by Jade West
Mark woke me well before stupid o’clock. He woke me with kisses on my cheeks and a big bright smile, and an apple and an orange and a lump of coal.
I laughed.
“Tradition,” he said. “We’re creating new traditions every day.”
“I like the tradition of waking up with you on Christmas morning, Mr Roberts. This one is a keeper.”
“No objections here, Helen. It’s a great future tradition.”
I reached under the bed, and sought out my little surprise. It was nothing really, a small gesture, but his eyes sparkled as he took it from my hands.
“For me?”
I nodded. “Happy Christmas, Mark.”
He tore the wrapping with a smile, and then he didn’t say a word. My heart stuttered.
“I can do you another one… if you don’t like it…”
Suddenly the image of my hand in his looked warped and crappy, as though the watercolours had cheated me and bled into chaos overnight. It looked messy, and clunky, and amateur, and…
“I love it,” he said. “It’s absolutely perfect.” He wrapped his arms around me and breathed into my hair and I knew that he meant it. I could feel it in everything. He pressed his fingers to my cheeks. “Thank you, Helen.”
“Thank you,” I said. “For everything. For the magic in everything.”
He took my hand and pulled me out of bed, and wrapped me in a big towelling dressing gown. “Now for yours,” he said, and we were off, downstairs, through to his studio, where my heart thumped with excitement.
The room looked different. Canvases rearranged and shunted and put into order.
He gestured to the far corner, and there was a draped white sheet.
I pulled it off with a squeal that choked itself into oblivion, then stared at him with wide eyes.
“This is for me?! It’s really for me?”
“For you.”
I ran my hands over the smooth oak frame, the fine craftsmanship of the easel. It was heavy and strong, a sturdy H-frame with a quad base. It was stunning.
“For here?” I could barely believe my eyes.
He shrugged. “I was hoping so, but it’s yours, Helen, you can have it wherever you like. I thought you may want to take it to university, but this spot is yours as long as you want it.” He sighed. “I’d love you to keep it here, Helen. I love painting with you.”
My heart exploded into stars. “I’d love to keep it here.”
His smile was addictive. “I almost broke and gave it to you early, several times, in fact. I had to lock it up in the outhouse.”
“I had no idea.”
He reached behind him, fumbled amongst some cans of pastel spray until he presented me with a ceramic figurine. But it wasn’t one, it was two. Two people entwined as one. Their arms holding each other tight, legs one singular trunk before turning to roots and trailing away. It was detailed, and washed with a perfect shade of ochre. It was us.
“You made this?”
He nodded like it was nothing. “It’s only a token.”
But he was underplaying it massively. It was hours of skill and care, hours of preparation and sculpting.
“I love you more than I know how to say, Mark.”
“And I love you, Helen.” He wrapped me in his arms and lifted me, walking me back through to the dining room. “But so do your parents, and your little sister. And they’ll be waiting for you.”
“What will you do?” I asked.
He placed me at the bottom of the stairs and smoothed the hair from my forehead.
“I’m going to say goodbye to some old traditions,” he said. “It’s time I made space for the new ones.”
***
Mark
The crunch of frosty grass under my feet sounded so loud in the stillness. I rubbed the ice from Anna’s name, tracing the letters with my cold fingertips.
I placed the roses in the vase.
“Wishing a beautiful Christmas to my beautiful wife, wherever you may be, Anna.”
I lit up a cigarette and looked to the sky as the orange glow of day broke the horizon.
“I’ve been meaning to come awhile. I just…” I sighed to myself, to her, to whatever. “I’ve got so many things to say to you, and I wish I could say them and know that you’ll hear them. I miss your love every single day, but as time goes on I think it’s your friendship that I miss the most, Anna. I’d love to hear your voice again. I’d love to know your thoughts. Even if they were bad. Especially if they were bad.”
I took a long drag.
“I’ve met someone…”
And another drag.
“…And I didn’t think I would. I didn’t think it was possible. I didn’t think the pain of losing you would ever ease up enough to find love again. Real love I mean. I wasn’t looking for it, and I certainly wasn’t looking for it where I found it.”
The lump in my throat made it hard to swallow and I wiped away a tear.
“But I did find it. I found it, and it’s beautiful.” My fingers traced the holly leaves on her Christmas wreath. “It’s not like we were, Anna. It’s not a replacement, insomuch as a whole new love, all of its own design. It’s not like us, but it’s strong, and pure, and deep, just like we were. It’s the kind of love that makes me smile again, that makes me want to know life again, makes me want to hold someone close to my heart and never let them go again. And it’s scary, and it’s reckless, and it’s crazy, but my God, Anna, I do love her.”
I choked back my sadness.
“I’ve fallen in love with a beautiful, spirited, gifted, kind young woman called Helen Palmer. She was persistent, and tenacious, and she made it impossible for me not to love her. You’d have loved her, too. You’d have laughed with her, and smiled at her kindness and her vision and her pure little heart. You’d have really loved her, Anna. And I hope if you’d have known you couldn’t stay, you would have picked her in your stead to hold my hand and make me smile again.”
I looked at the sky.
