If Helen kept her eyes closed, she was still in Paris, in the tiny second floor flat with its high ceilings and creaky plumbing. The wallpaper, creamy white with birds and climbing vines picked out in blue, adorned the panels of the doors and wardrobes too. Pretty, no other purpose.

She would jump out of bed, unhook the wooden shutters and throw the balcony doors open to the hazy morning sunshine, the distant hum of the rush hour, interrupted now and again by the high-pitched whine of mopeds. The sound of youth, of hope, excitement. All she had to do was hop on the back.

Who was she kidding? It was years since she stepped over the seat of a moped and she’d never been a fan. She could count the trips on one hand. The Metro was so much easier and didn’t wreck your clothes. And as for leaping across the room, well, her back put paid to that. All those hours bent double over a cutting table, it was surprising she didn’t have a hump.

Even if her bed was the warmest place to be, she couldn’t stay there all day. She would not give in to that, she thought, gritting her teeth and pulling herself upright. She eased her legs over the edge of the divan, placing each foot on the worn green carpet, waiting for the aches to settle, averting her eyes from the yellow-stained walls, the legacy of decades of her mother’s smoking.

Maybe no-one rode mopeds around the 2nd arrondissement anymore, anyway. Perhaps it was all bicycles like the boys in the car park three floors below her, the ones she saw circling like sharks when she opened her kitchen window and peered out. Not that you could open them more than 4 inches, so afraid were Haringey council of intruders climbing in. Or tenants jumping out? She was being silly. The view might be dispiriting, rows of uniform tower blocks, the occasional balcony cluttered with laundry and dying plants, but at least the sun was shining.

If she could bear to pick her way down the communal staircase, holding her breath against the stink, and run the gauntlet of the sixteen-year-olds with nothing better to do than smoke and catcall, she could escape the estate and find a pavement café where she’d sit with a cappuccino and celebrate the brightness of the morning.

The coffee was good nowadays, even if it was the same four chains duplicated wherever she went. When did everything get so bland, so samey? Labels on show, mass production, quantity over quality. She wasn’t against progress or innovation, quite the opposite, but she mourned the passing of individualism, the cult of the particular. She missed being at the cutting edge, missed having that extra ‘e’ at the end of her name. There was no artistry anymore. Designs drawn in frothed milk were as good as it got. She stirred more sugar into her cup as she did a quick sweep of the shop, always on the alert for someone who might be interested in buying her lunch. Today, or some other day.

Her mother called her a snob. She thought a girl from a council flat in Tottenham had no business dreaming of the Champs-Elysees. If she wanted to work in the rag trade, she could do it in the East End, or Soho if she must. She would never accept that Helen’s inability to compromise, to accept less than the best in herself or anyone else, had served her well. It was what made her so good at her job, so popular with clients and designers. And so crap at the rest of her life. But if she had it all to do again, she wouldn’t change a thing - in most respects. She counted the change in her purse. Enough for coffee, no croissant, and even that was pushing it.

Helen rebuttoned her jacket, scrutinising her reflection in her pocket mirror as she fixed her scarf in place, her concentration so total she almost missed the sound of her name.

Kayleigh, her neighbour, was standing just the other side of the rope barrier which separated the patrons. She was in full young mum getup - trainers, leggings and baggy striped t-shirt, hair scraped up in a bun. The child in the front, Mabel was her name, screamed and kicked as if she was being abducted. 

‘How are you, Kayleigh? How’s your mother?’ Helen asked, and not only so no-one nearby would mistake her for the young woman’s mother, or God forbid, the awful child’s grandmother.She wanted to know. She hadn’t seen either of them since the ambulance had left with Karen, blue lights flashing, two days ago.

‘Not good,’ Kayleigh said, and waited.

Helen got to her feet. She’d have to walk back with them now.

‘I need to get her home,’ said Kayleigh. ‘She’s getting worse in there.’

