by Ruth Mancini
Though, in one way, I supposed, it was probably for the best that she wasn’t coming back to France. I had no idea what Christmas was going to be like this year between me and Christian, or how things were going to turn out between us. I wasn’t planning on telling Helena about Oli – not now, not yet. Yet again, I didn’t want to risk alienating her, and I didn’t know myself where I was heading with that. We’d walked to work together on Friday morning and had dinner again on Saturday night. After that, we’d seen each other in the office for brief periods of time each day this week, but I’d avoided helping in clinic and I hadn’t stayed with him again. I needed some time to gain some kind of distance and perspective over the situation before I arrived back home at the weekend.
“What about Sky?” I asked. “What’s he doing for Christmas?”
“He’s coming too.”
I frowned. “So, Catherine’s going to be on her own?”
“She’s going to her mum’s, I think. She said it’s okay. Sky’s never spent Christmas with his dad. Well, not since he was a kid. She said she understood.”
Helena said this last sentence rather pointedly and I nodded and added hastily. “Well, yes, of course. It’ll be nice for him. And for you. You’ll be able to drive up together in your lovely new car.”
Helena smiled, encouraged by my words. “We’re going up on Christmas Eve,” she said. “So that we can wake up together on Christmas morning.”
I looked up, horrified, and Helena laughed and said, “Not actually together, Mum. I didn’t mean that. I usually have the spare room and Sky sleeps on the sofa.”
I was stung by the word ‘usually’; it was so familiar. It made it sound as though they’d all known each other all her life. I was now picturing Helena on Christmas morning, standing in her father’s kitchen in her dressing gown, right there where he’d attacked me. I could see the kettle and the worktop. I could see her walking across the floor where I’d lain, pinned to the ground and struggling with her father, while he’d tried to remove my jeans. I could see her rinsing out her cup and putting it on the draining board, next to the knife that was no longer a police exhibit, and which would now be lying there, washed and clean, or sitting back in the rack above the sink.
“So, who’s cooking?” I asked, brightly.
“Oh, my dad,” she said. “He’s a really good cook, actually. We’re going to have lunch early and then we’re going banger racing.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Banger racing? On Christmas Day?”
Helena smiled. “Yes. It’s a family tradition.” She paused, and corrected herself. “Well, that’s what he and Lindsay always used to do. He said we could carry it on, make it our thing.”
I swallowed and nodded. “That sounds like a good ‘thing’.” I hoped that my voice wasn’t giving away my true feelings. Pretending to be happy for her was much harder than I’d expected it to be.
The waiter stacked up our plates and asked if everything had been okay. “My mum’s steak was a little tough,” said Helena, before I could stop her.
The waiter looked concerned. “I’m very sorry, Madame. It was medium rare, as you asked, was it not?”
“It was fine,” I said, “Really. And the salad was delicious.”
The waiter nodded and took the plates out to the kitchen.
I could hear the sound of a phone ringing.
“Sorry,” Helena said, pulling it out of her bag.
The waiter started to walk back over to us with the dessert menus. I looked up and quickly caught his eye and shook my head. He hadn’t been informed of the surprise I had planned for Helena. I’d been delighted to discover it yesterday in a little French cake shop near Goodge Street, when I’d walked down to the UCL building off Tottenham Court Road to collect a package for Oli.
I hopped out of my seat as Helena answered her call.
“Toilet,” I mouthed and she nodded.
I ran over to the waiter. “I brought a cake with me,” I told him. “The manager said it would be okay. It’s a special occasion.”
“Ah,” the waiter lifted a finger and nodded. “Of course, La Bûche de Noël. I had forgotten, I’m sorry. It’s in the refrigerator. It is very beautiful, Madame. A good choice.”
“Thank you,” I smiled. “Give it ten minutes if you wouldn’t mind. She’s on the phone. Teenagers.” I rolled my eyes and the waiter rolled his own by way of reply.
I slipped back into my seat as Helena said, “Alright. Yes. I’ll see you in a minute then. Text me when you’re outside.”
I frowned. “See who in a minute? Who was that?”
Helena placed her phone on the table where she could see it and looked up at me guiltily. “Oh, Mum, I’m so sorry. I’m going to have to rush off.”
My heart sank. “Really? Why? What’s happened?”
Helena patted my hand across the table. “I’m really sorry,” she said again. “That was my dad. He’s on his way to collect me. He’s just five minutes away. We’ve got a competition tomorrow in Bristol, apparently. He didn’t realise. He’d got the dates wrong. He says we need to leave tonight and stay over, to beat the traffic and get some training in first thing. He’s just picked up Sky and we’ve still got to get back to McLaren House and get my swim stuff. He doesn’t want to get there too late. He’s paying for us all to stay in a hotel down there,” she said, excitedly.
“Oh,” was all I could manage.
“But, we’ve had most of the meal, haven’t we?” she smiled. “I’m not bothered about dessert anyway, if you’re not.”
“No,” I said, wrinkling my nose. I looked down and patted my waistline, and attempted a smile.
Helena smiled back. “We’re good now, aren’t we, Mum? Everything’s okay between us?”
