One Christmas Star

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘God! This is sooo good! Mmm!’ Ray moaned loudly and Emily looked at him. His eyes were closed, his mouth full, chewing hard, breathing through his nose, his lips slick with what looked like chilli sauce. He still looked sexy. How was that even possible? And then his eyes snapped open and he was looking at her… looking at him.

  ‘Eat the kebab,’ he told her again. ‘Or I won’t headline at the music festival.’

  ‘Well,’ Emily said. ‘When you put it like that.’ The ‘sofa’ it had to be. She picked the paper wrapper up from the table and sat down next to Ray, unfolding the sheet until she found the pitta-wrapped meat. She had to admit, as kebabs went, this did look particularly magnificent. She turned her head to see that Ray had stopped eating and was studying her instead.

  ‘What?’ she asked as her stomach did a tumble turn worthy of Michael Phelps.

  ‘I really want to know what you think of the food.’

  ‘You’re going to watch me eat it?’ she asked. Apart from pizza with its stringy, messy, melted cheese she would have been bound to get all over her chin, the kebab was probably the next worst thing for eating with company.

  ‘Just the first bite,’ Ray replied.

  Emily picked up the meat-filled bread and sunk her teeth into it, fearing for the succulent tomato pieces she was bound to drop down her shirt. But, all her concerns drifted away the moment the sish hit her senses. She hadn’t realised quite how hungry she was, and the delicious concoction of lamb, salad, sauce and bread was the ultimate appetite appeaser.

  ‘Oh, my goodness!’ she exclaimed, in between chews. ‘This is simply…’

  ‘Heaven,’ Ray said. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Absolutely heaven,’ she agreed, munching. ‘How did you find the place?’

  *

  Going into Mehmet’s restaurant had given Ray all the feels from his childhood when they’d picked up the takeaway. From the delicious fragrance of the lamb and pork sizzling on the grill to the ancient television still showing Eastern European football. Then there was Mehmet himself, a little older – 110? – but with the same grin and happy-go-lucky attitude. It was like a time rewind.

  ‘I used to go there when I was a kid,’ Ray answered her.

  ‘That’s why the owner knew you,’ Emily remarked.

  He nodded. ‘I used to go there with my parents. We went there a lot.’ He grinned. ‘My mum wasn’t much of a cook.’

  ‘Mine neither,’ Emily admitted. ‘One time, for a whole month, Jamie Oliver’s restaurant used to deliver meals. And I didn’t think they were anywhere near as delicious as this.’ She took another bite of her food. ‘I wonder who she gets to deliver her dinners now?’

  It was now or never. He had known that when he had taken Emily to Mehmet’s. He wanted to tell her about his mum. All evening something had started to change inside of him. It had begun when Emily had invited him to the night with her parents, it had carried on as he watched her handle the ostentatious and annoying barristers, and it had reached a peak when Alegra had insulted Emily’s singing. Emotion had flooded him. Down and dirty sexual attraction, plus an overwhelming need to protect her had made him take her up to that piano. And then she’d sung and played along with him and all he’d wanted to do was feel her lips on his.

  ‘My mother was an alcoholic,’ Ray said, fast. There. He had said it. It was out there. He could feel his heart pumping in his neck.

  ‘Oh,’ Emily replied immediately. ‘Goodness, I…’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Ray stated. ‘You don’t have to say anything to try and make me feel better. It was a long time ago and it is what it is, you know.’ He pulled some meat from his kebab and popped it into his mouth. ‘A lot of people thought that being an alcoholic made her a bad person, but she wasn’t a bad person. She was… I don’t know… lost somehow.’

  He swallowed. This was so difficult. He didn’t talk about it. He hadn’t ever talked about it with Ida. Ida had known his mum had died when he was young, but she had never asked the details and he hadn’t offered them. Emily was looking at him now like she wanted to know more. He wasn’t sure what he had to say.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ray began again. ‘Some people just can’t find their place in life for some reason. I feel now that maybe that’s what happened with her.’ He sniffed. ‘She didn’t have a career to get passionate about. She didn’t have any hobbies. Apart from me and my dad, she just had the booze.’