Helen tended to agree. Even if Karen’s return was temporary, it was important she made it home. For one thing it would silence the gossips in the neighbouring flat who’d have a field day with the notion that within minutes of Kayleigh moving back to care for her mum, she’d shipped the old dear off to a home. Tenancies of these flats, ugly as the buildings were, were like gold dust. Helen wouldn’t be one to judge her. She’d done pretty much the same, exchanging caring for her mother for a roof over her head. Eight years, she’d done, when the couture house closed, and she’d been forced home from France. Tail between her legs her mum had said, but that was far from the case.

‘Let’s make it nice for her, for when she gets back. I’ll help you,’ said Helen, as if the thought had only that moment occurred to her. ‘She’d let things go a bit. I did as much as I could, but…’

‘It hasn’t been easy,’ said Kayleigh defensively, glancing in the direction of Mabel, red-faced from screaming and rocking recklessly in her buggy.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean that,’ said Helen. Far be it from her to suggest any degree of neglect. ‘People are stubborn. They won’t ask. Did she tell you I was making her some curtains?’

‘Yeah, she mentioned it, though she said she didn’t see the point anymore.’

‘She’s feeling a bit low, that’s all. With new curtains and a lick of paint, that room will be transformed,’ said Helen. ‘And if you’re planning to stay for a while, you’ll want to brighten it up a bit. For the little one.’ She smiled, hiding her teeth and the crown that needed replacing.

They reached their block. Helen waited with Kayleigh for the lift, although usually she’d have taken the stairs.

‘Shall I get them?’ Helen said, when she stepped inside. ‘The curtains? They’re finished apart from the hem. I could measure it now.’

‘It would be a nice surprise for your mum.’

The younger woman shrugged and heaved the pram onto the landing. She unlocked her front door and manoeuvred her daughter into the sour-smelling hallway.

Helen entered her own flat and scurried into the sitting room, navy court shoes clacking on the laminate floor, to grab her box of pins and a tape measure. She retrieved the pile of carefully folded fabric from the armchair, smoothing it and clutching it to her as she paused for a moment in front of the mirror. The sooner Karen came home the better.

‘Here we are,’ Helen sang out as she picked her way along her neighbour’s hallway, navigating the mess of drying clothes and children’s toys. So different from her own minimalist interior – emptied of all but the bare essentials. Needs must.

Kayleigh settled her daughter in front of the television as Helen stood on a kitchen chair to remove the old curtains, the flower pattern so greasy and faded it was barely discernible. She reached up again, inhaling to control the twinge in her back, to hook the new pastel coloured chintz in place. At least her fingers were still nimble, no arthritis or tremors there.

‘We need to let them hang for a while,’ Helen said, one hand on the back of the chair to ease her way down. ‘Shall I put the kettle on?’

She was in the kitchen before Kayleigh could object. She knew her way around the place as well as she did her own.

‘Coffee, please.’ The young woman seemed willing enough to let her get on with it. ‘I think there’s still some left.’

Helen took two mugs down from the cupboard and opened the tea caddy. There weren’t enough teabags for her to take more than a couple without it being noticed. She undid the button on her blouse and slid the teabags inside her camisole, keeping the conversation going all the while.

‘Let me know if you need help with shopping. I’ve been doing it on and off for your mum and it’s no trouble.’ She had to go out for herself after all, timing her trips to coincide with her neighbour’s needs, buying as much as she could on offers - a half price here, a three for two there. Karen didn’t seem to notice if she ended up with only two of the three, the cost to her was the same. Ironic how Helen thought of Karen as an old lady when she was actually a couple of years younger.

‘Here we are,’ said Helen. She placed the mugs on the table with a plate of digestives.

It was presumptuous to have opened the packet without an invitation. Karen would have thought so, though she always offered, in the same way she always offered tea and Helen always accepted, grateful for the milk, a luxury she’d stopped buying for herself. It wouldn’t do to be the first to take a biscuit, although her rumbling stomach could probably be heard from Edmonton. She slid the plate towards Kayleigh as she picked her box of pins up from the table and went to the window to start on her task.

