The Night Before Christmas (15 page)

‘Exactly,’ Lydia nodded. ‘I think …’

‘Oh, Lyds, I wish I were together and strong like you. You’ve always got everything sorted. Great job, great man, no complications. You know exactly what you want and you go for it.’

‘Are you sure you are talking about flaky, incurable romantic, always impulsively foolish Lydia there and
not another sensible person of the same name?’ Alex asked her.

As her friends chuckled fondly at the far more apt description, it came as more of a surprise to Lydia than anyone to find that now she was the one in tears, burying her head in her arms.

‘What?’ Katy asked her.

‘What?’ Alex demanded. ‘I was only joking!’

‘Tell them,’ Joanna nodded sagely. ‘Get it off your chest.’

‘You told
her
?’ Alex looked offended. ‘What did you tell her that you didn’t me?’

‘It’s Stephen,’ Lydia said, the words tumbling out of her before she could stop them. ‘He’s so nice and good and kind and handsome and I found an engagement ring in his sock drawer.’ There were gasps of delight and excitement from her friends. ‘But it’s no good! I want to
want
to marry him, more than anything, but I just don’t. I don’t even think I love him any more! I wonder if I ever did …’

With her head in her hands Lydia waited for the flood of friendly support and advice to wash over her, as it had done for Katy, but there was only silence.

‘Um,’ Katy said.

‘The thing is …’ Lydia heard Joanna say.

‘Lyds.’ Alex tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Mate.’

Lydia looked up, fearing what she was going to see even before she took her fingers away from her eyes.
Stephen was standing in the doorway, and the look on his face told he’d heard every single word she’d said.

‘The boiler’s working again,’ Stephen said, the muscles in his jaw taught. ‘Will said he’d need to get a part in the New Year to fix it for good, but it will be fine for now. Right. Okay, I’ll be off, then.’

Lydia watched in shock as he grabbed his coat and marched out of the back door into the latest flurry of thick snow tumbling erratically from the sky. Then she scrambled to her feet, going after him, leaving her friends staring at each other with horrified expressions as freezing air whipped in through the door that she left gaping open. When she caught up with Stephen, he was scooping inches of snow off the Prius with his bare hands.

‘Stephen, wait,’ she said. ‘Look, look around you. You’re not going anywhere in this, especially not in that.’

‘Oh,’ Stephen said. ‘So you secretly hate the Prius too, do you? When were you planning on telling it that it was over between you? Before or after it had made an idiot of itself proposing to you in front of all your friends on Christmas Day?’

‘Oh, Stephen.’ Lydia grabbed his arms but he shook her off, tears filling his eyes.

‘How could you, Lydia? If you knew you felt that way about me, then don’t you think it should have been me you told first, not your cronies? Instead I
catch you gossiping about me like I’m some sort of joke to you.’

Lydia could think of no defence. She hung her head, letting snowflakes garland her hair, glistening for a moment before melting away. ‘I didn’t know I felt that way, not until I found the ring, back at home. And it started me thinking about you and me and if we’d be happy together, if we really fitted. And the thing is, I don’t think I should be thinking those things, do you? I should just be happy and excited … but I’m not.’

Stephen shook his head. ‘I don’t know what to say … I love you, Lydia. I didn’t have to think about it; all I know is that I want to marry you. I
want
to be with you.’

‘Look, we can’t talk here, let’s go inside, please,’ she begged him.

Everyone was in the kitchen when they walked in. Stephen stormed past them, his head down as Lydia hurried after him, trying hard not to notice Jackson’s expression. By now he must know what had happened, and if she saw his face then she’d know if this was what he’d wanted, if everything he’d said to her last night was real, or just part of a game he’d been playing to amuse himself while he waited for the snow to thaw and life to begin again. And Lydia was only ready to deal with one disaster at a time.

Following Stephen’s rapidly thawing footprints into the guest sitting room, Lydia found him standing in
the huge bay window, staring out at the fierce peaks of the mountain, which intermittently pierced the snow and mist. When she saw him, her heart contracted with guilt, shame and loss. Stephen was right, she shouldn’t have told everybody else about how she was feeling until she’d told him herself; he didn’t deserve that. He did, however, deserve the truth, and Lydia was certain that the truth was that the way she felt about him had nothing to do with Jackson turning up, or the things he said or did. The truth had been there for some time now, long before she’d even found the ring. It was just that she’d been trying her very best not to notice that, even though she had feelings for him, she had never loved him enough to marry him.

