I'll Be Home for Christmas: A heartwarming feel good romantic comedy

by Karen Clarke

  Probably not a problem Oprah would ever encounter. ‘I can’t wait to see it,’ I said.

  As Dolly pushed open the door to the living room, I was buffeted by a mouth-watering smell of roasting meat, and the sound of Charlie’s voice above a background of throbbing salsa music. He was pleading with someone to tell him what they wanted for Christmas.

  ‘I normally buy joke gifts, in case I get it wrong,’ he was saying. ‘I bought Natalie a coaster with Sweet dreams are made of cheese on it last year and I don’t even know why.’

  ‘Hi, Chuck,’ I said, waving like the Queen as I followed Frank and Dolly through.

  He grinned and mouthed Elle, pointing to his phone.

  ‘He’s talking to his girlfriend,’ said Dolly, in the way I imagined someone might say I’ve won four million on the lottery. ‘Now, sit yourself at the table, love.’

  ‘Don’t you want a hand?’

  ‘Everything’s under control.’ She gave Frank an affectionate smile. ‘I’ve got my little helper.’

  He rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh, but I could tell he was loving being married to Dolly and didn’t mind one bit.

  As they headed to the open-plan kitchen area, and Charlie continued his conversation with Elle – ‘There’s no point me trying to surprise you, because you’ll end up with either a singing hot water bottle, or a trip somewhere you’ve never wanted to visit’ – I looked around. The décor was a soothing palette of creams and golds, the furniture unexpectedly light and modern; a long, mink-coloured sofa beside a light oak sideboard; a copper lamp in the corner throwing out golden light and an oval, cloth-covered dining table opposite the kitchen. The only clue to the time of year was a medium-sized fir tree by the curtained window, tastefully adorned with little red bows and pine cones.

  The whole effect was surprisingly elegant, compared to the apartment. The rattan basket of logs by the open fire was perfectly positioned, and a gallery of framed photos on the wall were placed at the perfect height to draw the eye without clashing. Even the cushions on the sofa were just right – not too many, and in spicy shades that added a touch of colour to the room. It was just how I would have done it, and the flowers, which Frank had neatly arranged in a jug, added a flourish to the dining table.

  Feeling my shoulders relax, I crossed to admire them, resisting the urge to break out a few moves to the salsa beat pulsing through hidden speakers, knowing it wouldn’t end well. Instead, I sat on a linen covered dining chair and checked my reflection in a silver knife handle, glad that my hair looked pleasantly tousled, and not like I’d stuck my head in a microwave.

  Charlie was telling Elle he’d be happy with socks for Christmas as he could never find a matching pair, or Michelle Obama’s autobiography, and I twisted my face into a gurn to make him laugh, just as the door opened and Ryan came into the room.

  My features froze.

  ‘Nina?’ He seemed unsure it was me. ‘Are you OK?’

  I adjusted my features, suddenly dry-mouthed. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘It’s the second time you’ve asked me that today.’ He closed the door and ploughed a hand through his hair. ‘I just nipped to the bathroom.’

  ‘I meant, why are you here?’ I gestured at the room.

  ‘I invited him,’ said Dolly, transporting a plate of crisp-skinned duck breasts to the table and plonking them down. ‘I thought it would be nice for us all to eat together.’ She nodded at the chair next to mine. ‘Sit yourself down, Ryan.’

  He hesitated, and I couldn’t tell whether he didn’t want to sit next to me, or wasn’t certain I’d want him to, but Dolly whipped out the chair beside mine so he didn’t have much choice.

  ‘You look different,’ he said as he sat down, clocking the skirt I was wearing, and I saw Frank swing a wide-eyed glance at Dolly. ‘It’s nice, but not as striking as the koala outfit.’

  Frank’s eyebrows shot up.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, hoping Ryan would think it was the heat from the kitchen making my face look flushed. He was still in his jeans, but had swapped his jumper for a green and black plaid shirt. ‘You look like a country and western singer.’

  ‘Just the image I was going for.’ He pretended to strum a guitar, then stopped as though embarrassed. ‘How do you feel about salsa?’ he said as an energetic trumpet solo rose to a crescendo.

  ‘Too fiddly.’ I forced a smile. ‘I’m sure I’d fall over if I tried to dance.’