“Yes,” I smiled and nodded. A week ago, I hadn’t been sure if I’d ever see my daughter again. Now, here I was in a restaurant with her. She was back to her old self, holding my hand across the table and smiling at me. There had been no recriminations, no further accusations, and no discussion about my violent tendencies or my need to see a doctor. We appeared to have put that behind us and I was grateful for that, at least.
Helena’s phone bleeped and she leaped up and picked up her bag.
“Oh. Wait. What about your Christmas present?” I asked.
“I’ll get it after Christmas, Mum.” Helena wobbled slightly on her new high heels as she pushed back her chair and wriggled out from behind the table. “We’ll meet up as soon as you get back, shall we?”
I nodded. “Oh, yes. Let’s do that. That would be really nice.”
“Great.” She leaned over and kissed me. “Gotta go,” she said. “Dad’s outside.”
I tried to stop myself but I couldn’t manage it: I looked out of the window and watched as she ran out of the restaurant and opened the door of a black BMW that had pulled up by the bus stop a few metres back from the restaurant door. I could see Martin’s head bobbing around behind the front windscreen. Sky got out of the passenger side and gave Helena a playful poke in the stomach. She laughed and gave him a gentle shove backwards before opening the car door and getting into the front seat, next to her dad. I instantly pictured Helena’s long bare legs, stretched out next to Martin’s hand on the gear stick and my heart froze with fear. Surely he wouldn’t... would he? He was her father, after all. Just because he was violent, someone who would force himself on a woman, it didn’t mean that he’d do that to his own flesh and blood. Would he?
What could I do about it, anyway? There was no-one to whom I could voice my fears. The police hadn’t believed my account of what happened at Martin’s that day. If they had, he’d have been prosecuted. They wouldn’t listen to me; they’d say that my concerns were unfounded. I looked back at the car. Sky was banging on the passenger window and making faces at Helena, while Martin waved at him to get in. To anyone else observing them all from the restaurant, they would look like a handsome, happy, close-knit family, having an evening out together. I would be the one wh
o was either sick or crazy for even thinking of such a thing.
The car moved off. Thankfully, Martin’s face was obscured by the bus stop as they passed. I couldn’t have borne another look like the one he’d given me outside my flat that time all those years ago, the time when he’d whisked Catherine away after telling her a pack of lies about me; the look that had said, loudly and clearly, ‘I win’.
But I had no doubt that this was what this last minute, ‘forgotten’ competition was all about: it was a ploy to cut short my evening with Helena. And whilst Helena would have no inkling of that, no reason to believe for one minute that this was any kind of mind game on Martin’s part, Martin knew that I wasn’t stupid and that I would see it for what it really was. What’s more, that would be exactly what he would want me to see.
“Madame?” The waiter’s voice broke into my thoughts.
I turned to see him standing in front of me, the Bûche de Noël looking intricate and beautiful on a tray in his hands. A single lit candle was burning out of the top of the robin’s head.
“I didn’t know exactly what it was, the celebration,” the waiter said, “So I put just one candle. But may I wish you a Très Joyeux Noël.” He placed the cake on the table.
The restaurant was crowded by this point and, to my embarrassment, a sea of faces turned to watch, all these people wondering themselves, no doubt, what was the special occasion for this woman in her forties who was sitting at a table on her own with a great big cake in front of her. Some kind of Slimming World milestone, maybe? Oh God, I look ridiculous, I thought. I quickly blew the candle out.
The waiter glanced at the empty seat opposite me and frowned. He obviously hadn’t seen Helena leaving the restaurant. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I waited for ten minutes, as you asked...”
“It’s fine,” I replied, forcing a smile. “And thank you. I hope you have a very Happy Christmas too.”
When I opened the door to the flat, I could tell straight away that Zara was out. I wanted desperately to phone Oli and ask him to use his special powers to avenge my arch-enemy, who had driven my daughter away for Christmas in a black BMW. But it wasn’t fair on him. I’d told him I needed some time; I couldn’t keep dipping in and out of his life as I pleased, and it wasn’t fair to Christian either. I needed to have put some distance between me and Oli before I arrived back in France in a few days’ time, although that distance would be negligible and probably meaningless to Christian when I told him what had happened. How on earth was I going to do it? It would break his heart.
I picked up my mobile and dialled Catherine’s number. She answered on the first ring.
“Hi, hon. What’s up?”
“Oh Catherine,” I wailed. “I’ve got a beautiful great big French chocolate cake and no-one to eat it with. Everything’s a mess.”
“It doesn’t sound that bad to me,” she said.
“Trust me. It is.”
“Well, as luck would have it, I’ve just been to see a film at the Barbican. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Brilliant. I’ll put the kettle on.”
“Oh. And Lizzie?”
“Yes?”
“We’ll need two spoons. Put the cake in the middle of the table. And no matter how bad things are, don’t you dare start without me.”
“Okay. Promise,” I agreed.
