Last Christmas

by Julia Williams

  ‘Of course,’ said his dad. He turned back to Marianne. ‘Thanks again for looking after him.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Marianne, and watched them go. She wondered what was troubling them so deeply, then dismissed it from her mind. Whatever their problem was, it was no business of hers.

  This Year

  Chapter One

  Marianne stood in the kitchen fiddling with her drink, looking around at the shiny happy people spilling into Pippa’s cosy farmhouse, an old redbrick building with a slate roof, oozing tradition and country charm. Marianne had fallen in love with this kitchen and its wooden beams, battered old oak table and quarry-tiled floor. It was all so different from the pristine newness of her family home, and exactly the sort of house she’d hoped she and Luke would live in when they were married. When they were married. What a distant dream that now seemed.

  If it wasn’t for Pippa, who had been like a rock to her this last week, she’d never have come. She wondered how soon she’d be able to leave. It was strange how numb she felt, as if she was detached somehow from those around her. There was ice running through her veins. The life she had hoped for and looked forward to had fizzled away to nothing. She had no right to be here, no right to join with these happy relaxed people. Her new year wasn’t a new start but a reminder of everything she’d lost. How could her life have altered so abruptly—so brutally—in just a week? She should be in Antigua with Luke right now, just like they’d planned. Instead…

  Don’t. Go. There. Marianne had been determined not to cry tonight. She knew she was the subject of a great deal of gossip. How could she not be in such a small place? It was the downside to country living of course, and one she didn’t relish now. But Pippa had persuaded her to hold her head up high and come out tonight to her and Dan’s annual New Year’s bash. So come she had. She wouldn’t have done it for anyone but Pippa, but the way she was feeling right now, Pippa was the only good thing left about living in Hope Christmas. Not that she was going to stay here much longer. Not after what had happened. As soon as school started next week, she’d look for a new job and go back to London where she belonged.

  Marianne watched the crowds surging in and out of the comfortable farmhouse, which seemed Tardis-like. Pippa and Dan had the enviable knack of making everyone feel welcome—Dan was on hand pouring bubbly for all the guests while Pippa worked the room, making sure that the grumpy and irascible (Miss Woods, the formidable ex-head teacher of Hope Christmas primary, who had stomped in with her wooden stick, declaring her antipathy towards New Year: ‘Never liked it, never will,’) were mollified with mulled wine; the shy and retiring (Miss Campion, who ran the post office, and Mr Edwards, who played the organ in church) were encouraged to fraternise; and the party animals (including Diana Carew, those enormous bosoms taking on a life of their own on the dance floor) had room and space to throw some shapes in Pippa and Dan’s new conservatory.

  ‘More fizz?’ Dan was suddenly at her side refilling her glass. Was that her third? Or fourth? She probably should eat something. She hadn’t eaten properly all week, and the bubbles were going straight to her head. She was starting to get a slightly surreal floating feeling. Perhaps she was going to be all right after all. No one had paid her any attention yet, so perhaps she wasn’t the hot topic of discussion she imagined.

  Or maybe not. Marianne wandered into the hall, where three people in animated conversation suddenly went silent as she approached. Feeling uncomfortable, she left, only to hear one of them cattily hissing, ‘Well, to be honest, it was never going to work was it, the lord of the manor and the teacher?’

  Blinking back tears, Marianne knocked back her champagne and grabbed a bottle from Dan, who looked rather taken aback. Marching up to Pippa, she said, ‘Fancy getting absolutely bladdered?’

  ‘Are you sure that’s such a good idea?’ said Pippa cautiously.

  ‘Never been surer,’ said Marianne as the strains of ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ filled the room. ‘My mum always says hold your head up high and sod the consequences. Come on, let’s dance.’

  An hour later, all danced out, and having moved on from champagne to vodka and orange, Marianne’s emotions had lurched from deep misery to a wild ecstasy that bordered on the unhinged. So what if her engagement was over? She was young, free and single again, it was time she took control of things. There must be some decent men at this party.

