by Jenny Plumb
But Broderick, who’d worked as a creative team leader for Clarkson’s head office in Melbourne, had applied and gotten the job instead.
Not getting the job had capped what had been a year from hell for Lucinda.
She’d thrown herself into work after Matt had dumped her back in July, when they’d been island hopping in Greece. Her whole life had changed that night on Ios. Forced to move out of his north London flat, she’d ended up in a house-share with two strangers. She’d worked long hours, won the award, set her sights on promotion. The acting manager’s job had given her hope, even if it was only a six-month position. She’d even started looking on real estate websites, because promotion meant more money, and she’d be able to put a deposit on a flat.
Broderick’s appointment had scuppered that.
Even worse, his arrival had coincided with the departure of one of her housemates, and he’d moved into the Turnpike Lane house, saying it wasn’t worth buying a place when he was only in England for six months. He said he didn’t want to live over here on his own, he wanted people around him.
The only good thing Broderick’s arrival had done for Lucinda was to galvanise her into action. She’d started looking for a new job; after all, Lisa was coming back to work and there’d be no more possibilities for promotion at Clarkson’s for a very long time. She’d gone on a diet, determined to get back to her old weight after all the comfort eating she’d done when Matt dumped her. If this year had been rubbish, next year was going to be awesome. She’d make sure of that.
Now, Broderick said, “Oh, the sun doesn’t shine all the time in Melbourne, I can tell you that!” before changing the subject. “I was thinking we might have a house meal tonight and then put up the decorations for Christmas. I spoke to Morag and she’s at home, she doesn’t have a concert or anything.”
Morag was their other housemate, a classical flautist, much in demand in the run-up to Christmas.
Lucinda lied swiftly. “I can’t, I’m having dinner with a friend after work. It’s been arranged for ages.”
“Oh.” Lucinda glanced up at Broderick in time to spot of flicker of disappointment. “That’s a shame. I’m not a bad cook, you know.”
“I know that,” she said. “I’ve smelt your cooking.” Delicious smells wafted up from the kitchen most evenings since Broderick had moved in. He seemed to enjoy cooking. His shelf in the pantry was filled with jars of spices and herbs, whereas Morag’s contained staples like soup and beans, easy to prepare when on the run between work and concert. And Lucinda’s right now contained… nothing.
They’d reached the tube station. A huge Christmas tree stood in a corner of the concourse area, and tinny Christmas carols blared from speakers as the escalators whisked commuters down to the tube platforms. Lucinda was hit by a wave of nostalgia. As a child she’d decorated two trees every Christmas – their big one at home, and then her gran’s small one, which had stood on a table in the bay window. Lucinda had loved doing it, had her favourite baubles and bells that had always been placed on the tree first.
“I won’t be too late tonight,” she said. They walked onto the platform, hit instantaneously by the familiar blast of wind, smell of dust and rumble of train on tracks that signalled an approaching tube. “I’ll probably be back in time to help with the decorations.”
Broderick smiled. “Great,” he said. He was making a huge effort to be friends with her – Lucinda had to give him credit for that. But she didn’t want to be pals with someone who’d taken the job she’d so badly wanted – even if he was one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen.
The tube arrived, already crammed with commuters. As they joined the crush, and Lucinda manoeuvred herself into a position where she could hold on to a strap handle, she and Broderick were separated. She forgot about Christmas decorations and started thinking about her diet plans. Another ten pounds to go and she’d be her ideal weight.
It was damned annoying having a housemate who was also your boss. If it hadn’t been for Broderick, Lucinda could have gone straight home from work, and excused herself from the house meal saying she’d had a large lunch. But Broderick, of course, would know she hadn’t taken a lunchbreak at all.
So instead of heading home after a busy day’s work like she wanted, Lucinda had to waste a couple of hours mooching around Waterstones Piccadilly, a seven-floor bookshop that boasted eight miles of books. While browsing, she found an audiobook on the history of cricket that her dad would like. Of course, she had no money with her to buy it and would have to make a trip back. She texted her old uni mate Aurora.
