by Lucy Diamond
Whoa. Had I just said that? I felt awful for a second, chewed up with fear at the thought of Charlie’s face if I ever dared say the words to him. He would probably hit me. He’d hurt me. Maybe he would try to stop me going. I swallowed. ‘I mean …’
Matt put his hand on mine. ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he said, his eyes anxious. ‘Not if it’s upsetting you. I don’t want to make things difficult for you, Jess.’
‘Are you ready to order?’ the waitress asked chirpily at that moment, hovering with her notepad and pen.
‘Could we have a few minutes, please?’ Matt asked. ‘Do you want a drink, Jess?’
‘Just water for me, please,’ I said. I needed to keep a clear head if I was going to survive this lunch, that was for sure. I buried my head in the menu and pretended to study the list of dishes, but my mind was still spinning so much I could barely distinguish the words.
The waitress went away and an awkward silence stretched between us.
‘Jess, let me just say this one last thing, and then we can talk about other stuff,’ Matt said, reaching over and taking my hand again.
I lowered the menu and looked at him over it, feeling frightened and excited and overwhelmed all at the same time.
‘I don’t know how you feel about me, and if you’re not interested in me in that way, then of course that’s absolutely fine – I’ll back off,’ he said, his eyes steadily holding mine the whole time. ‘But I just want you to know that if anything ever developed between us – a relationship, I mean – I would do everything I could to make you happy. Because you don’t seem very happy to me right now. And that makes me feel sad. You’re a lovely, lovely person, Jess, and you deserve to be treated like a princess. You deserve someone who’ll love you and appreciate you and make you feel special. And that’s what I would do.’
He was looking at me so earnestly that I could hardly bear the intensity of his gaze.
‘Thank you,’ I murmured, dropping my eyes.
‘I just want you to know that,’ he said and then cleared his throat and opened up his menu. ‘So … what do you fancy, then? I’ve heard the spaghetti with shellfish is good …’
Chapter Twenty
Mistletoe and Wine
Maddie
He tried to kiss me. I wouldn’t have minded, but it was during ‘You’re Beautiful’ by James Blunt, which is one of my least favourite songs ever recorded. Actually, no, that came out wrong. It wasn’t just the song that was badly judged, it was the kiss itself.
We’d been having a great laugh on the dance floor all evening, Mike and I, strutting our stuff to Groovejet and S’Express and Abba, and, oh, just anything. I think I even did some terrible hand-jiving to ‘Rock Lobster’ at one point, much to my shame the next day.
I wasn’t myself, that’s my excuse. It was as if everything that had happened recently – Mum going, and work taking off, and Paul and I not getting on so well – kind of erupted in a big mess inside my brain, and I just went slightly mad for a few hours. I don’t think the sexy knickers helped either, in hindsight.
Whatever the cause, I was acting as if I were twenty-one again, young and wild and … yes, a bit debauched, I suppose. The mulled wine was flowing, I’d thrown caution to the wind and scoffed several sausage rolls, and … well, in a nutshell, I was just going for it.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not making excuses for myself. I’m not proud of what happened at all. The opening notes to ‘You’re Beautiful’ came on and I pulled a face, all set to walk off the dance floor. ‘I bloody hate this song,’ I moaned.
‘It’s one of my favourites,’ said Mike. That should have sent me running there and then, but my brain was fogged by mulled wine. ‘Have you listened to the words?’
‘Mike, I work for a radio station, I’ve heard it about a thousand times more than any sane person would wish to,’ I told him, rolling my eyes.
He took my hand. ‘Dance with me,’ he said. ‘Dance with me, Maddie. Because I think you’re beautiful.’
That was the point when I should have said:
a) I’m married
b) We’re both pissed
c) This song is complete shite and I wouldn’t be seen dead dancing to it
d) That is the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard
e) All of the above.
But for some reason, I said none of those things. For some reason I said, ‘Okay.’ In fact, I may even have told him that he was a little bit beautiful too.
(I know. I’m so embarrassed.)
