The Night Before Christmas

by Scarlett Bailey

  Shy no longer, Lydia pulled at his T-shirt, thrusting it upwards so that she could feel her hot skin pressed against his. In a frenzy, they undressed each other, right there in the hallway, and then in one movement Jackson picked her up in his arms and carried her upstairs.

  Afterwards, they had slept for a little while, his arms entwined around her, his lips nestled into the back of her neck. A few minutes or hours later, Lydia didn’t know which, she felt his fingers tracing a delicate journey over her breasts, rolling her over to kiss each one, and then every part of her as the whole wonderful experience began again.

  Some time just after dawn, Lydia found herself crying a little as she re-told him the plot of one of her favourite films.

  ‘And it’s just so sad, because they know this is the last time they are ever going to see each other again. And they know they are doing the right thing – that she has to stay with her husband and he has to go and do doctor things abroad – but they love each other so much, even though they can’t be together. Every time I see it I weep and weep!’ Lydia sniffed and giggled simultaneously. ‘Look at me, what an idiot.’

  ‘Sounds intense,’ Jackson said, wiping her tear away with the ball of one thumb. ‘I know, let’s rent it.’

  ‘Rent it?’ Lydia laughed.

  ‘Yes, there a really good Blockbuster down the road. As soon as it opens, let’s get down there and rent it, and we can watch it together.’

  ‘You’d sit and watch all of Brief Encounter with me?’ Lydia remembered asking, thinking that might have been the very moment she’d fallen in love with him.

  ‘I’d do more than that, I’d make you breakfast to go with it.’ Jackson smiled, picking up his watch and peering at it. ‘Now, let’s see, Blockbuster opens at ten, which give us a whole four hours to kill, what shall we do?’

  ‘I could explain the plot of Casablanca to you, if you like?’ Lydia teased him.

  ‘Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon … right after I’ve kissed you again.’

  And that was how it started. Six perfect weeks: from the beginning of May to the middle of June. Of course, Lydia hadn’t expected it to end so soon, not ever, now she came to think of it, but especially not the way it did. Six wonderful weeks during which she and Jackson had spent every possible minute closeted away together, watching movie after movie, reading to each other and kissing, always kissing, so much so that Joanna reported her missing in action and Alex almost fired her from her job as chief bridesmaid. And then, one evening, she had gone to meet him at the vicarage for dinner as planned, humming the theme music from Love Story to herself as she’d skipped up the stone steps and rang the bell. It had come as something of a surprise when a stranger opened the door.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ Lydia said, taking in the unkempt-looking old man, who didn’t look anything at all like he might be a friend of Jackson’s. ‘I’m here to see Jackson?’

  ‘Gone, love,’ the old man told her, and he would have shut the door in Lydia’s face if she hadn’t stopped him with her sandaled foot.

  ‘Gone? Where and for how long?’

  ‘I dunno, I’m not his mum,’ the man grumbled. ‘I work for the diocese. I’m the caretaker. They phoned me this afternoon and said he’d vacated the premises. I’ve just come to check the old place over before we let it to someone new, are you interested?’

  ‘Gone?’ Lydia repeated the world slowly. They’d spent the previous evening apart, for the first time since they’d met. She had an important case to work on, one that would keep her up all night, and now they had become so close, now that she was so certain of how into her he was, she’d almost been looking forward to her first chance to miss him. He’d taken her for dinner and afterwards they’d spent a very long time kissing goodbye before catching separate cabs home. He said he’d see her the next day, at his place at nine, for dinner. How could he be gone?

  ‘What do you mean “gone”? Is he in hospital, or dead?’ Lydia asked, aware of how mad she sounded, but at a loss as to how to appear sane.

  ‘I don’t know, love,’ the old man reiterated irritably, nodding at her door-stopping foot. ‘I’ve got to get on, so if you don’t mind …’

  Uncertain what to do next, Lydia had walked back down the steps and out into the busy street. Trying Jackson’s phone, she found it went straight to voicemail, then and for the rest of the night. After no sleep at all, she waited until nine the next morning, and, with her heart in her mouth, called his office.

  ‘Jackson’s not here,’ an efficient-sounding woman told her. ‘He’s on leave.’

