One Day in December: The Christmas read you won't want to put down

by Shari Low

  ‘Right, I need to go. Are you sure you don’t want me to jump on a train and head down? I’ve got the rest of the day off and I could be there this afternoon.’

  ‘Thanks, but honestly I’m fine. Nothing’s even going to happen. I just want to see… well, you know. I’m not planning on doing anything drastic. There’s every chance I’ll be back up on the last train tonight and none the wiser.’

  She wasn’t being glib. There was every chance. In fact, it would probably be the most sensible thing to do. Confrontation wasn’t her thing. She just wanted to try to find a way to subtly suss out what was going on.

  ‘You know, messaging her would have saved the train fare and made this all so much easier.’

  Todd was convinced it was all a big misunderstanding. Or her dad had a doppelganger. Or…

  ‘I’m still going with the evil twin, separated at birth theory,’ he added.

  ‘Me too,’ she agreed. Although, she absolutely didn’t. Because, in a completely contradictory, nonsensical way, much of this actually made sense.

  Dad had been spending most of his time in Glasgow for as long as she could remember. As far as she knew, he stayed in hotels there, but he could easily be staying with someone else, living with another woman, spawning more kids. Her mum had never gone with him, put off by his protestations that he was swamped with work when he was there.

  Mum couldn’t protest any more.

  The only blessing was that she was too ill to realise he’d gone.

  Since Jack had walked away, Caro hadn’t heard from him. A few days after he’d left, in a moment of fury and rage at the injustice of his behaviour, she’d called his mobile and discovered it had been disconnected. Not surprising, really. Her whole life, she couldn’t remember him calling her a single time. It was always Mum. Mum made the arrangements. Mum visited after she’d moved out. Mum. Not Dad. They’d never been close, never had that emotional bond that she saw between her friends and their fathers. So now, she had to know if this Lila Anderson was the reason why.

  ‘Well, look, if you change your mind, call me back. If the train times don’t work, I can always jump in the car.’

  ‘Thanks Todd, but honestly, I’ll be fine. And besides, you’ll be busy with that Crowdfunding page.’

  He was still laughing when he hung up, just as the tempo of the train changed enough to rouse the gentleman sitting opposite her from his sleep. He leaned forward and peered out of the window.

  ‘Ah, almost there.’ All traces of sleep on his face were immediately cast aside by excitement. What a lovely man.

  There was a screeching of brakes as the train slowed even further, the end of the platform coming into sight now.

  Caro got up, steadying herself by leaning against the side of the seat, and pulled down his bag. The train chuntered to a stop.

  ‘Thank you, my dear. It was an absolute pleasure.’

  ‘Merry Christmas. Enjoy your stay with your family.’

  ‘And you my dear,’ he replied.

  Caro didn’t contradict him. Her family wasn’t in Glasgow. Her family was Todd, his parents, and a few distant relations that she only ever saw at weddings and funerals. Even Todd’s mum and dad, Auntie Pearl and Uncle Bob, had gone off to live in Spain. And there was Mum…

  Slipping back into her seat, she glanced out of the window and saw a woman, maybe the same age as her, standing at the end of the platform with a couple of kids of maybe ten or eleven. They started running as soon as they saw the gent she’d shared the journey with. In seconds, they reached him, threw their arms around him, in a group hug. For a moment, Caro’s heart ached.

  Her children would never do that.

  They’d never run and throw their arms around their grandfather, because he’d never been that kind of guy. He’d never shown much of an interest in Caro, never mind any children she might have. No, he wouldn’t be that lovely old man, thrilled to pieces to see his descendants, to know them and pass on his wisdom and the stories of his life.

  And they’d never be able to throw their arms around their gran because she was lying in a hospital bed, clinging on to a broken life.

  Caro blocked her mind from going there, closed her eyes to stop the tears from falling, then concentrated on her breathing to make her pulse slow back down. In. Out. Inhale. Exhale.

  She couldn’t think about it now. Over the last couple of months she’d become so practised at keeping it together, acting strong. Not that she’d had a choice. It almost came naturally to her now.

