Christmas Under the Stars

by Karen Swan

  ‘Oh, Mrs Wakefield!’ a woman called after Barbara, who was already heading towards the fire exit that led onto the courtyard.

  Barbara turned with a low groan. ‘Oh, God, what now?’ she said under her breath as a woman in her early fifties, wearing a berry-coloured roll-neck jumper and jeans, rushed over.

  ‘Mrs Wakefield,’ the woman panted, reaching her. ‘I’m so glad to have caught you. We thought we might miss you. I’m Beth. Beth Stedman? We stayed with you last March. My husband Paul and son Cory—?’

  ‘Of course!’ Barbara said quickly, cutting her off, but Meg’s head had whipped round at the mention of those names. She would never forget them. How could she? ‘How could I forget?’ Barbara replied with a cool smile, straightening up to her full height. ‘Are you staying with us again? I don’t recall seeing your names—’

  ‘Sadly not, we couldn’t get a room. You’re so busy!’ Beth laughed, placing a hand over her chest. ‘And this trip was all rather last-minute. Cory’s been having a little trouble moving on from that terrible fright we had when we stayed here last and we thought that coming to the festival and celebrating all the many positives of the mountains might help give him some closure.’

  Terrible fright? Meg felt frozen to the spot.

  ‘And have you enjoyed it?’ Barbara asked impatiently.

  ‘Oh, yes, very much. Isn’t it incredible to see what some people can do?’

  ‘Isn’t it,’ Barbara agreed. ‘Well, it’s lovely seeing you but if you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I have to—’

  ‘Oh! But I just wanted to reiterate our great thanks to you once again. There hasn’t been a day gone by when we haven’t given thanks for such a lucky escape. What you did for us that day—’

  ‘It was nothing,’ Barbara said briskly, her eyes flitting onto Meg and away again.

  ‘Oh, but it wasn’t. You opened the kitchens specially to have a hot meal ready for us, you’d run the baths in readiness, your lovely daughter even arranged to have the beds warmed, I remember . . . Of course, a hot-water bottle can’t counteract the effects of exposure, but it was the thought that counted and we were so grateful. They saved Cory’s fingers, you know. Did you hear? It was touch and go for a while; it went terribly black and—’

  Someone’s hand settled on her shoulder – Dolores’s – but Meg barely felt it. She was back there, in the horror, his face freshly imprinted in her mind again: Mitch setting out to his death, searching in a blizzard for people who were already back here enjoying a hot meal and a bath . . .

  ‘Excuse me, won’t you? I’m afraid I’m late for an appointment,’ Barbara said, her smile gone now as she took Meg by the arm and steered her towards the fire door, leaving the woman looking after her, mouth agape.

  They crossed the courtyard in hurried silence, Barbara muttering under her breath about ‘that damned family’. The lights were on inside the bungalow and Lucy was visible through the window.

  Barbara stopped walking abruptly at the sight of her. Lucy was crying, her face red and swollen, angry weals across the front of her chest. She was walking backwards away from Tuck, shaking her head as he approached, his hands angrily splayed like cacti, hard and spiky, his head hidden by the low blind.

  Barbara gave a horrified gasp and ran the small distance, bursting in without knocking. ‘Don’t you touch her!’ she screamed, just as Meg, Dolores and Jonas got to the doorway too.

  Tuck, surprised, turned around and Meg’s hands flew to her mouth as she saw the blood pouring from a deep gash on the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Mom,’ Lucy faltered, her gaze scanning their small assembled group. She looked terrified, exhausted, ragged. Barbara pushed through to her, almost tripping on something on the floor and she turned to see what it was – a small bronze paperweight.

  Barbara looked, white-faced, from her daughter to Tuck. ‘Oh, my God, what have you done?’

  ‘He was coming at me!’ Lucy cried. ‘It was the first thing I could find!’ Her face crumpled and she hid it in her hands, rolling sobs making her shoulders heave. ‘I panicked. I was so frightened.’

  Barbara was rooted to the spot with horror.

  Meg – remembering in a rush all those strange scratches and bruises – covered her mouth with her hands, feeling ashamed. ‘Oh, Lucy,’ she cried. ‘I’m so sorry. I never knew. I should have known.’ She glared at Tuck, hardly able to believe she’d been taken in by the film. It had been an exercise in indulgence, a panegyric to his drunken, wallowing self-pity.

