One Day in December: The Christmas read you won't want to put down

by Shari Low

  Leaning down, he kissed her again. ‘I love you, Lila Anderson. Don’t be late,’ he said softly, wondering if she could tell his heart was banging at the prospect of the unlimited list of things that could still go wrong – attempting to propose to a girlfriend who was working late and couldn’t make it being top of that list.

  ‘I won’t,’ she promised. ‘Love ya.’

  And then she was gone, her heels clicking all the way through the shop, only stopping when the ping of the front door told him she’d exited the building.

  He wandered out of the staffroom after her, trying not to pay any attention to Josie and Val’s beady, inquisitive stares. He cracked in seconds.

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ he said, laughing. ‘I’m no match for you two. Okay, so she has to go back to work and it’s no biggie – she’ll definitely be home in time to get ready for dinner. We’re still on for tonight. All systems go. Houston, we do not have a problem.’

  Their silence told him that neither of them were impressed by this news.

  ‘So you have two choices,’ he continued. ‘Go spread your evil cynicism elsewhere… or stay here while I try on a few suits and help me chose one.’

  They thought about it for a moment.

  ‘Will there be partial nudity involved?’ Josie asked suspiciously.

  ‘Almost definitely,’ Cammy answered.

  Josie pondered that for a moment, then, ‘I don’t have anywhere to be, do you Val?’

  Val shook her blonde bob. ‘I don’t, now that you mention it. Digby, son, I’ll have another coffee, if you don’t mind.’

  Cammy shook his head, ruefully. ‘You two are a complete nightmare, you know that don’t you?’

  ‘We do,’ Val said solemnly. ‘It’s part of our winning charm.’

  ‘Can we ban them from the premises?’ Digby asked, joining in. He’d only known Val and Josie for a few months, but he could see why everyone loved them – they could dish out banter and take it back in equal measure.

  Cammy sighed. ‘They’ll just keep coming back. We’re better putting them to good use.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Right ladies, we’re game on. I have about an hour to find the perfect outfit in which to ask the woman I love to marry me.’

  ‘No problem, son,’ Josie replied. ‘Digby, have you got any straitjackets in stock? Size 42 long.’

  Chapter 19

  Bernadette

  Bernadette’s pulse was racing as she opened the door, even though she knew he wouldn’t be home yet. Marge had said seven o’clock, but experience told her that meant nothing. The simplest operation could take double the usual time if they hit complications, while the most complex of surgeries could go smoothly and finish in less time than estimated. Seven was a guideline, not a fact.

  ‘So what’s first?’ Sarah asked. ‘After switching on the kettle, making tea and finding some kind of high carbohydrate snack in your cupboards. I swear your life is making me gain ten pounds a week.’

  ‘Nothing to do with the cake you were shovelling down your gob earlier then?’ Bernadette asked.

  ‘Nope, absolutely not,’ Sarah said with an act of pure innocence while she set about grabbing cups, teabags, getting the milk from the fridge.

  Bernadette paused, slipping back into that sentimentality that kept creeping up on her today. ‘You know, Sarah, I’m so grateful you’re here. I’d be a blubbering mess if I was doing this on my own.’

  Sarah stopped, sugar spoon in air. ‘No you wouldn’t, Bernie. You’ve lived with that man for thirty years. That takes balls of steel.’

  ‘Or cowardice.’

  ‘We both know it wasn’t, and don’t say that again,’ Sarah chided. ‘If I wasn’t here you’d have got on with this, you’d have done it all yourself and you’d have walked out that door. This is your time now, Bernie. You know that.’

  Bernadette sniffed. ‘Don’t make me cry. I don’t think I’d be able to stop.’

  Sarah could see how vulnerable she was, how close to melting, and deployed diversionary tactics. ‘You know what has been clinically proven to help with that,’ she asked.

  ‘Prozac?’ Bernadette joked.

  ‘Nope, cake. Why do you think I’ve got an arse the size of a small island? When Drew left me I cried for a decade.’

