One Perfect Christmas and Other Stories

by Paige Toon

  ‘But I had an excuse,’ Lucy adds, smoothing her hand across her floaty top to reveal what I now see has been disguising a rather large bump.

  ‘You’re having another baby!’ I cry. ‘That’s amazing news! How far along are you?’

  ‘Five months,’ she reveals with a smile, picking up her mug from the coffee table and taking a sip.

  My eyes pop out of my head. ‘How on earth have you kept that a secret?’

  ‘We’ve been in the UK.’ She shrugs. ‘I wanted to tell people in person.’

  ‘Wait, weren’t you drinking last night? I thought you were on vodka cranberries?’

  ‘Cranberry, no vodka,’ she replies with a cheeky look.

  ‘Sneaky! Do you know what you’re having?’

  She nods. ‘A girl.’

  I squeal.

  She grins, but then her features grow sober. ‘Sorry, I just wanted to get that bit out of the way first, but I do want to talk about you. How was the rest of last night?’

  My mood takes a nosedive. ‘We ended up back at ours with Fliss and a few others. It was… unsettling.’

  ‘In what way?’ She cocks her head to one side, causing her long chestnut hair to swing in its high ponytail.

  ‘I know Lachie has hung out with Fliss in the past when I’ve been at work, but she was so comfortable at our place.’ I shake my head despairingly. ‘You should’ve seen her making herself at home, offering her pals tea and biscuits.’

  ‘What?’ Lucy pulls a face, outraged.

  ‘She’s obviously been there loads. Lachie clearly chose not to tell me how much because he thinks I’ve got it in for her. And he’s right.’

  ‘Does he think she fancies him?’ Lucy asks, tucking her bare legs up underneath herself on the sofa and nursing her mug between her hands.

  ‘He’s adamant she doesn’t, but he’s wrong. I don’t know if he’s blind to it or if he’s just kidding himself, but I’ve seen the way she looks at him. She absolutely adores him.’

  ‘He is pretty adorable,’ Lucy says, her eyebrows pulling together.

  I smile at her, but then my face crumples. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what’s got into me. Lachie and I have been together for so long and he’s always been tactile with other women. I’m usually cool with it – in fact, I usually like it. I love how he was with Bridget, for example, but I’ve always been so sure about his feelings for me. Seeing Fliss jokily push him over the back of the sofa and then climb on top of him was—’

  ‘She did what?’ Lucy blanches.

  ‘She sort of fell on him and they both cracked up laughing and he had his arms around her. They were just being silly and were both really drunk, but… Argh! I hated it!’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’ Lucy looks aghast.

  ‘Like I say, I like that Lachie is tactile. It was one of the reasons I fell for him. But I don’t like seeing him be that way with Fliss. There’s something about her…’

  ‘You have to tell him,’ Lucy states firmly.

  ‘I have!’ I cry. ‘He thinks I’m nagging him!’

  ‘You’re not,’ she states firmly. ‘You have to talk to him about this! If she makes you uncomfortable, then he should stop seeing her.’

  ‘They work together,’ I say. ‘She gets him most of his gigs.’

  ‘That’s tricky,’ Lucy replies with a grimace. ‘But at the very least he should try to wean her out of his social life.’

  ‘I couldn’t make him do that.’ I shake my head.

  ‘Why not? Nathan doesn’t have any female friends, not anymore. It’s just… not necessary.’

  ‘But Lachie has always had female friends.’

  ‘People change and grow and adapt – they have to. We can’t always stay the same.’

  ‘That’s just it, though. Lachie doesn’t want to change. He likes his life exactly as it is. In fact, he wants me to change. He thinks I’ve become boring. But I don’t want to stay out late and get hammered all the time. I want a more chilled life. I want a family. And he doesn’t. Not any time soon. We’re on completely different wavelengths and I can’t help but think it’s because of the age gap between us.’

  Lucy appears thoughtful.

  ‘Did you ever have this problem with Nathan?’ I ask. He’s two years younger than she is – they got together when he was twenty-four.

  ‘Not really. He wanted to get engaged super-fast.’

  ‘You’re a catch,’ I say with a grin.

