The Christmas Wish, page 28
Artemis gave a comically exaggerated frown, hands on her skinny ten-year-old hips. ‘But you stay up later than we do, and you still get presents.’
‘That’s because we know Father Christmas,’ Manny replied smoothly. ‘We’re all old mates.’
‘Why can’t we be friends with him?’ Arthur asked. ‘Doesn’t he like children?’
‘Doesn’t want to get in trouble with the authorities,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘Wouldn’t look good, would it? An eccentric old man hanging round with loads of kids. You don’t want to get Father Christmas cancelled, do you?’
‘Manny,’ Cerys warned under her breath.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Arthur mumbled into his chest. ‘He doesn’t exist anyway.’
Everyone gasped.
Cerys crouched down in front of her son and poked him gently in the shoulder. ‘Are you sure about that? Because I believe someone asked him for a PlayStation and if he doesn’t exist, how are you going to get one when they’re all sold out?’
I felt a tug on the sleeve of my coat and looked down to see Artemis slip her hand into mine and pull me down to her level. Much to my delight, her hair had darkened over the last year and was almost the exact same shade of reddish-brown as mine, turning into my sweet little mini me.
‘I already know there’s no Father Christmas,’ she whispered. ‘I heard Mum and Dad arguing about who was supposed to buy my Barbie Dream Home like, five years ago but I didn’t tell Arthur.’
‘That’s very nice of you,’ I replied, not sure whether I was supposed to confirm or deny. She’d already grown up so much since Cerys and Oliver’s break-up and I didn’t want to push her down that road any faster than necessary.
‘Here we all are,’ Dad beamed as everyone settled into a comfortable spot. ‘Everyone’s home.’
‘Almost everyone,’ Mum corrected and no one spoke for a second.
‘Do you need any help with anything, Care?’ I asked before things could get too maudlin. Nan wouldn’t want that. ‘Happy to make a start on the veg for tomorrow.’
‘Despite the fact I offered to host to save Mum the work, she turned up with half of Tesco in the back of the car,’ Cerys replied, casting a look of disapproval at my mother. ‘We’ve just got to throw it in the oven in the morning.’
‘And I’ve got the bird in the back of the car,’ Drew added. ‘He’s a beauty.’
‘As long as it’s not a capon,’ I muttered into my glass.
Mum looked around the room, her bottom lip quivering and threatening to break at any second. ‘This is the first Christmas we’ve had away from home since Cerys was born. Can you believe it?’
‘We could do Christmas at ours next year,’ Manny suggested, curling his hand around Drew’s and beaming up at his love. I’d never been so happy and so heartbroken at the same time as I was when he told me he was moving back to Baslow in January and buying a house with Drew. I would miss him horribly but the two of them really were made for each other. Cerys wedged herself in between them and leaned forward to help herself to a handful of crisps.
‘Before we commit, will you have a settee by then?’ she asked innocently.
‘The cheek of it,’ he replied, swiping her snacks. ‘Give us a chance to get settled. Not all of us conveniently acquired a house from our grandmother.’
‘There was nothing convenient about it,’ a voice boomed from the hallway.
Myfanwy James walked into the living room, a set of house keys in one hand, elegant black walking stick in the other, which she immediately used to crack Manny around the shins as he jumped up to hug her. ‘Why are your jeans four sizes too big? Are you keeping ferrets down there? You want to get yourself a nice pair of trousers like Drew.’
Just as it always did, my heart doubled in size at the sight of her.
It had been an eventful year for Myfanwy. Right after Christmas, she had a fall and spent a regrettable two days in hospital after which the nurses called my mum, begging her to take Nan home. After she slipped again in March, it was decided (although not by Nan) that she shouldn’t be living alone. She managed two months at my parent’s house before declaring that the house was so hot, my dad was obviously trying to kill her, and finding herself a little bungalow in the Bluebells retirement community, fifteen minutes up the road. As soon as Cerys’s divorce was finalized, Nan suggested she sell her massive house outside Manchester, pocket the cash and move into her old place down the street from Mum and Dad. Nan was like a new woman. She’d even started crocheting cases for the emergency buttons all the residents wore around their necks, finding a passion for design at eighty-three.
And that wasn’t all she’d found.
