by Hilary Boyd
‘I worry for you,’ Rita said, as they made their way down the narrow staircase.
‘Don’t. I’m fine. At least, not fine, but dealing with it. This is better than the lie,’ she added.
‘You’ll need your warm coat.’ She took the red hooded parka from the stair newel, and held it out for her granddaughter to slip her arms in.
‘I don’t like that coat, want anna-one . . . blue one.’ Ellie backed away stubbornly.
‘It’s freezing out there, darling. The blue one’s much too thin, and we are going to be outside, by the Christmas tree, to sing the carols. Come on, put it on . . . quick, quick, or we’ll miss it.’
She saw Ellie hesitate, weighing up the degree to which her grandmother would insist, but clearly the lure of the evening’s entertainment won. She grinned and made no further objection.
‘We’re off,’ she called upstairs, where her daughter was resting. ‘Back about seven.’
‘Don’t forget the tickets – they’re on the side by the front door,’ Chanty called down. ‘Have fun.’
‘It’s dark,’ Ellie stated with relish. ‘We going to see big Christmas tree, Gin.’
‘And sing. Maybe they’ll sing “Away in a Manger”.’
Ellie thought about this for a minute.
‘Jo at ’ursery put a special scarf on Mina’s head and we stand up and sing for Mummy and Daddy.’
‘I know, darling, Mummy told me. Did you enjoy it?’
‘I did,’ Ellie replied solemnly.
The gate around Lauderdale House was already packed with parents and their children, an air of excitement and anticipation in all the pink, frozen faces. Jeanie stowed the buggy on the stack inside the door, and held Ellie’s hand as they made their way to the back of the house.
‘Wow . . . it’s blutiful,’ she heard Ellie exclaim as they rounded the corner and saw the tree, huge and glowing with white lights, tinsel and sparkling decorations, a big shimmering star shining on the top. Trays had been laid out on the tables along the wall with mulled wine, and fruit juice for the children, and three girls edged amongst the crowd, offering trays piled high with hot, sticky sausages, mustard and tomato ketchup. The musicians – four girls, possibly students – waited cheerfully wrapped in jeans, boots, many wool scarves and coloured hats. Two of them tuned violins, one had a clarinet and another seated herself at the piano from the house, which they’d set up just inside the open French windows so that the violin strings wouldn’t snap in the cold. Ellie was silent, munching her sausage, her brown eyes wide with awe as the music began, everyone holding the carol sheet up to the light from the house. Jeanie wished Chanty could have been there to see her.
‘There’s Din,’ Ellie suddenly announced.
Jeanie spun round, her heart in her mouth. ‘Dylan . . . where, darling?’
‘Look, over there.’ Ellie pointed her finger through the crowd, and sure enough, there was the boy’s beautiful face shining in the lights from the tree as he stood staring up at the glittering branches. And behind him, a hand resting gently on his grandson’s shoulder, was Ray.
Jeanie tried unsuccessfully to calm her panic. They hadn’t seen them yet; there was still time to move, to get away. But Ellie was pulling her hand.
‘Come on, Gin . . . see Din.’
Ray looked as shocked as she felt. For a moment their eyes met, both unable to speak.
‘Hi, Gin,’ Dylan smiled up at her. ‘It’s a brilliant tree, isn’t it?’
‘It’s wonderful,’ Jeanie managed to say through lips frozen not just with the cold.
Ellie reached her arms up to Jeanie. ‘Hug,’ she said, meaning she wanted to be carried.
Jeanie lifted her up and watched her give Ray a shy smile.
‘Hello, gorgeous,’ Ray said with a broad grin, briefly stroking Ellie’s hand, ‘I haven’t seen you for such a long time.’
The sound of his voice sent Jeanie straight back to their moments of intimacy, as if the intervening months had never existed.
