Christmas Wishes at Pudding Hall by Kate Forster

DESSERT

32

Christa helped tie the last of the Christmas ribbon on the fudge packets in Petey’s kitchen. She had been wrapping and cooking all morning but they were happy with the amount they had produced.

‘It will be a bumper market for us,’ said Petey happily. ‘I haven’t had this much to sell in a long time.’

‘And I can’t wait to sell it all for you. Peggy said the last market before Christmas is always so busy.’

Peggy had called in to see them after Christa had texted stating she wouldn’t be at Pudding Hall. Peggy arrived early, before she went to work, to find them already up. Christa had barely slept, and Petey regularly rose with the first birdsong.

‘What do you mean you left?’ Peggy had said.

‘I can’t stay there with Simon,’ Christa replied then started to cry and Peggy tutted at her.

‘That mother of those boys has a thing or to work out,’ she said. ‘You can’t put a man before your children, I will tell you that much.’

Christa had cried again at the thought of the twins.

‘I think maybe I am overreacting. I mean, Marc and I weren’t really anything. We sort of liked each other but I am probably reading too much into it,’ she had told them, but mostly she told herself. ‘It’s probably a rebound crush, the first one you get with a new person when your relationship ends.’

Christa had noticed the glance between Petey and Peggy.

‘I don’t think it’s anything like that,’ Peggy had said. ‘I think there’s something there but it will be you two who have to work out if it’s worth pursuing knowing Avian and Simon will be a part of your lives.’

Christa had groaned and put her head on the table.

‘No thanks,’ she had said and she’d meant it. Nowhere in her future was Simon included, especially not her personal life.

Peggy had gone to work then and Christa and Petey had started to cook.

‘Let’s do a Christmas-themed line for the last market,’ Christa had suggested. They’d worked out what they needed for the ingredients and Christa had popped down to the shops and returned with beautiful Christmas ribbon in different colours.

There was peppermint swirl, cranberry and walnut, almond and cherry, and candy cane fudge.

Christa had bagged them all and tied them off with the pretty ribbons and had printed little cards inside listing the ingredients, using Petey’s state-of-the-art home printer.

‘You are remarkable for your age, Petey, which I know can be taken as a backhanded compliment but I mean it. You still work, you take of yourself, you can manage technology better than me – not that that’s hard but seriously, you’re a catch,’ she said as she put the last bags into a box and wrote the flavour on the side.

Petey laughed. ‘I don’t know about that,’ he said, ‘but I am interested in lots of things. I think that’s why I come across as interesting, but I’m just interested,’ he said.

‘What about Peggy?’ she prompted.

He paused. ‘Peggy is a lovely woman, and very smart but I have only ever loved one woman in my life so I’m not sure I know how to love another. We are grand friends though.’

Christa listened. ‘I wonder if your wife would have wanted you to be alone all these years though,’ she said gently.

‘Well I’m not alone now – you’re here. You’re like a lovely daughter to me,’ he said.

The doorbell rang and Petey checked his wristwatch.

‘I’m not expecting anyone. You?’ he asked.

Christa shook her head. ‘Only Peggy knows I’m here,’ she said. ‘Want me to go?’

Petey was already leaving the kitchen so Christa finished tidying up as she heard the door open and she looked up and there was Marc.

‘Hi,’ he said. She felt her knees go and she sat at the table.

‘Hi,’ she answered.

Petey was nowhere to be seen and Christa wished he would come back and make small talk so then she could run out the back and climb the fence and never let Marc see her shame again.

‘We need to talk,’ he said.

She was silent for a moment.

‘I don’t know what to say to you. It was stupid bet and one I thought I would win but I was arrogant and it showed me I have been kidding myself my whole life. It always was Simon who was the star and I hid behind him because I was too afraid to do anything myself.’

Marc went to speak but she put her hand up to stop him.

‘And whatever we had, whatever attraction we had has gone since I made such an idiot of myself, but that was because of Simon, not because of you. I have some pretty serious thinking to do about myself and where I’m going in life.’

Marc put his hands up now. ‘Sorry, I have to stop you there,’ he stated. ‘Here’s the thing, Christa. You won.’

