Holly's Christmas Gift

by Alex Brown

  ‘Love you too, Dad. This holiday is going to be so amazing!’

  While Holly slept off her jetlag, Sam and Chrissie had reacquainted themselves with each other in the master bedroom. It had felt so good to have her in his arms again – they’d always been really into each other, and for Sam their lovemaking felt like the monsoon after a drought. They dozed lightly afterwards and Sam wrapped himself around his wife, burying his nose in her soft blonde hair, drawing in the familiar scent of her strawberry shampoo. Uncharacteristically, she had seemed a bit detached. He couldn’t put his finger on it but something wasn’t quite right.

  ‘Hey,’ he said gently. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing …’ She’d hesitated for a split second before answering.

  ‘You sure?’ He could tell when something was on her mind.

  A beat of silence followed.

  ‘It’s just …’ she stalled. ‘This place … I wasn’t expecting anything like it. It’s incredible. I’m not surprised you haven’t come home.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sam asked, leaning up on one elbow. ‘This place is great, but that’s not the reason I haven’t …’

  He stopped talking as Chrissie turned around to look up at him, her blue eyes scanning his face as if searching for the right words. ‘You’ve been here for three months and this is the first time we’ve seen you since you left. When we talked about you taking this job, you promised that you’d be home every six weeks. That’s what we agreed.’

  ‘I know, love, but things have been difficult to get off the ground. There’s been a lot of bureaucracy and trouble with getting the right contractors. We’ve been working around the clock to get everything up and running, there’s been lots of schmoozing and lobbying … and then there’s the time difference to factor in.’

  ‘While Holly and I sit at home watching TV and sharing a cake from Kitty’s Spotted Pig café in the village, wondering when you’re going to come home?’

  ‘But Chris, you know I’m doing it for us. A few more jobs like this could set us up for life.’ He moved his hand from her back and brought it round to the front, where it cupped her breast and his thumb played lightly with her nipple. He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. ‘Come on, let’s get rude again.’

  Chrissie grinned, but took his hand with her own and moved it back to where it had come from.

  ‘Seriously Sam, promise me things won’t stay like this. Every job you’ve had over the last few years has taken you further away. First it was Frankfurt for six months, then Dubai for the best part of a year, but you came home far more often then. And now you are here in Singapore and we’re still back home in Tindledale, missing you like mad. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to stay away from us.’

  ‘How could you even think that?’ Sam shook his head.

  Chrissie raised her eyes at him.

  ‘OK, I see what you are saying, but we’ve always known my work would take me away.’

  ‘You know, it’s been much harder since Holly’s diabetes diagnosis.’

  ‘Everything’s all right though, isn’t it?’ Sam checked right away.

  ‘Yes, as far as it can be, but it’s changed things. You feel further away and I feel less … I don’t know … it’s just getting harder without you at home.’

  ‘Hey,Chrissie, you’ve always been strong, you can cope with this,’ he said tenderly. ‘And I’m only ever a phone call away. No matter what the time difference is.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Chrissie faltered, her eyes welling up. ‘But I feel like your career is taking you away from me here, Sam.’ Chrissie touched her chest, in the place where her heart was. She wasn’t the overly sentimental type, but as he caressed away her worries, he felt her soft tears on his own cheeks and, like her words, their memory stayed with Sam for the rest of the holiday.

  *

  Sam wished now, more than anything, that he had listened to what Chrissie had said that day. She had always been the strong one of them, holding it all together while he built his career. He was solid in his own way, of course. He’d worked hard, given them a beautiful home, sent Holly to a fee-paying secondary school – though of course it had been Chrissie who’d put the effort in to get her through the entrance exams, especially as the exam had been around the same time as Holly’s diabetes diagnosis. They were a team, weren’t they? Each bringing their best points to the marriage and the whole being more than the sum of its parts. That’s what he’d always thought – until now.

  They were still married, though, for better or worse … and that had to count for something. It was a starting point at least, and he wasn’t about to give up on everything they had together, even if it seemed that Chrissie might already have.

