“Will your hair fall out?”
“It may do. But that’s a small price to pay.” She forced her face into a bright grin. “I’ll save a fortune on haircuts.”
Phoebe gave a valiant smile. “Will it have grown back for the wedding?”
She hadn’t thought of this. What an image—mother of the bride, bald as a vulture. That is, if she was here at all.
“Hopefully. Just as well one wears a hat!” she said. “Now come on, stop this; I’m going to be absolutely fine. I need to be—you’re getting married!”
This didn’t seem to fortify Phoebe as she’d hoped. Her daughter sat staring at a poinsettia on the windowsill, sniffing.
“Daddy knows, right?” she asked.
“Not yet,” said Emma, trying to keep her tone light.
“What? But shouldn’t he—shouldn’t you two—”
“I’m going to tell Daddy and Olivia when the quarantine is over,” Emma said, before her daughter could offer any marital advice. “I want Christmas to be happy. It’ll only upset them. All of us sitting here fretting, cooped up with nowhere to go. I’ll get the next test results in a few days—that’ll be the time to discuss it.”
“But—”
“Please don’t say anything, will you, Phoebs? Can we keep this just between us, for now?”
Making Phoebe feel special had always been the way to win her over, even when she was very small. Her forehead softened.
“OK. But do you promise to tell Daddy, straightaway, afterward? And Olivia? She’s the doctor, for God’s sake. She’ll probably piss off to Africa otherwise.”
“Phoebe. That’s not nice. Yes, I promise. Now you go back to bed. I need to do some last bits and bobs down here.”
“Shouldn’t you go back to bed, too?”
“I’m not an invalid.”
“Can I help you? Lay the table or whatever?”
“No, no. Just being you cheers me up.”
Emma sat for a while after Phoebe had gone upstairs. The effort of sounding upbeat had left her drained. She made a cup of Earl Grey and looked out of the window at the croquet lawn. She thought of her own parents and her childhood Christmases here. All at once she wanted, more than anything, to talk to her mother. It was funny how, even once you had children, you never stopped needing your mother. If anything, they made you need her more.
Phoebe
THE GREEN BATHROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 7:30 A.M.
• • •
Phoebe knew she’d never be able to get back to sleep. She ran a rose-fragranced bath and lay looking out of the window at a square of white sky. The words she had seen on her mother’s iPad made her feel squeamish: tumor, growth, biopsy, CAT scan. They were words that belonged in other people’s lives. She realized that a tiny, awful part of her resented Christmas being ruined. And next year. It was meant to be her year, the run-up to the wedding, and instead everything would be clouded. She could hardly ask her mother to redecorate Weyfield now. She knew this was not a generous way to think. She considered calling George, but he would still be asleep. She pushed down the voice that piped up: “You should be able to call your future husband at any time, especially with something like this.” Instead, she went outside for a jog—turning up a gym playlist full volume. Miley Cyrus sounded tinnily out of place on the croquet lawn. As she ran laps, she found herself obsessing about whether George had got her the Dinny Hall hoops—the last thing she should be thinking about. But the thought that he might get her present wrong, like he’d got the ring a bit wrong (OK, a lot wrong), made the crying lump rise up in her throat again. Worst of all, she hated herself for still being such a brat. Would she ever grow up and be like Olivia, and stop caring about stuff?
• • •
Olivia really annoyed her at breakfast. Even while they were doing stockings, she kept sneaking looks at her iPad under the table. Phoebe wanted to shake her and say: “This could be Mummy’s last Christmas! At least look at her, instead of the news, for five minutes.” She didn’t say anything, though, even when Emma had to ask Olivia three times if she wanted panettone.
Afterward, she went upstairs to call George. His phone rang to voicemail, as it had done twice last night. She would have to call the Marsham-Smiths, which meant talking to George’s mother.
“Hello, Dalgrave Barn?” trilled Linda.
“Hi, Linda, it’s Phoebe. Happy Christmas.”
“Phoebe! The bride to be! Merry Christmas! How are you?”