  Sarah’s ex-husband, Drew, had just divorced his third wife, each one going down a decade in age. Consistency or middle-aged women obviously weren’t his strong points.

  ‘But you? You’ve got this, Bernie. And now you know the kids are fine, it’ll give you the strength to stand up to him. Anyway, when you’re standing in front of him, just lead with the fact that Stuart has quit medicine – nothing you say after that will register.’ Laughing, Sarah put the cups down on the coasters on the table.

  Bernadette lifted them one after the other, took the coaster from underneath and flicked them, frisbee-style, into the sink. ‘I fucking hate coasters,’ she said, swearing coming naturally to her for perhaps the first time in her life. She did. She fucking hated them. Almost as much as she fucking hated him. She could do this. She could.

  But first, a check… She made a quick call to Marge. ‘Hi Marge, twice in one day! I know – just like buses. I just wondered if you had an update on how the surgery is going and when Kenneth would be done? Right. Yes, of course. Okay thanks.’

  Sarah waited expectantly.

  ‘She doesn’t have an update. As far as she’s aware it’s still due to finish around seven. She’s just about to leave so I won’t be able to ask her again, so we’re going to have to get a move on.’

  ‘What’s first?’ Sarah asked, pulling out the chair next to her at the kitchen table.

  ‘Cash,’ Bernadette explained, embarrassed. ‘I know it shouldn’t be about money, but he’ll cancel all my access to our accounts the minute I tell him I’m leaving, and I didn’t want to take any money out before now, just in case I changed my mind after speaking to the kids. We need to do it now, just in case he walks through that door in half an hour. My clothes and stuff, I can leave behind, but I need some of our savings to start again.’

  The very thought made her heart beat even faster. At this rate she was going to be a patient on Kenneth’s operating table by the end of the night.

  She reached into the drawer underneath the table, and pulled out her laptop. It was Stuart’s old one, long replaced with the shiny new MacBook she’d bought him when he moved out. However, all she really needed it for was internet and email, so it was perfectly adequate.

  She switched it on and entered her password, realising that her hands were actually shaking. What if Kenneth was already out of theatre? What if he was online right now, on the banking website? He’d see the funds start to move and he’d be furious, getting angrier and angrier as he watched their money disappear.

  She ordered herself to take a deep breath. He was still in surgery. It would be fine. She could do this. How many times had she told herself that today?

  She signed in to the banking website, typing the username and password from memory. He thought she didn’t know them. Had no idea that she’d watched him, time after time, over the years, and sussed out both. Username: Doctor Manson. Password: Violet1966. His mother’s name and the year he was born. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to work it out, but still he would have been astonished that she knew – and more so that she knew that it was the same password for two other accounts in their names. They’d originally opened one for each child when they were born, but they’d cleared them out and given the kids all the cash when they were twenty-one. He’d told her he’d closed them down, but she’d discovered that he’d been lying and regularly transferring money into them. Bernadette suspected either a tax dodge or some messed-up power game, but if she’d asked, she’d have had to confess that she’d accessed them. The pretence of ignorance had been the path of least resistance.

  With shaking fingers, she keyed in the details and then waited until the account flashed up on the screen. The first time she’d se
en it she’d been astonished how much was in it. Quite a pretty penny. Although the account was, in theory, a joint one, and both their salaries went into it, Kenneth had set up a standing order to another account that was in her name only and he transferred money into it for her every month. That was all she got. Her housekeeping account he told her, like they were some kind of fifties relics. She didn’t care. It was in her name only and that was all that mattered.

  With trembling fingers, she waited for the screen to fully download the details of the joint account that only Kenneth was supposed to have access to. Over sixty grand in savings in that account alone. As well as the accounts in the kid’s names, he had more tucked away in other accounts, family ones that he already had when they met, but she wouldn’t touch those. On screen, she could see the figures showing her salary going in every month, and then the paltry amount he transferred to her as an allowance. Rage bubbled. Anger with herself, not Ken. Why had she permitted this? The truth was that she had allowed him to set it up this way thirty years ago, and never cared enough, or had the bravery, to challenge it.

