by Rhys Thomas
“You’re awesome, though.” He looked down, hoping she didn’t realize he’d just said that.
Sarah was silent for a moment, thinking something over.
“Look.” She paused, thought again and lowered her voice. “My old boyfriend used to deal drugs.”
“That’s not that bad,” said Sam, quickly, though he hadn’t expected her to say that.
“It is bad, Sam. He wasn’t a good person. And I was complicit in his happiness, and I don’t like that. I shouldn’t have done what I did and it’s always going to haunt me. I mean, I thought I loved him, he was so much fun and things, but...he did ruin people’s lives, you know?”
Sam nodded.
“You don’t wanna hear this.”
“Sure I do.” Though he was getting the same twisted feeling in his stomach he got whenever Francis was around.
The low chatter of the other guests cocooned them. She drank more cider and smiled at him. “Let’s talk about something else,” she said.
“He cheated on you.”
“No, not that. Look, I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Can we just have a nice time? Who cares about the past? Everyone has a past, right? We’ve all done stupid things.”
“Let the past inform your future, but not define it,” he said, quoting another of his father’s maxims.
“That’s good,” she said, yet again changing the subject from whatever it was that had happened to her in the past. “I like that.”
* * *
He woke up freezing and hard of breath. Reaching over to the bedside table, he took a deep pull from his asthma pump. Checking his watch, he saw it was already Christmas Day. It was Christmas Day and there was no sense of crushing despair. Instead, he felt excited with the anticipation.
He was in a tiny room with an iron-framed bed, like something from the ’50s. He curled his legs over the edge and pulled his blanket around his shoulders. At the window he gazed at the silver hoarfrost encrusting the grounds in the dawn light and could feel the tremendous cold coming through and off the glass, an encroaching force. He stared at the beauty of the landscape, out over the silvered terraces at the back of the house and the rhododendrons, up the other side of the valley. A fox appeared on the lowermost lawn and padded across it with its wiry strength, leaving dark paw prints in its wake.
He’d once heard an expert on the radio say a sign of depression was the inability to imagine a future, and this was something Sam had suffered for years. He could never imagine being fifty, couldn’t imagine having children, leading a balanced, normal life. It was impossible to see himself as a seventy-year-old going out the front door to fetch a pint of milk. Sometimes, late at night, he would wonder how long he’d be dead in his house before anyone noticed. But now...
It almost felt as if the universe was giving him a chance.
He was startled by somebody knocking on his door. He opened it to find Sarah standing on the other side, in white pajamas patterned with green Tyrannosaurus rexes in red Christmas hats.
“Hey,” she said, quietly. “Let me in.”
She pushed past and a wave of awesomeness swept over him. He was in a Gothic country manor on Christmas morning with a girl he was crazy about.
“Happy Christmas,” he said.
“Come here,” she said, and gave him a hug.
He was still tired and wasn’t fully aware of what was going on, but he knew it was suddenly making his blood course.
“What’s this?” she said.
For an awful moment he thought she meant the bulge in his shorts, but then he saw she’d spied the wrapped present on his bedside table.
“Oh. It’s your Christmas present,” he said, sitting on the edge of his bed, pulling his T-shirt down.
“You got me a present?”
She was sitting over the other side, her knee hitched up. There was a red crease mark on her cheek that for some reason set off a chain reaction, the lust falling away and remolding itself as he realized, fully, how deeply he now cared for her.
“I know I shouldn’t have, but it was something I thought you might li—”
“I got you one too!” And she took from behind her back a small box.
“Oh,” he said.
His first Christmas present in years.
“Heads up.”
She tossed the present, and as he tried to catch it, it hit the tops of his fingers and dropped to the bed.
“Butterfingers,” he said.
“Let’s open them together,” she said, wide-eyed.
They pulled off the wrapping and, seeing their respective presents, fell into a pause.
She opened her copy of Cathedral. “A first edition? Oh my God.”
But he didn’t respond. The sensation of profound affection bloomed. He was holding in his hands a small replica of the Batmobile from the Tim Burton films. It was so shiny and beautiful. He didn’t recall ever mentioning it, but they were his favorite Batman films. He looked up from the toy and was struck by the face of happiness staring at the book.
“I can’t believe you got me this,” she said. “Sam, this is the best present I’ve ever had.” She looked at him. “It’s so thoughtful.”
In turn, he couldn’t comprehend that she’d bought him such an amazing present, and he wondered then if maybe it was possible for two people to know more about one another than they did about themselves. Deep down.
Her bare forearm was angled toward the window and through her top he could make out the curve of her breast. He shifted across the bed to get closer to her, his heart going crazy. She tilted her head inquisitively to one side and a line of light ran along the arm of her glasses. Her gaze danced across him. The world held its breath...
And the bedroom door swung open and Kabe waltzed in.
“Come on, you guys!” he shouted. “I thought I’d find you in here. Everyone’s downstairs already. It’s Christmas Day!”
