The Christmas Wish, page 26
A perfect second first kiss.
‘That was unexpected,’ he murmured, dazed and delighted as we broke apart. ‘Did Father Christmas only just get the letter I sent him when I was thirteen? I know the post is slow, but that would be ridiculous.’
‘Sometimes it takes people a really long time to get the message,’ I replied, my hands still resting on his shoulders. ‘But better late than never.’
Snow fell from the sky and flew up from the ground, swirling around the two of us as though we were standing in our very own snow globe, freshly shaken.
‘I should get back inside.’ Dev’s eyes lingered on mine as Pari ran joyous circles around Manny and Cerys who were still wrestling outside the front door. ‘I only came out to see what all the screaming was about. We’re about to eat, but I would love to see you before you leave. Maybe we could meet up tomorrow or something?’
‘If there is a tomorrow,’ I replied, only a little sadly. ‘I’m all yours.’
He smiled so wide the dimple in his left cheek popped. ‘Is that a promise?’
‘One way or another, I will see you tomorrow,’ I nodded, biting my lip to stop myself from tearing up. ‘I hope you don’t forget.’
‘As if I could forget a kiss like that,’ Dev replied, picking up Pari and walking back towards his parents’ house.
Dad was upstairs when Cerys and Manny called a truce, exhausted and soaking wet through. He didn’t meet us at Dorothy’s party, he didn’t put on his firework display and he didn’t come downstairs for a cup of tea when we all arrived home either. By the time everyone decided it was time for bed (everyone except for Manny who was last seen snogging Drew the butcher’s face off in Dorothy’s conservatory), the only person who had spoken to him was Mum and it didn’t look as though their conversation had been the highlight of her day.
Opening the dining-room door, I crept along the hallway to the kitchen, the dulcet tones of Buddy the Elf whispering through the walls even though Artemis and Arthur were definitely supposed to be asleep by now. Upstairs, floorboards creaked and taps ran, but all the lights were out, signalling that another Christmas Day was almost over.
‘Might as well stuff myself stupid,’ I whispered, making a beeline for the fridge. My appetite was back with a vengeance today.
‘I’ve warned you about the gout,’ said a voice in the dark. ‘And I’ll not sit up all night rubbing your legs like I did your grandad’s.’
I flicked on the light above the oven to see Nan sat at the table, calmly drinking a mug of something hot and steaming while my heart pounded against my ribs.
‘Christ on a bike, you scared me half to death,’ I said between deep calming breaths. Death by grandmother would have been an interesting one to add to the list.
‘Blasphemy on Christmas Day,’ she tutted. ‘Your great-grandma would’ve had your guts for garters. There’s some Horlicks in the pan if you want some. There’s half a bottle of Baileys in it, don’t tell your mother.’
‘Good job I didn’t drink the whole bottle myself this time,’ I said, grabbing a mug from the cupboard and helping myself. Nan sipped her boozy Horlicks and watched me, smiling like the cat who’d not only got the cream but had also bought the cow for good measure.
‘What are you grinning at?’ I asked as I pulled out the chair opposite her.
‘I heard you’ve been up to no good with the boy next door,’ she replied.
‘Depends on your definition of good.’
I took a tiny sip and then a giant gulp. Horlicks with Baileys was obscenely good, why had no one tried this before?
Nan gave me a knowing wink, bathed in the golden glow of the light on the extractor fan. Mum always said she had been remarkably beautiful in her day, my nan, but I’d say she still was, if you bothered to look.
‘Last I heard he was engaged,’ she said, patting her hair into place for me. ‘I hope he’s filled out a bit, he always was a lanky little thing. Couldn’t stop a pig in a ginnel, that one.’
‘Definitely not skinny now,’ I assured her. ‘Filled out very nicely as it happens. And hasn’t been engaged for months, just so you know.’
Her left eyebrow rose like a Welsh Bette Davis.
‘Well, I’m glad. I know you’re not supposed to say things like this these days, but I don’t like to think of you down in London on your own. I’d be much happier knowing you’ve got someone taking care of you, making sure you’re happy.’