Taking a deep breath Lydia went over to the window to join him, the bright white light reflecting off the snow outside, seeming to wash all the colour out of the room, making it seem to Lydia as if she was suddenly starring in her own black and white movie.

‘I’m a horrible person,’ she said, looking up at Stephen, whose gaze remained on the horizon.

‘If only that were true,’ Stephen said. ‘But you’re not horrible. You’re the most lovely, loyal, clever, sexy and beautiful person I have ever met, and I was foolish enough to think I’d done enough to make you mine.’ He shook his head, dropping his chin. ‘I let things slide, thinking there’d always be enough time to make it up to you. And now I’m out of time.’

‘It’s not just you who let things slide, Stephen, I did too. We both put work first; we both knew that was how it was when we got together. And … and, well, a lot of the time I feel like now you’ve crossed off getting a “plus one” from your “To Do” list, you feel like you don’t need to give me any of your attention. I so admire everything you do, it’s really inspired me. But it’s every spare minute, Stephen; there was never any time for us.’

‘You never said you felt that way,’ Stephen said. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Maybe I should have, but I thought that if you cared, perhaps you’d notice.’ Lydia shook her head. ‘Look, it’s not your fault, I really wanted to be the sort of person I let you think I was, and I think because of you I am a little, but I need more from a relationship than you can give me. I need to feel loved, and wanted … and desired. Maybe it’s my fault, maybe you would want me more if I’d lived up to your expectations.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’ Stephen asked her.

‘When we first met on that fun run, I more or less made out that I did a sponsored marathon a week. It can’t have escaped your notice that it was the first and last time you’ve seen me run anywhere.’

‘Well, you’ve been busy,’ Stephen said uneasily. ‘We both have. I never expected you to become Mother Teresa for me. I like you exactly how you are. You are a great person, Lydia. You don’t make a song and dance
about it, like I do. But I know the cases you work on, the people you help. People who are at their wits end with only you left between them and disaster. And you are kind, and funny and very beautiful. You are exactly the kind of woman I want to marry.’

‘But I’m not exactly
the
woman you want to marry, am I?’ Lydia asked. ‘If I were the exact one, I’d know it. I’d feel it, but I don’t. And neither do you.’

‘Please, give me the chance to make you feel that way,
please
,’ Stephen said, turning to look at her, his expression achingly hopeful. ‘Perhaps I could just put the ring away for a bit and we can have a nice Christmas together, and go back home and then start again. Perhaps now I know where I’ve been going wrong, if I try really hard to make this work, it will this time. Because I swear, Lydia, if you stay with me, I’ll do better. I will never let you down again.’

Lydia turned her face away. It would be so easy to say yes, and for all this pain and awkwardness to be neatly hidden away, wrapped up in Christmas paper and tied with a glittery bow, at least until the New Year had been rung in. But then what? There would be the cold indifference of inevitable January; the great grinding wheel of work rolling once again into unstoppable action, and the truth would still be the truth.

‘I’m sorry, Stephen. I’m sorry this is so horrible, and that you are stuck here with me. The trouble is, I think we both fell into this because it was so easy, so
nice
,
and it seemed to make so much sense. But both of us deserve more than just settling for the convenient option. And the truth is that I’m just not right for you and you’re not right for me.’ Hesitantly, Lydia stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I’ll ask Katy if there is another room I can stay in.’

‘No.’ Stephen shook his head. ‘I’ll move. Look, I know how important this time of year is to you, so you don’t have to worry. I’ll do my best not to spoil it. Just answer me one thing, the ring – was it right? Was it the perfect ring?’

Tears sprung into Lydia eyes and she nodded. ‘Yes, it was the perfect ring.’

Chapter Eleven

A quiet, persistent knock at the door woke Lydia. She must have drifted off while reading the same line on the same page of the same book over and over again, and then instantly forgetting it. She was surprised to find that the room, now devoid of any sign of Stephen except for his faint scent on the pillow, was in darkness, and checking her watch she realised that it was almost six.

Pushing her tangled hair out of her eyes, Lydia opened the door and found Joanna on the other side with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

‘How are you holding up?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know, really,’ Lydia said, stepping back to let her in. ‘It feels like a bad dream. I mean, did that happen? Did Stephen and I split up?’

