Hanukkah at the Great Greenwich Ice Creamery: A heart-warming Christmas romance full of surprises

by Sharon Ibbotson

  River leaned back, making a frantic set of movements with her hands before she seemed to recall that he was a novice at all this. With a shake of her head she reached for the pen, writing intently.

  Your name is Cohen, isn’t it?

  He smiled and nodded.

  What does it mean? she wrote.

  He paused, giving her a puzzled look. She pointed to the words on the paper, offering him an encouraging smile.

  It means ‘priest’, actually, he wrote, flushing a little. At that point his thoughts were anything but priestly, and he felt like the worst kind of inadvertent hypocrite. But River nodded, waiting for more, and so he picked up the pen again. My mother is Jewish, my father wasn’t. He was New York Irish, through and through. Anyway, when I was born my mother wanted to give me an Israeli name, but my father wouldn’t hear of it – he wanted an Irish one. My Uncle Israel told me that they had a huge argument about it, screaming at each other over my cot. They were always screaming at each other. I don’t remember a time when they weren’t screaming at each other.

  Cohen froze, the pen still in his hand, wondering if he’d said too much. It had always been an awkward subject for him, that of his parents. An awkward subject and a painful one, filled with hard memories and bitter regrets. He sighed, going to put the pen down, when River rested her hand against his. Her eyes were dark, almost mournful, and she stroked his fingers gently.

  With a start, Cohen realised that she truly cared about what he said. That she was reading his words and taking in his thoughts. That she, a deaf woman, was listening to him.

  Momentarily, he was rendered speechless.

  But River squeezed his hand before releasing it, nodding to the paper before him, encouraging him to continue. With shaking fingers, he wrote on.

  My parents were so similar, and yet so different. I don’t know how they ever managed to fall in love, let alone get married. Uncle Israel said they were like magnets, the two of them. Both attractive, both clever, both intriguing. But their individual magnetism should have repelled the other, not brought them together. They were a bad mix. A bad match.

  He paused, taking a deep breath before he wrote the next sentence.

  They had a bad marriage, and an even worse separation. So, what does that make me, I often wonder, the result of such an ugly relationship?

  River frowned, before motioning for Cohen to hand her the pen. With deft fingers she scrawled a reply, handing it back to him with a shy smile.

  Two negatives always make a positive in maths, you know. Maybe you’re just looking at this from the wrong angle. Try thinking of your parents not as a bad match, but as an equation.

  He laughed, deep and throaty. Grinning at her, he reached for the paper.

  Maybe I’m not a positive though?

  River smiled back. You are to me, she wrote, and somewhere, deep inside Cohen’s soul, he felt a flutter of excitement, a sudden surge of hope and a flash of optimism so intense he could have sworn the whole world looked brighter.

  River had started writing again. So, where did Cohen come from then?

  Cohen sat taller, trying to shake the flutters from his stomach. Oh, well, my mother suggested it. Told my father it was a solid, Irish name. And it is, in fairness to her. So, my father thought he’d won the argument. Baby named, case closed. It was only later, during the bris, that my Uncle Israel told him that Cohen was actually an ancient Hebrew name. I’m reliably informed that the fallout from that revelation was spectacular.

  Again, Cohen paused, remembering the black-eyed fury of Jim Ford at his worst. He cleared his throat, swallowing with difficulty, before writing some more.

  And River? Where did that come from?

  River chewed on her lip for a moment, worrying the flesh between her teeth, a furrow forming in her brow. She reached for the pen, writing slowly, as though still pondering her thoughts even while in the act of transcribing them to paper.

  My mother – my birth mother, that is, not Mama – named me River. I don’t know why. I probably never will. But Mama said it never occurred to her to change it. She always says that I’m like a river, rushing from one point to another, quick and quiet, and that to understand a river, you have to look into its hidden depths.

  She blushed suddenly, her pen hovering above the paper. Cohen stared at her, tantalised, waiting for her to continue.

  Most people don’t stay long enough to look for my hidden depths, she wrote, with woebegone eyes. They simply see that I’m deaf and then turn in the other direction.

