by Alice Ross
I only hope the love of my life, who I discover a few minutes later, in her dad’s study, slumped over her laptop, fast asleep, is every bit as enthusiastic about the venture.
Given she’s so exhausted she’s sleeping through Barnaby’s version of O Come All Ye Faithful, I have my doubts.
Chapter Six
‘Dominic’s being a complete knob,’ I inform Ellie, when a trumpeted rendition of Jingle Bells, accompanied by Diana, Arabella and Rachel on vocals, jolts her back to the land of wakefulness.
‘Dominic’s always a knob,’ she proclaims, stretching her arms over her head and yawning.
‘I know. But he’s even worse today. He’s training for an Ironman Competition and flexing his bloody muscles at me. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve had Barnaby grilling me about my salary. It’s not normal, Ell. At his age he should be running around dressed as Batman or something.’
At these observations, I expect a titter at least but, instead, my beloved’s glorious green eyes bulge and all colour drains from her cheeks.
‘You all right?’ I ask.
She nods, swallowing hard. ‘Um, yes. Fine.’ Then, gaze dropping to her laptop. ‘Crap! Look at the time. And I haven’t done a stroke of revision yet.’
‘Ellie, it’s Christmas Eve. Nobody revises on Christmas Eve. Let’s go for a walk or something.’
‘I can’t, Adam. I really need to study.’
‘Right. Well, if you’re staying here, then so am I.’
She blows out an exasperated breath. ‘Oh, all right, then. I’ll come into the kitchen and have a coffee with you. But only for half an hour.’
‘Hello hello. What have you two been up to?’ snickers Dominic, as Ellie and I enter the kitchen.
‘Sleeping,’ replies Ellie tartly. ‘When I should have been revising.’
‘On Christmas Eve? That, dearest sister-in-law, is incredibly sad.’
‘It’s not often I agree with my husband, but I do this time,’ pipes up Rachel. ‘Please tell me you’ve had some fun in the festive run-up.’
‘Nope. Not a bit,’ replies Ellie, as we claim a chair each at the table. ‘To be honest, I could quite happily skip Christmas altogether this year.’
‘Goodness. What kind of a thing is that to say,’ exclaims Diana, plopping a fresh cafetière of coffee down in front of us. ‘At your age you should be enjoying every minute of it. Tell her what you’ve been up to, Rachel.’
‘What haven’t we been up to, more like. Honestly, with all the children’s end of term stuff, our friends’ parties, and Dominic’s corporate functions, we’ve had something on practically every night of December.’
‘Main corporate bash was on one of the Tower Bridge walkways,’ boasts Dominic. ‘There we were, quaffing Veuve Clicquot and nibbling canapes, forty-two metres above the Thames, with the capital twinkling below us.’
‘God. Sounds amazing,’ puffs Ellie. ‘Adam and I have never done anything like that. Although,’ she adds quickly, evidently noting my crushed expression, ‘we would’ve had three lovely nights at Pebberley Castle, were it not for a power cut.’
‘We’re off to Dubai February half-term,’ Dominic continues, his arrogant tone now making me want to plug his nostrils with scrambled egg. ‘Can’t survive the winter without a bit of sunshine.’
‘Some of us have no choice,’ chunters Ellie.
I blink, completely astounded. Normally when Dominic launches into one of his ‘Aren’t I bloody wonderful’ speeches, Ellie snipes back something along the lines of ‘Put a sweaty sock in it, Dom’. This Ellie, conversely, sounds positively envious. Something I’ve never heard before. And am not at all comfortable with.
My musings are cut short by a shriek from Diana.
‘Oh, no. I’ve forgotten to buy more eggs. Which means I can’t make the eggnog tomorrow.’
Wondering why anyone would want to make eggnog on any day, let alone Christmas Day, and – more weirdly – why anyone would want to drink it, I nonetheless pounce on this declaration with significantly more zeal than the task probably warrants. ‘Ellie and I can pop into the village and pick some up for you,’ I offer, the urge to escape Dominic’s overbearing presence for a few minutes - and the still blasting trumpet - all consuming.
Ellie fires me an unimpressed look.
