I Won't Be Home For Christmas

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘Oh, I do hope so!’ Vivienne joined in, loving the idea of having her wish fulfilled, imagining how brilliant it would be to become a granny. Emma laughed loudly and threw her head back.

  The evening continued as it had started, with laughter, drink and fine food flowing. The communal salad bowls brimmed with ripe avocadoes, corn, chunks of cucumber and fat cubes of tomato, all tossed in a delicious balsamic dressing. Hot off the grill came gigantic prawns cooked in nothing more than a swipe of melted butter and a squeeze of garlic. Steaks were charred to perfection and dripped with a sweet, smoky barbecue glaze. To finish there was a slab of Mahoe cheese served with chilli-spiced oatcakes and a glass of warm red.

  ‘Who needs a fancy restaurant, eh, Vivienne?’ Gil raised his glass to her.

  ‘Not us!’ She laughed with the sheer happiness of being in this place, with these people, getting this spoilt.

  As darkness fell, she followed Ellen to the loo. The cocktails had certainly had the desired effect and she felt the worries of earlier evaporating.

  ‘Are we having the best time or what?’ Ellen giggled as she peed and Vivienne held the door for her, just as they’d been doing since they were in single digits.

  It was while they both washed their hands that she decided to confide in her very best friend. ‘Something happened today on the boat.’

  ‘Oh you little devil, tell me you kissed him! Hurray!’ Ellen yelled, punching the air and hugging her friend.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, who do you think I am – you? Of course not.’ She did however, giggle at the thought.

  ‘So what did happen?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘Well… nothing specific. But I suppose you could say, I felt something… When he was standing behind me, leaning over, we kind of shared a moment.’

  Ellen roared her laughter. ‘Shared a moment!’ she repeated. ‘What do you sound like? Shared a moment!’ She laughed until she cried, wheezing against the sink and wiping her eyes, laughing afresh every time she looked at her friend.

  ‘Well, I tell you what I’m not going to do, and that’s share anything else with you if you are going to take the mick out of me.’ Vivienne dried her hands on the towel in the cloakroom and did her best to ignore her chortling friend.

  ‘I’m sorry, Viv, but sometimes you sound like a right arsehole and that was one of them times.’ She shook her head again at her friend’s turn of phrase. ‘But luckily I love you anyway. And I am happy for you. Happy that you shared your moment.’

  This time they both laughed, collapsing on each other for support.

  ‘Don’t say anything.’ Vivienne felt the need to coach her mouthy mate.

  ‘I won’t.’ Ellen tutted, indignantly, ‘cross my heart.’ She drew the requisite cross on her chest.

  As they left the bathroom, feeling a little more composed, Emma rushed over to them and grabbed her mum by the arm.

  ‘Mum…’ she began, standing only inches from her, as if she required her full attention.

  ‘What is it, love? Are you okay?’ Vivienne could sense Emma’s anxiety; saw the way her eyes darted and her breath came in short bursts. She was also aware that the buzz of conversation had died; it had all gone very quiet outside. ‘Is something wrong? What’s happened?’ Her heart started to race.

  ‘Nothing is wrong and nothing has happened.’ Emma gave a brief smile. ‘But I need you to trust me and I need you to close your eyes,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh no, it’s not pin the tail on the donkey, is it? I’m rubbish at that.’ She snorted.

  ‘No, it’s not that, but keep them closed and let me guide you, please…’

  9

  ‘Keep your eyes closed, Mum!’

  ‘They are closed, for goodness’ sake.’ She giggled, walking with her hands stretched out in front of her and with Emma holding her arm. ‘You know how I hate surprises. And I’m worried I might fall – don’t lead me near the cliff edge or let Ellen trip me up.’

  ‘We’re nowhere near the cliff edge. We’re back on the terrace. Trust me.’ Emma spoke calmly.

  ‘I don’t appear to have any choice!’ she yelled, as she held on tight, giggling at the absurdity of the situation.

