The Twelve Dates of Christmas

by Jenny Bayliss

  “Well, it’s a bit of a shock.”

  “It kind of snuck up on me too,” said Kate.

  “You can’t ignore this,” Laura told her.

  “I don’t have a choice. I shall throw myself into this relationship with Richard. Who knows? Maybe it’ll work out.”

  “It’s not going to work out if you’re in love with someone else!” said Laura.

  “My options here are limited,” said Kate. “I either take up the role of Matt’s unrequited love slave and stay miserably single, or I make it work with Richard. After all, I really like him and he really turns me on; that’s got to count for something!”

  “God, Kate, I still can’t believe it,” said Laura. “You and Matt!”

  “No,” said Kate. “There is no me and Matt. There’s me in love with Matt and there’s Matt in love with Sarah.”

  “Is there any chance he might feel the same?” asked Laura.

  “Absolutely none,” said Kate. “He thinks of me like a sister. You remember what he was like after our Big Mistake at uni? He couldn’t get gone quick enough; it was like he was disgusted by what he’d done.”

  “Kate,” said Laura. “I want to tell you something . . .”

  There were shouts from the kitchen and Mina came running into the sitting room yelling, “Charley pooed! It’s weally bad, Mummy. Weally weally bad!”

  Kate’s dad wasn’t far behind. He was holding Charley out at arm’s length. Mustard-yellow stains bloomed up toward the chest of Charley’s pale blue romper suit and down both legs.

  “It’s exploding out of everywhere!” said Mac. “It sounded like a lake of mud geyser eruptions!”

  “Oh no!” said Laura. “I told Ben he shouldn’t have given him all that butternut squash for lunch.” She was laughing and wincing as she took her stinky son from Kate’s dad. “Oh, Mac, I’m sorry!” she said.

  “Not to worry,” he said, although he was clearly relieved to have relinquished responsibility for Charley. “I’ve seen worse; you should have seen Kate when she was that age.”

  “Thanks for that, Dad,” said Kate.

  “Oh, Mac,” Laura said, pointing at Kate’s dad’s shirt. “You might want to change your shirt!”

  Kate’s dad looked down at a large, slightly yellow wet patch on his shirt. When he looked back up he seemed a little queasy.

  “I think I’ll go home and change,” said Mac.

  “Come back round for dinner,” said Kate.

  * * *

  • • • • •

  There was no alternative but to bathe Charley. Luckily Laura was the kind of mother who never left home without a suitcase of spare clothes for her children, and today she had also packed their pajamas since they were staying for dinner.

  When Charley was fresh and talcum-powdered they bathed Mina, who insisted on having Aunty Kate’s “lady bubbles” in her bath and slathering herself in Kate’s body butter afterward. Several squirts of Kate’s expensive perfume later, Mina sat on Kate’s bed in her Christmas tree pj’s having her hair blow-dried while Kate went downstairs to cook dinner.

  Kate made pesto pasta and garlic bread and they all sat round the table to eat it. Mina grabbed a handful of grated cheese from the bowl on the table and dropped it onto her plate.

  “Aunty Kate, where is your twee?” asked Mina.

  “Uncle Matt is bringing it round later,” said Kate. She felt her cheeks redden at the mention of his name and cast a glance at Laura, who raised her eyebrows at her.

  “Can I help you decowate it?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid you’ll be at home, tucked up in bed by then,” said Kate.

  As much as she loved her goddaughter, there was no way she was going to let her decorate her tree.

  “Oh,” said Mina. “I decowated our twee at home.”

  “Yes,” said Kate. “I’ve seen it!”

  Laura’s tree was an abomination.

  “Charley did a poo on you, Uncle Mac,” Mina said very seriously, as if he hadn’t known.

  * * *

  • • • • •

  Dinner was done and dusted and the house was a-twinkle with fairy lights. Laura was cajoling her children into their coats, ready for the drive home.

  “I think I’ll push off too, love,” said Mac.

