The Night Before Christmas (20 page)

Joanna was obviously a little put out by Lydia’s decision to go with her best outfit tonight, and at the risk of being upstaged had managed to slip upstairs some time between carols and beans, and change into a stunning white and silver shift dress.

‘I bet that dress cost more than my entire wedding,’ Alex said as Joanna reappeared, framing herself in the doorway for a moment, for maximum effect.

‘Start as you mean to go on, I always say,’ Joanna
said, winking at Jackson, whose smile in return was a little reserved, a fact Lydia noticed didn’t escape Joanna. ‘Do you like?’ she asked him coquettishly.

‘You look lovely,’ he told her. ‘Like a Christmas angel.’

‘Like the fairy on top of the tree, more like,’ Alex grumbled, holding her side. ‘What? You all look like models and I’m wearing a tent. A tent with sequins on, admittedly. I’m in hell, over here.’

Quite soon after the children had gone willingly to bed, a little later than usual in the hopes that sheer exhaustion would get them off to sleep, the wine ran out.

‘There appears to be a distinct lack of alcohol down here,’ Jim said, peering into his empty glass as if he’d merely mislaid its contents. And I’m certainly not drunk enough. It’s fast becoming a family tradition that I should have a truly terrible hangover on Christmas Day so that the kids can make it a hundred times worse when they jump on top of me at dawn. I must have more booze, now!’

‘Well, our heating might be dodgy and our cookery implements are rather lacking, but wine is one thing we have in abundance,’ Katy said. ‘I’ll go down to the cellar and get some.’

‘Let me,’ Jackson said, waving down Katy’s protest. ‘Listen, I’ve spent my whole visit here letting you guys run around after me. I can fetch a bottle of wine.’

‘Or five,’ Jim instructed him.

Lydia caught his eye as he slipped out of the room, sensing that he wanted her to find a reason to follow him. Perhaps it was the wine she’d drunk already, or the heady exhilaration of knowing Will was just across the table from her, but she thought she saw the perfect moment to set things straight with Jackson for good, and to finally extricate herself from this whole complicated mess.

‘Just off to powder my nose,’ she said, a couple of minutes after Jackson had left. ‘Back in a mo.’

‘Are you sure?’ Alex caught her hand as she edged behind her chair.

‘What are you, the wee police?’ Lydia rolled her eyes, and set off to find Jackson, unaware that Joanna’s eyes were glued to her back.

Jackson was waiting at the foot of the cellar stairs, leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets.

‘What took you so long?’ He smiled as she made her way down the uneven steps, holding out a hand to help her down the last couple. ‘God, it seems like an age since last night. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you all day, and you weren’t here.’ Jackson kissed her hand. ‘Joanna made me walk up a bloody hill with her, and I was mad with jealousy, missing you while you were with that Will guy. Look, I know it’s complicated, but I’ve been thinking we should just tell her …’

‘Jackson,’ Lydia said, interrupting him. ‘Jackson, listen, I think we should talk, that’s all. Seeing you here took me off guard. It confused me. I didn’t know how to feel when I saw you. The time we had together, it meant so much to me. And when you left so suddenly, I was badly hurt. I was so sure that you were out of my life, that I didn’t have any choice. I had to get over losing you. And then suddenly here you are and it’s like a dream, a lovely, confusing, scary dream.’

‘I know, right. Just like a dream.’ Jackson took a step closer to her, tugging Lydia a little closer. ‘A dream come true.’

‘But it’s not real, you and me,’ Lydia went on. ‘We had this most amazing romance, and it was lovely. But it’s over. It’s been over for a really long time. I know now that I want it to stay that way.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ Jackson breathed into her ear, insistent, persistent. ‘You didn’t come to dinner dressed like without wanting me to want you as much as I do, right now.’

‘No, I mean yes, I did. This dress isn’t for you; it’s for me. I don’t want you to want me. I want you to be with Joanna, and make her happy, and for us all to be friends.’ She smiled at him, taking a step towards the stairs, but Jackson moved to block her way.

‘Lydia, stop pretending.’ He grinned confidently. ‘You know you want to kiss me.’

‘No, I …’ Jackson’s mouth collided against Lydia’s
at exactly the same moment as Joanna walked down the stairs.

‘What the hell?’ Joanna shouted. Furiously, Lydia pushed Jackson away at the same moment Joanna dragged him off her.

‘Joanna, I can explain …’ Lydia began.

‘Why?’ Joanna asked, her eyes full of tears. ‘Why would you do this to me?’ Jackson gently touched Joanna’s shoulder, but she whirled round, slapping him across the face with all of her might, snapping his head back sharply. ‘I knew it,’ she sobbed. ‘I knew it.’

