I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day

by Milly Johnson

  Bridge and Mary filed into the small church. Or at least it looked small from the outside, but its narrowness was deceptive as it was disproportionately long. A bride in heels would have bunions the size of walnuts by the time she got to the altar, Bridge thought. The dress code had been strictly adhered to; everyone was in black, men were smart in suits, many women sported hats and fascinators. They slipped into a seat at the back on the left; the front half of the pews on either side were already full. The heady scent of Stargazer lilies drifted over to them from the surfeit of flowers adorning the ends of the pews and showy displays at the front: roses and Christmas foliage, great scarlet heads of poinsettias shouting in beds of holly and ivy. An organist was playing church musak, something halfway between a dirge and one of the less jaunty hymns. An air of respectful solemnity pervaded but also the mood prevailed that people were attending for love rather than duty.

  Mary looked around for a familiar face, the familiar face. Would he come? She felt not unlike being sixteen and hanging around the entrance to the school disco hoping that the captain of the football team, Jock Briggs, would turn up. Then he did and it was as if someone had poured a jug of joy into her heart. It emptied when she found him snogging the school ‘it’ girl an hour later. She should have learned then to stay away from any boy whose name was a variation of Jack, it was bound to not end well.

  Bridge read the order of service that had been handed to them when they walked in. On the front: A Celebration of the Life of Charles David Reuben Glaser and a photograph of him looking like a portrait by Van Dyck with his long, thick salt-and-pepper curls, moustache and pointy beard. He was sitting at a table in a garden, holding up a glass of champagne. In front of him was an enormous slice of cake, every inch the bon vivant. He was smiling and she imagined that behind the camera Robin was telling him that the cake was for photographic purposes only and he was strictly not to eat it. On the back was a black and white image of a much younger Charlie in a tuxedo, looking handsome and slightly vampiric with his long, dark locks and trademark arrangement of facial hair, standing tall and proud between a plump, smiling woman in a fur coat and an old lady with a stick, both of them ‘dripping in diamonds’, the façade of the London Palladium behind them.

  ‘His mum and his granny,’ said Mary, looking at the same photo. ‘That must have been a wonderful night for them.’

  Bridge looked around in search of Luke or Jack, gave Mary a nudge.

  ‘There’s Luke,’ she said in a church whisper. She waved at him and he waved back, but he was being herded to the right side by ushers. He mouthed that he’d see them later. He was alone. She hadn’t expected Carmen to be there, but she thought he might have turned up with Jack, still bracketing them together as a pair.

  More people started pouring in as if a bus unloading had tipped its passengers straight through the doors. For a moment Mary thought she saw Jack among them and her heart responded with a kick against her chest, like a racehorse trying to break down his stable door, but it wasn’t him. She thought she was over him with her wonderful new life just starting up, but she wasn’t, not by a long stretch. She suddenly wondered if he’d liked the Christmas present she’d bought him, if he’d thought of her when he opened it.

  ‘Will you all please stand,’ said a loud male voice at the back.

  As they stood, from speakers positioned around the church came the familiar cash-register introduction to ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’. The woman on the row in front turned to her partner, wrinkled up her face in consternation at such a choice of tune. Bridge and Mary smiled, members of an exclusive club who knew why the song had been chosen. The Figgy Hollow Six.

  Pall-bearers carried a basket coffin covered in holly, mistletoe, white roses and poinsettias. Behind them a vicar in robes, then a serious, thinner Robin, in a black suit, long black coat, a white Yorkshire rose in his buttonhole. He cut a desperately sad and lonely figure and both Mary and Bridge swallowed hard at the sight of him.

  The vicar ascended the pulpit, asked the congregation to be seated.

  ‘Welcome, friends. I am Father Derek and we are gathered here together to say goodbye to our dear Charlie,’ he began, coughing a croak out of his throat. ‘Husband of Robin, uncle of Reuben and Rosa. He would be touched that so many of you have come today from as far afield as Australia, Spain, California, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Manchester and, of course, a huge crowd from London.’

  Clearly the vicar knew him well. There was emotion born of familiarity in his voice.

