The 12 Christmases of You & Me

by Jennifer Joyce

  Lily and I are seated towards the back of the room, so we’re one of the first to see the bride and groom enter. Everyone applauds, and Jonas’s cheeks turn pink. He catches my eye but looks away again. I fear history has repeated itself and I’ve re-created the gulf between us. He couldn’t forgive me last time, so why would he forgive me now?

  But I’m still here so I still have time to fix things. I can’t give up now.

  THIRTY-SIX

  ‘It looks magical, doesn’t it?’ Lily’s gazing around the room at the tall vases filled with pink baubles, the garlands twinkling with fairy lights, the silver-tipped pine cones on the tables, and the oversized Christmas tree in the corner by the string quartet, almost as high as the ceiling and shimmering with baubles and lights. But my focus is on Jonas and Becca as they make their way through the ballroom, stopping to chat to guests as they sip their champagne. They’re almost at Lily and me.

  ‘If I ever meet the one, I’m going to get married at Christmas. I’d have mini Christmas tree centrepieces and little boxed mince pies for favours, because does anybody actually like sugared almonds? Yuck. And I’d have candles everywhere.’ Lily takes a deep breath then lets it out in a dreamy sigh. ‘Do you think you’ll ever get married?’

  ‘I doubt it.’ My eyes are still fixed on Jonas as he laughs at something an elderly relative has said. They’ve been chatting for several minutes now – when are they going to move on?

  ‘Don’t let Jonathan put you off men. He was a dick, but they’re not all like that. You only have to ask Becca. She’s found her perfect man, lucky cow.’

  I tear my gaze away from Jonas, detecting a dejected note in Lily’s voice. She’s currently glugging back her champagne, and I wait until she’s finished before I speak.

  ‘You’ll find your perfect man. And you’ll have your fairy-tale Christmas wedding.’

  Lily arches an eyebrow. ‘Are you a fortune teller now or something?’

  I shrug as I turn back to Jonas. ‘Or something.’

  Jonas and Becca have moved on to the next cluster of guests, and Becca is thrusting her left hand at them so they can admire her wedding ring. Across the room, Annabelle is running among groups of guests, tearing after the pageboy.

  I look back at the happy couple. And they do look happy. Becca is glowing as she chats to her guests, while Jonas looks content to watch his bride. A smile lights up his face as he listens intently and nods along to whatever it is she’s saying. He really does love her. It’s heart-breaking to watch when I know how it will end, but I can’t change that now. I can only try to limit the damage I’ve caused.

  ‘You’d think they’d have some snacks, wouldn’t you?’ Lily dumps her empty glass on the table and rummages in her handbag. ‘I’m starving. When do you think we’ll eat?’

  ‘I’m not sure. They haven’t greeted half of their guests yet, so it could be a while.’

  ‘Great.’ Lily closes her handbag and folds her arms. ‘And I haven’t even got a Polo to keep me going.’

  ‘Here.’ Opening my own handbag, I take out one of the little boxes of raisins I used to carry at all times when Annabelle was little, and Lily pounces on them.

  ‘Thank you.’ She presses a drawn-out, noisy kiss to my cheek, no doubt leaving a lipstick smear, before tugging the box open and tipping the contents into the palm of her hand. ‘This is why you’re a mum and I’m not. Well, this and the fact that my boyfriend is usually too sniffed out to get it up.’ She sighs as she shovels raisins into her mouth. ‘I’ve forgotten what sex is like. But do you know what? After Christmas, I’m going to bin William off once and for all, you’re going to ask your mum and dad to have Annabelle overnight, and we’re going out on the pull.’

  I nod, but I’m not really paying attention because Jonas is on the move. Placing his hand on Becca’s arm, he backs away from the group, leaving them to continue their chat as he turns and makes his way across the ballroom towards the exit. I look for Annabelle. She’s dropped to her hands and knees and is crawling underneath a table at the far end of the room. She’ll be fine for a minute or two.

