Appearing in the doorway, Will dropped his rucksack at the sight of Alex.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘What does it look like?’ Alex snapped at him. ‘Why do you live in the bloody middle of fuck all, why can’t I have an ambulance? I want a hospital with drugs, and … drugs. And I want my mum!’
Alex sobbed, leaning heavily on David, who passed the phone to Katy so that he could put his arms around his wife.
‘It’s not a hovel,’ Katy told an uninterested Maxine, before listening to further instructions. ‘Maxine says we need to get her comfortable.’
‘Then get me drugs!’ Alex begged.
‘Right,’ Will said. ‘I know the GP. She’ll be in the pub, probably, but she’s a good man. Woman. You know what I’ll mean. I’ll go and fetch her. I might be able to get one of the lads to bring her up on a tractor …’
‘I’m coming,’ Jim said, clearly eager to be out of the way, spotting Stephen, who was loitering in the hallway. ‘And you, Steve. Don’t worry, Alex, it will be fine and when that little blighter’s born, you can name him after the lads who saved the day.’
‘FUCK OFF!’ Alex yelled at him as another wave of pain hit her. For a second, Lydia’s eyes met Will’s across the room. He hesitated for a moment, then picked up his rucksack and hurried after Jim.
Not knowing, or at that moment caring, where Jackson was, and united in their concern, Lydia and Joanna anxiously followed Katy and David as they tried to help Alex up to bed. But Alex couldn’t take more than a few steps without having to stop.
‘I can’t do this,’ she wept, clinging on to David when they stopped for the fifth time as yet another wave of pain hit her. ‘I’m so sorry; I’ve changed my mind. Can you tell someone, please?’
‘It’s okay,’ David said, looking around as he listened to Maxine, his eyes falling on the chaise. ‘We need a place for you to lie down. This sofa thing will do. Lydia, you need to get me some clean sheets and towels, to put over this, and something to wrap the baby in when it comes.’
‘Oh, my chaise,’ Katy muttered under her breath as she kneeled beside Alex, brushing her damp hair away from her forehead. ‘This will take more than Vanish. Lydia, there’s a waterproof undersheet in the linen cupboard. I had to use it for Tilly when we first moved up here. Bring that and we can put it under the sheets.’
Lydia hurried upstairs to find the cupboard on the first floor. As she reached the top of the stairs, she found Jackson, his bag packed, looking set to leave.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked him. ‘You can’t go now!’
‘Why not?’ Jackson asked her.
‘Why not? Because Alex is in labour, there’s ten feet of snow out there, and you’ve no hope of getting anywhere in your car, and because you need to talk to Joanna, explain to her what happened. Tell her that what she saw wasn’t what she thought and that there’s nothing between us now.’
‘Alex is in labour?’ Jackson put his bag down. ‘Since when?’
‘I don’t know.’ Lydia stepped past him, walking towards the vast linen cupboard. ‘I think maybe she’s been getting contractions all day. They seem to be coming really fast now, and her waters have broken. It could be really soon. I’ve been sent to get sheets.’
She began looking for Katy’s plastic undersheet, pulling it from under a pile of dressing gowns.
‘What can I do?’ Jackson asked her.
‘Here, hold this while I find what I need.’ Lydia began to pile sheets and towels into his arms, deciding to take as many she could, to be on the safe side.
‘I was going to walk down to the village, see if there was any B&B going,’ Jackson told her as she loaded him up. ‘I don’t think anyone wants me around here now.’
Lydia looked at him as he received the pile of linen into his arms.
‘You can’t just disappear into the night, not again. It wasn’t fair on me then, and it’s not fair on Joanna now. Look, she knew about you and me. In her head, she thought that throwing us together like this, with neither of us knowing what was coming, would stop anything from happening, not start it. She cares about you a lot, maybe even loves you. And she is one of my best friends, so I’m not letting you leave until you’ve talked this through with her. For once, you need to face up to things, not run away. Be a man. I’ll lock you in that cupboard if I have to.’
Jackson laughed. ‘I don’t suppose you’d be locked in there with me too, would you?’
‘Jackson, please, just bloody give it up, will you?’
