Peterborough. He’s reserved, but he has a way of getting people to do things.’
Zinnia gave an exaggerated wink. ‘He could get me to do all kinds of things—’
‘Shh!’ Lily hissed, hoping devoutly that Isaac wouldn’t overhear. ‘That’s my boss! And what about George? Remember him? Your boyfriend?’
Grinning, her earlier mood obviously forgotten, Zinnia shrugged. ‘I was just … noticing.’
Lily grabbed Zinnia’s jacket and bundled it into her arms. ‘Come on, I’ll show you out of the back door. I’m not sure Isaac appreciated you being here out of hours.’
‘I haven’t done the tinsel,’ Zinnia protested as Lily opened the counter flap and waved her through.
‘I’ll do it.’
Zinnia paused for one last time. ‘How’s Tubb doing, by the way? Heart failure’s no joke.’
Lily softened. ‘OK, Janice says, but still a worry. Getting lots of rest, like the doctor ordered, omitting alcohol and fat and stuff from his diet.’ Tubb had shocked the village last summer with breathless turns and alarming swelling to his legs and stomach. Janice had got him into hospital and he’d come out with a daily regime of drugs.
For a while they’d managed
