Chapter 32
‘Well, this is something isn’t it? A decent glass of bubbly and a view I certainly can’t get back in the Emirates!
’ Joel, already on his second glass of champagne, that he reminded Marc had been his contribution to the Christmas party, sat back on Marc’s comfy sofa with the lakeside view and he appeared content.
It wasn’t an expression, or a state, that Marc was used to seeing his youngest brother in, but to be fair, all three of them hadn’t been in the same room for such a long time that he wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Joel these days.
The last time they been together was for Tessa’s funeral and that was certainly not an event he wanted to dwell on, not on Christmas Day.
‘I’m glad you could find time in your busy schedule to come and appreciate it,’ Marc replied wryly.
‘Anything for you, big brother.’ Joel threw him a grin. ‘When’s the fun police getting here?’
Marc grinned back. Ever since they were kids, Joel had ribbed their eldest brother, Noah, about being, as he used to put it ‘the prick in the helium balloon’.
Always far more serious than the other two, Noah had lightened up in later years, although he was still prone to putting his responsible head on rather more than Joel.
Marc, having been a parent to two boys for the past six years, and with the added life experience of having lost his wife, had had seriousness thrust upon him.
He sometimes wondered if he was more likely to be called the fun police these days, especially now that Noah was in a long-term relationship with a pop star.
‘Noah and Bella will be here any time now. I thought it would be best to let the boys open their presents from me before they came around – the twins can be a lot when they’re high on sugar and wanting to rip everything open at once.’
‘So I saw,’ Joel replied. ‘Honestly, I thought you’d have them more well trained than that!’
‘Like you and I were any better,’ Marc shot back good-naturedly. ‘I remember us almost coming to blows over who got the Action Man Jeep and who got the army helicopter. You tried to nick the Jeep off me for weeks!’
‘That’s because I was the one who’d put it on my Christmas list!’
‘Well, it was my name on the present label!’
‘I still reckon you swapped the labels because you knew which one the Jeep was in.’
‘Oh, not this old chestnut again. Aren’t you both old enough to let that one go?’
‘Bloody hell, who let the riff-raff in?’ Marc’s grin grew wider, as Noah appeared in the doorway of the living room, closely followed by Bella.
‘Liam makes a great doorman,’ Noah quipped.
‘He wasn’t going to let me over the threshold until I’d shown him evidence that I’d bought him the biggest present!
’ He held up the two enormous gift bags he carried in to emphasise the point.
Luca, followed by Liam, trailed in their wake, clearly excited at the prospect of even more presents.
Marc smiled to himself as Joel, true to form, didn’t bother to get up off the sofa to greet Noah, but held out a laconic hand for his brother to shake.
Relations had been a little distant between Noah and Joel for years, and they still shared a vague awkwardness about being in the same room together.
That was one of the reasons Marc was pleased that they had all got together for his first Christmas at the lake house – not that he was particularly sentimental, but he rather enjoyed the prospect of having all three of them under the same roof, if only for one night.
‘Well, I hope they won’t come to blows like we used to.’ Marc gestured to the open bottle of Bollinger. ‘Do you want a glass before Joel necks it all?’
‘Yes please,’ Bella replied enthusiastically. She put the bag she was carrying down under the tree. ‘Thanks so much for saying we could stay the night – that means both of us have an outside chance of getting legless!’
‘You’re more than welcome.’ Marc smiled and poured Bella a flute of champagne before doing the same for Noah. As he put the bottle down, Joel grabbed it again and topped up his glass.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve got two more in my suitcase.
I’ll just go and bung them in the fridge.
’ He unfolded his tall frame from the depths of Marc’s huge sofa, gave Bella a hug of greeting, and loped off to the kitchen.
Marc clocked Noah’s double take at Joel’s far friendlier gesture of welcome towards Bella, who’d only met him a couple of times, but didn’t think much of it. Joel knew how to push Noah’s buttons.
‘He’s certainly on good form,’ Noah remarked.
‘When isn’t he?’ Marc grinned at his other brother. ‘Full of blarney and bullshit as usual, but it’s Christmas, so try not to let it get to you.’
‘I won’t.’ Noah sipped his champagne, and then, with a wry look at Marc, drained the rest of the glass. ‘Lots of this will help.’
‘Your wish is my command!’ Joel, returning to the room, took great delight in popping the cork of the second bottle so that it flew in an arc and landed behind the sofa. He topped up Noah’s glass and then settled back where he’d been sitting on the sofa.