  ‘Charlie was married in this very church to Robin three years ago. Our first gay wedding. A happy and historic event in Tuckwitt. I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many empty champagne bottles in my life.’

  A gentle laugh rippled around the church.

  ‘Robin and Charlie were together as a couple for thirty-two years. There is no one more fitting, more proper, more capable, to deliver Charlie’s eulogy than him.’

  The vicar moved aside, let Robin take his place. Robin breathed in, steadied himself, gripped on to the sides of the pulpit for strength.

  ‘It is a cliché but Charlie was my rock,’ he began, his voice wobbly. Bridge had the sudden desire to leap across the heads of everyone just to take his hand.

  ‘He was born into an intolerant age, a hard world, he became wise through times of great hardship and prejudice because he was gay, but he was lucky, because in the smaller world of his family, he was brought up with the love of two amazing women, his grandmother Jessie and his mother Elizabeth.

  ‘He was born in Yorkshire but when his father David died, Elizabeth went back home to live in the East End of London. When Charlie was twelve, his little sister Mim was born, and he was a loving brother to her all her life, before she sadly passed ten years ago. Charlie was only thirteen when he left school to work for a jeweller who had survived terrible things during the war and yet, Charlie said, this man was the kindest person he’d ever met. He became a substitute father to Charlie, taught him not only a craft but about life. Charlie always said that if someone could survive that sort of hell, then it was possible to survive anything.’

  Robin went on to deliver a long, yet still not long enough, homage to Charlie. The laughter he generated while speaking gave him the strength he needed to carry on talking. Funny, touching, sad, hard to listen to in places, Charlie Glaser emerged as the best humanity could mould. There were quite a few references to his cholesterol levels too.

  ‘And just in case you’re wondering at my song choice as we walked in – well Charlie’s song choice actually, because him being him, he had planned his own funeral down to the letter – it’s because he loved Christmas and if he could have had it, he would have lived every day as if it were Christmas Day. When he knew he wouldn’t be here for another one, he wanted his last one to be full of snow,’ said Robin, his voice catching.

  He stalled for a few moments, took back control. ‘So I booked a five star hotel in Aviemore, every luxury you could think of, but we ended up having to take refuge in an old inn on the Yorkshire moors. There were six of us holed up for four days. I was livid. Imagine, when you know this is going to be the last Christmas you have together and you’ve got champagne and canapés waiting for you in Scotland…’ He left a long pause, smiled. ‘But we couldn’t have wished for a merrier Christmas. We couldn’t have wished for richer company, for kinder people, for better fun and feasting than we had. We left for Aviemore with Charlie trying his best to hide his pain from me and yet he spent Boxing Day lying in the snow flapping his limbs making angels, building a snowman and pelting snowballs. Christmas magic – it had to be. He ate too much, he certainly drank too much… he lived those last days to the full. He died healthier than I’ve seen him for well over a year.’

  A sweet wave of laughter rolled around the church, took in everyone.

  ‘On that last morning, Charlie told me he’d discovered the meaning of life, the point of it all.’

  He left a dramatic break befor
e enlightening everyone.

  ‘He said that there wasn’t one.’

  Laughter again. From people who knew Charlie well enough to believe Robin’s words.

  ‘Charlie said that the point of life is living, here and now, being present in the moment. Watching a concert with your eyes, not trying to film it on a phone; living in a real world, not a virtual one, squeezing the juice out of every second, enjoying this journey for however long it lasts. Charlie took chances and he took risks; sometimes he failed, sometimes he succeeded and the successes more than made up for the failures. He always said that ships were never built to sit safely in harbours, they were meant for adventures and exploring. Never sailing into the open meant you were saved the storms, but you’d never find the beautiful tropical islands, the white sands, the blue lagoons.

  ‘Charlie didn’t need to be in anyone’s life for very long before he made an impact. There are some people in this church who only knew him for those last few days, but what days they were. And people didn’t need to be in Charlie’s life for very long before he got the measure of them. He saw everyone as diamonds. Some cut and perfect, some needing a little shaping and polish, the others – cubic zirconia. He didn’t bother with those, he could spot a fake from a mile off. He was a craftsman of jewellery and people.

