Four Weddings and a White Christmas

by Jenny Oliver

  Dimitri sighed. ‘You stay away from my board. Yes!’

  ‘Yes Dimitri,’ they chorused again.

  ‘And while you’re at it, stay away from my bike as well. I saw you the other day sitting on it. Yes. I did, don’t shake your heads, if it fell on you it could do some damage. Don’t sit on my bike.’

  ‘Can we ride on it again with you, please?’

  He narrowed his eyes and shook his head. ‘What have I started?’ he said to Maddy. And she shrugged a shoulder.

  ‘You shouldn’t have been so keen to show off your new toy should you?’ she said, nodding to where his beautiful Triumph Bonneville T100 sat gleaming on the cobbled slipway.

  Dimitri followed her gaze, paused for a second to admire his bike and then said with a shrug, ‘I was excited.’

  Maddy shook her head and, still feeling the slight sting of his earlier comment, she turned to the kids and said, ‘I’ll take you out on this, if you like?’ This was the sleek white forty foot yacht she’d just repaired the engine of.

  ‘Are you sure Maddy? It’s not your boat,’ Dimitri questioned, concerned, as the kids all whooped and ran over to jump on the deck of the boat, their shoes leaving tiny, dusty footprints on the gleaming surface.

  ‘Yeah it’ll be fine,’ Maddy said, pulling on a big red, oil streaked jumper that came down to just above the frayed edge of her shorts. Sweeping away the wisps of hair that the wind was blowing in her mouth, she said, ‘And, just by the way, with my mum, it’s not that she can tell me what to do, it’s that I don’t want her to not want me to go. I want her think that I could cope.’

  ‘It’s a pretty expensive boat, Mads.’ Dimitri shielded his eyes from the low sun as he took in the huge white yacht.

  ‘Can you see what I’m saying about my mum?’ She frowned, kicking one of the posts with her old Nike trainer. Then she added, ‘The boat’ll be fine. And anyway–’ She jumped down onto the stern, taking the rope she’d looped into one of the jetty rings with her to cast off. ‘I can’t say no now, look at them…’

  The kids were all sitting crossed legged at the bow like tiny figureheads, watching expectantly.

  ‘See this is probably what your mum’s talking about. You’re hot headed - stubborn - you don’t think things through.’ Dimitri shook his head, tendrils of black hair wobbling like a sea anemone.

  ‘Oh please,’ Maddy scoffed as she pressed the button to haul up the anchor. ‘She just can’t recognise that I’m not going to stay here for ever and she’s using the whole not being able to cope as an excuse.’

  ‘I think she worries that you’ve been too sheltered,’ Dimitri yelled over the sound of the two hundred and fifty horsepower engine as it sprang to life.

  ‘Well, as you say, it’s time for me to grow up. Do it anyway,’ Maddy shouted back.

  ‘Maddy, part of being a grown-up is realising when you’ve made a mistake,’ he said, wincing as she started to steer the yacht out of the harbour. The kids were clinging onto the tinsel-wrapped railing at the front, dangling their feet over the edge and laughing as the spray bounced up into their faces.

  Maddy ignored him, focusing ahead of her on a view so familiar it was etched in her mind. The wide blue sea, dark like sapphires, the little white horses jumping like skittish foals, rays of low winter sun darting off each wave like silver fish, all she could think was, god I wish this was London.

  CHAPTER 3

  ELLA

  Ella could hear the pad of Max’s Gucci loafers on the beige carpet, and walked into the lounge to see him standing in the doorway, one hand pulling his tie loose.

  ‘I thought you were going to Claridge’s straight from work?’ he said, his beautiful face innocently perplexed. Arrow straight eyebrows drawing lightly into a frown, blond hair casually dishevelled.

  ‘Are you having an affair?’ She asked as calmly as she’d rehearsed. Infuriatingly her hands were trembling.

  Max paused, his eyes narrowed momentarily, then he swept the tie from under his collar and threw it on the sofa. ‘Of course I’m bloody not,’ he said, then headed over to where she was standing and raised her hand to his lips. ‘You’re crazy. It’s our anniversary,’ he said, looking up at her, all innocent wide-eyes.