‘Go on, you need the sugar,’ she said. ‘It’s good for stress.’

Kayleigh shook her head. ‘I’m trying to be good.’

‘I used to cut patterns for Jean-Paul Gaultier, you know,’ said Helen, trying not to mind that Kayleigh hadn’t pushed the plate back in her direction. ‘Among others.’

‘I know.’ Kayleigh slumped on the sofa as her daughter sat at her feet transfixed by some primary coloured cartoon character or other. ‘You told me about it when I was little. I remember you came back one summer and made dolls’ clothes with me, tiny versions of designer models. You made me think I could do that, work in Paris or New York, and not just picking up pins either. I could design for movie stars and supermodels. Be a female Christian Lacroix.’ She rolled her eyes at her naivety.

Helen didn’t remember. That must have been when she thought she’d be living that life forever. 

‘I studied fashion too,’ Kayleigh said, watching as Helen tugged and fixed the fabric, steel pins protruding from the side of her mouth.

‘I didn’t know that.’ Helen bit down on the pins between her teeth. She wouldn’t reproach herself for never asking Kayleigh’s mother what became of her daughter. She had her hands full when she first came back, coping with the unaccustomed responsibility of another person, another person determined to make her pay for thirty years of absence. And to be fair, Kayleigh’s career choice wasn’t evident from her appearance.

‘I was getting back into it,’ Kayleigh said, ‘doing a bit of design work for a friend of mine, a few days here and there. I sort of hoped mum could help with the childcare but instead, I’ve got to look after them both.’ She smiled at the irony.

‘Shaun? He left when she was a year old. When I told him I was done with all the arguing, he said, ‘Leave me the fags,’ picked up his coat and went to the pub.’

She moved to join Helen at the window. Helen thought she was going to offer to help her and recoiled but instead Kayleigh opened the latch, leaned out and started puffing on an -cigarette. 

‘You never married, then?’ she asked.

‘Your mum was always on about having grandchildren. I remember that. She gave me money for ice cream in the school holidays, said that’s what she’d do if she had grandchildren.’

Helen gritted her teeth and unhooked the curtains again.

‘Shall I carry on and hem them here? I might as well. All my things are here now and there’s more room to work.’

She handed Kayleigh the draped material and set about clearing the table, starting with the plate of untouched biscuits, taking a digestive for herself as she set the plate down, a movement so fast it was almost sleight of hand. Three bites and it was gone. She took another biscuit.

‘You see,’ she said. She needed to spin this out a little. ‘The man I was with was already married and had his own family.’ She took the fabric back, smoothing it out as she started to unwind the reel of thread she had brought from next door. She didn’t have her reading glasses with her, but she didn’t need them for this. She could thread a needle blindfolded. ‘Would I have given it all up for him? I don’t know. He never asked. You know,’ Helen lowered her voice as if her mother might still hear and disapprove. As if she cared. ‘We were together for over twenty-five years, on-and-off, and when I told him I was going back to England, he just said, ‘Okay’. She mimicked his Gallic shrug. ‘He calls me now and again.’ 

He’d stopped sending her money, though.

‘You didn’t want a family?’ said Kayleigh.

‘I loved my life.’ She cast a sideways glance at Mabel. ‘At least you’ll have someone to look after you in your old age.’

‘You can’t have it all,’ said Kayleigh, stroking the top of her daughter’s head, at long last handing her a biscuit. Helen grabbed a third for herself.

‘I hate to ask but your mum said she’d pay me for running up the curtains.’

‘No, not yet. She paid me half – for the fabric – but she hasn’t yet paid me for the making up.’

‘Of course. Don’t worry. When you can. But if you need to get money out, I don’t mind running into town for you. I often collect your mum’s benefits for her. I could go tomorrow if you like. The walk will do me good.’