‘I parked in front of the house but I’m blocking the driveway,’ Gerald said, striding into the living room, knocking the cold off his cap. ‘I can move it if anybody needs to get out.’
‘Nobody needs to go anywhere,’ Nan said, easing herself into her favourite armchair with Manny’s help. ‘Especially me. Once I’m down, I can’t get back up.’
‘She’s having you on.’ Gerald gazed at her with such fondness, I had to cover my smile with my hand for fear of incurring Nan’s wrath. ‘She’s up and down like a whore’s drawers when it suits her.’
‘Language,’ she admonished, tittering in her seat. ‘Now somebody get me a drink.’
Gerald moved to Bluebells for the company, he’d explained the first time we all went to visit and found him hoovering Nan’s living room. His wife had passed away several years before, their kids all lived far away and all his friends ‘kept popping their clogs’ and even though he wasn’t looking for love, he fell for Myfanwy the moment he saw her. She still insisted they were just good friends but as my dad pointed out, it was a bloody good friend who waited on you hand and foot, acted as your unpaid chauffeur and always seemed to be in your house whenever anyone called, morning, noon or the middle of the night. I didn’t care, she wasn’t lonely anymore and that was all that mattered.
Two drinks and several pounds of cheese later, the doorbell rang and Artemis thundered through the hallway to answer it at a speed only available to the under-twelves.
‘Auntie Gwen!’ she bellowed. ‘He’s here!’
Even though it was only seven days since I’d seen him last, the butterflies in my stomach fluttered when Dev walked in the room, grey coat on his back, easy smile on his face and, because he was perfect, Santa hat on his head.
‘Merry Christmas, everyone,’ he said before taking off the hat and handing it to a waiting Artemis. He bent down to press a quick family-friendly kiss to my cheek and my heartbeat quickened as our eyes met. Every time I saw him was like the first time, all over again.
‘Hello, stranger,’ I whispered.
‘Hello, yourself,’ he replied.
‘Good drive, son?’ Dad asked, asking the official first question of dads everywhere as he heaved himself off the settee to get my boyfriend a drink.
‘Not too bad, I managed to get out earlier than I expected,’ Dev answered with a polite nod, seating himself on the arm of my chair, his hand absently curling around the back of my neck. ‘Thankfully, not that many poorly hearts to take care of this Christmas.’
‘You’re so good, you make me sick,’ Manny said as Dad handed him a glass of red wine.
‘I love you too, Manny,’ Dev raised his glass in his direction before turning to me. ‘Is that your giant suitcase in the hall?’ he asked. ‘What’s going on, you planning to move in?’
I fingered my necklace, a very special silver sixpence on a chain that I never took off.
‘I wanted to be prepared for all occasions,’ I replied, nodding. ‘Just in case I ended up stuck here for a while.’
‘Seems unlikely we’d get two white Christmases in a row,’ he said. ‘Have they forecast it?’
I kissed him gently on the lips and smiled.
‘Stranger things have happened, trust me.’
It really had been an eventful year. I didn’t go back to Abbott & Howe. I sent in my resignation and was informed by HR that I had more than eight weeks of rolled-over holiday allowance accrued so I wouldn’t need to work my notice. For the first few weeks, I didn’t do very much at all other than read books, watch films and spend as much time with my friends and family as humanly possible. It was incredible. Then a friend of a friend asked if I was interested in taking on a maternity cover position at her law firm, still corporate but in the charity sector, and I said yes. Ten months later, I was still there and in two months, when the contract was up, I’d find something else. Something closer to Cambridge, I thought, looking up at Dev.
