Wild About You

Chapter 1 #2

The party’s okay once Mum’s sobered up and I’ve had the Jed conversations (‘Yes, I know; yes, it’s a shame; yes, these things do happen; yes, onwards and upwards; yes, more fish in the sea’).

Antonio and his husband Dai are in charge of the playlist (having wrested it from Vinny’s wife, Amelie, who, when she can escape from their very gorgeous but high-maintenance four-year-old twins, loves a raucous party and has the music to match, which isn’t exactly the vibe my mum’s going for this evening), and they have excellent Christmas music taste.

I’m actually kind of enjoying myself, I reflect a little later, as I head towards a large platter of mince pies on the dining table.

(We moved the table to line one of the walls to make more space for our guests.) I think Mum’s enjoying herself too.

I’m very glad that she decided to host this party and that I came.

I reach out for a mince pie at the exact same moment as someone else reaches for one too – a man with large and strong-looking, but slim, lightly tanned hands. Dominic, obviously.

As our hands brush, I give a tiny squeak, and then roll my eyes internally at myself. I might be suddenly single again for the first time in a long time, but that’s no reason for me to be behaving like a prudish Victorian when I accidentally bump hands with someone for the merest of seconds.

I can see Mum with her eye on us from the other side of the room and I don’t want her to think her party isn’t going well, so I need to make some polite conversation.

‘Nice tie,’ I say. ‘Holly. Very Christmassy. Nice colours, too.’

‘Thanks. I like your Christmas jumper,’ Dominic responds in kind. ‘Also nice colours and very Christmassy.’ He glances down at it, and his eyes remain on my chest for a fraction of a second too long, before he raises them to my face again.

I resist a strong urge to giggle and then we stand there awkwardly for a long moment. I glance over at Mum and, yep, she’s still watching us.

‘The mince pies look good,’ I observe.

‘Yes, they do,’ agrees Dominic. ‘The right amount of filling and that dusting of icing sugar on top is particularly enticing.’

I decide to ignore the fact that he is clearly being sarcastic with his mince pie enthusiasm, and say, ‘The pastry looks extremely fine too.’

Dominic nods, and then I nod, and then we just stand there.

One of us should really make an excuse and wander away.

My mind’s frozen, though. The only excuse I can think of is popping to the loo, and no-one takes a mince pie and immediately says they’re off to the bathroom unless they’re weirdly keen on toilet-based eating.

I’m ecstatic a moment later when Vinny pops up and says, ‘Hey, Dom. Hey, Flav,’ and starts wittering on about some Christmas football match.

I take the opportunity to say, ‘Lovely to see you again, Dominic. I’ll see you later.’

‘Good to catch up. Bye,’ Dominic replies, sounding rudely enthusiastic that I’m leaving.

I’m heading back across the room when my mum appears in front of me and takes me into a corner and tells me that there’s a raffle I need to buy a ticket for, because it’s for new curtains for the village hall, which is a very important cause.

The tickets are twenty quid each, which is surely literally twenty times as much as you’d expect, but I can’t say no (apparently the village hall cannot make do with regular curtains; they have to be brocade ones, and they are expensive).

Mum tells me that she’s going to draw the raffle later because she doesn’t like upsetting people so she’d rather do it when she’s alone and then get in touch with the winners individually, so on her instruction I carefully tuck my ticket into my phone case, and think nothing further of it. (I never win good prizes in raffles.)

The rest of the evening is lovely, and I really am glad to have done it. In the summer, at the barbecue my mum held, I got through all the condolences about my dad, and now I’ve got through all the condolences about my marriage. I’ll be able to visit home with condolence impunity now.

I’m quite glad, though, when everyone begins to leave. It’s been strangely tiring this evening, with all the emotion of this being our first Christmas without Dad, coupled with the conversations I’ve had to have about Jed.

Dominic’s one of the last to leave. As he goes, we vaguely smile at each other and then my mum suddenly trips and falls against me, and I get pushed right under the mistletoe with Dominic.

‘You need to kiss,’ trills Mum.

I take a moment to hope very heartily that she never drinks a drop of alcohol ever again, before finding myself staring at Dominic’s admittedly unusually beautifully shaped mouth and remembering kissing him all those years ago.

The fine lines etched on his face suit him.

He didn’t have those when we were younger.

I’m not sure quite why at the beginning of the evening I thought he wasn’t that attractive any more.

I look up into his eyes and see that he’s been gazing at my mouth too. There’s a weird moment of nothing, and then we both blink too much, and then do fake laughs and air-kiss each other and wish each other an extremely enthusiastic happy Christmas.

And then everyone’s finally gone and Mum kicks her shoes off (she loves a very high court shoe and always has sore feet at the end of any kind of social event) and announces that she’s going to do her raffle draw.

I catch Vinny and Amelie, and then Antonio and Dai, giving each other glances (and remember that Jed and I really did not in recent times have that lovely unspoken communication that happily-together couples have), and then Amelie and Dai both say that they’re going up to bed, clearly so that Mum can be alone with her three children for the end of the evening.

Mum’s gone to Dad’s old study, which she has decided she should make hers rather than leaving it as a mausoleum to him, which, while another sad reminder that he’s gone, is definitely the right decision for her.

She calls through to us to say that she’s just finalising her raffle draw, while Antonio tells us that we all need a Christmas Eve hot chocolate, and puts the kettle on.

He’s just set four mugs topped with marshmallows down on the table when Mum comes into the room, a big beam on her face.

‘You will not believe what’s happened.’ She joins us at the table and wraps her hands round her warm mug.

We all wait while she takes a sip.