‘It’s freezing-meezing.’ Ray stamped his feet and clapped his gloved hands to make Ellie smile, but Jeanie didn’t yet trust herself to speak. ‘Dylan, take Ell to the front so she can see better,’ he instructed his grandson. Ellie looked as if she might refuse, eyeing the boy cautiously from the safety of her grandmother’s arms, but it was a rare person, even one as small as Ellie, who could resist Dylan’s smile. Looking very grown-up, he took the little girl’s hand tight in his own and shepherded her solicitously through the crowd to stand plumb in front of the vicar – a young, charismatic man with dark good looks – who held the full attention of the throng.
Jeanie and Ray were a lone island of silence as the cold voices around them struggled to life, wobbly and ragged at first, but gaining confidence by the end of the first verse of ‘As Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night . . .’
Jeanie fixed her eyes on her granddaughter, but her consciousness never wavered from the man beside her.
‘How are you?’ he eventually asked, not looking at her.
‘I’m . . .’ she began. ‘I don’t know how to answer that,’ she finished lamely, after a long pause.
She heard Ray chuckle. ‘And that was the easy one.’
She couldn’t help laughing too, wishing she felt as relaxed as he seemed – his tone like that of a meeting with an old friend, with no hint of the torment she was suffering.
‘And you?’ she asked, risking a glance at his dear face.
‘Nothing to report,’ he shrugged, sending her a look which seemed to suggest she had no right to ask.
‘I saw you a while back.’ She found herself speaking against her will, saying exactly what she had promised herself she would never mention, should ever this situation arise.
Ray raised his eyebrows. ‘Where?’
‘On the hill . . . it was raining.’
He waited for a moment, perhaps expecting her to explain more.
‘Highgate Hill? I didn’t see you. I kept thinking I might, but . . .’ He looked away, and Jeanie took that as confirmation of what she had seen. ‘You should have said hello,’ he added, too late.
Ellie was pushing her way back through the bodies. Jeanie lifted her up again.
‘Are you having fun?’
The child looked tired but determined. ‘Yes . . . that man’s singing very loud, like Ray,’ she giggled as she gazed at the vicar. ‘Kim I have more sausage, Gin? With ketchup?’
Jeanie looked around for the food, but could see only empty plates.
‘I’ll get her some,’ Ray offered, and moved off before Jeanie could stop him, returning after a while with a small paper plate with four sausages and a pool of tomato sauce.
‘Sanks,’ Ellie said without prompting, her eyes alight at the plateful.
Jeanie held the plate, watching the slow progress of her granddaughter’s dipping and munching with increasing desperation, longing suddenly to get away from the stifling presence of this man who clearly no longer cared for her as she did for him. Because she realized with dismay that she did still care, just exactly as much as she had the last time they had met. Time had not diminished her feelings one jot.
The singers had moved on through the carol sheet, voices joyful and determined, taking their lead from the handsome priest. Everything was perfect, picture-perfect, with the shining tree, the stirring music, the frosty air bringing a glow to every cheek, the Christmas spirit palpable in its warmth. All in stark contrast to the pitch of Jeanie’s despair, soaring unfettered above the assembled happiness like a heavy black bird. Had she really still hoped, despite the beautiful girl beneath the umbrella?
‘We’d better get home,’ she told Ellie, praying there would be no tantrum. But the child was too tired to complain, and clung exhausted to Jeanie, her blonde head resting heavy on her grandmother’s shoulder.
‘Bye.’ She gave Ray a last look and saw he was eyeing her with a puzzled frown.
‘Nat said you’d moved to Devon,’ he said quickly, as s
he turned to go.
‘Somerset. I haven’t: at least I did, but George and I have separated. I’m living above the shop now.’
Ray stared at her. ‘That must’ve been hard . . . I’m sorry,’ he replied softly.
Flustered, she shook her head. ‘It’s better this way.’
Ellie began to whimper. ‘We must go . . . good to see you.’ She heard the almost cold formality of her words, but couldn’t help herself, hugging Ellie’s small body to her like a shield.
Ray nodded. ‘Good to see you too,’ he said, but unlike her, he sounded as if he meant it.
