All I Want For Christmas

by Willis, Susan

  After they’d eaten, and with Emily bathed and safely tucked up in her cot sound asleep, Tom opened a bottle of wine.

  Anne took a few sips of the Chianti and then stood up to make towards the door. ‘I’m just going to get out of this suit,’ she said. ‘And, as the saying goes, slip into something more comfortable.’

  Tom leapt to his feet. He hadn’t been able to stop looking at her from the moment she arrived home. His arousal was now at a peak and he’d only just managed to stop himself groping her in front of Emily at bath-time. He loved the grey trouser suit she now wore to work, as the trousers enhanced her bottom and shapely legs. The buttons on her black shirt had been dragged apart by Emily in a love-tug bath game and now Tom crossed the room to her. He drank the last mouthfuls of wine from his glass and stared intently at her.

  ‘What? Have I spilt something down my front?’ she said, pausing to look down at her shirt.

  ‘No,’ Tom grinned ‘It’s just this power-dressing for work is quite a turn on, and I’ve been thinking about you all day.’

  Anne’s face was moist and warm from the earlier steam in the bathroom, and her hair was tied back from her face in a tight pony-tail. Tom couldn’t wait and put a hand behind her head, dragging the band from her hair and letting it flow through his hands. Slowly he began to open the buttons on her shirt and she stared, unflinching, into his eyes. She stood stock still as he opened her shirt and began to caress her breasts.

  He groaned while kissing the side of her neck. ‘I love you both so much, Anne, that it actually hurts.’ Expertly, he tossed her backwards over the side of the red settee and flung himself on top of her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tom’s writing buddies had all told him that the progression from short to longer stories would come eventually, and how he’d know when the time felt right to move on. As he sat at his computer that morning he knew he’d made the right decision three months ago to try his hand at writing a novella. His previous short stories of around two to three thousand words had progressed to five to six thousand words easily, and were proving popular on Amazon. But now he wanted to strengthen his characters and delve deeper into their life stories. The target for the novella he’d set himself was 35,000 words and at the beginning, although this had seemed a daunting task, it was now finished and the manuscript was with the copyeditor. He knew he’d actually enjoyed writing the piece more than the shorter length stories.

  Tom always had his manuscripts copyedited and proof read as he wanted his work to be professional and to read as well as possible. He’d lost count of the books on Kindle he’d read where the English grammar and sentence formation was poor, and for him, this spoilt the pleasure of the story. Tom had written his novella in a methodical manner, working out his plot and organising it into chapters with a plan of what exactly would happen in each one. Therefore he’d found it quite straightforward and it had simply been a case of writing from one chapter to another until he came to the conclusion.

  Writing a synopsis, a brief outline of the story in two pages, had been something Tom had previously struggled with, but now he was quite accomplished at this task and sent the synopsis for his new novella to a variety of different publishers. Tom also knew that the first page in a novel had to contain the most important words, as these few sentences were what the reader would see first. They needed to be good enough to make the reader turn the page and continue with his story. He learned that this was what writers called a hook to grab the reader’s attention. And, as Tom was plotting his first full length novel of 75,000 words, he’d spent a whole day writing his first page and then re-writing the hook in the first paragraph. He was excited about this next plot and storyline, which was going to include a good deal of suspense and, as he’d planned a clever twist at the end of the story, he wanted to surprise the reader from the start. He wrote:

  FIRST PARAGRAPH OF NOVEL

  Mark stood hunched with a knife in his hand – the hosepipe was coiled at his feet. He lifted the severed piece; it was a length that would stretch comfortably from the exhaust pipe to the interior of his car. It wouldn’t take long and then it would be all over. It was her eyes that hurt him the most. Since their first night together she’d gazed at him with love and a mischievous twinkle that made him feel like a king, but now they were devoid of any feeling – just empty. Could he bear to go without her? Or maybe she’d just have to come with him in the car.

