The Christmas Café

by Amanda Prowse

  Bea closed her eyes, hoping to clear her head and find a place of quiet contemplation, but no sooner had she taken a deep breath than she heard a gentle rapping on the door. She adjusted her bangles, practised her neutral face, stood and made her way across the room. She walked slowly, with one trembling hand over her mouth, trying to comprehend what was happening. Twisting the lock, she stepped back and opened the door.

  There in front of her was a man so beautiful and unexpected that the breath caught in her throat and her heart missed a beat. She felt her legs sway and her head swim; she placed a hand on her chest, worrying that she might faint. She wanted to move but couldn’t figure out how. Her whole body shook and everything and everyone else disappeared. All she could see was the man standing in the street with the snow falling on his shoulders. Look at you! You are real and you are here! She walked forward until they were just a few feet apart.

  ‘Oh, dear God!’ he murmured. ‘Beatrice...’

  Bea nodded, slowly. ‘John.’ It was the first time in decades that she had addressed him for real, not just in her head.

  They were overwhelmed, tongue-tied and rather awkward. There was no small talk; it would have felt ridiculous to discuss the weather and plans for Christmas when a volcano of emotions was rumbling inside each of them.

  Bea stood back and let him pass. Both quickly sank into the chairs in front of the hearth, each stealing glances at the other’s face, trying to relearn the features that time and experience had so altered.

  ‘Did you recognise me?’ she whispered. She spoke to her hands folded in her lap, wondering if he was looking at the map of crow’s feet that had gathered at the corner of her eyes, the small pouch of skin beneath her chin, her grey hair.

  ‘There was something today... It was just a glimpse, but it felt odd. Something didn’t add up, but I couldn’t figure out what. Then when Moira told me you were Australian it all fell into place.’ He placed his hand on his heart. ‘I felt you.’

  His words sent a shiver to her core. I have felt you too, all those nights apart, holding our newborn baby, watching him morph into the image of his daddy. ‘I didn’t mean to barge in, John, or upset you or your family in any way. I don’t want to cause you any embarrassment. I only meant to look at you. I never thought—’

  ‘It’s okay. It really is,’ he interrupted. ‘Margaret died ten years ago.’ Saying her name aloud, he broke the taboo, brought the reason for their guilt into the open, answered the unasked. What had his email said? I know what that feels like, we are in similar boats; for me it’s been ten years. Of course! He had forgotten to be Alex and had spoken the truth; ten years, his truth.

  ‘Alex told me and I’m sorry.’ Bea hated the flush of guilty joy that flooded through her.

  He smiled sincerely at her condolences. ‘When she passed, it changed things for me. I thought about you – I suppose I was finally free to do so. I wondered if I should try and get in contact, but I couldn’t find the courage. So I did it by stealth. I guess I was worried about messing up your life, about interfering.’

  Bea nodded quickly; his concerns echoed her own.

  ‘I saw you, Bea, and I saw your son.’ He stared at her, waiting for confirmation.

  She simply gazed at him, speechless.

  He twisted to face her in his chair. ‘We need to talk, properly talk.’ His voice was soft but assertive. ‘It doesn’t have to be tonight. We have all the time in the world, we can take it slowly.’

  She watched as he stood up, removed his coat and scarf and strode across the room to place them on a vacant chair. The temptation to jump up and cling to him for dear life was strong.

  ‘Oh my word,’ she gasped. ‘I can’t believe I’m here.’ Every bit of her seemed to be trembling.

  ‘My Beatrice.’ John let his eyes rove over her face as they stared at each other, sitting in front of the fire inside the Christmas Café.

  He lifted his hand and smoothed the tendrils of hair that had strayed over her cheek. ‘It’s really you, isn’t it?’ he said, and his eyes crinkled in a smile, the way they always had.

  The touch of his hand against her face, skin to skin, sent a jolt right through her. ‘Yes. It’s me.’

