by Amanda James
‘There must be something I can bring, or do to help on Christmas morning, Mum,’ Sarah said, popping an olive into her mouth. In Gwen’s warm and homely kitchen Sarah and Ella perched on the breakfast stools handing their mother this or that and chatting for England. The atmosphere was charged with excitement, the smell of mulled wine, Christmas spices, holly wreaths and surrounded with love. Sarah felt just like she had in the run up to Christmas when she’d been growing up.
Gwen frowned at her question. ‘No, I told you. You are to put your feet up. Me and Ella will do it all.’
Ella rolled her eyes and put the back of her hand to her forehead theatrically. ‘Oh, why is it always me, poor Cinders, who never goes to the ball?’
‘You suggesting I’m an ugly sister?’ Sarah playfully poked her sister in the arm. ‘And seriously, Mum, I’m pregnant, not ill.’
Gwen pointed a wooden spoon at her. ‘You need your rest after all that time-tra—’ Gwen flushed and covered her mistake with a cough. ‘All that time you spend teaching and pregnant with twins, for goodness sake.’
‘Okay, don’t get your noodle in a knot,’ Ella said, thankfully oblivious of the faux pas. ‘I am only too happy to wait on my favourite sister hand and foot.’
While Ella busied herself making garlic bread, Sarah rolled her eyes at her mother and shook her head.
Gwen shrugged and whispered in her ear as she passed. ‘I know. But I covered it well, didn’t I?’
Though there was nothing more Sarah would like than to tell Ella all about time-travelling, she knew it was out of the question. The Spindlies had already allowed Gwen to keep her memory; one more person would be one step beyond. It just felt wrong keeping a person she’d always confided in out of the loop, especially now her mum knew. But it couldn’t be helped. It was what it was.
Could she pack in one more forkful of her mum’s incredible lasagne? Sarah was answered by a burp rumbling. Nope. That would be just too piggy … but that garlic bread?
Her ruminations were interrupted by the sudden scraping of a chair and the tinkle of a spoon tapped on a glass. She looked to the end of the table where Harry had risen to his feet, his face flushed and his blue eyes twinkling with excitement. This must be the moment where he tells John that Lucy was coming over soon. She looked at John sitting opposite and winked at his puzzled expression.
‘Okay, everyone. Now that we have eaten our fill of this wonderful woman’s glorious banquet,’ he inclined his head towards Gwen and smiled adoringly, ‘I have one or two announcements to make.’
A glance from Ella was tipped in Sarah’s direction and Sarah nodded to confirm the unspoken question. Ella knew about Lucy’s imminent arrival, however, Sarah herself was puzzled by the mention of ‘one or two’ announcements.
Harry raised a finger and hurriedly checked a text message on his phone. Then he shot them a huge grin and said, ‘I am happy to tell you all that my daughter Lucy and her husband are joining us for Christmas!’
John’s face lit up brighter than the Christmas lights. ‘Really, Dad? That’s fantastic! When are they arriving?’
Harry raised his finger again and scuttled out of the room. He returned a few moments later followed by a beautiful, tall, willowy woman with chocolate curls and a smile to rival John’s. She had sparkling green eyes too though hers had hazel shots. And behind her she led a very tall, raven-haired, angular-featured man with faded blue eyes and enough designer stubble to sand down a small coffee table. In similar dark tailored trousers, smart shirts and causal jackets, they looked like they’d just stepped out of a magazine and most around the table were gobsmacked, including Sarah.
John’s gob was un-smacked however and he launched himself at Lucy like an over-excited puppy. ‘Lucy! Why didn’t you let me know?’ He smothered her in a huge bear hug. ‘How long are you here for? We have so much to catch up on!’
Lucy laughed. ‘I didn’t let you know because Dad wanted it to be a surprise. And we are here until the day after Boxing Day.’
‘Bonsoir everyone. I am looking forward to getting to know you all,’ her husband said, his French accent deep and rich, his smile put two dimples in the stubble.
Sarah and Ella exchanged glances. Ella put her hand to the side of her face to shield her mouthed; Oh my God, he’s gorgeous from everyone but Sarah and then pretended to fan herself with her napkin. Sarah giggled and Jason frowned at his wife, obviously suspicious of what she was up to, but not quite sure.