“My God, Anna, I needed to smile again. I’d forgotten what it felt like. I missed you so much I couldn’t even breathe.”
I took a breath.
“Helen’s my student.”
And another.
“She’s my eighteen year old sixth form student.”
I closed my eyes.
“And I know it was wrong. I hated myself for wanting it, hated myself for not being strong enough to walk away. Part of me still does.”
I lit up another cigarette.
“Maybe you’d call me a fool. Maybe you’d even be disgusted. But I know you’d hear me out, and I’d say to you that my love for Helen grew from the most unacceptable of circumstances, but it’s true, and it’s real, and it’s everything. She’s filled up my empty soul and made me whole again.”
I pressed my palms to Anna’s headstone and took a steadying breath.
“I know she’s young, and fragile and delicate, and I’ll take care of her. Hell, Anna, all I want to do is love her. I’ll never hurt her, never judge her, or push her into something she wouldn’t want to do. I’ll do right by her, I promise, I just hope I get this one tiny chance at happiness again. Please, God, let this last, because I don’t know if I’m strong enough to hurt again like I hurt when I lost you, Anna.”
Another breath. I wiped away the tears.
“I just wanted to tell you. I just wanted to feel close to you this one last time on Christmas morning, because as much as you’re still in my heart, I’ve got to let you go.
“I want to make new memories, with Helen. I want to wake up with her on Christmas Day and hold her tight and know she’s mine and I’m hers. I hope you’d want that for me, too.
“I know you’d want that for me, too.”
I let a tear fall, let my cigarette drop to the frosty grass and I gripped that headstone and I sobbed.
“Sleep well, my beautiful wife. I love you.”
I went home, and it was quiet and empty.
I wrap
ped up Anna’s artwork and I boxed it up in the attic.
I took her clothes out of the spare bedroom wardrobe and packed them away for storage.
I saved our private photographs to a flash drive and removed them from my laptop.
I took down her photo from the mantelpiece.
And finally, after nine years of grief, I let my beautiful Anna sleep soundly.
Helen
“You’re different.” Mum was busy preparing cranberry sauce but her eyes were fixed on me.
I carefully tipped the tray in my hands, spooning fat over the sizzling roast potatoes like I’d done it a hundred times before. “I learned to cook a little.”
She laughed. “I can see that, love. But that’s not what I meant.” She smiled at me. “You’re different. You.”
I smiled back, and I felt it. I felt so different back here, as though I’d been gone for years. “I’m just happy.”
“Happy, yes. Happy and glowing, and all grown up, Helen.” She sighed and I realised she was looking at me like I’d been gone for years, too. “When did that happen, hey? When did my little girl become such a beautiful young woman?”
These past few weeks, Mum. In Mark Roberts’ arms, and in his bed, and his heart. In the sparkle of his eyes in the morning, and his goodnight kisses. In his voice, when he spoke to me like I was somebody, somebody who knows her own mind, and her own heart.
“I guess it happens, I dunno.” I shrugged. “Just as well, hey? Can’t have me shipping off to university without being able to complete basic life essentials.” I slipped the roasters back in the oven. “I can cook croissants, too. And I know how to clean an iron skillet.”
“Harry taught you all that, did he?!” She raised her eyebrows. “He sounds quite an impressive young man indeed.”
I stirred the carrots, and my heart wanted to burst its banks and spill all. But I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t. “I’m so happy, Mum.”
“Oh, love. That’s all we want. If you’re happy, then we’re happy, too.”
Christmas was different this year. It felt lighter, and more magical, like my soul was covered in fairy dust. We had Christmas songs, and after a couple of cans Dad sang along while Katie danced for us. I shared a bottle of wine with Mum while we finished up dinner, until we were pink-cheeked and giggling and laughing about silly old memories, and we all ate together, and pulled crackers and wore the stupid hats and read the stupid jokes.
It was nice. Good old fun like the earlier years, when I’d still believed in Santa Claus and flying reindeer. But I missed Mark. It tingled and pained amongst the happiness.
Dad fell asleep after too much dinner, snoring in the chair, and Katie was busy upstairs on her new karaoke machine. Mum sat and watched It’s a Wonderful Life while I stared out of the window towards Deerton Heath, wondering what he was doing and if he was missing me half as much as I was missing him.
It was well into the afternoon when Mum turned down the volume on the TV and glanced at Dad to make sure he was still sleeping. As if the snores didn’t tell her enough.
“Go,” she said. “I’ll handle your dad.”
I turned to face her and my eyebrows were high. “What?”
“Don’t think I can’t see it, love. You’re missing him. So go.”
“But Christmas… you said…”
“And you were here,” she said. “Now get yourself gone. Before he wakes up. Will Harry come and get you? I’d take you myself if we hadn’t polished of that bottle of wine.”
I was nodding, smiling, itching to run out of the door as fast as my legs would carry me, but I took the time to hug her instead, really tight, and it shocked her, I could tell. The force knocked her backwards in her chair and she laughed in my ear before she hugged me back.
“Thanks, Mum.”
“Just have fun, Helen. Enjoy it. You’re only young once, love.”