Hey, do you want to go Christmas shopping on Saturday?
A couple of minutes later, Aurora replied.
Yes. Portobello Road Market?
Sounds good, Lucinda messaged back. But I need to go to Waterstones as well.
A couple more texts and the shopping trip was teed up for ten o’clock. Lucinda spent another half hour browsing bookshelves, then headed to the tube station.
It was eight-thirty when she arrived home. As soon as she opened the front door, she was hit by the delicious smell of baking and the sound of a cheesy Christmas song from the 1970s, one of those her dad was so fond of. Lucinda could hear Broderick and Morag singing along to it: ‘I wish it could be Christmas every day.’
Whoever wrote that song had never endured a tedious Christmas with a disabled father and maudlin mother.
The living room had been transformed. Broderick and Morag had shifted the old-fashioned furniture around to make room for the Christmas tree. It stood tall in the bay window; artificial, but it looked real. Several boxes of decorations lay beside it. Morag was twirling fairy lights around the branches. Broderick stood on one of the dining room chairs, pinning shiny streamers to the ceiling. Twelve small cross-stitch squares were perched above the mantelpiece. Each depicted one of the twelve days of Christmas – twelve drums through five golden rings down to the partridge in a pear tree.
“Ah, good, you’re back,” said Broderick. “Pour yourself a glass of wine and give us a hand.” He indicated the open bottle on the coffee table, an empty wine glass next to it.
Lucinda dumped her coat and handbag on the sofa and poured red wine. Liquid calories don’t count. “Where did the decs come from?”
“Morag and I got the tree and the baubles and streamers from the supermarket,” said Broderick.
“What about the cross-stitches?”
“My mum made them,” said Morag. “She made a set for me and one for my sister as part of our Christmas presents last year.”
Lucinda took a slug of wine. “They’re great.”
“Don’t just stand there drinking,” said Morag. “Help me with the tree.”
Lucinda picked a silver bell from the box and tinkled it before hooking it onto one of the middle branches.
“So what are you doing for Christmas?” Morag asked her. Morag was Lucinda’s own age, twenty-eight, with short wavy blonde hair and glasses. Broderick was thirty-two; she knew that because he’d celebrated his birthday only a few days after he’d arrived in England, treating the creative department to morning cakes.
“Oh, going back to my parents’ place in Worthing.”
“You don’t sound too excited about it,” Broderick said.
Lucinda gave a shrug and selected a sparkling silver star. “It’s just me and Mum and Dad. Oh, and a lot of food.”
“Family and food,” said Morag. “Sounds great.”
Family and food, thought Lucinda. Sounds awful. “What about you?” she asked Morag. Bubbly, outgoing Morag came from a large family – three brothers and one sister, a couple of her brothers were married with kids. No doubt her Christmas would be one long party.
“We’re having Christmas dinner at a restaurant this year,” Morag said. “All twenty of us. We’ll take over the restaurant probably. Then we’re going to the pantomime on Boxing Day. It’s Jack and the Beanstalk and the local MP makes a cameo appearance as Widow Twankey. Should be hi
larious.”
“We’re going to a pantomime on Boxing Day too,” said Broderick. “Jase, who’s organised the cottage, found out about a pantomime some of the villagers are doing, in the village hall. So we’re up for that. We all want a traditional English Christmas.”
“Where is it you’re going?” Morag asked.
“A village called Padham, not far from Norwich,” said Broderick. “We’ve hired the cottage from Christmas Eve till New Year’s Day. We finish work at lunchtime Christmas Eve and I’ve booked the 2.30 train. It takes a couple of hours, and I’ll have to get a cab when I get to Norwich. So I should be at Padham by six o’clock.”
“We might get a white Christmas this year,” said Morag. “That’s what the media are saying.”
“I hope so,” said Broderick. “I haven’t seen snow since I was a kid and my parents took us to the snow.”