‘Oh, my manners,’ Lucy said, pecking her husband on the cheek. ‘I haven’t introduced you. Everyone, this is Corbin.’
Corbin grinned and nodded at them each in turn as Harry introduced them.
As Sarah was introduced, Lucy clapped her hands and breathed, ‘Oh, you are even prettier in real life than in the wedding photos, Sarah.’ Lucy pulled a face. ‘So sorry we couldn’t make that, but as you know, I had the damned shingles.’
‘Thanks for the compliment. You too. And it was such a shame that you missed it.’ Sarah returned Lucy’s warm smile. ‘Can’t wait to get to know you now, though.’
Extra chairs were produced for Lucy and Corbin and the conversation resumed in earnest mostly with questions to the couple and lots of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ from Ella at almost everything Corbin said. She kept winking at Sarah and giggling. Sarah told her she was incorrigible, but such good fun nevertheless.
A little while later, after Gwen’s scrumptious home-made sticky toffee pudding and cream, Harry brought out two buckets of champagne on ice and placed them on the table.
John commented to Lucy jokingly that he never got this treatment when he came round to visit. ‘Prodigal daughters, eh?’
‘Ah, lad, this is not just for our Lucy. I did say I had one or two announcements earlier. And this is number two,’ Harry said, tapping his glass again. He held his hand out to Gwen, who clasped it and stood up next to him as he continued, ‘It gives me great pleasure to announce …’ Gwen flushed and looked about twenty-five as she looked into his eyes. Harry swallowed and gave her the sweetest smile Sarah could ever remember seeing. She caught her mum’s eye and her tummy did a forward roll … she knew what was coming. ‘To announce that I have asked Gwen to marry me and she has accepted.’
For a snap shot, slow-motion moment, Sarah looked on while Ella let out a whoop and danced her mum round in a circle, Lucy and John hugged each other and Lucy, tears flowing down her cheeks, hugged Harry and the rest gathered, stood and clapped … but Sarah’s heart was full of thoughts of her dad. Why did he have to die? Why was life so cruel? He should have been here this Christmas awaiting the spring birth of his grandchildren, just like Gwen.
Suddenly she was aware of Ella at her side whispering in her ear, ‘I know what you’re thinking, but Dad would have wanted this for Mum. Accepting Harry doesn’t mean betrayal, trust me, I’ve thought it out and I’m your big sister. I know these things.’
Sarah choked down a torrent of tears and hugged Ella. Then over her shoulder she noticed two anxious sapphire-blue eyes fixed on hers. A smile and a few steps led her into her mum’s embrace. ‘So happy for you, Mum. You couldn’t have picked a better guy.’ Sarah realised that she meant every word.
‘Apart from your dad, eh?’ Gwen’s eyes spilled over and Sarah couldn’t speak. ‘I do know what you and Ella are feeling. I’m feeling it too. There was no finer man than your dad and I wish life hadn’t handed me these cards. But it did, and thank God my Harry is an ace in the pack.’
Sarah nodded and they both looked at Harry pretending to guzzle a whole bottle of champagne down amid hoots of laughter.
Gwen shook her head and chuckled. ‘Even though he is a right daft chuff at times.’
The ‘right daft chuff’ beckoned Sarah and John over an hour or so later and ushered them out of the room. ‘Follow me, you two, I found summat out this afternoon but haven’t had a chance to get you on your own ’til now.’
Once in Gwen’s bedroom he shut the door behind them and sat on the bed
. ‘Sit down then.’ He gestured to the sofa in the corner.
‘What’s this all about, Dad? I’m not sure I could take another surprise today,’ John said, sitting down next to Sarah.
‘Me either,’ Sarah said. ‘Mum’s not expecting, is she?’
‘Yep, she is. How did you guess?’ Harry laughed out loud and then lowered his voice. ‘No, it’s about 1966.’
‘England won, 4-2, we know, Dad.’