  “You don’t have to, Dad,” said Kate. “It’s not even eight o’clock. Why don’t you stay for a glass of wine?”

  Dad shrugged into his overcoat.

  “Thanks, love,” he said. “But I said to Evelyn I’d drop in on my way home.”

  Kate saw Laura smile from under her pile of children.

  There was a ferocious bang on the front door and they all jumped.

  “What the hell?” said Kate, and she rushed to open the door.

  “HELL! HELL! HELL!” shouted Mina.

  Kate pulled the door open to find her Christmas tree lying horizontally across the doorstep, blocking the entrance, and Matt yanking the gate shut behind him.

  “Matt?” Kate called.

  Matt didn’t answer. He carried on walking to his van. Kate jumped over the tree and padded up the path in her bed-socks.

  “Matt!” she called again.

  She yanked open the gate and followed him up the road.

  “I don’t want to talk to you, Kate,” he said.

  “Why not?” she asked. The snow was leaking through her socks and freezing her feet. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing I want to talk to you about,” he said.

  “I don’t understand,” said Kate, although the terrible sick feeling in her stomach belied her statement.

  “Just leave it alone, Kate,” said Matt. “I don’t want to say something I might regret.”

  Matt reached his van, but so did Kate. She stood in front of his door.

  “Get out of the way, Kate,” he said. “I’m angry and I’m not in the mood.”

  “Clearly!” said Kate. “But you don’t get to start a fight and then walk off before it’s finished.”

  “Fine!” said Matt. “Sarah’s just told me about your Dates with Mates night. About Oliver being there.”

  “Shit,” said Kate.

  “Yeah,” said Matt. “Shit. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “She asked me not to,” said Kate.

  “And she takes precedence over me, does she? Your loyalties lie with Sarah, do they?” He ran his hand through his hair. “I asked you, Kate. I rang you and asked if anything had happened and you said no. You bare-faced lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie,” said Kate. “You asked me if I’d told her anything to put her off you and I said no. That was the truth!”

  “You should have told me, Kate. You had no right to keep it from me.”

  “I didn’t know what to do for the best,” said Kate. “I only kept it from you because I thought it would do more harm than good to tell you. I thought it would be okay.”

  “Did you?” Matt’s tone was acerbic. “Or did you know Oliver was going to be there and you took Sarah there on purpose?”

  “Why the hell would I do that?”

  “I don’t know!” Matt’s voice was getting louder. “Maybe you were jealous?”

  “Jealous?” she shouted. “Why would I be jealous?”

  “Because I’m happy and you’re not!” said Matt.

  “Don’t be so stupid!” Kate yelled.

  “I am stupid if I thought you’d have my back. Had a good laugh to yourself, did you? Stupid old Matt, chasing a woman who’s in love with her old boyfriend!”

  “I didn’t know he was going to be there!” said Kate. “How could I? I didn’t even know about him until Sarah told me that night.”

  “You found out,” said Matt. “You found out somehow and you thought you’d screw me over.”

  “Oh right!
” she said. “Because I’m so jealous?”

  “Exactly,” said Matt.

  “Wow! What a high opinion you have of yourself,” Kate jeered.

  “You said it yourself, everyone’s got someone except you. And you just couldn’t stand it,” said Matt.

  “You’re such an idiot! I wasn’t trying to break you up; I thought by not saying anything I was helping to keep you together,” said Kate.

  “Fine job you did,” he said.

  “She was fine when she left me,” said Kate.

  “Clearly she wasn’t fine,” said Matt. “Because she’s just told me we need some space.”

  “Well, blaming me won’t help. It’s not my fault you can’t keep a girlfriend!” said Kate.

  “Oh, I disagree,” said Matt. “I lay the blame for this firmly at your door.”

  “Typical!” said Kate. “You never take responsibility for anything; it’s always someone else’s fault. Poor blameless Matt! Wake up to yourself!”