  Tom kept in regular contact with Jenny by talking and texting every weekend. True to her word, Jenny hadn’t given up with Thomas and had actually met him one afternoon for tea. She told Tom how his son had looked and how he planned to go to university to study English and journalism. Thomas had explained about his home life and, as Tom listened to his sister’s account, he hadn’t been able to prevent his heart sinking once more when she reported that, although she’d given Thomas his address and mobile number, his son had been adamant that he still didn’t want to have any contact with him. Jenny had comforted him with words of solace, stating that maybe in the future when Thomas was older he might change his mind. But Tom wasn’t convinced; he was sure his son was lost to him for good.

  However, there had been good news in Jenny’s last call to say that the twins in Ireland were planning a summer trip to Brighton during the last week of August. They were both insistent that Tom and his family were to travel down. Anne readily agreed to the planned visit and she too was excited about meeting them, although she did warn Jenny that Emily at eighteen months was now a handful. ‘But she’s part of the family,’ Jenny laughed and then insisted that she was longing to have her house full of children again. Anne agreed, knowing it would be the ideal opportunity for Emily to meet her cousins.

  *

  One Friday afternoon at the beginning of June, Tom had just settled Emily down for her nap and begun to write when a rap at the front door startled him with its intensity.

  ‘What, the…?’ he muttered, hurrying along the hall from the kitchen.

  Tom opened the door wide to see a young lad standing with his back to the door with a rucksack at his feet, looking up and down the street. With a denim jacket slung over his shoulder and wearing jeans with a tight-fitting T-shirt, he turned his head around to look at Tom.

  Tom gasped audibly. He didn’t need to ask who the lad was or what he wanted, because it was like looking at himself aged sixteen; he was his double. Even in the way Thomas ran his hand through his hair and lounged against the door post, Tom could see his own mannerisms clearly ingrained in him.

  Hi,’ he said. ‘Aunt Jenny said you wanted to meet me and well…,’ he mumbled, kicking at a stone on the path with his trainer, ‘I’m sort of hoping it’s okay for me to come.’

  ‘Thomas!’ Tom cried, grinning from ear to ear, and pulled him through the door. ‘Of course it is. I can’t believe it’s you!’

  Thomas’s shoulders were pulled back and his young skinny chest was thrust out as he stepped awkwardly into the hall. ‘H…how did you know it was me?’

  Tom motioned him along the hall a few paces and then stopped in front of the mirror on the wall near the lounge door. He tipped his head while holding on to Thomas’s arm. They both peered into the mirror.

  ‘Tell me you don’t see what I see,’ Tom said, then whistled between his teeth. His heart began to race and pound with excitement. ‘There’s no way you could be anyone else’s son but mine.’

  Thomas sniffed and indifferently shrugged his shoulders, ‘Yeah, I guess so. We do look alike.’

  Tom noticed the wariness and unease in his son’s eyes and knew that whatever his reason for travelling up to Newcastle to see him, he didn’t care. If the lad was in trouble, Tom thought, we’ll do our level best to sort it out. Although I don’t have much experience in dealing with teenagers, how hard can it be?

  ‘Look,’ Tom gabbled. ‘Same eyes, teeth, hair, and believe it or not, I used to be skinny like you up until Emily was born. Come on through to the kitchen. It’s great to meet you
at last.’

  The sun was streaming through the door as Tom heard his daughter snuffle in her sleep and they both approached the bouncy chair. Thomas knelt down in front of her and Tom saw his eyes soften for a second.

  Tom smiled and threw his son’s rucksack into the corner of the room. ‘This is Emily,’ he said. ‘She’s, well, I suppose she’s your half-sister.’

  Thomas looked up to his father. He shrugged his shoulders again and grunted. ‘I’ve already got two of those at home in Brighton.’

  Tom wasn’t sure how to answer that statement and opened the fridge door, lifting out two cans of coke, handing one to Thomas. ‘Let’s sit out in the back garden,’ he said, turning Emily’s chair around so that he could see her from outside.

  It was only a small square of grass, but the borders had plants and shrubs in big blue tubs which Anne nurtured like babies. A white plastic table and four chairs were in the corner and Tom plonked himself down as Thomas perched on the edge of the opposite chair, slurping at the coke.