  Dr John Wyatt Brodie stood, taking a step across the creaking wooden floor of the cosy café. It was a single step, but it represented thousands of miles and many decades. He reached out and pulled her up towards him. Gingerly, Bea raised her arms and placed them across her lover’s back, nestled in the space beneath his chin where she had always fitted so perfectly. They stood like that for a minute or so, savouring each other’s presence, inhaling the scent of each other.

  ‘I have over the years considered the fact that I might have imagined you. Imagined the whole thing. I doubted that anyone could have the strength of feeling that I had for you.’ His voice was soft.

  Bea nodded. It was exactly the same for her.

  ‘But here you are!’ He stepped back so he could see her better, still holding the tops of her arms.

  ‘Yes. Here I am.’ She looked up at him. ‘I got old!’ She dropped her gaze to the floor.

  ‘We both did. And not old – older. But it’s still you and you are still...’ He shook his head as if the truth was a surprise. ‘Still so very beautiful.’

  Bea swallowed the bubble of joy that was growing inside her. ‘We’ve got wine.’ She sat down at the table, wanting distance between them, unable to cope with the physical proximity and the overwhelming desire to lay her skin against his and never let go.

  John sat down too and stretched his legs in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. ‘Is Xander upstairs?’

  ‘Yes.’ She still couldn’t quite make the connection between the man who she had come to think of as a friend and little Xander who had been in her thoughts for years.

  ‘And where’s Flora?’

  She loved the way he pronounced her name. ‘She’s with him, no doubt taking over the remote control and the very large bag of popcorn.’

  ‘How lovely to think of the two of them getting to know each other.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘How long have I got you for?’ John asked as the embers crackled.

  ‘Tonight?’ she said, wondering if he had to be somewhere.

  ‘No!’ He laughed. ‘How long are you here in Edinburgh?’

  ‘Oh! A good few days yet.’ She didn’t want to think about leaving, not already. This time it would be her travelling to the other side of the world.

  ‘You have no idea what it felt like to get that email from you. Knowing you were on the other side of a keyboard sending messages to me!’ He shook his head.

  ‘Well, not to you exactly.’ She smiled shyly, thinking of the confidences she had shared.

  ‘I didn’t know how to begin to come clean. I enjoyed our chats – it was fun, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ She had to admit. ‘It was fun.’ She decided not to tell John the extent of all her confusion, how she’d only recently realised that her e-penfriend was a man, and now it turned out he was someone else entirely. It was you all along. It was too much to digest just now.

  John let his eyes travel over the pictures on the walls. ‘I like it here. I like to reflect on all the Christmases that these other people have shared. Christmas was always a time I thought about you.’ He studied the scenes and she wondered if, like her, he was thinking of all those they had spent apart.

  ‘D’you remember how I asked you if it was only called the Christmas Café at this time of year, whether it changed its name at Easter, Valentine’s and so forth?’

  ‘I do! I thought that was a very good idea.’ He laughed.

  ‘Was it you writing back to me by then?’ Bea asked.

  ‘Yes. The first contact came from Alex, he wrote you the letter. I thought I’d be content for him to just read me your correspondence, but it wasn’t enough, not for me. So I took over.’

  The two sat in silence for a second or two, listening to the hiss and crackle of the
logs on the fire.

  ‘I can’t believe we’re here. I still don’t know if you’re real,’ Bea murmured.

  ‘I am.’ He reached across the table and took her palm inside his. Their fingers trembled in sync as they each tried to absorb the reality of what was happening.

  ‘I’ve dreamt of you for so long, I’m worried I might wake up,’ she whispered.

  ‘I have the same dream over and over. On our last night together, you fell asleep—’

  ‘I didn’t!’

  ‘You did.’ He nodded. ‘Just for a few minutes. I held you as you slipped off to sleep. I watched your eyes flutter and your mouth twitch and I kissed you. Watching you sleep was the greatest privilege and I knew it was one I would never have the chance to repeat. That thought alone made my heart break. To this day I dream of you often: you lie in my arms and I hold you while you sleep. It’s perfect. And then I wake up, feeling both very sad and very happy.’

  ‘Oh, John! I used to imagine you’d died. It ripped me in two, but it was easier somehow to think of you as being dead, to think of you gone and unable to be with me rather than alive somewhere and choosing to remain hidden, like a thing in the shadows.’

