by Fiona Gibson
‘… but Clara didn’t know much about her,’ Henry adds. He pats Ben’s shoulder. ‘Keeping her under wraps, were you?’
‘Uh, not exactly,’ Ben says flushing, and scuttling away as Clara waves him over to greet another guest.
‘Well, I can see why he’s fallen for you, Anna,’ Joan says, her voice fuzzy with booze as she lowers her voice. ‘Ben had a terrible time with Louisa. I shouldn’t say this – I mean, I’m probably speaking out of turn here …’
‘Joan,’ Henry hisses.
‘Oh, come on,’ she retorts, her piled-up hair a little wonky now as she drains her glass and motions for Henry to top it up. ‘Dreadful woman. So neurotic and needy! You know, I don’t think he ever loved her. Clara sort of threw them together. She was the right sort of girl – good family – and, of course, she was stunning. Every young man in the county was after her. I don’t blame Ben for going along with it …’
‘I don’t know that it was like that,’ I say quickly.
Joan’s lips are set in a firm line. ‘She was just a dizzy blonde, nothing to say for herself …’
‘Joan!’ Henry cuts in, more firmly this time.
This is becoming too much. It doesn’t feel right, running down Ben’s ex when she’s gazing out at us from that solid silver frame. Maybe it’s just the drink talking. Although my housemates will be pretty ‘lively’ by now – Jamie’s potent punch is delicious – it’s startling to see so many people of Ben’s parents’ age getting so pissed, so quickly, especially as I’m sober. Someone has already knocked the vase of red flowers off the piano, and Nell is lapping up a spillage of blue cheese dip from the floor.
As I glance around the room, wondering who to talk to next, it’s Louisa’s face I see – smiling, radiant, on her wedding day. We are polar opposites. While I am a curvy brunette – ‘gorgeously womanly’, according to Ben – she is a slip of a thing, all pale hair and sharp angles. I wonder if any of the other guests find it odd that the photo is on display.
I head for the buffet and load a plate with the most carb-laden offerings, piling it high and tucking in. Everything is delicious, and eating seems better than standing around looking for someone to talk to, as if I’ve wandered into the house by mistake. The truth is, I’m never very comfortable at parties where I don’t know anyone. I know Ben, of course, but he’s being manoeuvred around the room by his mother as if on a strictly scheduled meet-and-greet. I wish Daisy hadn’t been whisked off to bed a couple of hours ago. She’d talk to me. Someone starts playing the piano – probably Chopin or Handel, I know virtually nothing about classical music. I picture Jamie, trying to maintain some semblance of order throughout his pop quiz, and I’m hit by an intense wave of missing him.
Slipping out to the hallway, where I can check my phone without appearing rude, I quickly scroll through my texts. From Tom: How’s it going? Did you knock their socks off with those shoes? From Kate: We need to know how you’re getting on! What are the parents like? Is there a butler? Nothing from Jamie. Probably too busy, or pissed.
‘Thank you, Sally, I think we’re finished here now.’ Clara’s voice in the kitchen gives me a start.
One of the waitresses passes me in the hallway as she makes her way to the front door. ‘Enjoy the rest of the evening,’ she says brightly.
‘Thanks,’ I reply with a smile.
She leaves, and I’m revving myself up to rejoin the party when I catch Ben’s voice, along with his mother’s. Sounds like they’re having a rather tetchy exchange in the kitchen.
‘I don’t know what you mean, Mum,’ he says hotly. ‘Honestly, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about …’
‘Oh, come on, Ben. I know you. You’re trying to make a point …’
‘A point about what?’
‘A point about proving that you’re over her, that you’ve met this, this woman…’ My stomach lurches. I feel physically sick. As if sensing my discomfort, Nell pads towards me as I flump down on to the bottom stair.
‘I don’t want to talk about this, Mum,’ Ben mutters.
‘Look, I know she’s pretty, and I’m sure you have fun together …’
‘Daisy loves her,’ he cuts in.
‘Yes, well, Daisy loves everyone. Like that Kelly girl. She likes anyone who gives her lots of attention. I just have to ask you …’ Clara pauses. ‘… Is this a serious thing, Ben? Not talking marriage, are we?’