  And Holly, he couldn’t wait to see her, having missed her so much. Skype calls were OK for keeping in touch, although nothing compared to the real thing, like a proper bear-hug cuddle followed by a tickling session until she begged him to stop. But he had a chance to change that now; he’d be able to see her properly and make up for all those moments that he had missed.

  Sam sat back in the seat and allowed himself a moment of contemplation. Time to go over his plan to put everything right. He had thought of nothing else for months now. Ever since he had made the decision to come back for good, and broken the news to his boss. He’d had to work some notice and hand over to his deputy but he’d finally made the break. And it was spring now, a time for new beginnings, he thought optimistically.

  Looking back over the last few years, he understood that he had got things badly wrong. He believed that he and Chrissie knew what their priorities were but he could see now – too late – that Holly’s diabetes diagnosis had changed so much more than just the blood sugar levels in his little girl’s body.

  Chapter Two

  Jude Darling tucked Lulu, her grumpy old caramel-coloured cockapoo, under her arm, and inhaled the crisp, spring air infused with a glorious aroma of fresh paint. Smiling, she stared at the black timber-framed, white wattle-walled shop with tiny mullioned windows in the middle of Tindledale High Street. Home. After several years of travelling around the world, before settling in Los Angeles for a while, it now felt surreal – but at the same time ever so good – to be back.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Tony Darling asked. Jude turned, and with her free arm she gave her dad an enormous hug.

  ‘I love it, Dad. Really I do.’ She stood back on the pavement, her rumpus of red curls bouncing on her shoulders as she beamed up at the swirly gold lettering above the window. ‘Ooh, it’s perfect! Darling Antiques & Interiors. Has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?’

  ‘It sure does! Though sorry again for the silly surname you’ve been lumbered with … it’s the family curse.’ He rolled his eyes and shrugged before going to give Lulu’s curly head a stroke, but thought better of it when she growled and lifted her nose up into the air. ‘Well, excuse me,’ he laughed.

  ‘Sorry. She’s still sulking over this wet weather – you know what a diva she is; looking down her nose at these muddy puddles everywhere after the heat of the streets in Los Angeles.’ Jude adjusted Lulu’s little tartan coat. ‘And don’t be daft! It’s a brilliant surname. It’s our family’s name, and I love it, always have, you know that …’ she replied, nodding her head as if to punctuate the point.

  ‘Hmm, if you say so. But three guesses who’s doing the Mr Darling’s Magic Show gig again this year for the kids at the May Fair?’ Tony sighed.

  ‘Ahh, Dad, you love it really. You’re the real deal, a proper magic man … especially now you’re turning into a silver fox. Very distinguished for when you don the velvet Willy Wonka suit and whip a rabbit out of a top hat. And you’ll have a full white beard and barnet in no time, the way you’re going!’ Jude laughed, giving his salt-and-pepper hair a quick ruffle, and remembering as a child how she loved having a magician for a dad, or the ‘Magic Man’ as her school friends used to call him. And she never tired of telling new people she met along the
way that her dad was a magician. That he could do proper tricks, like make a white dove fly out of her ear. Of course, years later she had worked out that it was all an illusion. But back then, when everyone in Tindledale and the surrounding villages loved Mr Darling’s Magic Show, it had made her feel special. Proud and safe … and God knows she had needed that after her mum had died. Nine years old she had been when she’d got home from school one day and found her lovely mummy, Sarah, slumped over the sofa, lifeless after suffering a fatal asthma attack. And that was how it became just the two of them, Tony and Jude Darling. A unit. An unstoppable team.

  Tony had been a brilliant dad. Still was. And that was why Jude had come back home to Tindledale, after her wanderlust had petered out, much like her relationship with Scott, the American businessman she had dated for a year or so before he’d announced that he’d ‘rather not be exclusive any longer’. Fair enough. Jude hadn’t been that into him in any case; plus she had come to the conclusion that what had suited her in her twenties and thirties – fun with no ties – didn’t really cut it any more. No. But whilst she had never really been the ‘settling down’ type, she reckoned she’d be open now to the possibility of a proper committed relationship, with a mature man who would put the effort in. Not an immature guy clinging on to his youth, who only wanted to hook up when he was in town.

