A Daughter For Christmas

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Because you’re not that sort of girl?’ His lips twisted into a cynical mimicry of a smile.

  ‘That’s right!’ Leigh hissed angrily.

  ‘You’re a good, clean, home-loving kind of girl who wouldn’t dream of having an affair with anyone unless there was something at the end of it.’

  ‘I never said that...’

  ‘Was that why your relationship with that boyfriend of yours hit the rocks? Never mind about him being unable to accept responsibility. Did you offer him the ultimatum of marriage or out?’

  ‘I did nothing of the kind! And I have no idea what that has to do with...what happened between us.’

  ‘Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Tell me, Leigh, what was last night all about? I’m mystified by a woman who could lie moaning in my arms one minute, and then spring to her feet, stick all her clothes back on and announce that it’s all been a terrible mistake.’

  And I’m mystified by a man who could sleep with a woman because he feels sorry for her. She wondered, viciously, whether he was even physically attracted to her at all. She supposed he must have been, just for an instant, or maybe he had just accepted what had been so blatantly on offer.

  ‘I came to my senses,’ she said defensively.

  ‘And what made you lose them in the first place?’

  She stared at him, unable to say anything to that remark, and was saved having to think of something by Amy, who re-entered the kitchen, bearing a sheet of paper copiously covered with her neat, joined-up, childish writing.

  ‘Just a few things,’ Amy said, handing Nicholas the sheet of paper, which Leigh could read upside down. There were brackets qualifying nearly all the entries, and rambling explanations of precisely what was meant by what. She would have smiled at it all if she had been in any mood for smiling.

  ‘Well,’ Nicholas said gravely, standing up and slipping on his jacket which had been lying on the central island in the kitchen, ‘I’ll see what I can do. Of course, I shall have to consult with Santa just to make sure that we don’t duplicate presents.’

  ‘Course,’ Amy said, grinning, ‘although I never knew that he was in the phone book.’

  Leigh stood as well and folded her arms. ‘And will you be contactable...while you’re in New York?’

  He gave her a curt, unrevealing look and scribbled the name of a hotel and a telephone number on a piece of paper. ‘I’ll leave it here, shall I?’ He bent and planted a kiss on the top of his daughter’s head, then he rumpled her hair, laughing as she frantically smoothed it back into shape. ‘And I’ll see you,’ he addressed Amy, ‘in two days’ time. Be good.’

  ‘I’m always good.’

  ‘Especially before Christmas,’ Leigh joked feebly, noticing how he ignored her completely.

  The house felt empty as soon as he had gone. They went out to do a bit of Christmas shopping, but there was no real anticipation for Leigh at the prospect of returning to an empty house.

  She remained cheerful for Amy’s sake, but it was difficult, especially as part of their Christmas shopping included the purchase of gifts for Nicholas from Amy—a stuffed toy, of all things, a book and a bright red tie with Mickey Mouse all over it

  ‘I can’t see him wearing that,’ Leigh said, raising her eyebrows, but her niece insisted. It was fun, she said, nicer than those boring things he wore to work.

  ‘What are you going to buy him?’ Amy asked, and Leigh, who had only given the matter surface thought, frowned and wondered what she could possibly get for a man who now had nothing whatsoever to say to her.

  She shrugged and said, ‘A jumper, I guess.’ It was as impersonal as she could get, without resorting to socks and handkerchiefs.

  ‘Can I choose it?’

  ‘Why not?’ That meant she ended up with a jumper bearing the improbable motif of a family of teddy bears. A less likely jumper for Nicholas Kendall would have been hard to come by.

  She maintained a pretence of simmering excitement over the next day as she and Amy wrapped presents and distributed them to their few friends, who now seemed to belong to another life completely.

  It seemed as though she had known Nicholas Kendall all her life, and she would have bet money that Amy felt the same way as well. How on earth could someone get under her skin so comprehensively and with such speed?