Jackson looked hurt, and Lydia felt sorry for being so blunt, but it seemed to be the only thing that worked.
‘Do you think,’ he said, ‘that if I’d have come back in time, if I hadn’t seen you with Stephen, do you think things might have been different for us?’
Lydia looked into his eyes, trying to picture for a moment the very different reunion they could have had if fate hadn’t had other plans for them. Was Jackson the man she thought she’d fallen in love with? No. He wasn’t a bad man, just a confused one, as weak and as fallible as she had been herself. Even if meeting him again hadn’t jeopardised her friendship with Joanna, was he someone she could fall in love with now? In that moment, Lydia didn’t think so. She and Jackson had met at a particular time in her life, when she had been a very different person. Maybe her relationship with Stephen hadn’t worked out, but it had taught her what she did want and had helped her grow up a little.
Lydia only wanted to know where she stood, no games, no pretences, no half-baked broken promises. She wanted to be with someone she could love and rely on always to be there. Someone who she knew loved her back, without having to think about it any more, because it was simply a fact. She wanted a man with Jackson’s passion and Stephen’s stability. Did such a creature even exist outside of romance novels and the movies she adored? She didn’t know for sure, but the fact remained that as beautiful and passionate and irresistible as Jackson was, he was half the man she needed him to be, and not the man for her. Loving a man like him would eventually drive her mad.
‘Honestly, when I think about it, I’m glad things ended between us when they did,’ Lydia told him. ‘It was a beautiful summer and …’ Lydia smiled, thinking of the number of times they’d watched Casablanca together. ‘… we’ll always have Paris.’
Jackson nodded, sighing heavily, as he focused for a moment on the swirls and patterns in the carpet.
‘Right, I’ll talk to Joanna as soon as things calm down. I’ll straighten this mess out, I swear. In the meantime, I must be able to do something now?’
Lydia nodded. ‘Jim said they’d get the air ambulance up as soon as the winds drop enough. I don’t know where it will land round here, somewhere flat, I guess. So if you could keep an eye out for it from up here, and when you see it, you can go out and meet it. Bring them back to the house, it might save some time.’
‘Right.’ Jackson grabbed her arm as she headed for the stairs. ‘Lydia, I’m sorry. About before. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I never wanted to hurt Joanna, or you.’
‘Well, it has happened,’ she said. ‘And as soon as I get the chance, I have to make things right with Joanna, and so do you.’
Jackson nodded. ‘I’ll keep a look out for the air ambulance.’
* * *
When she arrived back in the sitting room, David was walking Alex up and down, with Katy following them anxiously.
‘About time,’ Joanna said, as Lydia hurriedly spread the sheets out on the chaise. ‘Did you find a little distraction up there? Someone else’s boyfriend to kiss, maybe?’
‘I found Jackson on the verge of leaving,’ Lydia said, unfurling towels. ‘I told him he couldn’t go until he’d talked to you.’
‘Oh, well, thanks for that, Lydia, because you really are the right person to be giving me relationship advice.’
‘Jo-Jo,’ Katy said. ‘Maybe now’s not the time?’
‘Perfect time.’ Alex grimaced. ‘Watching these
two scrap it out is the next best thing to gas and air.’ Alex leaned heavily against David, while Lydia and Katy did their best to make the chaise comfortable for her, and Joanna slipped a dressing gown that Lydia had retrieved around her shoulders, pulling her skirt and underwear off once she was covered.
David’s face blanched as Joanna gathered up Alex’s underwear and trousers to put in the wash.
‘What is it?’ Lydia asked him, whispering as he stared at the greenish stained clothes. She followed David into the foyer as he spoke in hushed tones into the phone.
‘There’s meconium,’ David said into the phone. ‘It means the baby is in distress, doesn’t it? That it needs to be delivered soon. When will the ambulance get here? We’re not enough; we can’t cope with this! I can’t help but panic, this is my wife and my baby! What can I do? I need to do something!’
David pressed his hand over his mouth, handing the phone to Lydia.
‘Hello?’ Lydia heard a woman’s voice on the other end of the line.
‘Hi, David’s a little upset at the moment,’ Lydia said. ‘I’m Lydia, how worried do we need to be?’
