Last Christmas

by Lily Greene

  “Ahhh!!!! Why didn’t you say?”

  “Ahh, I’m going to be an auntie!” she screeched.

  “How exciting! Oh send them my love please. Call me when she’s born and tell Toby he’s going to be a wonderful father!”

  “Will do! Good luck with Fergus. Go and get him! Hopefully we’ll still do Boxing Day tomorrow so I’ll see you then?”

  “Of course. Let’s talk later when things have calmed down on both of our ends! But Libs, before you go, you don’t have Fergus’ home address to you? His parents’ home address? He said he was driving to theirs this morning and I just need to see him and explain everything else he’s going to think I’m the worst human being in the world. Is it okay to go to his house, not too bold?”

  “It’s the perfect amount of bold. It’s bloody Christmas day and romantic — you have to do it! I’ll text you the address in a second; we’re just heading to the hospital. Eeek!! Good luck!!”

  “And to you Auntie Libby!”

  “Mwah.”

  Libby was going to be an auntie! And she was going to go after Fergus! Was this mad? What did she need? She packed her handbag, slid a pair of dark chocolate suede knee high boots over her tights and grabbed her cream hat and matching scarf.

  Her phone pinged. She was disappointed to find it wasn’t Libby with Fergus’ address but she was happy to see the message was from Jimi.

  Hey baby sis, Merry Christmas! Is everything okay? Robbie text me yesterday and asked for your address … is he back? Are you two back together? Tell me what’s going on! Having breakfast by myself in the hotel – most depressing Christmas ever! Hope your morning is better than mine. Will call later, you’re probably still asleep. Lots of love, J x

  She shot him a quick reply telling him not to worry and that she would explain all when he was home on New Year’s Eve. Just as she put her phone down, it pinged again, this time with the coveted address. She put the address into her phones’ GPS app. It was a small village in Hampshire just under two hours away. With nobody driving on Christmas Day, everybody tucked up in their cosy homes surely the roads would be empty? She could get there in no time.

  Ella picked up her things, locked the house and defrosted her windscreen. She jumped in the car, put her bag on the passenger seat, wedged her phone into the slot under the heaters that didn’t work and turned the key. The steering wheel was cold in her hands and she lamented the lack of warmth. She meant to get her heating fixed before winter but she had never found the time. She turned on the radio as she merged onto the A1 and then onto the M4. Ten minutes into her journey, on the outskirts of London, light snow began to fall. As the tall grey buildings of London turned into green fields and idyllic cottages, the snow thickened all around her.

  Ella started to think seriously for the first time about what she was doing.

  Was this an absolutely crazy idea? Storming Fergus’ house uninvited on Christmas Day? When she thought about it like that, of course it was. But Fergus was ignoring her calls since Robbie had burst in on them last night and she had no choice. She had to make it right with him. Ella coughed as the biting cold infiltrated every limb of her body. She could see her breath on the inside of her car and she pulled her bobble hat tighter over her face to retain as much heat as possible. She passed the time singing Christmas Carols that were playing on the radio, trying to distract and warm herself.

  Ella was plagued with doubt now. She looked out the windscreen to see signs for Andover — that meant she was getting close. She panicked. She was close. What was she going to say? How was she going to explain Robbie and what was Fergus going to say in return? She really hadn’t thought this through properly and her building anxiety attack was distracting her from concentrating on the road. What did that sign just say? She squinted at the next sign but it didn’t say anything about the upcoming junction, just was just a sign for the next services. The junction was approaching and she didn’t know whether to take the exit or continue on the road. She consulted her phone app again and it advised her to take the exit onto a small B road. She took the exit but saw that her battery was down to 7%. She urged it to survive just twenty more minutes.

  Ella drove on, following the automated directions from her robotic map. The countryside was becoming increasingly wild and the snow was piled up on the sides of the road almost a metre thick.

  Ella turned down a small lane that her phone prompted her to take. The app informed her she’d stay on this road for three miles and then when she got to a small river she needed to turn left immediately after a bridge and then right again into what looked like a private road.

  Ella’s could no longer feel her feet they were so frozen but she persevered. The snow on this side lane looked treacherously thick so she slowed right down to avoid slipping.