Eventually, Vinny says, ‘So what has happened?’

‘Well. I wish I had a drum roll for this.’ She pauses dramatically. ‘Flavia has won the main prize in the raffle.’

‘Really!’ I’m very surprised, because I don’t win things. I’m also pleased, because I’m guessing from Mum’s happy face that it’s a good prize. ‘What is it?’

‘A safari!’ she says. ‘Over New Year!’

‘What?’ I ask, stunned.

‘I know. How wonderful!’ She’s still beaming, apparently unaware that a lot of people, me included, while obviously recognising that a safari would be an amazing thing to do (I have never done one), don’t necessarily want to be told on Christmas Eve that they’re going on a safari in a few days’ time.

I mean, I am of course very grateful to have won such an amazing prize, but I think I’d have liked a little bit more notice.

I’m also embarrassingly childishly scared of lions, but I’m sure I could get round that somehow.

‘Can I… change the dates?’ I ask. I don’t feel like I own the right clothes for a safari and there aren’t many shopping days over Christmas.

And I have plans for New Year’s Eve. I’d love to go in a few months’ time instead.

I’m usually keen on spontaneous things, but right now, after the huge upheaval I’ve had in the past few months in ending my marriage, moving continents and finding a new job and a flat, this feels like one piece of spontaneity too many.

‘I think Flavia might need some details like where, how long for, are flights booked and paid for, who with. The basics,’ Vinny suggests.

‘Who donated such a cool prize?’ Antonio asks.

‘Your father and I booked it at the beginning of the year as a treat for ourselves. We would obviously have told you all about it, but he fell ill very shortly afterwards and then I forgot about it. I only really thought about it again recently, and decided that I would donate it to the raffle rather than go through yet more admin to get a refund.’ Mum has had to do a lot of very tricky admin this year.

The three of us have of course helped her with it to the best of our ability, but we haven’t been able to relieve her of all of it and there’s been a lot.

Both private and governmental organisations really could have more empathy and make things easier for bereaved people.

‘So are we going together?’ I’d love to go with her.

‘No, I’m not going.’ She smiles at me, her eyes suddenly looking a little misty, and I feel bad for having asked; she probably can’t bear the thought of going without Dad. I shift along the sofa towards her and pull her into a hug.

‘The details?’ Antonio prompts Mum.

‘South Africa. Flying to Cape Town. All paid for. Leaving on the evening of the twenty-eighth and home on the morning of the second. Just a short trip. Table Mountain, a night in Cape Town, a two-day safari in a game reserve, back to Cape Town for a New Year’s Eve beach party and then lunch on New Year’s Day and home that evening.

It’s all in an organised group.’ Mum’s rattled the facts out so fast that I haven’t fully kept up, possibly because I’m still just so astonished.

‘Wow,’ I say. ‘Sounds amazing.’ I feel guilty about the fact that I still can’t help wishing I’d had more time to prepare.

‘I’m so excited for you.’ Mum’s eyes are sparkling and she’s smiling and generally looking happy in a way that has rarely happened since we lost Dad.

I look to my left and mouth gaah at Antonio, who incredibly helpfully just shrugs.

I do the same in Vinny’s direction, and he mouths Sorry and says, ‘Sounds amazing.’

‘Erm.’ I’m still wondering whether there’s any chance of switching the trip to Easter for example.

‘I know.’ Mum smiles some more and then reaches over and squeezes my hand. ‘I’m so pleased for you. Finally some good luck.’

‘Yes, but I…’ On top of the extremely short notice aspect and the lions, I’m now thinking about the specific plans I had for the next few days.

I was supposed to be going to a party at Jenna and Pranav’s on New Year’s Eve.

And after moving back here from Australia after Jed and I split up, and being lucky enough to land a one-academic-year maternity-cover teaching job, I was planning to do some extra lesson prep during the remainder of the school holidays so that this term will be a bit less hectic than last.

Mum shakes her head. ‘I know that you’re going to feel guilty about winning and as though you should give such an amazing prize to someone else, but honestly, you deserve it.’

I can’t say anything about switching the dates. Mum’s too excited for me. I don’t want to upset her. Jenna and Pranav will understand.

‘It makes me very happy to think that you’ll be going on it in our place,’ Mum says. ‘A short and sweet trip. It will be spectacular. You know what your father was like. He didn’t like to go away for too long and leave his garden, but when he did, he liked to do an amazing trip.’

There is only one thing I can say.

‘I can’t wait,’ I tell her.

* * *

I’m so mind-blown by the whole ‘I’m going on a safari in four days’ time’ thing, and we’re so busy with Christmas Day and my adorable twin nephews’ excitement and keeping my mum occupied and not thinking too much about Dad, that it isn’t until after breakfast on Boxing Day that it suddenly occurs to me while Mum and I are out for a walk round the fields on the hills above our village, wellied-up because it’s been sleeting, that she had two safari tickets and she didn’t want the admin of asking for a refund.

‘Is someone else going on the safari?’ I ask.

‘Yes. It’s a group of twelve people.’

I’m opening my mouth to ask who else won the raffle when she points to a frozen spider’s web and says, ‘Oh look. That’s so beautiful.’

And then we start talking about the delicate beauty of webs in general and then move on to silkworms, and I decide not to drag the conversation back to the raffle and the trip.

Maybe Mum knows who won the other ticket, maybe she doesn’t, but it really doesn’t matter.

Actually, if she knew that someone I knew had won it, she’d have mentioned it, so she can’t know.

So it will be eleven strangers plus me, which will be a good thing.

I’ve been making myself do new stuff following the divorce and it’s been good for me.

I’ll enjoy it.