  ‘I never chose to remain hidden, Bea. But I couldn’t bear to hurt you any more than I already had. To see you so distressed and knowing it was my doing, it has tortured me.’ He swallowed. ‘This isn’t easy for me. I’m not used to sharing my thoughts so much – I rarely talk about my emotions like this.’

  ‘It isn’t easy for me either. I can taste the disloyalty, the guilt.’ Bea licked her lips as if to rid her mouth of the sensation. ‘I was married to a good, good man.’

  John drew breath. ‘I’m glad, Bea. So glad you could find love and happiness.’

  I did love him. But not in the way I loved you. Bea tossed her hair to try and clear her head. ‘His name was Peter. He passed away last year, just before Christmas.’

  He squeezed her fingers in solace. ‘Yes, I know. I have no right to feel jealous, but I still do.’

  ‘When you left that morning...’ Bea swallowed the tears that slipped down the back of her throat. She knew she had to broach the subject soon, otherwise it would sit like an obstacle between them. ‘I thought I might die. I really did. I felt so broken, so bereft. It was a physical pain.’

  ‘I have never felt such sadness,’ John said, his voice choked. ‘I hated myself. I hated myself for years. It was like I’d tricked you, but that couldn’t have been further from what I’d intended.’ He fixed his gaze on a spot on the table. ‘I was twenty-three years old, thousands of miles from Scotland, doing my first job as a doctor, out there in the sunshine. Life seemed so full of possibilities. It was as though... as though I’d suddenly found myself. As though I was a different person and I was free. Free to be young and to start again.’ He glanced up at her. ‘I couldn’t even admit to myself what was waiting for me back in Scotland, let alone tell you.’

  ‘It must have changed things for you when you arrived home,’ Bea ventured.

  ‘Home,’ John repeated, shaking his head. ‘It didn’t feel like home. It felt like prison at times. Margaret and I had always been friends, but the passion that you and I...’ He hesitated. ‘No, that’s not fair. We continued as friends, raised the kids. Moira lives locally too. They’re great kids.’

  ‘I met Moira today,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Of course. Of course you did.’ He patted the back of her hand. ‘You broke my heart, Beatrice, clean broke it in two.’

  ‘And you mine.’

  ‘I’m a medical man, but I can tell you that it never quite heals.’ He smiled at her.

  Bea nodded. This, too, she knew to be true. ‘I have danced with you a thousand times in my dreams. The thump, thump of our feet on the deck. You gave me your scarf...’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I made it into a pillow and have it next to my cheek every night.’

  ‘You smelt of roses.’

  ‘It was rosewater. I borrowed it.’

  ‘I can’t smell their scent without feeling melancholy.’

  ‘My hand seemed to fit inside yours, as if that was where it was meant to rest.’

  ‘I’ve imagined it, lying there on so many cold nights.’ He looked at her.

  ‘And then the day you left...’ Quite unexpectedly the breath caught in her throat and a wave of sadness engulfed her. Her tears sprang and her face crumpled. To her horror, John matched her tear for tear. Sliding off his chair, he knelt on the floor with his head on her lap and the two of them sobbed.

  Bea ran her fingers through his hair and let her palm stroke his whiskered cheeks. ‘John, my John! I raised your baby the best I could. I was so frightened, so alone.’ She righted his head until he was looking up at her, reminding her of the twenty-three-year-old man who had left her at sunrise. ‘He was a lovely child and he’s a good man.’

  ‘I knew it! I knew he was mine!’ John’s composure dissolved again. ‘What did your parents say? They were so upright, judgemental. God, I can’t imagine how they took the news.’

  ‘They told me to leave Byron Bay, and so I did. I haven’t seen them since, or Diane.’

  ‘Oh, dear God!’ He gripped her clothing and buried his face in her shirt. ‘I knew he was my son. I saw him and I knew! It took all of my strength not to call out, to run to you! But I knew I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been fair.’

  ‘None of this is fair,’ she murmured. ‘I named him Wyatt and he looks just like his dad.’

