I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Years too long.’

  ‘Stupid.’

  ‘Crazy.’

  A beat.

  ‘So, here we are, Bridge. Ending our relationship as we started it, with snow all around us…’

  Her heart kicked. Mary and Jack picked the perfect moment to return.

  ‘I’ve turned the lights off in the back,’ said Mary. ‘The switch is on the left wall by the door if you need it. I’m going to head upstairs.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Bridge quickly. Left alone with Luke Palfreyman was not where she needed to be.

  ‘I’ll stay for a nightcap I think,’ said Jack. ‘Care to join me, Luke?’

  ‘Do bears ablute in the woods?’ came the reply.

  ‘I’ve left you some sheets and towels and things on your beds,’ said Bridge. ‘If you need anything else, check the door opposite your room, you’re in the last one on the right.’

  Luke saluted her.

  ‘Thank you, ladies. Sleep well,’ said Jack, going behind the bar to get the drinks. He’d always wanted a bar in his house. The trouble was he worked so hard these days that all his old friends were in danger of falling by the wayside and he’d have no one to invite to it.

  ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘A double neat Glenfiddich if they have it, squire,’ said Luke.

  ‘Sounds good, I’ll join you,’ said Jack, lifting two glasses in turn to the appropriate optic. He settled in the next armchair to Luke, which received him like an old friend. He sighed then, a sound of annoyance. ‘I tell you, what a bloody wasted day. Plans all gone to the wall.’

  ‘What plans were thwarted for you?’ asked Luke.

  ‘Had a meeting with a Japanese chap whom I’ve been trying to pin down for months and now it’ll be May before I can either visit him or be visited by him. At the earliest.’

  ‘Video call him then,’ replied Luke.

  ‘Not how I like to do business.’

  ‘Sometimes you have to compromise. Takes the stress out of things. Why blow all that expense and time when you don’t have to? Have you never heard of Zoom?’ said Luke, sounding infuriatingly laid-back. He obviously wasn’t au fait with the matter of multi-million-pound business modules, thought Jack.

  ‘What line of work are you in?’ Jack asked him. He guessed a teacher, one of those ultra-cool ones that teenagers idolised.

  ‘Have you heard of Plant Boy?’ said Luke, savouring the warmth of the fire on his skin and the whisky lightly fuzzing his brain, repairing his frazzled nerves. That nightmare walk to this safe haven was still too fresh in his mind.

  ‘The vegetarian food firm? Of course,’ said Jack. Plant Boy was a company growing at the rate of developing cells. Who in the industry hadn’t heard of them? ‘Why, do you work for them?’

  ‘I’m Plant Boy,’ said Luke, as if he was announcing he was Spartacus. ‘Started the company five years ago. It’s done rather well if I say so myself.’

  Which was an understatement, thought Jack as he let out an impressed breath along with the single word, ‘Wow.’

  ‘I do video calls all the time, it’s a perfectly acceptable way to have meetings these days, however important they are. I like being at home with my partner too much to be flying around the world when I don’t have to. Why have the technology if you don’t use it?’

  Jack opened his mouth to speak, then realised he didn’t have a viable enough answer other than to say that it was the way his father had always advocated doing business, and so he had too.

  ‘When I do go, my fiancée Carmen usually comes with me and we make a mini break of it. I enjoy my new-found wealth, Jack. I’m master of it, not slave to it. What line of work are you in then?’

  ‘Scones,’ replied Jack. ‘We produce nearly two million of them every day.’

  ‘Impressive. Do any vegan ones?’

  ‘Yes, and very successful they are too.’

  ‘Interesting. We’re always looking to extend our vegan range. We should exchange numbers.’

  Jack nodded in agreement. ‘My dad used to say there was an opportunity to do business wherever you were. And here we are, doing business.’

  ‘Planning to do business,’ Luke corrected him. ‘Enjoy the enforced downtime.’ He took a mouthful of scotch, let it sit on his tongue before swallowing. ‘I think I’ll sleep well tonight.’

  ‘This wave of vegetarianism must be like a tail wind to you,’ said Jack, intrigued by this man in the next chair. Plant Boy was massive and yet Luke didn’t have the air of someone that successful. He was far too carefree, not arrogant enough by half.

