The Christmas Surprise (32 page)

Stephen took the first train to London. His old friend Piers came to meet him, as instructed, at St Pancras. They sat in a flashy champagne bar full of people shouting at waiters or into their phones or anything other than talking to each other.

Piers was as round and pink-faced as ever. Stephen had known him since school; he was an amiable bumbler, who had nonetheless managed to make an absolute fortune. His new lifestyle of extremely beautiful girls and eyewatering tabs at nightclubs where he didn’t even know who he was paying for didn’t look like much fun to Stephen, and it was starting to show on his girth and the broken veins across his nose.

‘So, crawling back to forget your principles?’ said Piers in a jolly fashion, ordering a bottle of the best champagne on the menu, even though Stephen was drinking coffee.

Stephen didn’t smile.

‘It’s all got a little more complicated.’

‘Thought as much,’ said Piers. ‘Women, huh, they’re
all the same. Did she pretend to be all sweet and innocent till she had you and now it’s oh buy me some shoes, let’s go to this restaurant, let’s fly to the Maldives? They’re all the same, grasping minxes.’

Stephen tried to think of the last time Rosie had asked him for something. He couldn’t. She never bought herself anything either. The only time she spent money was on Lilian, whose thin skin only responded well to cashmere, or M&S at a push, and who loved beautiful clothes.

‘Not quite,’ said Stephen.

‘Got her pregnant then? If they can’t get you one way, they’ll always get you another.’

Stephen screwed up his face and decided not to go into it.

‘I’m just … I was just wondering … I mean, if I was to start in banking … I mean, would it be too late?’

‘Let’s see,’ said Piers, draining and refilling his glass in a satisfied manner. ‘I could start you off, but you’d be up against the eighteen-year-old barrow boys and the weird maths quant geeks. It’s fifteen-hour days on the computer now. You’d start cold-calling, though. Fourteen, fifteen hours of cold-calling a day, to offload our absolute shit. Bonds and big bundles of crap we couldn’t possibly sell to anyone with a brain in their head who can read our small print or understand what we’re selling, which they can’t, because it’s also our job to
make it as obscure and confusing as possible. If you get good at selling toxic shit on some thick-ass pension funds in the north – no offence – we’ll put you on to better stuff. Defence firms, fags, all the slash-and-burn accounts nobody wants. Take it from there.’

There was a long pause. Stephen stared at his empty coffee cup. He wondered if Rosie had known that this was what would happen, and figured that she had. No wonder she’d been happy to let him come.

‘It was good to see you, Piers.’

‘Seriously, you’re going back to bury yourself in the country?’ said Piers, amazed.

‘I’d do anything to help my family,’ said Stephen. ‘But I cannot think of a quicker way to blow us apart than working like you guys.’

‘Great!’ said Piers, unperturbed. ‘Then we’ll be single men on the town again. You are ace at pulling. Even your limp seems to help.’

‘Thanks, Piers.’

‘What are you going to do, take a night shift at a chicken factory?’

Stephen sighed.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘And PLEASE don’t invest my pension fund.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it, my old mucker. I’m sticking all mine under the bed.’

Diane, Stephen’s therapist, put her fingers to her lips, then crossly put them down on her notepad again. Outside it was freezing; London was heavily weighted down with Christmas lights, swaying gently in the breeze. There was a massive tree in the lobby of the smart Harley Street offices, where the beautiful receptionist who spoke four languages had tidily ticked Stephen’s name off the list, and sent him straight up to the elegant room with its antique desk, expensive roped curtains and striped wallpaper. There was a couch, but Stephen preferred to sit in the heavy leather armchair, stretching his long legs out in front of him, stick by the side of the fire. Diane was trying not to look at his legs.

‘Do you think you’re subconsciously trying to sabotage this?’ she asked calmly. ‘So you don’t have to move?’

Stephen looked horrified, and ran his fingers through his thick hair.

‘Oh God, what kind of a monster am I? Do you think I’d mess with my wife and child just so I didn’t have to move
house
?’

‘That’s one possibility,’ said Diane. ‘Or perhaps you’re trying to delay making a decision of another kind …’

She left the statement open-ended. Stephen stared out into the frosty morning.

‘I …’ He swallowed hard, then took a quick intake of breath as he realised something. ‘I don’t want Apostil to be in hospital.’

Diane nodded, pleased.

‘And why not?’

‘Because … because
I
can’t bear to be in hospital.’

She made a mark on a piece of paper.

‘Because?’

‘Because …’

Stephen knew it was important to go through it, to say it; that every time he relived the accident, the hideous stench and horrors of the field hospital, the lives blown apart, every time he could confront it head on, the monsters of his imagination grew a little smaller.

‘Because I was there. I was blown up. I lost his uncles. I can’t lose him. I CAN’T lose him.’

There was a long pause in the consulting room. Diane looked at him levelly. He looked back, a slight twitch around his mouth.

‘Thank you, Doctor,’ he said.

‘Does Rosie think you’ll lose him? What about Moray?’

Stephen shook his head.

‘God, no, of course not. It’s a relatively straightforward operation.’

‘Hospitals will never be that straightforward to you,’ said Diane, glancing at her watch. ‘But I rather think you can deal with it, don’t you?’

Stephen nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly.

‘You’re …’ Diane never talked on a personal level to her clients, but she couldn’t stop herself as he hauled himself out of the chair to go. Two tiny spots of pink appeared on her high cheekbones, but you would have had to be very close to her to see them. ‘You’re doing well,’ she said, then cursed herself for it.