  Cohen’s reply was instant. I’m not like most people, he wrote quickly.

  River smiled, resting an elbow on the table and her head on the palm of her hand. No. No you’re not, Cohen.

  Abruptly, she dropped the pen. Pointing at his name, she made a firm, rhythmic movement with her hands. Five letters spelled out hurriedly so that he could only frown, lost in the fluent dance of her fingers. River shook her head, admonishing herself, and showed him again, her sign language slower this time, her movements direct but calm. When she’d finished, she took hold of his hands, helping him to repeat his name back to her.

  Cohen could only stare at her, awe-struck.

  I’d like to get to know you, Cohen, she suddenly wrote.

  His mouth was dry when he took up the pen. All I want right now, he wrote, is to know you better. To find those hidden depths, River.

  Her smile was blinding, and for several moments they sat there, grinning at one another.

  Can you call here next Tuesday? River finally wrote. I want to give you something.

  I’ll go anywhere you want me to, whenever you want me to, Cohen replied.

  She laughed at that, her mouth wide, her eyes bright, and Cohen felt a dart of pleasure at her happiness. He knew then that nothing, not the sound of a champagne bottle popping, or the best note rolling off a baby grand would ever be able to compare to the soundless noise of this woman laughing.

  Her laugh was the most beautiful thing Cohen had never heard.

  Tuesday will do, Cohen. It’s the only day of the week when Mama isn’t here.

  She took his hands in her own, moving them to form words, pointing at the paper.

  Tuesday, she signed to him.

  Tuesday, he signed back.

  As he left The Great Greenwich Ice Creamery, shoving his destroyed phone into a pocket, Cohen couldn’t help but reflect on his life.

  His first few meetings with Christine cost him thousands of dollars in wine and expensive restaurants, and he could hardly recall a thing about them.

  But he could recall every second he had ever spent with River, and all that time had cost him were a few words with his hands and his honest thoughts, scribbled on a scrap of paper.

  There was a feeling swelling in his chest and stomach that he imagined might be pure happiness.

  He turned towards the train station, looping his scarf around his neck twice, trying to keep out the biting cold of the December wind. He walked through the slushy streets, a lightness to his steps, taking in the merry crowds around him, the tourists and Christmas shoppers bright in their winter coats, hats and scarves. He made it so far as the main road when he felt a pull on his coat, and he looked down to see a flustered and shivering River holding out both a folded sheet of paper and a spoon. He couldn’t help the delight that spread through him at seeing her again so soon, and he could only stare at her while she smiled at him, tucking the paper into his pocket before offering him the spoon.

  It was the same chocolate ice cream from before, but when Cohen tried it now, he found it less bitter, with a divine sweetness that played upon his palate. Even the ice cream itself seemed to sparkle, with a golden sheen to the frozen cream that shimmered under the Greenwich lamplights.

  Bitter chocolate, River signed, before holding up a scrap of paper for him to read.

  Bitter chocolate, Cohen read, with hopeful gold sugar dust.

  Before he had time even to smile, she was kissing him. Her lips were a
gainst his, her tongue pressing lightly into his mouth, and he pulled her closer, wrapping her small frame into the protective confines of his coat. Together they tasted like chocolate. Together they tasted like sweetness.

  Together they tasted like hope.

  And as River pulled away, pressing one final kiss to his mouth, Cohen could not help the smile that spread across his face.

  Because he knew he was coming back here next Tuesday.

  Chapter Four

  Vanilla

  Cohen practically floated on air from the ice creamery to the DLR, hardly noticing the jerky movements of the train, the screaming baby three carriages down or even the faint smell of booze emanating from the fast asleep drunk passed out on the floor next to him. When he got to Bank station he changed onto the tube effortlessly, before drifting through the throngs at Oxford Circus to catch the Bakerloo line up to Marylebone. The commute was effortless, and London seemed to shine in the early evening sky. Christmas lights twinkled from every window, matched in part by the stars above in a clear winter sky. The rain from earlier seemed to have swept away the usual London grime, and the city now seemed heavy with the warm smells of December, of cinnamon and mulled wine and coal fires. The air was crisp and cool on his face, and Cohen even looked fondly on the rain puddles that littered the ground, glistening like baptismal water in which one could be made clean.