“I will.”
I grabbed my coat, and my phone, and threw some more clothes in my overnight bag, and left through the back garden, ducking under the gap in the fence and making my way out onto the main road. Once I was clear of the house, and more specifically clear of Dad, I called up Mark’s number and was about to press dial before I thought better of it.
He might be drinking.
He might feel obliged to pick me up.
He might be angry at me for making him do it.
So I didn’t call him. I took a gulp of afternoon air and set off on foot. Three miles, tops. Ok, maybe four. But I could do it. I knew the way.
Tarmac turned to lanes, and lanes turned to frosty grass as the afternoon light waned. My heart leapt as I hitched myself over the fence at Mark’s special place, and it already felt so long ago that he’d touched me there.
I took a break, sitting in his spot on the slate ledge, watching the brook babbling its way downstream, and I felt close to him there, close enough to feel him.
I wondered if that’s how he felt about his Anna in this place. Maybe it was a place for memories and ghosts and stolen moments.
I laughed to myself, at my melodrama, and decided to end my stupid solitary trek and call him.
He answered after two rings.
“I’m somewhere beautiful,” I said.
“And where would that be, Helen? At home, stuffed full of turkey, I hope.”
“I think you’ve worn a groove in this slate, Mr Roberts. Your ass must be a perfect fit.”
I could hear the surprise in his voice and it made me smile. “What are you doing on your own in the middle of nowhere?”
“I’m following my heart,” I said. “And it led me on a mission to the middle of nowhere.” I took a breath. “Mum let me go.”
“So you decided to trek your way back to me?”
He sounded different. Tired.
Sad.
Why was he so sad?
“I wanted to see you. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“It is.” I could hear him walking around. “I’m on my way. I’ll be on foot, though, I’ve been drinking.”
“You don’t have to. I can make it to yours before the light goes.”
“Look up through the trees.”
I looked up through the trees, to the portion of his studio jutting out from the foliage in the distance, and the light twinkled, on and off, on and off.
“You’ll blow a bulb if you keep doing that.”
He laughed. “Keep walking,” he said. “Straight ahead, over the shallows of the brook, and up. You’ll see the points of the fences I cross. I’ll meet you halfway.”
The thought thrilled me.
The fields were steep on the approach, and the fences were awkward and made me feel a fool as I scrambled over them. It was cold, too. My breath was frosty and my hair was crisp from the winter chill and the light drew in quicker than I expected.
And then there was a twinkle in the distance. A twinkle that was moving.
The relief flooded me, and my heart jumped in recognition of its missing piece. My legs found reserves of enthusiasm and my lungs felt bigger and stronger, and I pushed on, faster and faster, until Mark’s outline was visible and his torchlight found me.
And I ran.
I don’t even know how I had the energy left, but I ran.
His arms were waiting and they ate me up, and his breath felt so right against my cheek and his lips felt so right as they pressed to mine. My heart found its home again, and it soared, but then it fell. It fell as I felt Mark’s sadness.
I could see it in his eyes, even in twilight. I could feel it in the air around him, in the strain in his breath, which smelled of scotch.
“What?” I said, “Is something wrong?”
He didn’t speak, just took the bag from my grip and hitched it over his shoulder, and reached for my hand. His fingers squeezed so tightly, but he wouldn’t look at me, just kept walking, staring into the distance as we climbed the field to his.
“Mark?”
“We’ll be home soon. Don’t worry.”
>
I pulled back until he was forced to turn to me. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.” He tugged at me. “Let’s get home, Helen. It’s cold and dark, and your legs must be like jelly.”
“Not just from the walk,” I said, and trudged along.
He tried harder with conversation, spouting off a load of questions about my day and my presents and how good my turkey was, but my heart wasn’t in any of them. My mind fluttered and whizzed, panic dashing through all the things I may have done, or may not have done, or may not have been. Shit.
“Did I do something?”
The question made him stop dead. “God, no. Helen, of course not. I just… I didn’t expect to see you…”
“I can go,” I said. “I didn’t mean to… I thought you’d be…”
“Happy?” he said, and he pulled me into him. “I am happy. I’m very happy.”
“Then why are you so sad?”
“You’ll see,” he sighed.
***
Mark’s house had boxes everywhere. Some were full and taped up tight, some were half-empty and surrounded by things – all kinds of things, trinkets and photos and old films, and books, and an old sewing machine.
I looked up at the mantelpiece and realisation dawned. Anna’s picture had gone.
“Why?” I said. “You didn’t have to…”
He picked up the sculpture of us and placed it in the empty spot, and it choked me up to see it there. Me and him, in her place. So beautiful and so sad, all at the same time.
I felt tears, in my throat, just waiting. “Mark, you don’t have to do this… not for me…”
“It’s for me,” he said. “I just… I didn’t expect company. I didn’t want you to have to see this, Helen.”
“See what?”
“Me,” he sighed. “Like this.”
“But I want to,” I said. “I want to see you like everything, no matter what that everything is.”
“You shouldn’t have to.” He dropped to his knees, packed more photos into the box beside him. “This isn’t something you need to deal with.”