‘It’s the least we can do given all the trouble your mum’s going to on our behalf,’ I point out.
‘Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind,’ witters Diana.
‘Don’t mind at all, do we, Ellie?’
‘I’m only supposed to be having half an hour away from my books, Adam,’ grumbles my beloved from the driving seat three minutes later.
‘Well, I couldn’t go myself, could I?’ I say, indicating the dressing on my forehead. ‘The doctor said no driving for twenty-four hours. Anyway, a bit of fresh air will do you good.’
‘It’s not fresh, it’s Baltic,’ she correctly observes.
‘It’s supposed to be cold. It’s Christmas.’
‘Which means it’s going to be cold for months yet. I’m really fed up with this winter already.’
I furrow my forehead, bamboozled, yet again, by this change in my partner. ‘But you usually love winter: getting all wrapped up, wearing your funny hats, snuggling under the throw, sipping hot choc—'
‘Yes, well, not this year. It’s all…’
She breaks off, snagging her bottom lip between her teeth.
‘What, Ellie? It’s all what?’
‘Nothing,’ she murmurs, swiping a tear from her cheek as she brings the car to a halt outside the little grocer’s shop. ‘It’s… nothing.’
As she jumps out and marches up the path to the establishment, I remain in my seat, wondering what the hell is going on. Well, there’s only one way to find out and that’s to ask her, I conclude, bounding after her.
I stride into the shop just in time to hear Ellie’s mobile chime with a text. She tugs the phone from her jacket pocket and reads the message, her cheeks acquiring a distinct flush.
Which intensifies ten-fold the moment she spots me.
‘A message from… Helen,’ she blurts, referring to her best friend. ‘Wishing me Merry Christmas.’
I say nothing, recalling the conversation I had with Helen last week when I bumped into her during my lunch break. A conversation in which she informed me that she would be on a flight to Sydney at seven o’clock on Christmas Eve morning.
The village shop not being the most sensible place in which to confront the love of my life on her peculiar behaviour, I hold my tongue until the eggs are purchased and we’re trotting down the path back to the car. Opening my mouth to begin my enquiry, the words cram in my throat as a female voice gushes:
‘Ellie! How lovely to see you. I was just saying to your mum the other day that we haven’t set eyes on you in ages. How are you?’
‘Fine, thanks, Mrs Lyons,’ lies Ellie to the wife of the farmer, on whose land her parents’ house sits. ‘How are you?’
The woman blows out a breath which mists in the air. ‘Sometimes I forget I’m sixty-six, not twenty-six. Thought I could walk here and back no problem, but my hip’s giving me awful jip now.’
‘We can give you a lift back to the farm, if you like,’ blurts Ellie, with - I can’t help but notice - some relief.
‘Oh, if you wouldn’t mind, that would be marvellous. Just have to pick up a few bits and pieces from here first.’
‘Actually, I’ll come back in with you,’ my girlfriend announces. ‘Throat’s a bit sore. Need some lozenges,’ she prattles, shooting me a look I fail to decipher, before scurrying up the path after the older woman.
Unsurprisingly, with our unexpected passenger in the back of the car, waxing lyrical about the local WI, there’s zero opportunity for me to confront Ellie on the journey home.
Nor does an opening present itself back at the house, she suddenly deciding that revision can wait, as she opts to help her sister knock up a mountain of mince pies. A
tactic I suspect has been implemented to avoid being alone with me.
‘Can I take some more photos of you?’ Barnaby asks, popping up in the conservatory in front of me. ‘I’m not sure the ones I took upstairs are detailed enough.’
Before I can tell the brat to go and sit on his trumpet – or words to that effect – Diana bustles in.
‘Run along and practice your trumpet or something, Barnaby,’ she instructs her grandson.
‘Actually, I’ve already—’
‘Scoot. Now,’ commands Diana, in a tone I’ve only once heard her employ before – when next door’s cat was doing its business on the patio.
Despite Barnaby not being a small furry domestic animal, the instruction has the desired effect, him sloping off muttering quite a few ‘actuallys’ and something about social etiquette.