‘Knew what?’ Lydia was confused. ‘Joanna, there is nothing to know!’ Suddenly sober, Lydia’s heart sank as Joanna stumbled back up the stairs. ‘Please, wait!’ she called out, scrambling after her friend, turning her ankle over on her heel at the top of the stairs and sprawling on the floor as Joanna disappeared towards the dining room. ‘Joanna!’

But it was too late. Seconds later, when Lydia reached the others, Joanna was in Alex’s arms with Katy at her side, sobbing about Jackson and Lydia. She stared around the uncomfortably silent room.

Unable to look at Lydia, Stephen barged his way past her, pausing only briefly. ‘So everything you said, it was just guff, just hot air to cover up what was really going on?’

‘No, Stephen no – I didn’t want this …’

To her horror, Lydia watched as Will slowly got up,
walking past her too, without a word or a look. Stopping in the doorway behind her, she heard him address Katy.

‘Look, thanks for everything, but I think maybe I’ll get my stuff and go home. Give me a call in the New Year and I’ll give you that quote you wanted.’

‘Will, please …’ But he was already walking away.

Lydia closed her eyes for a moment. Will had thought there was something special about her, something magical, and for a while she even believed it herself. Now he, and everybody else, had seen her at her very worst. It didn’t matter that she had been trying to end any leftover connection between her and Jackson. What mattered was that she’d thought about being with him; despite Stephen, despite Joanna, she’d thought about it, and now she was probably going to get what she deserved.

‘We’ll be next door,’ Jim said, making his escape with David. ‘Let you girls fight it out between you.’

Lydia breathed deeply as she took in the sight of her three closest friends, in each other’s arms, standing united against her.

‘Joanna,’ Lydia said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘You, of all people?’ Joanna sobbed, raising her red, tear-streaked face to look at Lydia. ‘I thought, I thought I could trust you. I thought you would see how much I cared about him, how much he meant to me, and that you’d let me have him.’

‘Let you have him? This is crazy, as if I could take
anyone away from you!’ Lydia said, as Joanna buried her face in Alex’s neck.

‘I just can’t believe this,’ Katy said. ‘I can’t believe you, Lydia. You barely know the man. I mean, I know things have been rocky between you and Stephen, but making a play for Joanna’s boyfriend, in my house, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s just not you, what’s happened to you?’

‘Tell them,’ Alex said, flatly. ‘I told you to tell them, and said she’d find out. Tell them now.’

‘What?’ Katy looked appalled. ‘What now?’

‘She already knew Jack.’ Joanna sniffed, breaking free of Katy’s embrace. Lydia stared at her. ‘He was the mystery man she had that fling with, the summer before last.’

‘You knew?’ Alex was aghast.

‘I’ve known for ages,’ Joanna said, cool as an icicle.

‘When did you find out?’ Lydia gasped. ‘How long have you known?

‘Since I went through his phone, quite soon after we met. I found a photo,’ Joanna said. ‘Of you. After all that time, he still had this photo of you.’

‘And you didn’t think to say anything?’ Lydia said. ‘To warn me that I was about to spend Christmas with him?’

‘I really like him, I think I love him,’ Joanna said miserably, sinking down further into her chair. ‘You never really talked to me about what went on between
you and him. It’s always Alex you go to. But I knew that when it ended
you
were heartbroken. And here
he
was still carrying around your photo. I didn’t want to lose him. I thought if I told everyone how much he meant to me, how he was the first person I really could see myself having a future with, then it would stop you from going after him again, or letting him make a pass at you. Because you’re supposed to be my friend.’

‘Jo-Jo, I would have been shocked, sure, and probably upset, and if you’d told me how you felt about him, I might even have tried to warn you off, given the way he left me. But I would never, ever have tried to take him from you,’ Lydia told Joanna, who shook her head in disbelief.

‘Sorry, wasn’t that you kissing my boyfriend just now? Exactly how do you define taking a girl’s boyfriend away?’

For once, Lydia could find no defence for her actions. She had let Jackson kiss her, more than once, of that she was certainly guilty, even if she had been confused and reluctant.

‘Besides, I wanted to see how he reacted when he met you,’ Joanna went on. ‘And when he pretended he didn’t know you, I thought everything would be okay. I thought he was trying to protect me, because he loved me. But I was wrong, nothing’s been the same since we got here, and the more I’ve tried to get his attention,
the less he wants to look at me. He doesn’t want me, he wants you, and you want him.’

