‘I’ve had a lot of catching up to do,’ I reminded him. I was thirty-three already and my career wasn’t quite back on track. There was no reason why I couldn’t let my plans slip a little. ‘I haven’t landed my promotion yet or seen half the things I had in mind.’
‘What is it you’re afraid of, Emma?’
I put my hand firmly on the lid of the box and willed myself to push it back towards him but the box didn’t move. ‘What if it’s as wonderful as I suspect it will be?’ I asked. ‘What if it’s so precious that for the rest of my life, I spend every day paralysed by the fear of losing it?’
The shopkeeper hooked his fingers around his chin and stroked his beard. ‘You wouldn’t be the first but answer me this. What would be worse? To die knowing what a wonderful life you’re leaving behind or to release yourself from a life barely worth losing?’
‘The second option would be easier,’ I answered a little too quickly.
‘So what are you doing here in my shop of dreams?’
I wanted to tell him I didn’t know but the image of the shopkeeper flickered and vanished, replaced by the April sun as it reflected off a river of yellow cabs flowing down Fifth Avenue. My phone buzzed in my pocket. Kate was calling to ask why I was late for our meeting. She was impatient to hear the details of my latest trip and to go through my next assignment. I had been excited by the prospect of exploring the Amazon but as I considered the possibility of making this trip without the man who was intent on leading my heart astray, the dream lost its lustre.
Emma knew it could be her last Christmas but as a family, they had all been there before. After the initial shock of her first diagnosis, there had been an inordinate amount of energy put in to making every day like Christmas Day, to be grabbed desperately by the throat and have the life throttled out of it.
But Emma had learnt that it was too exhausting to make every day special. She quickly became tired of being the constant centre of attention, of having nothing denied and of having every waking moment captured for posterity on film. At one point she had almost forgotten what her mum looked like because she spent so much time peaking at life through a camera lens. Everything that Meg did to make life special for her daughter only served to amplify their fears, so that there was no room left for life. So, in Emma’s inimitable style, she had brought the frenzy to an end. Cameras were put away and normal life was embraced with a new sense of appreciation that needed no fanfare.
Some of those harsh lessons lived on and this Christmas was going to be as normal as it could be. It was a special day that would leave special memories but no more or less lavish than for any other family. There would be no extremes: it would be business as usual, and that included the bistro, and Emma and Meg planned to be there, hopefully to witness its success, and to help out if need be.
Louise was looking relaxed despite the chaos as she slipped between crammed tables to welcome her mum and sister into the noise and vibrancy of the bistro. It was midday and the Traveller’s Rest was to remain open until four o’clock, at which point, the well-oiled customers would be sent on their merry way, leaving a select gathering of family and friends to make their own merriment.
The day was dazzlingly bright but icily cold and Emma was grateful for the warmth of the bistro. After a relaxing morning opening gifts and eating breakfast, she and her mum had gone for a brisk walk along the promenade and Emma still needed thawing out.
‘Happy Christmas,’ carolled Louise, hugging her mum and then Emma.
‘Wow, it’s so busy. You must be rushed off your feet,’ Meg said, having to shout above the lively chatter.
‘Yes, I know. Isn’t it great?’ replied Louise with a broad smile. ‘Now, I’m sorry but there isn’t a single table free at the moment but I have set aside some chairs at the bar. If you would like to come this way, ladies.’ Louise turned to escort them to their seats.
Meg and Emma’s feet remained rooted to the spot. ‘We will not,’ Meg told her firmly. ‘We’re here to help.’
‘Yeah, I can help in the kitchen and Mum can serve out here,’ suggested Emma.
‘Don’t even think about going into the kitchen. It’s battle stations in there at the moment. Ben was adamant that he and Steven could manage the service but I’d be surprised if they’re still talking to each other by the end of the day.’
‘Steven’s cooking Christmas dinner?’ Meg asked, her jaw hitting the floor.
‘He’s been doing really well on his catering course, although it might be a case of sinking or swimming. From the way it’s looking at the moment, I’d say it’s more like sinking,’ Louise explained with a half-smile. She clearly had more faith in the two of them than she was letting on.
