She pushed through groups, towards the bar. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, in a small voice. ‘Excuse me. Excuse me. Could I just . . . ?’ People shifted resentfully. Nobody looked at her. Jo was used to having people looking at her. But she was not used to being single. Being a single 25-year-old with no baggage had been wonderful. Every encounter had been laden with possibilities. Now she was thirty-five and she had a son. And she wanted to turn round and walk out.
He was sitting at the bar, as he had said he would be. She knew it was him because he was wearing a red rosebud in his lapel. She stood next to him and tapped his shoulder. He looked up at her. At least he had the decency to look like his internet profile picture.
‘Jo?’ He had to shout to be heard above the music. She nodded.
‘You’re Malcolm,’ she yelled back.
‘Shall we go somewhere quieter?’
She nodded and they pushed their way back through the crowd. The street outside was quiet, and cold. Malcolm motioned down the road with his head.
‘There’s a sports bar this way. Should be OK maybe?’
Her heart sank. ‘I know a nice pub this way. Does good food.’
He shook his head. ‘Nah. Let’s do the sports bar. I wouldn’t mind seeing a bit of the footy if they’ve got it on.’
Jo had decided in advance that she was not going to waste a single evening, that if there wasn’t a flicker of a spark, she was going to walk away.
‘Actually, Malcolm,’ she said, ‘why don’t you go and see the footy. I might give it a miss. Nice to have met you, though.’ She walked briskly towards the main road, hoping to hail a taxi, aware of his eyes following her.
‘Crazy woman!’ he yelled at her back.
The doorbell rang. Greg, Charlotte and I looked at each other and laughed. The doorbell had been in place for three weeks. Nobody had used it, apart from us. Alice had pressed it incessantly for five days and had then forgotten about it. Callers still tended to stand and shout, or just to walk in.
‘It’s Martine,’ I said, smiling as I opened the door. ‘Come in, please. Merry Christmas!’ She stepped into the hall and looked around, raising her eyebrows and nodding at the improvements. I noticed the presents from Alice’s stocking all over the floor, and pushed some aside with my foot. We exchanged kisses and Martine handed Alice a small parcel.
‘Just a little present,’ she said.
‘
Merci
,’ said Alice, with a shy smile. She took it off into the corner and opened it.
I looked at Martine. She had been delighted when I had invited her over on Christmas Day. Even though her son and his family were coming for lunch, she had managed to come for an aperitif once she got the meat in the oven. Martine was a widow, and she knew everybody. It had never occurred to me that she might be lonely, and I vowed to call in on her more often.
Greg fetched four glasses of champagne. Martine giggled and put her hand over her mouth. It was half past eleven in the morning. I noticed that she had dressed up. She was wearing a brown and red printed dress, shoes with small heels, and lipstick. She sipped her champagne and imparted village gossip, which was not extensive. Apparently, Patrick and Mathilde’s younger son had just told them he was gay, but they were not heartbroken. There was going to be a new priest. Did I know whether the English woman in Aurillon was still seeing Didier? Valerie was very upset.
I wished I had made an effort to buy something smart to wear. Everyone else looked wonderful. Alice was beautiful in a pink dress that Charlotte had brought out for her. It was Armani and she claimed to have bought it on eBay for a pittance, though I didn’t believe her. Charlotte, of course, was dressed to impress in a long corduroy skirt that followed the contours of her thighs before spreading out in what I thought might be called a fishtail style. This was pink, too, as was the tight knitted top she wore with it. Her hair was loose and sleek down her back. She and Alice looked like a mother and daughter from a clothing catalogue. Even Greg had managed to buy himself a pair of warm cords at the market, and he had teamed it with one of Matt’s old shirts. He looked surprisingly presentable.
I, on the other hand, had managed to remember not to wear my jeans. The black trousers I had got from Gap were a bit bobbly now, and they were far too big, but I was wearing them anyway as I had nothing better. The smartest top I had been able to find was a red and white maternity shirt, which was quite pretty but unmistakably baggy. I knew I looked weird. The clothes drowned me, and made me look almost anorexic.
‘A chocolate Santa!’ cried Alice, smiling at us all.
‘Father Christmas,’ I corrected her. I didn’t know where she had picked up ‘Santa’. Probably from one of her numerous DVDs.
‘
Merci beaucoup
,’ she said to Martine. ‘Can I eat him now?’