  ‘When did she pass away?’ Emily asked.

  ‘I was thirteen,’ Ray said, blowing out a breath as the memories came back. ‘She died on the operating table during a liver transplant.’ And it was that that hurt the most. His mother’s liver, damaged by years and years of abuse, had all but given up. She had needed a transplant to save her life and she had got one. It had been a miracle. But Ray knew, and his mother had been honest from the beginning, she was never going to be able to give up drinking.

  ‘She didn’t deserve the transplant and she knew it,’ Ray stated. ‘She decided she needed alcohol more than she needed me and my dad and all the other things in her life. And no one really knew why. I still don’t know why.’ He took a breath. ‘Just like I don’t know why she would sometimes forget to pick me up from school… or buy the wrong colour trousers for my uniform… or drink too much wine at the school fête and puke up in front of everyone. Sometimes she would apologise, sometimes not. Mainly not, nearer the end.’

  ‘But, couldn’t she have got help?’ Emily said, putting her food back on the table and turning a little towards him.

  ‘We tried. My dad, he tried so hard to make her see sense. He shouted and bawled and when that didn’t work, he cried and pleaded… but she was always absent somehow. Adrift.’

  And there were times in his life when he felt something like the same. Except, he had music. Music kept him centred and the thought that his throat issues could take that from him scared the hell out him. What did he have then? What would be left?

  ‘Every time I get drunk, I think about her and try to really drill down into what it is about drinking that would make someone want that more than anything. You know, more than being with the people you care about, more than, I don’t know, walking in the park in the summer or seeing snow on the rooftops or… eating Mehmet’s kebabs.’

  ‘And do you ever find any answers?’ Emily asked softly.

  He shook his head. ‘No. I just end up with a splitting headache and my rough-looking mug spread all over the newspapers.’ He looked into the mid-distance. ‘I don’t know what alcohol gave her. No one did. I don’t think she even knew for sure. She was just too scared to find out what life could be like without it.’

  Emily picked up a mug of coffee and handed it to him.

  ‘Thanks,’ he answered, taking a sip, his food balanced on his lap. ‘Sorry, I’m really oversharing.’

  ‘No,’ Emily said. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I loved her, you know, despite everything. She was my mum. She drank too much. I need to accept that and move on.’

  Emily nodded, unspeaking. He watched her pick up her cup of tea and take a drink.

  ‘Listen,’ Ray said. ‘I didn’t mean to kill the mood. I just… wanted to tell you. That’s all.’ What else was there to say? That he hadn’t really told anyone the depth of it before. That he had wanted her to be the one to know everything?

  ‘Anyway, we should really be celebrating. We brought Christmas to Clean Martini. And you know how I feel about Christmas. I don’t do Christmas, Miss Parker. That’s your fault.’

  Emily smiled a little.

  ‘Hey,’ Ray said, nudging his knee against hers. ‘You’ve gone quiet on me.’

  ‘Because… after you saying all that about your mum,’ she sighed. ‘I really…want to tell you something,’ Emily answered.

  ‘Anything,’ Ray whispered. ‘I’m here.’

  She took a deep breath as if she was really deliberating what came next. ‘The reason I don’t drink alcohol,’ Emily started, voice quaking a little. �
�Is because… Simon died because of it.’ She took a breath. ‘He was hit by a car, coming home from work and… the man who knocked him down… he was drunk.’ She closed her eyes briefly before opening them up again and continuing. ‘This man… his name was Jonathan Stansfield… he had been at an office lunch that turned into an all afternoon affair… and then he got into his car and he drove. He was three times over the legal limit.’

  ‘Oh, Emily,’ Ray said, putting his arm around her and drawing her close.

  ‘I know it’s silly to correlate my drinking with his drinking, and I know my mother thinks it’s ridiculous, which was why she kept trying to put wine into my tonic water and insisted on telling me life goes on… but I can’t stomach it. I don’t want to feel anything like Jonathan did when he ran over the person I thought I was going to be spending my life with.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s silly,’ Ray told her firmly. ‘I think it makes perfect sense. I get it. Completely.’