‘No, that’s not true at all. Jackson is the last man I want. You’ve got to listen to me, Jo …’

The heavy sound of trickling fluid spattering on the carpet stopped Lydia in her tracks. Bemused, Alex looked at her feet for a moment and then, clasping her hand to her side, bent over, a low moan of pain rising in her throat.

‘Alex,’ Katy said, staring at her carpet. ‘I think you are in labour.’

‘No shit,’ Alex said, and then she screamed.

Chapter Fifteen

‘Right, right,’ David said. ‘Well, what we need is, we need …’

‘Stop talking and call me a bloody ambulance,’ Alex told him, clinging on to Katy and Joanna. ‘I need a drink, is there any reason I can’t have a drink now?’

Jim arrived back in the dining room, his phone in his hand. ‘I called an ambulance, there’s no way they can get here by road and the winds are too high to get a chopper up right now, but they are on standby and as soon as the weather clears, they’ll come.’

‘This is your fault!’ Alex glared at Lydia. ‘This is all your fault! This baby isn’t meant to come for five more weeks, but oh no, you’ve got to go and get off with anything that’s got a pulse.’

‘Hang on a minute,’ Jim said, looking a little bewildered. ‘I’ve got this nice lady, Maxine, on the phone. She says to get you into bed and make you comfortable.’ Alex groaned again. ‘Maxine wants to know how fast your contractions are coming.’

‘Too fast,’ Alex cried, reaching out for David. ‘I’m frightened, David, the baby is not ready, it’s too soon. We’re in the middle of nowhere.’

‘It will be fine.’ David took her face in his hands, looking into her eyes. ‘Trust me, okay? Right, Katy, help me get her to bed. Joanna, Lydia, I need fresh sheets, clean towels, boiled water and … some string.’

‘String?’ Alex wailed.

‘Maxine says you don’t need string,’ Jim said, waving the phone indiscriminately. David took it from him and listened for a while, nodding.

‘Okay, Maxine says that at thirty-five weeks the baby should be fine,’ he told Alex. ‘There’s no reason why it won’t be perfectly healthy.’

‘Apart from the fact that our baby is being born in a bloody hovel, with a dog as a midwife!’ Alex sobbed, as Vincent dropped a chew toy at her feet, perhaps hopeful that it might stop her howling.

‘Hovel?’ Katy looked at Lydia. ‘That’s a bit much.’

Appearing in the doorway, Will dropped his rucksack at the sight of Alex.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘What does it look like?’ Alex snapped at him. ‘Why do you live in the bloody middle of fuck all, why can’t I have an ambulance? I want a hospital with drugs, and … drugs.
And I want my mum!
’

Alex sobbed, leaning heavily on David, who passed the phone to Katy so that he could put his arms around his wife.

‘It’s not a hovel,’ Katy told an uninterested Maxine,
before listening to further instructions. ‘Maxine says we need to get her comfortable.’

‘Then get me drugs!’ Alex begged.

‘Right,’ Will said. ‘I know the GP. She’ll be in the pub, probably, but she’s a good man. Woman. You know what I’ll mean. I’ll go and fetch her. I might be able to get one of the lads to bring her up on a tractor …’

‘I’m coming,’ Jim said, clearly eager to be out of the way, spotting Stephen, who was loitering in the hallway. ‘And you, Steve. Don’t worry, Alex, it will be fine and when that little blighter’s born, you can name him after the lads who saved the day.’

‘FUCK OFF!’ Alex yelled at him as another wave of pain hit her. For a second, Lydia’s eyes met Will’s across the room. He hesitated for a moment, then picked up his rucksack and hurried after Jim.

Not knowing, or at that moment caring, where Jackson was, and united in their concern, Lydia and Joanna anxiously followed Katy and David as they tried to help Alex up to bed. But Alex couldn’t take more than a few steps without having to stop.

‘I can’t do this,’ she wept, clinging on to David when they stopped for the fifth time as yet another wave of pain hit her. ‘I’m so sorry; I’ve changed my mind. Can you tell someone, please?’

‘It’s okay,’ David said, looking around as he listened to Maxine, his eyes falling on the chaise. ‘We need a
place for you to lie down. This sofa thing will do. Lydia, you need to get me some clean sheets and towels, to put over this, and something to wrap the baby in when it comes.’

‘Oh, my chaise,’ Katy muttered under her breath as she kneeled beside Alex, brushing her damp hair away from her forehead. ‘This will take more than Vanish. Lydia, there’s a waterproof undersheet in the linen cupboard. I had to use it for Tilly when we first moved up here. Bring that and we can put it under the sheets.’