  In. Out. Inhale. Exhale. It took a few moments, but she got the emotions under control and the combination of closing her eyes and the late morning winter sun that was shining through the window made her drop off into a welcome sleep.

  The next thing she knew, the train was changing tempo once again, the movement and raised noise level in the carriage alerting her to the fact that they were near a station. Maybe Stirling? Falkirk.

  She glanced at her watch. No, it couldn’t be. Only a few minutes before they’d been in Perth, hadn’t they? But no. Her fellow passengers were all on their feet now, the deathly slow movement of the train allowing them to yank down their bags, lift their children, pull on their coats, call loved ones to let them know they had arrived.

  Caro stretched up, trying to kick-start both body and brain into action. She wasn’t ready for this. Wanted a while longer in the safe cocoon of oblivion before she took any more steps towards finding out if everything she believed to be true was a total sham.

  The train was crawling now, nearly stopped, alongside a platform that was almost deserted, making the sign that greeted her impossible to miss.

  Glasgow.

  She was here.

  The truth was out there. All she had to do was walk towards it.

  Chapter 6

  Cammy

  ‘Right, action stations,’ Val announced. ‘Places to go, people to see…’

  ‘…Unsuitable women to get engaged to,’ Josie added, with a pointed glare at Cammy.

  He grinned in return. ‘Josie, I’m not rising to you.’

  ‘Quite right, son – she’s the root of all marital evil. Just ignore her,’ Val concurred.

  ‘That’s not true!’ Josie defended herself. ‘I love a good romance. But what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t warn the boy…’

  ‘I’m nearly forty…’ Cammy said, yet again, aware that when they were locked in debate, neither woman would hear him.

  ‘… that he’s about to marry the Glasgow equivalent of the Bride of Chucky.’

  Even Val could no longer maintain the argument and hooted with laughter at that one.

  ‘Bet you wish you’d just kept driving that day, ma love,’ Josie told him, softening the blow with a grin of affection as she said it. Cammy couldn’t remember the exact date, but he knew exactly what day she was referring to.

  *

  3 p.m. Glasgow City Centre. Many years before…

  Two more drops on his run, then he was done.

  Stopped at the traffic lights, he looked at the list on the clipboard next to him. La Femme, L’Homme. He’d delivered stuff there last week too. A new underwear shop that was opening in the Merchant City. Lovely girl, Mel, owned it… She sometimes made him a coffee while he waited for her to check the contents of the box he’d delivered. Forty pairs of Boss boxers, thirty Armani briefs, and a selection of bras that he was fairly sure had something to do with Kylie Minogue. Or perhaps he was making that last detail up in his head.

  Anyway, it had been one bright spot in a day doing a job that only served the purpose of paying the bills while he figured out what he really wanted to do.

  The traffic lights changed to green and he put his foot down and headed up Ingram Street. He needed to get finished early today if he was going to make it to the gym, before his usual crowd hit a new bar that was opening on Buchanan Street.

  As he put the hazards on outside the shop, he noticed the sign, ‘Opening tonight’, in the window. They were
cutting it fine. When he was in last week he’d have said they were nowhere near ready. Going by the crowd of workies he could see inside, they still weren’t even close. He offloaded the box from the back of the van, ran up the steps, opened the door and…

  ‘Yer a no-good wanker!’

  The shout made his head swivel to the side, and the combination of shock, disorientation and the large box he was carrying conspired to distract him so much that he didn’t notice the half-built bra rack on the floor, tripped, flew forward, and ended up in a seriously convoluted position involving a metal frame, a dozen G-strings, a pile of double Ds, and a naked mannequin.

  And the owner, Mel, looking down at him, panic-stricken.

  Their eyes locked, and he decided that, pain aside, the fall had been worth it.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry,’ Mel apologised, before turning to the source of the shout that had started it all.

  ‘For God’s sake, Josie, you’re going to kill someone.’

  ‘Was she shouting at me?’ Cammy asked, confused, injured, dazed.

  ‘No! She was shouting at that vacuum cleaner. It just cut out on her.’

  ‘No good piece of crap,’ Josie added, giving it a kick with a Doc Marten.