Kind, patient, brilliant Dev. We took things slow at first, so slow we were practically moving backwards. It was several weeks before I invited him to stay at my flat, weeks we spent really getting to know each other, as time ticked by for both of us. Thankfully, he was all the things he’d shown himself to be and so much more besides. Not only was Dev a good cook, he knew what a toilet brush was and wasn’t afraid to use it. He loved to read almost as much as I did and I’d lost track of the number of weekends we’d spent lying at opposite ends of his settee, our legs entwined, lost in our books. And not that it was the most important thing but teenage Gwen would have been delighted to know the sex was ridiculous. It was so good it made me want to make new friends just so I had more people to talk to about it over brunch. Cerys was certainly sick of hearing me go on and Manny had barred the subject altogether. For someone who had been so dedicated to getting me a shag, he really hit his maximum quota of sex chat very early on in my new relationship. But regardless, it was immense. Who knew talking to each other inside and outside of the bedroom was the key to a happy and fulfilling relationship? Such a wild and unthinkable concept. But it wasn’t all lazy Sundays and excellent sex, Dev worked long hours, his schedule was unpredictable and he brought new meaning to the term ‘hangry’. Technically, it was more like ‘hamotional’. I once found him sat in front of his fridge, practically in tears, because I’d eaten the last KitKat while he was at work and he didn’t know how to cope. It turns out it’s tricky to snack in the middle of open-heart surgery and when the boy got home from a long hard day of saving lives, he needed his KitKats. It was fair. So no, he wasn’t perfect. He was a real human being with faults and flaws and an inability to close a cupboard door after he had opened it instead of a dreamy teenage crush who only lived in the pages of my diary. This Dev was real, and even better, this Dev was mine.
‘Now that we’re all here,’ Dad stood up and raised one finger in the air. ‘I’ve got a surprise.’
‘Not fireworks?’ I replied, sitting bolt upright and searching the room for flammable material.
‘Even better.’
I watched as he lowered himself carefully to his knees and crawled underneath the Christmas tree. With his backside waving in the air, he backed out, dragging a large, solid-looking black box with him.
‘Gen 3 Personal Wonder Wand?’ Manny guessed.
‘You’re joking but I got some real use out of that,’ I replied, pinching at my tight shoulders. ‘Dad was right, it is a bloody good back massager.’
‘Steven, sit down before you give yourself a heart attack,’ Nan ordered as Dad dragged the box merrily across the room to the TV. ‘I’m not spending Christmas visiting you in hospital, especially not the Northern General. That place was practically a gulag.’
‘It’s one of the best hospitals in the country,’ Dev murmured in my ear.
‘Don’t say that any louder or you’ll be spending Christmas in the garage,’ I advised in a whisper.
‘Come off it, Myfanwy, fit as a butcher’s dog, I am,’ Dad insisted as he opened the box with a ‘ta-da’. Inside were what looked like hundreds of discs, all in little clear plastic cases, all of them labelled. He pulled one out and carefully placed it in the brand-new Blu-ray player that Cerys also got in the divorce (along with the flat-screen TV, his stereo, his record collection and anything else that might have brought Oliver joy). ‘I had the rest of the family films transferred to DVD! And I thought we could watch one tonight, new Christmas Eve tradition.’
The TV blinked into life, Mum and Dad’s living room filling the screen.
‘Oh Christ, it’s the nineties,’ Cerys groaned as she appeared on the screen. ‘If I see my Rachel cut, I’m leaving the room!’
‘I bet you looked great,’ Drew insisted as the camera panned around the rest of the family. Mum, Dad, Uncle Jim and Aunt Pauline, Granny and Grandad Baker, followed by Nan, and Grandad Collins.
‘Such a handsome man,’ Nan said as Gerald took her hand.
‘A lucky man,’ he replied and they shared a smile, Gerald looking at her as though all his Christmases had come at once.
‘Not done yet,’ Dad said, tapping the TV screen. ‘Here comes the main event.’
‘Oh no,’ Manny gasped, all the colour draining from his face. ‘It can’t be.’
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked as my mother and Cerys began to laugh. ‘What is it?’
‘You don’t remember?’ he said, holding his hands over Drew’s eyes. ‘Get Dev out of here, before it’s too late.’
‘No chance,’ Dev replied as he scooted off the arm of the chair and onto the floor next to my dad. ‘Whatever this is, I’m not missing it.’
‘It isn’t?’ I whispered as a vague memory started to dawn. ‘It can’t be.’
‘It is,’ Manny pulled a cushion out of its cover and slid the red velvet slipcover over his head like a sack. ‘It totally bloody is.’
Two tiny reindeers trotted onto the 55-inch screen, holding hands and bobbing up and down, staring directly into the camera. One looked extremely nervous while the other appeared extremely confident. Both of them looked ridiculous.
‘Is that … is that you two?’ Dev asked without taking his eyes off the TV.
‘Please don’t watch it,’ I begged, collapsing onto the floor beside him and trying to cover his eyes with my hands.