Charlotte and Greg turned expectantly to me for my pronouncement.
‘You can eat a bit of him now,’ I told her. ‘But try not to get your dress all chocolatey, hey?’
Greg and I took Martine around the house. She had known the house since she was a girl, and so she was better placed than anyone to comment on the changes. It was not, of course, finished, but we now had more than half of it habitable. The electricity wires were embedded in the walls, and many of the walls were plastered. The new kitchen was in, and the dishwasher had been connected two days previously.
‘
Mais . . . c’est super!
’ she said, looking at the oak units, the granite worktop and the Smeg cooker. I was almost embarrassed. I started explaining about the British housing market and the spare cash it had given me, but she was not interested. And I was well aware that the spare cash was almost spent, so I put it from my mind.
Then I led her into the new dining room. The back of the house, which had been dark, windowless and uninhabitable, was now a huge, tiled room, with two wooden supports running from floor to ceiling, like pillars, to hold it up. The ceiling was low and wooden, and supported by oak beams. The warm terracotta tiles made me realise how dusty and dirty the old ones had been. We had dragged the dining table in there that morning, and Greg, who had plenty of experience as a waiter, had already laid seven places for lunch. He had folded paper napkins, put side plates on the correct sides, and had placed the large candlestick in the middle of the table. There were several wine glasses each, because Andy had announced that he would bring different wine for different courses.
Martine stood and stared. She let her breath out in a huge sigh. Then she looked at me and smiled.
‘You have done very well,’ she said. ‘When you consider what has happened . . . I’m proud of you.’
‘It’s just a shame,’ I told her, ‘that now I have to sell it.’
Christa and Geoff had both tried their hardest to get Alice and me to come to Holloway for Christmas. I had refused to entertain the idea. I knew that Christmas was going to be difficult, but I was almost excited about it, too. At least this year no one was lying to me. I remembered Christmases past. Each of the previous four Christmases was tainted by the knowledge that, if Matt had been with us, he had been sneaking away to call Jo and Oliver. Last year, he had been with us in Brighton. I wondered where he had been pretending to be. I could imagine him, out in my back yard, leaning into the wall to avoid being overheard.
‘Darling, it’s me!’ he would have said. ‘Hot here in Hong Kong. And miserable. Sorry it didn’t work out for you to come too. I’ll make it up to you both when I come back.’
Then he would have slipped back into the house, and picked Alice up for a tickle.
The year before that, he had been unavoidably absent on a trip to Tel Aviv.
‘They don’t have Christmas there,’ he’d told me. ‘It’s just another working day, and we need the contract. I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you afterwards.’ And he had called us from Tel Aviv, and he had even brought us back lots of duty free presents. No souvenirs of Israel, I recalled. He had bought me perfume and chocolates, and Alice a toy plane and some British Airways teddies. You could pick them up anywhere.
That Tel Aviv year, I had taken Alice to Christa and Geoff’s for Christmas. Matt had suggested that I invite my family to Brighton instead. Now I knew why. He had been in Highgate. Alice and I had been in Holloway. That was far too close for safety. I imagined him refusing a Christmas walk on the Heath, and Jo asking him why. I remembered the first year we were together. He and I had spent New Year in Holloway. He had been jumpy and uncomfortable, and I had thought it was because he was shy at meeting my family. Perhaps he was, but it could not have helped that his wife was a few miles away.
Once I started thinking along these lines, the floodgates invariably opened. I made an effort to stop, and fetched the champagne to give everyone a refill.
Lunch was enormous, delicious, and lazy, just as Christmas lunch was supposed to be. Rosie turned up just before two, as instructed, and slipped her arms round Greg’s waist.
‘How’s the chef?’ she asked.
He stroked her hair. ‘Wonderful. Even better now you’re here.’
Andy coughed. ‘You two! Some of us are trying to be jaded. Stop being in love.’
I looked at Andy. He looked at Fiona, and away. She frowned slightly.
‘Is it ready?’ I asked brightly.
Greg nodded. ‘Mmm-hmm. Just doing the gravy. Why don’t you guys all sit down. Rosie and I will bring it in.’
‘Rosie?’ asked Fiona. ‘Are you filming today?’
Rosie shook her head. ‘Probably should be, but I don’t think an Xmas scene is essential. We’ve got Alice’s birthday. No, I’m thoroughly off duty. Which means I’m drinking, and it means anyone can do or say anything they like.’