  Tom looked at his son’s blue eyes as he shaded them from the sun with his free hand. They were the self-same colour as his own and he marvelled at how this could transfer from father to son, but not to his daughter, who had Anne’s brown eyes.

  Jenny had shown Thomas his short story in the magazine, and he asked his dad about his writing career.

  Tom didn’t need any encouragement to talk about writing. He told Thomas how he’d first started and how his latest great piece of news had come in an email that very morning. ‘So, now I’ve actually got a publisher interested in my work and they are going to publish this novel when it’s finished,’ he gabbled.

  Thomas nodded and, quietly stumbling over his words, he told Tom about the English and journalism course he was interested in at university. As he talked, Tom relaxed back into his chair with a feeling of wellbeing and a sense of pride at this young man sitting in front of him. Although, Tom thought, I’ve certainly not played any part in raising him, he could tell his son’s obvious good manners and family values were due to Amanda and her husband. Which was surprising in a way, because he couldn’t remember Amanda being that well brought up herself, and her brothers, Tom sighed, certainly weren’t. Maybe Thomas’s stepfather was from a middle class family and had been brought up with a decent standard of living. But whatever or whoever had made an impression on Thomas, they’d obviously done right by his son.

  Tom wanted to ask Thomas about his stepfather, but decided it was too soon and felt the best course of action was to keep the conversation general for the time being, until they’d had time to get to know one another. ‘Well, that is interesting,’ Tom said. ‘I wish I’d gone to university. I suppose if I had the chance at further education now I’d plump for something like that. The course sounds amazing.’

  ‘Why?’ Thomas suddenly asked. He tipped his head back and drained the coke from the can and drew his eyebrows together. ‘Why did you run out on my mum? W…why didn’t you want me?’

  The direct question startled Tom and he shuffled uncomfortably in the plastic chair, feeling his jeans stick to the warm seat. He hadn’t expected to be put on the spot so quickly, and wondered how much or what to tell him. ‘Em, well,’ he stumbled. ‘It was a long time ago and…,’ Tom paused to stare down at his old flip-flops for a few moments. Warily, he looked back at his son’s face full of expectation, knowing he was waiting for an explanation. ‘I was very young, Thomas – just about your age now. And well, I didn’t really know what I was doing.’

  Thomas stood up and began to pace around in front of him. His hands were pushed deep into his baggy jean pockets. ‘And you think that my mum did know? I mean, she was the same age as you and you left her to get on with being pregnant all on her own,’ he sniped, turning to look down at Tom. ‘Didn’t you love her at all?’

  ‘Well,’ he started to say, and then heard the slam of the front door and Anne’s voice call out from the kitchen. Thank the lord, Tom thought, knowing Anne’s arrival would cause a distraction to give him time to think.

  Anne breezed outside into the garden, kissing her daughter’s head on the way. After Tom introduced his son and explained how Thomas had turned up on the doorstep, she took charge of the situation and posed all the sensible questions he should have asked.

  It was established that Amanda didn’t know Thomas had travelled up the country to see them, and Anne made him ring his mother straight away to let her know where he was and that he was safe. Following this she began to make dinner, as she found out that Thomas hadn’t eaten since breakfast and was hungry. She made Tom take his son upstairs to the spare room and unpack his few belongings, and then show him around the house while she woke Emily and made them all cold drinks of lemonade while dinner was cooking.

  Later that night, with Emily bathed and asleep in her cot, and Thomas asleep in the spare bedroom, Tom sat next to Anne on the settee with a glass of wine. Tom told her about the shock when he’d opened the door to see his son for the first time, and then how happy and proud he was. ‘But I’m wondering if he is unhappy, because he seems to shrug his shoulders and grunt a lot, which I don’t quite understand.’

  Anne giggled. ‘Oh, I think that’s just a teenage thing. Sharon’s lads do it all the time,’ she reassured him. ‘He’ll grow out of it in time.’

  They discussed the talk that Tom knew he would have to have with his son at some stage, and Anne stressed how important it would be for Thomas to know the truth.

