I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Mary. ‘He must have come back from the war and married his sweetheart. Poor man.’

  ‘Marriage isn’t that bad, Mary,’ teased Luke.

  ‘I mean poor man because he lost his leg, not because he’d got married,’ replied Mary, giving him a playful nudge.

  ‘Here’s some later ones,’ said Robin, following the wall around to where there was a series of colour photos with subjects reflecting the fashions of the era. A group shot of giggling women in miniskirts, then two men with mullets and flares, another bride and groom, this time both sporting mad eighties perms. And the last of them, a grinning gent in an enormous jumper with an impressive browny-grey combover and a short, portly woman wearing an apron. They were standing outside the cottage furthest away from the church, their feet planted in snow.

  ‘Figgy brandy sounds fantastic,’ said Charlie, licking his lips.

  Bridge, however, was thinking what an opportunity to not only inject new life into this part-time patch of Yorkshire, but resurrect an ancient industry as well. Exciting, very exciting.

  * * *

  Charlie’s stomach gave a grumble and Bridge offered to knock up some sandwiches. Mary said she’d help. She buttered silently, things clearly on her mind, so Bridge let her get on with the job without trying to drag her into conversation. Mary would talk to her if she wanted, but it looked as though she needed some thinking time. She had some not-so-small changes to plan for.

  They delivered lunch to the others who were listening to Radio Brian, who was thrilling his audience with some advice on what to do with unwanted Christmas presents.

  ‘I know some people around here who donate them to local charities as they’re always looking for things to raffle. My friend Malcolm saves them in his shed and gives them to other people for presents the following Christmas. He has a notebook to record who gave him what so he doesn’t end up passing the same present back.’

  ‘I could have guessed his friend Malcolm would be like that, I really could,’ said Bridge.

  Radio Brian continued. ‘Now me, I couldn’t do that. I take mine to the Maud Haworth Home for Cats, but I can tell you that if I get stuff like jellied fruits, they go straight in the bin because no one wants to win those on a tombola, do they?’ And he chuckled at the very idea.

  Mary didn’t move a muscle but out of the corner of her eye she saw Jack shift uncomfortably in his armchair.

  ‘So, lots of practical ideas there for your unwanted gifts,’ said Radio Brian.

  ‘Thank you, Brian,’ said Luke, munching on a cheese and pickle breadcake.

  ‘Present-buying is very simple, I’ve never understood why it’s such an ordeal for some people,’ said Charlie, shaking his head impatiently. ‘A gift carries a message and that message should always be one that shows appreciation, whether it’s for a service or love or friendship. If you don’t care enough to put some thought into it, you shouldn’t bother at all.’

  Jack hadn’t blushed since he was five, but he found his cheeks heating up faster than halogen rings on a hob.

  ‘Bridge used to buy the best presents,’ said Luke. ‘Every year she used to give me a stocking full of things from pound shops, joke shops and car boot sales.’

  ‘In other words, crap,’ said Bridge, though she’d underplayed it because she’d taken a lot of time to select things that would make him laugh, hoot, smile. Things that were great to open but had no use: a fart in a bottle, a jelly spider that crawled down the wall, a stress ball that you could draw the face of your worst enemy onto.

  ‘I liked them,’ he replied.

  ‘Anyone for some mulled cider? We still have plenty left,’ Jack asked, eager to move the conversation away from unsuitable gifts.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Charlie, ‘and bring some mince pies, Jack. I haven’t quite filled up on them yet.’

  ‘Righty-ho, Captain Charlie,’ said Jack, heading towards the kitchen.

  Mary watched him walk away and a dull ache filled her heart. It would be hard not working for him any more. The prospect of change scared her slightly because it would be a big change, big changes plural, actually. She’d have to move house as well as start a new job and she wouldn’t be ten minutes’ drive away from her mum any more. But Charlie’s life hack: Ships are safe in harbours but that’s not why ships are built had struck a chord with her as well as Jack.