  ‘You’d be fine, as long as you had the right partner.’ Dolly’s bright eyes encompassed us both for an embarrassingly long second, before she returned to the kitchen, where Frank rattled dinner plates out of the cupboard and pretended not to listen.

  Ryan cleared his throat and shunted his chair up to the table. His elbow brushed mine and we jolted apart. ‘Have you been here all this time?’ I said.

  ‘Charlie dragged me along after closing the café.’ He nudged his fork a fraction closer to his placemat. ‘Listen, Nina, I wanted to apologise properly for being such an arse.’ His eyes grazed mine. ‘I’m not usually so judgemental. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

  He seemed so genuinely remorseful that it didn’t feel right to bring up the word unstable. ‘Thanks,’ I said, something inside me loosening its hold a little. ‘For the apology, I mean.’

  ‘Fresh start?’

  I held his gaze. ‘Fresh start,’ I agreed, pretending I couldn’t see that Dolly had frozen in the act of spooning buttered parsnips onto a serving dish as she strained to overhear.

  Before either of us could speak again, a tinny female voice cut through the air.

  ‘Let me say hello to them.’

  Charlie had put his phone on speaker and was advancing towards us. ‘Elle wants to meet you.’ He twisted his phone and zoomed in on our faces like a crazed cameraman on a reality show. ‘Say hi!’

  ‘Chuck, for God’s sake!’ I tried to dodge the face onscreen, but it was too late. ‘Hi, Elle!’ I cocked my head in what I hoped was a friendly fashion. She looked lovely, her blue eyes peering out of the camera; blonde-haired, freckled (so many freckles) and smiley. ‘Commiserations on dating my cousin.’

  She giggled. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ she said as Charlie moved the phone so that Ryan appeared next to me in the corner of the screen, his dark head close to mine. ‘All good, I promise.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ I said. ‘He’s missing you a lot, been crying into his pillow.’

  ‘Shut up, Nina,’ Charlie said, adding to Elle, ‘And this is Monsieur Sadler, bestselling author, ex-skateboard pro and—’

  ‘I know, I’ve met him already,’ she said, laughing. ‘Hi, Ryan.’

  Ryan raised his palm. ‘Hi, Elle.’

  ‘I hope you’re feeling better,’ she said, her voice warm with sympathy. I wondered for a moment whether he’d been ill then remembered that, like me, he’d called off his wedding earlier in the year, and (unlike me) hadn’t seen his children since.

  He lowered his eyes to the table, masking his expression. ‘I’m good, thanks.’

  Charlie drifted the phone across to where Dolly was doling more vegetables into a bowl and Frank was pouring sauce from a pan into a jug. Dolly blew a kiss and called, ‘See you soon, sweetheart, we miss you,’ before Charlie rotated the screen back to his face.

  ‘Your cousin’s gorgeous,’ we all heard Elle say warmly. ‘She and Ryan look really good together.’

  Charlie jabbed at the phone with an exaggerated wince and turned away, telling Elle he had to go and would speak to her later. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, dropping onto the chair opposite me, not sounding sorry at all, as I blushed scarlet. ‘Now, where’s the grub, I’m starving.’

  Ten

  The awkward beat of silence that followed Elle’s comment was broken by Dolly and Frank, bringing over the food and pouring wine, and by the time we’d loaded our plates the atmosphere had relaxed, partly due to Dolly and Frank and their involuntary salsa shimmies, as the music continued to play.
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br />   ‘We’re training for a competition in February,’ Frank explained, once they were seated and were helping themselves to food. ‘I think we’ve a good chance of winning.’

  I smiled. ‘You must be really good.’

  ‘It’s great exercise.’ Dolly made it sound as though she sat around all day with her feet up. ‘Releases lots of endorphins.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to go swimming with them.’ We groaned at Charlie’s joke – apart from Frank, who chuckled appreciatively.

  ‘Were you really a skateboard pro?’ I asked Ryan.

  ‘Yes, he was,’ said Charlie, before Ryan could open his mouth. ‘He got hooked after playing Tony Hawk’s… on PlayStation,’ he elaborated, seeing my blank expression. ‘I was rubbish, but Ryan was really good. He got to championship level and won a couple of trophies.’

  I turned to look at Ryan, who’d been about to put a roast potato into his mouth. ‘I was UK good,’ he said modestly, lowering his fork. ‘Not like world championships or anything.’

  ‘Still sounds impressive to me.’