  Tuck, swaying slightly – though whether that was from the booze or the blow, she wasn’t sure – stared back at her, blood cascading down his face and neck, soaking his T-shirt. He seemed dazed and from the corner of her eye, she saw Jonas move to the sink and soak a towel in cold water. Without saying a word, he pulled out a chair, pushed Tuck firmly into it and started to clean his face.

  ‘Where’s the ice?’ Jonas asked, looking between Meg and Dolores.

  ‘Here,’ Dolores said, snapping into action and walking across to the fridge, filling a glass with ice from the dispenser. She took a few cubes, wrapped them in a tea towel and handed the parcel to Jonas who persuaded Tuck to tip his head back. They watched as the ice pack quickly staunched the blood flow and the tension in the room slackened a degree as Tuck looked less like an extra in a horror film.

  ‘Where’s the baby?’ Meg asked Lucy in a quiet voice.

  Lucy stared at her for a moment and Meg knew that was the moment she should have called him by his name – that name – but even now she couldn’t. ‘In his cot, sleeping. Finally.’

  ‘Have you called the police?’

  Lucy’s eyes widened, fear flooding them again. ‘Wha—? No! No!’

  ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ Meg said, walking over to her as Barbara continued her wide-eyed stare, her mouth parted in a silent, continual gasp. ‘He can’t hurt you any more . . . But we need to call the police.’

  ‘No!’ Lucy repeated, staring at Tuck as though willing him – even now – to charm his way out of this, find a way to explain that this wasn’t what it looked like.

  Meg looked on sadly, seeing how even now her friend was trying to hide the truth, to protect the man she loved.

  Tuck was still sitting on the chair, his legs splayed straight in front as though they’d been broken, Jonas lightly pressing the ice pack to his nose. Tuck was staring at a distant spot on the wall. He looked dazed, defeated. Drunk. Meg wasn’t even sure he could hear them.

  She felt a curl of disgust. Had she ever really known him, called him her friend? How could he ever have laid a claim to Mitch’s friendship? He was a forlorn excuse for a man – pathetic, weak, a bully and a coward, beating up a woman half his size, the mother of his newborn child. It wasn’t enough that he had to humiliate her, playing around with other women – he had to beat her too?

  In a flash, everything was explained, Ronnie proved right yet again – was it any wonder Lucy had been so clingy with her? Never wanting her to leave, always trying to meet up, desperately trying to please Tuck and stay on his good side, keep herself attractive. Even using Mitch’s name – had she been trying to give her baby a name to grow into, the name of a role model who was a hundredfold the man his own father would ever be?

  ‘Th-this is a private matter,’ Lucy said to her, to the room, her eyes wide and imploring them all. ‘There’s no need for anyone else to become involved in this.’

  ‘But don’t you see? For as long as you stay quiet, you protect him. You enable him to carry on doing this to you,’ Meg cried. ‘You have to speak out. This has to stop.’

  ‘Meg’s right, it does have to stop,’ Barbara murmured and Meg glanced over, grateful for the backup.

  But it wasn’t Lucy Barbara was talking to.

  Meg jolted as she watched Barbara walk across to Tuck and crouch beside him, her eyes sad upon his as he slowly swivelled his head to look at her. ‘It’s gone on long enough, wouldn’t you say?’ Barbara said quietly, resting h
er hand on Tuck’s forearm.

  ‘Barbara?’ Meg croaked, seeing Dolores’s stunned expression in her peripheral vision.

  But Barbara wouldn’t take her eyes off her son-in-law. ‘This is my fault. I should have realized what was going on. But I got things the wrong way round. I had my suspicions but I thought that if history was going to repeat itself, she would marry a man just like her father . . . I thought she’d be like me. Not him.’

  There was a long moment of silence, Dolores’s mouth dropping open in astonishment as she digested what her friend was saying. ‘You’re saying Lucy’s the one using her fists?’

  Barbara squeezed Tuck’s forearm apologetically.

  ‘Mom! He’s ninety kilos, for Chrissakes!’ Lucy cried.

