Best Laid Plans
Page 21
It would be hard this year, especially on Boxing Day, but they would cope as a family and see it through and this year Amy would have proper support from Daniel, a man of whom she thoroughly approved. She had not approved of him too much in case in some perverse way she somehow put her daughter off him but you only had to look at them to see that they were head over heels in love.
She would not breathe a word to Mike about his wife’s affair – that was a closed book – and even though she had been sorely tempted to tell Monique the truth surrounding Solomon Diamond’s sudden departure, there were some things best left unsaid.
The business was slowly creeping up again with some of Mike’s ideas bearing fruit and he was relishing the opportunity presented to him, just as, years ago, Frank had also relished it. It was tragic that Frank had to die in order for Mike to show them what he was made of but some day when and if they met up again, she would take great pleasure in telling her husband how wrong he had been.
‘Bloody Christmas trees!’ Mike said with feeling, carrying it into the room. ‘I’m scratched to ribbons. I don’t know why we bother.’
‘We bother because it’s tradition and don’t be grumpy,’ she told him, feeling the excitement that the first sight and pine smell of the tree caused. ‘Stick it in the corner. Monique’s going to help with the decorations later and Amy’s coming over as well.’
‘Are you sure you’re okay, Mum?’ he asked following her into the kitchen where preparations were in full swing; everybody would be here this evening for a pre-Christmas meal. ‘I know it’s going to be tough. We wouldn’t mind, you know, if you wanted to abandon it this year.’
‘Abandon Christmas? Absolutely not,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. We have Alexander now and he will keep us busy and take our minds off it.’
He was gone. Sol was gone.
Monique wondered if she would ever have got round to finishing it between them, but he had saved her the bother by disappearing. And now she had Alexander who looked like her and everybody said what a sweet baby he was.
She had got away with it and sometimes she looked at Alexander and could see Mike.
The trouble was she could sometimes see Sol, too.
She loved Alexander, of course, but her aunt was right for the females in her family were strangely disinterested in children so it was just as well that Mike and the rest of the Fletchers all fussed over him in a way that quite bewildered her. Perhaps it would be better when he was older and she could hold a reasonable conversation with him.
Babies, in her eyes, were grossly overrated creatures.
A few days before Christmas, Christine spent the afternoon decorating the tree. Monique helped her, pretty in pink, her slim figure regained and looking at her Christine suddenly realized that she was over it, that her daughter-in-law had made her decision to stay firmly in the fold of this family so nothing more needed to be said. There was an awkward moment following Solomon’s disappearance when she had seemed withdrawn but that moment passed and when the baby was born and everybody instantly remarked how like Monique he looked she captured the relief in her daughter-in-law’s face.
Yet Monique was Monique and because the maternal gene seemed to have bypassed her, Christine felt a grandmotherly responsibility to ensure that Alexander did not miss out on love, although with a father who doted on him and an aunt who likewise thought the sun shone out of him and her own protective instincts on high alert there was no danger of that. Alexander was very like Monique, although the dark brown curls that were starting to appear were a worry, but yesterday for the first time she had caught something in his eyes that reminded her so much of Mike.
Or was that wishful thinking? Whether or not Alexander was her true grandchild was of no consequence because she had already developed a bond with him and she would keep the secret to her grave.
The fairy lights were the final touch to the tree, the pièce de résistance. Christine tackled the fickle Christmas lights, hastily put away last year in a very higgledy-piggledy fashion so that they were tangled to high heaven and, with Monique’s help, the two of them laughing helplessly, untangled them at last and draped them all around the tree. It was exhausting work, the needles were sharp and the childish decorations did not marry particularly well with the expensive and delicate silver ornaments of last year but she was finally ready to switch them on.
‘Right. We’re ready to go. I’m going to switch them on, Mike,’ she called. ‘Come through, everybody.’
They gathered round and she handed round glasses of champagne, for with Amy newly engaged to be married they had something to celebrate. The tree looked beautiful standing by the window. It was growing dark outside with sadly no sign of the snowflakes of last year.
‘Are we taking bets on whether they work or not?’ Mike asked, holding the baby and pointing out the tree to him. ‘It’ll be a miracle if they do.’
She caught her breath for he was not to know those were his father’s very words at the same moment last year.
‘Of course they’ll work. Have faith,’ she told him, returning his smile. ‘Fingers crossed everybody. Your father …’ she gulped as emotion flooded through her, ‘he usually did a countdown. Shall we?’
‘For heaven’s sake, are we completely mad?’ Amy laughed up at Daniel. ‘I hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for coming into this family?’
‘I certainly do.’ Daniel put his arm round her and raised his glass. ‘Cheers, everybody.’
‘Cheers!’
With Oscar catching their excitement and giving a little bark, Christine flicked the switch.
By the Same Author
Eight Days at The New Grand
Olivia’s Garden
The Cuckoo’s Nest
Return to Rosemount
Emily’s Wedding
Family Secrets
A Perfect Mother
Rumours and Red Roses
Just Another Day
A Small Fortune
Copyright
© Patricia Fawcett
First published in Great Britain 2013
This version 2014
ISBN 978 0 7198 1401 3 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1402 0 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1403 7 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1001 5 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Patricia Fawcett to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988