‘We’re never having sex again,’ Manny groaned from inside his cushion cover while Drew sat forward on the edge of the settee, his mouth hanging open with delight.
With my dad giggling behind the camera, Reindeer Manny and Reindeer Gwen took centre stage and burst into a spirited rendition of ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’, complete with choreographed dance routine.
‘This is incredible,’ Dev grinned as Artemis howled with laughter. ‘Do you still have that outfit by any chance?’
‘I bet they still know the moves,’ Drew said. ‘Come on, why don’t you show us?’
‘Yes, Auntie Gwen, yes!’ Arthur said, grabbing my hand and pulling me up to my feet. ‘Show me the dance!’
In an instant, the room was full of music. Artemis seamlessly connected her iPad to the stereo and everyone was on their feet, Drew leading cushion-headed Manny into the middle of the room, while our tiny counterparts continued to wiggle and hop on the television.
‘I love this song,’ Artemis yelled as she turned up the volume to ‘Last Christmas’, shouting along and bouncing around in a silly dance I suspected she’d be far too grown up to entertain this time next year. She grabbed hold of Dev’s hands and pulled him into the middle of the living room, arms flailing wildly. Mum and Dad joined in with a gentle jive while Gerald twisted his hips in front of Nan’s chair, giving her the world’s most polite lap dance. We all danced around the room, Manny singing at the top of his voice and bouncing Artemis up onto his shoulders, Arthur hurling himself from left to right, stopping occasionally to swivel his hips like a baby Elvis, while Drew danced with Cerys, lifting her up off her feet as she cried with laughter. So much joy. So much love.
‘I think this should be our song,’ Dev said, pulling me into his arms as George Michael warbled through the chorus. ‘Last Christmas, I gave you my heart.’
‘It’s not actually a very nice song when you listen to the lyrics,’ I replied as he spun me around. ‘You snogged her once and she doesn’t remember you a year later? It was a Christmas party, George, she was clearly drunk, she doesn’t owe you anything and you need to get over it. Don’t be that man.’
‘You pick one then,’ he said, laughing. We laughed a lot. It was nice. ‘There are plenty to choose from. “All I Want for Christmas is You”, “Christmas Wrapping”, “I Wish It Could be Christmas Every Day”—’
‘Any of them except for that one,’ I interrupted, reflexively reaching for my sixpence necklace. ‘One Christmas is quite enough.’
Sliding my arms around his neck, I kissed him squarely on the lips.
‘What was that for?’ Dev pulled me in closer and the rest of the room seemed to slip away.
‘Just for being here, for being you,’ I answered. ‘This is all I want for Christmas.’
‘Wow, really?’ He grinned, swooping me low to the ground and holding me there, suspended over the soft blue carpet. ‘Maybe I should return all your presents then?’
‘Well, no, that’s silly, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you,’ I replied quickly. ‘Since you’ve already picked them and bought them and wrapped them and—’
He cut me off with a kiss and the whole world vanished. This was it. I had everything I could ever want, my family, my love and to top it all off, I had me. The happiest, truest version of myself, something I didn’t even know was missing until a year ago.
I opened my eyes to see them all, laughing and smiling and dancing, and I marvelled at the wonder of it. I was so, so lucky. Whether we had a hundred years together or only today, it didn’t matter. It was perfect.
And I wouldn’t have wished for one day more.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
More people than I can count helped this post-sinus-surgery fever dream transform into an actual book, but I will list as many as I can before we literally run out of pages.
Thank you to Rowan Lawton for being such a brilliant agent and even better person. I am so lucky to have you and everyone at The Soho Agency.
My undying gratitude to everyone at HarperCollins for pulling together to make this ‘really simple idea’ come to life – IOU Channing Tatum inside a cake. Lynne Drew and Lucy Stewart for bearing the brunt of it while remaining grace personified, and Martha Ashby for stepping into the breach and working her Sheffield magic when it was most needed, thank you. To Amy Winchester, Maddy Marshall, Holly MacDonald, Isabel Coburn, Alice Gomer, Kimberley Allsopp, Jean Marie Kelly and everyone else who makes these books a thing, I appreciate you so much and it’s only thanks to you that I’ve been able to do this for so long.