It was odd how her voice was different to George’s watertight drawl. Linda always sounded too loud and too posh, bar the occasional clanging vowel.
“Fine! Quarantined, haha, but fine.”
“Of course you are. How’s your sister? Must have been pretty primitive over there? Do they have running water, toilets?”
“She’s fine. She just has to take her temperature the whole time.”
“Does she? That’s good. Did she know the Irish boy?”
“Sorry?”
“You know. The one who got it.”
“Oh right, er, yes, a bit, I think.” Why did Linda always have to ask a billion questions?
“He really should’ve been more careful, shouldn’t he? It’s just irresponsible, putting us all at risk like that. Now let me see if George is up yet. They all had rather a late night.”
“Ah,” Phoebe tried to sound knowing. She heard Linda shouting for George.
His “Hey, Phoebles” when he answered was hoarse.
“Hey. Happy Christmas.”
“Oh yeah. Happy Christmas, babe.”
“Your mum said it was a big one last night.”
“Did she? Not specially, just the Woolmakers.”
“Oh. Anyway, George, can you go somewhere on your own?”
“I am.”
“OK, I have bad news. I just found out”—she paused, to make sure he registered the crisis in her voice—“that Mummy has cancer.”
“What? Your mum? Shit.” He sounded distracted.
“Yes. Hodgkin’s lymphoma. No, wait, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.”
“What, she does or she doesn’t?”
“It’s called ‘non,’ that’s like the name of the cancer.” She found tears rising again and exaggerated her sobs slightly to make sure George didn’t think she’d just gone silent. She didn’t often cry in front of him, considering how easily she wept with her family.
“Don’t cry. She’ll be OK,” he said, stiffly.
“What if she’s not? This is like my nightmare! She can’t, she can’t not be OK.”
“Don’t think like that.”
“I just found out by mistake. I was looking at her iPad and I saw all her searches, and then this e-mail from Nicola.”
“Nicola?”
“She’s her best friend. You’ve met her. Blond, shouty?”
“Oh right, her. Look, Phoebles, I’m really sorry, I have to go. We’re doing champagne breakfast. I’m sure she’ll be OK. Talk later.”
And he hung up.
Jesse
ROOM 17, THE HARBOUR HOTEL, BLAKENHAM, 10:00 A.M.
• • •
Jesse woke up fully clothed on top of the bedspread. His head was throbbing. He was craving a cold-pressed juice, but the only remotely cleansing thing in the minibar was a chamomile tea bag. He stood, sipping its thin, floral brew, looking out at the marshes. It was hard to believe it was Christmas Day. The room smelled of George’s cologne, woody and young—perhaps Chanel Égoïste or Boss. He lay down and stared at a yellowish stain on the ceiling, replaying last night in his head.
They had left the bar. He remembered George pulling on a beanie, but having no coat, and how his athlete’s shoulders looked strong and powerful in the cold. The moon was so full it cast shadows. A pheasant shot out of the undergrowth with a frenzy of squawking and flapping, and their a
rms bumped as they both instinctively ducked. The rest of the time, the only sound was their footsteps on the frosted road.
“You close with your brothers?” said Jesse, for want of something to say.
“Sure. They’re, like, my boys. My buddies. We were shipped off to boarding school when we were seven, so we kind of clubbed together.”
“Seven years old?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Jeez. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s all good.”
They walked on in silence, turning onto a lane so overhung with branches that it was more tunnel than path. George had been the one to suggest they keep drinking, but he didn’t seem to want to talk. Jesse couldn’t work him out. He was straight—publicly—but sometimes the straightest-seeming guys were the ones who wanted to experiment. Why else would he have suggested they go back to Jesse’s hotel? Unless he was just drunk. His profile was expressionless. Jesse tried a different tack.
“Do you think that’s why you proposed to your girlfriend? Looking for security? Righting the wrongs of your childhood. All that shit.” For a moment, as George’s head whipped round, he wondered if he’d overstepped the mark. But George just looked bemused.
“What wrongs?”
