by Clare Lydon
Ten minutes later, Holly burst into my room just as I was opening the next Advent calendar door and popping a chocolate Christmas pudding into my mouth. There was something very decadent about eating chocolate so early in the morning.
“Get up — we’re going out,” she announced.
“We are?” I asked, through a mouthful of chocolate.
Holly swept her dark hair from her eyes and nodded. “Yep — executive decision. You’ve been stupid and I’ve been stood up within a week, which is a new record even for me. So we’re going out to do something fun to take our minds off it. Something Christmassy, guaranteed to put a smile on your face.”
She grabbed my arm and pulled me up, marching me down the hallway and into the bathroom. “Get in the shower and get clean — we’re leaving in half an hour and I’ve booked us an hour of ice-skating at Somerset House.”
I did as I was told.
Forty minutes later, we were sat on a Tube, clutching cups of hot coffee, eyes wide open. Holly’s knee was jiggling beside me — she always had a lot of nervous energy fizzing around her system and this was the usual out.
“Excited?” she asked, slapping my leg. “Ice, Christmas tunes, skating and mulled wine — this has to be right up there in your Christmas must-dos, doesn’t it?”
I smiled, despite myself. “It is. I was going to buy some ice-skating tickets for me and a date if things went well. However, I don’t seem to have been able to limp to that stage quite yet, so this is perfect. I get to do it with my best friend instead.”
Holly smiled at me and took my hand in hers. “Today we’re each other’s date, okay? And let’s face it, we’ve both already gone one better than our last — I’m single and you showed up. We’re winning at life already!”
I laughed. I had to agree.
Somerset House was an old Tudor palace on the Thames, a building that never failed to impress. During the winter its large courtyard became a Christmas grotto with its ice rink as the central play. As soon as I saw it strung with festive lights and pumping out ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ through the surrounding speakers, happy seasonal endorphins flooded my body.
Maybe Holly was right, maybe this was the perfect thing to take my mind off my problems.
There was only five minutes till we were on the ice, so we exchanged our shoes for skates, then edged out slowly on to the freshly polished ice, currently a creamy, unblemished square all ready to be signed by us. Most people didn’t need a second invitation once the klaxon blasted, apart from the ten per cent who’d forgotten how to skate since their childhood and were now doomed to spend the next hour gingerly crawling around the rink’s edges, or flat on their bum.
Just as I thought that, I heard the first thump of the day, and turned to see a man in his 40s flailing on the ice.
“That’s gotta hurt,” Holly said.
We skated off side by side around the rink, pushing off from the left and then the right, just as my instructor had taught me all those years ago.
“How you feeling?” Holly asked as we were nearly cut up by one of the ice marshals on a mission.
“Surreal.” I grabbed Holly’s arm as I wobbled.
“Okay?”
I nodded. “Just getting my balance.” I paused. “I’m okay. I feel a bit guilty and annoyed with myself and her. However you paint this, it hardly makes her the catch of the century.”
We skated on in silence for a few more seconds. “And did I tell you the other thing?”
Holly didn’t turn to me. “There’s more?”
“She’s got a kid and she still lives with her parents.”
“Whoa!” Holly slowed her skates and coasted into the hoardings, and I followed.
“A child? How did she get a child?”
“Did you miss that class at school?”
Holly gave me a look.
“She was married before.” I said. “To a man.”
Holly spluttered. “She’s already been married? I mean, to a man is neither here nor there, but this is her second wedding?” She whistled through her teeth. “She clearly loves getting married.”
“Apparently.”
We were silent for a moment as the mass of skaters shuffled and sailed past us in clockwise order, a blur of smiles, furrowed brows and woolly hats.
Then, as Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ began to pump through the speakers, Holly took my hand and dragged me back into the throng. “We haven’t come here to stand on the sidelines and process — we’ve come to skate!”
I screamed as Holly’s yank nearly put me on the ice, but I styled it out. Within seconds, we were gliding and the steady concentration the skating required really was proving just the distraction I needed.
That is, until five minutes later when I was clattered from behind, a skater clearly losing their balance and sliding into the back of me, leaving me nowhere to go but down. My bum hit the ice with a deadening thud that reverberated up my body. Damn, the ice was cold.
I immediately went to spring back up, but my skates weren’t being so obliging and I fell again. Crack. Ouch. A hand came into view which I presumed was Holly’s, so I took it gratefully and pulled myself up to a standing position, arms outstretched to secure my balance.
“Thanks, Holly,” I said until my eyes fell on my saviour.
It was Nicola Sheen.
I turned around and saw Holly was helping Melanie to her feet, Melanie wiping down the back of her jeans which were now wet through.
“What are you doing here?” I was whispering for no good reason.
“Same as you — skating.” Nicola’s tone was deadpan, her expression vanilla. She didn’t seem freaked at all that we were meeting the day after we nearly had sex, and that pissed me off royally. Did none of this mean anything to her?
“Really? You never mentioned it last night.” If she was stalking me, I wasn’t amused.
Nicola baulked and my insides flared red.
“It never really came up, did it?” she said. Now her tone was gritty, like this was all my fault.