  Lucy laughs. ‘And, anyway, we waited years to have kids. We wanted to be on our own for a while before bringing a family into the mix.’

  I smile at her again, my eyes drifting to her bump. ‘I’m so happy for you. You’re right about Lachie. I need to speak to him about it. But let’s talk about something else, now. How’s your pregnancy been so far? And I want to know all about your trip!’

  The rest of the afternoon passes by pleasantly.

  I wait up for Lachie that night, hoping he’s too hungover from his birthday bash to go out drinking again. He appears at eleven.

  ‘You’re awake!’ he says with pleasant surprise when I get up from the sofa.

  He puts his guitar case down as I step forward for a hug.

  ‘You okay?’ he asks softly.

  ‘I missed you,’ I murmur.

  I miss you.

  ‘Aw,’ he replies with affection.

  ‘I thought you might go out drinking again.’

  ‘Nah, I’m shattered.’

  ‘Bed?’ I step back and take his hands in mine.

  His blue eyes smile down at me, and then he lets go of my hands and hooks his fingers through the belt loops of my jeans, tugging me forward so we’re hip to hip. Bending down, he plants his lips on mine.

  It is the sweetest kiss we’ve had in ages, but all too soon it grows into something more. His fingers find the hem of my T-shirt and our mouths are forced apart as the fabric comes up and over my head.

  ‘Bed?’ I repeat, breathlessly.

  He shakes his head. ‘Here.’

  It’s been so long since we’ve had sex outside the bedroom – the idea feels strangely illicit. We both get very busy unbuttoning each other’s jeans and stripping down to our underwear. He pulls me against him again and now only the flimsy fabric of our underwear separates me from what is a pretty impressive show of how turned on he is.

  Our lips lock together with increasing urgency as he lifts me onto the table and unclasps my bra. I wrap my legs around him, gasping at the intense sensation. A moment later, he steps away to wriggle out of his boxers, reaches between us to pull my lacy knickers to one side, and surges forward.

  I grip his muscled back and hold on for dear life.

  It is the best sex we’ve had in… I can’t remember how long.

  ‘Lachie?’ I say the next morning as he sleepily traces circles on my arm in bed.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘I need to talk to you about Fliss.’

  He sighs. Loudly. ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about.’

  ‘I can’t stand her,’ I state. ‘I don’t like the way you are with her. I hate the way she is with you. I don’t want her hanging around the flat when I’m not here.’ I say these three sentences without pausing, but, by the time I’ve finished, he’s already taken his arm out from behind my shoulders and is sliding out of bed.

  ‘You’re being unreasonable,’ he says, pulling on Friday night’s jeans. Yesterday’s are still out in the living room.

  ‘I’m not. I’m trusting my instincts and I don’t trust her.’

  ‘What about me?’ he asks emphatically. ‘Do you trust me?’ He irately tugs open a drawer and swipes a fresh T-shirt, pulling it over his head.

  I don’t answer.

  ‘What. You don’t?’ he demands to know.

  ‘No, I do,’ I say reasonably. ‘But I don’t see why you have to be friends with someone who makes me so uncomfortable. I wouldn’t do that to you.’

  He rolls his eyes, unhappy about being backed
into a corner.

  It’s true, though. I still feel unsettled by that whole episode with Alex. It might’ve helped me to see him again while he was here, but I didn’t out of respect for Lachie.

  ‘I saw the way you sang that Catfish and the Bottlemen song to her,’ I state.

  ‘What?’ He recoils.

  ‘You looked at her when you sang that bit in “Cocoon” about her out-drinking you and her friends all hating it.’ I’m startled to see that he looks guilty. ‘What was that about?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he says.

  ‘It’s not nothing,’ I bat back.

  He can see I’m not giving in, but he looks sickeningly shifty as he speaks.

  ‘What I mean to say is you have nothing to worry about,’ he insists, his voice sounding forcibly calmer as he edgily meets my eyes. I wait for an explanation and eventually one comes.

