One Christmas Eve, page 7
Another silence, but not so awkward this time. Just sore on the heart to have to reply to what he was asking. ‘His name is Duncan. Duncan McLean. He’s not anyone you know. I met him when he came into the shop because the barber next door was fully booked. We got chatting while I was cutting his hair and…’
She let that trail off. Telling him about how they got together seemed too personal, felt like it would be disloyal to Duncan. Or maybe too hurtful to Richie.
A thought must have struck him, because he suddenly scanned the room. ‘Does your husband live here?’
Cathy understood. He was thinking that nothing had noticeably changed since the last time he was here. The same walls, painted yellow, except the one behind the kitchen units, which Mum had wallpapered with special stuff that you could wipe clean. It was white, had pretend tile squares on it and lemons in the middle of every third square. The same white cupboards still lined the walls. They had the same cooker, the same under-counter fridge with the tiny icebox at the top, and the space next to the back door where they kept the twin tub washing machine. Everything on the brown fake wood worktops was exactly the same, in exactly the same place. This table hadn’t changed and neither had the wooden chairs with the flowery pads on the seats. Mum had made those herself and she’d been so proud of them, declaring that it was like sitting on clouds. There was, Cathy realised, not a single sign that someone new lived here with them.
‘He does, but only at weekends. It’s a long story.’
‘I’ve got all day. My plans have been cancelled. I was going to see my girlfriend and spend time with her, but it seems like she got a better offer while I was gone.’
Ouch. ‘Richie don’t…’
His face flushed. ‘I’m sorry. That made me sound like an idiot. I just… I just don’t know what to say. Help me out here, Cath.’
Reaching over, she put her hand over his and the jolt of electricity was so sharp, she almost pulled it back. How she had loved this boy. And yep, that’s what he had been. Just a boy. And she’d been a carefree teenager too when they’d got together. Now that seemed like a lifetime ago and she felt older, wearier.
‘Okay, I’m just going to say it and tell me if you want me to stop.’ She took a breath. ‘It was a few days before Christmas last year when Duncan and I met…’
‘I was supposed to come home last Christmas.’
‘You were?’
We got back to shore the week before, but there was a fire in the engine room, so we had to stay on to deal with it and get it ready for the next sailing. I’d been planning to surprise you then too. Now I wish I had.’
Neither of them even wanted to consider the implications of that or how it could have changed the situation they were in now. Cathy pushed a whole chorus of ‘What If’s’ away by carrying on with her answer.
‘Duncan was in Glasgow visiting some pals. He’s from Edinburgh originally. Went to university in St Andrews and then moved back to Edinburgh to finish his training.’
‘Training for what?’
‘He’s a solicitor.’
Richie just nodded and Cathy wondered what he was thinking. None of their friends had become solicitors. Most of his pals took up apprenticeships and were electricians, plumbers, or they worked in the shipyards like both their dads. And most of hers became hairdressers like her, secretaries like her mum or worked as receptionists in the big offices in the city centre. Except Janine McLay, who was a model in one of the posh dress shops on Bath Street, but she had legs like lamp posts and a face like Sophia Loren, so it wasn’t surprising.
‘He still works in Edinburgh during the week, and he’ll do that until he finishes his training next month, then he’ll move here full time. He comes home here at the weekends, so he’ll be back later on tonight. Anyway, we started seeing each other and…’
Her face flushed at the thought of telling him what happened next, but there was no way round it. ‘Around May, I realised that this little one was on the way. We got married three weeks later in the registry office in Martha Street. Loretta was our bridesmaid and Duncan’s brother was our best man. His family came too, but they live in Edinburgh, so we don’t see them much. It all happened so fast…’
Richie’s shoulders seemed to slump with every new fact in the story and she could see that he understood the situation. She’d been dealt a massive blow when her parents were killed and she had been left to bring up Loretta. They’d scraped by, but it wasn’t easy. When she’d found herself pregnant, she’d known that adding a baby into that equation would have been so much more difficult. Impossible, really. How could she have worked? How would she have supported them? And that was before she had to deal with other people’s nonsense and judgements. Her friends would all stand by her, of course, and so would the girls in the salon, but she’d seen how people treated single mothers, the gossip and the nudges and the terrible things that were said. Bloody hypocrites. No such rotten things said about the dads that ditched the women as soon as they got in the family way, right enough. Oh no. Off they went without even a look over their shoulder.