‘Oh, very funny. No, it’s about the reason you went there. You thought you just went by mistake instead of to Topeka and tried to make the best of it with the bootlace thing, but the powers reckon it was more than that. Sarah was scheduled to do the Wembley job at a later date.’ Harry looked at Sarah and scratched his head. ‘But buggered if I know how a lass could have even got into the changing rooms.’
Sarah tutted. ‘That’d be right. Should Sarah be dealt a nice easy-peasy job like that, sorting bootlaces, or instead flung into one of the worst tornado’s America has had?’ She put her finger on her chin and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Hmm … methinks some spindly little article has it in for me.’
John snorted. ‘And scheduled is rather a defunct term isn’t it, with everything they’ve got wrong lately.’
Harry folded his arms and sighed. ‘It wouldn’t have been that easy, Sarah, as I said. A woman would have found it difficult to get in there … but I’ll grant you it was a better job than Topeka, love. So, do you want to know about it all or not?’
‘We’re all ears.’ Sarah nodded and was immediately rewarded with an image of Veronica. Poor old Ratchet, who she’d only seen married a short while ago, would be long dead now … and that thought saddened Sarah. It would have been good to have got to know her better. After they had parted on the bridge that day there was a real sense of friendship between them and that was strengthened the day they went looking for Edward and then the next day when she’d acted as impromptu maid of honour at their wedding. Ah yes, Veronica had blossomed into a real good egg, as she would have said.
‘You listening, Miss far-away stare?’ Harry’s voice snapped her out of her ponderings and she saluted him and pretended to sit to attention. ‘Right, well, I got an email this morning to tell me that had John not sorted Geoff Hurst’s laces they would have most likely broken and England would have lost.’
‘How come they didn’t email me?’ John frowned. ‘And a loss for England would have been disappointing and I love football as much as the next man, but it was hardly a matter of bloody life and death, was it?’
‘I think they emailed me as a courtesy to you and Sarah. They had wanted to leave you well out of the business for a while as a reward for all the high jinks they’d put you through.’ Harry rubbed his nose and looked down it at them with a superior glint in his eye. It was clear that he was pleased to be the only one in the know after his retirement from ‘the business’ a good four years previously.
‘It’s about time they were a bit more sensitive,’ John grumped, putting his arm round Sarah and pulling her to him. ‘I mean, how on earth would we have coped if I had been off doing my regular needling job alongside all this?’
‘Indeed,’ Harry resumed. ‘And it was a matter of life and death, actually. Not in the way you think – the score and all, but to one bloke in the crowd that day, an England win changed his life beyond all recognition. He was a hopeless drunk and his wife and baby son were on the verge of leaving him, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t show any signs of changing. But on that day in 1966, that England win and the euphoria surrounding it, for some reason made the difference – made him see the light. He gave up the booze and everyone lived happily ever after with roses round the door and so forth.’
‘That’s fantastic, Harry. But life and death? There’s normally a bit more to it than that,’ Sarah said, knowing full well there was probably more, but couldn’t help teasing him. He was such a one for dragging out the point. Any minute now she guessed he’d start on about ‘he knew a woman who’.
‘Blimey, what an impatient wife you have there, John.’ Harry sniffed and gave her a withering look. ‘I was coming to that, Sarah. So anyway the baby son grows up to be a volunteer in Africa and spearheads one of the first successful conservation and irrigation programmes. Just think how many lives those bootlaces actually saved?’ He smiled at John with pride shining in his eyes.
‘Wow, that’s fantastic. Do you know, I think I might go over to stitching rather than needling. Want to swap, love?’
‘No. And as far as I’m concerned my time-travelling boots are well and truly hanging in the locker room forever.’ Sarah noted a glance of disbelief pass between John and his dad but decided not to comment. They could think what they liked, she’d had enough and who could blame her? Bloody Spindly Ones had blamed her twins for the upset. Even if they were causing it, the Spindlies should have been able to sort it. Nope that was it and that was all. Sarah could hold her head high; she’d done her bit and then some.
Just then Lucy popped her head around the door. ‘Oh, there you are! I was hoping for a bit of a chat with Sarah.’
‘Thank goodness, I can’t wait to see the back of these two.’ Sarah chuckled and gave John a shove off the sofa.
