Chapter 38

38

‘I’m sorry,’ Tommy is saying. ‘I know it sounds mad but I just didn’t know how to tell you. It just sort of happened. I took Daisy out last night, like I always do on Christmas Eve. And she said, “Why not come to us?” Then her mum opened the door and Daisy blurted it out and Catherine said?—’

‘Tommy, it’s not that,’ Lena cuts in, although it is that. It’s all of it. ‘It’s the fact that we’ve been messaging and even spoken today. We spoke this afternoon! And you said it had all been lovely and I just assumed?—’

‘I know, darling. I’m an idiot. I just didn’t know what to tell you.’ He stops then, saying nothing more. And Lena shivers in her jumper in the darkness of Michael’s garden and remains silent too.

Moments stretch. A light wind rustles the trees. Lena picks up a handful of snow, barely noticing that it numbs her hand as she scrunches it into a tight lump.

Because really, all of her feels numb now. Tommy spent Christmas Day with his ex-wife and her beautifully coordinated baubles and his parents loved it. Of course they did. They would also love Tommy and Catherine to reconcile, and perhaps this is the first step towards it? With a start, Lena realises she is crying. She tries to wrestle her emotions under control, but as a russet hen juts her head out of the little wooden house, she emits a sob.

‘Lena, you’re upset,’ Tommy says, sounding choked himself. ‘Please don’t be upset.’

‘Don’t tell me whether or not to be upset!’

‘Okay, okay! I’m sorry…’

She rubs at her face but can’t stop crying now. Briefly, she wonders why, when it’s so extremely cold out here, her tears aren’t forming speckles of ice.

‘I don’t want to talk any more tonight,’ she murmurs, stomping back to the cottage now.

‘Please don’t go. Please talk to me, Leen. I just wish you were here with me now?—’

‘Where are you?’ she asks, although he has already told her he’s back at the flat, and that his parents are spending the night at Catherine’s. But she wants to hear him say it again.

‘I’m here at the flat by myself.’

She rubs at her cold nose. ‘What happened to all the Christmas food you’d ordered?’

‘I took everything over there this morning. And then when I came home tonight I poured myself a whacking great drink.’

‘Right.’ He’s trying to lighten things, but she isn’t biting.

‘And I’m sorry but I had a cigarette in the garden,’ he adds.

‘Did you,’ she says flatly. She bites her lip. ‘It hasn’t just been today, has it? There was your lunch date too?—’

‘That wasn’t a date!’ he protests. ‘I told you, it was just?—’

‘I hate this,’ she exclaims, anger rising up in her suddenly.

‘I know you do. But honestly, there’s nothing for you to?—’

‘Tommy, do you understand?’ Lena snaps. ‘I hate the way this has made me feel. As if I’m a jealous and insecure person, which I’m not. Even after what Max did, cheating on me all that time. It still didn’t make me like that because that was about him. It was him being pathetic and weak and needing his ego stroking by a younger woman. But even he didn’t turn me into a jealous and insecure woman and you’re not going to either?—’

‘Lena!’ Tommy cries, and she realises she’s been shouting. ‘I don’t want to turn you into anything! I think you’re perfect just as you are.’ She realises he is crying too. And now Shelley appears in the doorway, her face awash with concern. She steps out into the snow and touches Lena’s arm. And Lena finishes the call abruptly and Shelley puts her arms around her, pulling her close.

‘Come inside,’ she murmurs. ‘Come on, honey. It’ll be all right.’

Lena blots her face on her jumper sleeve. They step into the kitchen where Pearl and Niall are drinking tea at the table.

‘Leen, are you all right?’ Pearl asks, jumping up.

Lena shakes her head and Niall gets up too, about to leave the room. ‘No, Niall, it’s fine. No need to rush off.’ She rubs at her stinging eyes. ‘Just a bit of a thing with my boyfriend?—’

‘Oh, Lena.’ Pearl hugs her tightly. ‘I’m sure it was nothing. Daisy probably just wanted him there…’

She nods and Shelley hands her a glass of wine. ‘What a Christmas,’ Lena announces, shaking her head.

Niall still looks as if he’s walked into the wrong room at a hotel and a conference is going on. ‘I’m sorry there’s stuff going on at home, Lena.’ He pauses. ‘But look, I just want to say you’ve all…’ Now he glances at Pearl. ‘Somehow, you’ve managed to make this a brilliant Christmas.’

