Christmas for One: No Greater Love

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘Do you think Isabel will mind Lucas and me not being around for Christmas?’ Meg asked from the back seat.

  ‘Knowing Isabel in the way that I do, I’d say that she will definitely mind.’ Pru turned to face her and rolled her eyes. ‘But the thing is, Meg, it’s about what is best for you and ultimately Lucas, not what’s best for Isabel or anyone else.’

  ‘I do love you, Pru!’ Meg felt the need to share this, a rare and open admission on her part.

  ‘The feeling, my darling girl, is entirely mutual.’ Pru reached backwards over the gear stick and patted her calf.

  The car eventually swept up the drive of Mountfield, Bill’s childhood home.

  ‘I can see some reindeers!’ Lucas screamed as he bobbed up and down on his booster seat, pointing excitedly at the display on the lawn.

  Isabel had for once thrown good taste out of the window in her effort to delight her grandson and she had truly outdone herself. Six illuminated garish plastic reindeer, harnessed in pairs and wearing red collars and wide toothy grins, pulled a sled that bulged with gigantic plastic presents and oversized candy canes. The whole thing was lit from within and in the gloom of the December day it shone like a beacon at four-year-old Lucas. He was already beyond excited. His uncle Christopher had given him a steering wheel and he had ‘driven’ all the way from London. Thankfully his engine noise, achieved through a form of raspberry blowing, had exhausted itself before they hit the motorway. He did however manage to raise his fist and shout, ‘You bloody idiot!’ at the car ahead that had braked and turned without warning on the A40, perfectly imitating his uncle in the front seat. Meg had snickered while Pru had glared at her husband with a look of thunder.

  ‘Is it going to fly up into the sky?’ Lucas asked, wide-eyed, pointing to the majestic sleigh.

  ‘I don’t think so, mate.’ Meg stifled her giggles. As if the display wasn’t impressive enough, he wanted flight as well.

  ‘You need to tell Granny Isabel that you would really like to see it fly!’ Christopher encouraged Lucas.

  ‘Don’t be mean!’ Pru dug her husband with her elbow, knowing he wouldn’t miss a chance to wind up his sister and take the gloss off her efforts.

  The shiny green double front door with its lion’s-mouth knocker opened and Isabel trotted from the grand hallway on to the circular drive, wiping her hands on her cook’s pinny as she crunched across the frosty gravel in her tan suede loafers. She hurried to the side of the car and was pulling Lucas from the back seat before Christopher had a chance to cut the engine.

  ‘Hello, darling! Oh, look at you! You have grown, Lucas William! You look wonderful! I’ve made you some lovely Santa biscuits with icing and magic wish glitter.’

  Pru smiled. She always felt Isabel went out of her way to prove that she too could bake. She and Milly did nothing but praise her brittle meringues, dense scones and rather stodgy sponges. Lucas, however, wasn’t always quite so guarded with his feedback.

  Isabel peppered his face with kisses that he immediately wiped off with the back of his hand.

  ‘I don’t like yucky kisses, Nan!’ Lucas scowled. ‘Can you take me to see the reindeers?’

  ‘Grandma can’t help kissing you, Lucas. You are too gorgeous to resist!’

  Meg inwardly sighed as Isabel emphasised the word ‘Grandma’. She was never best pleased to be referred to as ‘Nan’ – the moniker apparently left her feeling like ‘that dog creature from Peter Pan!’

  ‘Do you like the reindeer, darling?’ Isabel set him on the ground then tucked her tweed skirt under her haunches as she dropped to a crouch and continued her chat face to face.

  ‘Can we watch them fly now?’ Lucas jumped up and down on the spot, thrilled at the prospect.

  ‘Well, no, they don’t fly. They just look pretty!’ Isabel blinked rapidly as her balloon deflated a little.

  ‘But Christopher said they would!’ Lucas turned to look at his uncle, who was suddenly preoccupied with hauling bags from the boot of the car.

  Meg laughed, which helped ease the flutter of concern in her stomach. She was apprehensive about telling Isabel about Edd, certain that it would be all too obvious that he had succeeded in taking Bill’s place in her affections, where Bill’s friend Piers had clearly failed.

