by Judy Astley
‘Leaving them all out of it, though, Mike, it would be just plain bad manners.’
‘Agreed.’ She thought he looked quite relieved.
‘And embarrassing,’ she added.
‘Yep.’
‘And inconsiderate.’
‘To …?’
‘To you, of course, Mike.’
‘Thank you.’ There was a silence for a few minutes. She wondered what he was thinking. Anna wanted to hug Mike for his generous practicality but it would feel strange to be that close again, in bed, especially after this particular conversation. They hadn’t even sat in a bed together for over a year now and bodily contact outside one was limited to hugs and the odd comforting cuddle, fully clothed and usually in the kitchen. She wondered if deep down the fact that she’d been seeing someone was painful for him. But then he rallied.
‘So, hey, what’s one more joining the party? It’s Christmas – you have to take in a stray or two. Is this Alec a joiner-inner, do you think?’
‘I really don’t know if he’s a good mixer. But if he wants to stay here he’ll bloody well have to be. Oh God, why did he have to do this? Who’d want to invade someone else’s big family party? He must have known I couldn’t refuse at this point, that I could hardly be callous enough to tell him to get off at Exeter and catch a train straight back to London or book him into some lonely B&B, even assuming there’d be one that was open or had room.’
‘He sounds a bit solitary, poor bastard. Doesn’t he have family?’
‘Divorced. He was going to stay with a brother for Christmas but it was a very loose arrangement and the brother’s gone away. His mother’s being jolly on a cruise. I know her – she’s Muriel from my book group.’
Mike turned to look at her, startled. ‘He’s your friend’s son? How old is he? A teenager?’ He was laughing at her. And well he might, she thought, given the situation.
Anna walloped his arm. ‘No! Muriel’s our oldest member. But – OK, he’s a few years younger than I am. I bet Charlotte’s no pensioner either, so don’t have a go at me.’
‘I’m not! I’m impressed, that’s all. So we’ll take him in and look after him, but what do we tell the others? Let’s have a bet on which one is the first to come out with the words, “Mum’s toyboy.” My money’s on Jimi.’
‘Mine’s on Emily,’ Anna said. ‘And she won’t be saying it so much as spitting it.’
Thea knew she was being an idiot. It was eight in the morning and here she was in front of the mirror, carefully fronding up her hair and putting on make-up before she’d even had breakfast, and why? Because she didn’t want to look sleep-raddled when Sean came over to hang the mistletoe. It was ridiculous, she told her reflection; utterly pointless. Like he’d notice or care? It wasn’t very much make-up, true, and as she applied just enough mascara to look as if she wasn’t actually wearing any, she did remember reading some irony piece about how many hours it took to get a natural look. She told herself she’d be doing this anyway, regardless of Sean, because feeling as good as you could manage to about how you look was well known to go a long way to lightening any gloom you might be feeling.
Christmas Eve. In spite of herself she couldn’t help wondering what Rich would be doing now. He was probably out with Benji for an early walk, striding along a bridlepath in the crackling frost, chucking the dog’s ball for him and dodging the Cheshire pony club children out on a Christmas hack. What was good was that she didn’t at all wish he were actually here. If she was feeling a bit on-her-own, it wasn’t because she wanted him staying here with her and the family. It just wouldn’t have worked. If he got tetchy after a few hours of a family lunch, then after two days holed up with the lot of them, and several more days ahead, he’d have started to grumble. By now he’d have withdrawn to their room and his computer and opted out of any joining-in. At meals he’d have been fine at first and then have faded into a mildly moody silence. One by one the others would have started asking Thea, quietly and away from everyone else, if he was all right, and she’d have ended up being defensive about him, caught in the middle between hinting to him on the quiet that he might make more of an effort and reassuring the others that all was well. It was actually hugely relaxing not to have him around.
The mistletoe had spent the night in her bath. The others hadn’t seen it yet. When she was ready and all her non-make-up had been applied, she went and picked up the huge bunch and carried it carefully down the main staircase. She could hear the others in the kitchen, breakfast noisily and cheerfully under way.
‘Morning, everyone!’ she said, pushing the door open with her bum and half-backing in. ‘Look what I got for us last night.’