She shook her head. ‘No I didn’t, you chose Simon’s soufflé.’

Marc pulled out his phone and played with it. ‘Are you texting someone?’ she asked. ‘It’s considered rude to do that in the middle of a conversation.’

He handed the phone to her and pressed play on a video.

She saw herself leave the kitchen and then she saw Avian and Simon arguing and then him swap the soufflé from her oven to his and his to hers.

‘Oh. My. God,’ she said, replaying it and watching it several times.

She looked up at him.

‘God, I knew it. I put everything I had into that soufflé for you.’ She started to cry. ‘I did everything right and he did everything wrong. I had the eggs at the right temperature and his were cold. Everyone knows you get stronger peaks with room temperature egg whites.’ She threw her hands up and then slammed them down on the table.

‘I didn’t know that but go on,’ he said.

‘And he didn’t cool the chocolate before putting the yolks in. It would have tasted too eggy.’

She paused, trying to stop crying but she couldn’t stop now she had unbottled her pain.

‘I wanted it to be the best – the best chocolate, butter, eggs – everything was so carefully chosen…’ She hiccupped from crying. ‘And then when I stirred the chocolate as it melted I thought about you.’

He took her hand. ‘What did you think?’ he asked softly.

Christa sobbed, feeling every injustice Simon had ever put on her during their marriage. The gaslighting, the dismissive comments, the gloating when he got mentioned in a review, his teasing that was supposed to a joke about her weight, her clothes, her background.

‘I thought about love,’ she said, not self-censoring anymore. If she wanted to be brave in life, then she had to start right now.

‘I thought about the way you look at me sometimes, and the touch of your hand, and what it would be like to kiss you,’ she said. ‘And I know that probably won’t ever happen but I put love into that dish and I wanted you to know it, to taste it.’

‘To look at you like this?’ he asked and she lifted her eyes from the table to his.

‘And to touch you like this?’ he asked and swept her hair from her forehead.

She sat very still.

‘And to kiss you like this?’ He paused and she smiled a little at him, unsure if he was serious or not.

The touch of his lips on hers showed his sincerity and as they melted into each other, sitting at Petey’s table, Christa wondered if she was dreaming until there was a knock at the kitchen door.

‘Come in, Petey.’ She laughed, wiping her eyes.

‘Just got to get my bits and bobs and pop down to the pub,’ he said.

He looked embarrassed as he took his wallet and keys from the bench.

Christa looked at Marc and she saw his eyes searching her face.

‘If you need me to pick you up, call me,’ she told Petey, and she felt Marc’s knee press against hers.

Petey chuckled as he closed the door and Marc kissed her again, this time more insistent. Christa thought she had forgotten what desire felt like, but now she couldn’t stop grabbing his clothes, his hair, his face, his arms, his back.

Finally she pulled away. ‘We cannot do this here,’ she said.

‘Come back to Pudding Hall,’ he said, his voice husky, his eyes sparkling.

She shook her head. ‘I can’t go back while he is there,’ she said and she stood up and went to the sink and poured a glass of water.

Turning to Marc she looked at him where he was sitting at the table of Petey’s humble home.

He seemed entirely out of place in his fancy puffa jacket and expensive haircut.

‘Simon might seem silly and ineffectual to you but to me he was abusive. He made me doubt myself over and over instead of building me up. He was truly a horrible husband and even though I don’t like Avian, I worry he is a part of her life, because then he will be a part of the boys’ life.’

Marc nodded. ‘I have thought about that with the boys. But I can’t tell Avian who to date – just as she can’t tell me.’

They were silent for a moment.

‘I will sort it out,’ he said and he stood up. ‘I promise.’

‘Sort it out for the boys not for me,’ she said and Marc leaned in and left a lingering kiss on her lips.

‘What if I did both? Would you come back then?’

Christa laughed in spite of herself. ‘If you can do that then you’d be performing a Christmas miracle.’

‘Then get ready to be awed,’ said Marc and he left Christa in the kitchen, surrounded by boxes of fudge and the taste of him on her lips.