Last Christmas Read online

Even though she’d hardly known Pippa any time at all, she’d been more of a friend to Marianne than these two had ever been. She might have spent her whole life in London and never realised what life was all about. Pippa had rung her to say that there was some traditional village football match going on on Monday. Her parents were flying out on holiday early on Sunday morning. Carly and Lisa had a host of wild parties to go to, to which she was invited, but where she knew she wouldn’t feel welcome. What on earth was keeping her here?

  Making her excuses, Marianne got up and left. Lisa and Carly made token noises about wishing she didn’t have to go so soon but, as she left them gossiping over a drink and busily texting friends to find out where to go next, Marianne ruefully realised that they wouldn’t really miss her any more than she’d miss them. Somehow, she’d clung onto these two friends from her past long beyond a point at which they really had much in common. It was time to live her life in the way she wanted to. A picture of Gabriel swam suddenly before her eyes. Pippa said he was likely to be taking part in this football match, which, if she was honest, was even more of a reason to go. It had been nice to see her family, but it was time to go back to where her heart now belonged.

  Noel woke up with the light streaming in through the open curtain. His head was pounding and his mouth was dry. What was he doing in the spare room? He lifted his head up. Bad idea. The room lurched in a rather alarming fashion and he had a sudden awful thought that he might be sick. Crikey. It was a long time since he’d had a hangover that bad. The events of the previous day came flooding back to him. He’d had a paycut. Had he told Cat he’d had a paycut? Somehow he didn’t think so. It didn’t matter that it was something that happened to thousands of other people every day. It didn’t matter that, as Gerry had told him in that hearty-fellow kind of way, it wasn’t ‘personal’. He, Noel Tinsall, had been utterly humiliated in the workplace. And at a time when he was feeling that his world was contracting, and there were fewer opportunities for him.Waves of self-pity and guilt swept over Noel. He didn’t know where they were coming from, he just felt utterly locked in his misery. What would a woman as beautiful, intelligent and attractive as Cat want with someone as worthless as him? He couldn’t blame her for hating him. He’d been an utter sod to her last night. His guilt about what had happened with Julie had made sure of that. God, he was making a mess of things. He was beginning to feel he had less and less to offer Cat. How would she react to the news of his paycut?

  Suddenly Noel couldn’t face the humiliation of telling her. From the very first moment he’d seen her standing at the bar in their student hall of residence, Noel had been swept away by her beauty and vivaciousness. Over the years neither had been dimmed, but how did she really feel about him these days? Noel sometimes detected a look of exasperation in her eyes, which never used to be there. Was she losing interest in him? And if she was, how would the news that her previously successful husband was heading for the scrap heap go down?

  No, he wouldn’t tell her, Noel decided. What Cat didn’t know couldn’t hurt her after all. And, by the time the eco town project was finished, maybe he’d have found himself something else or, who knows, he might even get that elusive bonus Gerry had promised him.

  The door opened and a frosty-looking Cat came in with a cup of tea.

  ‘You are still planning to come out with us for the day, I take it?’ she asked. ‘Ten minutes and counting.’

  Noel raised a smile he didn’t feel. What he wanted to do was crawl back into bed and stay there for a very long time, but he’d promised the kids. He felt enough of a heel as it was. He couldn’t let them down too.

  ‘Be with you in five,’ he said, trying a feeble smile.

  ‘You’d better be,’ said Cat, thawing a little.

  ‘And sorry,’ he added, ‘about last night. Being so late and everything.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘Well, it’s not okay, but I don’t want it ruining today. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Noel. He felt relieved, as if he’d been given a reprieve. But for how long?

  ‘Daddy, can I ring Granny Smith?’ Stephen was bouncing on Gabriel’s bed on Easter Sunday morning. ‘I want to wish her Happy Easter.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Gabriel always questioned the wisdom of allowing his son to ring his maternal grandmother. If she knew where her daughter was she never divulged it, and in her strangely dotty way seemed to think that somehow it was Stephen and Gabriel who had caused Eve’s problems, whereas, in fact, Gabriel could see now they had started long before Gabriel had ever met Eve.

