11

Christy

In less than half an hour they’d packed, locked the house and spoken to the builder who obligingly showed up to take the key and offered to give them a lift to the station.

“Local guy. One of the advantages of living in a small village,” Seb said as he stowed their cases and they settled into their seats on the train. “He’s going to do the work in between his other jobs.”

The cottage might actually be repaired before they returned home. Would that be enough to fix what was wrong inside her? Would it change the way she felt about the place?

Right now she didn’t care. With a touch of defiance, she texted Alison and told her she wouldn’t be attending book group. Maybe she did have a small rebellious streak in her, after all.

The closer they got to London, the more her spirits lifted, and when the train finally pulled into the station, she felt as if she’d come home.

Even this late in the evening the place was buzzing. An enormous Christmas tree formed a glittering centerpiece in the station, and a small choir was singing carols to an audience of impatient commuters.

Seb hauled their luggage into a cab, and they settled back in the warmth and watched the city pass them by.

They pulled up outside a boutique hotel by the river, and she looked at him in disbelief.

“Can we afford this?”

“I booked late. They happened to have a room. We came to an agreement.”

“And you’re the best negotiator.”

“I used to think I was, although apparently that skill has left me lately. Let’s hope that’s about to change.” He paid the driver, sweet-talked the woman at reception, and minutes later they were upgraded to a suite overlooking the river.

Christy knelt on the window seat and looked at the magical sparkle that was London at Christmas. “I can’t believe this view. It’s spectacular.”

“You see?” Seb dropped their cases and joined her. “Sometimes life chews up your plan and delivers something better instead.”

“This wasn’t life, it was you.” She stood up, put her arms round his neck and kissed him. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’m not done. Put your coat and hat on. We’re going for a walk.”

“Now?”

“Yes. We don’t have a sleeping child upstairs. We don’t have an agenda. We can go to bed when we like and sleep late. Right now we’re going to walk and grab some food.”

“Should we book?”

“No. We’re not booking.”

Instead, they grabbed a burger from a small café and ate it by the river, and even though her fingers were freezing Christy decided it might be the best meal she’d ever eaten.

“This is good.”

“I used to come to this place all the time after a late night.” He helped himself to some of her fries. “Probably too often.”

And then he’d met her.

She’d never wanted him to change, but somehow that had happened.

But for this moment, at least, the tension had left him.

“This was a great idea.”

“Hey.” He hooked his arm round her shoulders and kissed her. “That’s what an action hero does in a crisis. He books into a fancy hotel where the ceiling isn’t about to fall in. We should go back and share a bottle of champagne. I have a few ideas about what we can do with that big bed.”

It was true that this wasn’t how she’d planned the evening, but it had turned out well. Better than she could have hoped.

She looked up at him. “We could order salmon from room service.” She was joking, but a part of her couldn’t help wondering how many other things she didn’t know about him.

That was the problem with a whirlwind romance followed by the demands of a child and then the loss of her mother. They’d missed the discovery process, the slow uncovering of secrets that was part of every relationship. Or was it nothing to do with the whirlwind and everything to do with her? She’d constructed her life plan and slotted him into it, instead of building something together.

She leaned against the wall and gazed at the lights reflected on the surface of the Thames.

She hadn’t realized how much she loved this place until she’d left it behind. Why was it that when she’d lived here she’d seen only the bad, but now that she was a tourist she saw only the good? There was so much she didn’t know about Seb, but it was dawning on her that there was also a lot she didn’t know about herself. That part was more frightening. She’d wanted to move, but now she wished she hadn’t. Her carefully constructed world was crumbling. Christy didn’t know what to do without structure. She was hanging by her fingers from the scaffolding of her old life. She felt confused. All she knew was that right now, in this moment, she felt happy. And that was enough.

She turned to look at him. “Tell me something else I don’t know about you.”

“What?”

“I’m still shaken by the salmon. What else have you been keeping from me?”

“I’m not wild about beetroot, either.”

She laughed. “I’m not talking about food. I’m talking about other stuff. Big stuff.”

He put his arm round her and pulled her closer. “There’s not much to know.”

“Of course there is. What’s your earliest memory?”

“Trying to pull the tail off our cat and discovering it was attached.”

