One Perfect Christmas (7 page)

Joe, who has been looking up at me with delight, realises that something is wrong. But to his credit, he turns his attention to the other side of the river and lets me be.

We pass under the bridge and I try to swallow the lump in my throat as I point at the Wren Library.

‘It has some original
Winnie The Pooh
manuscripts,’ I blurt out. I used to be able to say this far more eloquently.

‘Fucking ace,’ Joe says to make me giggle. It works. I take a deep breath and nod towards St John’s on the other side of the river, continuing the tour in full.

‘Do you want to have a turn?’ I ask him after we’ve passed under the Bridge of Sighs. We’re almost at the Magdalene Bridge punting station.

He hesitates before making to stand up. ‘Sure, why not?’

I carefully step down from the back of the boat and we swap positions. He follows my directions as I say them out loud. ‘Stand sideways to the edge, looking forward. Bring the pole up
until it’s almost clear of the water. Keep it vertical!’ I tell him. ‘Now, shift your weight over your front leg and let the pole drop through your fingers until it hits the
bottom.’

He pushes along naturally.

‘Let the pole float up and use it as a rudder,’ I direct him. ‘You’re doing really well!’ I say with glee after a minute or so.

He flashes me a grin, but he’s trying hard to concentrate.

‘Did you like the tour?’ I ask, relaxing slightly now that I can see he’s got the hang of it. Much quicker than I ever did, that’s for sure. But I knew that he would.

‘Loved it,’ he tells me. ‘I can’t get over the history of this place – and the fact that you still remember it all! It’s awesome. No wonder you wanted to
stay.’

‘I love living here,’ I admit.

‘Would you ever want to move to Dorset?’ he asks casually.

I cock my head to one side. ‘I’ve never really thought about it. I’d like to spend more time there, for sure. It would be nice to go there for part of the summer holidays
again.’

We went there in the June half term last year, after he’d returned from Australia. Things hadn’t been brilliant when I’d left him at Easter in the freakishly stunning hands of
Michelle Bleech, and then there was that interaction with Lukas at my house, when I had to admit to myself that I still loved him. My next few satellite conversations with Joe had been tense. We
agreed to meet in Dorset after he’d finished filming, just for a week to get away from it all. And it had been bliss. Just what we needed.

‘So you think Dorset would be a good place for us to get a holiday cottage, then?’ he asks, glancing down at me as he lets the pole slip through his fingers once more and
rhythmically pushes away.

I screw up my nose. ‘I think I’d miss
our
cottage if we bought another one.’

He grins. ‘I hoped you’d say that.’

‘Why?’ I’m confused.

‘I bought
our
cottage. For you.’

‘
What
?’ If I were still standing up on the back of the boat, I think I would have fallen into the river. ‘But I thought the owners didn’t want to sell?’ I
called them a year ago to ask.

‘They didn’t,’ he replies nonchalantly. ‘But I got my lawyers involved like you suggested, and it appears they could be convinced after all.’

I abruptly close my mouth.

‘Happy Christmas,’ he adds with a grin which warms the cockles of my heart.

‘I really want to hug you right now,’ I say.

‘Come on, then.’ He opens up his arms to me and I get to my feet, gingerly stepping onto the back of the boat. We wobble slightly as we embrace, but it’s the happiest
I’ve felt, possibly ever.

‘Do I get a Christmas kiss?’ he asks me with a twinkle in his eye.

‘You’ll get more than that later,’ I promise, titling my face up to him.

We break apart, slightly out of breath.

‘I love you,’ he murmurs. ‘Thank you for giving me the best Christmas day I could ever have wished for.’

‘I nearly bought you a puppy,’ I tell him with a cheeky grin.

‘No way!’ he cries.

‘I figured it wasn’t the right time, though. A dog is for life and not just for Christmas, and all that.’

His face falls. ‘You’re probably right.’

‘But we’ll get a dog one day. Won’t we?’

He grins again. ‘Absolutely. Maybe once we’re married and have a houseful of kids.’

‘Marriage
and
kids, hey?’

He frowns. ‘Of course.’

I beam up at him and he kisses me again.

I see them out of the corner of my eye as Joe lets me go, the three teenage girls on the bridge. I freeze, feeling Joe’s confusion as he witnesses my reaction, and then he follows the line
of my vision just in time to hear their screams.

‘It IS him! It’s JOSEPH STRIKE!’