  ‘It is, and I have every intention of letting it propel us as far as it can. We could save the planet and it’s all good stuff and I’m biting into the profits to keep the costs down so it’s affordable to more people. Then, before I’m too old, I intend to sell up, take a stupidly early retirement and hopefully spend my time with my new wife, children and a set of golf clubs.’

  ‘How many children do you have?’ asked Jack.

  Luke paused before answering. ‘None,’ he said eventually. He wetted his lips with his tongue. ‘None yet. Tell me about the two older guys? Father and son?’

  ‘A married couple,’ said Jack. ‘I think Charlie said he was a jeweller or a diamond merchant and Robin was, before they got together, his chauffeur.’

  Luke didn’t bat an eyelid at that disclosure. ‘Hmm. Carmen worked for me in our accounts department before we became romantically involved,’ he said. ‘I truly never noticed how stunning she was, even though I used to see her all the time around the building. Then she said hello to me in the supermarket one day after work and I didn’t recognise her with jeans and a big woolly jumper on. I thought, Who is this gorgeous woman saying “Hello, Mr Palfreyman”? You hear the expression “having the scales ripped from your eyes” but you don’t ever think you can be that blind yourself.’ He took another drink. ‘What’s the story with you and Mary then? Just business or…’ He didn’t finish the sentence but the inference was clear.

  ‘Absolutely just business,’ said Jack, adamantly. ‘She’s about ten years my junior for a start.’

  ‘Carmen’s eight years my senior. Age is but a number, my friend.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose… though Mary’s not…’ My type, he was going to say‘…I wouldn’t take advantage.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting as much, I was merely wondering if there were any romantic feelings pinging between you.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  A conversation to be continued in the morning perhaps, or maybe never if the weather miraculously improved, thought Luke. He was suddenly consumed with a wave of weariness, thanks to relief at having eventually found shelter, a soup-and-sandwich-filled belly and the generous slugs of Scottish malt. He tossed the remaining contents of his glass into his mouth.

  ‘Time for me to hit the horizontal slab,’ he said.

  ‘Me too,’ said Jack. ‘It’s been a long day.’

  Luke switched off the main bar lights by the door. The embers of the large fire glowed gently, their orange light reaching into the dark. It was safe enough to leave, he decided. It looked as sleepy as he now felt.

  Jack followed Luke up the stairs, the thought buzzing in his head that in all the years he’d known Mary, it had never crossed his mind to think of her with any feeling. And of course she didn’t think of him in that way either. She worked for him, he paid her salary, that’s as far as it went. Mary was as much part of the office furniture as his desk and his stapler were. How could there be anything more to it than that?

  Chapter 8

  Bridge and Mary had snuggled down into their twin beds, warm as toast. The central heating was underpowered, which made the beds extra cosy. The mattresses were soft, probably terrible for the back, but bouncy-comfy. It felt not unlike a teenage sleepover, as they started to talk in the dark.

  ‘He’s very good-looking, your boss,’ said Bridge. ‘Not quite modern man enough for me, plus he’s too tall. I like
someone I don’t have to climb in order to stare into their eyes.’

  Mary chuckled inwardly at the image of Bridge scaling the north face of Jack. ‘Yes, he is tall. Funny that, because his dad wasn’t much taller than me and I think his mum was pretty short from what I hear.’ Jack was nothing like Reg Butterly to look at, who was stubby and thickset with a permanent scowl on his face, unless he was talking about his son.

  ‘Jack said in the kitchen that he realised he’d never made you a drink before, that true?’

  The thought of Jack making drinks in the office tickled Mary.

  ‘Butterly’s isn’t the most progressive place on earth, I’ll give you that but it’s gradually coming out of the dark ages. I wonder sometimes if Jack is afraid to change things in case he thinks he’s betraying his dad by doing so. Reg Butterly wasn’t one for change. He was very much an “if it isn’t broke don’t mend it” kind of bloke.’

  ‘He sounds an amazing businessman,’ said Bridge with a sarcastic humph.