  ‘What sort of leave? Why?’ Lydia pressed her, knowing she sounded desperate. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just I didn’t know he was going on leave.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s against company policy to give out personal information over the phone,’ the woman told her with more than a hint of pleasure. ‘I can put you through to his assistant, if it’s a professional matter.’

  ‘No, you see … you don’t understand. I’m his girlfriend.’

  There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Join the club, sweetheart,’ the woman said tartly, and then she hung up.

  Devastated, confused and disbelieving, Lydia had sleep-walked through the next day, grateful that her current case was an easy one she could handle in her sleep; and then, in the middle of a tearful night, during what must have been the only few minutes she had actually slept, her phone had woken her with a text from Jackson.

  ‘Darling, so sorry. Had to go home, family emergency. Will call as soon as I can. xxx’

  And that was it. He had never called. He had never texted again, and, hurt and humiliated by being so spectacularly dumped, Lydia had determined to forget him.

  It had by no means been the first time in her life that a man had finished with her, but it was the first time ever that he’d moved house and left the country to do it.

  After Lydia had cried for a solid week, she gradually started to get in touch with her friends again, explaining to them why she’d been so preoccupied over the six weeks and what exactly had happened with Jackson. Always there for each other when they’d needed to be, they had taken care of her with as much wine and chocolate as she could stomach, and no difficult questions. And Alex, who reinstated her as head bridesmaid, enrolled her in a charity fun run for breast cancer care, to boost her spirits or break them, one or the other.

  It had been beautiful and then it had been viciously, brutally over, and feeling utterly battered and totally foolish, Lydia had come to accept that Jackson Blake had seen the wide-eyed romantic in her and taken her for one hell of a ride. Still, Lydia counselled herself, determined not to give in to her aching heart, she’d had a wonderful time for as long as it lasted, and maybe it was just Lydia being Lydia to expect more than that in real life. Romantic heroes as perfect as she had thought Jackson was didn’t really exist and, after all, as Bette Davis would say, you can’t go expecting the moon when you’ve got the stars. So she’d locked those six extraordinary weeks away in her heart and got on with the business of living, knowing she was never going to see Jackson Blake again, and doing her very best to pretend she hadn’t fallen in love with the bastard.

  Which was why it came as something of a surprise to find him standing in Katy’s hallway.

  Chapter Five

  ‘So, this is Alex.’ Lydia watched, frozen to the spot, as Joanna introduced Jackson, Jack, or whatever he was calling himself these days, to all of her friends. ‘Alex is pregnant,’ Joanna added in her honeyed, TV-friendly tones.

  ‘I’m sure the man’s got eyes,’ Alex said, smiling and shaking Jack’s hand.

  ‘I was just making sure he didn’t think you were simply fat,’ Joanna teased her, tucking her arm through his as she guided ‘Jack’ on.

  ‘This is David, Alex’s victim, I mean husband. And this is Katy and her husband, Jim, our lovely hosts. This young man is Jakey, and this little delight is Tilly. That smelly article is Vincent Van
Dog, because he’s only got one ear, although as far as we know he doesn’t suffer from any sort of personality disorder. Oh, and this is Stephen and …’ Lydia felt all of the air sucked out of her lungs in the fraction of a second it took for Joanna to propel ‘Jack’ towards her. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed her when he first came in; after all, Joanna hadn’t allowed him to take a breath. This would be the moment, the moment of recognition … and then what?

  ‘Lydia, this is Jack, isn’t he hot?’ Joanna smiled. And Jack nodded at Lydia, extending his hand, the warm, strong hand that had once caressed her, in a formal greeting.

  ‘Very pleased to meet you, Linda,’ he said, without even a hint of what they had once been to each other showing on his face. Unable to dissemble so quickly, Lydia just stared at him, her hand lying limply in his, as her brain struggled to process what was happening. Had he forgotten her? Was she one among so many that faces simply became a blur to him? Or was he merely going to pretend not only that he’d never once kissed her naked body from head to toe as she lay sprawled on his staircase, but that they had never even met before?