  Just as she navigated her way gently around a bend bearing right, she heard a large pop that made her jump in her seat. The pop was followed by a slight hiss and as she rolled forward she felt the car growing heavier. Ella tried to accelerate a little but she felt the car lagging. Her view out of the windscreen was somehow wonky now and she realised with regret that her tyre must have hit something.

  She stopped the car and went to assess the damage. Her back left tyre was flat. Just her luck! Ella traipsed back a few metres down the quiet road to see what had caused the split. She saw a lump in the snow and dusted the snow away to find a small cog that looked like it had belonged to a tractor or a snowplough. She picked it up and felt the rough and rusting grooves of the cog in her hand. What was she going to do now? She had never changed a tyre before and wasn’t even sure if she had a spare one to swap the old one with. She was stuck in the middle of nowhere and no one knew where she was. Ella walked frustrated to her front seat and picked up her mobile. She’d try Fergus once more and hope that he would pick up this time, but as she dialled his number the phone made a squeaky noise and the light drained from the screen. No no no! Her battery had died.

  What was she going to do now? She hadn’t seen another car on the road since she left the motorway. She was close to Fergus’ house and she remembered the GPS instructions well enough to walk there, she thought. But then she was still two, maybe three, miles away. That would take at least an hour with the snow and her heeled boots!

  “Ah,” she cried to the air. “Typical!”

  She leant against her car and tried to construct a plan. Surely someone would pass by the road soon on their way to church and they would help her.

  Ella stared at the cog that she was still holding. She didn’t want to throw it back on to the ground or over the pretty hedge that lined the lane, in case it caused some damage to another car or animal. She walked to the back of her car and opened the boot. She dropped the piece of machinery that had been the start of her demise in the boot and sighed. She moved aside some canvases and sketches that were strewn untidily across the boot and felt for a latch on the bottom of the boot. She felt something that was colder than the carpeted floor of the boot and yanked on it. It was a plastic lever than opened a hidden compartment that had a spare tyre in it! Thank goodness for old cars with spare tyres, she thought.

  Ella hoisted out the spare and put it on the snowy floor. She felt for the wrench and jack and stared at them in her hands. She could do this! She could work out how to do it; she was an intelligent woman after all and she’d seen it done on television once. Ella put her car into first gear then walked to the rear left wheel and started to remove the hubcap. She rested her left knee on the cold road while partially loosening the lug nuts with the wrench. She remembered suddenly that she should put something heavy in front of the diagonal opposite wheel to prevent it from slipping but she had nothing that could act as a stopper. She hoped for the best, took off her coat and crouched down in the snow. She inserted the handle in the jack and turned it clockwise to lift the car up. Once it was high enough, she pulled off the lug nuts completely and then took off the drooping tyre. She chucked it onto the floor behind her and picked up the
spare tyre. She was impressed with how she had done so far but now she was faced with a new problem; which way around did the tyre go on?

  Ella surveyed the tyre and decided it looked right for the air valve to be on the outside of the tyre. She slid on the new tyre and put the lug nuts back on, tightening them in the same order she had undone them. She stood back and sighed. She was shattered, the tyre was so heavy and the floor was so cold she felt like collapsing in the snow and crying. This might just be the worst Christmas ever, she thought as she moved to wind down the jack until the tyre touched the floor gently. She removed it and slung it, and the flat tyre, in her boot. She had done it!

  Ella, feeling rather smug and proud of herself had a new burst of energy. This was going to be the best Christmas ever! She had saved herself and now she was going to save her new relationship. Ella put her coat back on, got in the car and started the engine.

  *

  Fergus’ driveway was longer than Ella had expected it to be. It was lined with gigantic oak trees that looked as if they reached right up to the sky. Snowy fields looked magical and reminded her of the set of the Nutcracker. Eventually the trees thinned out and the drive opened up into a clearing where a gorgeous Georgian rectory stood. Warm orange light from inside the windows made the golden stone look like it was glowing. Ella stopped her car a few hundred yards before the house and took in its grandeur. The portico with it’s extended pillars and black door was so stately. Ella was suddenly hit by the stupidity of her trip. Was she going to knock on the front door and just ask whoever opened it if she could see Fergus? Ella drove her car a little further and stopped it next to a collection of bushes on the right of the house. She stepped out of the car sheepishly and could just make out a face look out of one of the bedrooms at the top of the house. She heard a rustling through the trees in front of her and then a crunching of footsteps on the gravel as Fergus turned the corner. He was holding a pile of logs in his arms and was using his chin to keep the top logs from falling. He had heard a car approaching and was curious to see which family members had arrived for lunch when he saw Ella. He dropped some of the logs on the floor in suprise. Ella smiled nervously and said hello.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, putting all the logs on the floor. “You look freezing. Your face is blue!”