  She was curled up in the sitting room with her book, half reading, half letting her thoughts drift to Nicholas, before reining them in, when she heard someone walking towards the room.

  Her immediate thought was that it was Nicholas, and her heart began to beat a little faster. He wasn’t due to arrive until the following evening, but maybe he had done whatever he had gone to New York to do and was returning early.

  She made an effort to compose her features into a mask of politeness, and was baring her teeth into a semblance of a smile when she saw Fiona, standing at the door, and her heart sank. She felt disappointment and alarm at having to converse with the woman. It had been optimistic to think that she could see Christmas through, without Fiona appearing on the scene somewhere along the line.

  ‘Hi,’ she said unenthusiastically. She took one last, lingering look at her book and shut it.

  Fiona walked into the room with the self-assurance of someone so accustomed to stealing the limelight that the talent was now embedded, regardless of the audience in question.

  She was wearing a luxurious fur coat, real or fake Leigh had no way of telling, which she deposited on a chair. Then she sat down, crossed her long legs and said coolly, ‘I had hoped to find you here.’

  ‘Can I get you something to drink?’ The question was motivated less by politeness than by the need to find a temporary escape.

  ‘I’ll have a gin and tonic, I think.’ On the arms of the chair her hands were perfectly still. ‘Considering it’s Christmas. Only sociable to have a drink with the hired help—don’t you agree?’

  The remark was designed to cut, and Leigh rose to her feet, refusing to let herself be undermined. She had enough troubles on her plate, without adding to the stress.

  Instead, without saying anything, she poured Fiona her drink, handed it to her and returned to her chair.

  ‘Now, Fiona, I can tell that you haven’t come here so that we can make polite conversation about the weather, and we both know that Nicholas is away, so why don’t you just get to the point and say what you have to say?’

  ‘Call a spade a spade,’ Fiona said thoughtfully, sipping her drink. ‘Such directness. I’ll bet that your relatives stem from up North somewhere.’

  Leigh didn’t think that her family tree was on the menu either, and she allowed that remark to pass as well. ‘I haven’t seen you around much lately,’ she said finally.

  ‘Busy at work?’ If Fiona wanted to beat around the bush then she could play that game as well.

  ‘Rushed off my feet,’ Fiona answered coldly. ‘Which is more than I can say about you. You certainly landed on yours, didn’t you?’

  ‘Nicholas has been very generous, yes.’

  ‘That’s something of an understatement. You’re being paid, as I understand it, to look after your niece.’

  Leigh didn’t say anything. She didn’t care for the way the conversation was going but she had no idea how to change its direction.

  ‘What are you trying to say, Fiona?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘I’m trying to say that one minute you’re on the brink of bankruptcy and the next minute you’re living in the lap of luxury, and relishing every minute of it, no doubt.’

  ‘I never asked Nicholas to take us in. He volunteered, and I had no choice.’

  ‘Or, rather, you chose not to exercise it.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry if my presence here has...disturbed whatever you and Nicholas had going...’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure.’ She swigged another mouthful of her drink. In a minute she would have finished it, and in record time. Leigh hoped that she wasn’t the sort who became aggressive after alcohol.

  ‘You�
��re not sorry at all,’ Fiona expanded, demolishing the remnants of her drink in one gulp and then getting up to pour herself another—twice as strong, from the looks of it. ‘You’re an opportunist, little Miss Nanny, and I don’t intend to see all my plans thrown to the four corners of the earth because of you.’

  ‘Plans? What plans?’

  Fiona returned to her chair—fully composed, Leigh was thankful to see.

  ‘My family and Nick’s go back a long way,’ she said with a tight, hard smile. ‘My parents would like nothing better than to see us happily married. Why on earth do you think I’m staying here?’

  ‘You’re planning on getting married?’ She had a momentary vision of a large white wedding, with Amy as bridesmaid, and her peering in from behind the gates. She began to perspire lightly.