* * *
He needed to make the move. He knew that now. All he needed was to get her on her own. The time would come, later that afternoon, or that night. You can do this, he told himself. There was a hubbub of activity in the kitchen as they got ready for Christmas lunch, but his mind kept running back to the bedroom. What he would give to see inside her brain now, to know her thoughts.
“You do it like this,” she said, her face turned toward him, leaning over the pan and tossing the onions, garlic and bacon bits on the hob, acting like nothing had happened. “It’s all in the wrist. Okay, how long have the sprouts been on?”
Maybe it was normal to play it cool and he was just being overkeen. He checked the stopwatch app on his phone. “Two minutes forty.”
The onions sizzled. Next to them Kristen removed a huge baking tray from the oven and the smell of mustard tingled in Sam’s nostrils. The ends of the parsnips were charred and hard and perfect.
“Okay, strain!” said Sarah.
Sam took the sprouts off the hob and poured them into a colander. The bacon in Sarah’s pan was browning nicely. He tipped the sprouts on top and Sarah mixed them in with the bacon and onions using a wooden spoon.
“These are gonna be aces,” she said. “You can hardly taste the sprouts at all.”
Kabe thrust a long knife into the enormous turkey, and when he removed it he placed it to his wrist, inspecting the pain of the heat.
“It’s done,” he announced.
The French couple, Claude and Eloise, prepared the gravy, pouring in measures of corn flour with scientific precision, stirring and tasting as the other food was brought to the table. There were honeyed carrots and parsnips, Sarah’s sprouts, red cabbage braised with cider and apples, a Welsh mashed potato with leeks and cheese, a vegetable Wellington for Claude and Eloise and the other vegetarians, potatoes roasted in local goose fat, spiced apricot and sausage meat stuffing, cranberry sauce from a nearby
farmers market.
Sarah was crammed in next to Sam. Their legs were touching and she made no effort to move away. Sam beheld the feast with a sense of joy. He was joyous. It drizzled through him, a sensation almost physical.
When everybody was sitting down, Kabe clinked his cracked wineglass with a fork.
“Okay, okay, okay,” he said, as the others stopped talking. “I’m not big on speeches—”
There was a collective groan.
“Okay, maybe I am big on speeches, but listen. I just want to say thanks to you all for coming.”
As Kabe spoke, Sam noticed Sarah’s hand on her thigh. His heart thumped. He lifted his own hand and touched her little finger and, for whatever reason, she curled it around his.
“It’s really awesome how people keep coming to spend Christmas here and I just want you to know that, whatever happens, everybody will always be welcome, and I mean that.”
Looking around the table, Sam watched the rapt faces.
“I know the world’s a bit shitty at the moment, but just remember this place, and today. All of you guys are nice people and, in the end, that’s what will matter. I think we all feel better when we’re doing something good instead of doing something bad and, you know, I think it’s easy to forget that sometimes. But it’s easy to see, if you look hard enough. Just look around this room.”
Sarah tightened her little finger around Sam’s.
“You know, it’s hard for me sometimes, not having my family near. It can get lonely. But sometimes, you realize family can mean lots of different things...” Kabe trailed off and Sam felt his throat go dry.
“Let’s eat!” someone shouted, making the others laugh.
Sam surreptitiously wiped the corners of his eyes and picked up his cutlery.
“Yes!” said Kabe. “But seriously. I really appreciate it.”
A sensation of warmth blazed around the table.
So the sudden disturbance in the room knocked the atmosphere weirdly off-kilter. People were turning, there was a gust of cold air in the kitchen and a person was standing over the table.
“Sarah,” he said. “I’m sorry. I had to come.”
Sam felt her finger unhook from his in a jerky motion. He looked up at the face and everything he’d just been feeling melted away to nothing.
It was Francis.
23
HE HELPED WITH the dishes. The others still chatted happily, as if nothing was wrong. They didn’t seem to pick up on the extreme awkwardness that had crunched across the room with Francis’s arrival.
He felt sick. In a way he blamed himself. He’d had countless chances and he’d been too scared to do anything about it. Kabe handed him a soapy pan, which he dried off with a towel and set on the countertop.
“You okay, man?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” he said, adding nothing more.
Kabe went back to the dishes.
Were they kissing right now? Out there on the terrace, Francis’s perfect hair blowing in the breeze, the collar of his winter coat flapping as he tenderly touched the side of her face? He was telling her he loved her and he’d traveled across half the country to get to her. How could Sam compete with a gesture like that? He simply wasn’t the type of person who was capable of making those sweeping demonstrations of love, and he knew that was why she’d be better off with Francis. She was way too good for him and he reminded himself that she’d invited him here only because she felt sorry for him.
“We’ll have fun later on,” Kabe said to him. “Trust me.” And he handed him another pan.
The back door opened. Sam didn’t turn, he didn’t need to. He could feel their combined presence coming up the corridor into the kitchen.
I’m so stupid, he told himself. I’m just so stupid.
* * *
A gathering of starlings preparing to roost covered a quarter of the sky, moving in quantum patterns, their caws colliding and shattering into the woods below where Kabe and the others entered the rhododendron forest. It was midafternoon, but the wood stole the light from the day.