  She suspected ‘working Bridge’ would be a little more serious than ‘stranded in an inn Bridge’ but that was fine. Mary had faith in her abilities as a competent and reliable PA and she was ready to impress a new boss, one that didn’t give her any romantic complications. But she’d really miss the world of scones. Okay, so her office desk was from last-century MFI and her window looked out onto the bin store. And the catering facilities were sadly lacking, i.e. a hatch in a wall from where drinks, prepacked sandwiches and buttered scones were dispensed by a grumpy old woman called Edna, who had been there so long that many believed the place had been built around her. But the people who worked there were fun and friendly, apart from shitty Kimberley and the slimy head of product development, who liked to take credit for ideas that weren’t his. Banter flowed in the packing area, it batted between the workers, many of whom had worked together for decades because there was something that kept people at Butterly’s. It was like a home to their hearts, as it was to hers.

  While Bridge was in the shower that morning, she’d written a letter of resignation on a sheet of Figgy Hollow headed paper that she’d found in the drawer of the dressing table.

  26th December

  Dear Mr Butterly

  Please will you take this letter as notice of my resignation. I realise that I do have to work a notice period but have holidays untaken which could be offset against it, so I would like to be released at your earliest convenience in order to enable me to start my new position.

  I have greatly enjoyed my time at Butterly’s and wish you and the company all the very best for the future.

  Yours sincerely

  Mary H.C. Padgett.

  It was straight and to the point, no emotional content. She wouldn’t waste any more of that on Jack Butterly.

  * * *

  Everyone was singing ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ along to the radio when Jack walked back into the lounge carrying first, a plate of warmed mince pies, then on his second trip, the pan of cider and a ladle. Someone had got the glass cups out in readiness from behind the bar.

  ‘Come on Jack, join in for the last bars,’ said Luke. ‘We’re all singing a line clockwise round. Five go-hold riiinnngggsss.’

  Robin covered his ears. Luke really did have the most appalling singing voice.

  ‘…And a partridge in a pear tree,’ they all sang together, Jack included, and applauded themselves.

  ‘We thought we’d build up a bit of a thirst,’ said Robin.

  ‘And some more facts about Christmas that you might not be aware of,’ said Radio Brian. ‘Did you know that Boxing Day gets its name from the money collected in boxes in churches to give to the poor on this day? And servants were allowed to go home after they’d looked after their employers on Christmas Day and these rich people would box up presents for them to take to their families, although hopefully no jellied fruits.’ Brian laughed heartily and Jack thought that he was pushing this jellied fruits joke too far now.

  ‘…And tradition has it you should eat at least one mince pie on each of the twelve days of Christmas for luck.’

  ‘I like that idea,’ said Charlie.

  ‘…And Rudolf’s red nose could be the result of a parasitic infection of his respiratory system.’

  ‘Brian, that’s gross,’ Bridge wrinkled her nose up in revulsion.

  ‘How can a fictional reindeer have a parasitic infection?’ asked Luke. ‘It’s like saying Snow White has crabs.’

  ‘Dirty bint,’ said Robin. ‘I always thought she seemed too whiter than white to be true.’

  ‘I’m sure this cider has grown more
potent overnight,’ said Bridge, taking a glug. ‘For the record, I’m not complaining.’

  Luke bowed in his seat. ‘Thank you, madam.’

  ‘Are you going to be doing a Plant Boy mulled drinks range then, Luke?’ asked Mary.

  ‘I very much doubt it. It’s all about getting healthier and I’m not sure my diet over the past few days fits in with the Plant Boy manifesto.’

  ‘Well I feel the best I have in ages,’ said Charlie. He certainly matched his claim with his pink cheeks and bright eyes; even his hair seemed thicker and lusher. Sitting regally in the armchair, he looked every inch the subject of a Renaissance portrait in oils.

  ‘How many of you listeners have popped the question at Christmastime, or even got married at Christmas?’ asked Radio Brian. ‘I married my wife in the heat of August’s blaze, hoping for a guarantee of good weather but it absolutely threw it down with rain. We were drenched.’

  ‘Bridge and I got married at Christmas,’ said Luke.

  ‘Did you? And was it lovely and romantic?’ asked Robin.

  ‘Depends what your definition of romantic is,’ said Bridge. ‘The registrar had a really snotty cold and Luke’s foster grandad couldn’t find his braces and his trousers kept falling down.’