‘Wow, awesome!’ Elmo said. ‘Where’d you nick it from?’
‘Elmo!’ Rosie said, but looked at Thea, eyebrows raised.
Thea gave her nephew a sly grin and he said, ‘Respec’,’ to her and they exchanged a high five. For a moment she regretted not suggesting he came with them the night before, but it hadn’t crossed her mind.
‘Oh, it – er, came from some woods that Sean knows. He thought it was something missing from our Christmas decorations so we went and got it. He’s coming over in a while to put it up in the hall for us.’
‘Not that we need it,’ Emily said. ‘It’s only – y’know, us.’
‘Oh, don’t be like that, Em,’ Jimi told her, ‘not after Tee’s been to all the trouble of getting it. And anyway, who knows who’ll turn up?’
Thea noticed Mike and Anna exchanging looks. ‘Passing strangers?’ she suggested, looking at them.
Anna coughed. ‘Um, actually – sorry about this, everyone, but – er, some wires got crossed back home and we are actually having an addition to the party. As from this afternoon.’ She fiddled with her teaspoon, turning it over and back on the table. ‘It was completely by accident.’
‘What was?’ Thea asked. ‘Is someone coming?’
‘Yes,’ Mike said, ‘a friend of your mother’s. Son of one of her book group.’
Anna smiled at Mike. Thea wondered why she looked so relieved.
‘He hasn’t got anywhere else to be so he’s kind of’ – she shrugged – ‘kind of coming here.’
‘But why?’ Emily asked, looking at her mother with deep suspicion. ‘Why is he coming all the way from London just to stay with a friend of his mum’s? Is he a kid? That will be nice for Elmo.’ She slightly cheered up at the thought. Elmo didn’t look so sure and his face expressed a grim suspicion that someone might be foisted on him.
‘No, he’s a grown-up, about ten years older than you. And as I said,’ Anna continued, ‘it was entirely my fault. I mentioned in a stupidly flippant way that we were only a train-ride away if his arrangements fell through and I never dreamed he’d take me up on it.’
‘Well, that’s fantastic, isn’t it?’ Sam said, rubbing his hands and grinning. ‘Evens up the numbers a bit.’
‘What numbers?’ Emily asked.
‘In-laws and out-laws, as Rosie and I have been known to call ourselves.’
‘True,’ Rosie said with a grin. ‘Sorry, nothing bad meant.’
‘Another body in the house is fine by me, but can you get him to pick up a Guardian on the way? They don’t have it at the village shop and there’s a jumbo Christmas puzzle to do,’ Jimi said. ‘Thea – are you OK with this passing stranger idea?’
‘Course it’s fine. It’s not as if we don’t have enough room or food.’
‘Exactly,’ Anna said. ‘He’s going in the room next to Mike. Phew – so glad nobody minds. I’ve sorted the bedlinen and so on with Maria. There’s a cupboardful of the stuff, apparently.’
‘Maybe that mistletoe will come in handy, after all,’ Jimi said, looking at Thea. They all looked at Thea. She could feel a blush creeping up as well as a horrible bit of suspicion. Was this really an accidental ‘visit’?
‘Don’t even think about it. What I really don’t want for Christmas is a kind of blind date.’
Anna handed her a mug of tea. ‘It’s OK, darling. I absolutely promise, it is absolutely not.’
‘So what are you all doing today?’ Sean asked Thea as he carried the stepladder in through the front door. ‘I saw Elmo in the barn and he told me all about your printed-out schedule. I hope there are some rebels and lots of arguments about it. Or is everyone trying to be the class pet and keeping to the list?’
‘It’s turned out to be a very flexible arrangement but what’s actually listed is that later this afternoon it’s the children’s carol service at the village church so I think most of us are going to that. And this morning I’ll get the little ones to help me make more mince pies, if anyone can manage any more.’
‘It would be a sad sort who couldn’t, don’t you reckon?’ Sean said, looking at the beams in the ceiling. ‘Will you save a few for me?’
‘Of course I will.’
‘Come over to the Stables with them after the church thing?’ he asked. ‘I can offer you better mulled wine than the stuff at the pub.’
‘OK, sounds a fair swap.’