The carols were over, the crowd hurrying towards the gate, keen to get home to the warmth. Jeanie gathered the pushchair and tucked in the sleepy child, wrapping her scarf around her knees. Her own feet were nearly numb, the icy wind painful against her cheeks as she strode along the road towards her daughter’s house. She would cry later, she told herself, as if she were holding out the promise of a treat. But in truth she could barely contain her grief. Then, to make it worse, she remembered that George would be there in the morning.
George stood in the middle of the sitting room, hands on hips, surveying the space for all the world like a nosey landlord. Jeanie had to remind herself that the flat did not belong to him.
‘You’ve brightened it up – it’s cosy. A bit small, but no . . . you’ve made it very pleasant since I was last here.’ He looked at Jeanie. ‘You always were good at making a place feel like home.’
She checked his face to see if this remark were loaded, but he seemed relaxed, not ready to pick a fight.
‘Tea? Sit down.’ She had thought it would be more awkward, seeing George again, but perhaps it was a testimony to their lifetime together that even the recent hostilities couldn’t erase decades of familiarity. ‘Chanty’s expecting us for a drink this evening.’
George rubbed his hands together, grinned at his wife. ‘This should be fun, don’t you think? I can’t wait to see the little one. I’ve made her a toy box, stencilled things on it. I’d show you, but I’ve wrapped it already – took some doing. It’s in the car.’
‘She’ll love that, she’s so excited. She doesn’t really understand what Christmas is about, but she knows it’s fun.’
‘And the baby? Any sign?’
She handed him his tea – no milk, no sugar, teabag wrung out to its full strength.
‘It’s due today. Poor girl, she’s vast, quite scarily big. Ell was early, of course, but not for the right reasons, so who knows how long this one will be.’
They sat with their tea and chatted, as if there had never been a problem between them. Jeanie wondered if they could keep this up, worrying that George might take it as a sign that they could make a go of it again. She was tired, having barely slept. Chanty and Alex had insisted she stay to supper when she dropped Ellie home from the carol service, and unusually for her she had drunk too much in an effort to stave off her tears. When she got home her despair was so heavy she had felt unable to cry at all. She’d just sat on the sofa in the dark, her thoughts blank and unfocused, until the small hours, when the cold had finally driven her to bed. Now she was light-headed, as if the day were not real and George was not actually there.
‘Shall I take my things upstairs, get them out of the way?’ he was asking, although he seemed only to have brought his small leather holdall. He saw her looking at it. ‘That’s not all; the rest’s in the car.’
The evening was a triumph of restraint. The elephant sat in the room and no one even gave it the time of day. They all focused on Ellie, on the new baby’s imminent arrival, on the sense of family they could still enjoy. Jeanie saw Alex searching her face occasionally, but she was determined to live in the moment and enjoy her granddaughter’s infectious excitement.
As they made their way home, George slipped his arm in hers, and she made no attempt to remove it. The sleeping arrangements had been settled the night before, George insisting that the sofa was his and to Jeanie’s surprise making no fuss about the arrangement, so she wasn’t concerned about sending the wrong message. Both of them were a little drunk, but both, she thought, relieved that the evening had gone off so well.
‘Nightcap?’ George asked when they got in. Jeanie agreed, feeling suddenly reckless and devil-may-care as she waited for George to fetch the bottle of brandy he’d stowed in his suitcase. I’m in control, I’m brave, I will survive all this, survive both these men, she told herself, ignoring the bubble of hysteria lurking not far beneath the surface.
‘So how’s it going, Jeanie . . . you up here?’
She could see George was more than a little drunk: his face soft in inebriation; his features, which could be closed and almost prudish at times, now defenceless. He smiled at her.
‘Eh? How’s it going?’ he repeated when she didn’t answer.
‘It’s OK, George . . . strange, of course.’
‘Strange for me too. In fact downright odd, you not being there.’ He paused. ‘I haven’t liked it, you know.’
Jeanie said nothing.
‘Have you?’
She heard it almost before he spoke, the sudden hardening of tone, but her defences were also down; she was too tired to prevaricate.
‘No, George, of course I haven’t liked it. You can’t like separation after such a long marriage.’