  She did now.

  She clicked ‘transfer’ then wrote £9999 in the box. Next ‘recipient’. There her name was, ready to accept another measly cash payment for taking care of the house. This payment was going to be the biggest one yet. A quick call to the bank a couple of weeks ago had informed her that the maximum online transfer was £10000. With trembling figures, she re-entered the password, then pressed ‘confirm’. Please work. Please work. Please…

  ‘Payment completed.’

  She said it out loud and Sarah punched the air. ‘Yes!’

  She repeated it twice more. The same amount out of the old kids’ accounts he’d told her he’d closed, then did three more transfers, putting all the cash into the new account she’d opened in her name only, the one she’d set up that he knew nothing about. He’d controlled almost every pound she’d ever spent – now, he couldn’t control what he didn’t know about. Three pounds short of thirty grand in total. It was far less than half their assets, but it was all she needed. He could have the house, the stocks, the shares, the rest of the cash. Thirty grand would get her set up in a rented house, until she found somewhere to buy, and then it would be a deposit on her own home. She had her nursing salary to live off. She’d never be wealthy, but if it was a choice between being comfortable and waking up next to him every morning, or being alone, skint and free, she’d chose the latter.

  ‘Done?’ Sarah asked.

  Bernadette nodded. ‘Done.’

  Sarah came round to her chair and wrapped her in a hug. ‘You’re doing the right thing and it’s going to be great. Keep telling yourself that. Just keep reminding yourself.’

  ‘I’m fine, Sarah, honestly. It’s just all a bit… terrifying, if I’m honest.’

  ‘But you did it,’ Sarah reassured her, then drained the last of her tea. ‘Okay, what now?’

  Bernadette gestured upwards. ‘Clothes, jewellery, some things that have sentimental value . There’s still some more stuff in the garage, but I couldn’t pack too much in case he realised anything was out of place.’

  Sarah followed her diligently, a large roll of black plastic bags in hand. They could use a couple of the suitcases that were in the loft, but after that they were out of carriage options, so black plastic sacks it would have to be. All her worldly goods in bin bags – and she didn’t care.

  In her bedroom, she opened one of the sets of double doors, then gave a bag to Sarah. ‘Okay, so let’s start here,’ she said, pointing to the clothes inside.

  They spent the next hour filling them, then dragged everything downstairs, piling it up in the hallway. Nerves and adrenaline compelled her to pick up the pace because if he came home now they were stuffed.

  ‘I’ll take these downstairs,’ Sarah announced, passing her with an armful of coats on hangers.

  The wardrobe was bare now. The chest of drawers the same. Only one place still to empty and she’d been putting it off until last.

  She sat at the beautiful walnut burr dressing table and opened the long drawer in the middle of it. As she did, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. When Kenneth’s mother had given them this dressing table as a wedding present, she’d been a young woman. Hopeful. In love. Beyond happy. Thrilled that she’d found this incredible man. And she’d been – yes, with the passing of time she could admit it – beautiful. Not pageant queen stunning, but beautiful in that young, healthy way, before time and the ageing process takes hold.

  What had happened to that woman? Why had she locked herself away, not physically, but emotionally? When had she decided that her needs didn’t matter, that she had to accept the hand that she’d been dealt? And why hadn’t she fought harder against it?

  It didn’t matter. All that was important now was that she was going, and that she could spend the next few decades of her life making up for the unhappiness she’d lived with since the day she’d made her bed and lay in it.

  She looked in the drawer and saw the blue velvet box sitting in the same place it had been since her mum handed it to her on the night she passed away.

  How shocking was it that she was a nurse, yet she hadn’t seen the end coming? Her mum had been ill for so long, lung cancer, bed-bound for the last few months, but she’d insisted on staying in her own home. Often she could barely speak, her words lost in the black swamp of her contaminated lungs. But not that night. Bernadette had been sitting on the edge of the bed, wittering away, telling her stories about the cases that had come through the doors of A&E that day, sharing the staffroom gossip, the latest news about Nina and the kids, about Stuart’s flat and how happy he was at University, when her mum had suddenly taken her hand.