The pattern cutter

Even if he could drive, he’d never get a van up that hill. Not in weather like this. Richie stood at the window of his flat and for the first time in months, didn’t feel like a loser. Today, walking was the smart choice. He sipped his coffee and watched his neighbours dig their cars out of the snow, swapping bits of cardboard to help those with rear wheel drive get a bit of traction. Take more than that to stop them slithering into someone’s garden; it had been below freezing for days.

He clocked the time, exhaled sharply and grabbed his tool bag, dumping his mug in the sink on the way out. There was no real rush. If the buses were running, they wouldn’t be to schedule - but old habits and so on. If he was late, he certainly wouldn’t be the only one.

‘You okay in there, Gail?’ he called as he reached the bottom of the stairs. He knocked on his landlady’s door. ‘I’ll clear the path this evening.’

‘Don’t worry, love,’ she shouted back. ‘I won’t be going anywhere. Not ‘til Spring, at this rate.’

Richie opened the front door, and the cold air caught his breath. The front path was white perfection, pristine and unmarked, all the cracks and broken tiles covered. It was a shame to spoil it with his dirty great boots.

There were more people outside than was usual at this hour, four or five at least. At this end of the street, that counted as a crowd. Much as he’d like to, Richie could hardly walk on by.

‘Hang on.’ He rested his bag on the garden wall and crossed over to join a couple of his neighbours, whose efforts to shove a car away from the kerb were having no effect, feet in office shoes sliding all over the surface of the road.

‘On the count of three,’ said Greg-from-across-the-way as his wife, gripping the steering wheel as if her life depended on it, revved the engine. Richie placed his hands on the boot of the BMW and leaned forward. The three men groaned and growled as they pushed the car out of the snow and heaved it off on its way, wheels skidding until they got purchase. The group stood for a moment, watching its progress, wincing.

Richie wouldn’t stay to chat. He shouldered his bag again and muttered a goodbye.

‘Yeah, thanks. Mind how you go,’ said Greg, shaking his hand and squeezing his shoulder with his free hand.

Richie sought out the fresh snow as he tramped up the hill and onto the main road, preferring to make his own tracks rather than walk in anyone else’s. The usually bustling high street was virtually empty, two grey lines down the centre marking the path of the brave few who’d taken a vehicle out. Cars still lay at the side of the road, silent and sleeping, smothered by giant pillows. More snow was forecast - but where would it go? There didn’t look to be anywhere left to put it.

Enough people were gathered at the bus stop to suggest there was transport running but almost without realising it, Richie walked on by. It was comforting, the crump of his boots in the snow, the stillness all around, everything muted and softened by thick layers of white.

‘Where is everyone?’ he asked when he made it through the office door. The small car park was usually rammed, five cars and vans squeezed into a space big enough for three. Today, Selina’s Mini had the place to itself.

‘Snow day,’ she said, smiling as she glanced up from the pile of invoices. ‘School’s closed so Nick’s taken the kids tobogganing.’

‘Someone’s got to answer the phones. Keep this show on the road.’

Richie nodded. Without his wife running the back office, Nick’s business would fall apart. Certainly, no-one would ever get paid. On which note…

Any in walking distance, that is. He wouldn’t be getting a lift in anyone’s van today.

‘I’ll make some calls, try and bring something forward. One of the lighting fixes.’ She knew what was on his mind. ‘I’ll sort it somehow. You won’t lose out.’

He left her to it and went to make coffee.

‘No luck yet,’ she said as he put a mug in front of her. ‘The world’s come to a standstill.’

Richie took the large diary from his bag and sat at the desk opposite, studying his job list for the next week. Ordering in the sockets and consumer units would only kill an hour or so but he might as well do something useful.

His phone rang. He didn’t recognise the number but that wasn’t unusual. His contacts were often passed on. It wasn’t something he discouraged. One day he might be in a position to turn down work, but it was a long way off.