The long and short of it was that we danced. We danced to James sodding Blunt and he tried to kiss me. James Blunt didn’t try to kiss me, obviously, he wasn’t even in the room. Mike tried to kiss me. And this was the point where I should have:
a) Removed his hands from my body
b) Removed his lips from my face
c) Removed myself from Studio One and fled home, glass slippers and all
d) All of the above.
The problem was, part of me wanted to kiss him right back. Part of me wanted some romance and excitement, the thrill of a flirtatious kiss with a man I’d come to like and trust. Part of me was glad I had my sexy new knickers on and that my tongue might get to see a bit of action for a change.
But a split-second after his lips touched mine, I heard Mum’s shocked voice ringing as clear as a bell around my head. Madeleine Lawson, what ARE you doing?
It was the wake-up call I needed, and I pulled away.
‘Mike – no,’ I said, feeling woozy and light-headed. ‘I don’t think this is a good idea.’
‘Really?’ he asked, sliding a hand down my back towards the region of the sexy knickers. He looked really drunk, his face sheeny with sweat, his eyes dark and lusting. ‘I think it’s a very good idea. Best idea I’ve had all year.’
‘Mike – no,’ I said, sobering up rapidly as his hand made contact with my bottom. I stepped out of his arms, suddenly noticing how boozy his breath was, how he had sweat-rings under his arms. ‘Sorry – I need to go home.’
‘Maddie, wait,’ he called as I turned and headed off the dance floor as fast as my heels would allow. ‘Oh, Maddie … It was only a little kiss. A little Christmas kiss …’
‘Bye,’ I replied. I had that horrible guilty feeling I’d had a million times during my childhood – caught by my mum pilfering biscuits out of the tin, bunking off school, nicking Bubblicious from Woolworths. I could feel her eyes upon my back as if she were glaring down at me from the heavens right there and then, shaking her head in disapproval.
I rushed out of the building and straight to the taxi rank, my cheeks burning hot despite the cold December air.
Christmas was a strange old week. The secret of what had happened with Mike throbbed inside me like a dull ache the whole time. I knew that the decent thing would be to fess up to Paul – look, this bloke tried it on, but don’t worry, nothing happened – but I knew that if I said even that much, my gym days would be over. Paul was fundamentally a trusting type of person, but he’d been fed up lately with my gym ‘obsession’ as he put it, and this would only heap coals on the fire. (Fireworks on the fire more like, I thought darkly, imagining the resulting explosions.) I’d never be able to go and work out there again without him casting suspicious looks my way. Mind you, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go back after what had happened. I felt embarrassed even thinking about seeing Mike again, let alone having to go jogging with him, with James Blunt’s voice warbling around both our heads no doubt.
Thankfully, life became a mad swirl of events to negotiate, which distracted me from dwelling too much on what might have happened. There was the present-shopping to wade through, the Brum FM Christmas knees-up to survive (Collette in a sexy silver dress draping herself over all the male members of staff – hideous), all sorts of parties and discos that the kids needed ferrying to, and of course the ritual Christmas Eve family trip to the Rep. Mum had booked the tickets back in March, and I’d been haunted by the idea of the seat she would
have occupied remaining empty, so I invited Nicole to come in her place and we all had a surprisingly jolly time, clapping and cheering and feeling very festive. ‘Now I feel Christmassy,’ I imagined Mum saying, as she did after the show every year.
Christmas Day itself seemed oddly quiet with just the four of us at home. Emma helped me with the veg prep in the kitchen, and we sang along to the carols on Radio 4, just as Mum and I had always done. We both went a bit quiet when the opening chords of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ sounded from the little speaker; it had been Mum’s favourite carol and she’d always given it her all. For a moment, I had a huge pang as I thought of her glorious rich voice and the way it bounced around our small kitchen when she got going, then I pulled back my shoulders and smiled across at Emma. ‘Let’s give this one some welly, Ems, just like your granny would have done, yeah?’
She smiled back. ‘Too right,’ she said.