“Ouch.” She winced. “Did it retaliate?”

“No. She was a patient cat. What’s your earliest memory?”

She leaned against his shoulder. “Mine is weird.”

“Go on.”

“I remember shouting.”

“Shouting?”

“I told you it was weird. And my parents never shouted in their lives, so it makes no sense. I even asked my mother about it once.”

“And?”

“She said I must have imagined it.” She wrapped her scarf more tightly around her neck. “Maybe I did.”

“What were they shouting?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember the words, just the tone. So maybe I dreamed it.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it merged with another memory.”

“The earliest memory I recall properly was starting nursery school and being told to make a car. All they gave me was a piece of paper, so it seemed like an unreasonable request to me. Naturally, I cried.”

“Naturally. Does this story have a happy ending?”

“Yes. It turned out the woman said card, but her diction wasn’t great. So that was a lot of trauma for nothing. It took my mother two hours and a hefty bribe to persuade me to go back the next day. She was wearing a scarf, and I hung on so tightly I almost strangled her. But once I understood what they wanted I turned into a card production line. Everyone had homemade cards that Christmas.” She watched a boat cutting silently through the water. “Tell me about your Christmases when you were a child.”

“What do you want to know?”

“All of it. I want to know every single thing about you. What were your favorite traditions?”

“I don’t have any.”

“You must have at least one. Okay, I’ll go first. Ours was getting the tree. We’d wait until my dad was home from work and then all go together. And they always argued about the size. Mum wanted a small one that wouldn’t take too much room, but my dad wanted a giant one.” Thinking about it made her smile. “He always won, but it was the only thing he ever did win, so I think secretly my mother liked the big tree. Once we’d chosen one, we’d drag it home, and we’d pull out all the decorations we’d had forever, and Alix and I would have hot chocolate and dance to Christmas music while Dad did the lights.”

“That’s why you do the same with Holly.”

“Yes. Tradition, I suppose.” She felt a stab of nostalgia for that simple, carefree time. “Now it’s your turn.”

He removed his arm from her shoulder. “We didn’t do anything like that.”

She sensed the change in him. “You must have had your own traditions?”

“My Christmases weren’t like yours. Sounds like yours were like something straight from a movie.”

She thought about it. “Not really. Maybe it sounds that way when I tell it because I focus on the good parts.”

“There were other parts?”

“Yes. From the outside it was pretty perfect.” She thought about it carefully. Had it been perfect? Had it really? “The strain of trying to make it perfect, exactly how my mother wanted it, caused a lot of stress, to be honest. Life doesn’t always go the way you want it to, does it? There was the year the turkey was off, and then the year my dad blew the lights and we had to use candles. My mother wanted everything the way she wanted it, which put a lot of pressure on everyone around her.” And then there had been the difficult years after her father had died. “She micromanaged every single part of it. The house, the tree, the food—even me. Oh!” She felt a cold wash of horror as she confronted the truth. “I’m exactly like her. I’ve turned into her. I have lists. I get upset when things don’t turn out the way I planned—”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You need some planning in life, or nothing would get done.” He pulled her back into his arms. “You’re still capable of spontaneity. The fact that you’re here is proof of that.”

Was that true? She was starting to feel she didn’t know herself well at all.

Planning and control had steered her through tough times in her life, not least the death of both her parents. She’d thought it was who she was, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was what she’d become? What if the spontaneous, impulsive Christy was who she really was?

It was so confusing. She wanted someone to take an X-ray or a blood test and say, Yes, you’re ninety percent spontaneous, so go and be that person.

In her attempt to control her life and cut out the bad, the unpredictable, the challenging, how much had she missed?

She’d panicked when he’d thrown away her notebook, but now she was wondering if he’d done her a favor.

“What about you? Didn’t you do anything at all for Christmas?”

“My memories of Christmas won’t leave you feeling festive.” He released her, but this time she wouldn’t let him pull away.

“I want to know. I really do. Did you have a tree?”

He shrugged. “It was just me and Dad. I guess he didn’t think it was important.”

“You didn’t even decorate a plant?”

“My dad wasn’t big on plants. Something else to take care of, and he already had enough of that.”