  ‘Things were moving along nicely until you and that little brat came on the scene. Nicholas and I have everything in common. We come from the same world, my dear. Where do you come from?’ Fiona paused only to draw breath. ‘We both enjoy life in the fast lane. He may be happy now, playing at being a daddy, but the novelty of that will wear off soon enough.’

  ‘He told you about his relationship to Amy?’

  ‘He didn’t have to,’ Fiona said contemptuously. ‘It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain. You just need to look at the two of them to see the resemblance and—let’s face it—why else would he have given you shelter? I know she’s not your child. I’ve heard her address you as Auntie so I can only imagine that your sister, wherever she might be, is the mother.’

  ‘Look, I’m tired, Fiona...and I don’t know where any of this is leading.’

  ‘I won’t leave here without a fight—do you understand me?’

  ‘Leave?’

  ‘That’s right. As if you didn’t know. Nicholas feels that it’s time I found a place of my own. I can only surmise from that that you and he are sleeping together, and it’s more convenient for you both to have me out of the way.’

  ‘You’re way out of line!’ Leigh half stood, whitefaced.

  ‘Are you sleeping together?’

  ‘No, we are not!’ One occasion did not warrant the description of sleeping together, did it? And, anyway, she had no obligation to tell Fiona anything.

  But what, she wondered, was the real story here? Had Nicholas been sleeping with Fiona before? Had he given her her walking papers because he assumed that she, Leigh, would be happy enough to take up where Fiona left off? Maybe he fancied the change. As Fiona had said, she and Nicholas had everything in common, whereas what did she, Leigh, have in common with him? He was a wealthy, ambitious, fast-living businessman. She was an artist whose idea of wealth had always meant a trip to the movies followed by a cheap Italian somewhere in Shepherd’s Bush. Her sister and Roy had been comfortable enough in their heyday but, even then, they were vastly outstripped by the likes of Nicholas Kendall.

  No, Fiona was right. Two worlds had temporarily collided, and would soon move out of each other’s orbit.

  ‘Well, just think twice before you do anything, my dear. I’m sure your little niece has no idea who her real father is. You wouldn’t want her to find out, would you? Might be quite a shock to her system, wouldn’t you say? Might destroy all the trust you two have taken such pains to develop.’ Fiona stood up and brushed down her skirt, which was short, black and expensive.

  ‘I might be out of this house, but I have no intention of being out of Nicholas’s life, and believe me when I tell you that you’re no match for me.’ She slipped on her fur coat, which seemed designed for someone of Fiona’s tall, slender proportions. She walked towards the door, paused and looked over her shoulder, ‘Merry Christmas, by the way.’ Then she was gone. Leigh waited until the sound of muffled footsteps faded, then she made her way up to bed.

  Well, what next? she thought. A snake under the bed? A couple of letter bombs from an unknown admirer? Could Christmas get any more stressed than it already was?

  On top of having this little jaunt in the countryside to look forward to, where she and Nicholas would treat each other with freezing politeness, only smiling for the sake of Amy, she now had a head full of Fiona’s threats and malice to contend with as well.

  She went to sleep with the onset of a headache, and awoke the following morning feeling no better than when she had gone to bed.

  Amy’s excitement level was now running at an all-time high, although she was trying hard to maintain some semblance of nonchalance because she imagined that that would have been the attitude of most of the friends in her class.

  There were a fair number of phone calls made to these friends, however, and Leigh was amused to see that nonchalance seemed to be quite low on the agenda.

  She managed to retire to bed before Nicholas arrived, although when she woke up in the middle of the night she couldn’t help feeling as though the house was suddenly alive again, knowing that he was back home.

  There were traces of his return when she went downstairs the following morning as well—American newspapers on the kitchen table, loose currency lying in a careless pile on one of the counters, his tie draped over the banister where he had presumably left it en route to his bedroom the night before.

  But the man himself was nowhere to be seen. He had left early for work, she supposed, though admittedly it was after nine by the time she and Amy made their way downstairs.