‘Judging by the male bonding session that’s going on over a bottle of brandy in the billiard room, I say that’s a definite yes. None of us girls have been allowed in there all afternoon.’

‘I mean, how did that happen?’ Lydia sat down on the edge of the bed, her arms flopping at her sides. ‘A couple of days ago, I really thought I was going to talk
myself into marrying him and then …’ She stopped herself just in time from mentioning Jackson’s name. ‘And then it all just falls apart? I don’t get it.’

‘I do,’ Joanna said, sitting next to her and screwing the cap off the bottle of Shiraz she’d pilfered from the bar. ‘It’s Christmas. T’is the season for the shit to hit the fan. Tra la fucking la. We’re all so stressed about how we all have to be happy that suddenly we examine our lives and all we can see is everything that’s wrong with it. It’s horrible that you and Stephen have broken up now. But if not now then it probably still would have happened, maybe in a month, just before the wedding, maybe after you’d been married ten or twenty years and you’re ancient and wrinkly with saggy tits and no hope of ever getting a man again. Think of it that way and you’ll see that, actually, this is the best possible outcome.’

Lydia looked at Joanna.

‘I’m not helping, am I?’ Joanna said, handing Lydia a glass of wine and watching as she knocked it back. ‘Look, I’ve broken up with more men than you’ve had hot dinners, and I get a lot of stick for it, mainly from you. But the truth is that I want to believe in love, with my whole heart, so I always jump right in up to my neck in the stuff in the hope that this time it will be the right time. Oh, I know I’m beautiful and I’ve got a glamorous job and lots of money, but my life has been pretty short of real love. Boarding school from
the age of four, so my parents could lounge about on yachts in the Caribbean, and a mother who hired a housekeeper to look after me during the holidays, spending “family” Christmases with great aunts and second cousins I didn’t know from Adam.

‘The first people ever to teach me anything about what it meant to feel love and to be loved are you and the girls. And finally I think I am learning by your example. Finally I think I’ve worked out what love means, with Jackson. So don’t you feel bad about learning from my extremely excellent example; it doesn’t matter how lovely the ring is, if it isn’t right, it isn’t right.’ Joanna took a swig from the bottle. ‘Just a shame you didn’t get your hands on the bling before you did the dirty deed.’

‘Joanna!’ Lydia couldn’t help but chuckle.

‘There, a smile. Now, are you going to come down for dinner?’

‘How can I?’ Lydia flopped back onto to bed. ‘Everyone hates me for ruining Christmas. Stephen will be there, it will be awful.’

‘Yes, it will be awful, but it’s better to get the awfulness out of the way tonight so that tomorrow is a bit less awful and Christmas Day is tolerable. Come on, think of poor Katy. We all need to be putting on our best, bravest faces for her. Now go and have a shower and I’ll find you something to wear.’

‘Don’t make me look like a slut,’ Lydia grumbled, sufficiently awake now to remember the last time she
let Joanna pick out her wardrobe, but she plodded obediently into the bathroom.

‘Nothing I can do about that, darling,’ Joanna said, wrinkling her nose as she began to rummage through Lydia’s things.

Lydia held her breath as she followed Joanna into the dining room. She had rejected Joanna’s first choice of outfit for her as it was all black and made her look like she was in mourning, and then flatly refused to put on the mini skirt and sexy basque that she had been privately planning to seduce Stephen with on Christmas morning. In the end she settled on a wine-red sweater dress over black tights and long boots, brushing her hair out and putting on a little mascara. Joanna said it was the perfect look to confront your snowbound ex with, but that didn’t make Lydia feel any better.

As usual, Katy had dressed the table to within an inch of its life, and it was glittering with candles and festooned with holly that must have just been cut from the tree in the garden, as it still sparkled with rapidly melting snow. She must have negotiated at least a temporary truce with the electric oven, because she’d somehow produced a roast belly of pork stuffed with Parmesan and Italian herbs, with a dish of dauphinoise potatoes on the side.

Although the smells made Lydia’s stomach grumble, the twist of nerves at seeing Stephen, sitting at the
end of the table furthest from her, vanquished her hunger pangs almost immediately. Their eyes met and he smiled such a warm, sad smile that Lydia was not sure if she should run over there and hug him or run right back upstairs to her room. Choosing the middle ground she opted to return the smile and, knowing she didn’t want to be anywhere near Jackson, she slid into the corner seat at the opposite end of the table, between Will and Tilly, who was feeding garlic roasted potatoes to Vincent even before her mother had carved the pork with the ostentatiously brandished electric carving knife.