  ‘Lydia, darling, her name’s Lydia.’ Joanna laughed. ‘Oh dear, I think you’ve offended her.’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’ Jackson held on to her hand. ‘Lydia is such a pretty name.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ Lydia said, recovering a little and pulling her hand out of his, glancing around at her friends, laughing, talking, slapping shoulders, shaking hands. For a moment, she felt like one of the ghosts of Christmas, present but invisible, unable to take part. Or no, not the ghost, like Scrooge, looking in on the life he could never be part of. This was supposed to be her perfect Christmas, the first one ever. Now she couldn’t think of any other way that it could be less perfect. The single most humiliating and hurtful moment of her life had been wrapped up in gorgeous packaging and delivered at her feet.

  ‘Right, well …’ Joanna broke the moment, taking off her coat and flinging it casually over the reception desk. ‘We could stand about here all day gawping at my stunning boyfriend like idiots, or we could get on with the business of Christmas cheer. Point me in the direction of the mulled wine, at once!’

  Frantically gathering what was left of her wits, Lydia waited for a moment as her little group of cherished friends, plus one, moved from the hallway, following Katy towards the sitting room, Jake already regaling Jackson with some tall tale about monsters in the lake.

  After a moment, she felt something tugging her, and looking down she saw Tilly, still decked out in tinsel, her vest peeking out from under her homemade fairy outfit.

  ‘Are you okay, Aunty Lydia?’ Tilly asked her. ‘You look very surprised.’

  ‘I am very surprised,’ Lydia said, shaking her head. ‘I am very surprised indeed.’

  ‘Did you see a ghost?’ Tilly asked her, wide-eyed, still clinging on to Lydia, gazing into the dark corners under the stairs. ‘Was it Mad Molly?’

  ‘I didn’t see a ghost, Tilly,’ Lydia said, remembering the feel of Jackson’s hand in hers. ‘No, he very definitely wasn’t dead. Not yet anyway.’

  By the time Lydia and Tilly caught up with the others, they had moved from the sitting room into the dining room. Lydia was grateful to see that Joanna and Jackson weren’t present, at least for the moment. Joanna had probably gone to change into some designer ensemble for dinner: it was one of her foibles. Sometimes she even dressed for dinner when it was a takeaway from the local Chinese. Joanna would rarely be drawn on what little family life she had as a child was like before her parents handed her over to boarding schools. Lydia only knew that it had been exceptionally privileged, if markedly lacking in parental love. The absence of a conventional happy family was one of the main things that bound the two totally different women together, even if they did come from entirely different sides of the tracks. That and the man they had now unwittingly shared. The terrible thing was that Lydia was sure Joanna would be in for the same treatment as her. She had to warn her – but when? Which part of Christmas should she ruin first?

  Katy had opened up what would soon be the guest dining room to accommodate them all, arranging the selection of tables in one row and covering it with a long red paper tablecloth, candles and Kirsty Allsopp-inspired, make-your-own crackers. Katy, being Katy, had run up a gingham-themed runner that afternoon, decorating it with appliqué holly leaves and sprinkling little silver stars over the place settings. It looked beautiful, Lydia thought, a small lump forming in her throat; just how she imagined a Dickensian Christmas table would look. (If A Christmas Carol had been styled by Disney.)

  ‘Please excuse the paper tablecloth,’ Katy said, as she observed the overall effect of her work. ‘I thought I’d save my best linen for the big day. I have to take everything to the dry cleaners in Keswick to get the stains off, as the washing machine we’ve currently got here is literally one step up from a mangle. The industrial one doesn’t arrive until the New Year.’

  ‘We helped Mummy make the crackers!’ said Tilly proudly.

  ‘I wrote the jokes,’ added Jake.

  ‘Are the cracker jokes funny, Jake?’ David asked, winking at the boy as he pulled out a chair for his wife.

  ‘Really hilarious,’ Jake told him seriously, bagging the seat next to Alex, who looked first at him, grinning up at her, and then longingly at the forbidden wine. Lydia hung back, standing in the doorway as she watched her friends chatting and bustling about, picking chairs around the long table. A natural order soon emerged: all the girls would be seated at one end, with all the boys at the other, the need for a good catch-up far outweighing any boy, girl, boy, girl protocol.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Lydia jumped as she heard Jackson’s voice in her ear. Hurriedly, she stepped out of his way as he walked into the room followed by Joanna, her friend wearing a chic, backless little black dress that stopped just about mid thigh, to make the most of her long slender legs.