“Your parents sending you away. Abandoning you. Maybe you wanted to, I don’t know, fix it with your own happy ending.”
“Ha. Happy ending.” He sniggered, like Jesse had said something dirty. “Do there have to be reasons for everything?”
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“Right . . . so you’re like a Scientologist?”
“Nope. But I’m a filmmaker, and we get pretty deep. Human condition and all that.”
“I thought you were in porn?”
“Hell no! That was your brother, jumping to conclusions. I did some acting when I started out, but I prefer being behind the camera. Besides, I’m too tall to be an actor.”
“So what’ve you been in? Anything I’d know?” The question came with a slight sneer, as if to undercut any inferred interest—either in Jesse’s acting or superior height.
“Mostly U.S. shows. Spring Break? Willow Drive? I had a walk-on in Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
“Whoa! Did you meet Larry David?”
His excitement made him sound younger.
“Sure. I mean, we didn’t talk a whole lot but we met.”
They reached the hotel. The security light revealed a deserted lobby, and a metal screen over the bar. Jesse sensed the mood evaporating, and George having second thoughts. “I have booze in my room,” he said, on impulse. He must have been drunker than he realized. Or perhaps he just needed company. It was days since he’d had a real conversation. George followed him up the stairs. He was suddenly very aware of the other man’s body, the corridor so narrow that they switched to single file. Up in his room, they both sat side by side on the edge of the maroon bed. Jesse emptied two Jack Daniels miniatures into tumblers. “Chin, chin!” said George.
“Merry Christmas,” replied Jesse.
“So, what, you’re spending Christmas here?” asked George, leaning back on his elbows and surveying the room.
“Looks that way,” said Jesse. He switched on MTV but turned the sound way down.
“How come?”
“I didn’t plan on—I mean, it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way,” he said.
George looked confused.
“OK, here’s the deal. I’m adopted, right?” said Jesse. “And I’m looking for my birth father. He lives around here. The whole idea was that I was going to spend Christmas there, at his home, but it turned out I’m not welcome.” He knew he was oversharing again, but he was too drunk to care. He could hear his therapist’s monotone asking: “Do you think you ‘blurt,’ Jesse, because you want to free yourself of something?” Shut up, Calgary, he thought.
“Wait—what? So you’re looking for your real, as in, biological father and he told you to piss off?” George seemed more animated than he had been all evening.
“Not straight out. But I sent him a bunch of e-mails, and he didn’t reply.”
“Nothing?”
“Just, I don’t know, silence. I told him I was working in Norfolk, that we could meet somewhere neutral. It’s cool. I had to be here for work anyway. I knew I was taking a chance.”
“Dude, that’s really poor form. Have the decency to reply, for fuck’s sake.”
“He might not have gotten the e-mail.”
George didn’t look convinced. “D’you know where he lives?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah, actually. It’s not far. Do you think I should, like, go to his house?”
“You have his actual address? Then sure, why not? Look—either he got the e-mail and he’s ignoring you, in which case he’s a douche and you should call him on it. Or he never got it, and you’re losing out on the chance to meet your father.”
“I guess. I’m not sure it’s so simple.”
“Mate, what have you got to lose? I always say this, you regret the things you didn’t do, not the things you did do.”
“Right—you’re the first person ever to say that.” Jesse grinned to show he was joking. The conversation had gotten too intense. George smiled back. His lips were stained with mulled wine. Jesse wanted to taste them. He sat up and pulled his sweater over his head, careful to make it look casual. As he emerged, he saw George checking his abs where his T-shirt had ridden up, as he’d known he would. He leaned back on his elbows, too, so that they were both staring straight ahead at Beyonce gyrating on TV. George collapsed down on the quilt beside him. Their legs were still over the edge of the bed, feet on the floor. “I am properly wasted,” said George, into space.
Jesse looked across and down at him. “Room spins?” he said.
“Room fucking teacup ride, mate.”
“You can crash here, if you want.” Jesse lay back, flat out, like George. Their heads were inches apart on the bed.
“Might have to.”