Her heart broke for him. He had more in common with Alix than he thought. “It must have been hard for him, raising you alone.”

“Yes. Although, he wasn’t around much. He was working. Trying to feed us and keep a roof over our heads. Technically, I raised myself.”

“What about Christmas lunch?”

“We didn’t have a turkey or anything like that. I can’t remember even wanting one. Neither of us would have had the first clue what to do with it. I can’t even remember what we ate to be honest. Normal stuff.”

“Do you miss him?”

It was a while before he answered. “Yes,” he said finally. “Which makes no sense because he’s been gone for seven years, and it’s not as if we were ever really close.” He kissed her forehead. “You realize I’m saying this so you’ll feel sorry for me and try and make me feel better. And by the way, if you want to do that, I have a few suggestions.”

She leaned her head against his chest. “I like the fact you’re telling me things. I want to know everything there is to know.” Already she felt closer to him, and she saw that they didn’t do enough of this. So often their conversations revolved around the practical. Can you pick up milk on your way home? or Did you remember to lock the front door? Discovery conversations, conversations where they shared their thoughts, were thin on the ground. But maybe that was enough about his past for now. They had time. Plenty of time. “Tell me more about the job. Is it something you want or something to pay the bills?”

“It’s something I want. It would be my dream job, I suppose. Account director. Up-and-coming agency. Growing fast, which is good. Young team. Full of energy, and no sense of This is the way we’ve always done things. They’re keen to innovate. Digital media is key.”

“Well, that sounds great.” She felt a rush of optimism and also relief that he wasn’t taking something simply because he felt responsible for her and Holly. “Perfect for you.”

“The important thing is that they think I’m perfect for them.” He paused. “I’ve never felt like this before. It’s never mattered like this before. What if I don’t get it?”

She’d never heard him anything less than confident before, and it shook her. “I—”

“Forget I said that.” He stroked a hand over her hair. “It will be fine. Everything will be fine.”

What he was really saying was that he shouldn’t have shared his anxiety, and that was her fault because she’d somehow led him to believe she couldn’t handle it. But she could. She had to.

“I don’t want you to pretend or put on an act, Seb. I want to know what you’re feeling.”

He gave a crooked smile. “You probably don’t.”

“I do.” She could see he was panicking, and deep down she was panicking, too, and not only because their relationship still felt fragile and shaky. They’d been together for five years, and yet this felt new. Her whole life felt uncertain and unpredictable—What if he didn’t get the job? What would that mean for them?—and she wasn’t used to it feeling that way. She was used to planning every second of her day. To controlling how her life looked, to ironing out the ups and downs. She’d had a picture of what her life was going to be, and now it felt as if it was slipping away, and she wanted to grab it and fix it and keep it safe, but she didn’t know how to do that or even if she wanted to. Even the way they were talking, the thoughts they were sharing, felt new.

“You’ll get the job. I know it. I feel it in my bones.” She wanted to give him confidence. She wanted him to have that self-belief he’d had when they’d first met. She didn’t know much about exactly what he did at work, but she knew that he had to go into the interview believing he could do a great job.

She felt a coolness on her cheek, and she realized it was snowing. Just a few flakes, soft as feathers as it fell on her hair and coat, but definitely snowing.

“Seb!” She lifted her face and then her palms to the sky, laughing as the tiny crystals dusted her skin. Surely it was a sign? “Good things happen to me when it snows.”

“Let’s hope you’re right.” He turned and pulled her against him. “I’m glad we came here and did this. You seem different. More like the woman I married.”

She was the woman he’d married, wasn’t she?

She thought back to that time. Sometimes it felt as if her whole life had been mapped out and planned, until she’d met Seb. For a short time, before the baby was born, her life had been all about spontaneity and impulse, and it had been the most intoxicating thing she’d experienced. That moment of wild rebellion had felt so right, and only now did she see how quickly she’d reverted to her old way of doing things. The loss of her mother had made it worse, of course.

And now she had a choice. Did she want to stay in that safe, protected place she retreated to automatically?

No, she didn’t. She didn’t want to live life the way her mother had.

No matter what happens, Christy thought, however bad, however difficult, I’m not burying it. I’m going to confront it.

And she was going to embrace her spontaneous side.