‘Is that Riccardo?’ asked a female voice.

‘Yes?’ He drew out the syllable. ‘Riccardo’ usually signalled trouble.

‘Hello there, it’s Green End Primary. Can you come get Connor?’

‘What’s happened?’ He could barely get the words out, his throat suddenly dry and tight. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Not enough teachers have made it in so, we have to send the children home.’

‘Look, you’d better call his mum. I’m not – ‘. He moved his thumb across the screen to end the call.

‘We tried, Riccardo. We’ve left messages. We even called the fire station. They said they can’t spare her. They’re too busy themselves today.’

‘That’s ridiculous. Isn’t there anyone else you can call? What about her sister? I mean…’ He lowered his voice. ‘We’re not together anymore.’

‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but we only have two numbers on record, hers and yours. We’re not allowed to call anyone else. So, can you come get him, please? Poor little lad, he’s the last one here. He’s quite distressed.’

Richie took a deep breath. ‘I’m …I’m not his real dad.’

The worst five words he’d ever uttered but lately, it seemed, the only ones he got to say. Two swabs, three days and a couple of hundred pounds to be 99.9% certain. Small numbers really, insignificant, to tear a life apart.

‘What’s that got to do with it?’ The woman was becoming impatient. ‘You’re the only dad we’ve got listed here.’

‘Michelle doesn’t want me to see him.’

There. It was out. Whispered but he’d said it aloud.

‘What d’you mean? Aren’t you allowed to see him? Is there a court order or something? There’s nothing in his file.’

‘No! Of course not. I haven’t done anything. It’s just… she didn’t want him getting confused.’

‘Okay. In that case, I’ll have to contact Social Services.’

‘Social Services?’ Richie looked up, conscious that Selina had stopped what she was doing to listen.

‘Okay, I’m coming.’ He stood and lifted his coat from the back of the chair. ‘Sorry, Selina.’

‘No problem.’ She grimaced in what he took to be sympathy. He was getting a lot of that recently. ‘I didn’t realise it was so bad, Richie.’

He hid his face as he re-fastened the straps on his bag.

‘Leave your stuff here,’ she said. ‘It’ll be fine ‘til tomorrow.’

‘You could take him to Caldon Hill. My boys are heading up there.’

It was more than a year since Richie had been to the school. The railings had been painted but nothing else had changed. He pressed the intercom and was buzzed into a playground which had been gritted and swept by a zealous caretaker, a square of grey in a world of white. He hadn’t made it to the other side before the door to the school office opened and Connor emerged, followed by Ms Millon, the deputy head, picking her way carefully across the wet surface in her heels.

‘Hey,’ Richie said to the little boy, holding out his hand for his lunch box and book bag. What he wanted to do was scoop him up in a hug, but he was scared of how it would feel. ‘You okay?’

‘Can we go to McDonalds?’ asked Connor.

Richie laughed, despite it all. He turned to the teacher. ‘Does Michelle know I’ve got him? I don’t want any trouble. Really, I can’t - ’

‘We let her know,’ she said. She looked down at Connor. ‘Right then, off you go and enjoy your chips and I’ll head home. It took me two hours to get here. Hopefully, it’ll be better now.’

‘Where’s the van?’ asked Connor, looking up and down the street.

‘I’m not allowed to drive just now,’ Richie told him. ‘I’ve been banned.’

Funny how much easier it was to tell an eight-year-old than anyone else. Richie hoped he’d tell his mother, though he doubted she’d feel any remorse. She hadn’t before. Not when he came back from Spain and they met up again and she let him believe her little lad was his, let the lie grow in so deep that when she uprooted it, she dragged his guts out with it. She hadn’t when she locked him out of the house and he was forced to sleep in the van. He, one too many to drive, hoping she’d relent and let him back in so they could talk it through; she, standing in the street in her nightdress, banging on the van windows and yelling so loudly, the police were called.