‘All the more reason for me to go in and help,’ insisted Emma. She still hadn’t seen Ben since their disagreement and the irresistible pull towards the kitchen was difficult to ignore. ‘We don’t want anything going wrong today of all days.’
Louise put her hands on her hips. It was a stance that Emma had often assumed with her sister but now the roles were reversed and Louise was enjoying the switch. ‘No,’ was all she said to put an end to Emma’s temptations.
Emma bit down on her lip to stop herself from begging. ‘OK then, we’ll both help with the waitressing,’ Emma said, knowing that there would be ample opportunity to break the ice with Ben once she started taking orders.
‘How about you two look after the tables in the far section over there?’ offered Louise.
Emma looked over to the section they had been assigned and spied two familiar faces who had been pivotal in filling the bistro to the rafters. Emma made a beeline for them.
Iris and Jean were chatting away merrily with a couple of friends when Emma arrived at their booth. The table was strewn with wrapping paper, precarious piles of gifts and a collection of drinks. They were wearing lopsided paper hats, matching grins and all had very rosy cheeks. Jean had a crumpled tissue in her hand and she was wiping away the tears from her eyes, which were clearly tears of laughter as her body was still heaving with repressed giggles.
‘Hello, ladies, and a merry Christmas to you all. My name is Emma and I’ll be serving you today.’
‘Ooh,’ chorused the women, ‘very professional.’
‘And this is my assistant, Meg,’ Emma continued before leaning in towards Jean to whisper conspiratorially. ‘It’s my mum, so go easy on her.’
Meg coughed politely. ‘I’ll have you know I’ve been serving hot dinners since before you were born.’
‘But I have a feeling this crowd are going to be difficult to please,’ replied Emma.
Iris wafted a hand dismissively. ‘I have no idea what you mean. We’re going to be perfectly well behaved.’
‘So how is my plan working so far?’ Emma asked eagerly. ‘The place is packed out and if you don’t mind me saying so, they look like they might know you.’
‘If by that you mean it’s full of old biddies then, yes, you can thank us for that. Pretty much everyone here is a fellow escapee.’
Iris and Jean lived in a sheltered community and they had been flattered when Ben had tracked them down to ask their advice. His powers of persuasion had then secured their help and by the time Louise had contacted them they had already been plotting how to save the day. Apparently, there was an annual dispute over who organized the communal Christmas dinner. A clique had formed from which Iris and Jean were consistently excluded, and so this year they had led a revolt to the Traveller’s Rest.
‘Our gratitude will be reflected in the bill,’ Meg promised. ‘It’s wonderful to see the bistro so busy. I only hope it stays this way.’
‘I think you’ll be onto a winner if we get those special discounts,’ Iris said.
‘I’ll make sure Louise keeps to her promises,’ Emma assured them with mock severity.
‘She’s lucky to have you,’ Jean told her.
‘We all are,’ Meg added, giving Emma a tight squeeze.
Iris and Jean nod
ded in agreement. In Emma’s dealings with Iris and Jean she had been determined not to mention her illness but their inquisitiveness had worn her down and Emma had eventually confessed. She had hoped the death sentence that shadowed her wasn’t quite so visible and had asked them if she looked so obviously ill. They had assured her that she didn’t, that they were perhaps more in tune to recognize the signs at their time of life.
Before the mood was allowed to turn morose, Emma directed her mum to another table that demanded attention whilst she tried to take the order for Iris and Jean’s table. The sooner she had her first order, the sooner she would be allowed into the kitchen. ‘Now, ladies, what can I get you?’
‘We had our order written down somewhere,’ Jean said, riffling through discarded pieces of wrapping paper.
‘You look like you’ve been having a great time so far,’ Emma said as she took another look at the Christmas debris strewn across the table.
‘Santa has been very generous this year. Look,’ Jean told her, pulling an envelope from the bottom of her pile of gifts, which threatened to topple over. She handed Emma an envelope containing a voucher for an experience day.