  ‘Meg?’ Christopher called to her as he slammed the boot shut.

  ‘Yes?’ She held back, thinking he might want a hand with the bags and boxes as Pru, Isabel and Lucas had abandoned him.

  ‘Pru has told me all about your chap.’ He gave a small cough.

  ‘Yes. It’s early days, Chris, but it’s exciting!’

  Christopher looked her in the eye and Meg sensed his hesitation. ‘I want nothing more than for you to be happy and I want stability for Lucas; you know that, don’t you?’

  She nodded. Christopher was a good man.

  ‘But you know next to nothing about him. I know Pru and Milly are very excited, carried away with the idea and romance of it all, but at the risk of sounding like an old fart, I would say, be careful, Meg. Take it slow and make sure everything is as he says it is. In my experience, young men when faced with a pretty girl will say and do just about anything to win them over.’ He looked worried.

  ‘I know you are right and thank you for caring about me.’ Meg was genuinely grateful for his concern. ‘But I am absolutely confident that Edd is not like that. He is genuine and lovely.’ She hunched her shoulders.

  ‘Well, I hope you are right.’ Christopher gathered the handles of the carrier bags into his palms. ‘Because anyone that messes with our Meg will have me to deal with.’

  Meg laughed, trying to imagine Christopher, in his cords and tweed jacket, squaring up to the young, fit Edward Kelly. Thankfully, she knew this would never happen.

  After their delicious, filling lunch of fish pie topped with mountains of fluffy mash, Christopher was nominated to take Lucas for a ramble round the garden, stopping on the way back at the reindeer with a pocketful of carrots. It was his punishment.

  ‘What do I do with the carrots?’ he had asked.

  ‘Feed them to the reindeer!’ came the unanimous reply from the women at the table, leaving him utterly perplexed.

  ‘Ready?’ Isabel looked at Meg as she finished stacking the dishwasher and set it whirring.

  Meg nodded and reached for her coat. No need to ask where they were heading.

  Sitting in the passenger seat of Isabel’s car, Meg waved at her son, trussed up like a snowman in layers, scarves and a bobble hat as he raced ahead of his uncle and tramped wellington boot prints all over the crisp lawn.

  ‘I’m so glad you came today, Meg; I wasn’t expecting you until Christmas. You can of course come any time – you don’t need an invite. You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I do. Thank you, Isabel.’ Meg swallowed her guilt. She avoided visiting too often – Isabel could be hard work, a bit intense.

  ‘I miss you both dreadfully. It’s wonderful to have Lucas running around the house; there really is nothing like the sound of his little feet in the corridor. It takes me right back. He looks the image of William, don’t you think?’ Isabel spoke from the side of her mouth as she navigated the ancient Mercedes estate out of the gates and towards the village.

  ‘Yes. He really does.’ Meg bit her lip and stared out of the window. This lie was the kindest thing. She had no intention of confessing that Lucas was in fact the image of one of her brothers at the same age and bore more than a passing resemblance to her cousin. Nor would she ever tell Isabel that she had forgotten much of the detail of Bill’s face; she could recall the idea of him, but not the finer points or his expressions. He had been dead far longer than she had known him alive. She had to study the few photographs she owned to try and crystallise him in her mind. It saddened her that the father of her child was blurring with each passing year. But as the image of him faded, so did her grief.

  The indicator ticked at the entrance to the church. It was what they always did: made a mini p
ilgrimage whenever she visited. This was part of the reason she chose to stay away. Meg found this grief and contemplation on demand a little forced.

  Isabel pulled the car up in front of the church and ratcheted the handbrake before turning the key in the ignition. The old diesel engine fell eerily silent. The two women sat quietly as a crow screeched overhead.

  ‘I come here a lot,’ Isabel confessed. ‘I like to be close to him. And I know it’s hard for others to understand, but I feel like part of him is still here.’

  Meg thought of Edd’s similar words, spoken at St Paul’s Chapel. She looked up at the sound of Isabel sniffing up the tears that threatened to fall.

  ‘It doesn’t get any easier, does it?’ Isabel warbled into her handkerchief.