  “I am! Look Fergus, I know this is mad me coming to see you and on Christmas too, but I felt I owed you an explanation. You rushed off so quickly last night and you weren’t answering my calls and I couldn’t bear to think that you were upset with me.”

  Fergus’ eyes widened. She had his full attention so she moved one step closer to him.

  “The man who showed up last night and at my exhibition is called Robbie Newton. He is my ex-boyfriend.” Ella explained her entire history with Robbie in as few a words as she could. She told him about their split and how he had returned and proposed to her. She explained that nothing had happened between them last night; she had put Robbie to bed on her sofa and this morning they had left things amicably. Then, she had decided she had to drive and explain the whole situation to Fergus, although a flat tyre had held her back.

  “I didn’t tell you at the exhibition who he was because I didn’t want to drag him into our new relationship and I didn’t know why he was back. I met with him on Saturday night to understand why he had come back and to finally talk with him face to face about the end of our relationship. I never expected him to propose and I didn’t foresee the kiss. I’m afraid I got caught up in the moment, but I knew as soon as I kissed him that it was wrong. I said no and I actually ran away laughing because I was happy in the knowledge that there was only one person I wanted to see and kiss.” Ella stepped closer to Fergus now and put her hands on his upper arms and looked into his eyes as she spoke. “I know we haven’t known each other long and you must think I’m bonkers for coming here but … well Fergus Lamb, I’m falling for you and would like nothing more than for us to be together.”

  Fergus sighed with a smile and pulled her in close to his chest. Ella could see figures forming in the window behind him but she didn’t care. Right now, she just wanted to be held by Fergus. He looked down at her so tenderly, this beautiful woman with such a frozen face, her dimples seemed to be eternally stuck.

  “Oh Ella,” he said finally. “I have completely and utterly fallen for you too. I love you,” he said as he brushed a curl from over her eye.

  Ella’s insides melted.

  “I love you too,” she said barely able to contain her glee. Fergus dipped down to kiss her and ran his hand through her icy hair. Their eyes locked and they smiled at each other until Fergus spoke again. “I’m sorry I left so suddenly last night and didn’t answer your calls. I thought it best to remove myself from the equation. Thought that perhaps I was holding you back from saying yes and if I stepped back you’d be able to make your decision with no guilt. I guess I was trying to be noble about it but it was killing me not knowing what was happening.”

  “I didn’t want to say yes Fergus,” she said, nuzzling into the warmth of his neck. “I wanted you,” she whispered.

  “I’m so glad you did. And I can’t believe you drove all the way out here for me and had to change a tyre in the snow!”

  Ella laughed into his chest and then stepped back from him.

  “Now, I’m sure my family are dying to meet the mysterious girl I’m kissing in the drive. Let’s go inside.”

  “That’s so sweet of you, but I can’t gate-crash your Christmas.”

  “Nonsense Ell. You’re freezing and I want to spend Christmas with you. Let’s go in and have some eggnog. My mum makes an excellent home-made one.”

  Ella giggled and kissed him tenderly on his cheek.

  “What is it?” he asked, a smile spreading through his red silvery stubble.

  Ella was chuckling at his mention of eggnog; little did Fergus know that only seconds before she had met him for the first time twelve days ago, she had been thinking about eggnog.

  “Nothing,” she said sweetly. “I was just thinking that this Christmas is already the best Christmas I’ve ever had.”

  If you enjoyed Last Christmas check out Endeavour Press’s other books here: Endeavour Press - the UK’s leading independent publisher of digital books.

  For weekly updates on our free and discounted eBooks sign up to our newsletter.

  Follow us on Twitter and Goodreads.