‘It was one kiss, might be a bit early to be giving him that kind of responsibility,’ I replied. ‘Actually, I don’t think you should rely on any one person to make you happy.’
‘Definitely not a man,’ Nan agreed.
‘I reckon it’s more of a DIY project,’ I smiled. ‘But I’m all right, Nan, I’m OK.’
‘Really?’
‘Even if I’m not that happy right now, I will be,’ I said, certain now that I meant it.
She nodded slowly and I blew on my hot drink. It really was good. Could spiked Horlicks be my million-dollar business idea? Was this the reason I’d been kept here for ten long Christmas Days? To share this wonder with the world?
‘As long as you’re not lonely, that’s all I need to know,’ Nan replied. ‘It’s the one thing I wouldn’t wish on anyone.’
‘I have been,’ I admitted, only fully understanding the truth of it as I spoke. ‘Being with someone who didn’t want to be with me, working at a job where I never felt like I belonged. Those things made me lonely. I cut myself off from a lot of people for a long time because I was miserable. But maybe loneliness isn’t always a bad thing, perhaps it’s more of a reminder.’
‘How’s that, pet?’
I thought about the deep, dark emptiness inside me, the one I was still nursing when Manny and I drove home for Christmas. The one I’d tried to fill with endless ice cream and Taylor Swift songs and online shopping and lying awake until 3 a.m. reading the Wikipedia entries for every single episode of The OC on my phone. No wonder none of that had worked (although Taylor really had tried). You simply cannot cure loneliness on your own. Ten days ago, there was a void in me. Now, I was full to bursting with love and hope and dreams of what might happen next.
‘Loneliness is how you know something is missing,’ I said. ‘Feeling lonely means you haven’t given up hope.’
‘And that’s why you have always been the clever one.’ Her smile softened and flickered at the edges. ‘I’ve been lonely ever since I lost your grandad.’
She stated it so simply, as though it was simply a fact and not the most heartbreaking thing I’d ever heard. I was so little when Grandad died and I didn’t really remember him. I couldn’t imagine how it must feel to spend thirty years of your life missing someone. My face began to crumble, bottom lip trembling, but Nan remained stoic as ever.
‘Pssh, don’t look at me like that,’ she said, flapping a slender hand in my direction. ‘What I mean is, I don’t want that for you. Whatever else it might be, I do know loneliness can be very cruel. You can’t pick and choose when it visits and it often overstays its welcome, sometimes it stays so long you get used to it and forget to ask it to leave. I would hate for you to fall into that trap.’
I blinked back a tear before she saw and sniffed subtly into my mug. I definitely wasn’t the cleverest one at this table.
‘I promise, I won’t,’ I said. ‘All that stuff I said at lunch, that applies to you too. You could still find someone else?’
‘Of course I could, do you know how many men have tried?’ Nan looked pleased as punch. ‘And not just men. Can’t say I wasn’t curious when Miranda from the WI invited me on that ladies-only Greek cruise last summer.’
‘Wow, OK,’ I said, blinking. ‘You do you.’
She stirred her drink with a little silver teaspoon, a misty look in her pale blue eyes. ‘I’m happy with my lot. You read about all these people falling in love at a hundred years old, running off with a fancy man half their age, but who can be doing with all that faff? It’s not for me.’
‘Sometimes the faff is worth it though,’ I said, keeping my voice light. ‘Don’t you think Grandad would’ve wanted you to have someone to keep you company?’
‘No he bloody wouldn’t!’ she guffawed, breaking the quiet spell that had settled over the kitchen. ‘He’d want me still in my widow’s black, wailing at the edge of a cliff and cursing the gods for taking him away. He always said if he went first, I couldn’t remarry unless they were richer, cleverer or better-looking than him and I always said that would never happen because that man didn’t exist. I’m very happy to have been proven right. They broke the mould when they made your grandad.’
