I Won't Be Home For Christmas

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘Well that makes two of us.’

  There was a beat of silence while they considered how to proceed, both glad of the darkening night, which offered a little anonymity and a little extra courage. It was Ray that eventually spoke.

  ‘I didn’t know how to handle it. Didn’t know how to handle anything back then.’ His legs jumped and he rested his palms on his thighs.

  ‘You took the coward’s way out, Ray. You let everyone down, did a runner and left me to pick up the pieces. For days I thought you might be hurt, knocked down, injured. I went to the bloody police – I thought you might be lying in a ditch or at the bottom of the Avon Gorge! Can you imagine what it was like for me, having to phone them and tell them I had made a mistake, you weren’t missing, you’d just left? God, the humiliation.’ She covered her eyes with her hand, feeling again the hot wave of shame. ‘Or what it was like trying to tell my mum and dad that you’d gone, had had a change of heart, met someone else, after they’d ploughed all their savings into our wedding, helped you in so many ways, made you part of our family…’

  She hated the catch to her voice and lifted her chin to look up at the stars, as if this angle might stop the tears that threatened. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, hoping he knew that any tears were for her parents’ sacrifice and not for him, never for him.

  ‘I was young,’ he began.

  ‘I was young!’ she shot back. ‘But I had to grow up a bit quick.’

  ‘The woman I met…’

  ‘Suzanne.’ She helped him out, wanted to show that she wasn’t entirely in the dark; it made her feel a little less vulnerable. ‘Suzanne from Eastville Market.’

  ‘Yes, Suzanne.’ He paused. ‘She was important to me. More than just another girl.’

  Vivienne stared at him. Clearly he had no idea how insulting or revealing his words were. Was that what she’d been, just another girl? And how many more were there?

  ‘She was the one. I loved her.’

  Vivienne blinked at him. ‘Are you serious? You want me to sit here and listen to how much the woman you left me for meant to you? I was your wife!’

  She heard him sigh deeply in the darkness. ‘No! I’m trying to tell you that I didn’t do it lightly, that she was important, she changed me, it wasn’t some whim. I just didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t think straight.’ He sighed again. ‘I can tell I’m making a mess of this.’

  ‘You think?’ she snapped.

  ‘I just want to be straight with you.’

  ‘Well that’ll be a first.’

  She heard the creak of his chair as he stood up, saw his silhouette walk past her towards the cliff edge. His walk had changed: the swagger was not so pronounced and his left leg had a slight roll to it, as if he had a problem with his hip.

  ‘I’ve grown up a lot since then, Viv, and I am trying to explain. I’m not asking for forgiveness and I don’t expect it, but I would like you to listen.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ she spat.

  ‘You were everything I thought I wanted.’

  I thought I was everything you wanted…

  ‘And then, I admit, I started playing around when the kids came. I was sick of having no cash and feeling so useless at home, and it was exciting for me.’ He paused. ‘I’m not proud of it, believe me. I didn’t think about the consequences, not really. I thought I was Jack the lad, but the truth of it was I was a scared kid with no idea how I was going to support you all, no idea about anything. It was like walking a swaying tightrope across the Avon Gorge and I was just waiting to fall. I’d look at the little un’s and know that I was going to let them down, that I couldn’t give them what they needed and it killed me. And then I met Suzanne and it was like, POW! The thunderbolt moment.’

  Her tears slid down her face as she sat in the dark on the other side of the world from where it had all happened. Hearing this blunt confirmation of her supplanting, even after all these years, it hurt. Her distress was a surprise to her and an embarrassment. She already knew about his dalliances, Trev having confirmed what she’d long suspected, but it was still uncomfortable, hearing this simplistic confession from her husband, especially the implication that she had been one of many. And it was offered in a rich confetti of words, seemingly without any understanding that his leaving had ripped her to shreds.

  ‘It’s hard for me to say this to you,’ he continued.

  She heard him swallow and recalled him making that same sound in the darkness, as he lay down on the mattress alongside her, with the kids asleep in the room next door.

  ‘It’s late. Where have you been, Ray?’

  ‘Nowhere. Go back to sleep.’