  ‘Guilt, that’s what it is,’ had been Pippa’s assertion. ‘She knows she cocked Eve’s life up, but it’s easier to blame you.’

  But Gabriel couldn’t find it in his heart to condemn his mother-in-law. Whether it really was Joan’s fault for abandoning Eve with her own mother every time a suitable new lover came along that had caused Eve to be so needy and fragile, he couldn’t say. What he did know was that Joan had suffered for it nearly as much as he had.

  ‘Granny, Granny, the Easter Bunny brought me three Easter eggs,’ Stephen was bouncing up and down on the bed, a bit bunnylike himself. How much chocolate had he already had? Gabriel had placed a chocolate embargo till after breakfast, but realised he had probably lost that battle already.

  ‘We’re going to church and the vicar said we’ll have an Easter Egg hunt.’ Stephen was explaining the day’s events to his grandmother.‘And then we’re going toAuntie Pippa’s. Can you come and see us soon?’

  Gabriel’s heart sank. Stephen always asked this. And the answer was always a negative. But this time his son’s face lit up. ‘You can? That’s brilliant!’

  Oh. That was unexpected. But what followed was even more so.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Stephen suddenly demanded. ‘Who wants to talk to me?’

  The look of expectation on his face suddenly turned to fury.

  ‘Well, I don’t want to talk to her!’ He flung the phone on the bed, and ran out of the room crying.

  ‘Stephen?’ Gabriel looked at his son helplessly, then picked up the phone. ‘Joan, what on earth is going on?’

  ‘Is Stephen still there?’ she asked.‘Only I’ve got his mother here, and she wants to speak to him.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gabriel stood in the bedroom, cradling the phone in shock.

  ‘Eve’s there?’ He couldn’t believe it. All these months with no contact, and suddenly here she was at her mother’s. ‘I thought you didn’t know where she was?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Joan. ‘She turned up out of the blue last night.’

  ‘Can I speak to her?’ Gabriel asked, and then wished he hadn’t. What was he going to say to Eve? How could he speak to her and not let rip the fury that had been building in him all these months since she’d gone? It was only now he was here, an inch away from having a conversation with his absent wife, having seen the devastating effect she was still having on his son, that he realised just how very angry he was. Maybe now wasn’t a good time to speak.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Joan, ‘she doesn’t want to speak to you.’

  ‘Oh.’ Fury turned to disappointment. How was it that Eve could churn him up so much, and make him feel so very confused, and yet still a part of his heart reached out to her, still he wanted to make things right between them? Would he never learn?

  ‘And Stephen doesn’t want to speak to her,’ said Gabriel. He wasn’t entirely sure that this was true. Stephen was in shock and had certainly reacted in childish anger, but Gabriel knew how often his son had sobbed into his pillow at night. Despite everything, he loved Eve. Gabriel suppressed a momentary feeling of unease—did he have the right to stop his son speaking to his mother? But then he thought about what she’d put them both through and anger hardened his heart once more.

  ‘I see,’ said Joan. ‘And that’s nothing to do with anything you’ve said to him, I suppose?’

  ‘It has everything to do with the fact his mother is
a flaky depressive who wouldn’t understand commitment if it hit her over the head,’ retorted Gabriel, his irritation at Joan’s jibe reigniting his fury. ‘I have done my very best not to badmouth Eve to Stephen. She’s done all that herself.’

  ‘She’s very sick,’ said Joan.

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Gabriel, familiar guilt piercing the anger. ‘But I can’t help her if she won’t help herself. And she can’t expect to just walk back into Stephen’s life like this. Tell her to stay away. For both of our sakes.’

  He put the phone down and walked down the corridor to Stephen’s room to find him lying on his bed, sobbing his heart out.

  ‘Was Mummy really there?’ Stephen asked. ‘Will she hate me for not speaking to her?’

  Gabriel looked at his son and, unable to bear the look in his eyes, for the first time in his life, he lied to his son. ‘No, sweetheart, Granny was mistaken. Mummy’s gone away and she won’t be back for a very long time. But I’m here, aren’t I? And I think we’ve got an Easter Egg hunt with your cousins.’

  Stephen smiled through his tears and reached out his hand to Gabriel, who closed his own over his son’s tiny one, then held him in a fierce tight embrace.