  “Stay out of my love life and stay the hell away from me!” said Matt.

  “Fine,” said Kate. “Find yourself another scapegoat because I’m done.”

  “I won’t need one when you stop poisoning my life.”

  “Is that the kind of person you think I am?” Kate asked. “You really think I’m that spiteful?”

  “If the shoe fits.”

  “Piss off, Matt!”

  “I was trying to, but you came chasing after me.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t worry,” said Kate. “I won’t come chasing after you again.”

  “Good!” Matt yelled.

  “Good!” Kate yelled.

  Kate moved away from the driver’s door and stomped back through the snow, her arms folded tight across her chest, her feet numb with cold, and her heart beating furiously. She heard the van door slam and the engine roar to life, but she didn’t look back.

  Her dad and Laura stood in the hallway, worried expressions on their faces. The tree was resting against the wall in the hall. There was no way they hadn’t heard all that. The whole neighborhood would have heard all that.

  “Shall I get Ben to pick the kids up and I’ll stay awhile?” Laura asked.

  Kate shook her head. She still hugged her chest with her arms. She was shaking all over and uncontrollably.

  “No, thanks,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I can call Evelyn,” said Mac. “Tell her I won’t make it round tonight?”

  “Honestly, thanks, both of you, but I’m fine,” Kate said.

  She wasn’t fine. But she knew she was about to lose her self-control and she was too proud to have an audience while she did it. She felt light-headed.

  “I don’t think you should be alone,” said Laura. And her dad agreed.

  “Please,” Kate implored them. “Please. I need to be on my own. Please, I love you, but you have to go. I’ll be okay.”

  Laura scooped up her children.

  “You call me,” she said. “Anytime. I can be here in five minutes.”

  “Same goes for me,” said Mac.

  “Thank you. Thank you for a lovely day,”

  Kate was on autopilot now. Her head pounded. She couldn’t form cohesive thoughts. Her words came robotically.

  At last they left. Kate’s phone blipped and she saw a message from Sarah.

  Hi Kate, I’ve just had a long talk with Matt. I’ve told him about us bumping into Oliver. I had to explain to him how I was feeling. In truth, I’m not the only one with a past that isn’t finished. Anyway, I hope it doesn’t make things awkward between you two. Just thought I’d give you a heads-up. xxx

  Kate collapsed onto the sofa and cried for a long, long time.

  * * *

  • • • • •

  She didn’t hear from Matt. Nor did she expect or wish to. Her dad and Laura had texted and Kate had assured them both again that she was okay. She wasn’t okay. She was sad on so many levels she didn’t know which one to deal with first.

  She was sad that she was in love with Matt and she was sad because she knew that the feeling was far from mutual. And she was sad that their friendship was over. She had gone to bed sick with sadness, slept fitfully, and woken in the morning with a sadness so crushing she couldn’t breathe. She lay in bed and watched the cold morning light eke dismally into the room, touching everything with gray.

  She was consumed with thoughts of Matt. The bottle had been uncorked and now every smile, every grimace, every touch, every word, kind and unkind, that had ever fallen from his lips cascaded through her mind unfettered. Her chest ached. Her head ached. She was hollow.

  There was nothing for it. She would have to leave Blexford. If anything, the argument had done her a favor, opened her eyes. She’d been a fool to think she could feel the way she did about Matt and stay; she would be living a lie and she refused to subject herself to that. She had moved back to nurse her dad through his heartache, but he was well now, better than well; he had found love again, and Kate could leave him in Evelyn’s more than capable hands.

  Her dad wouldn’t like it. Laura would like it even less. But they would respect her decision, she was sure of that. She had friends in London whom she could stay with until she found a place of her own. Her job was in London, and she’d lived in London for years before, so it wouldn’t be like starting over, more like going back after a sabbatical.

  Yes. She had decided. She would stay for Christmas and be gone before New Year’s. The decision gave her strength. All she had to do was get through the next two weeks. She could do that. She could avoid the Pear Tree; it wasn’t like Matt was going to ask her to bake for him now. She would lay low and she would leave quietly.