George shut his eyes, so Jesse did, too. He was almost nervous to breathe. Was it his imagination, or was that George’s arm, shifting closer to his, so that he could just feel its hairs mingle with his own, and George’s knuckles, brushing his hand? He pushed back, just enough, with his own hand. They lay like that for what seemed ages. Jesse stretched to switch out the lamp, so that the room was lit only by the flashing TV screen. He could smell the whiskey on George’s breath. He modified his own breathing to sound like he was falling asleep. And then he felt George turn, and his lips against his neck, in the dimness.
They must have slept, because he was woken by the click of the door handle. The clock by the bed said 05:08. George was by the door, with his back to Jesse. He was moving with a kind of hunched stealth that told Jesse he didn’t want to be seen. Jesse shut his eyes again and heard the door creak open, then softly close. George’s steps retreated down the corridor outside. Jesse lay still, wondering if he had imagined everything that had happened in the watery dawn light, until his bladder overcame his need to stay horizontal.
Olivia
THE DRAWING ROOM, WEYFIELD HALL, 11:00 A.M.
• • •
Olivia had only checked the news an hour ago, but already her fingers were itching for her iPad, as if it was a link to Sean. There were no updates on his condition today, and the headlines were dominated by forecasts of “the soggiest ever Christmas.” “No news is good news, surely?” her mother had said, as they opened stockings over breakfast.
“It just means he hasn’t deteriorated, or improved. And he was critical yesterday, so that’s not great.”
“I hope you might still manage to enjoy Christmas?”
Olivia made herself smile, and pretended to be interested in the Fortnums marmalade and credit card Swiss Army knife emerging from the red sock in her hands.
Now th
e four of them were in the drawing room, her father pumping at the hearth with a pair of wheezy bellows. He stopped to tell a story about lighting a fire in the desert with a magnifying glass, during the Soviet-Afghan War. Olivia knew he was going to tell it even before he sat back on his heels to say, “Y’know, this reminds me of . . .” He never talked about the Afghan people, or the politics at the time—just his own Boy Scouts memories. But that was the way it was at home, everyone sticking to a script, wheeling out the same exhausted anecdotes. Carols from Kings was playing again, “Silent Night” bleating from the speakers. The air was dense with wood smoke and a sickly mix of orange peel and furniture polish. It seemed indecent to be sitting here with the radiators on full as well as the fire. The only thing that helped to take her mind off Sean was planning a return visit to Liberia next year. She felt slightly crazed with the need to do something.
Phoebe dived toward the tree, pulling out shiny parcels and distributing them, until everyone had a little mound of presents at their feet. Olivia slid her iPad out from under the sofa and swiped the screen, refreshing her search for Sean Coughlan. Nothing new.
“OK, this is for you from Mummy,” Phoebe said to Andrew, choosing a present for him to unwrap. “And this is for you from me,” she said to Emma. She eyed Olivia’s pile. Unlike when they were children, it was noticeably larger than Phoebe’s, though Olivia would gladly have given Phoebe the lot. “That’s just from Irina,” said Phoebe, pointing at a gaudy gold parcel.
“Who’s Irina?”
“Irina the cleaner,” chorused Emma and Phoebe, and burst out laughing. Olivia wasn’t sure why this was funny. It actually kind of appalled her that they had a cleaner when her mother didn’t work. And that the poor woman was spending her wages on gifts.
Irina (she now dimly remembered a Romanian woman scurrying around Gloucester Terrace) had given Olivia a box of Lindt chocolates and a glittering card wishing her safe return from Africa. Her mother had probably been talking about it nonstop. At least she no longer wrote her round-robin, that always began “Olivia has reached new academic heights.” Olivia offered everyone the chocolates, though only her mother took one. She reached again for her iPad, hiding it behind the cushion on her lap, and pretended to watch the others open their presents. Her mother met each one with a noisy show of delight or hilarity. Andrew kept pulling the same nonplussed face he always made on receiving gifts, until he came to Phoebe’s, and looked genuinely thrilled with a wine aerator.
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