‘Can I play with that after?’ Jake asked no one in particular, which was just as well as no one answered him, except for his mother after a fashion who flicked him lightly across the head with a pair of chicken-headed oven gloves.

‘Still here?’ Lydia asked Will. ‘I thought you’d have clawed your way through icebergs in bare feet to escape us.’

Will shrugged, smiling quietly. ‘I decided to stick around for a bit. The entertainment’s a million times better here than at my place. And besides, for what’s it’s worth, I thought you could use someone to hide in the boathouse with. Look, I heard about the break-up …’

Caught off guard by the remark, Lydia turned to look at him. ‘Why are you being nice to me?’ she asked him suspiciously.

Will sighed and tapped the table for a moment or two while seeming to debate with himself whether or not to tell her. Finally he gave a quick nod. ‘I seem to like you, even if you are southern and very moany and only drink wine.’

Lydia wanted to laugh but thought it might seem inappropriate.

‘I’m not trying to hit on you, or anything,’ Will added hastily. ‘I just like you. I think what you did was brave, and it never hurts to have another person in your corner.’

‘Oh.’ Lydia smiled, disarmed by his spontaneous offer of friendship. ‘Thanks, that’s really, really nice.’

Will nodded in agreement as Katy put a plate of steaming food in front of him. ‘Well, I am famous round these parts for being a good bloke,’ he told her.

‘Right,’ Katy said, breathing a sigh of relief as she sat down at last. ‘The turkey’s in the fridge, the heating is on, we have enough booze to keep us drunk until next Christmas and all I have to do now is wrap presents.’

‘Doesn’t Father Christmas wrap the presents?’ Jake asked, nonchalantly.

‘Yes, obviously,’ Katy said. ‘He and the elves wrap the presents he brings. But Mummy and Daddy have got you presents too, so I have to wrap those.’

‘So all the presents from Father Christmas will have totally different paper to all the ones from you and Dad, won’t they?’ Jake asked her, wide eyed. ‘Because
he wraps his in the North Pole and they haven’t got a Tesco there, have they?’

Katy blinked at him. ‘Obviously,’ she said.

‘Or a WH Smiths,’ Jake added. ‘Or a …’

‘I expect Father Christmas’s presents will be wrapped in some lovely homemade paper,’ Katy said, cutting him off with just an edge of frustration. ‘But part of the fun is waiting and seeing, isn’t it?’

‘Can I just say something?’ Stephen stood up at the other end of the table and Lydia’s heart sank, and a million dreadful scenarios about what he might say ran through her head in an instant. ‘I know that the last thing Lydia and I want is for … for what’s happened to cause any tension or upset for everyone else …’

‘What has happened?’ Tilly asked, eyes wide. ‘Has Mad Molly done something?’

‘Aunty Lydia’s chucked that bloke,’ Jake told her helpfully, nodding at Stephen.

‘Oh,’ Tilly said, immediately disinterested. ‘Was she going out with him, then?’

‘Children, hush,’ Katy warned them.

‘Anyway, I just want to say that there is nothing but good will and affection between Lydia and I, and that there is no need for anyone to feel awkward or embarrassed about what’s happened. I love her; she doesn’t love me. It’s no one’s fault. Okay, it’s probably my fault, but anyway I understand. Well, I don’t understand, actually. I think I’m a pretty good catch, as it goes, but still,
each to their own. There are no hard feelings. Unless you count my broken heart.’ Everyone at the table warily studied the plate in front of them, even the children. ‘That’s all, I just wanted to put you all at your ease.’

Stephen sat down, slightly askew so that his chair tipped back and would have toppled him onto the floor if Jackson hadn’t stabilised him.

‘Well, I know I’m thoroughly at ease now,’ Joanna said brightly. ‘More wine everyone?’

‘Ah!’ A sharp gasp from Alex drew everyone’s attention as she clasped her hand to her belly and took a deep breath.

‘Ambulance!’ David shouted, standing up and knocking over a bottle of wine.