Lydia hurried upstairs to find the cupboard on the first floor. As she reached the top of the stairs, she found Jackson, his bag packed, looking set to leave.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked him. ‘You can’t go now!’

‘Why not?’ Jackson asked her.

‘Why not? Because Alex is in labour, there’s ten feet of snow out there, and you’ve no hope of getting anywhere in your car, and because you need to talk to Joanna, explain to her what happened. Tell her that what she saw wasn’t what she thought and that there’s nothing between us now.’

‘Alex is in labour?’ Jackson put his bag down. ‘Since when?’

‘I don’t know.’ Lydia stepped past him, walking towards the vast linen cupboard. ‘I think maybe she’s been getting contractions all day. They seem to be
coming really fast now, and her waters have broken. It could be really soon. I’ve been sent to get sheets.’

She began looking for Katy’s plastic undersheet, pulling it from under a pile of dressing gowns.

‘What can I do?’ Jackson asked her.

‘Here, hold this while I find what I need.’ Lydia began to pile sheets and towels into his arms, deciding to take as many she could, to be on the safe side.

‘I was going to walk down to the village, see if there was any B&B going,’ Jackson told her as she loaded him up. ‘I don’t think anyone wants me around here now.’

Lydia looked at him as he received the pile of linen into his arms.

‘You can’t just disappear into the night, not again. It wasn’t fair on me then, and it’s not fair on Joanna now. Look, she knew about you and me. In her head, she thought that throwing us together like this, with neither of us knowing what was coming, would stop anything from happening, not start it. She cares about you a lot, maybe even loves you. And she is one of my best friends, so I’m not letting you leave until you’ve talked this through with her. For once, you need to face up to things, not run away. Be a man. I’ll lock you in that cupboard if I have to.’

Jackson laughed. ‘I don’t suppose you’d be locked in there with me too, would you?’

‘Jackson, please, just bloody give it up, will you?’

Jackson looked hurt, and Lydia felt sorry for being so blunt, but it seemed to be the only thing that worked.

‘Do you think,’ he said, ‘that if I’d have come back in time, if I hadn’t seen you with Stephen, do you think things might have been different for us?’

Lydia looked into his eyes, trying to picture for a moment the very different reunion they could have had if fate hadn’t had other plans for them. Was Jackson the man she thought she’d fallen in love with? No. He wasn’t a bad man, just a confused one, as weak and as fallible as she had been herself. Even if meeting him again hadn’t jeopardised her friendship with Joanna, was he someone she could fall in love with now? In that moment, Lydia didn’t think so. She and Jackson had met at a particular time in her life, when she had been a very different person. Maybe her relationship with Stephen hadn’t worked out, but it had taught her what she did want and had helped her grow up a little.

Lydia only wanted to know where she stood, no games, no pretences, no half-baked broken promises. She wanted to be with someone she could love and rely on always to be there. Someone who she knew loved her back, without having to think about it any more, because it was simply a fact. She wanted a man with Jackson’s passion and Stephen’s stability. Did such a creature even exist outside of romance novels and the movies she adored? She didn’t know for sure, but the fact remained that as beautiful and passionate and
irresistible as Jackson was, he was half the man she needed him to be, and not the man for her. Loving a man like him would eventually drive her mad.

‘Honestly, when I think about it, I’m glad things ended between us when they did,’ Lydia told him. ‘It was a beautiful summer and …’ Lydia smiled, thinking of the number of times they’d watched
Casablanca
together. ‘… we’ll always have Paris.’

Jackson nodded, sighing heavily, as he focused for a moment on the swirls and patterns in the carpet.

‘Right, I’ll talk to Joanna as soon as things calm down. I’ll straighten this mess out, I swear. In the meantime, I must be able to do something now?’

Lydia nodded. ‘Jim said they’d get the air ambulance up as soon as the winds drop enough. I don’t know where it will land round here, somewhere flat, I guess. So if you could keep an eye out for it from up here, and when you see it, you can go out and meet it. Bring them back to the house, it might save some time.’

‘Right.’ Jackson grabbed her arm as she headed for the stairs. ‘Lydia, I’m sorry. About before. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I never wanted to hurt Joanna, or you.’

‘Well, it has happened,’ she said. ‘And as soon as I get the chance, I have to make things right with Joanna, and so do you.’

Jackson nodded. ‘I’ll keep a look out for the air ambulance.’

* * *

When she arrived back in the sitting room, David was walking Alex up and down, with Katy following them anxiously.