  That’s how good River’s kiss was.

  It was only when he got past Marylebone, ducking into the Sir John Balcombe for a quick pint before he headed home, that he remembered the sheet of paper River had pushed into his pocket. He’d been so caught up in her kiss, in the delicious memory of her tongue in his mouth, of her body flush to his and the taste of happiness on her lips, that he’d forgotten about it.

  Instantly Cohen dug it out, unfolding the paper gently, as though frightened of tearing it, of damaging it – and by default her and all they’d shared – in any way.

  It was a printed sheet, the text slightly blurred from where River had clearly hurried it from the printer. Let’s get to know each other, Cohen, she’d scrawled across the top, in the same looping cursive he remembered from The Great Greenwich Ice Creamery’s door.

  It was a questionnaire. The sort of document he recalled from his orientation days at high school and college. It was also the sort of form he occasionally still had to fill in on dreaded work team-building days run by Tarquin Fowler, head of HR for Roberts-Canning, and the thorn in Cohen’s working career. For a moment, Cohen felt his stomach sink. He didn’t want to get to know River through a tacky collection of queries like ‘What’s your favourite colour?’ or ‘Where do you see yourself in ten years?’ Although he still took delight in the memory of Fowler’s pasty face turning red when he’d seen Cohen’s flippant reply to that question, hauling him in to HR like a wayward child to explain just why he thought it was appropriate to declare that ‘in ten years he’d probably be in prison for choking Fowler to death during a work juice cleanse gone wrong’.

  But as he read through the questions River had chosen, the disappointed knot in his stomach turned quickly into a clench of anticipation. Because, as it turned out, River had quite a saucy idea of exactly what ‘getting to know each other’ entailed.

  Where would you most like to kiss me? it began, and Cohen’s mouth ran dry. The words danced before his eyes, and he contemplated his reply while taking a fortifying sip of his pint. He’d never known a work questionnaire to begin quite like this. Eventually, when the first of the alcohol had hit his bloodstream, he pulled a pen out of his pocket and put ink to paper.

  Anywhere you’ll let me, he wrote. I want to start with your mouth, I want to suck on your lips. I want to run my tongue over your cheeks and nibble on your ears. I want to bite gently into your neck and lick the hollow of your shoulders.

  He shifted in his seat. He’d never been a particularly verbose man. He was infinitely better at transcription, or at the small simple acts of writing his work demanded of him: hard words of warning, endless demands for more money or the brutal phrasings of mostly one-sided negotiation. He was unused to writing words of affection. Words of love. He nibbled on his pen, before going back to the paper.

  I can’t use my mouth to tell you how much you mean to me, how much I want you, he stated truthfully. So, let me use my mouth to show you how much you mean to me, to show you how much I need you.

  The second question made him shift even more awkwardly, an old feeling of guilt rushing down his spine.

  My mama says you’ve been married before?

  He ordered another pint, knowing he was going to need it if he was going to get through this questionnaire without dying of shame halfway through.

  Sipping thoughtfully, Cohen considered her question, wondering how much honesty River was looking for here. Momentarily, he contemplated watering down his answer. Doing a light edit job so he wouldn’t scare her away.

  But with another steadying sip of lager, he discarded that thought easily.

  He wouldn’t lie to River. He wouldn’t be anything other than who he was.

  After all, she was the only one who’d ever asked.

  Yes, I’ve been married before. Cohen took a deep breath, a surge of anger going through him, as it always did when he thought of Christine. My ex-wife is an actress, although maybe I should say she was an actress. These days she mostly lives off my alimony payments. She never loved me; I always knew that. But without a doubt, she loved my money.