‘So where do you think for the mistletoe? About here?’ He pointed to a beam directly in line with the front door.
Sean was standing close beside her and she could smell a peppery shower lotion that she recognized. It was one she’d once brought home for Rich but he’d taken a sniff and said it was ‘a bit girly’. She’d ended up using it all herself. Sean had washed his hair since the night before too – it looked a bit baby-birdish. It was all she could do to stop herself reaching up and touching it. He probably wouldn’t actually mind – maybe they could compare conditioners.
‘Your hair looks so cute and fluffy,’ she blurted out before she could stop herself. He looked at her in silence and she presumed he was thinking what a completely ridiculous thing she’d just come out with. He wouldn’t be wrong.
‘So does yours.’ He reached out and ran his fingers gently through the front tufts of hers. ‘As soft as Woody’s tummy,’ he murmured.
She felt muddled again and a bit thumpy inside. This was like the slightly embarrassing mistletoe moment the night before. Did he enjoy near-flirting with women? It seemed he did. Presumably if you were gay it didn’t count as anything more than a bit of banter. It was all very confusing, especially as he probably didn’t know for sure that she knew about him and Paul.
‘Oo er – what’s happening here then?’ Rosie came out from the sitting room, carrying a couple of empty coffee mugs. ‘You two testing out the mistletoe? Might as well get in the spirit of things.’ She went through the door to the kitchen, smirking at them as she vanished.
‘OK, to work.’ Thea stepped away from him. The moment was fractured and Sean set the ladder up. Thea handed him the hammer, the nail and then the heavy orb of mistletoe and the two of them stepped back to admire it.
‘You can almost hit your head on it,’ she said. ‘Don’t you want a piece of it for your own place? There’s more than enough for a bunch for the Stables.’
He laughed. ‘Over there? Who am I going to kiss over there? I don’t much fancy the postie, Maria would slap me and her daughter is about ten years too young.’
‘Well, there’s … Paul?’
‘Ha! True. Though not at the moment – he’s off at the ancestral pile. And even then, I think he’d be pretty amazed if I started getting romantic under a pagan sprig after all these years.’
Thea laughed. ‘Oh, tell me about it. I know what that’s like. Or, at least, I used to.’ The laughter vanished abruptly and she felt a rush of sadness. It wasn’t for Rich – it was for, what? Possibilities? An awful sense of a potential lone future? She mustn’t think like that. Who knew what might happen later. A whole clean, shiny new year was about to start, after all, and when it arrived she was going to make the thorough best of it, even if it meant signing up for a bit of online dating.
Sean folded the ladder and leaned it against the wall, then came back to where she stood beneath the massive mistletoe. ‘Well, it’s his loss. Unless it’s hers, of course. I don’t know you that well yet, do I?’ he said, putting an arm round her and giving her a gentle hug. He kissed her softly, close to her mouth but not on it, as the night before. Then he opened the door on the cold, grey day and said, as if nothing had happened, ‘It’s going to snow, did you know that? Heavy stuff expected later today.’
‘Yes, you told me so last night, and this morning it was on the news. It feels unreal.’
‘Christmas always does,’ he said as he went. ‘Have a good day and I’ll see you around five thirty-ish. And if you don’t make it I’ll trudge through the drifts to make sure you’re OK.’
‘All the way from the stable block? Right across the yard?’
‘Yep, all that way.’
‘Thank you. I’ll appreciate that.’
‘Part of the job, Elf; part of the job.’
The clouds were low and almost purple. It looked as if the sky was about to burst from its burden of snow, and the day had gone still and silent waiting for it to tumble to the earth. All that could be heard was the sound of Mike in the next room, playing ‘Tambourine Man’ on his guitar. Emily felt jittery. All the others were so excited about the prospect of a white Christmas and she was secretly dreading it. She told herself it was ridiculous. After all, what was the worst that could happen? That the steep road between the village and the main road to – well, to ‘civilization’ – would be blocked for a couple of days. They’d be fine. For heaven’s sake, it wasn’t as if she were a farmer with a flock of hugely pregnant sheep to worry about.
Elmo was in the big sitting room, standing beside the Christmas tree and gazing out of the window.