Marc was always torn between amusement and exasperation when he watched his two brothers interact.
As the middle child, equidistant in age between them, he’d often been the intermediary, and he vividly remembered having to wrangle Joel out of Noah’s room when their young brother had tried to play with Noah’s prized collection of Warhammer figures.
Trying to explain to a six-year-old that these weren’t just toy soldiers had been tricky.
Trying to hide the fact that, just a week later, Joel had managed to flush Noah’s prized, hand-painted dark elf figure down the toilet after it had fallen out of Joel’s trouser pocket had been another matter entirely.
Marc wasn’t sure that Noah had forgiven Joel for that, almost three decades later.
Now, Joel was on typical form, chatting away nineteen to the dozen to Bella, throwing the odd pointed comment to Noah, who was doing his best not to clench his jaw, and generally stirring the pot.
He knew, from what Noah had told him, that Joel had been openly hostile to Bella when they’d first met, on the doorstep of their grandfather, Jack’s old cottage.
Joel had accused Bella of squatting in the property, and it had taken a lot of restorative conversations since to rebuild their relationship.
They all got on better now, but that inauspicious start still lingered.
Marc shook his head. He’d have to find a way to keep the peace between them, for his sons’ sake.
‘So, I’ve been listening to this awesome singer,’ Joel was saying, in between sips of his replenished glass of champagne.
‘He’s been taking Dubai by storm. Maybe you’ve heard of him?
He’s an Irish guy, but he moved to the Emirates a couple of years back and won the Emirati version of The Voice. His name’s Ashton O’Hara.’
‘Can’t say it rings a bell,’ Bella replied. ‘But music can be a small world. Perhaps our paths will cross at some point.’
‘I think you’d be great together – musically, I mean.’ Joel gave Bella a wink. Marc was gratified that Bella didn’t grace the double entendre with a response. Instead, she just grinned and turned back to Noah, giving him a long, loving glance.
‘Can we have our presents yet, Uncle Noah?’ Liam asked, having remained, with great difficulty, silent while the adults got settled in.
Noah laughed and glanced at Marc. ‘Depends on your dad. Should we make them wait until after lunch, Marc?’
The combined chorus of ‘No!’ was as cute as it was loud. Marc, though, decided to draw it out a little longer before he told them his decision. Parenting was, after all, a negotiation.
‘Well, I don’t know, boys. The table has to be laid, and there’s some wrapping paper from your other presents that needs putting in a bin bag. Perhaps you could do that before we open more presents?’
Luca looked at his brother, who gave him a brief nod, before they both, somewhat reluctantly, agreed. As they rushed out of the living room to grab the cutlery for the dining table, Marc couldn’t help smiling.
‘Maybe you have trained them well, after all,’ Joel observed. ‘I don’t remember ever setting the table when we were kids unless Mum threatened us with no telly!’
‘Tessa got them tidying their things away even when they were toddlers,’ Marc replied. ‘They went to the kind of nursery where they were expected to clear up after themselves – the French were big on that – and she embraced that philosophy. I thought it would be a good thing to keep it going.’
‘She had her head screwed on, your late wife. To Tessa.’ Joel raised his glass in a toast.
Marc was touched by the gesture. ‘I’ll drink to that.’ He took a sip of his own champagne.
The brief, contemplative silence was broken by the twins bounding back into the living room.
‘We’ve done it, Dad!’ Liam announced. ‘Can we open our presents now?’
‘What about the wrapping paper?’ Marc tried and failed to assume a stern expression. The eager look on the boys’ faces made a smile twitch at his mouth.
‘Oh, I’m sure there’s going to be plenty more of that!’ Bella interjected. ‘I mean, what kind of aunt and uncle would we be if we hadn’t used twelve whole metres of wrapping paper for your presents?’
Liam and Luca giggled. Bella always managed to make them laugh.
‘What do you say, Dad? If I promise to help them clear up, do you think they can open their presents before lunch?’
Amid the cheers of ‘go on, Dad’ and ‘please!’ Marc knew he was outnumbered.
‘Oh, all right, then,’ he conceded. ‘But I’m holding you to that, Bella.’
Bella and Noah started to hand out the presents they’d brought, and as the boys began to unwrap theirs, Marc thought that, even if he had to be the referee between his brothers, it had definitely been the right decision to invite them.