  ‘My suit came from a supermarket, Bridge’s dress came from the PDSA charity shop.’

  ‘I made my bouquet from plastic flowers bought in Poundstretcher.’

  ‘We had our reception in the Little Mermaid fish and chip shop. Six of us. Us two, the best man, my foster dad, foster mum and her father.’

  ‘We went to a beautiful hotel in Matlock for our one-night honeymoon, which Luke’s lot paid for.’ The bed was enormous. Enough room for an orgy, Bridge remembered Luke saying as they sat in it drinking house champagne and eating complimentary popcorn.

  ‘It was a bloody brilliant wedding,’ said Luke. ‘Snow fell like confetti when we were having the pics taken outside; the Salvation Army were playing carols and we washed the fish and chips down with pots and pots of tea and a bottle of their finest Liebfraumilch. God, we felt so sophisticated drinking that.’

  He looked across at Bridge, and just for a moment, she saw the Luke she had married, the young, gawky kid with the cheeky grin and wonky front teeth – now fixed and whitened. The boy who had made her heart thump and her body sigh for more.

  ‘We had all the key ingredients there to make a wedding happy,’ said Bridge, with feeling. Us. In love. Two against the world. Planning a future together. She felt a swell of emotion rise in her like a tidal wave and she braced herself against it washing her away, taking her to shores where old broken memories lay like driftwood.

  ‘Sounds perfect,’ said Charlie, smiling benignly at them.

  ‘But that was then and this is now,’ Bridge said, breezily, like a schoolmistress telling her pupils to chop-chop. ‘It was a long, long time ago.’

  ‘In a galaxy far, far away,’ added Luke. Because their past was that far away. And in another galaxy.

  Chapter 31

  Robin realised he’d drunk too much of that damned cider when he walked up the stairs to get Charlie’s tablet. He hadn’t got full control of his limbs, that was for sure. He sat down on the bed for a few moments to steady himself. He could have quite happily lain on it and taken a nap, but he didn’t want to miss a moment of this lovely day. He was glad they’d found this place, these people. Aviemore wouldn’t have been a patch on Figgy Hollow. Charlie wouldn’t have revelled, laughed, relaxed as much there as he had here, despite the best champagnes, the caviar, the seven-course Christmas lunch and entertainment, spa, sauna.

  He caught sight of his own reflection in the dressing-table mirror and saw that he was smiling. No wonder, he was a lucky man. Who would have thought when he’d been thrown out of his home with a couple of changes of clothing that he – Robin Raymond – would have the life he had. He and Charlie had summered in Monte Carlo, had dinner with Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas, posed artfully by the Taj Mahal like Princess Diana. One lifetime wasn’t enough with Charlie, though. There were still so many things they hadn’t done: gone down a Siberian salt mine, spent a night in the Four Seasons Hotel in Moscow, met Celine Dion. But they had re-enacted that iconic ‘I’m flying’ scene from Titanic aboard an American billionaire friend’s private yacht in the Maldives, featuring Charlie as Kate Winslet and Robin as Leonardo DiCaprio.

  ‘Robin, I’m flying.’ Charlie’s arms held out like a crucifix, Robin behind him holding on to his waist, warning him to stop leaning forwards or he’d end up falling overboard and straight into the jaws of a great white. Robin closed his eyes, picturing the scene. He could hear Charlie’s excited voice so clearly. ‘Robin, look at me.’

  Robin opened his eyes. Charlie’s voice was not in his head.

  ‘Robin, look at me. ROBIN.’

  Robin pulled himself off the bed and rushed onto the landing. Bridge was standing by the window at the top of the stairs looking outside.

  ‘Robbbiiinnn.’

  She beckoned Robin quickly to her side. He had to do a double-take at what he was seeing.

  ‘Look at him, the bloody idiot.’ Charlie was lying in the snow, arms and legs moving outwards and inwards. Robin opened the window and yelled through it. ‘What the fucking hell are you doing, Charles Glaser?’

