The Night Before Christmas

by Scarlett Bailey

  Joanna chewed her bottom lip for a moment, lifting the kettle off the base and pouring its contents into the pan.

  ‘When you put it like that, it does seem a bit mad … I did feel terrible when you told me how you felt about Stephen. I never would have meddled if I thought you weren’t happy. I thought that if you and Jackson were suddenly brought together, I’d be able to see if he still wanted you. It never occurred to me that you might want him back.’

  ‘But I didn’t! I don’t want him back,’ Lydia said, firmly. ‘Maybe, perhaps for a moment or two, seeing him when I was so uncertain about how I felt for Stephen did make me wonder … But, in reality, I never would have done that to you, of all people. Honestly, Jo-Jo, if you’d just told me who he was, then all the crap I’ve gone through over the last few days, all the confusion and angst, could have been avoided.’

  ‘Except that he wanted you, of course he did, he’s made that perfectly clear.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Lydia asked her.

  ‘You’re the one everyone always falls in love with,’ Joanna said quietly. ‘You’re the kind of woman men want to marry, I can’t compete with you.’

  ‘Me?’ Lydia exclaimed. ‘Which one of us has been engaged five times?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Joanna said. ‘I can’t keep a man interested in me long enough to marry.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Lydia said. ‘You chuck them almost as soon as you’ve got a ring on your finger.’

  ‘Yes, before they get the chance to change their minds,’ Joanna said, pitifully. ‘Everyone has always left me, Joanna. Mum, Dad, everyone. I just wanted to keep Jack.’

  ‘Oh, Jo-Jo, you are clinically insane, but don’t you know by now that not everybody leaves you? Me, Katy and Alex. We will always be here.’ Lydia held out her arms to her friend, just as the whistle on the kettle began to sing, seeming, as the two women hugged, to morph into one long high-pitched scream.

  ‘Alex.’ Joanna and Lydia looked at each other and ran to help their friend, a half-filled pan of boiled water left cooling on the table.

  David was on his knees, mobile phone in one hand, about to peer between Alex’s firmly clenched knees.

  ‘Get away him from there!’ Alex wailed. ‘Katy, get him away from there! I’ve told him he’s not to go down there. If he sees this we’ll never have sex again.’

  ‘Here.’ Lydia put an arm on David’s shoulder. ‘I think she really needs you up that end. Let me take a look.’

  Perhaps a little relieved, David shuffled away from the business end and took Alex’s hand.

  ‘Oh God,’ Lydia said, her eyes widening, any fear or revulsion she thought she might feel disappearing in a moment. ‘I can see the head. Oh I … whoa, I think this little fella is nearly here.’

  David tried to look, but Alex dragged him back. ‘Please, stay with me here. Lydia, push it back in. I’m not ready, I’m not ready to be a mum …’

  Alex squeezed her eyes tightly shut, tears escaping down her cheeks as the next wave of pain hit her.

  ‘Okay, don’t think pushing him back in is an actual option, and I don’t think waiting for the ambulance is either,’ Lydia said, holding her hand out for the phone. ‘Let me speak to Maxine, tell her what I see.’ She deftly caught the handset that David threw.

  ‘Hello? Lydia here, again.’ Lydia tried to keep her voice down, so that Alex wouldn’t hear the fear in her voice. But one look at her friend’s face told her that Alex was lost in her own world, totally caught up in the process of bringing her child into the world. ‘I think the moment is somewhat nigh.’

  ‘Okay, Lydia, have a look and tell me what you can see.’

  Bracing herself, Lydia looked again, ‘Fuck, it’s amazing. I can see the top of the baby’s head, he’s really hairy!’

  ‘Okay, Lydia,’ Maxine said, her voice even and calm in tone, and not remotely matching the panic rising in Lydia’s chest as she realised the burden of responsibility she was taking on. ‘It’s possible that on the next contraction the head and shoulders will appear, and then it will be very quick until baby’s out.’

  ‘Oh … kaaay,’ Lydia said.

  ‘As soon as you see them, support baby’s head and shoulders, and when he comes out, if you can get him to his mother’s breast as soon as possible. The sooner baby starts suckling the sooner the uterus will begin to contract and the less blood she’ll lose. The good news is, I’ve just had word that the chopper’s up. We’ll be there in minutes.’