  It was as hard for him now as it had been then, to admit that he wanted to be somewhere else.

  She remained quiet, not wanting to make it any easier for him.

  Ray sniffed. ‘You know, Viv, it felt like you hadn’t been interested in me for a long time.’

  ‘Whose fault was that?’ Her retort was almost automatic. ‘You were never there, never helped me, I was exhausted.’

  He ignored her. ‘Suzanne was very interested in me. She wanted to know about me, talk to me. She liked my mates, my jokes.’

  Well, good for her. ‘I don’t know why you’re telling me this. If it’s just to ease your guilt, fine, but I couldn’t care less. I hoped I’d never seen you again and you popping up like this, it feels horrible. I thought you were behind me, behind us. And it’s thrown me. I’m supposed to be here celebrating my daughter’s wedding. I was having such a lovely time, and now this!’ She closed her eyes briefly. ‘You have no right to be here, Ray. No right at all.’

  He shook his head, clearly not interested in any wider discussion. ‘Suzanne is dead.’ He paused. ‘She died,’ he repeated, as if this might help the facts sink in.

  Vivienne’s primary feeling was sympathy for the demise of this woman she had never met, but there was also a measure of fascination. She wondered what it was about Suzanne that had made her so wonderful; what did she have that had been so lacking in her own personality? What was the thing that caused the thunderbolt?

  He continued. ‘And just when I was coming to terms with my loss, figuring out how to go on without her, struggling to make sense of it all, I received an email from Emma. It felt like a lifeline, a second chance. I just couldn’t believe it.’

  She could tell by the curve of his words in the night air that he was smiling.

  ‘It felt like a chance to start over.’

  She braced her feet against the deck, trying to quell the tremor of fear in her legs. It was only just occurring to her that he might want to have a bigger role in her kids’ lives. She pictured him in Mendip Road, back in his old stomping ground, bumping into her in North Street, eating his breakfast in Pedro’s.

  Please God, no…

  ‘Will you come back to Bristol at any time?’ She hardly dared ask.

  ‘No.’ His response was instant and she breathed out, relieved. ‘My life’s in Adelaide, South Australia, has been for a long time. We run an outdoor-pursuits business. We have a shop, tackle, bait, outboard engines, boats, that kind of thing. Been going for years. Although with the rise of online availability for what used to be specialised, the last few years haven’t been that kind to us, we are struggling a bit.’

  How easily you became a ‘we’. Traded us in. She pictured him opening the door of a morning, greeting his customers, and all those people he interacted with had no idea of his other life, his other family, at that very moment, turning out the lights for bed.

  Her snort of laughter was involuntary. ‘It’s funny, really, I remember you not wanting to jump over the Malago in case you got your daps wet.’

  He laughed wryly. ‘Things change. People change,’ he breathed.

  ‘Some do,’ she conceded. ‘But not many. Emma said you have other children?’ Her tone was calmer, but still clipped.

  ‘Yes, two boys, twins who are twenty-four, and my daughter, who’s just turn
ed eighteen.’

  She felt a flicker of sadness for Suzanne, the woman she had never known, who had been forced to leave her children too soon. This, however, was tinged with an unattractive spike of envy, which she would later berate herself for, at how lucky those kids were to have grown up with a dad in their lives. Hearing him use the words ‘my daughter’ and knowing it wasn’t Emma he was referring to was galling, even after all this time.

  ‘Did Suzanne know about me and the kids?’

  ‘Yes. Yes she did.’

  ‘Did she never want to get married?’ She instinctively fingered the wedding ring on her finger. A symbol that made her blush, as if she had stolen something from this other woman, the chance to go through the marriage rite, forgetting for a second that it was Ray who had caused the mess.

  ‘We discussed it at the beginning and at the end, but I told her it didn’t matter, it was just a piece of paper.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ she cut in, ‘that’s all it was to you. You made that very clear.’

  ‘I don’t want to argue with you, Viv.’

  ‘So you said.’ Her voice was sharp. ‘Did you ever think about Aaron and Emma?’

  ‘Of course I did! Especially when the others were born. It took me right back – it was hard.’