  Plus Dad wasn’t getting any younger – not that sixty was old or anything these days, but still … there were never any guarantees in life, Jude knew that only too well, with losing her mum at such a young age. And she’d had enough of being away from her home, the place where she had grown up, and the place she loved, Tindledale. She had always planned on coming back here, but the urge to travel, as if to find out who she really was, had always been a driving factor. Growing up without her mum had been difficult at times, especially during her teenage years, when she had yearned to find a connection, a tangible way to know all about her mother, Sarah. To find out who she really was. The dreams and aspirations that were cruelly snatched from her at such a young age. Of course, Jude had never forgotten her mum, and the memories she had of their time together. But having been so young when it happened meant that the hazy snippets of events, feelings, even the scent of her mum’s favourite perfume on a treasured scarf had faded. So when Jude was in her twenties, and after a string of disastrous relationships had disillusioned her, she knew it was time to go for it. She travelled to LA to meet Maggie, her mum’s cousin, who lived there.

  Maggie even looked like Sarah, and had similar mannerisms, but, better still, she remembered vividly growing up with Jude’s mum; the silly antics they got up to, the daft things Sarah had said and done. Maggie was able to give Jude a real insight into who Sarah really was. And another wonderful thing for Jude: Maggie was able to share how Sarah had felt about her only child. The love she had felt for Jude, and everything she had hoped she would grow up to be. This had given Jude a tremendous sense of peace, that tangible connection she had yearned for. To feel an affinity with her mum and to know she would have been proud of her. And Jude had wanted to harness that affinity and never let it go, so she had stayed in LA with Maggie, who had moved into Sarah’s maternal role with ease, giving Jude a comfort that she hadn’t had for so long. And, in doing so, Jude had also felt close to her mum.

  LA had become Jude’s base, her haven if you like, and after travelling to as many enchanting places as she could afford to on her modest savings, she had then started the antiques and interiors business in order to properly pay her way. And this, in turn, plus loads of hard work, had taken her from Maggie’s little spare room in the condo to a plush, mink-colour-carpeted studio in one of LA’s most exclusive business districts.

  It had been a wrench to leave that studio behind, but Jude had missed her family here too – Dad (though he’d come out to visit every year for at least four weeks), plus the three rambunctious golden retrievers called Betty, Bob and Barney that Lulu had hated on sight. But then Lulu was used to being the centre of attention, and certainly wasn’t going to share Jude’s affections with any other dogs, so had taken to growling if Jude so much as glanced at one of the retrievers. A properly pampered pooch, Lulu had been a welcome cute-puppy gift to Jude from one of her grateful LA clients, who bred pedigree cockapoos. Small enough to travel with Jude on her very own pet passport, Lulu was used to first-class treatment at all times, often perched, regally, on her lap during flights, or nestled inside a designer pet carrier, as was the norm in LA. It was no surprise, really, that Lulu was finding it tricky to acclimatise to her more modest living arrangements – with her bed in the corner of the kitchen alongside the other dogs.

  Jude had also missed her best friend, Chrissie. She had missed her so much. And Chrissie really needed her right now. Jude still couldn’t get her head around the disaster that was her best friend’s marriage. Last time she had been home, about four years ago, Chrissie, Sam and Holly had been doing OK – they had been a happy family unit. And Chrissie and Sam had always been one of those couples you imagined were set to be together for ever. Like butter and crumpets. The two just go. And it was unthinkable to have one without the other. But somehow that had happened. And Jude was horrified at the situation because, if Chrissie and Sam’s relationship could fall apart, then what hope was there for everyone else still searching for their perfect match? That’s how solid they were, or had been. It was shocking. More so, as Jude hadn’t realised just how bad things had become – Chrissie had always had a tendency to batten down the hatches, make out that she was coping, that everything was fine, that she had it all under control, even when she didn’t; that was her way. But Chrissie really had glossed over the startling truth about the state of her marriage during the numerous phone calls and Skype calls they’d had together all the time Jude had been in LA. And her goddaughter, Holly, she needed Jude too. The whole family – Chrissie, Holly and Sam – had been having a tough time this last couple of years or so, and Jude wanted to do all that she could to support Chrissie, who was more like a sister than a best friend. It was the right thing to do. Chrissie had been there for Jude all those years ago when her mum had died, as well as ever since … and so now it was Jude’s turn to be here, close by, for her.