‘Sit down, moron,’ Alex snapped at him. ‘It’s nothing, just a bit of Braxton Hicks and a bit of indigestion and a bit of the baby wanting to leave before it gets any more embarrassing in here.’

‘Are you sure?’ David peered at her. ‘Have your waters broken?’

‘David, do you think if I had just evacuated several litres of amniotic fluid under the table I wouldn’t mention it? Get a cloth and clear up the wine!’ Obviously biting back his response, David picked up some spare paper napkins and began dabbing at the stain.

‘Steady on, Al,’ Jim said, clearly also rather the worse for wear after an afternoon of boozing. ‘The bloke’s just looking after you.’

‘That’s rich coming from you,’ Alex muttered under her breath.

‘Alex,’ Katy whispered urgently.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Jim asked her, bullishly.

‘Nothing.’ Alex shrugged, tight-lipped.

‘Go on, speak your mind,’ Jim replied. Lydia looked at Joanna warily. Inviting Alex to speak her mind was never a good idea.

‘Okay, I will.’ Alex crossed her arms. ‘You let Katy do everything, all the cooking, all the cleaning, all the childcare, all the worrying, while all you do is swan about like some bloody overgrown boy scout. Katy is doing her damnedest to make things work, and you are quite happy to sit back and watch her run herself into the ground. She’s already got two kids, she doesn’t need another one.’

‘What? Bloody cheek! That’s not how it is at all, is it, Katy?’ Jim protested. ‘It’s just that Katy isn’t a bloody henpecking shrew, like you. Honestly, the way you talk to Dave is shocking. Katy, grab another bottle of wine from the cellar, would you?’

‘Jim, don’t talk to my wife like that,’ David said, quietly but firmly.

‘Oh, grow a pair, mate, you’ve got to take a stance now otherwise you’ll be out on your ear like fella-me-laddo over there, or under the bloody thumb all your life. Katy? Wine?’

‘GET YOUR OWN MOTHER FUNNING
WINE!’ Katy stood up, yelling at the top of her voice. ‘Alex is right. I am your wife, Jim, your
wife
. Not your nanny. Not your skivvy, or your business manager, your chef or your bloody maidservant. And from now on, I am on strike. Sorry, everybody, Christmas is cancelled.’

Tilly’s wail rose instantly above the general chaos as Katy stormed out with her distraught daughter in her arms, leaving Jim staring open mouthed after her.

‘I hate you,’ Jake told Jim, running at him and kicking him firmly in the shins.

‘Fuck!’ Jim gasped.

‘And I don’t even care if I don’t get any presents, you deserve it.’ Fighting to keep back the tears, Jake let Joanna pull him into a hug.

‘Jake, come on, darling, let’s go and find Mummy,’ Joanna said as Lydia watched, dumbfounded. ‘Don’t worry, Mummy doesn’t mean it about Christmas, she’s just a bit over tired, that’s all.’

‘David, I want to go to bed too,’ Alex said, wincing as David helped her up.

‘What the fuck just happened?’ Jim asked Jackson first and then Stephen. What happened?’

‘Boathouse for an imaginary smoke?’ Will asked her.

Lydia wanted nothing more at that moment to get out of the room and go and not smoke with Will, but she shook her head. ‘I can’t, Katy will need me.’

Will nodded. ‘It’s great being a lass, you’ve always got your mates.’ He stood up. ‘I’m just going for a smoke.’

‘Jim,’ Lydia said calmly. ‘I think you’re a bit drunk, I’ll go and make you a coffee.’ She looked at bleary-eyed Stephen and Jackson, who watched her quietly, as if he had a lot to say to her as soon as he got the chance. ‘I’ll make you all coffee and go and check on Katy.’

‘I love that woman,’ Jim was telling the other two vehemently as she left the room. ‘I bloody love her more than anything on earth. I’d die for that woman. I’d die for her, that’s what I’d do, I would, I’d …’

Lydia was very happy to let his voice recede into the distance as she hurried to the kitchen.

Katy was sitting at the kitchen table, with Tilly sobbing into her neck and Jake standing at her side patting Tilly’s back ever so slightly more firmly than was necessary, while Vincent lay at her feet, gazing up at her with anxious brown eyes.

‘I’m sorry, guys, I didn’t mean it,’ she was saying, reassuring her children. ‘Of course Christmas isn’t cancelled. As if I would do that. I was just cross, darlings, and thoughtless. I’m so, so sorry.’