  The first time Ella had met Max’s parents they had been shown onto the veranda by the Portuguese maid and poured iced mint water from a crystal jug. She had stood, awkward and out of her depth, as the still air hummed with heat and the only noise was the sprinklers battering the lush lawn and the ice clinking in their glasses. His mother and father were standing rigidly next to one another, muscles tense, clearly having been interrupted in the middle of a blistering row. Max’s father had patted the golden retriever at his feet and trudged off down the garden without even a nod of hello, his mother had looked Ella up and down with an expression of languid distaste, her lips unnaturally plump as she pouted and said, ‘When the men in this family lie, their cheeks go a very unnatural shade of pink. Funny, isn’t it? It’s a gem his mother passed on to me. Comes in very useful.’ Then she headed into the house, leaving the two of them alone on the decking watching as the labrador bounded through the jets of water drenching the lawn.

  As they stood opposite one another in the lounge, Max’s eyes seemed to soak deep into her – but his smile wobbled as if he was nervous and, much as she wished she couldn’t, even under his Val d’Isere tan, Ella could see the hint of pink tinging his cheekbones.

  ‘This is too important. I wouldn’t have an affair,’ he said, looking her straight in the eye.

  He smelt of Max. Of the shower gel from the gym mixed with his bespoke patchouli aftershave and perhaps a glass or two of wine. She found herself wanting to believe him just so that the warmth of him, the familiarity, wouldn’t disappear from her life. They’d been together since she’d graduated University. They were them. Max and Ella. She couldn’t be single again.

  ‘Look,’ he said, pulling her by the hand and drawing her out to the hall. ‘Look what I just carried all the way here.’ In the doorway was a Christmas tree, massive, ten or twelve foot, lying wrapped in white netting, a trail of needles behind it. ‘I had to drag it the last bit,’ he laughed. ‘It was so bloody heavy.’

  She could tell he was nervous as he struggled to prop up the tree. ‘I thought it was time we had a real one. I know I’m always going on about the needles but I thought, you like them so much, it would be a nice surprise. What do you think?’

  ‘Max?’ Ella said, watching as he moved quickly, edgily, trying to rip at the netting to set the branches free.

  ‘I don’t want to lose you,’ he said without looking up.

  She thought about when they’d first started going out. The carousel in her head that had whispered, what does he see in me? Max was this cool, good-looking guy who lived his life with the care-free abandon that came hand in hand the promise of inheriting a fortune. She had been in awe of him - at the time herself still a little gauche, though firmly on the path to reinvention. They’d met at a party thrown by her step-mother, Veronica. He had joined her by the fountain in the garden, where she’d slipped away for a breather - an escape from the high-calibre networking Veronica encouraged. He’d done a stupid shadow puppet show with his hands and to his amazement and delight she’d laughed.

  When was the last time he’d made her laugh?

  As Max pulled the mesh off the tree, the smell of pine infused the room drawing Ella back to memories of childhood Christmases. Completely unexpectedly and entirely unwanted. Of sneaking down to see a tree piled high with gifts. Of her dad coming home every year with a tacky gift from the stall outside his office - a fibre-optic angel and a huge, glitzy star. Of the arrival of her new baby sister, Maddy, and the purchase of a nativity set to mark the occasion. Ella and Maddy laying it out every year and fighting over who got to put baby Jesus in the crib. Of sitting at the top of the stairs with her sister, both in their matching red dressing gowns and hearing her dad say, in a whisper so they wouldn’t hear, ‘I can’t
do it. Not any longer. Not even just for the kids.’ She’d thought he meant dressing up as Santa. She’d realised how wrong she was the next day when he left and the world fell down.

  Pushing the memory aside, Ella watched Max struggle with the giant fir. He’d bought it for her, he’d said. Was she being stupid? Should she just carry on with Christmas, decorate the tree, forget about the photo, hope Max chose her, carry on and on until they had children and they were a family but then one Christmas he might say exactly the same as her dad had said to her mum that night as they sat on the stairs. And she suddenly found herself saying, ‘Max, I can’t do it.’

  He paused. ‘At least let’s talk about this,’ he said, holding the tree up precariously with one hand. ‘It’s not what it seems.’ But then the tree slipped and crashed to the ground, the trunk smashing up against his precious smoked glass coffee table and shattering the right-hand corner. Max swore at the sound, then walked over and ran his hand along the crack. ‘Shit look was it’s done. Bollocks!’

