Chapter 33
It was nine o’clock when the knocking started. She turned over in bed, disorientated for a moment, not sure where she was. Then she remembered Steven, her family. That it was Christmas Day.
The knocking came again, almost a banging, and she was suddenly alert. If everyone who might feasibly visit her on Christmas Day was here, then who was at the door? Her mind went straight to Lucien, to Annabelle. ‘Oh no,’ she said to herself. ‘No, no, no.’
She slid from under the covers, leaving Steven half-asleep beside her. ‘Who the flip is that?’ he asked, his eyes still closed.
‘No one, don’t worry,’ she said, before grabbing her dressing gown and making her way downstairs.
She flung open the door expecting to find a tear-stained Lucien with terrible news. Instead there was a woman, with blonde highlights, wrapped in a long winter coat and carrying a large Tupperware box.
‘Oh, sorry love, did I wake you up? I forget what it’s like when you don’t have kids to wake you at the crack of dawn,’ she said, thrusting the Tupperware forward.
There was a moment of confusion before Nicola’s brain lined up the necessary information. ‘Oh! Brenda!’ she said. ‘With the turkey.’
‘Well, yeah.’
She reached forward to take the box. It was still warm. ‘Wow, you must have been up really early to cook this already.’
‘Just a bit. It’s the one advantage of having little ones. Built-in alarm clock!’
Nicola laughed. ‘Well, it’s appreciated. In all honesty, I completely forgot.’
Brenda’s mouth dropped open in shock. ‘You forgot turkey? At Christmas?’
‘It’s a long story.’ She quickly explained a few of the highlights so that Brenda wouldn’t think she was being rude.
‘So your family came after all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Aw love, that’s great.’ Brenda leaned in and gave her a hug as if they’d known each other for years. ‘So pleased for you. Although’ – she pointed a finger at Nicola like an angry schoolteacher – ‘you should have told me you’d be alone. You’d have been more than welcome to join us, you know.’
‘Oh! Well, that’s so kind.’
‘It’s nothing. You saved our Christmas, letting us have that last turkey.’
‘And you’ve saved mine,’ she said, indicating the box. ‘I hadn’t thought what we’d be eating today what with… everything.’
‘Well,’ said Brenda, turning slightly to make her way back to her car. ‘You let me know if you need anything else. We have plenty of sprouts.’
Inside, Nicola put the turkey in the fridge and set about laying the table, pulling out the linen she’d bought, the placemats and napkins, the candlesticks that had seemed a little OTT but now looked perfect against the festive backdrop.
As an afterthought, she went to the windowsill and picked up the little angel, using it as a centrepiece for the spread.
She checked her phone again – no news from Lucien. But it was ten o’clock now, late enough for a quick text.
Hope everything’s OK.
There was a buzz back.
Yes. We’re OK. Annabelle is back in hospital but she is stable.
She replied:
OK, well, that’s good.
It seemed wrong to say ‘Merry Christmas’ and also wrong not to acknowledge the holiday. In the end, hoping it was enough, she wrote:
Thinking of you all, especially today
Back in the bedroom, Steven had finally wrestled himself from sleep.
‘Well, merry Christmas,’ he said, pulling a box wrapped in red paper and tied with a bow out of his suitcase with a flourish, almost falling out of bed in the process.
The ribbon was a little squashed and he tried to fluff it up with his hand.
‘Ooh, what’s this?’ she asked, realising in a moment of dismay that most of his gifts would be in the UK where she’d sent them – all she had for him today was a scarf.
She pulled the ribbon and the bow folded open, then ripped off the paper.
Inside was a small box, holding a ring edged with diamonds and sapphires.
‘Oh,’ she said, genuinely taken aback. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘It’s an eternity ring,’ he told her. ‘It means…’
‘I know,’ she said.
‘Together forever. No matter what.’
‘Despite handsome French guys and suspicious women answering the phone?’ she teased. It was amazing that what had seemed so dark and serious yesterday felt silly and light today.
‘Despite all the handsome French guys in Eymoutiers, and every single hot doctor in the hospital,’ he said.
‘You should have had that inscribed.’
‘Yeah, I tried. There wasn’t room.’
They laughed together at their shared, ridiculous humour before she slipped it onto her finger where it nestled against her engagement ring and wedding band. ‘It’s beautiful, Steven,’ she said, leaning in for a kiss.
Downstairs, the rest of the family had begun to emerge, all looking bleary-eyed but well rested. It was close to eleven and she realised she’d have to get the rest of the food on if they wanted to eat this side of New Year.
Mum was already peeling potatoes in the kitchen, Gabi hovering around her feet in hope that she’d drop a scrap, not realising that the turkey she could smell was not what was being chopped up on the surface above.
‘I couldn’t find the sprouts,’ Mum said. ‘But I’ve made a start on these.’
‘Yeah.’ She made a face. ‘When I thought you guys weren’t coming I kind of… stopped shopping. I didn’t bother getting any of that stuff in.’
‘You stopped shopping?’ Mum sounded astounded at the idea. ‘What were you going to eat today?’
‘I don’t know. A sandwich or something?’ she suggested, and her mum shook her head in mock despair, making her feel about fifteen again. ‘Or a mince pie. I made some myself. I’ve got a few.’
‘Nicola Smith! Who eats sandwiches on Christmas Day!’
‘I guess… not me?’ she said. ‘Would you like me to see if I can get some sprouts? I could ask Brenda?’
‘No need. I brought some in the car, just in case.’
‘You packed sprouts for a last-minute cross-Channel trip?’
‘I packed everything.’ Mum handed her the keys. ‘They’re in a box in the boot. Shame to waste them.’