  She felt little sympathy. He’d only ever been a phone call away.

  ‘I watched the twins and longed to know how Aaron was getting on.’

  Vivienne sat back in the chair, thinking of all the times in the early years that she had seen her son shrink from his dad’s comedic jibes, all the inappropriate comments that had knocked his confidence and made him feel small.

  ‘I feel sad and sorry.’ Her tone was curt.

  ‘What are you sorry for?’

  She watched his outline turn towards her and shook her head. ‘Lots of things. Sorry for your loss, believe it or not, and for all the wasted bloody years, for you and for me.’

  ‘It wasn’t all bad when we were together, was it?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘I don’t know, Ray. Sometimes, if I take the kids out of the equation, I can’t seem to see much good. But they are like my compensation, aren’t they? They are more than good – they’re perfect. They’ve grown into lovely people and I’m very proud of them. But any good there was between us…’ She drew breath. ‘I’m afraid you erased that when you went, wiped the slate clean.’

  ‘I guess that’s fair enough.’ He sniffed and swallowed, collecting himself as he folded his arms. ‘Thing is, Viv, it was all right for you, you knew how to be a family, you’d had good practise, growing up with your mum and dad, all that stability.’

  ‘Oh no, Ray, don’t you dare! Don’t give me that “I was left to me own devices” rubbish. Because living with people, being married to people, being part of a family…’ She pictured Aaron’s hurt expression, remembered her dad taking her hand as she cried at the kitchen table – ‘It’ll all be okay, love, you’ll see.’ ‘It’s all about being kind, and leaving in the way you did was the least kind thing you could have done. All it would have taken was a letter, a note, anything other than leaving me high and dry wondering why I wasn’t quite good enough. A little bit of kindness would have made all the difference in the world.’

  Ray took another step towards the edge of the cliff as the garden lights came on.

  Ellen’s booming voice travelled towards her from the lawn. ‘Keep him there, Viv! I’ll push him off, we’ll say it was self-defence or an accident.’

  She couldn’t help the burst of laughter that erupted from her. Even in this, the direst of circumstances, when she was finding things far from funny, Ellen knew just how to lighten the mood.

  Ray turned towards her and she was surprised to see the remnants of tears on his ruddy face. ‘I tell you what; some things don’t change. Ellen bloody Nye, a gob bigger than the Cheddar Gorge and an attitude wider than the Clifton Suspension Bridge.’

  ‘And thank God for that. She’s been the one constant in my life since I was five.’

  ‘Don’t reckon you’ll ever shake her off,’ he nodded.

  ‘No, I tried that in Hong Kong, but she found her way back to me.’

  His voice, for a second, had sounded pure Bristolian and she felt the smallest flicker of affection for him. It was like bumping into an old acquaintance in an unlikely place, someone she hadn’t seen for a while, and remembering something about them that she had particularly liked.

  She rose and took Ellen’s arm, walking on shaky legs back to the house, without giving him the satisfaction of a goodbye. Emma, Michael and Gil were nowhere to be seen; presumably they’d retired to a sofa somewhere with a brandy to mull over events. This suited her quite well. She didn’t particularly want to see anyone.

  *

  Vivienne rubbed night cream into her face as she stood in front of the mirror in the en-suite bathroom. It had been one hell of a day.

  ‘You all right, girl? You’re very quiet,’ Ellen asked as she ran a brush through her hair and set out her clothes for the next day, as she always did.

  Vivienne nodded. ‘Yep, just exhausted, ready for my bed.’

  ‘Me too. I can’t believe it, Viv, I really can’t. I phoned and told Trev earlier, and he was gobsmacked. Hardly said a word, think he was shocked.’

  ‘I bet. I spoke to Aaron, too, briefly, and he was very quiet. It’s a lot to take in. I said I’d call him again tomorrow. He’ll no doubt have lots of questions when he’s had time to digest it. I could hear Lizzie shouting in the background.’

  ‘Did he want to speak to Ray?’

  ‘No, he didn’t ask to. He said very little actually.’ She pinched the bridge of her nose and wiped away the last of the cream on the back of her hand. Her make-up-free face had a dewy sheen.