  It was the first time Cammy had laughed all day. The sight of a woman who looked like she was in maybe her late fifties, cigarette hanging out of her mouth, in a profanity-laden, full-body combat dispute with a vacuum cleaner took his mind off the pain he was feeling from the knees down.

  ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ Mel said again. ‘I don’t blame you if you sue. I’ll take it out of Josie’s wages until the end of time.’

  He’d climbed on to a nearby chair and waited until the pain in his legs had dropped from ‘definite fracture’ to ‘perhaps just a strain’ and had more amusement in that half hour than he’d done in weeks. Mel. Josie. Their band of friends and family. The banter and bickering between them all had been hilarious. Before he’d stopped to question his motives, he’d told them they were the last call of the day (they weren’t), pitched in to help (with a slight limp) and informed Mel that he had retail experience (he didn’t). Whether it was out of sympathy, gratitude, or the fervent hope that he didn’t know a good lawyer, she’d offered him a job then and there. And that was it. What started as a temporary post in the blokes’ section, led to a couple of promotions, until he claimed his self-penned accolade, Manager of Sack and Crack Support Services.

  Mel and Josie had become his family from that day onwards. His hand-picked, wonderfully dysfunctional, endlessly dramatic family. Josie was the spiky-haired, chain-smoking, gloriously inappropriate aunt he’d never had. And Mel… Mel was his boss, his best-friend, his…

  ‘Are you okay?’ Val asked him, cutting into his thoughts. ‘Only you look like…’

  ‘…you’re having second thoughts?’ Josie asked, hopefully.

  ‘Nope, just revisiting the past for a moment. The early days, you, Mel, and I in the shop. They were great times, Josie.’

  ‘They were, right up until you hotfooted it off to LA and deserted us,’ she agreed, her tone mellowing, showing the soft side that she generally kept disguised under a veneer of sarcasm and brutal honesty.

  ‘How’s Mel doing?’ he asked, confident that he’d made the question sound nonchalant and casual.

  Josie’s response said otherwise. ‘She’s doing great.’ That was all. No elaboration. No details. Just, perhaps, a tiny hint of sorrow. Or maybe it was sympathy.

  He shook it off. No point in dragging all that back up now. And anyway, today wasn’t the day for looking backwards. From the moment several years before that he’d said goodbye to Mel, he’d been all about moving forwards, keeping going, cutting losses.

  Since he’d returned from LA, he’d used the cash he’d earned to fund the new shop, taking the vacant lease on the premises that had once been La Femme, L’Homme, now closed down and long gone.

  His new venture had been a success from day one.

  To the outside world, Cammy was a man about town, an irrepressibly handsome, successful businessman and – until Lila – one of the most eligible bachelors in the city.

  It had all gone to plan so far. Career established? Tick. Financial security? Tick. Love? Tick. Now it was time to focus on the next stage in his life and after getting used to the idea for the last few weeks, he knew he wanted to marry Lila. He wanted to have kids. Enough of being the perennial bachelor. He’d had a couple of decades of partying hard, with no responsibilities or commitments, but lately, it hadn’t been enough. Making this step was the right move, he was sure of it. This was the first time he’d felt this way since…

  He stopped himself. Damn, it still hurt. He’d only been in love once before and he’d messed it up, not told her, let someone else have the life that he wanted. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. And so what if he’d only known Lila for a few months? It felt right. That was all that mattered.

  He grabbed the keys to his Jeep. ‘Right let’s go, ladies.’

  ‘Under protest,’ Josie muttered.

  Val and Cammy ignored her.

  As they pulled out of the underground car park, Val flipped over a page on her notepad. ‘Right, first stop, the arcade. Today is going to go exactly to plan. I can feel it in my water.’

  The traffic was heavy all the way into the city centre to the busy streets surrounding the pedestrianised area, but eventually they slipped into one of the few parking spaces still available in the multistorey in Mitchell Street. Cammy was surprised there were any left. This was the last Friday before Christmas and the streets were heaving.