  Having worked her way around the entire confines of Pippa’s house and discovering that, no, there really weren’t any decent men there, Marianne’s cunning plan to start the New Year was beginning to look a little shaky. Perhaps it was time for plan A—an early night. Marianne was heading for the hall when the doorbell rang. No one appeared to be taking any notice, so she went to answer it. Standing there was a dark-haired man who looked vaguely familiar. He had the most amazing brown eyes.

  ‘You’ll do,’ said Marianne, grabbing him by the hand and dragging him into the conservatory.

  ‘Er, I’d better just tell Pippa and Dan I’m here,’ he said, before she could get him onto the dance floor.

  A wave of sobriety suddenly hit Marianne. What was she doing? She never ever behaved like this. What must this stranger have thought of her? But a more reckless side of her said, so what? It was New Year and her life was in tatters. She quickly brushed her embarrassment to one side, grabbed herself another vodka and orange and started dancing wildly to ‘I Will Survive’.

  Someone shouted, ‘It’s nearly midnight.’ Suddenly, without warning, her sense of joyous abandon deserted her. Midnight. The countdown to New Year. Everyone singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Suddenly Marianne couldn’t bear it. She stumbled out into the garden, barely noticing that the temperature was below freezing. The alcohol coursing through her veins was keeping her warm. She sat down on a bench, and stared up at an unforgiving moon. The Shropshire hills loured out of the darkness at her, appearing gloomy and oppressive for the first time since she’d been here. She looked back into Pippa’s warm, friendly house, full of bright lights and cheerful people. Everyone was having such a good time and she was out here in the cold on her own, sobbing her heart out.

  The back door opened and a shadowy figure came towards her.

  ‘Anything I can do?’ it said.

  ‘10, 9, 8…’

  ‘Nothing,’ sobbed Marianne. ‘My life is a disaster, that’s all.’

  ‘7, 6, 5…’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure. Only…you seemed…sorry, forgive me. None of my business. I’d better go in. You know.’

  ‘4, 3, 2, 1…HAPPY NEW YEAR!’ Screams and shouts came from inside. Marianne suddenly felt hatred for all these people she didn’t know who were having such a good time, and suddenly she couldn’t bear this stranger’s kindness. She didn’t want kindness. She just wanted Luke.

  ‘Yes, you’d better,’ she spat out.

  ‘Oh.’ The man looked slightly put out.

  ‘I hate everything,’ said Marianne, attempting to stand up, before falling back in the rose bushes. Her unlikely hero came to help her up. She sat up, looked into his deeply attractive brown eyes, and promptly threw up on his feet.

  Noel sat at his desk wading through emails, most of which were completely irrelevant to him. Did he really need to be on the Health and Safety Committee’s minutes list? There were emails about three leaving parties at the end of January, he noted, people yet again leaving for ‘personal reasons’. The credit crunch was hitting his industry hard; building was always the first thing to go. And without anyone buying all those shiny flats in city centres, there wouldn’t be any need for new eco-friendly heating systems designed by the likes of him either. Gerry Cowley had been muttering under his collar for weeks before Christmas about the business needing to be leaner and trimmer. In the past, Noel felt he could have relied on his reputation as the brightest engineer GRB had ever employed, but then Matt had joined the firm. Matt, with his lack of dependants, bright-eyed young-man’s energy, and brown-nosing abilities. There was someone
heading for the top if ever anyone was. And Noel had a nasty feeling that it would be at his expense.

  No point thinking about what might never happen. Noel could almost hear his mother’s voice. It had been her favourite phrase when he was growing up. Way back when they’d had some kind of relationship, before she’d turned into the mother-in-law from hell and, according to the kids, Granny Nightmare. Not that he’d ever had an easy relationship with his mother. Noel had spent most of his childhood feeling that somehow he’d disappointed her. Particularly after his younger sister was born, who apparently could do no wrong. He envied Cat her relaxed relationship with her mother, Louise, who was Granny Dreamboat in every way possible.