Diana settles herself down on the rattan sofa next to me. ‘Now, Adam, are you still planning to pop The Question tomorrow?’
At this enquiry, my mind swipes blank. Had she asked me two hours before, my answer would have been an emphatic ‘Yes’. Now, however, having been subjected to yet more of Ellie’s increasingly bizarre behaviour, I have no idea what I’m going to do. By the expectant way in which Diana is regarding me, I decide not to fess up to that indecision. Mainly because she’d want to know why. A question I couldn’t possibly answer, given I have no clue myself. ‘Er, yes,’ I therefore mumble instead.
Causing her face to light up brighter than an LED bulb. ‘Good. Because I’ve had a brilliant idea. What I thought we could do is this…’
As she begins rhyming off a long and detailed agenda of suggested events for the following day, I scarcely hear a word, thinking instead of the sparkly emerald and diamond cluster in the ring box in my sock upstairs, and wondering if it will ever see the light of day again.
Thankfully, a disaster with the ribbon on one of Arabella’s ballet shoes, brings a swift end to Diana’s ramblings. And as she scurries off to calm the situation, I tilt up my head and gaze at the grey sky through the clear glass panes. Was anyone up there trying to tell me something?
And if they were, what exactly was their message?
No sooner had this thought scuttled through my still sore head, than my phone beeps with a text. Blimey. Have ethereal beings now caught on to technology?
The text isn’t from any transcendent character. It’s from a rather p’d off one, by the name of Kyle.
Kyle:Ingrid doing my head in. Wants us to move to Sweden
Me:The way things are going here, I might come with you, I type back.
Kyle:That bad?
Me:Worse. Nothing gone to plan. Hotel a disaster. Ended up at Ellie’s parents’ house. Ellie gone all weird on me. Dominic being a knob.
Kyle:You still planning to pop The Question tomorrow?
No idea, I reply.
Because, despite Diana’s best efforts to bring the event about, I had no idea at all.
‘They’re still forecasting snow for tomorrow,’ Rachel announces, when I amble into the kitchen later to find Ellie icing gingerbread men. And, I note with increasing anguish, avoiding any eye contact with me.
‘Actually, snow at Christmas is incredibly disruptive,’ chirps Barnaby. ‘Did you know, Adam, that a significant percentage of the population travel on Christmas Day? I believe the figure is around—’
In no mood to hear the figure, and dismayed to find myself wanting to be included in it – namely because any travelling would allow me to escape this house - I implement an immediate U-turn and exit the kitchen with significantly more fervour than I entered it.
I pop my head into the lounge, where Dominic appears to be boring the pants off Ellie’s father, spouting forth about post-workout protein shakes. As the older man – already looking several sheets to the wind - reaches for the whisky bottle on the table next to him and tops up his glass, I make a hasty retreat before he spots me and summons me over to rescue him.
Truth be told, I wouldn’t have minded drowning my own sorrows in alcohol. But, continuing to pop the painkillers for my throbbing bonce, conclude that it wouldn’t be one of my better ideas. Not in the mood for the company of any of the house’s other occupants, I skulk off to the study, intending to lose myself in some pointless internet surfing on Ellie’s laptop, looking up all kinds of crap like how to deal with wanker-bankers; what to do when your girlfriend’s gone all weird on you; and how to dismantle a trumpet.
But I don’t get as far as typing one word into the search engine.
Because when I refresh the screen, I discover Ellie’s open email inbox.
Containing a stream of missives between her and ex-boyfriend Calum - The Trainee Pilot.
Seeing Calum’s name on Ellie’s computer has roughly the same effect on my body as bashing my head against the rim of Pebberley Castle’s swimming pool. Sending – in no particular order – shock, horror, nausea and disbelief coursing through my veins, accompanied by a bolt of hurt, which pierces my chest like a well-aimed javelin.