  She showered and got dressed. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were red-ringed. She applied makeup mechanically. She swept concealer under her eyes to hide the bags that had settled there. And all the while she recited the mantra over and again, “Just two weeks, just two weeks, just two weeks.” Until eventually she felt enough of herself return that she could function in the world again.

  She didn’t want to meet Richard tonight. And she certainly didn’t want to be stuck in an escape room with a group of hopeful strangers. But she was not prepared to let her feelings for Matt—before or after the argument—dictate her plans. She would go out. And she would make the best of it. Kate Turner was nothing if not stubborn to the point of ridiculous.

  Kate wandered from room to room. Since taking over the mortgage from her parents, she had completely renovated the house. She hadn’t wanted to feel bound by nostalgia, she wanted it to feel like her own, so she’d dug straight in and ripped the guts out of it and started again. She would be sad to leave it. She’d rent it out for a while and when she felt brave enough, she would sell it.

  She spent the day moping in the Christmas wonderland they’d created yesterday. The shine had rubbed off. Neither the bright knitted stockings, nor the wooden nutcracker dolls, nor the red-berried wreaths incited the childlike joy they usually did in Kate. Perhaps it was time to grow up.

  The Christmas tree still leaned against the wall in the hall, the branches constrained neatly within the mesh. She wrestled it back out the front door and around to the back garden, where she sawed off the bottom of the trunk and plonked the tree in a bucket of water to soak.

  Richard texted to confirm their meeting place and Kate began the process of layering the pieces of herself together. The hill down to Great Blexley had been cleared, but Kate decided to leave the Mini where it was; she didn’t want to risk getting it stuck again this close to the holidays. It was a long walk but she decided she needed it. She needed to stretch out and she needed to clear her mind, and a long cold walk was just the thing to do it.

  The pub was like walking into a wall of noise when Kate pushed the door open, red-cheeked and exhilarated b
y the cold. She looked around and recognized plenty of faces from previous activities; clearly lots of people had decided to stop in for some liquid courage before the date started. She hoped her date for tonight wasn’t one of them; she wouldn’t like to be spotted having a cozy tête-à-tête with someone else. It didn’t seem very sporting.

  Richard must have seen her through the crowd because after a moment he appeared in front of her. He bent and kissed her hello, a slow tender kiss that Kate found herself leaning into with more enthusiasm than she’d have thought possible this morning.

  Richard was attentive and tactile and Kate was surprised by how receptive she was to his advances. And the way he gently rubbed his hand up and down her back as they sat side by side on the corner sofa was not at all unwelcome. Perhaps Richard was just the man to distract her.

  “I wish we could just blow this escape room thing off and get merrily and deliciously drunk together,” Richard said quietly into her ear.

  He ran his finger along Kate’s jawbone and Kate found herself moved to kiss him, tentatively at first and then with a hunger that she could barely contain. Richard broke away first.

  “Wow,” he said. “Well, that’s me done in for the evening. I won’t be able to concentrate on escaping anything now.”

  Kate laughed.

  “It’s all part of my master plan,” she said. “Disabling the other team so that my team wins.” She grinned.

  “I had no idea you were so competitive,” said Richard.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” said Kate.

  All too soon it was time for them to move next door to the escape rooms.

  “So who is your date tonight?” asked Kate.

  “Her name is Echo,” said Richard. “She’s a dance teacher.”

  “Echo,” said Kate. “What a fantastic name.”

  “I prefer the name Kate,” said Richard. And Kate felt warmth returning to her cold bones.

  * * *

  • • • • •

  The escape rooms were housed in an old music hall that had been saved from demolition; the quirky floorplans were just what the company required to create a maze of rooms. Moulin Rouge–style bars dotted each floor, low-lit with voluptuous trappings, tassels, and silk and crimson draperies.