  Meg shook her head. Not for you. She pictured Lucas and her heart constricted at the thought of losing a son. It was unimaginable, horrific. Meg knew she needed to make more effort with Isabel, had to find a way to overlook her pushy nature and funny old ways. She was Lucas’s nan after all and there could never be too many people on the planet that had got his back.

  ‘Come on, let’s go!’ Isabel announced with false bravado as she swung her legs from the car.

  They made their way up the winding gravel path towards the spreading cedar tree at the top of the hill. The grave was well tended; a jam jar half buried in gravel sat on top of the grassy patch with a generous bunch of holly poking from it.

  ‘They are from the garden.’ Isabel pointed at the sprigs bursting with red berries. ‘I always try and bring him something seasonal and from home.’ She nodded.

  ‘They look lovely.’

  Meg tried not to let her eyes stray to the gravestone that sat alongside Bill’s. It was for Roberta ‘Bobby’ Plum: Pru and Milly’s niece and the woman who, unbeknown to Meg, Bill had become engaged to. All the while Meg, ignorant of being the ‘other woman’, had been quietly growing their baby and planning for a future that was never going to happen.

  ‘Just popping to the vestry!’ Isabel added brightly, as though she was off to the shops or the loo.

  Meg knew this was an excuse to leave her alone and she was grateful. She bent down and ran her hand over the arc of his grave. The stone, having absorbed some of the sun that shone directly on to it, felt surprisingly warm to the touch.

  ‘I haven’t been here for a while, I know,’ she began. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been working like a loon and when I’m not working Lucas takes up every second. He’s amazing, Bill. By far the best thing we ever did. You and I might have been flawed as a couple, but Lucas… he’s perfect.’

  She paused and glanced at Bobby’s grave, feeling the usual mixture of confusion and sadness. Bobby had been young as well, killed alongside Bill in the crash that had changed everything.

  ‘It’s funny, you know, love. I don’t feel angry about the way it all happened, not now. Life’s complicated enough without hanging on to anger or looking for someone to blame.’ She sighed and straightened, continuing with her hands in her pockets. ‘I didn’t know how I’d cope when I lost you. I felt like I had a lump in my throat that I couldn’t shift. But it’s not like that now. I talk to Lucas about you all the time; he knows you’re his dad and you are watching over him. He says goodnight to you and he knows he has the same hands as you, which he does.’ She smiled at the thought of her little boy drawing around his splayed palm with a stubby crayon.

  ‘The thing is, I’ve met someone, Bill. He’s a good man – at least I think he is. It’s very early days. But I want to make a go of it. It’s the first time I’ve had thoughts like these since you and it doesn’t scare me. You will always, always be Lucas’s dad, but I think it would be good for him to have a man in his life, don’t you? I can’t imagine what Isabel will say. She is broken without you. I promise to always keep bringing Lucas up to Mountfield and as he gets older, he can come and stay.’

  Meg sighed and kicked at the frosty brown soil. ‘I’m dreading telling her, I don’t know what she’ll say—’

  ‘She’ll say, what’s his name?’

  Meg turned abruptly to find Isabel standing not two feet behind her.

  ‘Wh… what?’ Meg stuttered, wondering how much she had heard.

  ‘What’s his name? The man that you’ve met?’ Isabel gave a small smile and adjusted her fingers inside her gloves.

  ‘Oh, Isabel, it’s very early days…’

  ‘I know.’ She stepped forward and threaded her arm through Meg’s. ‘But I can tell you like him.’

  ‘I do.’ Meg nodded, looking up shyly to gauge Bill’s mum’s reaction. She was smiling softly. ‘His name’s Edward.’

  ‘Edward,’ Isabel repeated. ‘That’s a fine name.’

  Meg placed her hand over the back of Isabel’s. She knew that she had liked her seeing Piers as it was another link to Bill, though they’d both been far too nervous of the topic to say so.

  ‘Piers is a lovely bloke,’ Meg offered.

  ‘But not for you,’ Isabel said.

  ‘No.’ She shrugged. ‘Not for me. And the more I think about it, Isabel, I’m not for him either, not the real me.’

  ‘And you think Edward might be the one? It’s none of my business, of course.’

  ‘Of course it’s your business, you’re our family,’ Meg shot back. ‘And yes, I think he might be.’