  Cat. Something was happening to them. He felt like the sands were shifting beneath him, and the world was changing without him. Ever since Cat had started the blog, and the Happy Homemaker thing had taken off, Noel felt Cat had had less and less time for him. All she seemed to focus on was her work and the children. The money it brought in was undoubtedly welcome, particularly when his own job was looking increasingly dodgy. But when a whole week had gone by and he’d barely seen Cat, let alone spoken to her, he wondered if it was all worth it. Sometimes Noel wondered if there was any place in Cat’s heart left for him anymore. And, after the way he’d behaved on Christmas Day, he wasn’t sure he blamed her.

  This was no bloody good. Time he pulled himself together and got on with some work. Noel started to check through the plans he’d drawn up before Christmas for the air-con system at a nearby leisure centre and sighed as he saw the notes from the architects querying why he couldn’t match their exact specifications. When would they learn that the real world didn’t operate in shiny boxes and out of plush offices but in the mathematical parameters that physical laws allowed you?

  A head popped round the corner. Matt Duncan, looking mighty chipper with himself.

  ‘Have you heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘Davy Chambers has copped it.’ Matt drew a finger underneath his throat, with barely concealed glee.

  Shit. Dave Chambers was going? Dave was part of the furniture at GRB. If he was going, no one was safe.

  Noel shivered. January seemed to have set in both chill and drear. He had a feeling a cold wind was blowing over the horizon.

  So, Christmas over, turkey stuffed, cooked and eaten, house full of plastic toys—mainly broken—children back at school. It’s time for a spring clean. Yes, I know, technically we’re still in winter, but post-Christmas, full of New Year’s Resolutions, is as good a time as any to clear out the rubbish and it’s always good to start the year as you mean to go on…

  Catherine stopped typing and looked idly out from her eyrie-like study at the top of the house as a half-starved crow flapped and flopped its way across the frosty attic roof. Bloody blog. Bloody Happy Homemaker. Some days she wished she’d never started it. It had begun as a piece of fun, posted between Ruby’s feeds, something to keep her sane while she worked out what to do about her career.

  Catherine,whose idea of domesticity involved the minimum amount of cleaning compatible with reasonable hygiene requirements, had struck on the idea of an ironic take on the life of the twenty-first-century housewife—or homemaker, a term Catherine utterly loathed. She’d sat down and typed sarcastically:

  So, here you are, once a busy, successful businesswoman, tied to the home with a squawling baby and a stroppy toddler. Is it possible to be a twenty-first-century homemaker and survive, sanity intact? By applying the same management skills to your home life that you did to your work, I believe that not only can you survive, but that you can actually embrace the challenges being at home throws you. A happy home is one organised with military precision, which is why every Sunday evening we sit down as a family and work out our timetable for the week. A colour-coded copy sits on the freezer, so I can keep track of Kumon lessons and French club and when the baby needs her next set of jabs. I’ve even perfected my own clocking-in system. It works for me. It can work for you.

  So had the Happy Homemaker been born and, to her astonishment, had been an instant hit. Unfortunately a lot of her readers failed to get the irony and took her far too seriously. Somehow she had stumbled into some kind of zeitgeisty thing where women appeared to be sitting at home with their offspring, willing to be lectured at by a complete stranger about how to run their homes. Soon she was getting several hundred hits a day, and achieving a massive following. Her blog became so popular it even got mentioned in the broadsheets, much to Cat’s wry amusement.

  Before she knew it, she was doling out domestic advice on a near daily basis, and soon the Happy Homemaker was attracting attention in the wider world, not least from Bev, her old boss from Citygirl magazine, where she’d been features editor till the arrival of Ruby had finally convinced her that her home/work balance was all wrong. Bev rang her one day and offered her a regular feature at Happy Homes magazine, which involved both time in the office and at home. Coming as it had at a moment when Catherine had been worn out with the demands of a toddler and going stir crazy on the school run, she had jumped at the chance. She’d organised herself an au pair, an office at the top of the house, and had looked forward to reclaiming part of her old life.

  If only things were that simple. No one else at Happy Homes, including Bev, had the domestic ties she did. A couple of the girls had one kid certainly, but four? No one she knew apart from her and Noel had four children. They must have been quite insane.