‘Hot-air ballooning?’ stammered Emma, wondering how Jean would manage to clamber into the basket without breaking a hip. ‘That’s, that’s unbelievable.’
‘Hmm,’ added Iris. ‘I don’t think Santa would have been so generous had he realized that some of us weren’t going to be spoiled so much this year.’ From her pile of gifts, Iris lifted up a gaudy printed headscarf and a pair of pink fluffy dice with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. ‘I don’t even have a car to hang these from, not unless Santa’s got a new car parked outside.’ She looked expectantly towards Jean.
Jean giggled. ‘Now I don’t think my pension would stretch quite that far, but …’ she said, rummaging between the folds of her cardigan before pulling out a similar-looking envelope to the one Emma held in her hand. She proffered it towards Iris with a flourish.
Iris tore at the envelope and her growing excitement spread to the rest of the group. They all peered over to get a better look at the voucher she was staring at open-mouthed. ‘A rally-driving experience?’
Emma looked on in disbelief but Iris was bubbling with excitement.
‘Isn’t that a bit …’ began Emma, still stumbling over her words. ‘Isn’t that a bit too extreme?’
The four ladies gave their new waitress an imperious look. ‘And why would that be?’ Jean asked.
Emma suppressed a smile as she recovered from the shock and started to feel sheer admiration for the ladies. ‘I thought maybe something like a spa day might have been a bit more, I don’t know, relaxing, maybe?’
Jean tried to maintain her offence but couldn’t contain her giggles for too long. ‘It was tank driving last year,’ she confessed. ‘But she’s seventy-five now, so I thought I’d calm it down a bit.’
‘Have you ever thought of giving more practical gifts?’ asked Emma with a wicked smile. ‘Cookery books, bath salts, that kind of thing. Or hand-knitted scarves, even?’
As the table erupted into a counterattack, Emma tried to get back to the business at hand. ‘Jean, have you got that order for me or would you prefer Christmas dinner served on Boxing Day?’
Jean obliged by handing over their order, which was scribbled on a scrap of wrapping paper, and from that moment on, Emma didn’t stop. She barely had time to say more than a brief and chaste hello to Ben but the rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. It was no surprise that Iris, Jean and their friends were the last to go home and when they did leave, they left the staff, even the temporary ones, exhausted but smiling.
‘Right, who’s ready for a party?’ Louise said.
As leftovers go, Christmas dinner was fit for a king. Ben and Steven weren’t allowed, at Louise’s insistence, to lift another finger. The day had been a resounding success and with so many of their customers promising to visit again in the very near future, there was finally something to look forward to.
After toasting their triumph, it took forever to get through the entire meal simply because there was so much chatter but no-one seemed to care. Emma, Louise and Meg were trying to outdo each other with family anecdotes, the more embarrassing the better.
‘Just look at the way she’s nibbling at the corners of that chocolate cake,’ Louise said with a critical eye on Emma’s plate. ‘Now you may think it’s all innocence but you mark my words, she’ll make sure she’s the last one with something on her plate so that she can taunt us with it.’
‘She’s welcome to my share. I’m stuffed,’ Ben said, rubbing his belly, with a painful sigh.
‘OK, maybe not taunt everyone, but taunt me.’
‘Louise,’ replied Emma, ‘I can’t believe you’d think I’d be that devious.’ In truth, Emma’s appetite had fallen away as a result of the reduction in her steroid dosage but she was happy to play along.
‘You don’t fool me. Every year without fail, you made sure you had at least one Easter egg left after I’d eaten all of mine.’
‘I’m sorry, Emma, but she’s right,’ added Meg. ‘You did. It used to drive me crazy the way you tormented her with that last egg.’
‘But I always gave her some. Eventually.’ Emma had been suppressing a grin but now she couldn’t hold back the laughter and it felt good. She barely noticed how exhausted she felt.
‘Yes,’ cried Louise, waggling an accusing finger at her sister. ‘After I was literally crawling on the floor, begging you.’