But not Duncan. As soon as he’d found out, he’d asked her to marry him, and he’d stuck by her and Loretta. During the week, when he was in Edinburgh, he stayed with his parents, so that gave him the finances to take over the costs of running this house. She hadn’t even had to ask him. He’d just stepped up, and done the right thing by them all. The memory of that made her smile. ‘Cathy, I’ve wanted to marry you since the first time I saw you,’ he’d said. ‘This just makes it all happen a bit quicker and I’m okay with that if you are.’
What was she going to say to that? He was such a decent man. A catch. Any girl would be so lucky to have him. And what choice did she have? Richie was long gone and even if he wasn’t, wel—
His voice snapped her back to her kitchen.
‘I wish I’d known.’
‘There was nothing you could have done. It was too late.’
‘Was it though?’ He leaned forward in the chair again. ‘Too late because of the baby, or too late because you love this other guy?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she snapped, refusing to go down the path that led to any other option than the one she was on now. She’d been out of choices back then. She’d done the only thing that was right for them all.
‘It does. Do you love him? The way you loved me?’
Her reply stuck in her throat. Yes, she loved Duncan for what he’d done for them, for the man that he’d shown himself to be. Was she in love with him? Was it the crazy, heart-thudding way she’d felt about Richie? No. But she wasn’t going to disrespect Duncan by admitting that.
‘Yes.’ She held his gaze with defiance, daring him to call her a liar even though they both knew that she was. ‘You left, Richie. He didn’t.’
‘No, you don’t get to do that. I left because we had a deal—’
‘Well, I guess I broke it. I hadn’t heard from you for six months when I went out that first night with Duncan, and it’s just as well I didn’t wait, because now it’s been a year and a half. What did you expect, Richie? That I’d wait for you forever?’ The truth was, that if Duncan hadn’t walked into the salon that day and caught her in a weak moment, she probably would have. He was the only other man she’d ever touched, ever kissed, and Cathy was sure in her heart that there would never be another.
The vehemence in her reply made Richie fall silent again. The Cathy she’d been when her parents were still alive would never have stuck up for herself like that, but the last three years had made her stronger than she ever thought she could be and she damn well wasn’t going to let him guilt her for doing the right thing. The only thing.
Eventually, he found his words. ‘If I’d been here, would I have been able to change your mind. Would you have chosen me?’
Her heart said she would. Her brain and her mouth lied again, ‘No. I’d have chosen Duncan.’
Richie gently dropped her hand and stood up. ‘Then I’ll go. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Cathy. I really am. I hope you have a great life.’
She couldn’t look at him any more, so she stared into her cup as he walked across the room, down the hall and out of the front door.
With every step, another tear dropped into her cold tea.
She had no idea how long she’d been sitting there when the doorbell rang. It crossed her mind to ignore it, but Mrs Copeland next door had taken to handing in a pie or a casserole every few days, and Cathy didn’t want the lovely old dear standing out there in the cold holding a heavy dish. Or maybe it was the postman with Christmas cards or notification that she’d won enough on the Premium Bonds to buy a Ford Cortina too. Chance would be a fine thing.
With a groan, she pushed herself up, and gingerly, hand pressing on the ache in her lower back, made her way down the hall and opened the door.
It wasn’t the postman or a kind neighbour with a home made pie.
It was Richie. And he spoke before she could say a word. ‘Spend the day with me. Please. I just want to talk. To make things okay with us. You’re my best friend, Cath. There’s no-one else I want to see. I promise I won’t try to change your mind about who you should be with.’
Cathy wasn’t sure he would have to try very hard, because she saw the pain on his gorgeous face, felt the tug of love that was twisting her gut, and realised with absolute devastation that he could walk away right now and she’d never see him again.