‘I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the day.’ Lena manages a smile.

‘Yeah.’ He clears his throat. ‘It’s been… pretty memorable.’ He smiles then, and without needing to say anything, both he and Pearl step outside into the sparkling garden, away from the others. Here, as they walk down towards Michael’s snow-covered vegetable patch, Niall takes her hand. The simple gesture feels so natural and right – Elias wasn’t the hand-holding sort – and Pearl’s heart seems to soar as she smiles up at him. ‘I wonder how long we’re going to be snowed in?’ she asks.

Niall chuckles. ‘Another few days would be bearable, wouldn’t they?’

‘They would,’ she agrees. ‘Honestly, I think I could cope with that?—’

‘Pearl,’ he cuts in suddenly. ‘I just want to thank you…’

‘For what?’ She is genuinely surprised.

He shrugs, as if unsure how to express it. ‘For helping me through this time of year, corny as that sounds. Honestly, I was dreading it.’

‘I’m glad,’ she says. ‘I mean, I’m glad you’ve been here with us. It’s been…’ She breaks off, and they look at each other in the glow of light from the cottage. ‘It’s been wonderful,’ she adds. Then she reaches up and kisses his cheek, and then her lips are on his and they are kissing in the crisp, cold night, his hands wrapped around hers.

As they pull apart he looks hesitant. ‘I’d love to see you,’ he starts, ‘when you’re back in London. Would that be okay? I’m sorry, I don’t even know how you feel about all of that. If you even want to meet someone. It sounds as if your life’s pretty full?—’

‘I was seeing someone,’ she cuts in, ‘for a few months. It’s just finished…’

‘Oh, I understand,’ Niall says quickly. ‘It’s not what you want. I totally get that. I haven’t seen anyone since the split…’

‘No, what I mean is,’ Pearl clarifies, ‘I finished it because it wasn’t right. Because I didn’t want to be with someone just for the sake of it, you know?’

Niall nods and their footsteps crunch into the snow as they make their way back to the cottage. ‘Yes, I do know.’

She looks at him as she pushes open the front door. ‘But yes, I’d like to see you,’ she adds, ‘when we’re all thrown back into our real lives. I’d like that very much.’

At ten to midnight on Christmas night, the three women settle by the fire in the lounge. Everyone else has gone to bed but they need time together, just to reflect on the strangest Christmas they’ve ever had.

Christmas night always feels weird to Shelley. It’s the end of a whirl of a day, when the enormous dinner is over and the furls of wrapping paper have all been swept up and stuffed into bin bags. All the preparations and fuss, and it’s over in a blink. She wonders momentarily if Joel’s mother has done her usual thing of gathering up the biggest pieces of wrapping paper to be taken home and ironed and reused next Christmas. And if in fact Joel really did remember to buy more wrapping paper for his parents’ gifts, as she’d asked him to. Not that it matters now, she decides as Stan jumps up and settles on the sofa beside her.

‘Leen, it’ll be fine when you get home,’ Pearl assures her.

She shrugs. ‘Will it though?’

‘Of course it will,’ Shelley says firmly. ‘Tommy adores you. You know that.’

Lena inhales, her head filled now with the image of a lavish wedding at High Elms, with the string quartet and the tables all set out with napkins folded in that particular way that Annabelle likes. ‘Maybe he does,’ she says. ‘But I’m not sure how I feel any more.’

‘Oh, honey.’ Shelley touches her arm and Lena gets up to fetch the wine bottle from the kitchen.

While she’s gone, and as Pearl puts another log on the fire, Shelley picks up her phone. It’s been so busy today that she’s barely looked at it. But now she sees a text notification. There are two from Joel; one joking about his mother nursing a single drink throughout the day. She smiles at that.

However, the second message doesn’t make Shelley smile. At first she thinks there’s something wrong with her phone or that it’s some kind of scam. Because it doesn’t make any sense. But no, it’s definitely from Joel. Her heart seems to stop as she reads it again.

Joel

You were magnificent that last time. Like a goddess on top of me.

It’s a message that, clearly, Joel didn’t intend to send to her. And at one minute to midnight on Christmas Day, Shelley knows for certain that her marriage is over forever.