  Ever since he’d bought it at auction for a huge sum of money without consulting with her, Ella had hated that table and he knew it. It was a monstrosity. Now, the way he sat down on the arm of the grey velvet sofa it was as if it was the table and him against the world. As if she had started this in order to ruin the table. As if suddenly Max was the wronged party.

  She heard him sigh, saw his shoulders slump, the tree lay sprawled across the carpet like a whale. Max kicked the trunk with his foot and it flopped off the smoked glass to the floor with a thump. ‘It hasn’t been right for ages.’

  Suddenly she realised that she didn’t want to hear this.

  He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I have seen someone but it’s not an affair. We just get on. Ella, it’s not the cause of this, it’s a result of… I suppose I just… We get on.’

  She wanted to quickly rewind to him ripping the netting and trying to impress her. She wanted it still to be all his fault. ‘You get on? Don’t we get on?’ she said. Everyone who saw them at parties always said how well they got on, how they were jealous of their relationship - the fact they didn’t have to be glued to each other’s side every second. They were free to do as they wanted.

  ‘We did get on, really well, once.’ Max scratched his head. ‘We don’t really get on any more, Els. We don’t see each other.’

  This wasn’t what she wanted to happen. Was it too late to realise she could have turned a blind eye?

  ‘We socialise together.’

  ‘Well what do you and this girl do?’

  Max paused. ‘I don’t know. We watch Gogglebox.’

  ‘What? What the hell’s Gogglebox?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He shook his head. ‘Ella she likes me for me. She’s not trying to make me better or improve me or make me try harder.’

  Ella looked down at his shoes. She had bought them for him. ‘I don’t think you can make this my fault,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not making it your fault, I’m trying to explain that I think you’re amazing, but we’re not right for each other any more. I don’t know you any more.’

  ‘This is ridiculous.’ Ella felt sick. She didn’t want to be having this conversation. If she was honest she’d thought that Max would suggest relationship counselling, say they could work through it, anything not to upset the status quo - the perfect life they both enjoyed, or she had thought they both enjoyed.

  She walked into the bedroom, pulled her wheely case out from under the bed and started throwing in clothes. Then she went to her dresser and scooped up some make-up and toiletries, adding them loose amongst the other stuff. She never packed like this. She grabbed her sleep mask and ear plugs from the bedside table and packed her passport just because it was there as well.

  ‘Where are you going to go?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, pulling the case over the plush carpet and the wheels getting caught.

  ‘Look, let me help you,’ Max said, picking it up and walking with her to the door.

  This wasn't the way it was meant to happen. He was meant to take the case back to the bedroom and insist she stay.

  ‘It’s probably a good thing if we have some time apart,’ she said, her heart racing with uncertainty and panic. She needed to get her control back.

  ‘Maybe you could go and stay with your dad?’ Max suggested.

  No she couldn’t. She couldn’t let Veronica see her like this. She couldn’t turn up there like a failure, she couldn’t face the brusque advice and the dusting down and the get back out there. She needed some time just to be nothing.

  Outside it was raining – tipping it down, and the grey sky almost melted into the grey pavements. The Christmas lights on the lamppost outside their flat was broken and flickered on and off like a strobe. Ella stepped forward and hailed a passing cab.

  Max held onto the top of her arm. ‘Will you be OK?’

  ‘I’m always OK,’ she said.

  He narrowed his eyes as he looked at her but she just gave him a small smile and pulled the door of the cab closed behind her.

  ‘Were are we going?’ the driver asked as he pulled away.

  Were were they going?

  An image sprang into her mind of blue sea and a little white building with terracotta tiles on the roof. A place she wouldn’t have imagined running to in a million years. But where else would she go? It was Christmas - not a time to be staying on friends’ sofas.

  ‘To the airport, please,’ she said, leaning her head back on the headrest.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Oh I don’t know. Let me just call Dial a Flight.’

  When they were on their way to Heathrow with an extortionate last minute ticket booked, Ella stared out the window at the pouring rain, felt the beat of her heart pound in her head and thought, God this is all actually real.

  CARINA™

  ISBN: 978-1-474-03653-5

  Four Weddings and a White Christmas

  Copyright © 2015 Jenny Oliver

  Published in Great Britain (2015)

  by Carina, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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