“What d’you mean, ‘took you to the snow’?” asked Lucinda. She riffled through the decorations and selected a stocking ornament.
“Well, only parts of Australia get snow. The closest place from where I live is a two-hour drive away. The other Aussies I’m spending Christmas with haven’t seen snow for years either, and Jase has never seen it at all. It’ll be a blast if we get a white Christmas.”
“You won’t like it if the trains get stuffed up because of snow and you don’t actually get to Norwich,” said Lucinda. How good would it be if snow prevented the train from taking her to Worthing? No having to spend two and a half days in front of the television, watching her mother making an attempt to be festive by providing too much food, always hoping that someone would drop in. And no one ever dropped in, other than the neighbours, who knocked on the door on the way back from the pub on Christmas Eve, and had a drink and a mince pie with them. Her family didn’t visit anyone else either. They didn’t really know anybody in Worthing, having moved down there in retirement, thinking the quiet seaside town an ideal place to spend their old age. But her dad had become ill within months of the move. Initially, they’d received invitations from their new neighbours, but Dad was always ill – if it wasn’t his diabetes playing up, it was dizziness, or nausea or something – and people just got used to them saying no, and stopped inviting them.
Lucinda wished her family was large and lively like Morag’s or that she was going away with friends like Broderick. He was lucky that his friends were also twelve thousand miles away from their families. Aurora, Sophie, and Lucinda’s other mates all spent Christmas with their own families. Last year, spending Boxing Day with Matt’s family had been like a breath of fresh air after a dreary Christmas Day with Mum and Dad. Matt’s family had been a real Christmas, festive and fun.
“What do you do for Christmas in Australia?” asked Morag. “Do you really spend it on the beach?”
Broderick jumped down from the chair. “We don’t. My parents live in a country town, about three hours from the nearest beach. We all head back there for Christmas.” He paused for a second and Lucinda caught a wistful, almost sad expression on his face. “We go to carols in the churchyard on Christmas Eve.”
“What’s that?” Morag asked.
“What it says on the tin. Everybody takes a rug and a picnic and we sit on the ground and sing carols.”
“That sounds lovely,” said Lucinda. Her parents always put the Nine Lessons and Carols from Canterbury Cathedral on the telly.
“And the next day we have a barbecue,” said Broderick. “Prawns and a turkey and salad. And on Boxing Day we have another barbie, at my parents’ mates’ place, and have a bit of backyard cricket. All this depends on the weather, of course.”
“Yeah,” said Morag, “what happens if it rains?”
“They move the carols to the church hall, and we sit on seats instead of rugs. We have Christmas lunch indoors instead of out on the deck. And on Boxing Day we sit inside with the cricket on the telly.”
“It still sounds awesome,” Morag said.
Broderick looked suddenly wistful again. “The mince pies’ll be ready. Who wants one?”
“Me,” said Morag. Morag was plump but didn’t care at all about her weight. Lucinda didn’t know whether she admired or despised her.
“Not for me,” she said quickly. “I had a huge dinner with Aurora. Hey, I’ve just remembered – I need to make a phone call. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes to finish off the tree.”
She rushed upstairs. She felt so hungry right now, she couldn’t trust herself to resist those mince pies, not when Broderick took them out of the oven. And she knew if she ate one, she’d be tempted to eat more. She was heading for the New Year without a boyfriend and having failed to land her dream job. She wasn’t entering next year overweight as well.
Besides, Broderick’s Christmas plans had given her an idea.
Chapter 2
Broderick took the mince pies from the oven and placed them on a tray on the counter to cool. He was glad of the distraction, of the excuse to get away from the conversation. Christmas always was going to be a difficult time, he reminded himself. That was why he’d been glad to take up Jase’s invitation to the cottage in Norfolk. Hanging out with a bunch of Aussie blokes, drinking a few beers, having a laugh at the village pantomime – a world away from the memories of Christmas with Kat.
Kat.