‘AAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH! JOSEPH STRIKE!’

‘IT’S JOSEPH STRIKE!’

Joe’s grip on me tightens as he holds me to him. More people appear on the bridge, keen to see if the girls, who are pointing and jumping around like lunatics, are right. The look on their
faces when they recognise Joe… It’s almost comical. But then I see some camera phones come out and I can’t help but give Joe a panicked look.

‘It’s okay,’ he says calmly, rubbing my arm. ‘It’s going to be okay.’

I take a deep breath and look up into his eyes, which are somehow smiling now. ‘Are you ready for this?’ he asks with a raised eyebrow.

‘As I’ll ever be.’

And then he takes my face in his hands and kisses me, while camera flashes go off over our heads.

Read on for a first look
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He’s smiling down at me with tears in his eyes as I say my solemn vow:

‘I, Laura Rose Smythson, take thee, Matthew Christopher Perry, to be my lawful wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward…’

I thought I would never feel like this about anyone ever again. Not after my first love… Not after the heartbreak and the loss and the trying to pick myself back up again… Then I
met Matthew, and I know that he has my heart forever: my perfect, gorgeous, adoring Matthew.

And then I wake up. And I remember that he’s not perfect. He’s so far from perfect that my heart could surely collapse from the pain that instantly engulfs me.

‘Sorry for waking you,’ my friend Marty apologises from beside me as she vigorously rubs at a damp patch on her jeans with a paper napkin. ‘Bridget knocked my effin’
drink over with her fat arse,’ she mutters, as I groggily come to. I look across at Bridget, who’s fast asleep and partially curled up towards the window, her offending arse anything
but fat. Feeling like I’m still in a dream – or, more accurately, a nightmare – I bend down to retrieve my bag from under the seat in front of me. Tissues are the one thing I
did
remember to pack. I would have forgotten my passport if Marty hadn’t reminded me.

‘Thanks,’ Marty says, as I use my Kleenex supply to help mop up the spilt gin and tonic on the tray table. ‘How are you feeling?’ She gives me a sympathetic look and
regards me over the top of her ruby-red horn-rimmed glasses.

‘Don’t,’ I warn, but it’s too late. The lump returns to firmly lodge itself in my throat.

‘Sorry, sorry!’ she says hurriedly before I cry again. ‘Here, quick!’ I take the gin and tonic that she’s proffering – what remains of it, anyway – and
throw it down in one gulp. ‘Think happy thoughts!’ she urges. ‘Think of the sun! Think of the sea! Think of the cocktails on the beach and all of the hot men!’

Bridget sighs loudly with annoyance at the noise, her back still turned towards us.

Marty purses her lips at me and I mirror her expression, tears kept at bay. For now.

‘Do you want another one?’ my friend asks in a loud whisper, pressing the call button on her armrest before I can reply.

‘Sure, why not?’ I nod.

‘I’m going to,’ she says, as I knew she would. ‘May as well, seeing as they’re free and all.’

‘Is everything okay, ladies?’

We look up at the air stewardess hovering in the aisle.

‘Could we get another couple of these, please?’ Marty asks.

‘Gin and tonic?’ the air stewardess asks frostily.

‘Them’s the ones,’ Marty replies jauntily, adding, ‘snooty cow,’ under her breath as soon as the woman turns her back. ‘So I reckon, when we arrive,
we’ll just get in the car and drive straight up to Key West.’

‘Down,’ I correct. Her geographical knowledge is probably on a par with a seven-year-old’s, which is funny, considering her job as a travel agent.

‘Whatever. You don’t want to see Miami this arvo, do you? I know Bridge is desperate to go, but we can always do a day trip. ’

‘It’s six hours there and back,’ I remind her.

‘Well, we could go for a night or check it out on the return journey, something like that. What do you think?’

‘Sure,’ I reply. ‘It will be good to get to our hotel and…’

‘… And get into our swimming costumes and head to the beach-slash-bar,’ she finishes my sentence for me, although that wasn’t what I was going to say.

‘We could unpack first,’ I suggest.

‘No. No,’ she says firmly. ‘You are not unpacking. Not this time. On this holiday you are going to throw caution to the wind. There will be no unpacking, no trawling through
the tourist brochures, no writing of shopping lists, or anything like that. I’m not having it.’