  ‘Last week, when you were out with work, I went for a beer with El and we bumped into Fliss and some of her friends. She invited us to join them, but I got the feeling that a couple of her mates wanted a girls’ night, so, when Fliss ordered a bunch of shots for us to do, they refused to join in. It all got a bit silly.’

  I feel ill. ‘What do you mean, “silly”?’

  ‘We just got a bit drunk and her friends ended up leaving and Fliss felt really bad about it the next day.’

  ‘She can’t have felt too bad, seeing the smirking look on both of your faces when you were singing about it.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he snaps, but he knows I’ve caught him out.

  ‘Bloody hell, Lachie,’ I mutter. ‘That girl is into you. Are you really completely blind or do you just not want to see it because you fancy her, too?’

  ‘I do not!’ He raises his voice.

  ‘Bullshit!’ I raise mine in return. ‘I don’t want you hanging out with her!’

  ‘I have to hang out with her. I work with her!’ he yells.

  ‘Then get some fucking jobs off your own back instead of relying on her so much!’

  He looks absolutely furious for a moment and then shakes his head rapidly. He’s completely pissed off, but to my relief he doesn’t storm out of the room.

  A lump forms in my throat. ‘Lucy’s pregnant again,’ I tell him.

  He glances at me. ‘Is she?’

  My eyes well up and his expression softens.

  ‘B,’ he says quietly, sitting down on the bed and reaching for my hand.

  ‘I want a baby, too,’ I say past the lump in my throat. I’ve hardly acknowledged to myself how broody I am, but I can no longer deny it.

  His hand goes limp in mine and he looks away. ‘I’m not ready.’

  ‘I don’t want to wait much longer. I’m going to be thirty-five next month,’ I say imploringly.

  ‘I’m not ready,’ he states again, shaking his head and letting go of my hand.

  ‘No one thinks they’re ready and then they have a baby and it’s the best thing that ever happened to them.’

  He stares at me directly. ‘It’s not going to happen. Not any time soon. I can’t even support a kid.’

  ‘I’d have to go back to work,’ I say, feeling a pang at the thought of a horribly short maternity leave.

  ‘What? And I’d be a stay-at-home dad?’ he asks incredulously, getting to his feet.

  ‘We’re actually really lucky,’ I say as he paces the floor. ‘You work nights and weekends, while I work weekdays. One of us would always be with him. Or her.’ I realise I have a battle on my hands in convincing him. He doesn’t even want a baby, yet here I am suggesting he be its primary carer.

  ‘We don’t have room for a kid.’ Lachie waves his hand around our poky bedroom to make his point.

  ‘We’d have to move. Probably further out, but—’

  ‘I don’t want to move! I like it here!’

  ‘We’ll have to make some compromises.’

  He comes to a standstill. ‘Bronte, I am not having a baby. Not yet. Not any time soon.’ His tone turns regretful with his last few words. ‘I’m sorry, but you won’t change my mind. Having a family is a long way off for me.’

  ‘How long?’ I ask stupidly, brushing away tears.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replies heavily, sitting back down on the bed and staring at me forlornly. There are only a couple of feet between us, but it might as well be a chasm of Grand Canyon proportions.

  Try as I might, I just can’t bury my head in the sand about this one.

  The weeks leading up to my setting off to the UK are overwrought with tension and arguments. There is no compromise to be found.

  I want a baby; Lachie doesn’t. It’s as simple as that.

  We’re stuck. Stagnant. With nowhere to go.

  What’s worse, Vivienne gets a new editor who turns out to be a complete nightmare. She’s disorganised and indecisive and I end up working longer and longer hours. Although Lachie’s birthday gig at the bar turned into a fantastic regular stint, I’m lucky if I make it in time to see his last couple of songs.

  But Fliss is always there, invariably. Lachie claims to have backed off from their friendship and has cut down the amount of time he spends with her outside of the weddings that they do together, but the message has not filtered down to her.

  More likely, his signals are nowhere near strong enough.

  A few days before I set off to the UK, Lachie and I find ourselves at opposite ends of the sofa, facing each other. The telly is muted and our dirty dinner plates are on the coffee table, but we can’t find the energy to get up and drag ourselves to bed. I rest my cheek against the sofa and look across at him, my knees up in front of me.