  ‘It’ll be a hard conversation for you, Tom, but after all the years of absence he needs to believe in you. He needs to know that you’ve changed now and that you want him to be a part of your life.’

  Tom nodded. ‘Our, lives, Anne,’ he said, squeezing her hand. ‘And yes, I realise that. But it’s obvious that he adores his mum, and his allegiance will always remain with Amanda. Plus I don’t know what versions of the truth she has filled his head with over the years. Thomas might have thought I was some type of a monster when he was growing up.’

  Anne put an arm around him. ‘Maybe,’ she pondered, ‘but there again, if he thought that he wouldn’t have travelled up the country to meet you. And Jenny will always have sung your praises to him.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Tom muttered. ‘I’m torn between telling him the truth and trying to protect him from the stark reality that his father was nothing short of a coward who couldn’t stand up to his two thuggish uncles.’

  ‘No,’ Anne corrected firmly, ‘that’s what his father was when he was sixteen. Now his father isn’t a coward, he’s a wonderful man whom I just happen to love to bits.’

  Tom threw his arms around her and squeezed her tightly. ‘Oh, Anne, thank you for being you,’ he said and grinned, trying to remember what film the line was from.

  *

  Tom managed to get tickets for St. James Park to watch Newcastle play football, which was a great sacrifice personally as he loathed the game, but Anne had found out that Thomas loved watching Match of the Day. It was only afterwards, when they stopped in a pub in town and had a bar meal together, that Tom had the troublesome conversation with his son – the one he’d been dreading.

  He began by telling Thomas truthfully all about his childhood, up until he was sixteen when he met Amanda, and then tried his hardest to impress upon his son how naïve and gullible he’d been. They talked about the situation at length and the lack of sex education at school and, more importantly, contraceptive advice. Tom felt ridiculous having to admit that he’d never given it a thought during the few times he’d made love to Amanda, but he could tell by the look in his son’s eyes that he believed him.

  Thomas opened up and explained how over the years he’d wondered about his dad, where he was and why he hadn’t wanted to stay with them, and even though Tom apologised over and over again, as they left the pub he wasn’t too sure that Thomas had forgiven him.

  Maybe Anne was right, Tom thought, and it was just going to take time, but when they returned home he was amazed at h
ow relieved he felt. Thomas might not be very proud of me, he thought, and was still struggling to understand why I didn’t want to stay with his mum, but he did understand how scary his uncles had been, and in fact, still were.

  Thomas stayed until the Tuesday morning and Tom felt quite tearful as he waved him off on the platform at Central Station, but as he pushed Emily in the buggy out on to the main road, he knew Thomas would keep in touch now and intended to join them in Brighton on the much anticipated summer holiday with his family. He grinned, feeling content and deliriously happy with his lot in life.

  *

  The following Friday, when he took Emily to the park on a warm sunny day, Tom chatted to a few of the mothers whose children Emily had made friends with. Anne had already enrolled Emily into the same nursery as these local children, hoping it would help her to settle in quicker. It was a novelty to Tom to see how little adult interaction there was and how all of the conversations that took place were about their children’s development. Tom felt accepted simply as a parent and not as a man amongst a group of women.

  After Emily had exhausted herself, they settled in their usual spot under a big oak tree in the corner of the park, away from the swings and roundabout, and drank the beakers of orange juice he’d packed. Tom could see Emily’s eyelids begin to droop and he carefully laid her back in the buggy, where she promptly dozed off.

  As he’d been awake until the early hours finishing a chapter of his novel, he lay on the grass next to her and his thoughts wandered to last week, when he’d read an article in their local newspaper. The headlines had read, BUTCHER MARRIES HIS SWEETHEART IN THE MARKET. Mr Darren Robinson married Miss Ellie Ferguson today at church and then joined families and friends to celebrate in The Grainger Market. ‘Working in the bookstall is where I met Darren,’ Ellie told us, ‘so it seemed fitting to celebrate here with the other market stall holders.’ Jack, the bride’s father, paid for everyone in the market at one o’clock to toast the happy couple with a glass of champagne.