I roll my eyes at her and say thank you to the air stewardess as she returns with our drinks.

Bridget shifts in her seat on the other side of Marty and sweeps her wavy, medium-length brown hair over her shoulder as she tries in vain to get comfortable. It’s been a long flight and
we had an early start.

‘Have you managed to get any kip?’ I ask Marty quietly.

‘No. I’ll sleep on the beach. Cheers.’

We chink glasses. Matthew’s face appears in the forefront of my mind and I wince as nervous anxiety swells inside my chest. I take a gulp of my drink.

‘Stop thinking about him,’ Marty snaps.

‘I wish I could,’ I reply, not taking offence to her tone. Anything but sympathy.

‘How long until we land?’ She changes the subject.

I check my watch. ‘Two hours.’

‘Just enough time to watch a movie.’

‘Good plan,’ I agree.

She reaches into the seat pocket in front of her for the entertainment guide and then presses the call button once more.

‘You haven’t finished your last one!’ I exclaim.

She sniggers like a naughty schoolgirl. ‘I know. I thought I’d ask the snooty cow if she has any popcorn…’

For all her bravado, Marty doesn’t last long before she falls fast asleep in the front passenger seat of our hired red Chevy Equinox. Bridget is driving and I’m
relieved because we’d barely turned out of the airport car park before we’d had two near misses – the drivers here all seem a bit nuts.

We’re on a long, wide, straight road heading away from Miami and towards the Florida Keys. I stare out of the window at the fat palm trees planted in the central reservation. It’s a
bright, sunny afternoon and in a rare, uplifting moment, I think to put on my sunglasses, but then I remember that I packed them in my suitcase and I can’t even be bothered to feel irritated.
It’s hard to care about anything much these days.

Jessie J comes on the radio and Bridget turns up the sound. We’ve barely said two words to each other since Marty crashed out. We’re not friends.

That sounds wrong. What I mean is, she’s Marty’s friend, not mine. It’s not to say that I don’t like her. I do. Sort of. But Marty and I have been best friends since
childhood. Bridget only dates back to Marty’s early twenties, when they shared a flat together in London. They’re great friends, but not old friends. When it comes to longevity, I win.
And yes, it does feel like a competition.

I wasn’t supposed to come on this holiday. Bridget is a travel writer, Marty, as I’ve already mentioned, is a travel
agent
, and between the two of them, they had this
holiday sewn up long before I came along and ruined it.

That’s not strictly true. Marty invited me. And Bridget couldn’t exactly say no, considering 20.10.12.

20.10.12. The date of my hen night, the date of Matthew’s stag do, the date that popped up on one of his Facebook messages just two weeks ago:

‘There it is!’ Bridget interrupts my dark thoughts with a gleeful cry.

Before she fell asleep, Marty challenged us to be the first one to spot the ocean. Bridget thinks she’s the victor.

‘That’s not the ocean, is it?’ I say doubtfully, although I think I can smell salt water, even through closed windows. ‘Is it a lagoon?’

‘A lagoon…’ From her side profile, Bridget looks thoughtful. ‘Do you know, I have never said that word out loud.’

‘Neither have I, come to think of it.’

‘Don’t suppose you have many lagoons in London.’ That’s where we live. ‘Or England, for that matter,’ she adds. ‘Probably the whole of Europe.
Mangroves!’ she exclaims, her blue eyes widening as they look at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘Don’t they grow in swamps?’

I laugh. ‘I have no idea. But swamp or lagoon, it’s still not the ocean.’

‘I’ll beat you yet,’ she says in what I
think
is a joke serious voice. Perhaps she’s more competitive than I thought.

We pass a palm tree farm on our left, followed on our right by a tangled sprawl of multi-coloured bungalows with boats in their backyards.

I’m struggling to keep my eyes open, but I feel bad about abandoning Bridget. She may have nabbed the driving just so she could sit in the front seat with Marty, but I won’t hold
that against her. Don’t want her to fall asleep at the wheel and kill us all – much as it’s hard to imagine how I’ll ever live with the humiliation of what my husband is
putting me through.

‘There!’ she shouts as we pass a huge expanse of water.

‘Nope,’ I shake my head. ‘Still a lagoon. Look, you can see land over there.’

‘Shit,’ she mutters.

I smile to myself. The sunlight on the water is blinding, but I force myself to look at it. I need some light in my life. The last two weeks have been
dark
.