19
The first week in January brought with it strong winds and more floods, the worst for decades. Tidal waves battered the coastline, and rain lashed down continuously in a never-ending torrent that was to last for over a month. While Britain reeled from the storms, which had destroyed hundreds of homes across the country, I was reeling inwardly from the aftermath of the devastation I’d left behind me in France. Racked with guilt – and once it was obvious that Helena wasn’t going to be coming home for New Year – I’d returned to London earlier than I’d originally intended. But when I closed my eyes at night all I could see was Christian, sitting at my kitchen table, his face folded in pain as I’d explained to him that I’d met someone else.
He’d been stoic, as I’d expected, and there’d been no recriminations or accusations about what I’d done. Christian wasn’t in any way a cold or unemotional man, but he was humble and he was calm, and he’d characteristically managed to keep his emotions in check in a way that I hadn’t quite managed myself.
“I was the one who did all the crying,” I told Zara as we sat on the sofa watching Coronation Street and eating Pringles on my first evening back at the flat. “One of us had to, I suppose.”
“Maybe he didn’t believe you,” Zara said. “Maybe he thought you’d come back to him, once you’d realised you’d made a mistake.”
I looked at her. “Do you think I have?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “Maybe. Maybe not. But if you don’t know for sure then he’ll have seen that and he’ll be clinging onto that. He’ll want you back, and he’ll wait for you, I guarantee it. Maybe that’s why he didn’t kick off.”
“Christian doesn’t kick off,” I told her. “It’s not in his nature.”
Zara looked at me and pulled a face. “They’ve got to kick off a bit,” she said. “You’ve got to have that passion. Maybe that’s why you don’t love him. He’s too... stable.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’d pick Christian any day of the week over someone jealous and crazy – someone like Martin. I’m not after that kind of drama. That’s not it.”
“Then what is it? Why don’t you love him?”
“I do love him.”
“But not in that way. What’s Oli got that he hasn’t?”
I sighed. That was a good question. Was it really just Oli’s good looks and status as a doctor that had captured me? Or the excitement of a new romance and how that had made me feel? I hoped that I wasn’t that shallow. I hoped that I hadn’t hurt Christian irreparably and damaged our relationship for nothing more than a fling.
I pictured Christian’s face again as I’d told him about Oli. He’d looked so hurt, so broken, but what else could I expect? I’d even wondered on the train back to Paris whether I should tell him at all, pondering the morality of breaking someone’s heart when you didn’t even know for sure that it needed to be broken. For whose benefit would I be telling him the truth, his or mine? Was it really in his best interests to know what had happened between me and Oli? Or would I just be offloading my own guilt and indecision at his expense? After all the pain and confusion of the past year, I could see a lot of merit in the old adage that what you don’t know doesn’t hurt you – that ignorance is bliss. What was the big deal, after all, about this ‘right’ to know the truth, when all it was going to do was cause someone pain?
But when it came to it, I couldn’t allow him to be there for me, to cook for me, to love me and to support me in the way he always had, when I knew that I didn’t deserve it, when I’d betrayed him, when I might be about to leave him and break his heart at any moment, after all. I’d managed to dissuade him from driving to Paris to meet me from the train, but when he’d opened my front door and met me on the driveway of the house, the smell of cooking wafting out from the kitchen and Lily running back and forth between us in excitement, like a child whose parents had been reunited, I’d known instantly that I couldn’t keep up the pretence any longer – and that I wouldn’t be able to kiss him or touch him, or share a bed with him, not any more.
I’d broken it to him that same evening after dinner as we’d drunk coffee at the kitchen table. We’d talked late into the night as Christian asked me question after question – not about Oli (he didn’t seem to want to acknowledge him and what had happened much at all) but about us, about the past and about things that had been said or done between us, things that demonstrated that we were right for each other and that I might be making the biggest mistake of my life.
He questioned my reasons for leaving France in the first place (did I have some kind of subconscious agenda of self-sabotage going on?) and wondere
d out loud if I was really sure about what I was saying. I wasn’t, of course. I couldn’t be sure about anything. But it was an undeniable fact that there was someone else involved in all of this now, and that it had changed things between the two of us, both physically and emotionally. There was no way back for us right now, I told him. I needed some space and time.
Eventually, Christian had got up and gone into the living room, signalling an end to the conversation. He’d switched on the telly and fallen asleep on the sofa, clearly waiting for me to go to bed. I’d crept past him into Helena’s room and slept there, not wanting to add insult to injury by pushing him out of my room.
For the next few days he’d been very quiet, speaking to me only when he needed to. But when I’d asked him if he wanted me to return to England and leave him alone, he’d shaken his head and asked me not to go. So we’d visited friends, cooked together, eaten out, taken the dog for walks and unwrapped Christmas presents. We’d talked about politics and philosophy and Helena and the house. I’d avoided talking about Martin and everything that had happened, nor had I voiced my deepest fears about what might yet happen, not wanting or deserving his support and knowing that there was nothing he could say or do to help, in any event. It was, in some ways, a peaceful time, but I couldn’t help but feel silently guilty about the bombshell that I had dropped. Once Christmas was over, I was keen to get back to England so that I didn’t have to keep looking at Christian and seeing the pain that I’d caused him, etched all over his face.
“So what now?” Zara asked me. “What happens with Oli?”
I shrugged. “That’s the million dollar question. I don’t know. What if I lead him on and then hurt him too?”