  ‘Will you think about everything while I’m gone?’ I ask softly.

  He sighs.

  ‘I get it if you don’t want a baby now or even next year,’ I continue. ‘But can we come up with some sort of plan, agree to some form of commitment?’

  He swallows and dangles his arm over the back of the sofa, breaking eye contact with me. ‘What if I can’t?’ he whispers. ‘Is this a deal breaker for you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask warily.

  ‘What if I don’t want to have children?’

  My jaw drops. ‘Are you serious?’

  He roughly drags his hand over his beard. ‘I’m just… I’m so far off wanting to be a dad. What if I’m never ready?’

  I shake my head. ‘I can’t bear to think about that possibility.’

  ‘We might have to.’

  I stare at him with horror. ‘Then yes, it’s a deal breaker!’ I can’t keep a lid on my emotions. ‘I want kids! I’ve always wanted a family. Are you serious? You might do an Elliot on me?’

  He looks hopeless. ‘I don’t know. But what if you are wasting your time with me? You said it yourself: you don’t want to be an older mum. But that’s the way things are heading if we stay together. And that’s if we ever even get to that point.’ He grows misty eyed. ‘I love you,’ he says in a choked voice. ‘And I promise you this is not about Fliss.’ I jolt at the sound of her name being brought into our intimate conversation. ‘I like her as a friend, nothing more, but it’s true that I have felt more on her wavelength than yours in recent months.’

  I feel like I’m going to throw up. And he’s not finished.

  ‘Being around her has made me face the fact that things haven’t been right between us for a while. We’re not connected, not like we used to be. I feel like you’re racing ahead in a different direction to me and I can’t catch up with you. I’m not sure I want to catch up with you.’

  My stomach continues to freefall. ‘Do you just need some time and space to think? Because you’re about to get it.’ I’m going to be away for over three weeks. My new boss is none too pleased about it, but it was organised well before she came on the scene.

  ‘I’ve had plenty of time and space already,’ he says. ‘We barely see each other.’

  My voice sounds small as I ask my next question. ‘Do you think we should break up?’ />
  The devastation in his eyes as he stares back at me says it all.

  Bridget has invited me to stay with her for the ten days leading up to the wedding, but first I go to spend a few days in south London with my old Aussie school friend Polly and her family. Polly and I have had our ups and downs over the years, but, despite the fact that she now has two young children demanding her almost constant attention, she really comes through for me. She’s a rock and I’m feeling much better by the time I set off to Padstow in Cornwall, where Bridget and Charlie live.

  I still can’t believe that Lachie and I are over, but it’s real. The days before I came away were hell. We shed so many tears between us – I have no idea how I managed to drag my sorry arse into work.

  He intends to move in with a friend while I’m in England, and when I get back I’ll look for a place of my own. I could probably stretch to paying all the rent on our flat, but with our shared memories it would be too painful to stay. I’m thinking about moving out of Manly altogether. It’s always been more Lachie’s scene than mine, with his surfing lifestyle. But I’ll miss Lucy. She was gutted when I told her that Lachie and I had split up.

  Bridget comes to collect me from the train station when I arrive in Cornwall and my mood does an about-turn at the sight of her beaming face. We throw our arms around each other and squeeze tightly.

  ‘I’ve missed you so much!’ she cries.

  ‘I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you,’ I murmur.

  She withdraws to look me over, the corners of her lips turning down.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about it or I’ll lose it,’ I warn.

  ‘Okay,’ she complies, nodding.

  She looks well and happy, her khaki shorts showing off her long, slim, tanned legs. They’ve been having a heatwave that we all hope lasts through the wedding celebrations.

  ‘Your hair has grown!’ I tug gently on a lock of her just-below-shoulder-length, dark, wavy hair.

  ‘Yours is still exactly the same,’ she replies with a laugh, her navy eyes smiling.

  ‘I had a trim a couple of weeks ago, I promise. You can’t see because I’ve tied it back.’ I’m wearing it in a long fishtail plait, one of my favourite styles when I can be bothered to make the effort. ‘Maybe I should lop it all off and have a proper post-break-up overhaul.’