‘Huh, I know when I’m not wanted.’ John grinned. He pecked Lucy on the cheek as he passed and followed his dad out of the room.
Lucy sat down next to Sarah and gave her a small hug. ‘Welcome to the family sister-in-law. Shall I say I’ve heard so much about you, and then you say only good I hope? Or shall we just have a good old natter?’
Sarah laughed. She had warmed to Lucy as soon as she’d seen her which was rare for her. It normally took a while to weigh folk up, but Lucy’s personality and kind nature came across right from the off. ‘A good old natter, I think. So tell me, what was John like when he was little?’
The hour they spent chatting flashed by so fast that Sarah thought it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes. She’d found out that John was the best brother in the universe and that he’d always been there for his younger sister, that Lucy had known all about the ‘travelling malarkey’ as she called it but hadn’t felt in the least tempted to try it.
‘Three weirdoes in the family was enough for anyone. It wasn’t easy having both parents and a brother in the business.’ She was the one who anchored them all to reality she’d said.
Lucy had even confided in Sarah how worried about Corbin she was at times. In the two years they had been married she had been incredibly happy and adored the man, but sometimes he tended to go off for hours without telling her, sometimes in the middle of the night and the shingles she’d had at the time of Sarah and John’s wedding was in fact a cover. Corbin had gone missing the day before and hadn’t returned until the evening of the next day. Corbin apparently needed time alone to think now and then.
Unsure of what to say as Lucy tossed her head and tried to hide the fact that she was close to tears by pointing at Gwen’s chintz curtains and commenting that they were charmingly old-fashioned, Sarah had just patted her hand and said, ‘Anyone with eyes can see he adores you. Some people do need time to think … I guess.’
‘But why can’t he phone to say that? The first time it happened I was a mess, you know, wondering where he was? I phoned round his friends – even the hospitals in the end.’ Lucy shook her head. ‘I just hope “time to think” doesn’t actually mean “time to shag somebody else”.’
Of course at first Sarah had been thinking exactly that. She was sure that women flung themselves at Corbin on a regular basis, but in the end a gut feeling told her that he wasn’t a cheat. But his ‘time to think’ didn’t feel right either.
‘Hey, I’m sure it doesn’t, Lucy. He is obviously a lovely caring man who just needs time on his own to contemplate the universe or something.’ Sarah shot her a big grin.
‘Or something.’ Lucy attempted a smile in return.
When Gwen came to find them to announce cake was being served, Sarah was relucta
nt to go. She had really enjoyed Lucy’s company and wished that she didn’t live so far away.
Lucy put her thoughts into words as they walked to the kitchen arm in arm. ‘I am so glad we have managed to have a good chat. My brother picked very well – the best.’ She smiled and squeezed Sarah’s arm. ‘And France is hardly the other side of the world. You must come and see us.’
‘We so will. And you are the best sister-in-law a girl could hope for, too. Will you be over to see the babies when they come in May?’
‘Try and stop us.’ Lucy twinkled. ‘I have already bought clothes, toys, rattles, a separate house to put it all in, yadda, yadda …’
‘So are you okay about your mum and my dad, then? I haven’t had a chance to ask you,’ John whispered as they walked down the path to their car at the end of the evening amidst a chorus of ‘see ya soons’ and ‘nighty nights’ from Harry, Gwen, Lucy and Corbin waving from the front door.
‘Yeah. I had a wobble but now I am totally cool with it.’ Sarah waved back and then got into the passenger seat.
John jumped in next to her and raised his eyebrows. ‘Totally?’
‘Totally.’
‘Thank goodness for that.’ John smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘I had a similar moment after dinner when I thought of Mum. But in the end there’s nothing we can do to bring either of them back, so we have to make the best of it. And I reckon that your mum is one of the best.’
‘Yes, ditto your dad. And Lucy is so lovely! No wonder you missed her.’ Sarah gave a final wave as John pulled away from the kerb.
‘I’m so glad you two hit it off. I haven’t really had much chance to catch up tonight but they are here for a while, so plenty of time. Corbin seems nice, don’t you think? I met him at their wedding, of course, but then they went off to the Bahamas that evening on honeymoon so I haven’t spoken to him much.’