  ‘I just want to say thank you to you all for your friendship and love. Thank you for your kindness to Charlie. And if you were with him on those last days, I know Charlie would like to thank you for the cholesterol.’

  ‘Cholesterol!’ someone barked. One of their friends who was party to the joke, it seems.

  ‘Charlie did say he’d try and attend the funeral,’ Robin went on. ‘He said he wouldn’t arrive as a butterfly or a robin. We did discuss banana skins and cherries but he said he’d prefer to come back as freak weather. So if this sunshine gives way to a whirlwind, blame him, not the weathermen, for the bum forecast.’

  The end of Robin’s speech was greeted by a hushed silence, then a stray tentative clap as if unsure whether it was the done thing in church. Bridge backed it up with a clap of her own, Mary followed, as did more until everyone was applauding not only Robin, but the man who had inspired his words: their beloved Charlie Glaser.

  * * *

  En masse they belted out ‘We’ll Meet Again’ along with Vera Lynn, swaying like a human field of wheat rippled by a strong breeze as a sequence of photos was projected onto a wall. Photos of Charlie as a smiling boy; photos of him as a smiling man, that smile a common denominator in every image. Photos of Charlie with film stars, in tuxedos and dinner jackets, in gold budgie-smugglers on a sugar beach. Photos of him with his arms around family and friends, cuddling a dolphin, hugging his new husband in a blitz of confetti and finally the last photo of him ever taken, in the middle of the Figgy Hollow Six, his face golden from the kiss of firelight, holding up his hot chocolate Charlie-style: Black Forest with cherries.

  The vicar took the stand again to deliver a poem that Robin had written: a short, funny but fond one. There was no mention of not standing at his grave and weeping in it. And at the end of the service, on behalf of the family, he invited everyone back to Tuckwitt Manor hotel to talk, reminisce, drink champagne and eat mince pies because Charlie had insisted they had plenty of those. Charlie was taken from the church to an awaiting car bound for the crematorium to the accompaniment of Karl Jenkins’ imposing ‘Palladio’, his most famous piece of Diamond Music. Robin followed the pall-bearers out, his face wet with tears, eyes straight ahead. Today would all be a blur for him, thought Mary, and she hoped he had friends who would tell him later that he was a bastion of dignity and had done Charlie proud, as people had told her after her dad’s funeral.

  * * *

  There was a bottleneck at the church door so Bridge and Mary sat and waited for the crowd to thin. Luke cut across the line of leavers, bounced towards them. The last, and only, time Bridge had ever seen him in a suit was at their wedding. This ensemble was very different: black, tailored, waistcoast, silk tie, a snow-white shirt with a gold collar pin, polished patent leather shoes.

  ‘Hello ladies,’ he said, enfolding Bridge in a hug, before turning to Mary, a double-take before he embraced her. Was this preened and elegant creature before him really the same one who had been launching snowballs at him only a month ago? Her hair was shorter, shaped; a hint of warm caramel lowlights made her blue-green eyes pop.

  ‘So how are you both?’ he asked.

  ‘Good, really good,’ said Bridge. ‘How’s Carmen? Everything okay there?’

  ‘Yep, we are all three fit and well.’

  ‘Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?’

  ‘No, and we don’t want to. We’ll wait.’

  ‘I hope you’ll let me know. I’d like to send the baby something,’ said Bridge. Her brain recorded a freeze-frame of this second: talking with the ex she had waged war with for so long about his soon-to-be wife and baby. He had shifted to a different part of her heart now though, one reserved for cherished history.

  Luke picked up her ringless left hand.

  ‘Oh, Bridge, tell me everything’s okay.’ He sounded genuinely upset for her.

  ‘Ah, it didn’t work out. We both had doubts. It’s fine though, I’m getting better at ending things amicably.’

  Luke smiled. ‘You take your time, Bridge. Find someone who deserves you. I mean it.’