Yet, suddenly, all the pieces of the puzzle begin to slot into place. No wonder Ellie had been so miserable the last few weeks. She’d obviously been seeing Calum again. And who could blame her? Dominic certainly wouldn’t. As a pilot, Calum would earn shedloads more money than me. If Ellie married him - a guy who could keep her in the style she deserved to be kept - she wouldn’t have to bust a gut with exams. Not unless she wanted to, rather than needed to. We hadn’t ever discussed having kids, but if she did want a brood, there was no way my salary on its own would comfortably support a mortgage and a family. Or a decent social life. And she’d already intimated that she was fed up with our current one – which basically consisted of Friday nights at the local boozer with Kyle and Ingrid. Was it any wonder, therefore, that she wasn’t happy with me? She was bright, beautiful and – usually - bubbly. Whereas I was none of those things. A mortifying thought suddenly struck me: I was holding her back. That was what she’d wanted to tell me in the car. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it; couldn’t bring herself to finish the relationship because she felt sorry for me. All of which explained perfectly why she’d been acting so strangely. Life with boring old, stuck-in-his-ways me, was the complete antithesis to what a girl like Ellie needed. Hardly surprising then, that she hadn’t been overly enthusiastic when I’d suggested she move into my crappy rented flat. Because Dominic was right yet again. I should have a toe – at the very least – on the property ladder at my age. Calum the Now-Probably-Fully-Qualified-Pilot, no doubt had a swish designer pad with six en suites and his and hers hot tubs. With him, Ellie could spend every winter in warmer climes – with free flights. Thank God I hadn’t asked her to marry me, thereby placing her in the awkward predicament of saying yes to spare my feelings, or no, accompanied by an extensive list of reasons for declining.
‘Ellie’s gingerbread men are looking very hunky,’ titters Diana, head appearing around the study door and jerking me out of my ponderings. ‘We’re going to have them with tea in half an hour.’
‘Great,’ I reply, through a smile so strained you could sieve custard through it.
Thankfully, she appears not to notice, as she bustles off, leaving me alone with my depressing deliberations. The last thing I want to do is sit down to hunky bloody gingerbread men with Ellie and her family. Not least of all, because, given my rising anger, there’s a serious risk that if Dominic starts spouting off again, several gingerbread men parts may be rammed into parts of his anatomy.
And what about Ellie? The last thing she’ll want is me hanging about. She has enough on her plate with her exams, without the added worry of how to end our relationship. That she hasn’t done so yet, undoubtedly has much to do with it being the season of goodwill. I’d bet good money on her counting the days until January, when she can break all bonds and start the new year with Calum.
However, it was only Christmas Eve. The season had another week to run. And I didn’t intend hanging around like a spare part for it.
&
nbsp; For my own self-respect, I needed to put some distance between me and Ellie.
And how to do exactly that without causing a scene and ruining everyone’s Chrimbo, was served up to me by another text from Kyle.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, m8, but you have a burst pipe.
Reading the message, I wonder, if by some magical Christmassy means, my best friend and I have developed psychic powers. The way my emotions are skittering at this precise moment, it feels like I have several burst pipes. But, as Barnaby’s trumpet begins sputtering again, I realise the notion is ridiculous and that he must be referring to the flat. And if he is referring to the flat, what is he doing there? I press the Call button for further clarification.
‘Sorry, mate. I know it’s Christmas Eve and everything, but the pipe’s burst under your sink.’
‘How do you know the pipe’s burst under my sink?’
‘Because when I told Ingrid there was no way I was moving to Sweden, she hurled her engagement ring at me, called me a selfish something-or-other in Swedish, then chucked me out.’
‘Shit.’
‘Kind of. But these things happen. With the benefit of a couple of hours’ hindsight, I’m not sure we were all that compatible. Anyway, I still had your spare key – from the time Carly kicked me out two years ago - and I didn’t think you’d mind if I bunked down for a few days. Can’t be bothered with my family and all the Christmas carry-on, so thought I’d lay low. Just me, the telly, and a few cans. Heaven. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Er, no,’ I mutter, realising there was little else I could say in the circs. And, on the plus side, he’d discovered the burst pipe, and the situation could provide me with my escape excuse. ‘What about the burst pipe?’ I ask.
‘Well, when I say burst, it was more of a leak really. Big puddle on the kitchen floor though. Could’ve been nasty if left for a few days. I’ve taped up the pipe as a temporary fix.’