She patted my hand and let her gaze wander off, her eyes glazing over as they went, reliving fragments of a life well lived. I pinched a strand of damp hair that had escaped from my topknot and pushed it back behind my ear before she could do it for me. She looked so happy. I wanted that. To sit in the kitchen with my grandchildren on Christmas Day, remembering a life full of joy. Dangerously close to tearing up again, I turned to look out the window and watched the last few clouds melt away, leaving a perfect inky blue sky dotted with diamond stars and a near full moon. It was almost impossible to see the night sky from my flat in London and not only because of the smog and light pollution. The only window that didn’t face the alley where the bins lived was directly opposite the flat of a man who liked to stay up all night screaming at video games and really quite frequently playing with himself. Manny came over once and tried to keep count but gave up by 10 p.m. I mostly kept the curtains drawn.
‘Here.’ I turned back to see Nan hiding something in her hand. ‘I’ve got one last Christmas present for you.’
A shaft of moonlight fell through the window and sliced the table in two as she uncurled her fingers.
There it was.
The silver sixpence.
‘Is that the sixpence from the pudding?’ I asked, sitting on my hands, too afraid to touch it. How could such a tiny, inconspicuous thing cause me so much trouble?
‘It is.’ She placed the coin on the table, pushing it towards me with her index finger.
‘So you made the wish?’
‘No,’ Nan replied. ‘I didn’t want to waste it. Couldn’t think of a single thing I might ask for that would make my life better than it already is.’
‘But if you didn’t make a wish then why …’ My voice faded away and the sixpence winked at me in the silvery moonlight until I made myself pick it up. ‘You could wish for anything,’ I said. ‘You could wish for more time with Grandad.’
‘Oh, Gwen, love.’ Nan’s sad smile reappeared as she stood up slowly. ‘Wishes are for the future, not the past. What’s done is done and we all have to live with it, that’s how life goes. Besides, I cannot imagine going through Brexit with your grandad. He would have gone mad, we’d be having a second Bonfire Night in his honour. And think of the man with an iPhone? Jesus, Mary and the donkey, it would have been the end of our marriage. I’d never have been able to watch Pointless in peace and I do like that Richard Osman. He writes books now, you know?’
‘You really didn’t make a wish?’ I asked again, cradling the sixpence in my palm very, very carefully. ‘Nothing at all?’
‘I did not make a wish,’ she confirmed. ‘It’s all yours.’
I didn’t know where to start, everyone needed something. Mum and Dad, Cerys and Manny and even though she claimed she didn’t, my beautiful, lonely Nan.
‘I just want everyone to be happy,’ I whispered.
‘That’s a lot to ask of a sixpence.’ She placed her mug and teaspoon in the sink, on her way to bed. ‘Make a wish for yourself then make it come true, don’t leave the important things up to anyone else, not even fate.’
It was sound advice.
‘I’m off to bed,’ Nan said with a tiny ladylike yawn. ‘I only came to make that Horlicks to help me sleep. That bedroom’s like a furnace, your father must be made of money the way he heats this house.’
Whenever a major decision had to be made in the Baker household, it was made at the kitchen table. So many decisions had been made here, big and small, difficult and easy, from which pizza toppings to get to which universities to apply to. The close proximity to the kettle made it a far more sensible choice than the dining-room table, plus the back door was right there in case anyone needed to make a speedy exit. I could still remember the happiness on my dad’s face when we sat here together and filled out my application for the Abbott & Howe trainee scheme. We went through the best part of an entire box of teabags that day. Now I could simply wish for anything in the entire world and make it happen, no debate necessary.
When I closed my eyes, the first thing I saw was Dev. I could wish for him to fall in love with me and whisk me away to a life of endless bliss. Imagine it, the two of us together for ever. But how dependable and legally binding were these wishes? What happens after the happily ever after? As someone who did not consider direct-to-DVD Disney films canon, I realised you never really did find out what happened after the credits rolled. Were there any loopholes when it came to wishing on a star? As a lawyer, I would like to see the contract first. Imagine if you only found out Prince Charming was actually a racist who never cleaned the toilet after you married him? Poor Cinders. You had to assume divorce law was complicated in those times. The Little Mermaid was the perfect example of someone who didn’t read the fine print. Make a deal with a Sea Witch, almost end up as plankton. And I never had been convinced of their happily ever after, emotionally healthy young men don’t marry a sixteen-year-old fish-child simply because they’re very pretty, good at karaoke and their dog likes them. That marriage was doomed from the start.