  From there, they’d walked down Mitchell Lane, and onto Buchanan Street, crossed through the throng of festive shoppers, workers and buskers, then into the Argyle arcade, home to most of Glasgow’s fine jewellery stores. He’d taken ages picking the ring. Who knew there were so many choices? A solitaire. A trilogy. Diamond. Precious stones. In the end, he’d gone for a square emerald, with a diamond baguette on either side. He’d no idea what a baguette was, other than something that could be filled with tuna and eaten at lunch, but the manager of the shop had won him over to it, said it was similar to the one that he’d bought his wife and they’d been married for thirty years. Cammy took that as a good omen. Not that he believed in omens, but still…

  The trio hadn’t even reached the shop when he realised something was amiss. The shutters were still down and there were a few people loitering outside.

  ‘Someone must have slept in,’ Val commented. ‘I just hope they had a wild night and it was worth it.’

  Cammy didn’t hear the end of the sentence, too focussed on the sign that had now come into his field of vision, the one that was stuck to the barred window, in front of an empty display area and right next to the iron grate that was blocking the door.

  CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

  ‘Cammy… tell me that’s not the…’ Val couldn’t get the words out.

  ‘It is,’ he answered.

  ‘The ring, you’ve already paid for it?’

  Of course he had. Not all of it. But a hefty deposit, almost a grand, to secure the sale. He hadn’t wanted to take it home in case Lila found it, so he’d decided it would be far better to leave it here and pick it up on the morning of the proposal.

  They were at the door now, next to a woman who was being comforted by a man as she sobbed, a couple of elderly bystanders and a security guard.

  ‘What’s going on here, mate?’ Cammy asked the guard, hoping that it was something minor that had delayed the opening. A puncture. A hangover. A lottery win.

  ‘Shut down. Manager did a midnight flit with the cash, the stock and the owner’s wife. Don’t fancy his chances if that guy finds him before the cops do.’

  This couldn’t be happening. For a moment, he hoped it was all an elaborate ruse dreamt up by Josie to derail the nuptials, but she looked as shocked as him and, God love her, was offering to sacrifice herself to fix it.

&
nbsp; ‘Want me to break in and see if it’s still there?’ Josie hissed. ‘At my age, they’d never convict me.’

  That was all he needed – the intervention of Glasgow’s finest CID. ‘Thanks for the offer, but we’re good.’

  Except, this wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all.

  A grand. Gone. His ring. Gone. His plan for the day. Seriously gone awry.

  Just as well he didn’t believe in omens.

  Because if he did…

  Chapter 7

  Bernadette

  ‘Bernie, what happened to your phone?’ Sarah asked, clocking the screen as she placed a large box down on the table next to it.

  ‘Dropped it when I was coming down the stairs earlier,’ Bernadette replied, her face flushing as she realised she was still lying for him. Why? Habit of a lifetime.

  One that she had to break now.

  ‘Okay…’ Sarah answered, failing to hide her scepticism.

  Bernadette cut her off. ‘What’s in the box?’

  ‘A cake. The order got cancelled last night after I’d already made it. Not sure what happened. They just left a message on my answering machine to let me know. Anyway, it’s already paid for, so thought we could use it to comfort eat our way through any flashpoints of stress today.’

  With a flourish, Sarah lifted off the lid to expose a perfect cake in the shape of a push-up bra. Bernadette reckoned it was probably around a 44D.

  Despite the tornado of apprehension that was twisting her guts, she couldn’t help but smile. Sarah had been her friend since high school, bonded over a mutual adoration for Martin Kemp from Spandau Ballet, and shoulder pads so wide they had to turn sideways to get through a door.

  Sarah had recovered from her Martin Kemp crush and gone on to marry a journalist, Drew, who – oh the cliché – had left her for a younger woman when their youngest was only months old. Sarah had spent the next fifteen years working away at her home-based cake business, avoiding any kind of relationship, until she went on a cruise last year and met Piers, the man of her dreams. If Bernadette was being honest with herself, it was one of the incidents that had contributed to her final decision to leave Kenneth. Sarah was so happy now with Piers. At fifty, she had finally found the man she was meant to be with, and it had given her a second lease of life. She radiated happiness, loved every day, and went to sleep beside a man who adored her and wanted to make her happy.