  ‘It’s you and me now, Stephen,’ he said. ‘You and me, against the world.’

  ‘You’re early.’ Cat’s mum greeted them as they came through the front door of the Georgian house in which she’d brought Cat up single-handedly, once Cat’s feckless father had left. Nothing much had changed for years. The grandfather clock, inherited from Mum’s grandmother, still took pride of place in the hall, the shabby comfy furniture from Cat’s childhood still retained its spot in the chintzy lounge, last redecorated circa 1990—‘I don’t care what other people think, I like it,’ was her mother’s response to Cat’s frequent pleas to get her to redecorate—and the oak-panelled kitchen, all the rage in 1988, retained its peculiar charm because it was Mum’s. Cat had learnt to cook here, on the Aga that stood in the corner. She’d invited friends back for coffee, had sat up having illicit late-night drinks with Noel when they were courting. Cat knew every nook and cranny of this kitchen, every one holding a memory precious to her alone. Despite having long since made a nest of her own, Mum’s house would always feel like home to Cat.

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ said Cat, looking at her watch, which proclaimed the time to be 12.30, ‘but you did say midday. I thought we were late as usual.’

  ‘Oh,’ her mother frowned. ‘I must be going mad, I could have sworn I said 1pm.’

  ‘We can go away if you want and come back later,’ joshed Noel, giving his mother-in-law a kiss. The children all piled in behind him, squabbling about who was going to get Granny Dreamboat’s attention first.

  ‘Now now, enough of that, Noel, I’m sure I can cope,’ said Mum. ‘Cat, if you could be an angel and just put the kettle on?’

  ‘Mind if I’m terribly anti-social and go and watch the Grand Prix?’ Noel asked.

  ‘Get away with you,’ said Mum. ‘You’ve been using my house like a hotel since you first met Cat. Why change the habit of a lifetime?’

  Noel laughed and went into the lounge with the children, who made themselves at home, as usual finding the various games and books their granny had thoughtfully got out for them. Cat relaxed visibly. Noel had been like a bear with a sore head all weekend and wouldn’t tell her what was wrong. After the events of Christmas Day, she’d been nervous about coming here. But, she reminded herself, your mum doesn’t wind him up like his does.

  ‘Anything I can do?’ said Cat, as she sorted out cups and a teapot, her mother never letting her get away with anything as uncouth as teabags and mugs. She knew the answer would be no—her mother was so capable in the kitchen, Cat barely got a look in. It was quite remarkable she’d ever learnt to cook in the first place.

  ‘You could chop the carrots, if you like,’ said her mother. ‘I haven’t quite got there yet.’

  ‘What, the greatest cook in the history of the universe has got behind?’ Cat teased. ‘I don’t believe it. First you’ve forgotten how to make pastry, now this. You’ll forget your own head next!’

  ‘That is a ridiculous thing to say!’ Mum snapped. Cat was completely taken aback.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I was only joking.’

  ‘Well,don’t,’said Mum tetchily.‘You seem to forget sometimes how old I am.’

  ‘Only because you do,’ laughed Cat, trying to lighten the tone. It was unlike her mother to be so stressed.

  ‘All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t be surprised if occasionally I can’t quite do everything I used to be able to do,’ said Mum. She looked rather wistful as she said this, and Cat had a sudden surge of panic. She did take her mother for granted, perhaps it was time she took care of her a bit more.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to be thoughtless. It’s just you’re always so capable and in control it never occurs to me that you can’t do anything.’

  ‘Who said anything about can’t?’ said Mum. ‘I’m not in my dotage yet.’

  ‘I—never mind,’ said Cat, turning away. Sometimes you couldn’t do right for saying wrong.

  ‘That was lovely,’ said Noel appreciatively, as he passed over his empty plate later. It was so restful at his mother-in-law’s, and a relief to get away from the tension he’d been feeling all weekend at home—tension, he didn’t have to remind himself, caused by his appalling guilt at his own selfish behaviour on Thursday night.

  Louise beamed at him with gratitude.

  ‘I’m so glad you enjoyed it,’she said.‘I have so few people to cook for these days, it’s a real treat to cook for you all. Though it’s unlike the children to leave things on their plate.’