  ‘Sorry. Won’t be a minute. Will you keep an eye on Annabelle?’ I point in the general direction of the table Annabelle has disappeared under before scurrying away. Jonas has already left the room and I don’t want to lose him.

  ‘Jonas!’ I spot him in the corridor, striding towards the lobby. He glances over his shoulder before coming to a stop.

  ‘You have to stop doing this, Maisie.’

  My heart sinks at his tone, until his face breaks out in a smile. ‘I really, really need a wee.’

  He isn’t angry with me? Have I stuffed up our friendship again, or are we fine after all?

  ‘Sorry, I just wanted to make sure we’re okay after earlier, at the church.’

  ‘When you tried to stop my wedding?’ Jonas smiles wryly. ‘Of course we’re okay. You had a moment of madness, that’s all.’

  I don’t have to look at Jonas to know he’s shoehorning indifference into his voice, to brush my faux pas under the carpet so we can carry on as normal. It may not be the best way to deal with the situation, but I’ll take it if it means we’ll still be friends when I manage to get back to the present.

  ‘You’re one of my best mates, Maisie Mack.’ Jonas is hesitant as he reaches out, and I think he’s going to change his mind, but he makes contact and places his hand on my arm. ‘Nothing’s going to change that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that.’

  Jonas whips his hand off my arm and I turn to see Becca striding towards us. She isn’t glowing any more, though there are two pink spots high up on her cheeks. She points at me.

  ‘She tried to stop our wedding?’

  My mouth flaps open and closed, fish-like, as I try to think of something – anything – to say. I watch Becca march towards Jonas, but my mind is a blank.

  ‘What the hell, Jo-Jo?’ Becca thumps her hands down on her hips as she comes to a stop beside her husband. ‘Were you going to tell me about this?’

  ‘No, because I knew you’d be upset.’ He reaches for Becca’s arm, but she twists away.

  ‘Upset? I’m not upset.’ She shakes her head and barks out a humourless laugh. ‘I’m livid that not only would she try to ruin our wedding day, but that you would lie to me about it. Is that how you want to start our marriage?’

  Jonas holds up his hands. ‘I didn’t lie.’

  ‘You didn’t tell the truth. And what now? You expect everything to carry on as normal? You expect me to carry on as normal, knowing what she did?’ Becca turns to me, her lip curling, and for a moment I think she’s going to lunge at me.

  ‘It wasn’t done maliciously.’ Jonas takes Becca’s elbow. Perhaps he fears she’s about to go for me too.

  ‘It feels pretty malicious to me. She tried to stop you from marrying me! Why would she do that? What have I ever done to her?’

  ‘Nothing. You’ve done nothing wrong.’ Jonas releases Becca’s elbow so he can drape his arm around her shoulders and pull her close. ‘This wasn’t about you. It was about… Nothing, really. It was a mistake. A big, silly mistake.’ Jonas catches my eye and I can almost hear him begging me to leave it at that. To keep quiet so I can’t cause a bigger fuss than I already have.

  ‘But what if she’d got you to walk away?’ Becca shrugs herself free of Jonas and throws her hands in the air. ‘Do you realise how much money and effort has gone into this wedding?’

  ‘But I didn’t walk away, did I? Because I love you. We’re married and we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together. That’s the important thing. We can put all this behind us, can’t we?’

  Becca takes a couple of steps away and folds her arms, her back to us. ‘Fine. We need to go back in there right now, because my dad wants to make his welcome speech before Grandad nods off. Jetlag’s a killer for him these days, poor thing. And we’ll have a lovely evening celebrating our wedding day. And after that, we’ll have nothing to do with he
r. Got it?’

  She doesn’t wait for a response, but continues her march back to her wedding reception, her chin defiantly thrust into the air.

  ‘She doesn’t mean it.’ Jonas waits until his wife has disappeared before he speaks. ‘She’s just upset.’

  But I know Becca does mean what she says. This didn’t happen originally; it was Jonas who was angry at me for trying to stop his wedding, Jonas who cut me out of his life. But I know that when I return to the present, I’ll be right back where I was before. Out of Jonas’s life, again.