Down in the hire car, she found a box, perfectly chilled in the cold weather, filled with potatoes and sprouts and carrots, a bag of flour, a box of eggs and two bottles of champagne.
Next to it, her mother had stacked four more boxes of home-made mince pies, a Christmas pudding and even a bottle of brandy.
Inside, she found Mum fiddling with her Bluetooth speaker. ‘How do you get this thing to work?’ she said.
Nicola laughed, took her mother’s phone and set it to stream some Christmas hits. ‘These do?’ she said.
‘Perfect.’
There was something about standing there in the kitchen with her mother on Christmas morning that felt timeless.
The number of times she’d helped out with peeling or mixing or chopping, or just sat in the kitchen as Mum busied herself with the accoutrements of Christmas, blended somehow into one.
She felt five years old and fifteen and twenty-five all at once.
The Pogues started their familiar refrain and Mum looked at her.
‘Want me to skip it?’ Nicola asked.
Mum had never been a fan of the song, thinking it rude.
But Nicola always felt the yearning beneath the sometimes aggressive lyrics, the sense of coming together each Christmas, of there being something timeless about the season; how, despite life’s ups and downs and disappointments, Christmastime came each year and how songs were sung and bells rung no matter what was happening in life or in the world at large.
It was melancholy, sure, but there was love there too.
Slade’s indisputably upbeat song came on next and Mum nodded. ‘That’s better,’ she said, grinning at her daughter. She put the peeler down for a moment and gave her a squeeze.
‘What was that for?’ Nicola laughed.
‘It’s just so lovely to see you. Oh, I know you’re all grown up now, but it doesn’t stop me worrying. Doesn’t stop me missing you.’
‘I know.’
‘But it’ll be different now,’ Mum said. ‘Now that I’ve done the journey once and I know I can do it. I’ll be back!’
‘What, like Terminator?’
Her mum laughed. ‘Well, hopefully I’ll be a bit more welcome than that.’
Now it was Nicola’s turn to hug her mother. ‘Mum, you’ll always be welcome. More than welcome.’
She saw her mum try to surreptitiously wipe a small tear from her eye but didn’t call attention to it. ‘I love you.’
‘I know. Me too.’
Steven wandered in. ‘Can I do anything?’
‘I think we’re set. Oh, you can chop some kindling if you want?’
‘That sounds like a suitably manly task.’
‘What, you mean the job I’ve been doing every day for the past few months?’
‘That would explain the muscles.’
‘You’d better believe it.’
The song changed and suddenly she heard the opening notes of ‘Last Christmas’. She raced to her phone, unthinking, and skipped to the next track, feeling a sense of comfort and relief when she heard Cliff Richard’s voice. Something she thought would never happen.
‘What’s the matter? Are you doing Whamageddon or something? Because I think if you’ve got to Christmas Day without hearing Georgie then you’ve pretty much completed the challenge,’ Steven joked.
But she couldn’t help it. She felt tears begin to course down her face suddenly at the thought of Lucien, and of Annabelle in the hospital.
Of last night. And the fact that here she was with her family, her husband, feeling that everything in her life was complete.
How lucky she was. How unlucky things felt for that little family.
‘Hey!’ Steven said, hugging her to him. ‘Sorry! I didn’t mean to—’
‘It’s not you.’
‘Then what?’
‘Just… just my friends. I’ll tell you later.’
He looked at her, head tilted.
‘Honestly, I’m fine. Go chop some wood or something.’
He disappeared.
‘It can be hard at Christmas sometimes,’ Mum said, still chopping potatoes. ‘It’s an emotional time.’
‘Yeah.’
They were silent for a bit, listening to Cliff give way to Wizzard and then Elton John.
The songs that had accompanied her festive season for years and years.
Maybe next year things would be different with Annabelle.
Maybe she’d get the heart she needed and suddenly that song would bring only feelings of gratefulness and joy.
By 2 p.m., the table was laden. She’d served Brenda’s beautifully cooked turkey onto a platter, accompanied by pigs in blankets.
Another platter was covered with vegetables – roast parsnips and carrots, and of course the Brussels sprouts.
Mum had brought her home-made cranberry sauce, and they’d decanted some into a small bowl for people to help themselves.
‘I hope you’re not too sick of Christmas dinner after last night,’ Mum said.
‘I forgot you’d already had one lot of turkey. ’
‘No, don’t worry. We had chicken. And salmon. And cheese.’
‘No turkey at Christmas?’
‘I know. No sprouts either.’
Mum shook her head in something close to disbelief. ‘Well, I never!’
Then they all sat down together, pulling crackers and telling terrible jokes.
Forcing one another to don paper hats and pose for photos.
Ladening plates with traditional food and recounting tales from the months in which they’d been apart.
Gabi, despite being shut in the other room while they’d served, had managed to creep through a tiny gap and wind her way around Nicola’s ankles.
She slipped the little cat a piece of turkey and she ate it with such purring gusto that Nicola worried her mum might hear.
She was thirty-five. But somehow, in this situation, she was still worried she might be told off.
They were all stuffed by the time Mum served the pudding, but it was tradition to have at least a small serving. Mum, as always, had slipped a silver sixpence into the mixture, meaning one of them would be able to make a wish.
When Nicola pushed her fork into the crumbling, sticky, curranty, delicious mess of her portion, she felt the hardness of metal and pulled out the sixpence.
‘Ooh,’ Harriet said with fond, mock excitement. ‘What are you going to wish for?’
‘That,’ Nicola said, thinking suddenly of Lucien and his family and knowing exactly what she’d wish for, ‘is my secret.’