‘O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant …’ My voice wobbled as I began and the tune brought back so many Christmases past – school carol concerts with Mum in the audience, the Sally Army with their dark uniforms and shining trumpets in town, the year Mum persuaded me to go to Midnight Mass with her despite the fact that neither of us was at all religious (‘I just want to go for the ceremony, to feel part of something,’ she’d insisted at the time). I had nowhere near the lovely pealing tone Mum had had, even in her sixties, but Emma’s voice was light and melodic and kept me company as I sang on, the tears in my eyes blurring the Brussels sprouts on my chopping board to a sea of pale green.
Emma glanced across at my face and set down her potato peeler. She came and stood next to me, her arms around me and her head on my shoulder, and she leaned into me as we belted out the chorus together. The rush of sadness and nostalgia I had felt was replaced by one of gladness that I had her standing next to me, and hope that we’d be doing this together for many Christmases to come.
O come, let us adore him
O come, let us adore him
O come let us adore hi-im, Chri-ist the Lord …
‘Happy Christmas, Mum,’ she said, hugging me as the song ended.
‘Happy Christmas, Emma,’ I said, choked with emotion, holding her tight and resting my chin on her chestnut-brown hair. ‘I’m very lucky to have you.’
She gave me a squeeze. ‘Not half as lucky as me,’ she said.
And so, with a carol and a cuddle and a mother– daughter moment, my Christmas wasn’t too bad after all.
The new year rolled in quietly, and, with it, some resolutions. I needed to stick to my diet and exercise regime (with or without Mike), I had to sort out Mum’s belongings and put her house on the market (a job I had dreaded and put off for months), but most importantly, I needed to get my marriage back on track, to make things right with Paul. We hadn’t had any fun for a while, but that was going to change. I begged a few favours from work and came home with a handbag full of freebies one evening.
‘What do you fancy – cinema, theatre, dinner?’ I asked him when he got in. I held up my stash of vouchers with a smile. ‘You choose.’
He seemed dismayed at the question. ‘What, tonight?’ he asked.
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘We haven’t been out for ages – in fact, we haven’t been out together all year.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Maddie, it’s only the seventh of January,’ he reminded me. ‘And it’s not like we’re made of money at the moment, is it?’
‘Well, no, but …’
‘I actually need to pop out and do something tonight,’ he said before I could finish. ‘Maybe some other time.’
I felt myself wilt at the rejection. He wasn’t at all interested in the idea of going out with me, was he? ‘Yeah,’ I said, trying not to sigh as I stuffed the vouchers back in my bag. ‘Some other time.’
‘I’m sorry. I was out of order and it was totally unacceptable. If it’s any excuse, I’d had too much to drink and … and I went too far. I’m sorry.’
I hadn’t been to the gym for over two weeks, ever since the disastrous Christmas kissing incident, and Mike was obviously taking it personally. This was the third time he’d called to apologize and try to book me in for a training session; I’d managed to avoid the other calls and then hastily delete the messages before Paul ever heard them.
This time, however, I’d picked up. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, rolling my eyes at the empty room. It was my day off and I was sitting at the kitchen table, having busied myself in endless procrastination all morning – cleaning, sorting out piles of washing, rearranging my spice jars in the rack, anything rather than go over to Mum’s with a roll of bin bags to start going through her stuff. ‘Really. It’s not a big deal, is it?’
I heard him sigh down the line. ‘Well … It’s just that you haven’t been to the gym for a while, and I would hate for this to have put you off your fitness plan. I can sort you out a different trainer if you’d rather, or—’
‘No,’ I said, cutting in. ‘Honestly, Mike, it’s not a drama. We were both pissed and we’d had a good evening, and …’ I pulled a face, not sure what else to say. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said for a second time, trying to sound firmer and more businesslike about it.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I promise it won’t happen again. Can we … can we carry on as before? Only I’ve had an idea. A challenge for you.’
I hesitated. What was the right response, the adult thing to do here? I liked Mike – but that was as far as it went. I couldn’t continue our gym relationship if he thought for a moment that it was going to lead to anything else.