  ‘Wyatt! Does... does he know about me?’ he croaked.

  ‘No. Not yet. But he will. I couldn’t risk telling him and him contacting you; it might have ruined your life. I didn’t know your circumstances, didn’t know about Margaret.’

  ‘Oh, dear God!’ John said again.

  The two sat slumped together in silence for many minutes, digesting the truth, both replaying what had come next.

  Eventually John straightened and stood in front of the fireplace. ‘I can’t live with secrets any more, Beatrice. Who knows what lies around the corner for us? But I can’t live under the shadow of truths untold.’

  Bea stood and slipped into his arms. She closed her eyes and let him hold her in the warm firelight of the Christmas Café. She might have been thousands of miles from where she lived, but she was home.

  It was an hour later that the stairs above them creaked. Bea and John disentangled themselves and stood a respectable couple of feet apart, as nervous as teens. Bea was considering how to act when Flora’s voice broke the silence.

  ‘Shit! Wow!’ She stared at them both from the doorway.

  ‘This is Flora, my granddaughter.’ Bea smiled at her beautiful toffee-haired girl. ‘Your granddaughter too,’ she said hesitantly, feeling the blush spread from her neck, suddenly conscious that Flora was part of John’s story too; his flesh, his blood.

  John nodded at her. ‘Hello there, Flora.’ He spoke her name with the lilting Scottish fluidity that it deserved.

  Bea wondered if he’d noted Flora’s colouring; if, like her, he’d seen similarities between Flora and his grandson, Callum.

  ‘So, what have I missed?’ Flora turned to her gran.

  Bea laughed. ‘Oh, Flora, too much to fill you in on right now!’

  Alex came down the stairs. ‘I’d tell her everything if I were you, Dad. She has a mean right hook.’ He winked and strode over to his dad, who gripped him in a hug.

  As Bea and Flora made their way back to their hotel, Bea was still feeling shaky, but Flora was very excited.

  ‘He’s very handsome close up!’

  ‘Yes, he is.’ Bea had to agree.

  ‘Are you okay, Bea?’ She linked arms with her gran.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘I just met my grandpa!’ Flora squealed.

  ‘Yes, you did.’ Bea grinned.

  Flora came to a standstill in the street. ‘Peter... Peter will always be my pappy, always,’ she said, not wanting to offend her gran or tarnish t
he memory of her grandpa; her grandpa who had once given her her very own cigar.

  ‘I know that, darling, and he knew it too. He loved you very much.’

  Flora stared at her gran. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost!’

  ‘Not a ghost.’ She swallowed. ‘I’ve lived with a ghost for the last thirty-odd years. This was a living, breathing man!’ She grabbed her granddaughter and hugged her tight. ‘I can’t believe it! My John! I saw my John!’

  ‘I’m happy for you, Bea.’

  ‘Promise me, Flora, that when you’re older you won’t settle for a man that doesn’t make you feel like your heart might burst with joy! I was so lucky to have John’s love when I was young, and then Peter, my lovely husband, your lovely pappy, to care for me for most of my life. I was blessed. I want you to have that. Promise me you will never settle for less than you deserve.’

  Flora nodded against her gran’s shoulder and closed her eyes. ‘I promise.’

  Bea opened one eye and sat up straight in the bed. She took in the sash windows, printed wallpaper and tartan carpet and was beyond relieved to discover that she hadn’t dreamt it – she was here in Edinburgh and last night she had sat with her hand inside John’s! Like an excited teen the night before the prom, Bea screwed her eyes tightly shut, wriggled down the bed and with her muscles tense and fists clenched, she beat her heels on the mattress.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Flora raised her tousled head from the pillow.

  ‘What am I doing?’ Bea sat up and flung the covers back. ‘I am living! I am feeling! And I am for the first time in a long time looking forward to my future!’ She spun out of the bed, swirling and whirling like a dancer as she bumped into furniture and walls with her arms held high.

  ‘You’ve gone nuts,’ Flora concluded. She dropped her head back onto the pillow, pulled the sheet over her face and left her gran to go nuts alone while she caught up on some sleep.