  ‘Bernadette, you don’t need to stay,’ she’d said, her voice coming in raspy gasps that chipped Bernadette’s heart with every strangled sound.

  ‘Mum, of course I’m staying. I’m not leaving you, don’t you worry about that. I’ll always be here.’ It wasn’t a hardship. In fact, the few weeks that she’d spent in her old bedroom, using the very real excuse that she had to be there to look after her mum, had been both the most heart-breaking and at the same time most relieved she’d felt in years. She didn’t have to see him every day, to look at him, to breathe the same air.

  ‘No,’ her mum had said, before a racking cough had sent her body into spasms. ‘You don’t have to stay with him. Leave him, Bernadette. Be happy.’

  The words shocked her. Her mum and dad had been married for over fifty years, and they were old-school. Staunch Catholics, they disapproved of divorce. Just get on with it. Make it work. Everyone had their ups and downs. It helped that there was rarely a cross word between them and they’d co-existed in mutual contentment for their entire lives. When Dad had died a few months before, Mum had been crushed. Ever since, she’d refused to take off the gold locket she wore around her neck, the one with old, black and white, faded photos, one of her mum, Cathy, one of her dad, Arthur, taken on their wedding day.

  ‘Mum, I…’

  ‘Ssssh,’ her mum had said, her frail hand pointing upwards. ‘I don’t want your dad to hear. He wouldn’t approve.’

  Bernadette could see how much effort it took her mum to smile and she leant down, kissed her forehead. ‘Thank you Mum,’ she whispered.

  Cathy had passed away that night, off to meet up with Arthur again.

  It was a few weeks later, after the funeral, after the house had been cleared out and handed back to the council, that Bernadette finally got time to think about her mum’s words.

  Leave him, Bernadette. Be happy.

  Bernadette opened the navy blue box, took out the locket and fastened it around her neck.

  I’m doing it mum. Just help me get there.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Sarah asked, making her jump. She hadn’t heard her coming back upstairs.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Bernadette replied. ‘Let’s get the rest of this stuff and get out of here.’

 
Chapter 20

  Lila

  It was getting harder and harder to act normal in front of Cammy. And why should she? Yes, she’d figured that it made life a bit more enjoyable to keep him around until she could be with Ken, but perhaps it just wasn’t worth it. She no longer wanted to be held by him, didn’t want to kiss him, and definitely didn’t want to have sex with him, when every part of her just cried out to be with Ken.

  The pretence with Cammy in the shop had firmed her resolve that she had to bring things to a head today. Right now. The sooner the better.

  And if this was going to be one of the most important nights – cancel that, the most important night of her life, then she wanted to look her best.

  Detouring slightly from her original plan, she crossed the road and popped into the dry-cleaners she used to launder all her clothes. Lila didn’t do washing. She didn’t do ironing. Cammy had been surprised at first, but he soon adopted her ways, and while he washed his gym clothes and casual stuff at home, he’d got into the habit of dropping off all their stuff off here a couple of times a week, and then bringing it all back a few days later, freshly laundered.

  The woman behind the counter – Lila could never remember her name – looked up and smiled. ‘Hi there,’ she said, with familiarity, but not friendly enough to use her name. Just as well. Overfamiliarity really got on her nerves. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Yes, my boyfriend dropped off some items a couple of days ago and I want to pick one of them up. A Cavalli dress. Pink.’ It was small and it was strappy, and in this weather there was every possibility that she’d lose body parts to frostbite, but she didn’t care.

  ‘I’ll need the ticket.’

  Lila sighed, glad she’d remembered to pick it up off the hall table, but come on, how many pink Cavalli dresses was this place actually going to have?

  She tried to stop the irritation pursing her lips. No point in getting wrinkles round the mouth just because some shop assistant was on a power trip. She rummaged through her bag, found the little pink ticket and grudgingly handed it over.