Thankfully, Holly butted in. “Great to see you guys, but now Melanie’s in one piece, we’re going to get in some more skating.” She offered her hand to me while fixing me with a solid stare. “Shall we?”
I glanced at Nicola, then at Melanie, before taking Holly’s hand. I was grateful to her for offering an easy escape, although still piqued at Nicola’s casual brush-off. I wasn’t sure how we were meant to act with each other now either, but hostile was not the first option that sprang to mind.
Holly’s grip was like a vice as we skated off, faster than before. I didn’t like to point out to her that no matter how fast we went, we’d still just be going round and round in a circle.
The ice rink was suddenly a metaphor for life.
“I cannot believe they’re here too,” I said, glancing at Holly.
“I can’t believe you were talking to her. And that she helped you up first before her own fiancée. She’s got some nerve.”
Holly tightened her grip again and I narrowly missed crashing into a stranded child.
“Hey, slow down,” I said. “You’re hurting my hand and I don’t like going this fast.”
“I just wanted to get away from them — I was trying to do you a favour.”
I squeezed her hand and pulled her back — I needed to make her see things from my perspective.
Holly reluctantly slowed.
“I appreciate that, but you have to let me deal with this my way. This is my mess, my situation, not yours.”
“I just don’t want her treating you like shit, like always.” Holly’s face softened. “You don’t deserve that.”
I saw something in her eyes then, but I couldn’t quite place it. Protection? Chivalry? Love? A merry-go-round of terms whizzed in my brain, but I brushed them aside and pulled her gently into the hoardings. I couldn’t deal with anything else on top of the fact that Nicola was here right now.
“Nice of you to
say, but racing around an ice rink isn’t going to affect that either way. Just relax and let’s try to enjoy this, like you said.” Just as the words came out of my mouth, Nicola and Melanie stuttered past us, Melanie grimacing, Nicola looking less than pleased.
“We can definitely skate better than them,” Holly said.
“Very true.” My mind flicked back through my Nicola album and landed on a memory from my youth — Nicola and I skating around our local ice rink, arm in arm. It was romantic back then, and now Nicola was trying to be romantic with Melanie. The morning after she’d come round to seduce me. Anger bubbled up my body.
“I’m going back in.” I skated off, not waiting for Holly and not looking back. I was trapped and angry and not in the right space to be on an ice rink, that was for sure. I scanned the area. Where were they? I glided past three teenage boys in a line holding hands, sure to topple backwards at any moment. Then a small child skating backwards without a care in the world. Then a young couple holding hands, skating together, in love.
And then I saw them. Melanie had found her centre of balance and her body language was far better than it had been a few minutes earlier — she was getting the hang of it, but still grasping Nicola’s arm. She wobbled slightly and Nicola put an arm around her waist. Then she leaned in and said something, and they both laughed.
And that’s when I realised — they were one of the happy couples too. So what that we’d snogged in the last 24 hours? It wasn’t impacting on their day. That made me even more angry.
They were in my sights now, but I wasn’t really sure of my plan. I wanted to disturb their happiness, get my own back. How dare Nicola be smiling and laughing. What about me? What about my happiness and my Christmas girlfriend quest? Nicola showing up had completely blown that out of the water, thrown me off my game. If she hadn’t shown up, I’d surely have bagged a girlfriend by now, would have carried on dating.
But she’d proved a distraction.
Now I was going to be a distraction right back.
I revved forward, going left to avoid a woman in a red ski jacket, then right to skate around a weeping child on the floor, an ice marshal in attendance. They were so close, with their backs to me, still laughing. I could just clip the back of Nicola’s heels and skate off like nothing happened, right? And once she went down, Melanie was sure to follow.
I was five feet away, ready to strike when I felt an arm on mine — Holly. She pushed me left, but in the process went right into the back of Nicola and Melanie. There was a yelp as they fell forward, a crack as all their bodies struck the ice, Holly on top of them, me gawping at the sight. I changed the direction of my skates and swooped in to help Holly.
Nicola was still on the floor, struggling to get up. “Did you do that on purpose? There was plenty of room around, why would you do that?”
Holly gripped my arm and clambered to her feet, wincing and holding her right knee. “Of course it wasn’t on purpose — I was pushed and went into the back of you. I’m not an idiot.”
“Could have fooled me,” Nicola snapped, her expression souring by the second.
An ice marshal skated in to help Nicola up, then Melanie. When he was satisfied nobody needed hospital treatment, he skated off to his next casualties.
“I’m an idiot?” Holly said, wrinkling her forehead. “You really want to get into idiocy stakes right now? Because I think you’d win hands down, don’t you?”
Oh shit. Please don’t say anything. Please don’t let this all blow up in my face now. Not when it’s over. Not when I’m just coming to terms with it. Not when this isn’t even what I want anymore.
I glanced at Holly who was grinding her teeth.
Nicola opened her mouth, went to say something, then closed it. She looked from me to Melanie, then back to Holly, then at the floor.
“What are you talking about?” Melanie asked Holly.
“Why don’t you ask your fiancée,” Holly said, her tone as hard as the ice we were standing on.