I stroke the top of Nell’s head. She twists around to lick my hand. Ben or his mother might come out of the kitchen, and anyone could wander out of the drawing room and find me sitting here, the party pooper who’ll never fit in. I don’t care. I just need to be by myself for a few moments. Despite the babble of voices in the drawing room, the house feels very still.
‘I don’t know what it is,’ comes Ben’s voice.
‘I mean,’ his mother goes on, ‘I can see she’s good with children, but I hope it’s not giving you any ideas …’
‘What, to have another baby?’ Ben laughs scornfully.
‘Yes. Does she want to have children?’
‘We haven’t really talked about it.’
‘Please tell me you’re not thinking of starting another family …’
There’s a beat’s silence, then Ben replies, ‘No, Mum, I can promise you, I’m not going to have a child with her.’
I feel as if I’ve been punched. My phone vibrates in my hand, making me flinch. Another text from home, this time from Jamie: We miss you! We love you! Hope you’re having fun. Oh, sure I am. There’s more murmuring in the kitchen, too hushed for me to make out the words. Then Clara’s voice rings out: ‘Well, I have to tell you, Benjamin, I’m very relieved about that.’
I stand up, aware of a sudden movement at the top of the stairs. Daisy is standing on the landing in a white lacy nightie, clutching an old faded bear.
‘You’re awake!’ I whisper, hurrying upstairs towards her.
She nods blearily. ‘The piano woke me up. And all the shouting …’
‘It is quite loud,’ I agree. ‘Everyone’s just chatting and having a nice time. But try to sleep, sweetheart …’
‘Father Christmas hasn’t been yet.’
I smile. ‘No, but he’ll be here soon. It’s very late …’
‘Can I come downstairs?’
‘No, love, I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘Can we finish the snowman?’ she asks, brightening. ‘The snow might be sticky enough now …’
I shake my head. ‘It’s dark, Daisy, and it’s gone eleven. Come on, you can show me your room if you like, and I’ll tuck you in.’
She smiles as I take her warm, sticky hand, leading me along the landing to the furthest door. The room is in darkness apart from a small, glowing nightlight at floor level, shaped like a fairground carousel. Daisy clicks on her bedside lamp. If a six-year-old girl were to draw her perfect bedroom, it would be this room: curtains and duvet cover patterned with fairies; brightly coloured bunting strewn above the sleigh-shaped bed. A red, fur-edged stocking hangs from the bottom of it.
‘I love your room,’ I exclaim. ‘You’re such a lucky girl.’
‘I know,’ she says, grinning. ‘Will you read me a story?’
I hesitate. I’m not sure that keeping Daisy awake for longer than necessary will boost my popularity where Clara is concerned, but it’s only 11.15, and maybe a couple of picture books will help to settle her.
‘Okay,’ I reply. ‘What’s your favourite?’
She giggles. ‘Grandma doesn’t like it …’
‘Why not?’ I say, intrigued, as she delves into the wooden trunk filled with books beside her bed.
‘She says it’s silly.’
Good, let’s bloody read it then …
‘I can’t find it,’ Daisy mutters, pulling out books and tossing them behind her on to the cream spotted rug.
I examine the ones she’s discarded. ‘What about this? We read it all the time at the nursery …’ But no: my
every suggestion is shunned as, having emptied the trunk, she starts searching her room for the only book that will do. I try to help, even though I haven’t a clue what I’m looking for.
‘What’s it called, Daisy?’
‘I told you, it’s a surprise! It’s so funny …’ She opens her dressing-up box and flings out fairy and princess costumes. From the bottom of her wardrobe comes a hail of soft toys and games.
‘We’d better tidy this up,’ I say ineffectually as she rummages through the drawers of her dressing table. The piano is pounding away now, no longer polite classical music but a ham-fisted rendition of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ with a cacophony of out-of-tune singing.
‘How about checking under your bed?’ I suggest.
‘Yeah!’ While she burrows around, I start to gather up the discarded books, replaying Clara’s remark: As long as that’s all it is.