  It’s the photographer who sends me back, towards the end of the evening. We’ve eaten what should have been a delicious meal but to me it tasted like cardboard. We’ve listened to touching and amusing speeches, and I’ve had to endure the agony of witnessing the bride and groom’s first dance as a married couple. I don’t even see the photographer looming with the camera until the last second, but the blinding light is a blessing, even if I am greeted by the hangover from hell when I try to sit up in bed.

  It isn’t my bed, I quickly realise, and my hangover isn’t caused by all the wine I poured down my throat at the wedding. I’m in Lily’s spare bedroom, and my pounding headache and nausea are a consequence of the hen night last night.

  I try to sit up again, more slowly this time. Although my stomach swirls, I don’t retch. With careful baby steps, I manage to make it downstairs, where I find Lily sprawled on the living-room floor, one leg resting on the sofa and her willy headband on the end of her nose. When I manage to wake her, she’s in an even worse state than I am.

  ‘I think I’m still drunk,’ she tells me once she’s showered and changed. She eases herself down onto the sofa, one hand held to her head while the other reaches for the plate of toast I’m offering.

  ‘We’ll get a taxi over to my mum and dad’s. If you’re still up for Sunday lunch?’

  Lily pauses, a triangle of toast suspended between the plate and her mouth. ‘When have I ever turned down your mum’s Sunday lunch? I’ll be fine once I’ve had this toast and the paracetamol kicks in, you’ll see.’

  I wish I had Lily’s faith in toast and painkillers, but I know it isn’t just the aftermath of the hen night that’s making me feel so rotten. Tomorrow, my hangover will be gone but I’ll still be heartbroken that I managed to mess everything up with Jonas all over again. My new memories tell me I was right to disbelieve Jonas’s last words to me. Becca did mean what she said. I was cut from Jonas’s life as soon as their wedding day was over. I wasn’t even on their Christmas card list, and even after they divorced, we didn’t manage to paper over the cracks of our friendship. I still haven’t seen Jonas for two years.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I was expecting to travel back again as I crawled into bed that evening, but I woke up the following morning without so much as dipping my toe into the past, and I don’t travel back the following evening, or the one after that. When almost a week has passed without nipping back in time, I start to accept that this is it. My foray into time-travel has come to an end and I’ve squandered the opportunity to change events. As the days go by, I start to question the whole time-travel thing all over again. Maybe I didn’t go back at all. It’s much more likely that it was my imagination, coupled with the stress of Christmas, making me relive these scenarios, torturing myself over the mistakes I made. Mistakes I could never really put right.

  Maybe I should see a therapist.

  ‘Morning, Barry.’ I lift a hand in greeting before plunging it into the bowl of chocolates on the reception desk at Woodlands, plucking out a strawberry cream. I’ve been eating a lot of junk over the past few days, pushing down my emotions with confectionery, which is easily done at this time of year. I know I should resist, that shoving sugary treats into my mouth isn’t going to solve my issues, but I’m already untwisting the bright, shiny red wrapper and popping the chocolate into my mouth.

  ‘Melanie Baker’s here.’ Barry nods towards the waiting area as he also reaches into the bowl of chocolates. I wonder if he’s suppressing emotions too, or whether it’s simply too hard to resist snacking on chocolate when they’re on your desk, tempting you with their brightly coloured wrappers.

  ‘Sorry. I’m early again.’ Melanie pulls the sleeves of her parka down over her hands. ‘Livvy’s started going to breakfast club by herself. Doesn’t want me hanging around, watching her like a hawk.’ There’s a flicker of a smile on Melanie’s face, but it has little conviction and it soon vanishes again. ‘I suppose that’s a good thing. That she’s feeling confident enough to go without me?’

  I nod as I furiously chew the chocolate, swallowing it quickly. ‘Absolutely.’ There’s a sugary film coating my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I could really do with a cup of coffee, but I don’t want to leave Melanie fretting in reception. ‘Shall we go up?’