  ‘The children have rather overindulged on chocolate,’ said Cat guiltily. ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘Which is why I didn’t buy them any,’ said her mother. ‘I have devised a Treasure Hunt in the garden, though.’

  ‘Treasure Hunt! Yay! Treasure Hunt!’ James and Paige practically leapt from the table, Granny Dreamboat’s Easter Treasure Hunt being the highlight of Easter Sunday as far as they were concerned. Ruby had only vague recollections from last year, and was sucking her thumb looking bored, while Mel was trying very hard to pretend that she was far too superior to let herself get carried away with anything so feeble. However, once in the garden, where, following weeks of rain, the spring sunshine was finally forcing its way out, she whooped and hollered with the rest of them.

  ‘Is this all I get?’ James came marching up to Cat looking thunderous. Normally Granny Dreamboat was scrupulous in providing prizes that were suitable for her grandchildren, but even Noel could see that he was far too old for the Thomas the Tank Engine he’d found with his name on. Even Ruby would probably consider herself too old for that.

  ‘Shh,’ said Cat. ‘Don’t be rude. Granny’s gone to a great deal of trouble for you.’

  James looked mutinous and was soon joined by Paige, who didn’t seem too impressed by her Barbie either.‘Doesn’t Granny know I hate Barbie?’ she whined, and Mel, who clearly thought that she was much too grown up for the Polly Pocket set that seemed to be hers, at least had the grace not to moan about it in front of her grandmother. Only Ruby seemed to be satisfied with her wooden pull-along duck.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Louise looked really put out. ‘I seem to have muddled up their ages. How did I manage that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Cat. ‘It’s easily done, we’re always doing it, aren’t we, Noel?’

  Noel was staring into space trying not to think about Thursday night. Cat dug him in the ribs and he said, ‘Oh, yes, all the time.’ He was fond of his mother-in-law and didn’t like to see her upset.

  ‘Look, let me give them some money and they can get something more suitable each.’ Granny Dreamboat thrust some money into Noel’s hands.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ he said, ‘it’s good for the kids to learn disappointment once in a while. It’s good for their souls.’<
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  ‘Is it?’ muttered Mel. ‘Gee, thanks, Dad.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said Noel firmly. ‘But, as I am such a nice, kind, wonderful father, if you all go and hide in the lounge for five minutes, I might just be able to arrange another Treasure Hunt.’

  ‘Dad, you’re the best!’ Paige threw her arms around his neck and Cat gave him a grateful look.

  ‘Yup, the best,’ said Noel, feeling like a fraud. ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Welcome back.’ Pippa hugged Marianne and ushered her into her home. ‘Have you had anything to eat? I’m just doing brunch for the sportsmen. You can be the first to try out my special new herby sausages.’

  Marianne let herself feel overcome with the warmth and generosity of her friend.

  ‘Oh, it is so good to be back!’ she said. ‘I love my parents dearly, but they were driving me insane.’

  Pippa dragged her into the kitchen where Dan was frying sausages for what appeared to be half the men in the village. Marianne had a surreptitious look to see if Gabriel was amongst them and felt a surge of disappointment when she saw he wasn’t.

  ‘I thought you said Gabriel was taking part in this great event?’ she asked in as casual a tone as she could muster.

  ‘Gabriel? I tried my best,’ snorted Pippa. ‘He was persuaded to take part last year, but then Dan accidentally sat on his head. The Monday Muddle isn’t his cup of tea. I’ve been trying very hard to make him change his mind, but I fear I’m wasting my time.’

  ‘Oi, who are you maligning?’ Gabriel came strolling in just then, holding Stephen’s hand. ‘I’ve decided to give it another go this year.’

  Marianne’s heart lurched, and she looked up to see Gabriel bearing down on her, his dark hair swept off his face, and his cheerful smile brightening his handsome face. Oh, it was good to see him too. She hadn’t realised how much she’d valued seeing him around until she’d been parted from him for a while.

  ‘Well, I’ll be cheering for you,’ said Marianne, with a smile. God, she hoped it wasn’t a girlish smile. Or that Gabriel wouldn’t notice how hot and bothered she had suddenly become.