A fling, did she mean? I.e. just someone to shag on a Friday night? I think about how stressed I was over choosing presents for Ben’s parents (for her, a necklace from Accessorize. Accessorize! What was I thinking? And a bottle of whisky for Charles, who possesses so many rare malts, a bottle of fairly bog-standard Scotch is the last thing he needs). And I replay Ben’s remark: I can promise you, I’m not going to have a child with her. My eyes mist with tears, and I blink them away before Daisy notices.
Another thought hits me. It’s December-the-sodding-twenty-fourth. It might be silly at my age to love Christmas Eve, and to be overexcited about the day to follow. But that’s how I am – how we all are, my housemates and me. And this year, I’m not looking forward to Christmas one bit.
I am, I realise with a start, completely dreading it.
This is wrong. I have never felt like this about Christmas. The one after Dad died, when I was 23, Mum, my sister and I made an enormous effort to make it special. When Mum died four years ago, Jamie, Tom and Kate transformed the festivities into a project of astronomical proportions – not making a cake months early, or decorating the tree in perfectly coordinated fashion, but in buying the biggest, tackiest, fibre-optic tree they could find, thinking – rightly – that it’d make me laugh, and filling our home with tinsel and candles and delicious things to eat.
We were broke that year but pooled our meagre resources to cobble together a fantastic lunch. I’d never have imagined that over-boiled carrots and a slab of incinerated port-and-chestnut stuffing could taste so delicious. Tears prick my eyes as Daisy’s bare feet emerge from under her bed.
I can promise you, I’m not going to have a child with her …
Someone is belting out ‘Ding Dong Merrily On High’ in the drawing room. But Clara’s words still ring in my ears.
‘Found it!’ Daisy scrambles out, clutching a rather battered, dusty old paperback.
‘Oh, The Twits! I know that one …’
‘It was stuck behind the radiator,’ she explains.
‘Maybe it fell there,’ I suggest. Or maybe Clara hid it, because it’s ‘silly’.
The two of us clamber on to her bed, and Daisy snuggles beneath the fattest, squidgiest duvet I have ever encountered as I start to read.
‘There you are!’ Charles, red-cheeked and shiny, clicks on the dazzling ceiling light and marches into the room.
I lurch upright, taking a moment to figure out where I am. On a sleigh bed. The Twits lies open on the duvet.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Charles,’ I bluster, trying to flatten my hair and scrambling off the bed. ‘Daisy asked me to read to her …’
‘In the middle of the night?’
‘Well, it was just gone eleven when I came up. She’d woken up; the music had disturbed her …’
‘I heard the piano, Grandpa,’ she says meekly, blearily opening her eyes.
‘You should be asleep, dear,’ he says, his tone softening as Ben, looking decidedly squiffy, wanders into the room.
‘We were all wondering where you’d gone, Anna. What are you doing?’
‘Daisy asked for a story,’ I mutter.
‘Dad,’ Ben says, draping an arm around his father’s broad shoulders, ‘it’s okay, we’ll be down in a minute …’ Charles gives me a quick, undecipherable look before leaving the room.
At Daisy’s bedside, Ben hugs Daisy goodnight. ‘Come on, darling, it’s so late. Father Christmas will be on his way now …’
‘Will he?’ she breathes.
‘Definitely.’ He kisses her forehead and plumps the duvet around her, then clicks off the bedside light.
We leave her room and start to head downstairs. Halfway down, I stop. ‘You know,’ I start, ‘I think I might just go to bed, Ben.’
He frowns. ‘But you can’t! It’s nearly midnight …’
‘What d’you mean, I can’t?’
‘That’s when Mum lights the candles on the tree. It’s our tradition, it’s important, we’ve done it since I was a boy …’
‘Er, okay,’ I mutter, remembering Kate’s pin-on-a-grin tip as we make our way into the drawing room. Everyone is completely inebriated now, and Clara is attempting to light the tiny white candles in their holders on the huge fir tree without setting her hair alight. The room is filled with heady perfume and the smell of expensive cigars.
Catching a whiff of burning pine, I weave my way between guests towards Clara. ‘Can I help you with that?’ I ask.
‘No, no, it’s fine,’ she says distractedly as Charles strides over and snatches the lighter from her.
‘You’d better have a sit down, Clara,’ he snaps.
