One Perfect Christmas and Other Stories

by Paige Toon

  I don’t ask him to. And I will never forget the look on his face when I tell him I’ll quit my job, accept Rachel’s offer and move back to England. He gathers me in his arms and presses kiss after kiss on my forehead before clasping my face in his hands and snogging me senseless.

  As if I were going to give up getting one of those every day for the rest of my life.

  My boss’s face almost falls off a cliff when I resign.

  I have a feeling I was more valued than she let on, but this does not work in my favour when she insists I work my full notice.

  Rachel, however, is delighted and offers to sponsor my work visa. She promises to tell me whose wedding I’m doing when we’re face to face. No amount of, ‘Do they work on EastEnders, or Corrie, or have they been on The X Factor…?’ sways her. She’s staying silent until I sign my confidentiality clause.

  Alex and I speak on the phone every day – sometimes twice a day – and, although physically we couldn’t be further apart, by the time I’m packing up my things and walking out of my empty Bondi Beach studio flat, I feel closer to him than ever.

  I do go for one last cuppa at Lucy’s house in Manly, and it’s strange stepping off the ferry and walking past our old home. I feel a pang as I cast a poignant look up at the balcony. There are no wetsuits hanging outside.

  We did have good times there. But life moves on. I’ve moved on. Lachie has. Even Elliot has started seeing someone – a friend of Fliss’s older sister, bizarrely. And Lachie is still with Fliss. I’m at peace with it.

  I’m sad to say goodbye to Lucy, though. I’ll miss her – and Nathan, Finn and now little baby Izzy, too. Lucy promises that they will all come and visit me next year when they’re in the UK and I tell her I’ll hold her to it.

  ‘Are you going to see Lachie before you leave?’ she asks.

  I shake my head. ‘I haven’t spoken to him in months.’

  Elliot was the one who told me that he’s still with Fliss. I don’t make a point of catching up with El, but he does work near me in the city, and sometimes we bump into each other and go for a coffee.

  ‘I think you’ll find him at the beach if you change your mind,’ she says. ‘He and Nathan have gone surfing.’

  My head is still swimming with this information as I walk back to the ferry terminal via Manly Beach. I stand and stare out at the grey waves and the slick seal-like surfers sitting up on their boards. Pelicans fly low across the ocean as my eyes seek out Lachie. He looks my way and seems to freeze.

  He catches the next wave in.

  ‘Hey!’ he calls, his smile hesitant as his feet pad across the sand towards me, his black wetsuit streaming with water.

  ‘I was just saying goodbye to Lucy. She told me you were down here.’

  He rakes his hand through his blond hair, several shades darker than it would be if it weren’t wet.

  ‘Nathan told me you’re moving back to the UK,’ he says.

  I nod. ‘The day after tomorrow. Rachel has asked me to do a wedding with her.’

  His face lights up. ‘So you’re finally going back to wedding photography?’

  ‘At long last.’

  ‘Yeah, at long last,’ he agrees reflectively. ‘And Alex? Are things still happening there?’

  I nod, managing a small smile. ‘Yeah. We’re good.’

  ‘I’m happy for you,’ he says after a moment.

  ‘How’s Fliss?’ I ask.

  ‘Good.’ He smiles now too.

  ‘I’m happy for you, too,’ I say, and I mean it. I’m not sad, but emotion pricks at me behind my eyes as the years we spent together tumble away.

  ‘Do you regret it?’ he asks out of the blue. ‘Choosing me?’

  ‘No.’ I shake my head, trying to hold back the tears. ‘I loved the time we spent together. Most of it, anyway.’

  ‘Me too,’ he says, his voice husky. ‘Good luck with everything, Bronnie.’

  He steps forward to give me a hug.

  ‘Argh, you’re all wet,’ I squeal, and he laughs, shaking his wet hair over me. ‘Still so immature,’ I chide, giving his chest a small, affectionate shove.

  ‘The boy who never grows up,’ he replies with a grin.

  ‘I’ll let you get back to your waves.’

  ‘It was good to see you.’ He walks backwards a few steps.

  ‘You too.’