  But Tuck had shifted, stirred, hunching forward on the chair, his elbows on his knees, his head dropped as though trying to hide his face away. And Meg knew what she was seeing. Shame. Tuck was a jock, a man’s man, an athlete. He would rather have been called a wife beater than wife beaten. His pride wouldn’t have allowed Barbara’s assertion to stand – not unless it was true.

  ‘No!’ Meg cried, unable to believe it. She recalled how he often had minor injuries – burn marks on the backs of his hands, scratches, bruises; he’d broken his hand that time they’d come back from a camping trip in Jasper – but they were easily explained, surely? He was a physical man, always on a board or a bike. ‘It’s simply not possible. There’s no way she could hurt him.’

  ‘It’s more common than people realize,’ Barbara said in a flat tone. ‘Before Roger did the honourable thing and quit town, I saw a counsellor and she told me domestic abuse can take many forms. You don’t have to be big to be a bully; you don’t even need to hit – emotional control can be enough. Very often, the bigger the man, the more afraid he is of protecting himself for fear of hurting her.’

  There was another silence, everyone trying to understand how the truth couldn’t be the most plausible, the most obvious explanation. Meg felt the room spin, her chest compress. She felt sick, looking over at the person she’d once thought was as close as a sister. But she was a monster. A stranger.

  ‘He’s lying,’ Lucy gasped, seeing Meg’s disgust. ‘You’ve all seen the bruises on me yourselves. You were always asking about them. Meg, you remember!’

  ‘Yes. I do.’ Meg felt drugged, confused, trying to make sense of this interpretation – which one fit the history she remembered?

  ‘Then most likely they’re defensive injuries,’ Barbara said quietly. ‘When someone flies at you in a rage, you’re going to protect yourself, even if you don’t want to fight.’

  ‘This is bullshit!’ Lucy roared suddenly, grabbing the nearest thing to hand – a beer bottle – and throwing it with all her force across the room. It shattered against the wall just a metre away from Dolores’s head and a sudden silence rained down on them all, for in that moment, they all saw it, the full force of her rage.

  Barbara’s hands flew to her mouth as tears flooded her eyes. The truth confirmed, once and for all.

  Meg felt as though she couldn’t breathe. Lucy – breathless – had locked stares with her and was watching as certainty dawned in Meg’s mind, seeming to grow in size as Meg felt herself shrink. ‘Oh, my God, Lucy, what have you done?’ she whispered.

  ‘Me?’ Lucy repeated and Meg could see from the curl in her lip, the deadness in her eyes, that a line had been crossed, a tether snapped. ‘What have I done? . . . What about you? What have you done? Where have you been? When I’ve needed a friend . . . when he’s come home late after his whoring – and that’s when he comes home at all – where were you?’

  Meg blinked, dismayed. What did this have to do with her?

  ‘You’re not my friend,’ Lucy sneered, her mouth curling up. ‘You’ve never been my friend.’

  ‘That’s not tr—’

  ‘Not like Mitch.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was my friend. He noticed me. He bothered to see what was going on, to ask if everything was OK. But not you. Oh, no, not you . . . with your wedding-dress fittings and your cute little cabin-building and your being so busy in the store with Dolores . . . you never noticed that my entire life was fucked!’ she screamed. ‘You couldn’t see past the end of your pretty little nose!’

  ‘Lucy—’ she breathed, feeling sick, feeling frightened.

  ‘Because it’s always got to be about you, hasn’t it? No one’s ever huddling around me checking I’m OK, or checking whether I’m happy! No one’s ever saying I should be doing more with my life instead of living in this dump, working for my own goddam mother. No one even sees me. I’m invisible to all of you. And one wrong move and you all just turn your back on me so easily, like I don’t matter. I’m only ever one step away from being abandoned altogether.’

  Meg shook her head. ‘That’s not true—’

  ‘No? So what’ve the last ten days been about then?’

  ‘You know what.’

  There was a pause, Lucy trembling all over with barely suppressed rage. ‘You’ve got some nerve, do you know that? Acting like you have complete jurisdiction over him – his name, all our memories. You’ve spent the past eight months drifting about like what you had was so perfect – and now you’re standing here, looking at me and him and you’re pitying us. You think we’re pathetic but you two were no better. All these months you’ve been mourning your perfect little relationship when you’ve got no idea how deluded you are!’