  ‘He could crouch down on the board and do all sorts of flippy things,’ said Dolly, pouring port and cherry sauce over her duck breast. ‘I remember him practising outside our house because the pavement was on an incline, and loads of girls lining up to watch.’

  ‘It definitely made him a girl-magnet,’ agreed Charlie.

  ‘He was fifteen, but already handsome.’ Dolly’s smile was nostalgic. ‘When I saw him going by on his hands, legs in the air, I swear one of the girls nearly fainted.’

  ‘One did faint, when I tried the same move and fell badly, remember?’ Charlie pulled a face. ‘You thought I’d broken my neck.’

  ‘Oh, that was awful.’ Dolly shuddered. ‘I’d called 999 before I realised you were faking it.’

  ‘I wasn’t faking it!’

  ‘You were milking it,’ said Ryan, and I turned to see a smile curving his mouth. ‘You wanted that girl, the one with plaits, to give you the kiss of life.’

  ‘That’s rubbish,’ Charlie protested, but his ears had turned red.

  ‘I remember you telling me about that,’ I said. ‘You made it sound as though you’d been at death’s door.’

  Ryan laughed. ‘Sounds about right.’

  ‘Did she give you the kiss of life?’ asked Frank, a napkin tucked into the neck of his shirt like a cravat. ‘Or was she the one who fainted?’

  ‘She probably fainted afterwards,’ said Ryan. ‘He’d just eaten a packet of pickled onion flavoured Monster Munch.’

  ‘Gross,’ I said.

  Charlie joined in the laughter and the conversation flowed easily after that – mostly reminiscing about the past. He had an easy rapport with Ryan that came from being childhood mates and there was no shortage of stories.

  ‘Remember when you went through that phase of wearing a trench coat and a fedora, because you wanted to be a film-noir detective, but you looked like Inspector Gadget?’ Charlie chortled at the memory, and Ryan reminded Charlie that he used to sometimes mispronounce words, like trickle treat instead of trick-or-treat, and once said his mum’s favourite drink was Peanut Grigio.

  Dolly dissolved into laughter. ‘He used to think it was Lost Angeles,’ she said. ‘Which actually kind of makes sense.’

  ‘And doggy dog world, instead of dog-eat-dog.’ Ryan was laughing too, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘He’d said it to… surprise, surprise… impress a girl.’

  ‘I tried to make out she’d misheard me,’ Charlie said sheepishly.

  ‘I used to say expresso instead of espresso until I was about twenty,’ I admitted. ‘Not that I went around saying it a lot.’

  ‘There wasn’t much espresso drinking on the farm,’ said Dolly to Frank. He seemed to be enjoying the back and forth, though I noticed his eyes never strayed far from Dolly.

  ‘It must have been fun growing up on a farm.’ Ryan slid me a sideways look, just as I was thrusting a broccoli spear into my mouth.

  ‘Mmmhmm,’ I managed, adding once I’d swallowed it almost whole, ‘It had its moments, I suppose. Lots of fresh air, animals, chores. OK, the chores weren’t always fun, especially in winter, and we didn’t have holidays because of… well, farming, and there was a lot of poo, but we didn’t know anything else when we were little.’

  ‘I loved staying there,’ said Charlie. ‘Those were my holidays.’

  ‘Me too.’ Dolly nodded. ‘I’d never imagined my big sister becoming a farmer’s wife – she was a bit of a glamour puss, liked her manicures – but she turned out to be a natural.’

  ‘The farm has been in my dad’s family for generations,’ I said, in case Ryan wasn’t just pretending to look interested. ‘But the farming gene seemed to skip me and I wanted to go to university.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Southampton,’ I said. ‘I thought that’s where real life was happening.’

  ‘Was it?’ He was frowning a little, as though trying to picture me there. Either that, or he’d got indigestion.

  ‘Well, there were definitely more people than animals.’ I recalled the shock and exhilaration of ‘being away from home’, anonymous in a city that didn’t smell of manure, but of something earthy and vital – with a hint of pizza and exhaust fumes in the part where The Old Pub was. ‘I didn’t really miss the farm,’ I confessed, thinking fondly of the flat I’d shared with Anna, where the cat downstairs used to lie in wait and scratch our ankles. ‘I suppose there was too much going on to think of home.’

  Ryan looked like he wanted to know more. ‘I guess we take things for granted when we’re children.’