Spending the day with him was a terrible idea. Awful. The worst decision she could make.
Yet she didn’t seem to be able to stop herself taking a step back and holding the door wide open so he could come back in.
12 NOON – 2 P.M.
7
EVE
Christmas Eve 2023
The doorbell rang and her mum used the interruption to announce that she was off to the office. Eve tried not to show her surprise.
‘Don’t you want to stay with Gran until she’s ready to go?’ she hissed to her mother, making sure her gran, who was on her way to the door, didn’t overhear.
Her mum slipped Eve’s woolly hat and scarf birthday pressie into her Chanel bag (no doubt to languish in the back of a drawer until the end of time), picked up her Hermès silk scarf and grabbed a coat that probably cost more than Eve’s car. With a career that paid an exorbitant salary, and only herself to spend it on, Helena made no apology for indulging herself in the finer things in life. Eve couldn’t ever remember a time when her mother wasn’t impeccably groomed. As a child, she’d watch her mum pull her perfect glossy bob back into a chignon at the nape of her neck, step into an expensive suit, apply her trademark red lipstick and she’d wonder at how beautiful and smart she looked. Even in adulthood, Eve still couldn’t pull off that level of aesthetic perfection. There would be creases in her shirt, perhaps the odd coffee splash on her suit, and her make-up free complexion would probably be a shiny shade of Santa’s suit with the anxiety of the day.
‘Darling, what is there to say? The place is empty. Time to move on. Gran will be fine. If I get done sharpish, I’ll pop over to the new place tonight to make sure she’s settled in.’
Eve noted the ‘if I get done sharpish’. Her mother had worked obscene hours all her life, staying in the office or bringing work home and sitting at her desk until late at night. It didn’t surprise her that Christmas Eve was included in that too.
As far back as Eve could remember, she’d always spent Christmas Eve with her gran. They had created their own traditions. If it was any day other than a Sunday, she’d spend the afternoon in Gran’s salon, sitting in the staffroom with a pile of books or passing out Christmas crackers at reception, wrapped up in the excitement as everyone shared their plans over blaring festive songs and clinking glasses of fizzy wine. Then she’d walk home with Gran, and they always stopped at a little park, not far from the house, that was all lit up with fairy lights and looked magical. They’d sit on a bench there and they’d both make a wish, but they would never reveal what it was, because then Gran said it wouldn’t come true.
Just thinking about that now made Eve smile, as did the memory of Grandad, who usually arrived home just after them. They’d all have a dance in the kitchen and watch movies in front of the fire, eating fish and chips out of the paper. Before she went to bed, Eve would hang their stockings, and leave out carrots for Rudolph and milk and chocolate digestives for Santa. When she was twelve and wiser to the realities of the man in the red suit, she’d asked if she could stop it and been given a firm reprimand from her granny. Apparently, it was a non-negotiable part of their Christmas preparations. Turned out that after she was asleep, her gran would immediately pop the carrots into the soup she was making for the following day, and her grandad had the milk and biscuits as his midnight snack and wasn’t for giving it up.
Every year, they did the same thing and Eve treasured every moment. It was just a shame that her mum had never been a part of that, no matter how many times she’d been invited to join them over the years. When Eve was growing up, Helena always arrived late Christmas Eve, after she was in bed at her gran’s, or first thing on Christmas morning, before Eve was awake. Either way, she always made it so that she was there to open presents. Eve had always put her mum’s Christmas Eve absence down to Helena having pre-birthday plans with her friends, and it had honestly never bothered her back then. Probably because she didn’t know any different and because she adored her traditions with Gran and Grandad. Today, her mum was making it clear that her other option was work, yet she was still choosing that instead of spending time with them. Now, with the perspective of adulthood, it irritated the life out of her. What the hell was her mother’s problem? Why did she refuse to just relax and enjoy Christmas Eve with people she loved? Was she so devoid of warmth and affection that she couldn’t even do that? Eve reckoned that was probably the case. There was no helping this woman.