  ‘I don’t know what—’

  ‘—I’m talking about?’ Lucy finished for her. ‘Don’t you? Well, what about how quickly you got over him with that guy in Toronto!’

  Meg recoiled as though she’d been hit, noticing how Jonas’s head whipped round to see if it was true, and Meg knew that Lucy had dropped that little bombshell just for him.

  ‘Lucy! That’s enough!’ Dolores said sharply.

  But Lucy didn’t stop. She wouldn’t now. ‘That’s not love. You couldn’t have done that if you’d truly loved him. I wouldn’t have done that to him.’

  Meg turned to go, feeling hot tears rushing to her eyes. ‘I’m not going to stand here and listen to—’

  ‘Fuck!’ Tuck’s voice was like a gunshot in the room, stilling even Lucy. He had risen to his feet, his eyes suddenly focused, Jonas left standing beside him with the bloodied ice pack in his hands. ‘You were in love with him!’

  ‘No.’ The word dropped from her lips like a cigarette butt. Careless. Inconsequential.

  ‘Yes. That’s why you called our baby his name! It had nothing to do with honouring him at all.’

  Lucy sighed, looking suddenly bored. ‘You don’t get it, do you? You were the only one I ever loved. The only one I ever wanted. But you ruined it. You killed us because you couldn’t keep it in your pants!’

  Tuck stared down at her. ‘And who could blame me? You’re a crazy bitch! You beat me when I’m sleeping and then want to fuck? Who can live like that? Why wouldn’t I drink? Why wouldn’t I look elsewhere?’ His mouth twisted. ‘But here’s a news flash – I don’t love you, Lucy. I hate you. I’ve been trying to leave you for months, but you won’t let me go!’

  Meg felt the hatred spin round the room with their words – ‘crazy bitch’ . . . ‘hate’ . . . Lucy was trembling, her eyes bulging, adrenalin making her shake as she slipped into survival mode – fight or flight, and Lucy was a fighter.

  ‘Hate me? You don’t hate me!’ she jeered. ‘You’re obsessed with me. I’m the best thing that ever happened to you. You’d be nothing without me.’

  He shook his head sadly. ‘Maybe once. You want to know why I hate you now? Because you’re the one who fucked up the night Mitch died. It was only half the truth when I told you I blame myself for Mitch’s death; the fact is, I blame you and I’ll never forgive you for it. I can hardly bear to even look at you.’

  ‘You blame me?’ she laughed, the response chilling in its inappropriateness.

  ‘You let me call him whe
n they were already back!’

  ‘But I didn’t know that.’

  ‘How could you not know? They were staying in your fucking hotel!’

  ‘Yes, and as soon as I knew they were back, I told you. But it was too late. You’d already done it, made the call. Because you just couldn’t wait for the actual professionals to do their jobs. Oh no! You had to be the have-a-go hero, and if not you, then Mitch.’ She shook her head. ‘This is all on you, baby. This is about your guilt, your feelings. You screwed up sending Mitch out there, you sent him to his death, and now you’re nothing without him. Nothing but a drunk.’

  Meg looked over at Tuck, hearing the echoes of her own accusations thrown at him that evening in the bar, seeing how his face accepted the truth in both their words. He looked like his own ghost – cowed, spectral, beaten by her words as much as her fists, just as Barbara had said. How long had the two of them been living like this?

  Lucy watched him, unsteady on his feet, like a boxer after a blow to the head. ‘Christ, you really are an incredibly stupid man,’ she sneered. ‘Why did I think the sex would ever be enough? Marrying you was the worst fucking mistake of my life.’

  She had won. Tuck slumped, staggering towards the counter to lean on it, the wound on his nose beginning to bleed again as his blood pressure soared.

  ‘Actually, no.’

  Everyone looked surprised as Jonas stepped further into the room – into the ring – his eyes on Lucy, his voice so cool it was like liquid nitrogen, immediately freezing the air temperature.

  ‘What?’ Lucy sneered, hatred in her eyes for this stranger, this interloper, this unwanted man who had dared to break and enter into their closed world without her invitation. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘It wasn’t marrying Tuck that was the worst mistake of your life.’

  ‘What would you know about me? Or my life?’ She looked quickly at Meg. ‘What has she told you?’