  And God, did that hurt to write down. Cohen swallowed hard. I don’t hate her. Or at least, I try really hard not to hate her. Mostly, I hate myself for ever marrying her. I hate myself for ever thinking I could make love just another business transaction. Just another deal to negotiate. When we divorced, I told myself I would never marry again. That marriage isn’t worth my time or effort. Mostly I think I’m just scared to make that leap again. But lately … I don’t know.

  Cohen paused.

  Lately, I’ve been thinking that if I do ever marry again, it will be worth my time and effort. Lately, I’ve been thinking that maybe I could make that leap again.

  Cohen almost smiled.

  Lately, I’ve been thinking that another marriage might be more special because I’ve made that leap. Because I’ve put in that time and effort. Or maybe it might be more special because next time, I might actually be in love with my wife.

  The third question was a change of pace, and Cohen exhaled deeply.

  Your earliest memory?

  Cohen put his pen down, reaching back through time, searching for the earliest fragment of an image he could recall.

  Was it Esther’s smile?

  His old dog Tam’s bark?

  His father finally coming home, after four months of unexplained absence, apologies on his lips and another woman’s lipstick on his neck?

  Cohen sighed.

  I think I might have been two or three. My parents were screaming at each other. My mother was crying, and my father left, slamming a door. I always thought he left because of me. I always thought it was because I was a bad son. A bad child.

  Years later, I asked my mother about that memory, and River, I’d never seen her go pale so fast.

  Turns out she’d had a miscarriage, and they just didn’t know how to deal with it.

  So, they dealt with it like they dealt with everything else: raised voices, angry shouts and slammed doors.

  Cohen sat back, letting sorrow briefly wash over him. He didn’t like to think of these things, normally. He didn’t like to imagine his mother’s pain or his father’s guilt. He couldn’t bring himself to picture the brother or sister he’d never had.

  Home Alone or It’s a Wonderful Life?

  Sorry. Don’t hate me. Hate the questionnaire.

  Now he laughed.

  I first saw Home Alone on a transatlantic flight with my mother. She spent the entire flight loudly laughing and nudging me in the shoulder, asking if I’d heard that.

  Actually, the who
le damn flight could hear her chuckling and the flight attendant came by – at the captain’s request – to ask if she would consider toning it down. Apparently, her laughs had drifted via the air system into the cockpit. She was given two ‘complimentary’ glasses of red wine and passed out just before Kevin broke the teeth of Joe Pesci.

  I’ve only ever seen It’s a Wonderful Life once. I was with my first girlfriend. Her name was Kate and we met at a ‘Future Leaders of Enterprise’ summer camp in Massachusetts (it was my mother’s idea). I had my first kiss with her during a showing of It’s a Wonderful Life.

  I still can’t hear bells ringing without thinking about Kate’s braces.

  After that first kiss, she asked me if I wanted to sneak away and do more with her, but I was fifteen and awkward and you know something? I really did just want to watch the movie. What can I say? I just really admire James Stewart and Donna Reed.

  But even so, James Stewart and Donna Reed can’t compete with the fact that Home Alone made my mother laugh.

  So, for me at least, it’s going to be Home Alone, every time.

  Cohen smiled. Even now, on Christmas Day, after he and his mother had conversed awkwardly over Chinese food, he’d slip Home Alone onto the television. And every year, without fail, Esther would make some snide remark along the lines of, ‘Oh, is this goyim nonsense on again?’, all the while chuckling when she didn’t think anyone was watching.

  Do you only want to sleep with me? Is that all this is? Because I’ve been wrong about this feeling before.

  Cohen felt his heart thump hard within his chest. If this were any other woman, he would write some airy remark about only wanting to have sex when she felt ready, about her needs coming first, about how he was happy to wait. A nicer version of, ‘oh yes, of course I’ll call you tomorrow’.

  But this was River.

  And he needed to be honest.

  River, he admitted. You’re so beautiful, so wonderful, and so sexy that I’ve wanted to touch you from the moment I met you. Ever since I met you I’ve fantasised about you, about the things I want to do to you and the things I want you to do with me.