  ‘Ambulance is on its way, Alex,’ Lydia told her. ‘So now all you have to do is concentrate on getting that baby here for its first helicopter ride, okay?’

  Alex nodded, squeezing Katy’s hand so tightly that the tips of her finger blanched white. ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘Good. David, help Alex get her bra off. Alex – next contraction, get ready to meet your baby, okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alex wept, ‘let’s do this!’

  There was a short period of quiet, save for the ticking of the clock on the mantel, and then David yelped as Alex squeezed his hand

  ‘I’ve got you,’ David said, his arms around Alex.

  ‘I can feel it coming!’ Alex’s scream roared through the room, echoing in the halls, stairways and all the rooms of Heron’s Pike, and Lydia gasped as the baby emerged in a gush of fluid into her arms.

  ‘Oh my God! Oh my God, it’s a girl!’ She stared at the tiny pink and red creature in her hands, the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. And then she realised the baby was perfectly still. ‘Katy, quick, the phone!’

  Dropping Alex’s hand, Katy held the phone up to Lydia ear.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Alex asked. ‘Where’s my baby?’

  ‘She’s here,’ Lydia said into the phone. ‘She not breathing.’

  ‘Hold her with her head down,’ Maxine said calmly. ‘This helps drain any fluids that might be getting in the way, and rub her back, you can be quite firm.’

  ‘Nothing!’ Lydia’s voice quivered as she held the tiny scrap of life in her arms.

  ‘Just wait one moment.’ Terrifyingly, Lydia thought she could hear fear in Maxine’s voice for the first time.

  And then the baby seemed to gasp, and cough, audibly sucking in a breath of air, which it held for a fraction of a moment before letting it out again in one long, wonderful wail.

  ‘Thank God, it’s worked.’ Lydia let herself breathe along with the baby, aware of sudden tears streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘Good work, Lydia,’ Maxine said. ‘Now get that baby to her mum. Keep her warm. Help will be there any minute.’

  Still sobbing, Lydia placed the tiny girl against Alex’s breast, and the friends watched in awe as, after a moment, her little rosebud mouth latched on to Alex’s nipple and she began to suckle.’

  ‘Oh my God, she’s so beautiful,’ Alex said, gazing fondly at her daughter. ‘Isn’t she beautiful, darling?’

  ‘The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,’ David said, breathless with wonder, as he stroked the baby’s head with the back of one finger. ‘You did it, darling, you did it,’ he told Alex, tears in his eyes. ‘I knew you would.’

  ‘I couldn’t have done it without you,’ Alex told him fondly, before beaming at her friends. ‘Or you lot! Especially you, Lydia!’

  ‘You were nothing short of a bloody fucking hero!’ David added.

  A blast of cold air whipped through the room as the back door opened and suddenly the place was full of people, all the boys, including Will, along with a woman bundled up in a very thick coat and carrying a doctor’s bag, plus two paramedics wearing high-visibility coats. Lydia stood back, discovering that she was still trembling, as she watched the doctor check over Alex and the baby before the paramedics transferred them onto a gurney, wrapped tightly in blankets and safely secured by belts.

  As they wheeled her away, Alex held out her hand to Lydia. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without you.’

  ‘Well, it was really a team effor
t,’ Lydia said, tears welling up in her eyes.

  ‘I know, thank you, all of you. What would I – we – have done without you? Now bloody well make up and have a happy Christmas Day, for our sake, okay?’

  Lydia nodded, looking at Joanna. ‘We will.’

  ‘One thing,’ Alex said sleepily to David as they wheeled her out of the room. ‘At least we get out of eating that mutilated turkey.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  25 December

  The very distant sound of laughter and squealing prised open Lydia’s exhausted eyes and tear-swollen eyelids. It was Christmas morning, Lydia realised, and it had to be quite late because pale, watery light was creeping in under her thick curtains. Reaching across the empty half of the bed, she picked up her watch and looked at it. It was almost nine on Christmas Day. The day that Lydia had always wanted to be perfect, magical and above all happy. The day that for as long as she could remember had been none of those things.