I couldn’t take any more — this was all getting far too close to the truth and if it came out, there’s no way Melanie would ever forgive me. I couldn’t let that happen. I grabbed Holly’s arm and squeezed it in an attempt to get her to shut up.
This wasn’t really letting me sort out my own mess, now was it?
Melanie turned to Nicola. “What’s she talking about, babe?”
Nicola shrugged in response. “I’ve no idea. I know she’s your friend, but she seems a bit unhinged.” Just then, a tall man in a blue jacket grabbed Melanie’s arm as he went by, nearly taking her down. Nicola saved her, giving the guy a mouthful in the process.
“Unhinged? Holly is not unhinged. Holly is my best friend and looking out for me.” I pointed at Nicola. “Something you’ve never done in your entire life.” I was dimly aware we were getting stares on the ice now, but it was too late.
“Come on,” I said, tugging Holly’s arm. I was so over this. “Let’s get out of here — I think I’ve had about as much drama as I can take.”
“Hang on,” Melanie said, grabbing my arm. “Why would Nicola be looking out for you?” Her tone was sharp.
“Maybe that’s something you should ask Nicola,” Holly said, taking my arm.
Her grip was firm, stopping me from saying anything else. As my skates slid me away to the safety of the ice hut, I risked a glance backwards, but Nicola wasn’t looking my way. Instead, Melanie was remonstrating with her, her words hitting Nicola with machine gun rapidity.
Nicola could do nothing else but stand there and take it.
We were sitting in the plaza at Covent Garden sipping mulled wine, our breath freezing in front of our faces. I’d been looking forward to my aprés-skate drink in the ice rink bar, but Holly had rightly pointed out it was probably best to get as far away from there as possible. So we’d made the five-minute walk to Covent Garden, and now we were sat at the end of the covered market, giant baubles hanging from its ceiling in a riot of festive colour, to our right a magician holding court in the midst of a bulging weekend crowd.
“So what’s next today — are we going to try to bump into any more of your exes to spice up our Sunday?”
I didn’t think Holly could ladle any more sarcasm on to that comment if she tried — it was almost drowned in it. She was smirking at me, but there was exasperation in her eyes too.
“I thought mulled wine, followed by more mulled wine,” I said, taking a sip and smiling as it warmed my insides. “What was Nicola like today? Playing the dutiful girlfriend and fiancée. Made my blood boil.”
“I could tell,” Holly said. “That’s why I jumped in when I saw you about to take her out from behind.”
“That really worked.”
“At least I broke the speed you were going — I took most of that hit, so I’ll be billing you when my knee swells to the size of a football, which it feels like it might have already.” Holly leaned over and rubbed her knee through her jeans, which were slightly ripped.
“Sorry,” I replied. “But you do have further to fall.”
The magician in the black suit showed the crowd his empty hand, then shook his arm and produced an orange silk handkerchief followed by a mass of coloured beads. Muted applause.
“You know you have to walk away now, don’t you? Leave Nicola to sort this out — no more meeting up just the two of you. I think I could tell you where that would end.”
I said nothing, just continued to stare at the magician who was now tapping a black box with a white-tipped wand.
A bit of magic in my life would go down rather well right about now.
“Tori?”
I turned to Holly and sighed. “I know.” I was resigned. “I know all that, but it’s hard to walk away when there’s a row of what-ifs hanging over the outcome. What if we’d got together at 16? What if her getting together with Melanie was just so that we could meet again?”
“What if she’s a cheat with a child and no home?”
“I know,�
� I replied.
“She’s not the same person she was at school. Or maybe she is, and that’s the point.”
“I know.” I was getting agitated, even though I agreed with what Holly was saying. I absolutely did, it was just my feelings hadn’t quite caught up with my brain. “But sometimes, it’s difficult to walk away from someone even if they’re unsuitable and emotionally all over the place. Do you get what I mean?” My eyes bore into Holly — I wanted her to understand.
She looked away and took a deep breath. “You don’t know everything about me, Tori. You think you do, but you don’t.”
Monday December 12th
The following day at work and I was feeling guilty about yesterday and my temporary bout of insanity. It hadn’t been fair to Holly or to Nicola. However, my attention was temporarily diverted by the toaster being on fire. Again. This time it wasn’t my fault though.
I held my breath as the fire engine drew up, but Nicola wasn’t on board. I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or disappointed. Whichever, I knew I needed to see her again, to really sort things out — we needed proper closure, yesterday had made that clear. I couldn’t turn into Tonya Harding every time I saw her with Melanie.
So at lunchtime, having asked one of the firefighters which station they were deployed from, I hopped on a bus and was there within 15 minutes — she’d worked just around the corner all this time. It would be funny if I could locate my sense of humour.
The station looked deserted apart from two fire engines, which were gleaming on the forecourt. I walked in and spotted a man in uniform bending over some equipment. When I asked about Nicola, he looked me up and down, then pointed towards an office tucked away on the right-hand side.
She was the boss, so of course she had her own office.
I walked over, took a deep breath, smoothed down my coat and knocked on the door.
“Come in!”