  ‘And I love you too,’ Tony smirked, shaking his head some more and cutting into Jude’s thoughts. ‘But less of the “old man” jokes please … if you really are planning on staying around for good.’

  ‘Yep, this is me, back home in Tindledale for good …’

  ‘Well, I sure hope so, love, because it’s not safe out there any more. Not with all the horrors going on around the world. You can’t switch the telly on these days without seeing some other awful incident unfold. No, it’s no good you gallivanting around the globe picking up all that junk …’ He gestured inside the shop, which was crammed full of unique artefacts from far-flung places.

  ‘Oh Dad, it’s not junk! Come on, let’s take a look inside.’ She looped her free arm through Tony’s and practically skipped him inside, she was so excited.

  Inside, and after placing Lulu carefully on the rug, Jude wandered around, oohing and ahhing as she took in the gorgeous Farrow & Ball painted walls.

  ‘And, see, I was right about this one, Elephant’s Breath …’ She darted towards the main wall that ran the length of the back of the shop, her red curls flaring out behind her, and ran a hand lovingly over the smooth wall, ‘and with this one too, Calamine. The perfect match, don’t you think?’ She dashed over to the adjacent wall to stroke that surface too. Tony couldn’t help himself, and his sun-baked, brown crinkly face broke into a big smile, only just managing to stop short of actually laughing at the absurdity of the paint names. He was old school, and these new, fancy, fandangled colours bemused him.

  ‘Yep. Of course … it looks nice,’ he shrugged, before gathering up his brushes and tools to tidy away into his white work van parked outside the window.

  ‘Nice?’ Jude pretended to be put out. ‘Just nice, Dad. Oh, come on … yo
u’ve done a brilliant job, used the exact hues that I asked for, and it looks amazing.’

  ‘Well, it’s grey and pink at the end of the day, love.’ And after placing his tool bag down on a nearby chair, he held out his hands, palms up, and laughed, ‘but if you want the flash stuff that costs an arm and a leg and has to be specially ordered off the internet, when the cheap stuff from the builders’ merchants down on the industrial estate would have done just as good a job, then who am I to argue?’

  ‘But it has to be right, Dad. It’s important to create the right ambience.’ Jude folded her arms and chewed the inside of her cheek as she scanned the shop once more. She’d put her heart and soul into this new venture, not to mention a tidy sum of money that she had saved up over the years for this exact moment. ‘And look …’ She carefully picked up an exquisite, multi-coloured glass Art Deco lamp. ‘This is an expensive antique. It was my job to scour the globe for special items for my clients. They’re very discerning you know.’ Jude gave her dad a playful punch on the arm.

  ‘Yeah, well they can “discern” or whatever with someone new now. I’m not letting you leave Tindledale again.’

  ‘There’s no chance of that. My “gallivanting” days, as you say,’ Jude paused to do silly quote signs in front of her dad, trying not to smile when he pulled a face and batted her away, ‘are well and truly over. I’ve gathered enough stock of my own now for the shop, and once the soft furnishings arrive in the next day or so for the interiors section, I’ll be having a grand opening.’

  A short silence followed as father and daughter exchanged nods, with intermittent glances around the tiny but perfectly formed shop. ‘Well, maybe a not so grand opening,’ Jude shrugged and grinned gamely, knowing this wasn’t London’s Mayfair. No, Tindledale was a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, ‘but certainly a few friends round for an Aperol spritz or a flute of pink Prosecco and a scrumptious fondant fancy or three from Kitty’s café over there, that’s for sure.’