‘Thank you,’ said Stephen, an unexpected smile lighting up his face. He felt better already. ‘Merry Christmas.’

Rosie, on the other hand, had lain awake half the night, alternately furious, and paranoid that Joy was going to activate something terrifying at social services and come and take Apostil away.

After kissing Apostil a lingering goodbye and handing him over to Mrs Laird to look after, she marched down the street, her boots crunching through the snow. She could tell from the cutting wind on her cheeks that it was freezing, but although she hated to admit it, inside her despised waxed jacket she was warm as toast. She sighed. Oh well. At least
she
knew, even if her shadow on the snow looked uncomfortably like a yeti.

‘Hey there,’ she said, falling into step with Edison and his family.

‘Hello, Rosie!’ said Edison, slipping a mittened hand in hers. She squeezed it.

‘Hey, you,’ she said. ‘Where are you off to?’

‘To school!’ he said cheerfully. ‘We’re doing a Great Big Secret Thing! I can’t tell you what it is.’

Rosie looked at him.

‘That’s not very secret.’

‘Secrecy is tyrny,’ said Edison.

Hester glanced over.

‘Where’s your baby?’ she enquired.

‘I sent him to the amusement arcade with a cupful of two pees,’ said Rosie. ‘Is that wrong?’

Hester frowned.

‘I thought you were doing attachment parenting.’

The gigantic Marie, who was nearly one, was wriggling and squirming in her tight sling, grabbing handfuls of her mother’s hair and kicking her in the stomach to indicate her fervent desire to escape.

‘Um, no, just regular.’

Rosie tickled Marie, who instantly raised her pudgy little fists in a gesture that unambiguously meant ‘GET ME OUT OF HERE.’

‘She looks lively,’ said Rosie, smiling and caressing Marie’s round rosy cheeks.

‘She’s very calm and centred, actually,’ said Hester. ‘We use baby massage and baby sign.’

Marie bit Rosie’s finger.

‘Ooh, what’s that the sign for?’

‘“Don’t invade my personal space”,’ said Hester. ‘I don’t know anyone who likes getting fingers pointed in their face, do you?’

‘No,’ said Rosie.

Edison squeezed her hand.

‘I really do want to tell you my most big and exciting surprise.’

‘Really?’ said Rosie. ‘Am I in it?’

‘Yes!’ said Edison. ‘And the other woman who—’

Rosie hushed him and crouched down in the snow. Her new jacket really was amazing.

‘It would be,’ she said, ‘a real gift to me and a real delight if you would consider not spoiling the surprise, Edison.’

He blinked behind his glasses.

‘Only if we have secrets, is bad.’

‘For some things,’ said Rosie. ‘Do you think you could possibly make an exception just for me?’

Edison was nothing if not kind.

‘Of course for you,’ he said.

Hester gave a big sigh.

‘I’m trying to teach him about WikiLeaks,’ she said. ‘So thanks for setting that back.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Rosie as they reached the school gates. ‘Have a good day, you guys!’

Edison waved and walked in to join his great friend
and acolyte Kent, and Rosie said hello to the mums milling around and felt a little cheered. Most of them asked her about the wedding – it seemed Tina and Jake had invited pretty much the entire village, and Rosie felt nearly as nervous and excited as her friend.

At the scout hut, there was a large truck backed up in front of the door, big black track marks through the pristine white snow. All around, the branches of the trees were piled high; every so often, with a splash, some would fall off. Rosie looked up with trepidation.

‘Is that going to fall on the bride?’

‘You want me to personally polish all the snow off the branches?’ said Jake, emerging from behind the truck and smiling.

‘No,’ said Rosie, giving him a hug. ‘What’s the lorry for? Stephen’s bringing the champagne down later.’

‘Tina’s cousin worked at the hotel. She managed to save all their Christmas decorations from the basement and got them sent over, along with some extra chairs. They’ve been really helpful, considering their boss is going to prison for arson and they’ve all lost their jobs.’

‘Wow,’ said Rosie. ‘That really is amazing.’

Sure enough, from out of the lorry two men were bringing rows and rows of fairy lights, great big tough, industrial ropes of them. There was power in the hut, but they’d also rented a spare generator to provide for
the heating and extra lighting, and everyone went to it with a will.

Inside, even though it was early, Mrs Arknop from the bakery had sent down jam doughnuts, and there was a large tea urn dispensing steaming drinks for everyone, but it wasn’t that which caught Rosie’s attention. The large hut, with its plain plank walls and rough wooden floor, had been transformed. What felt like miles of thick holly had been hung in great luxuriant arches around the walls, and the fairy lights were already going up and being tested, creating great walls of shimmering white. Each corner contained a Christmas tree; they were being lavishly decorated – no wonder the hotel had been losing money, thought Rosie – with little rocking horses, silver bells, red ribbons and hanging gingerbread men for the children. Rosie would add her own supply of chocolate Santas.

Little clusters of seats and tables were being laid out, and a PA system was being set up on the raised area for speeches and the band. And there were, indeed, straw bales being dragged into a corner, Rosie was delighted to see, covered with tartan blankets. They were going to make an unbelievable mess, but they could worry about that after the festivities.

Tina wasn’t there – Rosie had sent her packing to Carningford to get her hair and nails done in anticipation – but her mother, Jan, was overseeing, very cheerfully. She rushed up to Rosie.

‘Thanks for all this,’ she said excitedly.

‘Oh, I didn’t do anything,’ said Rosie. ‘It was just lucky something came together.’