  ‘Chop, chop, Lyds, I’m ravenous,’ Joanna said, eyeing Jackson. ‘Go and sit with the men, Jack, darling. You boys can bond while we girls catch up.’

  ‘Enjoy it while you can.’ Stephen grinned at the newcomer in their midst as he obediently took a seat where he was told. ‘Once this lot get together, it becomes impossible to get a word in.’

  Jack chuckled, revealing the dimple under his chin, the one Lydia used to kiss and put her finger on as they lay in bed, face to face, talking, laughing. He seemed utterly at ease, taking his banishment to the boys’ end of the table in good spirits, sitting, much to Lydia’s horror, next to Stephen. Covertly, she watched the two of them as Stephen offered to fill Jackson’s glass, and they exchanged a few friendly words.

  It wasn’t fair to say that Jackson was better-looking than Stephen, he wasn’t, not really. If anything, he was maybe a couple of inches shorter, and his cheekbones weren’t quite so perfectly cut. Stephen was too busy saving the world to work out, which Jackson had to do in order to maintain the six-pack that Lydia had run her fingers over more than once, although, in the brief time she’d known him, she never saw him go to a gym. Stephen was funny when he wanted to be, and sweet sometimes. And when the moment was right, which it admittedly hadn’t been for many months, he could be a thoughtful, careful lover. He was loyal, steadfast, honourable and reliable. He’d never skip the country, or at least pretend to, in order to get rid of her. And yet, as she watched the two of them make polite, manly conversation, she knew it wasn’t the sight of her boyfriend that was making her heart thunder in her chest.

  ‘Come on, Lyds, stop hovering,’ Katy ordered from the head of the table. ‘Jim will be arriving any minute with the food. Come and sit down.’

  Of course, there was only one chair left vacant at the table, positioned with Joanna on the right and Jackson on the left.

  Jackson smiled at her politely as she took her seat, betraying no flicker of recognition. Had he truly forgotten her? Lydia wondered. Maybe he told all the women he got into bed that they were his one and only. He looked at her now
with the same polite interest that a stranger would, before turning to ask David about what sort of history he taught, prompting friendly groans from Stephen. Jim arrived with a large dish of steaming lasagne in his oven-gloved hands, and Lydia’s stomach rumbled in spite of its current state of turmoil, as the rich scent of tomato and garlic filled her nostrils.

  Now seeming much more relaxed, Katy reminded Tilly that the silver star confetti liberally scattered on the table was not to be inserted into noses, and Jake that he had to wait until he was eighteen before he could try wine, no matter how much he pleaded, as she piled food onto every one’s plates. Lydia looked down at the sumptuous – if homely-looking – feast, but didn’t know if she could take a bite. How was it possible that Jackson – her Jackson, despite his new diminutive – was here, sitting next to her, pretending he’d never met her, let alone whispered in her ear that he would always love her?

  Her mind was reeling: he was here, now, at this very minute. Not where she’d always imagined him, in New York, when she’d allowed herself to think of him at all. In New York, taking care of whatever emergency it was that had wrenched him away from her. Gazing wistfully out of some skyscraper window and perhaps missing her and wishing he hadn’t accidentally dropped his phone in the Hudson and somehow was unable to contact her through any of the many means of modern communication. Lydia had known it was a foolish fantasy, that, really he’d simply left her, but it was one that just occasionally she had allowed herself to indulge in, until now. Now she could never again imagine him somewhere far away, longing for her, because he was here.

  Which drew her rattling towards the conclusion that he’d lied about leaving London, and that he’d most probably lied about the family emergency, making her feel all the more foolish for letting herself treasure the memories of the those six short weeks.

  Lydia turned to look at Jackson, who was looking interested as David explained his theory on the truth about Dark Age Britain, nodding, inserting little ‘uh-huhs’ and ‘Oh, reallys?’ as David talked. It was impossible to take in.