  ‘Jonathan Stansfield’s life is ruined and, as glad as I was at the beginning that he went to prison… after seeing him myself, I know that whether he drinks again or not, I’m certain he will never get behind the wheel of a car after drinking again.’

  ‘You went to see him?’ Ray asked. ‘In prison?’

  Emily nodded. ‘I had to.’ She swallowed. ‘In the courtroom I looked him in the eye and I wanted to see this unremorseful monster who had taken Simon away and I wanted to hate him and feel that his two years in prison was revenge for the damage he’d caused me. But he sobbed from the second the opening statements were read, until they took him into custody, and I realised then that he’d lost everything too. His girlfriend, his job… He hated himself. And I needed to go there, to see him, to talk to him, face to face and… to say that I forgive him.’

  Ray shook his head, almost unable to comprehend the strength Emily had shown.

  ‘He wasn’t someone who had set out to kill that day. He was just someone who made a mistake. A horrible, catastrophic mistake and one he is absolutely paying for. But we all make mistakes, don’t we?’

  ‘Wow,’ Ray said softly. ‘You are… so incredible, Emily. I don’t know how you could find it in your heart to do that.’ He couldn’t help himself, he reached up and brushed her fringe from her forehead a little.

  *

  Emily shivered as his fingers grazed her forehead. Here Ray was again, doing that thing he always seemed to be so wonderfully adept at doing – supporting her, with his actions and with his words. No one had done that for her since Simon’s accident. Not even Jonah. The trouble was, everyone around her at the time had maybe been too close. Ray hadn’t known Simon. Ray was only getting to know her. Single her. Not one-of-a-couple her.

  ‘I’m not a saint,’ Emily insisted. ‘And I do really miss gin.’

  Ray smiled. ‘Never been a fan of gin. Tried it. Didn’t get it.’

  ‘It’s ordinarily my mother’s favourite drink. The one thing we had in common.’ She took a breath. ‘But there are definitely more important things than that.’

  ‘I don’t know, some parents seem to think that their children are going to come out and automatically be a carbon copy of them. My dad still thinks I should be an engineer, even now.’

  ‘Well, you did fix my central heating. You obviously have skills.’

  ‘I think he’s just fearful that I’ll fall like my mother fell. Obviously in the music industry there’s easy access to every kind of excess but, you know, my mother didn’t need a VIP pass to drink herself to an early grave.’

  ‘And do you understand his fear?’ Was that too forward of her to ask?

  ‘We don’t see a lot of each other. I think, thinking on it, he stays distant because he doesn’t want to lose me. And I know that sounds crazy but, maybe he feels if you’re not tight with someone, that if you do lose them, somehow it will be easier.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘And I’m the same. I don’t see him enough, I know that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care. And then there’s all this stuff with Ida…’

  Emily really wanted to know more. But at the same time, she really didn’t. Because she had already formed her opinion of him, based on the facts she’d experienced, not something she had read or someone had told her.

  ‘I saw her the other day,’ Ray began. ‘My agent set up a meeting and it… it just went the way I knew it was going to go.’ He picked up his coffee again and took a gulp. ‘She’s no different. She still wants the same things.’

  Emily held her breath, waiting for Ray to continue.

  ‘I can’t give her what she wants. I don’t think anyone is ever going to be able to give her what she wants.’ He sighed. ‘Sorry, TMI, right?’

  ‘No, I… I don’t know.’ She took a breath. ‘Everyone needs to express themselves, don’t they?’

  What the hell did that even mean? Everyone needs to express themselves?! Why couldn’t she offer some support? Get the right words like he seemed to be able to do with her…

  ‘She certainly always did that,’ Ray replied.

  ‘Are things resolved now?’ Emily asked, tentatively.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘Ida needs to make a change and, a little bit like my mother, it’s going to be hard and she doesn’t want to do it. She seems to want to try to go back instead of forward.’

  Emily shivered, the cold of the night filtering through her coat despite the warmth from the heaters above them.