‘Mmm, this cake is so delicious,’ teased Emma, wafting a heaped spoonful of chocolate cake towards Louise’s now empty plate.
As the laughter continued, Meg produced a gift bag from under the table. ‘I think it’s present time,’ she suggested. They had already swapped gifts but this was a little family tradition. They were small tokens, mostly consisting of yet more luxury foodstuffs and novelty socks thrown in for good measure.
‘Louise warned me you’d be sharing gifts, so we’ve come prepared,’ offered Steven, pulling three brightly coloured packages from a gift bag he had brought with him from the kitchen. ‘Although I hold my hands up and confess that my contribution was wrapping them up. Ben deserves all the credit.’
Emma looked at the gift that Steven had placed in front of her, identical in shape to the ones handed to her mum and her sister. As Emma explored its contours she felt a twinge of disappointment when she realized it was a picture frame. She would have preferred an envelope worthy of Iris or Jean but she was aware that Ben’s eyes were on her, so she practised the look of delight in her mind as she tore at the wrapping.
When she turned the frame over her heart quickened as she came face to face with her own image in black and white. She had never liked looking at pictures of herself but this one took her breath away. In the photo, she was peering into a display cabinet at the museum, clearly unaware that she was being photographed. It had been taken at such an angle that the photo captured not only her face but its reflection on the glass-fronted cabinet.
‘Do you like it?’ asked Ben.
The picture provoked a surge of emotion that surprised Emma. It captured a moment where she had been deep in thought and there was a sense of hopelessness in her eyes. Incredibly, whether it was a distortion of the light or the skill of the photographer, the reflected face had an altogether different expression, with eyes that searched towards some unseen point in space and time. That face had a look of determination and anticipation. The photograph had captured not only her image but her soul too. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispered as she met Ben’s gaze. ‘Thank you.’
Ben smiled. ‘I’m just relieved you like it. From what Louise kept telling me about how you don’t like having your photograph taken, I thought you’d take one look at it and throw it in the bin.’
‘That was why we made sure to give Meg and Louise a photograph too,’ added Steven who, unlike Ben, had been watching the others. They had each been given a different photo of Emma, all taken
with equal skill but not quite matching the dramatic impact of the one Emma was holding.
Emma shook her head. ‘You could have picked a better model,’ she said modestly, ‘but this is amazing.’ The more she looked at it the more she felt moved by it.
‘They all are,’ Meg added. Tears were threatening so she painted on a smile and lifted up her own camera. ‘You have an amazing talent, Ben, and one I can put to good use. Right everyone, photograph time.’
Emma didn’t have a chance to reply as everyone jumped up and gathered around her, ready to pose for their photographs. She smiled at Ben as he pointed Meg’s camera at her and in her mind she was making her own mental record of the moment when she had been reminded of what hope looked like.
Emma didn’t want the night to end and there was a sense of panic deeply rooted within that desire, a belief that it really could be her last. Although she refused to allow that fear to sully the moment, she couldn’t ignore how tired she was. It hadn’t only been her appetite that had been affected by the tapering of her steroids; fatigue had replaced the restlessness and a headache that had begun as a dull ache that morning became searing pain by nine o’clock and forced Emma to accept that it was time to take a rest.
Ignoring Meg’s insistence that they go home, Emma opted instead to take painkillers and lie down in one of the booths for a short nap. She made herself comfortable on one of the long upholstered seats as best she could and let the gentle sound of chatter lull her to sleep.
She had used a cardigan as a makeshift pillow and was dozing when she felt someone drape a blanket over her. When she opened her eyes, she could make out the silhouette of a man in the flickering candlelight.
‘Sorry, did I wake you?’ Ben whispered.
‘No, it’s alright. How long have I been asleep?’ Emma croaked. She felt like she had only just closed her eyes but her seized-up joints were telling a different story. To her relief, the vice that she had felt tightening around her skull had relaxed its grip.
‘About an hour. I fetched a blanket from the apartment in case you were cold,’ Ben explained. ‘Go back to sleep, I’ll go.’
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