  ‘I’m making angels,’ said Charlie. He struggled to his feet, chuckling at himself before lying down again next to his imprint and repeating the action. He got up then to show Robin his pair of perfect angels pressed into the snow before falling backwards once more.

  ‘I’m going for a holy trinity.’

  ‘Don’t come crying to me when you get hypothermia and I’m supposed to thaw you out with hot water bottles,’ Robin shouted down.

  ‘I don’t care, I’m enjoying myself. Come on, Annie,’ Charlie shouted up, his voice brimming with glee.

  ‘I’m on my way,’ Robin said, shutting the window, but he carried on standing there, watching Charlie flapping his limbs, his brain recording this precious memory in the making.

  Bridge sensed this, put her arm around him, felt a great sigh leave his body.

  ‘You know, Bridge, he used to be twice the size he is now,’ said Robin. ‘He was a huge man when I met him, solid as the rock of Gibraltar, a bon vivant. He didn’t age for twenty-five years, I thought he was an immortal, a god among men, but that bloody disease has taken him bit by bit, pound by pound from me. I’ve tried to be strong, for Charlie, but I can’t bear that one day soon he won’t be there any more. What am I going to do without that ridiculous old fart, Bridge? He’s my world, my everything.’

  Tears tripped down his cheeks unhindered, he just let them fall, one after another.

  Bridge didn’t know what to say. She’d never lost any person who was close to her but she’d been hollowed out by grief when her dog had died. It had been as if something had reached within and scooped her insides out and kept coming back for more until she was completely scraped empty, and then it filled the space with hard jarring rocks that hurt when she breathed.

  ‘All I can do, Robin, is roll out the platitudes,’ said Bridge. ‘Grief is a tough road to travel and a lonely one. Time is a great healer… like I say, all the usual clichés. I know that’s of absolutely no help. Enjoy the here and now, like Charlie obviously is; don’t think ahead too much and miss it.’

  Robin sniffed his unspent tears back, dragged his hands down his face to dry the escapees. ‘I think I can just about get my head around part one: that he’ll die. We’ll have a funeral, I’ll do the paperwork, people will come and visit and we’ll all have a cry and I’ll be strong, because I’ll have to be since despite how much of a wreck I look, I’m prepared… we are prepared for the inevitable. But it’s part two that I’m not ready for, Bridge: that I won’t ever see him again. I’ll have to live out the rest of my life without him in it. He won’t be there when I wake up, I won’t be able to kiss him goodnight. I’ll lose half of myself when he goes.’

 
; ‘Cross every bridge when you come to it, Robin. Don’t try and rehearse it in your head, it won’t do you any good.’

  ‘Robbbiiinnn.’ A yell from below. ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’

  ‘Go on, squeeze every moment out of this Christmas. Make it count,’ said Bridge.

  Mary sprinted up the stairs, met them at the top.

  ‘Come on, get your coats on, you two. If you can’t beat them, you know what they say.’

  * * *

  When Robin, Bridge and Mary got outside it was to find Charlie stomping all over the virgin snow just like he used to go mud-sploshing with his mum in his red wellies. Jack and Luke were lying side by side in the snow flapping their limbs also making angels; they were even sharing tips.

  ‘If you put your arm at ninety degrees and only flap up, then leave a bank of snow, then flap down, your angel will have arms as well as wings,’ said Jack.

  ‘Okay, let’s do this,’ said Luke.

  Mary could not quite equate this Jack with the one who strutted from meeting to meeting, furrows of concentration wrinkling his brow, a constant down-turned cast to his mouth. He should drink mulled cider more often.

  They were all dressed in Robin’s and Charlie’s coats and boots, which fitted the men a little more snugly than the women. Bridge was lost inside Charlie’s scarlet fleece, Mary buried alive in Robin’s green hoodie. They looked ridiculous and cared not a jot.

  Bridge glanced over at Charlie and felt overcome with emotion. He looked like an old young boy, kicking snow up in sprays. Nevertheless, she picked up a handful of snow, patted it into a ball and threw it at him. It landed squarely on his back.

  ‘You little minx,’ he shouted, bent, rolled up some snow and retaliated. It fell short onto Jack’s midriff. Mary threw one at Bridge and it exploded in her face.