  ‘I wanted to help her, I really did,’ Ray continued. ‘But I couldn’t stay. Not any longer. It was… damaging.’

  Emily looked at him, cradling the mug in his hands, looking into the depths of the creamy coffee, his mind definitely elsewhere. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ve heard you’ve landed a spare room in a very exclusive area of London. Yes, it may have a very small kitchen, but it does have a full bathtub and a roof terrace with views of the cheese grater, if you stand on one leg… and lean over a little.’

  Ray turned to look at her then, blinking those unusual-coloured eyes. ‘Really?’

  ‘No,’ Emily answered. ‘I lied about the cheese grater view.’

  He smiled then and took a deep breath, looking away from her and gazing out at the night sky and the rooftops surrounding them. Then he put his kebab on the table and stood up. ‘Stand on one leg you said.’ He walked to the edge of the space.

  ‘No,’ Emily said, immediately nervous. ‘I was kidding. I said so. I lied about that.’

  ‘OK, so what will I be able to see if I stand really close and lean out on one leg?’

  ‘Ray, don’t,’ Emily said, jumping up and stepping after him.

  ‘God, I can see Christmas lights,’ he told her. ‘All the colours.’ He leaned a little, his shoes right up against the low wall, his body stretching out.

  ‘Ray, please, don’t do that.’ She was frantic. It was slippery up here, a near frost on the ground…

  ‘I think you can just see the edge of something if I lean a bit more…’

  She couldn’t bear it any longer. She grabbed him with every bit of strength she had and all the strength she didn’t know she had, hauling him away from the edge and pushing him to the ground. She landed on top of him with a thump.

  ‘Whoa!’ he exclaimed, breathing like the wind had been knocked out of him.

  Emily was packed out with adrenaline, her heart racing, her mind flooded with all the horrible eventualities that could have occurred but thankfully hadn’t. Now, basically straddling her new lodger, she realised that she had probably overreacted. But that knowledge didn’t stop tears from springing to her eyes as the fright still rolled over her.

  ‘Why did you do that?!’ she said crossly. ‘It was really stupid! So, so stupid!’ She thumped his chest as tears streamed down her face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ray said quickly. ‘I’m really, really sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I shouldn’t have been such a dick.’

  ‘I couldn’t bear it,’ Emily replied, the tears
tumbling still. ‘If you… if anything… happened to you.’

  What had she just said? Why was her heart refusing to slow down? Why was she still lying on top of him? Because she cared. She cared a little too much. And somehow, she couldn’t move. She was frozen in place, looking down at him as he looked back at her. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her face and then she could feel his fingertips gently grazing her scalp as one of his hands moved into her hair. What was happening? Why was she not getting up? Why was she closing her eyes and dipping her head into the palm of his hand? She opened her eyes then, looking down at him, searching for all the answers in his expression. But all she saw there was soul-nudging desire…

  ‘Emily,’ Ray said. ‘I don’t want to do the wrong thing here.’

  She swallowed. He was a gentleman. Despite what everyone thought about him, he was a good person. She trusted her instincts when it came to judging his character… but what about her instincts on the path forward right now?

  ‘I… don’t know what the right thing is,’ Emily whispered to him, hands moving to his shoulders, bearing a little of her weight. ‘But I think… I’d like you to kiss me.’

  His body moved beneath her hands and she saw the recognition come alive on his face. Her heart was hammering now. No longer fear, instead it was pure rapture.

  ‘You think?’ Ray asked softly.

  Still he was holding back. Like a sensible, good person. He was giving her time to back away and get up, to change her mind. Should she? Was this really and truly what she wanted? He was giving her all the choices.

  She shook her head. ‘No,’ she answered. ‘I don’t think. I know I’d like you to kiss me.’

  The millisecond her words hit the air Ray was up off the floor, catching her in his arms and turning her over. It was her turn now for the breath to leave her body. Now he was lying over her, looking down at her, his chest rising and falling quickly. Should she watch and wait? Or should she make the first move? It had been so long since she’d had feelings like this. It was like starting from the beginning…