  There was the sound of footsteps and she heard an unmistakeable gasp as Ellen took a sharp breath. That made her smile; whatever Emma had made or done had certainly made a big impression on her friend. She pictured the Santa’s Grotto Emma had been discussing, was this it? The big reveal? Her excitement built. Or maybe it was something less Christmassy and more to do with the wedding, and probably the thing that Michael had been involved in fetching today. Her mind raced with possibilities. A table centrepiece? Flowers? The cake!

  ‘Okay, I’ve got you,’ Emma cooed. ‘In a few seconds I’m going to let you open your eyes, but not until I say.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, stop mucking around! I’m getting very impatient.’ She flapped her hands with excitement, nerves and apprehension.

  Emma counted her down. ‘Three, two, one… Okay, open your eyes.’

  Vivienne slowly opened her eyes and continued to hold her daughter’s hand. She blinked a couple of times and looked at the ground, shaking her head slightly, as if this might help her adjust to the change from dark to light. The candles seemed to burn extra bright, making everything around her blur a little. She beamed in anticipation – until she looked up.

  Her smile disappeared in an instant and her heart seemed to swell and then shrink inside her ribcage. She thought she might fall and gripped Emma’s hand even harder to keep steady. She stumbled backwards and Ellen rushed forward and placed her arm across her back. Her breath came in short starts and the sound of her blood racing around her veins was loud in her ears.

  There, on the lawn, not ten feet in front of her, wearing jeans and a blazer, brown boots and a white shirt, was a man, a large man with a paunch resting on his tightly cinched belt and the florid complexion of good living beneath his tan.

  He smiled at her with the same bright, film-star gnashers, albeit a little dulled by age and time. His thick crop of dark hair was lighter and higher on his forehead than she remembered and his twinkly eyes sat in the inevitable fine folds of crow’s feet. The changes were evident, but it was still, unmistakeably, her husband.

  ‘Hello, Viv.’ He took a step towards her.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. She stared at him, as if he had just risen from the dead and popped up right there, on the other side of the world. Her body shivered and her blood ran cool. She felt light-headed and it took all of her energy and concentration to remain upright, gazing at the apparition before her.

  Emma grinned and gave a little clap, then moved until she was standing in front of her. ‘I found him, Mum! Can you believe it, I found my dad!’ She sniffed away her tears. ‘We chatted on Skype for the first time a few weeks ago. I’ve been absolutely desperate to tell you, but I’ve pictured this moment over and over. He lives in Australia, has done for years, and guess what? I’ve got half-brothers and sisters, isn’t that just amazing? Can you believe it? My dad is going to give me away!’

  Vivienne stared at her daughter, who was gabbling, filling her brain with information that was coming way too fast for her to process. The words remained a jumble of unintelligible sounds in her mind. She watched, as Emma walked over to the man who had abandoned them and threaded her arm through his. The familiarity of her action took Vivienne’s breath away. Her chest felt tight. And still she couldn’t find any words.

  Ellen, however, was not at all tongue-tied. Confident now that her friend wouldn’t fall over, she removed her arm from Vivienne’s back and walked forward. Her tone was sharp and she pointed her finger.

  ‘You’ve got some nerve, Ray Lane. You think you can just turn up after all these years without so much as a by your leave and pick up where you left off? Cos if that’s the case, I’ll have an egg-fried rice and some chicken chow mein or had you forgotten? You went out to get takeaway and she never saw you again! You wal
ked out, left her with two little ones!’

  ‘You always were a gobby bird, Elle – reckon your mum must need a medal by now.’

  ‘She died, Ray.’

  He looked down at his boots and put his hands in his pockets.

  ‘And that’s not the only funeral you missed. Your in-laws died too and what about all the kids’ birthdays, Christmases? In fact everything since Emma was four and Aaron only a bit older.’

  ‘It’s okay, Auntie Elle, I’ve forgiven him.’ Emma squeezed his arm, pulling him closer to her, defending the man whose actions were, to everyone else, indefensible.

  Vivienne cocked her head and looked at the beaming Emma, who had good intentions written all over her hopeful face. She clearly wanted everything to be amicable. If only it were that simple.