Her mum’s clipped words made her seethe inside, but again, today wasn’t the day to say anything. She didn’t want Gran’s last memory here being of Eve telling her mother she was a heartless cow who could stick her Louboutin boots up her Armani-clad arse.
Breathe. Breathe. And breathe.
Her mother’s heels clicked across the tile floor to the doorway, where she met Gran coming the other way. ‘I’m off, Mum. Thank you for the birthday brunch and I’ll maybe see you later. If not, I’ll be over tomorrow morning.’
Eve half expected her to say, ‘Unless I get a better offer,’ but instead, she kissed Cathy on each cheek, swerved around her like a pro, and was off.
Her gran flashed Eve a knowing smile as the front door closed. ‘Why do you let her press your buttons? You know what she’s like. She doesn’t mean anything by it – it’s just who she is.’ For years, her gran had been going with that motion for the defence, and much as Eve knew she was right, it didn’t always help. Especially today, when she had a huge bloody great elephant-shaped, genetic, who’s-my-daddy, grievance in the room.
‘I know, I know, you’re right. Who was at the door?’
She didn’t need to wait for an answer, because Sonny appeared right behind her gran, dangling a set of keys in his hand. ‘Here we go, Cathy! The keys to the new place.’ Her gran hugged him. ‘Honestly, son, if I were forty years younger and you liked bingo, we’d be perfect together.’
Eve shook her head, laughing at her gran’s incessant cheekiness.
Sonny returned the hug. ‘I know. It’s one of the great travesties of my life. That and the fact that your granddaughter doesn’t want to fall in love with me.’
‘Try diamonds, son. I’m not saying she can be bought, because I don’t fancy your chances, but if she doesn’t like the jewellery, maybe she can flog it and get a new car. That one she’s got is a hazard. It makes my false teeth rattle.’
‘I’m having nothing to do with either of you,’ Eve quipped, taking the keys from Sonny, and throwing him a side eye of amusement.
Sonny West. One of four flatmates when she was in her final year at Glasgow College of Art – the other three being an aspiring engineer, a trainee nurse and a plumber. They’d lived in a tenement flat just off Sauchiehall Street and it had been a carefree time of drunken late-night occasional hook-ups with Sonny.
After graduation, she’d gone on to land a job as a booker in a talent agency, kicking off with Gabby as her very first client, and Sonny had gone to work for a city centre estate agency. Back then, she’d envisaged that they might all lose touch, but nope, something had stuck with her and Sonny. Over the eight years since then, their casual, no-strings sex, had been interrupted by a few monogamous ill-fated relationships on both sides, all of which invariably ended with the two of them having drinks in a bar, proclamations of ‘relationships are for fools’ and the resumption of a friends-with-benefits arrangement – until the next time one of them met someone they wanted to be faithful to, and they’d go through the whole cycle again.
Eve had been under the impression that suited them both, until a few nights ago – yep, it was a week for emotional bombshells – when they’d had an intimate moment over a thin crust Hawaiian at Pizza Express. At least, as intimate as they could be with East 17 warbling about staying another day on the sound system. And while sitting next to a Christmas night out that seemed to comprise of twelve elderly ladies telling raucous jokes and singing Christmas songs while demolishing deep pan turkey pizzas. If she wasn’t with Sonny, Eve would definitely have wanted to join them.
Sonny had been in jeans and a jacket, looking smart and slick, while she was trying and failing to pull off day-to-night office chic that the magazines always heralded like it was some magical transformation. Eve could confirm that adding a big pair of hoops from Accessorize and swapping her Converse for a pair of heels, hadn’t in fact, transformed her from ‘every day office wear’ to a Kardashian at a cocktail bar. Not that she cared. All the mattered was the wine, the food and the chat with her favourite bloke. She’d been relaying a story about how she’d been packing up old photos at Cathy’s house, and came across one of her gran, aged about fifteen and beyond beautiful, ice skating in a tiny Biba dress with backcombed hair that added a solid six inches to her height, when he’d suddenly blurted, ‘Have you ever thought that maybe we should give it a try?’