  ‘The scones sold themselves for him, he was lucky, but it was only when Jack took over that it went massive, because he’s not the type to sit on any laurels. Slowly but surely he’s changing things. At least he always says thank you, which is more than Reg used to. I don’t think he said it once to me in all the time I was working for him.’

  ‘Rude pig,’ said Bridge. ‘I hate that sort of entitlement. I worked in a factory where the quality-control boss used to slap your bum when you took his morning coffee in.’

  ‘No way.’ Mary gasped.

  ‘Notorious for it. He only did it once with me, mind.’ She could still see a slo-mo mini video of his blubbery cheeks wobbling when her nineteen-year-old self twirled around at speed and slapped his face. She was never sure who was more shocked – him or her. He was extremely frosty to her after that, but he never put a hand on her again.

  ‘Reg wouldn’t have done that,’ said Mary, with certainty. He gave off a vibe that he didn’t like women. Especially brunettes. She was told by someone when she first joined that if she’d had dark hair, she would never have got the job.

  ‘I was working at that factory in the early noughties and you would have thought it was the 1970s the way some of the bosses carried on,’ said Bridge.

  ‘Where was it?’ asked Mary.

  ‘In Derby. A massive place that manufactured plumbing parts.’

  ‘That where you live now?’

  ‘Yes, but at the other side of the county. I live in the countryside, it’s lovely.’

  ‘Is… your husband there too?’ His name temporarily escaped Mary.

  Husband? It was funny to think she was still married to Luke. Bridge had shifted him into the ‘ex’ box in her head long ago, but legally they were still very much husband and wife.

  ‘No, he moved to Manchester. Have you heard of Plant Boy?’

  ‘Oh yeah. I’m vegetarian, well, pescatarian if you’re going to be pedantic. Does Luke work for Plant Boy then?’

  ‘Luke is Plant Boy.’

  ‘No way.’ Mary sounded well impressed. ‘I buy loads of their stuff.’

  ‘You’ve helped to finance his Aston Martin in that case,’ said Bridge. She remembered their first car – a red fifth-hand Ford Fiesta with a replacement blue passenger door, more rust than paint. It never let them down though, not once.

  ‘Jack’s got a magnificent Maserati.’

  ‘I bet he has,’ Bridge said. ‘How come he’s single, presuming he is?’ She had known Mary only a couple of hours, yet she didn’t seem like the sort of girl who’d be lovestruck over a taken man.

  ‘Oh, Jack’s married to the job,’ replied Mary. ‘He’s had plenty of girlfriends over the years but they haven’t lasted very long. I think…’ She paused, was about to say something that was bordering on the indiscreet.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing… only that he hasn’t found the right woman yet,’ Mary said.

  ‘Oh come on, you were going to say something else. What’s his usual type? No – let me guess. Glamorous, great figure, big lips and tarantula-leg eyelashes,’ said Bridge.

  Which was pretty much spot on. Leggy, pretty women with a ton of make-up and flicky hair extensions, heels that hurt Mary’s feet just to look at. Trophies, all in the same mould. They occasionally called in to the office, some friendlier than others, and every one stabbed her a little in the heart in case this would be the one who hung around longer than a month. They never did though, because they were more attracted to Jack Butterly’s cash, house and car than they were to Jack Butterly. He was a castle full of goodies with the portcullis firmly down and she’d been at Butterly’s long enough to have heard via the gossip machine why that was.

  Mary knew that he needed someone who saw past the Hugo Boss suits and the successful businessman image because at his core there was still a lonely boy frightened of having his heart mashed. It was clear to her young, but incisive mind that Jack Butterly put all his emotion and effort into the business when really he wished he could find a person to put it into.

  Mary didn’t want to talk about him any more. This road trip had so far told her everything she needed to know in order to do what she had to, and that would make her crumple if she thought about it too much.

  ‘That’s his type in a nutshell,’ she said and shifted the spotlight away from him. ‘So, are you and Luke managing to keep things civil, then?’

  Bridge laughed, a hard, brittle sound, before she spoke.