  Ellen swallowed. ‘That’s all well and good, Em, but maybe it’s not your job to forgive him, sweet girl. It wasn’t you that had to pick up all the pieces of what he left behind and try to build something secure out of it; it wasn’t you that cried yourself to sleep night after night, wondering what you were going to do. For all he knew, your mum was on the streets, and you and Aaron too.’

  ‘Enough!’ Michael shouted, raising his hand. ‘This is exactly what I have been dreading.’ He stared at his fiancée.

  ‘It’ll be okay, Michael, everyone will come around.’ Emma gave a small nod, sounding much younger than her thirty-one years.

  He shook his head, as if unconvinced, before turning to address the strangers in his family home. ‘This is supposed to be a happy time. We are getting married. In case you had forgotten, this is our day, our time.’ He looked back at his love. ‘Emma thought that because so much water has flowed under the bridge, you would all be able to move on, make a fresh start.’

  ‘We can. I know it,’ Emma breathed, her smile now a little faltering.

  ‘I know you have the best intentions, Emma, but its not always that easy, love.’ Gil spoke up from behind Vivienne, near the door, his voice gruff. ‘This is real life, not a fairy tale where you can airbrush the hurt and waltz off into the night, slapping each other on the back and remembering the good times. It was hard enough for me when Michael’s mum left, but at least we discussed it, made a plan. If she had just upped and left, well, I can’t imagine how you start to forgive that.’ He glared at Ray, then gave Vivienne a small smile.

  Vivienne turned on her heel and walked slowly from the terrace, her arms in front of her, as if there was a still a possibility that she might fall. She couldn’t stand there staring at the man for a moment longer.

  ‘I’ll come with you, Viv.’ Ellen fell into step beside her.

  Vivienne stopped and shook her head, laying her hand gently on Ellen’s arm. She didn’t know what to say or who to address or what the hell was happening, but the one thing she did know, was that she wanted to be alone.

  As she made her way on unsteady legs across the vast lawn, the sound of Ellen haranguing Ray and then Emma’s defensive tones drifted towards her on the evening breeze.

  This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, God help me…

  She wished for silence to think. She sat on a chair in the middle of the wide deck with her eyes closed and took deep breaths. It helped. A little. Despite the tremor to her limbs, she felt a bit less fuzzy. A warm wind was blowing up from the shore. She pulled her soft pashmina around her shoulders and kicked off her sandals, liking the feel of the bare wood against the soles of her feet. Concentrating on her breathing, she tried to steady her racing pulse.

  ‘I… I don’t believe it,’ she muttered, shaking her head. ‘I don’t believe it.’ She pictured Emma’s face shining with joy as she stood by his side and found it hard to feel angry at her daughter.

  Ray had reappeared as if magicked, just as he had disappeared – in an instant. The last time she had heard his voice was when he called goodbye from the front door. ‘Shan’t be long!’ Those were the last words she’d heard, his singsong tone giving no indication that he was off. She could no longer remember how she had responded or even if she had.

  It was a Saturday night; that she remembered. Emma was playing on the floor and Aaron was cuddled on her lap; Juliet Bravo was on the TV and she was looking forward to the food that would be arriving piping hot in a matter of minutes. It was a real treat, takeaway food, and not having to cook was a small, but welcome reprieve from the monotony of her busy life. This was how it was for them, feast or famine. He was either rolling in cash or scrabbling in his pockets for stray coins.

  As the minutes turned to hours, the fake smile she put on for the children faded and her facade of calm cracked. She left the kids with Mrs Lewis, Shaun’s mum, and ran through the streets, arriving spent, to beat her fists on Ellen and Trevor’s front door, tears falling and her voice loud, a rare display on her part. ‘Where is he, Trev?’ she screamed. ‘I know you know! You bastard! You’re as bad as him. What am I supposed to do now? What am I supposed to do?’

  Ellen had opened the door and she had sunk to her knees on the front step. With her friend’s arms around her, she sobbed. ‘It’s all right, my babber, I’ve got you,’ Ellen had soothed.

  And even now, all these years later, it was Ellen’s words that punctured the still of the night: ‘Little kids… her mum… bloody phone… not good enough!’ She managed a tight smile at the sound of her friend, the kind tigress. Her very best friend in the whole wide world; a sister.