  ‘I don’t mind telling you, though, Elle, it’s unnerved me, it really has. Just a few minutes in his company and I’m reminded of everything I found so intoxicating about him – that little twist of charm that had me wrapped around his finger. I can see it in him.’

  ‘You don’t still fancy him, do you?’ Ellen said, leaning forward, eager to hear every last detail, reminding Vivienne of their teenage selves all those years back.

  ‘God, no! Of course not.’ An image of Gil shot into her thoughts. ‘But I can see now that the Ray I knew doesn’t exist any more. This man has a grown-up family and a business in Adelaide, a place I couldn’t even point to on a map. For all these years I have wondered about him, even hankered to see him, just out of curiosity, and yet, sat out there on the deck, I realised that I feel nothing. I’ve been clinging to a memory.’

  ‘I think…’ Ellen started, then stopped herself.

  ‘You think what?’ It wasn’t like her to be so reticent.

  ‘I think that maybe you clung to that memory because it stopped you having to go forward, that maybe it felt like the safest option.’

  ‘An excuse, you mean?’ She turned from the mirror and looked at her friend.

  ‘No, not an excuse… a cushion, to soften any further blows.’

  ‘When did you get so poetic?’ Vivienne scoffed.

  ‘When I started travelling the world!’ Ellen roared. ‘I’m an international jetsetter, don’t you know.’ She did as she always did, tried to lessen the pain with her humour, provide a sticking plaster of laughter, which sometimes made things feel a little bit better.

  ‘Oh, Elle,’ she murmured, falling into her friend’s arms, ‘what am I going to do?’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything,’ Ellen cooed, holding her close. ‘Nothing at all.’

  There was a sharp knock on the door. Vivienne pulled away from her friend and wiped at her tears, then yanked her oversized pyjama top down over her bottoms. She pulled a face at Ellen and placed a finger on her lips in an attempt to get her to be quiet. ‘Yes?’ she called out.

  ‘Can I come in?’ It was Gil’s unmistakeable, hypnotic bass.

  Vivienne ran her palm over her make-up-free face and looked down at her night attir
e. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed that there were shadows of exhaustion etched below her eyes. She grabbed the wide, pale pink pashmina, her new favourite thing that she had picked up on their whistle-stop tour of Stanley Market, and wrapped it around her shoulders like a shawl. ‘Sure.’

  Ellen jumped on her bed and hid her face in the pillow.

  She opened the door to Gil, who was leaning casually against the frame. He stood up straight and placed his hands on his hips, his denim shirtsleeves were as ever rolled to the elbow.

  He pointed along the corridor and said, in his typical slow, considered manner, ‘I was just going to get a drink and take it outside. Thought you might like one too, unless you’re calling it a night?’ He was either oblivious or uncaring of the fact that she was in her pyjamas.

  ‘No, not at all, I was just going to read for a bit,’ she lied. ‘A drink would be lovely.’

  Gil eyed Ellen over her shoulder. She was still lying motionless with her face in the pillow.

  ‘Ignore her.’ Vivienne jerked her thumb in the direction of her friend.

  He gave a small nod.

  *

  The night was still. The darkness was punctuated by the buzz and flutter of bugs attracted to the subtle lighting that surrounded them. Gil sat down in the wide rocking chair that stood under the porch on the terrace and she took up position in the matching chair next to him. He’d grabbed two tartan wool blankets from the closet in the den and now handed one to her, which she placed over her thin cotton PJs.

  ‘He’s staying in a B & B along the coast,’ he offered, as if she’d asked. ‘The kids are getting him settled.’ This explained Emma and Michael’s absence. ‘I didn’t know whether to tell you he was inbound. I was in a very difficult position: Emma was so excited about the big surprise, but personally I thought she was being naive. It’s not her fault, I’m not blaming her – she has a good, good heart and was doing what she thought was a positive thing. Michael is as suspicious as hell of the guy, suddenly popping up like a mole on the lawn after all these years, and she was dead set on doing it her way. I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t even sure he’d show up, thought it might all be talk. I guess I hoped that might be the case.’ He sipped his glass of wine.