  This time last year, she thought, Christmas had been altogether different. It had been the first Christmas without Roy and Jenny, a fairly sombre occasion only slightly alleviated by their friends’ determination to make them have as jolly a time as possible.

  This time around Amy was a different child. She had made the odd wistful remark about her mum, and a couple of times Leigh had found her staring thoughtfully out of the window, but the haunted, lost look which had been so apparent the year before was gone. She had not forgotten her parents, but she was remembering what it was like to look forward again.

  What if Fiona carried out her threat to tell Amy about Nicholas?

  Leigh uneasily suspected that the threat was an idle one. Fiona was going to be off the scene from now on and, besides, she and Nicholas would tell Amy themselves in due course as soon as Christmas was out of the way and school had settled into a pleasant routine.

  All thoughts of Fiona and her threats faded as evening approached, to be replaced by the nervous anticipation of seeing Nicholas again.

  He seemed to have that effect on her. It was as if his intrusion in her head was so immense that there was literally no room for anything else. She hardly gave a thought to college the following term, to Fiona or to whatever the future had in store.

  When she finally saw him that night, just as she was about to settle down next to Amy in her bedroom to listen to another chapter from her spooky children’s book, she was struck by his forcefulness all over again.

  He walked into the room, after briefly knocking, still in his working clothes, although minus his tie, which was probably hanging over the banister in the hall. He looked tired, but that seemed to disappear as soon as he set eyes on his daughter.

  From the sidelines Leigh watched as he chatted to Amy as he sat on the side of the bed, depressing it with his weight, listening to Amy’s elaborate recounting of how they had spent their past couple of days. Under Nicholas’s amused eyes Amy blossomed from an attractive child into a radiant one. Her face became animated, her eyes glowed and her laughter, which was something bestowed upon only the deserving, was infectious.

  Whatever her own fate might turn out to be, watching the two of them together, Leigh knew that it had all been worthwhile—the doubts about contacting him, his suspicion about her motives, his accusations and the coolness which had now settled between them like a glacier.

  It gave her a bitter-sweet sense of satisfaction.

  When Amy was finally tucked up Leigh headed in the opposite direction to Nicholas towards the studio where she intended to spend a couple of hours attempting to do someth
ing with the painting she had been working on for the past three weeks, but she heard him say from behind her, ‘Not so fast, Leigh. I want to have a word with you.’

  She stopped in her tracks and reluctantly turned. What about? she wanted to ask. Instead, she said, as cheerfully as possible, ‘Sure.’ She followed him down the stairs, amused, despite herself, to see his tie precisely where she had expected it to be.

  ‘We need to do something with the presents,’ he told her, turning to look at her.

  ‘Oh, we’ve wrapped all ours already.’

  ‘We need to put them in the boot of the car. We won’t get the chance to do it in the morning, not without Amy prancing around, peering into everything.’

  ‘OK!’ She felt quite proud of her composure. No one would have guessed that the mere sight of him was making her head swim.

  It took longer than she had expected, the fetching and carrying of the presents from the cupboard in her bedroom into black bin liners. Aside from a vast assortment of gifts which Nicholas had bought, he had also bought Amy a bicycle, which Leigh stepped back to look at.

  ‘Very impressive,’ she said, folding her arms. ‘You’ve certainly taken this present-buying business to new heights.’

  Nicholas seemed nonplussed by that. ‘I have no idea what she’s been...accustomed to...’ he said eventually.

  ‘It wasn’t meant to be a criticism.’ Just in case, she thought, he decided to embark on an argument over it. She had decided that whatever had happened between the two of them she was not going to allow any of it to spoil Amy’s Christmas.

  She hovered by the open front door and shivered in her long, comfortable black skirt and T-shirt, watching as he loaded the boot. She remained with her arms folded as he slammed the front door behind him when it was all done.

  ‘Well,’ she said brightly, ‘that’s done now. Was there...anything else...?’ She sounded like a congenial interviewer, hoping to wrap up a tiresome interview.