  She had no idea how long she sat there alone. Minutes, maybe an hour, but she was suddenly aware of someone approaching. The walk was familiar with its faint swagger, it was the one that had accompanied her down the aisle of St Aldhelm’s on a sunny day, a plastic day when everything had been fake – the flowers, the promises and the picture of a future that he’d allowed her to paint.

  Her stomach lurched. It took all of her effort not to throw up. It was surreal. Ray was coming towards her. Ray… Back from who knows where, like a thing in the night. She wrapped her arms around her trunk and pulled her pashmina tight, still shaking.

  He climbed up onto the deck and exhaled before dragging a chair next to her and sitting down. Now he was so close, she recognised the shape of him even without turning her head. She could smell his scent, which she had quite forgotten, a mixture of cigarettes, soap and his own natural smell. It did something to her brain and she hated the twist of longing that this misplaced sentimental surge fired inside her. She felt like being sick. To sit so close, to feel his presence, took her back to the days after he’d left. The pain in her chest had been very real. This man, her husband, had gone and she didn’t know why. Gone, without any explanations, without giving her the opportunity to understand – that was almost as soul-destroying as his absence.

  ‘This is some set-up, huh?’ His voice had an Australian accent and she wouldn’t have recognised it in a crowd or over the telephone. That in itself was strange.

  She looked out to sea, to where she’d bobbed on the water earlier that day, happy, oblivious and laughing in the rain.

  ‘Emma says Bedminster is quite gentrified now – can’t believe it. We used to say we lived in lower Ashton, trying to make it a bit more upmarket.’ He laughed softly, his manner quite different to the loud, bellowing confidence he’d exuded in his youth. There was the slightest wheeze to his exhale, a rattle in his smoker’s chest.

  ‘They knocked down the gasworks.’ It surprised her how easily the small talk slipped from her lips; and why this particular fact, she didn’t know. It was the first thing she thought of.

  ‘Oh, Viv, you sound the same – that lovely comforting accent of home. I’d forgotten it.’

  She ignored the compliment. It’s not your home! Home is where you live, where you stay!

  ‘Emma tells me Aaron is married?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And you are still in Mendip Road?’

  She nodded again, staring ahead.

  ‘I haven’t been back to the UK for over twenty years, Bristol even long
er,’ he said, as if they were chewing the fat in the pub, stranger to stranger. ‘Emma’s quite a girl. You did a great job there, Viv.’

  She turned slowly to face him, wishing he would stop talking about her family. She noted the small changes to his profile, the way his ears and nose seemed larger, the hooding of his eyes, the slight droop to his tanned face, the jowls. Time had robbed him of his tautness; he was now slack, his skin a size too big for his frame. She realised that the Ray she’d pictured in her head, the one she repeatedly saw waltzing off towards a better life, didn’t exist and probably hadn’t for a long while.

  ‘What do you want?’ she managed, her voice still small.

  ‘I don’t want anything. I just thought you might like to talk.’ He raised his palms and tilted his head and even this conciliatory gesture made her blood boil in anger.

  ‘I don’t mean right now, I mean what are you doing back in Emma’s life, what’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing’s going on, Viv.’

  The way he spoke her name was unnerving, rude and unwelcome. It was as if this was just another day of their married life and just another discussion, her nagging, him defensive.

  ‘Then what is it you’re doing here?’ She hated the slight quiver to her voice.

  ‘I came to give Emma away.’

  ‘But you gave her away years ago – twenty-seven years, to be precise. You gave us all away, just walked out.’ Her eyes blazed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Viv.’

  ‘What?’ She screwed her face up.

  ‘I said I’m sorry.’

  Her laughter was louder than usual and gutsier. She shook her head and tried to stop the strange sounds that were erupting from her throat. It took minutes before she could compose herself. She sat up straight and took a deep breath.

  ‘Oh good Lord. Those two little words – you always did think they could make everything better.’ She sighed.

  ‘I don’t know what else to say to you, don’t know what will make things right.’