‘Hello, Lydia, I’m Maxine. Meconium isn’t great news, but it’s pretty common, plenty of babies are born at home when meconium is present, and they are perfectly healthy. All you can do at the moment is concentrate on keeping Alex calm. We’ve got the air ambulance on standby, and it will be in the air the minute it’s safe. The hospital in Carlise is also ready and waiting. Once we’re given the all clear, it will be a matter of minutes until we can get Alex the help she needs.’ Lydia went to the window, peering out into the darkness, where the ferocious wind was flinging snow full pelt, smattering it against the glass. ‘And in the meantime?’
‘Give me back to David, let me talk him through what to do next.’
David listened to Maxine, and taking a deep breath went back to be with his wife.
‘David, David, I’m sorry, so sorry, but I can’t do this,’ Alex wept. ‘I’m a rubbish wife, you should divorce me, I’d understand.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ David kissed her damp forehead. ‘You can do anything, Alex, anything at all. And I’m here, I won’t let anything bad happen.’
‘Promise not to go anywhere,’ Alex begged him.
‘You should probably watch him around Lydia, in any case,’ Joanna said snippily before David could reply. ‘Best not to leave your man alone with her.’
‘Right, we need to get everything as clean as we can,’ David told them, ignoring Joanna’s barbed comment. ‘Lydia, Joanna – boil water.’
‘What for?’ Joanna asked.
‘Just do it, okay? For once, this isn’t about you and your bloody little drama queen lives. This is about my wife and my child. So just get out of here and make yourself useful.’
In the kitchen, Lydia began to fill the kettle.
‘How’s that going to help?’ Joanna snapped irritably, snatching the kettle off her. ‘We’re not making a cup of tea, are we? We need lots and lots of water … Here, help me fill this pan.’ She picked up a huge, double-handled metal saucepan that Katy kept on the floor of the pantry, quite possibly to catch leaks, and carried it over to the sink.
‘Well, that will take hours to boil,’ Lydia said. ‘And anyway, the oven’s not working so how are we going to heat it? We’ll have to keep boiling the kettle and fill that pan up.’
‘Why are we even doing this?’ Joanna asked her. ‘It’s not like we’ve got anything to sterilise. We should be googling home delivery, and not the kind that brings you shoes from the internet in the three to five working days.’
Lydia hazarded a smile, thinking that if Joanna was still prepared to joke with her then things couldn’t be that bad.
‘I think David’s made it pretty clear that he’s in charge and he doesn’t want you or me hanging around, bickering.’ Lydia said. ‘I think we’re boiling water to get us out of the room. No matter what she says, the last thing Alex needs right now is you and me at loggerheads.’ Both women lifted their heads as Alex’s cry echoed down the hallway, making Lydia’s stomach clench in anxiety.
‘I wonder how many babies have been born in this house,’ Joanna said, more to herself than Lydia. ‘If only walls could talk.’
‘Joanna.’ Lydia tipped the contents of the whistling kettle into the pan. ‘Why didn’t you didn’t tell me about Jackson as soon as you found out that he and I had …’ Lydia said, ‘I’d have told you.’
‘Oh, would you?’ Joanna looked sceptical. ‘You went through that whole affair with him, more or less disappeared off the face of the earth for weeks, and barely said a word to me about him. And we lived together. Why not?’
‘I don’t know why,’ Lydia said thoughtfully. ‘I suppose I wanted to keep it special, separate. I think I knew, even then, that it was never going to go somewhere, but I wanted to get lost in it, lost in my own love story. You know, like you do in a good book or a film. I wanted to lose myself in what Jackson and I had for as long as we had it. Which wasn’t very long. Look, Joanna, it’s not as if I’ve been running around trying to steal your boyfriend. He left me, don’t forget, it was over. You’re the one who brought him here, knowing it would put me, and him, in an impossible position. Why?’
Joanna’s laugh was mirthless. ‘Why? Don’t you think I’ve asked myself that question? The minute I met Jack, I wanted him. He was so funny and charming and sexy. He was like a whirlwind of romance, it really did feel like I was in the middle of my own daydream, it was magical. And when I was with him, he made me feel so … special. As if he couldn’t live without me.’