  Still, just because she’d singled-handedly managed to upset and alienate the three men in her life in one fell swoop, and somehow end up single instead of engaged, it didn’t mean she couldn’t eat her own body weight in turkey and Christmas pudding, which was exactly what she planned to do. Fate, it seemed, had her destined always to be alone, so she might as well get really, really fat, and perhaps become an alcoholic, which was her first preference when it came to hobbies suitable for elderly spinsters.

  Clambering reluctantly out of bed, Lydia shuddered as she went to the wardrobe and brought out the obligatory glittery top, a long fine-knit silk top, shot through with silver, which slid rather attractively off one shoulder, not that anybody would care, Lydia thought morosely, as she teamed it with her black velvet skinny jeans. Or that anybody was ever going to graze that poor shoulder with a stubbly kiss ever again. She picked out the sparkliest bling she could find in her travel jewellery box, a pair of chandelier diamante earrings that Joanna had brought home from work and given her for her birthday, and a huge fake red ruby ring, which she slipped onto the third finger of her left hand in pure defiance. Who wanted to be engaged, anyway? It made a girl sound like a public convenience.

  In the wake of witnessing her very own Christmas miracle, Lydia had been filled with warmth and goodwill to all men, even Jackson. Even after Alex and David had at last been spirited away into the night sky, and despite the drama and the oddness of Joanna’s strange confession, it felt as if they had made up and that somehow working together to deliver the baby had cancelled out everything that had gone on during the hours before the little girl made her dramatic entrance. Even the fact that Joanna had rigged Lydia’s engagement, and that Lydia had made out with Joanna’s boyfriend, seemed insignificant as the three remaining women toasted the baby, and congratulated themselves on their new midwifery skills. That was the magic of Christmas, Lydia had thought warmly, not even slightly cross with Stephen that he’d pretended proposing to her was all his idea and that he’d picked out that ring all on his own. If ever there was a time of year that was all about new beginnings, hope and faith, then this was it.

  Suddenly seeing quite clearly exactly what she needed to do, Lydia went to find Will, her nerves fizzing with anticipation and her heart thundering in her chest, inspired to do exactly what every reasonable and rational bone in her body told her not to do: tell the man exactly how she felt about him. Lydia was prepared to lay all the cards on the table, and tell Will that the kiss they’d shared meant just as much to her as it had to him, and that even though the whole thing seemed crazy, it seemed crazier still not to act on something that felt so right.

  Which was why it was rather an anticlimax when, to her dismay, she found Will in the lean-to getting ready to leave with the doctor.

  ‘Hello, Miriam Day.’ The woman, who was a little older than Lydia, held out her already gloved hand, smiling warmly. ‘Well done you, Alex told me as I was settling her in the ambulance that you delivered baby and got her breathing. You must have nerves of steel!’

  ‘Oh well, I … just did what had to be done,’ Lydia said, watching Will as he zipped up his jacket and wound his scarf around his neck. ‘Anyone would have done the same.’

  ‘Nonsense, I’ve seen junior doctors run a mile from a dilated vagina!’ Dr Day chuckled. ‘Brightened up my Christmas, anyway. Nothing like a medical emergency to get you out of the house!’

  ‘You’re going?’ Lydia asked Will as he picked up his rucksack.

  ‘Doesn’t seem much point in me sticking around here now.’ Will was polite but cool. ‘Baby’s delivered, Aga is working, heating is on. You don’t need me any more.’

  ‘Oh, everyone always needs a man like Will!’ Dr Day giggled. ‘Don’t you agree?’

  Lydia smiled tightly, nodding, trying to think of some reason to ask Dr Day to wait outside in the freezing snow while she talked to Will. She hadn’t envisioned an audience for her romantic declaration.

  ‘Don’t you think you’re being a tiny bit over-dramatic, leaving now?’ Lydia began. ‘We kissed and it was lovely, really lovely, actually. But as far as I’m aware, we didn’t get married or anything.’

  ‘Ah,’ Dr Day said. ‘I might just see you in the tractor, Will.’

  A chill blast of air swept across Lydia as Dr Day hurriedly made her exit, and Will looked sharply at her. ‘Nobody said we did, it’s just … I thought you were one sort of person, it turned out that you were another. My mistake. No big deal.’