Time was reputed to be a great healer, but he wondered just how long it would take him to feel happy again. In January it would be exactly twelve months since that horrific night when he’d answered the door to two police officers. Twelve months since Kat had died, flung off her bicycle by a speeding driver when she was on her way home from work.
He still missed her so much.
He’d hoped the geographical solution would help him come to terms with a future without Kat. Melbourne held nothing but memories of their life together. It wasn’t just the house they’d shared together; everything else reminded him of Kat as well – the muddy Yarra River brought back memories of boat trips taken together, his favourite restaurants and bars had also been hers, they’d been together so long they’d shared a group of friends. The temporary job in London had seemed like a godsend: a chance to run a creative department, improving his chances of promotion down the track; and a chance to get away from Melbourne and its memories. He could have afforded to rent a flat on his own, but he’d liked the idea of a house-share, even if it meant living in a drab, run-down house like this one. He wanted people around him so he couldn’t just sit around brooding, missing Kat.
And that would have worked out fine if it hadn’t been for Lucinda.
It was HR’s fault. The dragon of a HR manager hadn’t told him straightaway that Lucinda had applied for the job. If he’d known that, he wouldn’t have moved into the house. It must be hard enough for her having to work for him without having to put up with him at home as well. But, by the time he found out, he’d already paid the bond and two months’ rent in advance.
He’d tried to make friends with her, but her resentment was obvious. The HR manager dragon had told him that Lucinda wouldn’t have gotten the job anyway, even if he hadn’t applied. Her design talent wasn’t in question; her ability to lead a team was. Broderick had seen signs of that himself, even in the few weeks he’d been at Clarkson’s. She worked hard, but in isolation, and she rarely socialised with the creative team. She wasn’t even attending the office Christmas party, pleading an earlier engagement she couldn’t get out of. One of her colleagues had said she’d been more outgoing before he started, so he put it down to the fact she now avoided social events at Clarkson’s because she didn’t want to spend time with him.
It sounded like she wasn’t looking forward to Christmas much either. Morag had mentioned that Lucinda’s father had lost his sight through diabetes, and had several other health problems as well; Lucinda’s mother was his full-time carer. Lucinda’s family Christmas didn’t sound like it would be much fun.
Should he invite her to Norfolk?
Broderick took a plate from the c
upboard for the mince pies and wondered what to do. He was sure his mates wouldn’t mind – in fact, Jase had said someone had had to drop out and there’d be a spare room. If Lucinda were just his housemate, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But he was her boss, she was a member of his team. It’d be unprofessional to invite her, it could be construed as favouritism. There were bound to be other members of the creative team not looking forward to Christmas for some reason.
Anyway, Lucinda probably felt duty-bound to spend Christmas with her parents, however boring it was. She hadn’t been home for a while, at some level she must be looking forward to seeing them. After all, she had friends in London – Aurora, Sophie; she always seemed to spend time with them. She could probably spend Christmas with one of them if she wanted to.
Broderick put four mince pies on the plate and returned to the living room. Best not to invite her. Things were awkward enough as it was, without Lucinda thinking he felt sorry for her. And if she didn’t want to spend time with him socially after work, she certainly wouldn’t want to spend the Christmas break with him. He put the idea out of his mind.
Chapter 3
“Hey, Mum. How are you?”
“Ooh, hello, Lucinda.” Her mum’s voice squeaked with surprise, even though Lucinda called regularly and hardly anyone else ever did. “How are you, love, all right?”
“I’m good, Mum. How are you?”
“I’m all right, love.”
“And how’s Dad?”
“He’s the same. You know.”
Lucinda did. Nothing ever changed.
“We’re looking forward to Christmas. You know, for the break.”
For the break? Her dad was disabled. Her mother cared for him twenty-four/seven. There was no bloody break.
“And we’re looking forward to seeing you.”
Lucinda took a deep breath. This was it. If you don’t do it now, you never will. “That’s what I’m calling about.”