He stared at her, obviously trying to work out what she was saying.
‘You’ll come home, then.’ He stated it, rather than asking if it were true, but there was no relief in his voice.
‘I didn’t say that. I just said it was difficult.’
‘But you just said you didn’t like us being apart. Well, what could that mean but that you want to come home and be together?’
His frustration drew him up off the cushions and out of his relaxed sprawl to lean towards her across the coffee table.
‘Please, don’t start. We’ve had such a good evening.’
He stood up, his long arms tense at his sides.
‘You can be a real bitch sometimes,’ he snapped, glaring at her impotently. ‘I honestly don’t believe you know what you want, but you’ll keep me on a string till you decide. Is that it?’
Jeanie was shocked. He’d never called her that before, although God knows she’d deserved it. Perhaps for the first time she saw herself and her behaviour as George must see it: selfish, capricious, cruel.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘That means nothing. Sorry about what? That you don’t know what you want? That you’ve ruined a perfectly good marriage?’ He came and stood over her. ‘What exactly are you sorry about, Jeanie? I’d love to know.’
Jeanie got up, facing his rage.
‘I’m sorry for it all, George.’
George took a deep breath. ‘But what does that mean, Jeanie?’ Now he was quietly pleading as he reached to take her hands in his. ‘Tell me, I need to know.’
Jeanie looked into his intensely familiar face and couldn’t speak for the pain she saw there, and the knowledge that she had caused it.
‘I am a bitch. Don’t think I don’t know that. And perhaps you’re right and I don’t know what I want. All I know is that I can’t live with you in Somerset, George. I can’t do it. We want different things from life now.’
George held tightly to her hands, and she knew he was trying hard to control his tears.
‘It’s not about geography, though, is it?’ he said softly.
She looked at him for a long time, then slowly shook her head.
‘No, it’s not about geography.’
That night they slept together in Jeanie’s bed. Not just for the comfort of being close to each other at the moment they both faced life alone, but also, unconsciously perhaps, as an acknowledgement that this was, finally, the end.
Christmas morning dawned. Jeanie and George slept late, battered and saddened by the night’s realizations, and said little as they dressed and made coffee. The day stretched ahead of them like a marathon they had no choic
e but to run, and Jeanie, at least, was daunted by the prospect.
‘They’re expecting us around eleven,’ she said. ‘Alex said lunch at one; they don’t think Ellie will last otherwise.’
George nodded. ‘We’ll have to take the car because of the toy box.’
They had bought presents for each other, but neither felt like opening them. The packages, hers a small, neat box-shape, his the soft bulk of a sweater, sat unopened on the coffee table.
‘Shall I get something from the shop as a family gift?’
George laughed. ‘Not sure they’ll want some dodgy wheat-grass juice or three-bean salad on Christmas Day, will they?’
‘I meant organic olive oil, or a farm cheese,’ Jeanie retorted, then laughed with her husband. ‘OK, maybe not.’
‘No, that’s a good idea, good olive oil never goes amiss.’
So while George packed the presents into a bag, Jeanie ran down to the shop.
‘I’ll meet you down there.’
It was a beautiful day: bright, bright sunlight; cold, sharp and crystal clear. The fresh air smelt like freedom to Jeanie, cooped up as she had been with all that tension. She felt her spirits lift as she fitted the key in the shop door, almost missing the slim brown-paper package, tied with red ribbon, that sat propped against the step. Curious, she bent to pick it up as she opened the door. There was a small white card slipped under the ribbon. Turning it over she saw no words, just three kisses, written in black ink, in the centre of the card. She knew who it was from immediately, although she had never seen his handwriting before, because the package contained a CD – Chet Baker in Paris, the music to which they had made love.
Nothing had prepared her for this. And with her mind still steeped in the shared sorrow of last night’s full stop to her marriage, she was unable to take in what it meant. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, the present held carefully in her hand, but suddenly she heard George’s voice outside, saw his head peering in at the door.
‘What’s taking so long? Do you need help choosing?’
She scrabbled Ray’s present guiltily behind the counter.