  Initially Cat had thought that going back to work now that the kids were older was going to be a piece of cake. But as the success of the Happy Homemaker grew, so did the pressures. She was constantly in demand in the media, writing articles for the broadsheets, appearing on radio shows, and even making the odd TV appearance. If she had no domestic ties this wouldn’t matter. But while she enjoyed the attention her newfound success was bringing her, not to mention the cash, particularly after years of feeling like a second-class citizen who got pocket money, Cat was struggling with balancing it against her family responsibilities, and was particularly conscious that she was giving Noel a lot less attention than he deserved.

  And although the kids were older now, they seemed to need her more than ever, particularly Mel, who was struggling to make the transition from primary to secondary school, and Ruby who had started her first day at school without her mum holding her hand—that bloody Christmas edition photo shoot had put paid to that. Catherine had always managed to take her children on the first day of school, but in Ruby’s case she’d failed. In fact, she felt she was failing Ruby a great deal. She never had time to read with her (though, thankfully, Paige was a good substitute) and she’d only just scraped into her (admittedly dreadful) Nativity just before Christmas. When she worked late, she missed Ruby’s bedtime. Her children were growing up and, at the moment, it felt like they were doing it without her.

  And in the meantime she lectured others on how to run their homes, bring up their children and generally cope with day-to-day living. How ironic that she couldn’t manage to retain the slightest bit of control over her own situation…

  Gabriel held Stephen’s hand as they walked down the frosty lane on a crisp clear January morning.

  ‘Look, Daddy, a robin!’ said Stephen excitedly. Their breath blew hot and steamy in the cold sharp air. It was a shock to the system to emerge from the warm cocoon of family and friends that Pippa and Dan had been providing him with for the last fortnight. He would have been lost without them. Gabriel’s parents, who were his default support network when trouble brewed with Eve, had set off on a much anticipated round-the-world trip to celebrate their retirement. Ironically their retiring had been what had brought him back to Hope Christmas, to take over the farm and try to expand the business with Dan and Pippa who were setting up a service to provide organic farm produce. And it was coming to live in Hope Christmas that appeared to have triggered Eve’s latest depression.

  Gabriel sighed. He still didn’t know how h
e was going to face the future, but he supposed it was a good thing to be forced back into the real world now that Christmas was finally over. Not that sheep were always that accommodating about the Christmas season. He and Stephen had spent a large proportion of the previous week checking on the pregnant ewes. Luckily Stephen saw going out in the snow as an adventure, and being busy had given Gabriel less time to brood.

  Gabriel sincerely hoped that going back to school would be a good thing. Eve hadn’t contacted them now for nearly a fortnight and, though Stephen had stopped mentioning it, he knew by the way that he would sigh sometimes, or wander off in the middle of a game, that his son was hurting deeply. He only wished there was something he could do beyond the practical to make it better.

  ‘He’s got you,’ Pippa had said. ‘And us. He knows his mother isn’t steady, but he also knows you are. So long as you can provide security and love, he’ll be fine.’

  Wise, wonderful Pippa, with more than enough troubles of her own to cope with, but always there to catch you when you fell. Gabriel would have cracked under the strain if it hadn’t been for the support of his favourite cousin. Although Pippa was more like a sibling than a cousin, growing up as they had on neighbouring farms, spending a blissful childhood scrumping and fighting and fording streams together. Pippa, a year older, had always been the grown-up, there to bandage his wounds or salve his wounded pride when he’d come off the worse in a playground fight. And she was still doing the same thing. He’d be lost without her.

  The robin hopped away and Stephen ran on ahead down the lane, pretending he was an aeroplane. It was good to see him so carefree for once. He was far too solemn usually, and Gabriel continually worried about the effect that events would have on him. Whatever Pippa said, it wasn’t going to be easy for him coping without his mother. Flaky and all as Eve was, she did love Stephen, and it was clear that he missed her badly.

  As indeed Gabriel did. He felt a sudden constriction in his throat. If only he could have done more for her. If only she’d let him. If only…But one of the things he was coming to realise with painful clarity was that, however much he loved her, it wasn’t enough, it was never going to be enough. Eve’s problems were too big for him to mend. Sometimes if you loved someone, you just had to let them go.