  I watch him jog across the beach and pick up the surfboard he’d jammed upright in the sand, then I turn, the wind whipping tears from my eyes as I walk away. Just before I slip out of view, I cast one last look back at the boy who stole my heart when I most needed him to.

  He’s sitting up on his board, watching me, and lifts his hand in a half-wave. I do the same before letting him go.

  As is becoming tradition, Alex comes to collect me from the airport. We stand in each other’s arms, holding each other tightly for I don’t know how long as the other arrivals swarm around us and pass by. He rests his head against my forehead.

  ‘I’ve missed you so much,’ he murmurs.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re here.’

  ‘For good, hopefully, if I can get that visa sorted out.’

  ‘I’ve lined up an immigration lawyer,’ he says with a smile, letting me go to take the trolley containing all my luggage.

  We go straight back to his place.

  ‘Are you sure you’re happy with me staying here?’ I ask with slight trepidation as he lugs the last of my suitcases down the stairs. I paid excess to bring what I could, giving away quite a bit before I left. Luckily, Lachie and I only ever rented and the flat was fully furnished, so I don’t have a crazy amount of possessions.

  ‘More than happy,’ he says, digging into his pocket and giving me a key.

  We spoke at length about this before I left Australia. He talked me out of getting a place myself, saying it was ridiculous when we’d probably end up living together anyway. Also, he has a spare room, which he says I can use as my own if I ever need a little space.

  ‘I will pay rent,’ I say firmly.

  He sighs. ‘You don’t need to.’

  ‘I want to pay my way.’

  ‘I’m in a good place. I don’t want you to stress about money.’

  ‘I won’t. Did I tell you that Simon has some work for me in January?’

  ‘No?’ He looks amazed and then a touch concerned. ‘I thought you were going to focus on wedding photography.’

  ‘I am. This is just a bit of freelance picture work until I get on my feet. I won’t take another full-time job.’

  He smiles and tugs me towards him until we’re toe to toe.

  ‘I’m so proud of you,’ he says.

  ‘The feeling’s mutual.’

  He leans down to kiss me, but I step away. ‘I need a shower.’

  He raises an eyebrow. ‘Can I join you?’

  I give him a cheeky grin and take his hand, leading him up the stairs.

  I don’t think I’m going to need to worry about digging out fresh clothes any time soon. I doubt we’ll be moving from his bed.

  A few days later, I go to see Rachel. She looks like she’s going to burst as I read over the confidentiality contract, finally signing my name.

  ‘Spill it!’ I say with a laugh.

  ‘Joe and Alice!’ she yells.

  ‘Joseph Strike?’ My eyes nearly pop out of my head.

  She nods manically.

  ‘No way!’ I gasp. This is way, way bigger than I ever could have imagined.

  Joseph Strike is a huge Hollywood star, like, proper A-list. Alice was his first love – they met when they were eighteen, but lost touch. She married someone else, but she wasn’t happy and, when Joe opened up about his feelings for her on a chat show years later, Alice’s friend called in and the show put them back in touch. Everyone knows their story.

  They’ve been engaged for donkey’s years, but have had two children in the meantime, so it didn’t seem like they were ever going to get around to tyi
ng the knot.

  Funnily enough, I organised a Joseph Strike Baby Bump cover for Hebe once when my friend Lily in Adelaide offered me the pictures.

  I was in Simon’s good books big time after that. I’ve felt kind of indebted to the actor ever since.

  ‘Where’s the wedding taking place?’ I ask Rachel.

  ‘A country house up in Cambridgeshire,’ she replies. ‘It’s all very hush-hush. Joe and Alice don’t want the press to cotton on and harass them on their big day.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ I say, shaking my head.

  ‘I told you I think it’ll set you up. It really will,’ she says. ‘I also wanted to ask you if you’d like to take on Misha’s weddings from next spring?’

  She’s already told me that her assistant is having a baby and going on maternity leave.

  ‘Do you really need to ask?’

  ‘I know you’ll go it alone eventually,’ she says with a smile. ‘But I do so love working with you.’

  ‘I love working with you, too, and I’m in no rush to run my own show. Not yet, anyway.’