  The two women turned and wandered through the graveyard, making their way back to the car.

  ‘I understand how William let you down, Meg. It’s difficult as a mother to see faults in our children, but I can see that it was a bloody mess.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, not now, not in the scheme of things.’ Meg stood by the car. ‘All that matters is what’s right for Lucas.’

  Isabel nodded as she fished in her bag for the car keys. ‘And you are right, you know, Meg. I am broken without him, completely and utterly broken. It’s a waste of a life, which is why you must go and live yours, live it to the full. And if Edward is the means to that, then you have my blessing.’

  Meg rushed around from the side of the car and wrapped Isabel in a warm embrace. ‘Thank you! We are lucky to have you, Isabel.’ She meant it, thinking of the argument and kerfuffle she had feared her announcement might cause.

  The two women stood like that for a moment or two. It was healing, conciliatory and comforting.

  ‘There is one other thing,’ Meg whispered into the woman’s shoulder.

  ‘Tell me.’ Isabel pulled away and smiled at the mother of her grandson.

  ‘Edward is an American. A proper American, living in America.’

  Isabel blinked slowly and frowned. ‘Oh, Meg,’ she sighed. ‘I can see why you kept that quiet. How utterly, utterly ghastly.’

  12

  ‘Lucas, this is for when you are on the aeroplane.’ Meg held up a Monsters, Inc. colouring book and a new set of pens. ‘I’ll pop them in your rucksack and if you get a bit fed up or bored, you can have a colour-in. I think there are puzzles to do as well.’ She tried to sound jovial, ignoring the catch in the back of her throat as she tidied his bedroom, placing his clothes into piles destined for either a suitcase or his chest of drawers.

  ‘I won’t need that book, Mum.’ Lucas was quite clear.

  ‘Oh, why not?’ She hid her disappointment. When she was little, that would have been the best treat imaginable.

  ‘Because I am going to watch a movie and when that’s finished I’m going to play on my new iPad that Christopher and Pru have bought me, but it’s a surprise and they are going to give it to me before we get on the plane to Barbarbados and I can play with that instead. It’s got lots of games!’

  Meg put her hands on her hips. ‘How do you know they have bought you an iPad if it’s a surprise?’

  ‘Because Milly and me said we’d tell each other what we got for presents if we found out and we wouldn’t tell anyone else. So she told me that and I told her about hers.’

  ‘I see. And what present has Milly got that you know about, Lucas?’ She ad
mired his guile.

  ‘Her talent lessons!’ He beamed.

  Meg laughed into her palm. She had indeed booked Italian lessons for Milly, which would start in the New Year. It made her chuckle that Lucas hadn’t quite managed to spill the beans. She knew that it would drive Milly crazy trying to fathom just what a ‘talent lesson’ might be. Ha! Well that would serve her right for trying to get information from a small child.

  ‘I’m going to have the Barbarbados Christmas and then the proper Christmas when I get back here, aren’t I, Mum?’ Lucas peered up at her as he kicked his little leg against the bed.

  She nodded. ‘That’s right. But I’m going to really miss you over the next couple of weeks, pal.’ It was going to be the longest they had been separated.

  ‘I’m going to miss you too. Are you going to ’Merica to work?’ He held his red wooden car against his chest.

  Meg sat on his bed and looked him in the eye. ‘No. I’m kind of going on a holiday, going to see someone and I can’t wait to get back and tell you all about it!’

  ‘Is it a lady?’ Lucas asked as he ran his car over the track printed on his rug. This kid was astute.

  ‘No.’ She gave a small cough. ‘It’s a man.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ Lucas looked at her now.

  ‘His name is Edward, but he likes to be called Edd.’

  ‘Edd,’ Lucas repeated.

  This one syllable sent an immediate rush of love for her child into her stomach. Hearing her little boy testing out the name that she hoped would become familiar to him was quite a moment.

  ‘I love you, Lucas. I love you so much.’ Meg enveloped him in a tight hug, from which he immediately tried to wriggle free. ‘I want you to take lots of photos of yourself in the pool and of everyone enjoying themselves in Barbarbados and you can send them to me on your iPad. Christopher will help you.’ She kissed his hair, which smelt of sweet shampoo.