To my left, a cluster of people I haven’t met yet are admiring the framed photos on the table. ‘Wasn’t Louisa a beauty?’ an elderly woman says.
‘Was?’ laughs a man with a thick grey moustache. ‘You say that as if she’s dead, Margaret …’
‘Shame about the divorce …’
‘I know,’ he says with genuine regret. ‘Lovely girl …’
‘A natural mother.’
‘… Not a selfish bone in her body …’
Edging away from the Louisa Appreciation Society, I make my way out of the room and upstairs, and into our bedroom where I clean my teeth in the en suite, and consider removing my make-up but think, sod it. Instead, I just tear off my boots, jeans and ridiculous Rudolph sweater before flopping – still in festive knickers, bra and cheap red lipstick – into bed.
I must have fallen asleep instantly because one moment I’m watching snowflakes drifting past the window and next, the door has opened and Ben is tottering in.
‘Well, that was fucking rude,’ he mutters, unbuttoning his shirt.
I remain silent. Snowflakes are still falling, soft and illuminated by the purplish moonlight.
‘You might have said goodnight to everyone,’ he adds, tugging off the shirt, his shoes, then his trousers, which causes him – I’m ridiculously pleased to note – to bang his hip against the sharp corner of the dressing table.
‘I’d had enough of the party,’ I murmur.
‘Oh, so you are awake then! So what was that all about?’
‘What was what about?’ I sit up, reaching for my phone on the bedside table and typing a short, succinct text.
‘Who are you texting?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘That’s charming, that is,’ he blusters, making his way to the en suite and peeing noisily, then coming out and landing heavily on the edge of the bed, where he wrestles with his socks. Pants are last. He does, admittedly, have an extremely eye-pleasing body.
I place my phone back on the bedside table. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I say. ‘What’s charming, exactly? I mean, what have I done?’
He bundles himself into bed, taking care not to make physical contact with me. ’Well, actually, I don’t know where to start. You obviously didn’t want to come here. You made that clear in the car. And you’ve hardly made an effort with my parents, have you? I mean, I know they’re a bit stiff. But they did ask you not to keep Daisy outside in the snow for
too long, and then you woke her up and read stories …’
‘I didn’t wake her up,’ I snap. ‘The noise disturbed her. D’you think I’m the kind of person who wakes up sleeping children in the night?’
‘I don’t know what kind of person you are.’ Oh, for crying out loud. ‘And then you fell asleep,’ he snaps, ‘in Daisy’s room. Are we that boring to you, Anna?’
I lie very still, wondering whether moonlight is always this beautiful soft mauve colour, or if it’s only like this in the country. ‘I’m going to sleep,’ I say, turning away. Ben tosses and turns and grunts for a few minutes before he, too, lies still.
I’m not asleep, though. I’m dazzlingly awake on Christmas Eve, as Daisy probably is too – but, in my case, not because I hope to glimpse reindeer. I’m lying here with eyes wide open, because my boyfriend of five months told his mother: that’s all it is.
I peer round to study Ben’s slumbering form. You can see how handsomely chiselled he is, even in this shadowy light. A Hugh Grant type, or a straight Rupert Everett. He has affable charm in spades, and has been insanely generous to me. Before Ben, I’d never had oysters, or proper vintage champagne (rather than supermarket stuff) or an orgasm in a suite at the Savoy (an overnight stay was my birthday present). He has treated and spoiled me and taken the bold, brave step of bringing me here for Christmas. Surely he had some idea of what his parents would make of me?
His breathing has settled into a slow, steady rhythm.
‘Ben.’ I nudge him.
He flinches. ’Uh?’
‘I overheard you and your mum talking in the kitchen.’
‘Mmm,’ he murmurs.
‘I heard her say, as long as that’s all it is…’
He kicks a leg free from the duvet. ‘Don’t know what you mean.’
‘Neither do I. Were you playing it down, pretending it’s just a casual thing between us, because that’s what she wanted to hear?’
‘Go to sleep …’
‘Or did you mean it, Ben? And if you did, why did you ask me to move in with you?’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ he mutters, clearing his throat, which turns into a series of chesty coughs.