‘Yes,’ Lydia said, filling the kettle again. ‘He is very good at that.’
Joanna sighed. ‘He was not only perfect, but different from any other men I’ve known. I’m used to boys falling in love with me straightaway. Jackson held back, just a little, and I wanted to know why, was there someone else? Was it just that he wasn’t that into me? Well, you know what I’m like, I couldn’t let it lie, so I waited until he was in the shower one morning and I checked his phone for anything, anything he might have said about me, any contact with another girl.
‘There were no texts, no voicemails, nothing at all that incriminating; although, as you can imagine, there were rather a lot of women in his contacts! I was really only looking at his photos for fun when suddenly there you were staring out at me. You were in bed, naked, I suppose, under his sheets, smiling at him. You looked beautiful.’ Joanna shook her head. ‘I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was in shock. Perhaps I should have confronted him about it or called you then, but to me the fact that he kept that photo meant he still thought about you. I didn’t want to lose him to you.’
‘Joanna.’ Lydia shook her head incredulously as she looked at her friend. ‘As if I could ever beat you in a straight contest.’
‘Oh, don’t do that.’ Joanna rolled her eyes.
‘What?’ That thing you do, all that false modesty, pretending that you’re not beautiful and clever and funny and brilliant.’
‘What?’ Lydia stared at her. ‘Don’t be mad, Jo-Jo. Everyone knows that you’re the beautiful one, the head turner. I’m just normal.’
Joanna studied her for a long moment. ‘You really think that, don’t you? You really don’t see how amazing you are. I know I’m beautiful, and witty, and have a high-profile, well-paid, glamorous career as a model slash presenter slash actress, if selling fleeces embroidered with wolves can be called glamorous. But even if you do wear your heart permanently on your sleeve, you’re so … genuine, Lydia. I’m all fakery and sham. I worried that I couldn’t keep Jackson for long. I just wanted to keep him for as long as I could, and telling you about him, or him about you, didn’t seem like a good way of doing that.’
‘Even if that makes sense, which it doesn’t, by the way … you brought him here? What were you thinking?’ The kettle began to rumble and bubble, busily.
‘I wanted Jackson and I to stay together, and short of never seeing
you again, I knew if we were going to be together then he was going to meet you sooner or later,’ Joanna said. ‘I know it sounds insane, but perhaps I have gone a little mad. Being in love does that to a person, doesn’t it?’ Lydia raised her eyebrows; having recently kissed a man she barely knew, in the snow, she was in no position to judge. ‘I thought if I brought him here, after making it clear to you how much he meant to me, and with Stephen about to propose to you …’
‘Hang on, you didn’t know about Stephen and the ring until after we got here.’
‘I did,’ Joanna said flatly, leaving Lydia utterly confused. She sighed. ‘Fine, you might as well know the whole story. I ran into Stephen on Bond Street a few weeks ago. I was looking for a new bag and he was window shopping, looking in jewellers! Well, I put two and two together and congratulated him on doing the right thing and finally proposing to you. Couldn’t be better, I thought; you settling down with Stephen meant I could relax about being with Jack. Thing is, Stephen was just looking for your Christmas present, he hadn’t exactly decided definitely to propose, and I suppose I might have railroaded him a little, maybe suggested that perhaps, if he didn’t pop the question soon, he might lose you for good …’
‘You did what?’ Lydia gasped. ‘You told Stephen to propose to me?’
‘No, I helped him along. I was doing it for you, Lyds. Anyway, when he thought about it a bit, he realised I was right, that he should seize the day, but he had no idea what sort of ring to get you. Well, obviously you and I have talked and talked about that for the last ten years at least, so I told him I knew just what you wanted. I took him to Tiffany.’
‘You picked out my ring?’ Lydia was aghast. All that time she’d wrangled with how much Stephen must have cared for her, going to so much trouble and expense to find exactly the right ring, and it had been Joanna all along.
‘So when I told you that I’d found the ring and that I wasn’t sure about marrying Stephen, you knew all the time? I bet you were furious that I was having second thoughts, especially as you planned to have me safely engaged and out of the way when you finally revealed who your boyfriend was.’
The Night Before Christmas Page 21