  The look on his face backed up his words.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘In saying that, you should check out Charlie’s nephew Reuben,’ he went on. ‘He was sitting on the front row. Talk about a Norse god, you—’

  ‘I think I’ll pass for now, thank you,’ said Bridge.

  ‘Let’s get to the hotel then,’ said Luke. ‘You two okay for a lift? Any sign of Jack?’

  ‘Just about to ask you the same thing,’ said Bridge. ‘And thanks, but I’ve got the car.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s come,’ said Mary, giving a shrug. ‘We would have seen him.’

  ‘He said he’d be here,’ said Luke. They’d spoken on the phone only days ago, arranged to meet up and talk vegan scones in early February. Jack had said he would be there at the funeral of course.

  Mary hoped Jack had bothered to turn up. He must have known how important it was to Robin that he was there. If he hadn’t, then Mary really would shut her heart on Jack Butterly for being disrespectful and lock him out forever. I thought you had already, said a voice inside her head.

  Chapter 39

  Tuckwitt Manor was old and crumbly and gorgeous with ivy growing up its stone walls in an attempt to peep in the very many small mullioned windows. It stood at the end of a tree-lined drive, lush green fields at either side with horses feasting on the grass, enjoying the weather windfall of January midsummer sun on their backs.

  The car park was full. Bridge drove around slowly looking for a space, while Mary sat in the passenger side, eyes peeled both for somewhere to park and for an emerald green Maserati. Then she saw Luke waving madly at the side of a vacant spot, as if trying to direct a plane to a runway.

  Inside the manor was just as quaint as the outside. A beautiful wide, wooden staircase dominated the foyer, leading to rooms no doubt every bit as pretty as everything else, Mary thought. She would love to be so rich as to stay in hotels like this at weekends and she was going to do her best to work hard, to make sure that one day she could. She and Bridge talked long into the night sometimes about all sorts of things. Mary had been inspired by Bridge’s road to success, about her early dysfunctional years, about being so poor that a shared tin of tomatoes constituted a feast. The cheap can of tomatoes that she’d found in her stocking on Christmas morning sat on a chrome display unit in her office, looking not unlike a piece of priceless Andy Warhol art.

  Mary had the energy to do so much more than type up someone’s notes and arrange custard creams on a plate. She’d shown some good business sense at Butterly’s, had sound instincts for what might work, even if she hadn’t
been given the credit for them. She might set up a rival scone firm, she’d thought while soaking in Bridge’s enormous pool of a bath; that would teach Jack Butterly. Jack Jack Jack. All roads still led to him and she hated that they did.

  Mary, Bridge and Luke followed the others from the funeral party into an enormous function room, with floor-to-ceiling French doors, café tables and chairs placed around the edges, a long table at one end, covered with great oval platters of buffet food. Liveried staff circulated with flutes of champagne and canapés so decorative it was a shame to eat them, thought Mary, trying not to scan the room, trying not to be that teenage girl again at the school disco waiting with a hopeful heart for Jock Briggs. She might as well have told herself not to breathe.

  ‘That’s Reuben, Charlie’s nephew.’ Luke gave Bridge a nudge as into view walked a man who could have just leapt off a Viking longboat. Shoulder-length, strawberry-fair hair, clipped beard, eyes ice-blue as a Nordic sea. Bridge felt a primal noise of desire scrape the inside of her throat. Luke heard it and chuckled. ‘Told you,’ he said.

  ‘I think I’ll just nip to the loo,’ said Mary.

  ‘That way,’ directed Luke, pointing.

  ‘Thanks.’

  When they were alone, Bridge realised that she didn’t feel the slightest bit awkward standing here with Luke, this man who had once been her everything. For the first time in her life, she felt emotionally grown up.

  ‘Is that Charlie’s?’ asked Luke, pointing to the Chanel scarf at her throat. ‘I seem to recognise it.’

  ‘Robin sent it to me,’ she replied, touching it affectionately. ‘He also sent Mary a gorgeous Chanel handbag; she’s brought it with her today.’

  ‘How thoughtful of him. He sent me a wallet with Medusa’s head on it,’ said Luke, smiling, pulling it out of his jacket pocket.