  ‘Will!’ Lydia exclaimed, infuriated. ‘What sort of person are you, to judge me on something you know nothing about? You turn up out the blue, smouldering away, and then without any encouragement at all from me, pretty much tell me I’m the best thing since sliced bread, get all stroppy because I’m so surprised that I don’t immediately fall into your arms all overcome with gratitude, and then, without knowing any of the facts whatsoever, change your mind completely about me, based on another man trying to kiss me!’

  Finally, Lydia paused for breath. She had to acknowledge that as romantic declarations go, this one wasn’t quite panning out how she’d planned it.

  ‘I take people as I find them,’ Will said, unmoved by her outburst. ‘I’ll leave the stove, just in case. Would you ask Jim to drop it back, next time he’s passing.’

  ‘Hang on a minute.’ Lydia softened her tone as she put her hand on the arm of his coat, stopping him in his tracks. ‘You like straight talking, well, here is some. I really thought that we’d connected, you and I. And, yes, the fact that we met during quite possibly the most complicated week of my life did give me pause. But I put it to you that you knew that when you kissed me. You knew that I’d only just broken up with Stephen, and that any decent sort of person would be rather thrown off balance by something so … surprising. And as far as Jackson is concerned, I’ve been taught that the central principle of justice is that an individual is innocent until proven guilty. Talk to Joanna, and Jackson, and they’ll tell you the real story about what happened in the cellar.’

  Will did not respond, but neither did he leave, which Lydia took as a good sign. ‘I am pretty blown away by you, Will. I didn’t expect this, but it’s happened and I don’t want to fluff it over nothing. You seem like an honest sort of man to me, and I just don’t believe that everything you said you felt has evaporated over night. Apart from anything else, you said there was something about me, something that made you want to build me a house. Well, there’s something about you too, Will.’ Lydia took a breath. ‘Something that makes me think I might want to live in it. With you.’

  Having made her declaration, Lydia pressed her lips together as Will looked into her eyes, and for one second she was absolutely certain he was going to kiss her. And then he shook his head and walked away.

  ‘It must have been snow blindness,’ Will said. ‘You’re a city girl, a southerner. I’m a country bloke. We are three hundred miles and worlds apart. I don’t know what I was thinking, saying all that stuff to you out of the blue. It wasn’t fair and I shouldn’t
have done it, I should have learned by now that nothing good ever comes of saying too much. I’m sorry, Lydia, but I’m heading home. Have a happy Christmas.’

  Will looked past her. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Ready.’ Jackson nodded, walking towards them.

  ‘But …’ Lydia turned to him. ‘What about Joanna, what about this mess you’re walking out on?’

  ‘Joanna won’t talk to me,’ Jackson said. ‘I figure I need to give her some space. Take care, Lydia, you know where I am if you change your mind.’

  Lydia stood in the drafty lean-to, goose bumps punctuating her skin, as Will helped the doctor and then Jackson clamber onboard the tractor and they rumbled off, leaving Lydia, hugging herself against the cold, to look up at the sky and wonder how she’d managed to get everything so exactly wrong.

  Arming herself with her best smile, Lydia brushed out her hair until it shone, slipped on her stiletto ankle boots, and went to the kitchen, where Katy and Joanna were peering at the Aga with the kind of hopeless, desolate expressions that should only be reserved for funerals.

  ‘Happy Christmas?’ Lydia offered the salutation uncertainly.

  ‘Did you know you appear to have put on some Christmas tree decorations?’ Joanna asked Lydia, smiling sweetly. ‘And by the way, at some point in the night, the Aga passed away, peacefully and in its sleep. Time of death we think approximately three a.m. as it is stone cold now, and rigor mortis has already set in. Much like my love life, now I come to think of it.’

  ‘I blame you for this,’ Katy told Lydia, seemly surprisingly sanguine about the demise of the beast. ‘If you’d secretly copped off with the right one of the Three Kings you’ve been road testing over the last few days, then Will would still be here and he’d know what to do about it.’

  ‘Yes, Lydia, you really are a dreadful slut, kissing anyone who’s passing,’ Joanna said mildly. ‘But then again, I suppose I’m the megalomaniac with control issues, so who am I to talk?’

  ‘Joanna told me the whole story,’ Katy said, with the same disapproving air she reserved for her children when they’d been doing something they shouldn’t. ‘Honestly, you two, you do know that you’re grown women and not teenagers? When are you going to start acting like it, get married and settle down?’