‘Don’t say that,’ complained Andy. ‘Christ knows what could happen.’
Later, we were drinking dessert wine, and Greg was single-handedly tackling the chocolate cake that Alice and I had made. The phone rang.
I jumped up to get it. I wobbled slightly.
‘Not drunk, are we?’ bellowed Andy.
‘Not at all,’ I told him, wondering why the room was swaying. ‘
Allo?
’ I said, in my best French accent, into the phone. It kept ringing. I pressed the button to answer it, and tried again.
‘Hello . . .’ he said.
I knew that he was dithering between announcing himself as Matt or Hugh. My heart started thumping. This was the first time he had called in over four months. I backed out of the dining room, mouthing ‘Matt’ to everybody at the table.
I knew that if he wanted to come back, I was going to let him. I thought about him all the time, and I still loved him. It was the masochist in me; I could not help myself.
I shut myself in the sitting room.
‘Hello, Matt,’ I said, carefully. ‘I can’t ever call you Hugh.’
‘I prefer Matt, anyway. He’s a nicer guy.’
The comment hung in the air for a while.
‘Is he?’ I asked.
‘That came out wrong. I preferred being Matt. Oh, crap. This is never going to sound right. I think I’ll just stop. Merry Christmas, Emma.’
The sound of his voice, as familiar as if I had seen him yesterday, made me wince. I banned myself from thinking, or, worse, from talking about the babies I would never have, the wedding, the years we were going to spend growing old together in this house.
‘Merry Christmas, Matt,’ I said icily.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I know this isn’t easy. I’m very embarrassed.’
‘Oh?’ I asked mildly. ‘Poor thing.’
‘Are you being sarcastic?’
I lay back on the sofa. ‘What did you ring for?’ I stared at the ceiling beams.
‘Well, because it’s Christmas Day. I thought you might let me wish my daughter a happy Christmas.’
‘You can wish her a happy birthday while you’re at it.’
‘I know, I know. Sorry. I didn’t want to bother you both.’
‘Here’s a pointer for next time: most three-year-olds don’t object to being bothered by their parents on their birthdays.’
‘Misjudgement. Embarrassment. Sorry.’
‘You can talk to Alice in a minute. What else?’
‘Money,’ he said. ‘I need to support you and Alice. How much do you need to tide you over till you get back to England?’
‘Nothing,’ I said firmly. Then I remembered how little was left in the bank. ‘Perhaps something for Alice,’ I said quickly. ‘Not me. I’m an adult and I don’t need anything from you.’
‘But the least I can do is help you,’ he said. ‘I made you move out there and then all this happened.’
‘Oh, it
happened
, did it?’ I asked. ‘It just happened? What was it, an act of God?’
‘No. It was me. I did it.’ He sounded sheepish and lost. I imagined that the silly-me act was a time-honoured way of winning over distraught women.
‘I spent all my time trying to keep you happy,’ I said. ‘I wish I hadn’t. You were a moody fuck most of the time. I think I must have known, in some way, that you weren’t committed to me, that you were never going to commit to me. That was why I went for you. Because subconsciously I knew you weren’t available. There was Pete committing to me like crazy, and I couldn’t bear to look at him. Then you come along and you’re a bastard and unavailable, so I fall for you wholeheartedly and have your baby two years later. And now I know that Pete’s your brother and you
have
got a family. It was just lies and lies and lies. It makes me sick to think about it. Do your parents even know they’ve got a granddaughter yet?’
‘Mmm. Unfortunately, they heard it from Jo. Go on then. Why was it that you were waiting for a bastard to come along and ruin your life?’
‘Probably because I didn’t think I was worthy of anything more. I hated Pete because he treated me like a goddess and I knew I wasn’t one. You were what I wanted because you reinforced my lack of self-esteem. You didn’t think I was worth a proper relationship either. Christ. Your parents heard about Alice from Jo. That says it all.’
‘Pete was right, though. You
are
a goddess.’ He sounded matter-of-fact as he said it.
‘What?’ I wavered for a moment, then pressed the button to cut him off. He had called me a goddess, and I was in danger of losing my composure. I sat and stared at the phone, waiting for it to ring. When he did, I took it through to the dining room, still ringing, and handed it to Alice.