  ‘Ryan had a textbook childhood,’ Charlie said easily. I knew he didn’t resent it; that he’d been treated like part of their family growing up. I suddenly remembered him telling me once that his best friend’s dad was much nicer than his own – not because Charlie’s dad had been horrible, he just hadn’t been around much when Charlie was growing up.

  ‘Mum could be a bit bossy, being a teacher,’ Ryan said, helping himself to a heap of parsnips. ‘I didn’t always appreciate that, and Dad wanted me to be an architect like him.’

  ‘He never rebelled though, because he was a good boy.’ Charlie’s tone was mischievous as he jabbed his fork at Ryan. ‘The worst thing you ever did was stick your tongue out and go cross-eyed during school photos.’

  ‘Every. Time.’ Ryan sounded proud. ‘That’s why there aren’t any school photos of me after primary school.’

  ‘Nina once tried to keep a sheep in her bedroom,’ Charlie said.

  ‘What?’ Ryan’s eyes widened as he took a sip of wine.

  ‘I got too attached,’ I explained, laughing at the look on his face. ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of Lamby going off to market.’

  He almost choked. ‘Lamby?’

  ‘Lamby, Piggy, Cowabunga,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t very imaginative with names.’

  ‘She turned her wardrobe into a sort of stable, with straw and everything,’ said Charlie.

  ‘I’d fed her with a bottle since she was a baby.’ I felt the need to add some context. ‘Her mother had died, poor thing.’

  ‘That’s pretty sad.’

  ‘Then her dad caught Lamby roaming around on the landing one night and nearly had a heart attack.’ Charlie’s shoulders shook with laughter. ‘Can you imagine, going for a wee in the night and seeing a sheep?’

  ‘I got to save her though,’ I pointed out, aiming a kick at him under the table. ‘She didn’t go off to market, did she?’

  ‘Only because you threatened to run away,’ Dolly chimed in. ‘That was a lovely summer, the sun shone every day, but it wasn’t too hot.’

  ‘My great-gran Augustine lived with us too for a while, when I was little.’ I glanced at Dolly, hoping she’d take the bait.

  ‘Oh, yes, she loved it there, especially as your mum let her bake all the time.’

  ‘My mum was no good with cakes,’ said Ryan. ‘She makes a good las
agne though.’

  ‘How old was Augustine, when she got married?’

  ‘Young, by today’s standards.’ Dolly pursed her lips. ‘She was twenty-six, and it was 1930 – good times, by all accounts, between wars. She worked in a department store.’

  ‘And your mum was born in…’

  ‘Nineteen-thirty-two.’ Dolly never seemed to find any topic odd or uncomfortable, and I knew she’d be happy to chatter on for hours about Augustine. ‘My parents died in a car crash abroad,’ she said to Ryan. ‘They’d gone on holiday together for the first time in years, because my sister and I were all grown up, and some silly old man on the wrong side of the road drove right into their car.’

  ‘That’s awful, I’m so sorry,’ said Ryan.

  ‘Augustine was an absolute rock.’ Dolly’s voice was nostalgic. ‘It must have been dreadful for her to lose her daughter, but we never saw her cry after the funeral.’

  ‘She was amazing,’ I said, tucking the date of Augustine’s wedding to the back of my mind as I turned to Ryan, keen to move away from talk of funerals and the risk of Dolly getting upset. ‘So, have you always been a writer?’

  ‘Actually, yes,’ he said. ‘My first words were “once upon a time”.’

  Charlie sniggered.

  ‘Funny,’ I said. ‘You should have been a comedian instead.’

  ‘God, no.’ Ryan grimaced. ‘I could never put myself out there like that.’

  ‘My grandfather was a comedian.’ Frank dabbed at his chin with his napkin. ‘It’s where I got my funny bone from.’

  ‘He is very funny,’ Dolly confirmed and Charlie and I swapped smiles.

  ‘I’m actually an accountant,’ Ryan said. ‘Or I was, until the book took off, and at the rate I’m going, that’s what I’ll be doing again in a few months’ time.’

  ‘I’m sure you won’t have to, once you’ve decided what your story’s going to be about.’

  ‘Did he tell you he’s got writer’s block?’ Charlie sounded surprised.

  ‘I might have accidentally seen a document I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Ooh!’ Dolly looked thrilled.