  Joe and Alice are getting married in early December and Alex and I decide to make a mini-break out of the weekend, heading up to Cambridge on the Friday night before the wedding. We stay in a hotel with a great view of the River Cam, and spend a cold but lovely evening wandering around the frosty streets of the fairy-light-laden city.

  Early the next morning, I kiss Alex goodbye and leave him to a day of Christmas shopping and sightseeing, while I jump into a cab and head to a sleepy village a twenty-minute drive away.

  Rachel told me that Joe and Alice wanted to prepare for the big day together at home with their two small children, and we need to be there to capture the proceedings.

  I’m nervous. Hebe was great grounding, but you never get quite used to working with famous people. Joseph Strike is a major celebrity, and even Alice is almost as recognisable as her fiancé these days. I hope I don’t balls this up.

  To avoid any likelihood of the cab driver alerting the press, I get out of the car a good few hundred yards early and walk up the muddy country lane to the imposing gates at the end. I press the buzzer and they glide open after a moment, delivering a view of the stunning sixteenth-century Tudor mansion within.

  I’m in awe as I crunch across the icy gravel driveway with my kitbag slung over my shoulder, looking around for Rachel’s car. I’m alarmed to find that it’s not there – she was supposed to arrive before me.

  The heavy wooden front door swings open well before I reach it and a woman in a white fluffy robe and bare feet beams out at me.

  Oh my God, it’s Alice. The Alice!

  ‘Hello!’ she calls. ‘You must be Bronte!’

  ‘Hi!’ I call back.

  ‘Rachel’s running a bit late. There was an accident on the A1.’ She holds out her hand for me to shake as I reach her. ‘She tried to call you, but couldn’t get reception. It’s a bit patchy round here.’

  Despite her bare-faced appearance, Alice is stunning. Her complexion is flawless, the sort that would make Maria weep – what a shame she’s not doing the make-up today – and her hair is jet-black and dead straight, falling to just below her shoulders.

  ‘Do you need to see my credentials?’ I ask, a bit taken aback that she’s opening her own front door. Don’t they have staff falling over themselves to do that sort of thing?

  ‘Nah.’ Alice waves me away and her green eyes seem to sparkle. ‘Anyway, Rachel showed me a pic. I know it’s you. You want a cuppa?’

  ‘I’d love one.’

  ‘Joe, this is Bronte,’ I hear her say as I follow her into a large, warm country kitchen, complete with natural stone flooring and an Aga.

  ‘Hey.’ Joseph Strike jumps up from the table where he’s spoon-feeding a baby. ‘Joe,’ he says, giving my hand a firm shake and smiling warmly.

  Joe, not Joseph, I note.

  He’s a lot taller than I thought he’d be, with short, dark hair and dark-brown eyes. He’s wearing casual grey cargo pants and a faded black T-shirt, but his biceps protrude from under his sleeves and I don’t need to have seen his films to know how defined his abs are under that top.

  I try to still my beating heart.

  Don’t be stupid, Bronte, they’re just people.

  ‘And who are you?’ I ask in a sweet voice, bending to put my kitbag on the floor.

  ‘This is Becca,’ Joe says fondly, taking his seat again. ‘Okay, okay, it’s coming,’ he chides his daughter gently, spooning another mouthful of soggy Weetabix into her waiting mouth.

  I know her name, of course. And I know that she’s seven months old. But at that moment, I wish I didn’t. I wish this were just an ordinary wedding between two ordinary people. I don’t want to ask questions that I already know the answers to, and I genuinely wish that I didn’t already know the answers.

  ‘You want another coffee, Joe?’ Alice interrupts, filling up the kettle and putting it on the Aga.

  Don’t they have a cook to do this sort of thing?

  At that moment, a small boy wanders sleepily into the room, dressed in Spider-Man PJs. Alice scoops him up.

  ‘Good morning, precious,’ she says softly, kissing him on his nose. The child rubs at his eyes and yawns.

  Unsure if it’s the right thing to do, but willing to take the risk, I quickly unzip my kitbag, getting out my camera and the lens I use to take portraits.

  ‘Is this okay?’ I ask Joe in a whisper.