He’d been right to be angry; anyone would have been. But he hadn’t touched her, hadn’t so much as smacked a palm against a wall. Instead, he sat with a bottle and his head in his hands as she went on at him. How could he have thought Connor was his? Couldn’t he count? He had himself to blame. He should’ve known, really, because Connor never called him ‘dad’, Michelle wouldn’t let him. Always Richie, only Richie.

Drunk in charge of a vehicle. What a joke. Crashed out in the back wrapped in his coat, he wasn’t in charge of anything. It should have been her under caution; she was the one scratched up his van.

He couldn’t think about that now, though. Not when the world was so bright and clean, all blemishes hidden.

‘Anyway, the roads are a mess,’ he told Connor. ‘Shall we have a bite to eat and then get a bus up the hill? Build a snowman?’

The boy pumped the air, and then grabbed Richie’s hand. Like he used to.

While they waited for their burgers, Richie messaged Nick.

Bit weird but I’m minding Connor for the day. You still up Caldon Hill? Will you be there a while?

Yh we just got here. Come join us. Turn left out of the car park

Richie looked down at Connor. ‘Will you be warm enough? The boy’s anorak looked cosy, but he was still in his school shoes. Richie racked his brains. Wasn’t there was a shoe shop in that row by the bus stop? He’d have to get him some wellies.

‘Here,’ he said, pulling his fingerless gloves from his pockets, the ones he wore for all those frozen mornings trying to restore power to blacked-out households. ‘Will these fit you?’

‘Hey,’ said Nick, when they tracked the group down, poised at the top of the hill. Nick ruffled Connor’s hair. ‘Fancy a turn on the toboggan?’

He pointed out the blue plastic sled being carried by his sons as they trudged back up the hill towards them, cheeks pink from the cold and the exertion.

Richie looked around. It was like a scene from Wacky Races. So many families, all competing to try out the maddest contraption. Rickety wooden sledges, tea trays, plastic shovels, every type of toboggan. Even a couple of old doors. Nick grabbed his sleeve to get his attention.

‘What the hell?’ he asked, eyes wide.

‘I know. I mean, I dunno.’ Richie shook his head, just as confused. ‘It’s nice to see him, though.’

‘Can we have a go?’ asked Connor, jumping from one foot to another in the new boots.

‘Sure,’ said Richie. ‘We better go together the first time, though.’

He settled himself on the sled and pulled Connor down to sit between his legs. He inched his way towards the edge of the slope, digging the heels of his boots in as he went until he felt the weight of the sled tip forward and lifted his feet to tuck them inside the plastic rim.

‘Hold on tight. Here we go!’ he said, grabbing the reins of the sled with one hand and Connor with the other. He didn’t need to ask for a push off, his weight would be enough to propel them down the slope.

‘Yeaaah,’ yelled the boy as the air whizzed past them.

Richie laughed too as they sped down the slope, bouncing on every bump. So good to feel the wind against his face. He only hoped they’d stop before they reached the bottom and the ditch marking the path of the stream which bisected the park. He threw himself into the final turn, tipping them both sideways.

‘That was fun!’ yelled Connor, rolling off the sled and jumping up and down once more. ‘Come on, let’s go again!’ He set off at a run as Richie followed more sedately, trailing the sled behind him.

Richie was breathless, chest hurting, when he reached the top, returning Nick’s cheers with a grin of his own.

‘Great to see that bulk coming in handy,’ said his boss, slapping him on the shoulder. ‘And good to see you smiling for a change.’

‘Why don’t you come ‘round anymore?’ Connor asked as they waited at the top for another turn.

‘Ah, you know,’ said Richie. ‘Your mum and I aren’t friends nowadays.’

‘Definitely. Friends is what we’ll always be.’

‘I’d better not. But thanks for the invite.’ He sent another message to Michelle offering a pick-up time. 

‘Miss Millon says we got to be friends with everyone.’

Snow Day

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The pattern cutter

Snow Day