  ‘This is the most civil we’ve been in the five years since we split,’ she said, as a vision visited her of throwing an A4 file at him four years ago, a point in her life when she had considered getting up an hour earlier in the mornings just to hate him a bit more each day.

  ‘You’ve been trying to divorce for five years?’

  ‘It feels much longer, let me tell you.’

  ‘How long were you together before you broke up?’

  ‘Ten crazy, mixed-up years.’ A decade-long breathless fairground ride. No wonder she felt sick when she got off it.

  ‘What made you split?’ asked Mary.

  There was a question. Small niggles that grew into big arguments, all the opposites that initially drew them together finally driving them apart. Her past indelibly staining their future. Plus that one big hurdle that neither of them could clear.

  ‘Oh, too much to talk about now, it would take all night. Sleep well, Mary,’ said Bridge, shutting the conversation down, politely but firmly. She didn’t want to think about where it had started to go wrong. Because it hurt too much.

  * * *

  ‘Are you warm enough, Charlie?’ asked Robin, tucking the quilt around him.

  ‘Snug as a bug,’ said Charlie. ‘What a lovely comfortable bed.’

  ‘I’d booked a waterbed for us in Aviemore.’

  ‘Ugh no, I’d have been seasick,’ said Charlie with a schoolboy chortle.

  ‘Silly old fool. Goodnight. Sweet dreams.’

  They settled into sleep mode then Charlie piped up.

  ‘Robin, before you nod off, please talk to me.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘You know what.’

  Robin turned over. ‘No, Charlie. Not tonight. Go to sleep, it’s been a hard day, I’m done in.’

  ‘Five minutes, that’s all I’m ask—’

  ‘I’m already asleep,’ said Robin.

  Christmas Eve

  It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

  Chapter 9

  ‘Dear God in heaven,’ were the words that woke Charlie up. Robin was standing by the window, in his complimentary robe. He stood by windows a lot. Even when they were at home, he stood by the French windows and watched the magpies and sparrows, the chaffinches and collared doves, took joy in them skipping onto the bird table, bathing in the large stone fountain they had in their garden. Charlie had a photo framed and hanging in his office that he’d taken of Robin years ago in that position, when he didn’t have so many lines weighing down his br
ow, when he smiled more, when he didn’t have worries that weren’t going to go away.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Remember last night when we said we’d wake up to green fields and clear roads?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, we haven’t. We’ve woken up in bloody Narnia.’

  Charlie heaved himself out of bed and over to the window. Robin wasn’t joking. And it was still falling in soft flakes. A bleak midwinter, snow on snow, snow on snow.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Do you think we have a choice, Charles? We’ll have to stay put. Maybe – hopefully – drive up to Scotland tonight or even first thing in the morning if the roads clear.’ It was a very big ‘if’ if this scene was anything to go by.

  ‘I’m ready for some breakfast, are you?’ said Charlie. ‘I’m ravenous.’

  ‘You eat more than a starving horse.’

  ‘I could murder one of those mince pies.’

  ‘Cholesterol, Charlie!’

  ‘I hope there isn’t a box of All Bran in any of the cupboards. I’m sick of the sight of it. I’ve eaten so much of it, I’m starting to crunch when I move.’

  Robin opened up his mouth to extol the values of bran then surrendered at the sight of Charlie’s petulantly curled lip. ‘Let’s go and find something else to satisfy your appetite then. Chop-chop, Captain,’ he said.

  * * *

  Jack was already downstairs, building up a fire. The lounge was chilly because the huge iron radiators weren’t kicking out much heat. They needed either bleeding or bashing with a mallet, that was evident.

  ‘Morning,’ Charlie greeted him cheerfully. ‘Sleep well, did you, Jack?’

  ‘Yes, I did actually. Like the proverbial log,’ came the reply.

  ‘You sound surprised by that,’ Charlie said, with a little laugh.

  ‘I don’t normally sleep well in strange beds,’ explained Jack. Usually because he was in a hotel either the night before or after a meeting and his mind was spinning. Here, he had no access to a phone line or emails; cut off from the world of business, cut off from the world of everything, his brain had taken the rare opportunity to power down properly and it had rested.