‘Um …’ I said, stalling. Then I caught a grip of myself. For God’s sake! I was acting like some kind of femme fatale, like the woman from the song who was ‘torn between two lovers’. As if! He probably didn’t fancy me at all – he was drunk, like he’d said, and just got clumsy with it.
‘What’s this challenge, then?’ I asked warily.
‘It’s a run,’ he replied. ‘A proper, organized five-kilometre run.’
‘Five kilometres?’ I shrieked, almost dropping the receiver. ‘What’s that – three miles? I don’t think so, Mike. I can’t run three miles. I couldn’t even walk three miles.’
‘Yeah, you could,’ he replied. ‘You totally could. It’s not until June, so we’ve got plenty of time to put in the training.’ There was a pause. ‘It’s the Race for Life, Maddie. A big fundraiser. They do it every summer all over the country.’
I felt like I’d had a bucket of cold water thrown over me. The Race for Life? I’d heard of that – we’d featured it on the show before. ‘It’s a …’ I struggled to get the words out. ‘It’s for a cancer charity, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Cancer Research. Women only. Loads of the girls from the gym run it every year. Some do it as a fitness challenge. Others run in memory of a loved one. I thought that you …’ I heard him swallow. ‘I thought you might want to do it for both reasons.’
‘Right,’ I said, smarting at the unexpected sting I was feeling. ‘I … I’m not sure.’
‘If you’re worried about the distance, don’t be,’ he coaxed. ‘We’ve got five months, Maddie – that’s plenty of time to build up your stamina.’
‘Mmmm,’ I said noncommittally. I wasn’t sure if I had the emotional stamina for the race, let alone the physical strength. I’d seen footage on the telly of masses of women dressed in pink with signs pinned on their backs: ‘I’m running for … DAD’, ‘I’m running for … GRANDMA’, ‘I’m running for … MY SISTER’. I didn’t know if I could perform such a public act, running around town with a sign on my back that told the world my mum had died of cancer. More to the point, I didn’t know if I could run a single kilometre, full stop.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said in the end.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll start training while you think, and you can decide nearer the time. It’s just an option, Maddie, no pressure. So … when are you next coming in to the gym?’
&
nbsp; I sighed again. No pressure indeed. He wasn’t going to let me quit so easily, and chances were that if I went back to training with him, he’d keep chipping away at me until I agreed to run the wretched race. But that was his job, in fairness, and all other things aside, I’d come too far along the exercise route to give up now. Besides, however awkward things might be initially, I was sure we could both move on and be adult and mature about the whole kissing episode. Couldn’t we?
‘Tomorrow,’ I told him. ‘I’ll be in tomorrow.’
I put the phone down, proud of myself for being so grownup. There was one New Year’s resolution I was going to stick to, at least, and I’d chew over the prospect of the Race for Life in my own time. Now I just had the other, slightly trickier resolutions to get my teeth into.
I rose to my feet and took the roll of bin bags out of the drawer. Strike while the iron’s hot, that was what I’d always been told. I’d seize this determined mood and head over to Mum’s house to make a start. I had let it sit there empty, gathering dust, for too long, scared to start the process of clearing it out. But now felt as good a time as any.
For all my best intentions, I still found myself sitting in the car outside the house for a good few minutes, steeling myself to walk up the path, slide the key into her front door and walk in. The thought of going in there and rummaging through her belongings felt like the beginning of the end; like I was on the verge of destroying a link to the past, erasing her from my life.
Don’t think like that, Maddie. It’s only bricks and mortar. It’s just a house, a building. It’s not her.
The problem was, the house was her, in so many ways. The elegant furniture she’d chosen, the daring paint shades and extravagant patterned fabric which might have seemed over the top in anyone else’s house but looked perfect in hers – that was her, Mum, down to a tee. Taken as a whole, the house was an eccentric mix of luxury and practicality – the beautiful antique French furniture in her bedroom contrasting with the plain IKEA accessories in the en-suite, for example – and that was her, too, a magpie who bought something because she liked it, not simply because it was the height of fashion and the Joneses had already got one.