‘I used to do that,’ she said, going to stand beside him. ‘I’d watch for hours on a day like this, willing the first flakes to fall. I’d go all glassy-eyed, imagining I was seeing them when sometimes it was just flecks of dust.’
‘Sam got me an actual sledge,’ Elmo said to her. ‘That’s like, so good.’
‘Looks like you’ll get to use it,’ she said as a flurry of fat flakes began to drift down.
‘So cool,’ he sighed. ‘That slope on the other side of the beach will be awesome.’
Emily stared through the window at the feathery flakes and thought about those worst-case scenarios she tended too often to dwell on. Think of the good. Think of the good, she told herself. She pictured Elmo and Milly and Alfie out on their sledges, faces pink, the deserted snowy beach echoing with their laughter, the three of them hurtling down the slope, shrieking, falling off – and no, not getting hurt or breaking a limb but rolling joyfully in the snow, getting up again and hauling their sledges back up for another go. It would be all right. It really would. But for now, while the little ones were busy in the kitchen with Thea and Anna, making mince pies and icing the Christmas cake, she had time to go up and finish wrapping their presents. She’d try not to think of yet another worst-case possibility – that she might run out of Sellotape.
It was a good thing Anna was out, Mike thought. She’d gone to Truro to do some last-minute food shopping and to meet this sodding Alec person. With luck, Charlotte would have been and gone before Anna got back and the two women’s paths wouldn’t cross.
Mike opted out of lunch, telling the others an edited version of the truth – that he was going to chat to the landlord about playing a few songs at the open mic session on Boxing Day evening – and walked up the lane to meet Charlotte at the pub. Her pantomime friend was dropping her off and he’d decided that lunch and a drink on neutral premises would be the most tactful option all round. After all, nobody needed to know more than they needed to know.
‘Be careful, Dad,’ Emily said as he left. ‘The snow’s starting to settle. Call us when you’re on your way back so we know to go looking if you don’t get back in good time.’
‘It’s not even half a mile, Em,’ he said, wondering why she was always the worrier. Accountancy was perfect for her and brilliant for her clients – she’d n
ever risk approving unchecked figures or be blasé over their VAT being a few pounds out.
‘I know. I’m just being sensible, that’s all. Suppose you slid over and nobody knew you were lying in a ditch, freezing to death? You read about it happening.’
‘I’ll call, I promise.’ He patted his pocket. ‘Phone charged and ready to rock.’
He pulled on a pair of ancient hand-knitted gloves that Anna’s mother had given him decades before, and stepped out into the cold. He’d hardly worn them over all the years, probably through some macho belief that men don’t ‘do’ woolly gloves. Perhaps it was a sign of age or of becoming grown up (at last) enough to think that taking care of your circulation was a sensible idea.
It really was snowing quite hard now and he felt a twinge of worry for Anna who had to make the journey back from Truro. Never mind him slipping over into a ditch, what about her driving the old Sierra along these last few miles of twisty, narrow lanes? Halfway to the pub he stopped under a tree and tried to phone her. His call went straight to her voicemail (presumably no signal her end) and he left a message, saying he hoped she was all right and to let him know when she was back so that he wouldn’t keep worrying about her. She’d probably find that pretty funny. For most of the past year they’d been coming and going to their separate social events without giving the other one too much thought beyond a later conversation as to whether the film/play/exhibition/gig had been a good one. Certainly they hadn’t stayed awake at night waiting for the door to slam or for footsteps on the stairs. Perhaps they should have done, he now considered as he plodded on towards the welcoming lights of the Fisherman’s Arms. But as they’d reminded each other in a spirit of new independence: neither of them were teenagers, neither was each other’s parent.
Mike pushed open the door of the pub in a mood of mild pessimism. He both hoped Charlotte would have arrived already, in which case they could get the whole lunch over with as fast as possible, and also that she hadn’t arrived. Maybe she’d changed her mind and any second now he’d get a Sorry, darling text citing weather conditions and wishing him a Happy Christmas. In which case he’d chat to the bar staff about music, have a slow pint and a sandwich and see if someone fancied a game of darts, if playing the game against up-country strangers wasn’t contrary to local tradition.