“There’s something special about this place,” Kabe said to Sam, as he fell into step with him. “Something happens when you come here, when you spend time. It feels like, I don’t know, something gets restored. Can you feel it?”
He’d felt it before, but he couldn’t feel it now. The sickness of dread was all he could feel now. It seemed strange that Kabe was talking so mystically when he was wheeling a BMX at his side, but then, they’d all been drinking steadily since lunch.
Directly in front of them Sarah walked with Francis; he was talking in a hushed voice Sam couldn’t hear. He’d been here for over an hour now and Sam still hadn’t managed to pluck up the courage to speak to them—and they hadn’t come to him either.
They picked their way along the stream that led toward the lake. The water leaped in rainbow shapes over the rocks. Sam just wanted to know what was happening. Why couldn’t he just say something?
Along the nearside shore of the lake was a smooth, straight path. Geese made shock waves in the air as they hissed onto the surface of the water. At the water’s edge the path split and one fork led down to a large log that looked out over the lake.
“This place is amazing in the summer,” said Sarah, looking over her shoulder. “We should come back.”
His shoe hit a stone embedded in the path when she said this, and he almost tripped. He just caught Francis’s eyes before they snapped away.
There were about ten of them who’d come down to the lake. Kabe stopped and the others gathered around him. They were at the edge of a small cliff, overlooking the water about ten feet below. “I thought of this the other day,” he said to them. “It should work.”
He adjusted the saddle of the bike, ratcheting it upward, climbed on the BMX and, to everyone’s surprise, started pedaling along the track, back toward the water. Kabe had a strong, lithe body and got up a head of steam quickly.
“Where’s he going?” said the man in front of Sam.
As Kabe swayed from side to side with each thrust, the sound of tires zipping over the ground was loud in the cold air. As he came to the water’s edge, Kabe turned sharply toward the log. The bike went down into the hollow, struck the log, which was elevated around five feet above the surface of the lake, and the mechanics of the situation saw Kabe propelled over the handlebars. He yelled something midair, arms swinging, body twisting as he slapped into the water with a loud and inelegant crash.
Everyone burst into laughter and spontaneous applause as Kabe rose to the surface. In front of him Francis was doing a completely over-the-top clap.
“It’s fucking freezing!” Kabe cried, as he climbed onto dry land and trotted back up the path with the BMX. “Okay, who’s next?”
He had the type of personality that enthused people around him, a contagious, endearing childlike recklessness that made him magnetic.
“I’ll do it,” said Francis.
“Good for you, Francis,” said Kabe, as the others started clapping.
He pushed forward through the crowd to get to the bike but slipped in the mud, bumping into Sarah. Sam watched in slow motion as she stumbled and fell toward the cliff. She reached out to grab Francis and he lost his balance again, instinctively yanking his arm away and sending Sarah over the edge. Sam moved without thinking. Her body was already out over the water, at forty-five degrees, as Sam reached out and hooked his arm under her back, taking her whole weight. “Whoops,” he found himself saying, apologetically. His core activated, his free arm grabbed an overhanging branch for support and he stopped her midair, easily pulling her up and away from the edge.
He set her down gently and could see the shock on her face at his strength. He felt like Clark Kent.
“Sam, that was fucking awesome,” someone said, breaking the weird silence of the moment.
&
nbsp; He could physically feel the perception of him changing across the group, just as he could feel her eyes on him. He met them, but she broke away and looked at the ground.
“Did you see that?” someone else said.
Sam’s heart pumped hard, the blood thumping through him a drumbeat. His own strength had shocked him, but it shouldn’t have. He’d trained for this.
After a beat, Francis turned to Kabe. “Okay, here we go,” he said, taking the BMX, trying to deflect attention away from what had happened, as if it was nothing.
Francis climbed onto the bike, pushed his perfect hair away from his eyes and stared at the log in the distance. Sam wondered if Sarah realized how Francis had pulled away from her. He sped off down the path. Kabe went into his pack and brought out a bottle of whiskey, which he handed to Sam.
“You deserve this,” he said.
Sam took a sip, hoping it might calm his adrenaline.
Francis hit the log hard, but as he went over the top his knees caught the handlebars and he was dragged straight down, headfirst into the lake.
“Whoa!”
There was a collective groaning sound and Sam couldn’t figure out why everyone was then falling about in hysterics.
Standing next to him, Sarah was silent.
“I’m okay!” said Francis, resurfacing and clambering out.
“Er, I don’t think I want to have a go at doing that,” said Sam, trying to make light of the situation, looking down at his smart new Tesco clothes.
She snapped out of her trance and smiled at him. “Sure you do,” she said, grabbing the whiskey and taking a large slug. “You just need a bit of Dutch courage.”
Over by the log someone took the BMX from Francis as he sat at the edge of the lake.
“Sarah,” said Sam. “What’s happening?”
A robin landed on a branch above her head.
She sighed. “He reckons he’s in love with me.”
“Oh.” His throat turned to sand. “He said that?”