  We head up to my office, where I make do with filling a cup with water from the dispenser in the corridor. Melanie seems even more agitated than usual as we begin our session. She can’t seem to sit still, and when her hands aren’t tucked up in the sleeves of her jumper, her fingers are in her mouth as she works on removing her entire fingernails with her teeth.

  ‘How did the nativity go? Did you manage to sort out the issues with the dress?’

  Melanie smiles. It’s a tiny smile, but I see the upward flicker of her lips as she reaches for her cup of water, and it’s the closest I’ve seen my client come to contentment since she first walked into my office a year ago. ‘She loved the new dress with the sleeves. Adored it. I had to wrestle it off her so she could have a bath.’

  ‘That’s good.’ I watch as Melanie pulls the sleeves of her jumper over her hands and tucks them under her thighs, her smile a distant memory.

  ‘You seem quite agitated this morning, Melanie.’

  She nods, the movement rapid, repeated over and over again. ‘It’s the last day of term before Christmas, but I’m not ready. I haven’t bought all of Livvy’s presents yet, and I still need to pick her bike up. My dad’s going to do it, but he’s working until Christmas Eve. What if the shop closes before he gets there?’

  ‘Do you know what time the shop closes on Christmas Eve?’

  Melanie nods, chomping away at her nails. ‘Four. I’ve checked, like, a million times. In case it changes.’

  ‘And what time does your dad finish work that day?’

  Melanie takes the small pendant dangling from a fine chain around her neck between her thumb and index finger and moves it up and down the chain. ‘Twelve. They finish early, because it’s Christmas Eve.’

  ‘That gives him four hours. Is he far away from the shop?’

  Melanie shakes her head. The pendant is still zipping up and down the chain. ‘About ten minutes away.’ She drops the pendant and leans towards me. ‘But what if something happens on the way? A car crash or something? Or really bad snow and they close the roads? Or something could happen at the shop. A fire or something.’

  She’s getting agitated at the thought of these imaginary scenarios.

  ‘Do you remember when we talked about catastrophising?’

  Melanie nods, swinging the pendant up and down its chain again.

  ‘How likely do you think any of those scenarios are?’

  Melanie shrugs, but her breathing has started to regulate itself. Her shoulders are no longer bouncing and she’s losing the wild, wide-eyed look.

  ‘Isn’t it more likely that your dad will finish work early, pop along to the shop and pick up Livvy’s bike in plenty of time?’

  ‘I guess so.’ Melanie drops the pendant and crosses her arms, tucking her hands under her armpits. ‘I just want this Christmas to be perfect, to make up for last year. It was horrible. Daniel wouldn’t get out of bed until lunchtime – he was hungover after getting home from his mate’s at four in the morning – and he’d knocked the tree over, by accident, he said, so on Christmas morning Livvy found it on the living-room floor, broken decorations everywhere. I didn’t want to make her
wait so long to open her presents, so I let her open a few of the small things while we waited for Daniel to get up, but that pissed him off and he went off on one and chucked the rest of her presents onto the front lawn. And it went downhill from there.’ Melanie smiles wryly. ‘So I wanted to make up for it this year, to give Livvy the best Christmas.’

  ‘She’s safe and happy, and so is her mum. That’s all that will matter to her. The presents are just a bonus.’

  Melanie untucks her hands and lets them rest on her lap. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I’m certain of it. You can’t change the past, Melanie. All you can do is move forward.’

  Those words echo around my mind long after Melanie has left the centre. Long after I’ve left the centre. They’re still rattling around my brain when I drop Annabelle off at my parents’ and drive to Lily’s. I think of those words as we pamper ourselves with face masks and manicures then veg out on the sofa to watch Four Weddings and a Funeral. I can’t change the past – I’ve tried, and I’ve still ended up in the same situation. All I can do is move forward. Lily is getting married tomorrow. Jonas will be there so I can try to put things right, properly this time. I’ll start by apologising for behaving so badly at his wedding (what was I expecting, dumping my feelings on him minutes before he was due to take his vows?) and hopefully we can start afresh. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned over these past few weeks, it’s that I miss my best friend and I need him in my life again.