I didn’t want Dev to be with me because I’d wished for it. Life was about choices, me making mine, him making his. As someone who struggled to choose between a hoisin duck wrap and a pole-caught tuna baguette at lunch, I couldn’t think of anything more romantic than someone choosing you and you choosing them right back, every single day for the rest of your lives. Wishing for it wouldn’t feel right.
Placing the sixpence on the table, I pushed it around in circles with the tip of my finger, thinking of everything that had happened over the last ten days. Confronting Michael, fixing things with Cerys, telling my dad I’d decided to leave my job, and so much more. I’d done those things all by myself, I made them happen. I had so much more power than I knew. I hadn’t been stuck for the last ten days, it had been much longer than that. Months. Years maybe. But no more.
‘All I want is tomorrow,’ I said, sliding the coin off the edge of the table and squeezing it so tightly, I was sure it would leave an imprint on the palm of my hand. ‘That’s my wish. I wish for tomorrow.’
It wasn’t very romantic. It wasn’t dramatic or spectacular, but it was more than anyone had the right to ask for. To wake up in the morning and find the world still turning.
Slipping the sixpence into my pocket, I walked over to the sink and washed out my mug, looking out at the snow-covered garden. Everything sparkled with stillness, not a single footprint in the snow, and I wondered if it would still be there when I woke up or if I’d be right back where I started. You could keep your endless riches and your prince charmings.
A tomorrow would be more than enough for me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I woke up to the sound of someone banging on my door and calling my name.
‘Gwen? Are you up?’
So the sixpence hadn’t worked.
It was crushing. I’d really believed it might be different this time. I stayed under the covers, refusing to cry, and tried to think happy thoughts. Chris Hemsworth’s triceps, Cadbury’s Caramilk chocolate, Bennifer getting back together. I had been gifted with an eternity to read all those daily deal books I’d downloaded to my Kindle and never, ever even opened. Or at least start a couple of them. I would find a way to deal with this. I would find a way to survive. Except I didn’t have any Caramilk and all the shops were closed.
I would never eat Caramilk again.
‘What are you doing still in bed?’ asked the voice at the door.
‘Contemplating existential dread,’ I said, choking back a sob from underneath my blankets.
‘Well can you do it somewhere other than the dining room? I want to hoover up before lunch.’
My dad wanted to hoover? I wasn’t even sure Steven Baker knew what a vacuum cleaner was. I threw off a blanket that was not my duvet and rolled into the red-hot radiator, searing the flesh on my arse and waking me right up.
‘What day is it?’ I yelled, fighting with the camp bed as I scrambled upright. The disembodied voice at the door was not my father’s, it belonged to my mum, and I wasn’t in my bedroom, I was in the dining room, right where I’d gone to sleep the night before.
‘It’s Monday, Boxing Day,’ she replied, standing over me in a pair of jeans and the deep green jumper Cerys gave her yesterday. ‘How much did you have to drink last night?’
The sun shone brighter, the sound of children’s laughter filled the air and the world even smelled sweeter – or had Mum finally uncorked the bottle of Estée Lauder Beautiful I’d watched her unwrap ten times? Didn’t matter. Whatever it was, it was glorious. My life had meaning again. The promise of Caramilk was back on the table.
‘I don’t believe it,’ I said, scrambling around on the floor for my phone. There it was. December 26th. Zero texts from Aunt Gloria and one WhatsApp from Manny that just said ‘thank you’ seventy-four times in a row with an aubergine emoji at the end.
‘Gwen, are you feeling all right?’ Mum asked as I leapt to my feet, the camp bed snapping shut like a Venus flytrap behind me.
‘Better than all right,’ I replied, sweeping her up in a giant hug and squeezing until she squealed. ‘I’m amazing, everything is amazing. It’s Boxing Day, it’s the day after Christmas. It’s the best day ever!’
She fought me off with a Dyson stick and gave me a suspicious look. ‘Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?’