  ‘Go for it,’ he replies.

  I snap off a couple of candid shots so I don’t miss the moment, then put my camera down and smile at Jack, Joe and Alice’s son.

  ‘Alright, little man?’ Joe asks him. ‘You slept well.’

  Jack yawns again and buries his face against Alice’s neck.

  ‘Better than me,’ Joe adds with a wry smile at his fiancée.

  Alice smiles and taps her son on his back. ‘This is Bronte,’ she says. Jack lifts his head to look at me with his soulful dark eyes. ‘She’s taking some pictures of Mummy and Daddy’s wedding day.’

  ‘Hi,’ he says in a cute, groggy voice. What a sweetheart.

  Rachel arrives soon afterwards and the atmosphere remains laidback and lovely. Misha has gone straight to the country house where Alice’s parents and the couple’s close friends are getting ready. I really liked Misha when I met her earlier this week – we’ve never worked together before – but she has an easy-going, likeable nature, and apparently she and Alice have already bonded over morning-sickness woes.

  It soon becomes clear that the Strikes don’t have any staff, at least not in their home. There’s a bodyguard next door who keeps an eye on security and who can be here at a moment’s notice if necessary, but on the whole the family appear to strive to have as normal a life as possible.

  By the time the morning shoot is finished, I have a little bit of a crush on all four of them.

  Just as we’re leaving the house, I notice a picture of Alice and Joe on the hallstand. Alice is holding a baby koala, and Joe has his hand placed protectively on his fiancée’s pregnant belly. I know Lily’s handiwork when I see it and make a mental note to tell my friend that they still hold dear the shot that she took – at their request, as it turned out – at the conservation park in the Adelaide Hills, where she works. The couple gave their permission for Lily to sell the pictures she took of them, hoping it might help her get established as a photographer – and it did. She regularly contributes to magazines, although she specialises in wildlife, rather than celebrities. Saying that, she has told me that a few Aussie soap stars have since visited the conservation park and asked if she can do some ‘Joseph and Alice shots’ for them, so I think that’s given her a bit of a kick.

  We go by hired limousine to the wedding venue a few miles away. I travel with the Strikes, while Rachel follows in her car. I sit on one of the seats facing backwards and take some candid shots of the four of them, lined up.

  Alice looks absolutely stunning in a s
imple, white gown with matching jacket and diamanté-studded high heels. Her hair has been styled up in an intricate but loose bun, with a few tendrils escaping to frame her face, and there are white orchids adorning her dark locks, which match the posy she’ll carry up the aisle. The make-up artist has somehow managed to make the green in her stunning almond-shaped eyes look even more luminescent.

  As for Joe, he’s out-of-this-world gorgeous in a well-fitted black suit and cherry-red tie. He can’t take his eyes off his wife-to-be.

  ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he murmurs for the third time since we got in the car.

  She smiles back at him. ‘You don’t look so bad yourself,’ she whispers, casting me a slightly self-conscious look and giggling when I smirk at her.

  Joe flashes me a grin.

  I like this family so much. I wish we could be friends, I muse with an inward giggle at myself. I know damn well that everyone who meets them has that thought.

  Alice is sitting between her two children, holding their hands. I put the camera back up to my eye and snap a close-up shot of Becca’s tiny hand, entirely curled around her mother’s forefinger.

  Just because they’re travelling to the venue together, it doesn’t mean that we missed out on the shot of Joe and Alice seeing each other in their wedding outfits for the very first time. Rachel and I captured the moment when Alice came down the stairs and Joe was standing at the bottom. His chest expanded visibly and he looked utterly lost for a moment, completely blown away. Then his eyes filled with tears and he stepped forward to take Alice in his arms, cradling her tenderly.

  Boy, does he love her.

  Although part of me felt uncomfortable witnessing such a private moment, I know that, just as with Bridget and Charlie and all of the other brides and grooms we’ve photographed, these are two pictures that they’ll treasure forever.

  As celebrity weddings go, Alice and Joe’s is massively understated. The day is clearly a celebration of love between two people among only their very dearest friends and family.

  It was the same for Bridget and Charlie.