‘About time,’ Joanna said, as Lydia hurriedly spread the sheets out on the chaise. ‘Did you find a little distraction up there? Someone else’s boyfriend to kiss, maybe?’

‘I found Jackson on the verge of leaving,’ Lydia said, unfurling towels. ‘I told him he couldn’t go until he’d talked to you.’

‘Oh, well, thanks for that, Lydia, because you really are the right person to be giving me relationship advice.’

‘Jo-Jo,’ Katy said. ‘Maybe now’s not the time?’

‘Perfect time.’ Alex grimaced. ‘Watching these two scrap it out is the next best thing to gas and air.’ Alex leaned heavily against David, while Lydia and Katy did their best to make the chaise comfortable for her, and Joanna slipped a dressing gown that Lydia had retrieved around her shoulders, pulling her skirt and underwear off once she was covered.

David’s face blanched as Joanna gathered up Alex’s underwear and trousers to put in the wash.

‘What is it?’ Lydia asked him, whispering as he stared at the greenish stained clothes. She followed David into the foyer as he spoke in hushed tones into the phone.

‘There’s meconium,’ David said into the phone. ‘It means the baby is in distress, doesn’t it? That it needs
to be delivered soon. When will the ambulance get here? We’re not enough; we can’t cope with this! I can’t help but panic, this is my wife and my baby! What can I do? I need to do something!’

David pressed his hand over his mouth, handing the phone to Lydia.

‘Hello?’ Lydia heard a woman’s voice on the other end of the line.

‘Hi, David’s a little upset at the moment,’ Lydia said. ‘I’m Lydia, how worried do we need to be?’

‘Hello, Lydia, I’m Maxine. Meconium isn’t great news, but it’s pretty common, plenty of babies are born at home when meconium is present, and they are perfectly healthy. All you can do at the moment is concentrate on keeping Alex calm. We’ve got the air ambulance on standby, and it will be in the air the minute it’s safe. The hospital in Carlise is also ready and waiting. Once we’re given the all clear, it will be a matter of minutes until we can get Alex the help she needs.’ Lydia went to the window, peering out into the darkness, where the ferocious wind was flinging snow full pelt, smattering it against the glass. ‘And in the meantime?’

‘Give me back to David, let me talk him through what to do next.’

David listened to Maxine, and taking a deep breath went back to be with his wife.

‘David, David, I’m sorry, so sorry, but I can’t do this,’
Alex wept. ‘I’m a rubbish wife, you should divorce me, I’d understand.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ David kissed her damp forehead. ‘You can do anything, Alex, anything at all. And I’m here, I won’t let anything bad happen.’

‘Promise not to go anywhere,’ Alex begged him.

‘You should probably watch him around Lydia, in any case,’ Joanna said snippily before David could reply. ‘Best not to leave your man alone with her.’

‘Right, we need to get everything as clean as we can,’ David told them, ignoring Joanna’s barbed comment. ‘Lydia, Joanna – boil water.’

‘What for?’ Joanna asked.

‘Just do it, okay? For once, this isn’t about you and your bloody little drama queen lives. This is about my wife and my child. So just get out of here and make yourself useful.’

In the kitchen, Lydia began to fill the kettle.

‘How’s that going to help?’ Joanna snapped irritably, snatching the kettle off her. ‘We’re not making a cup of tea, are we? We need lots and lots of water … Here, help me fill this pan.’ She picked up a huge, double-handled metal saucepan that Katy kept on the floor of the pantry, quite possibly to catch leaks, and carried it over to the sink.

‘Well, that will take hours to boil,’ Lydia said. ‘And anyway, the oven’s not working so how are we going
to heat it? We’ll have to keep boiling the kettle and fill that pan up.’

‘Why are we even doing this?’ Joanna asked her. ‘It’s not like we’ve got anything to sterilise. We should be googling home delivery, and not the kind that brings you shoes from the internet in the three to five working days.’

Lydia hazarded a smile, thinking that if Joanna was still prepared to joke with her then things couldn’t be that bad.

‘I think David’s made it pretty clear that he’s in charge and he doesn’t want you or me hanging around, bickering.’ Lydia said. ‘I think we’re boiling water to get us out of the room. No matter what she says, the last thing Alex needs right now is you and me at loggerheads.’ Both women lifted their heads as Alex’s cry echoed down the hallway, making Lydia’s stomach clench in anxiety.

‘I wonder how many babies have been born in this house,’ Joanna said, more to herself than Lydia. ‘If only walls could talk.’

‘Joanna.’ Lydia tipped the contents of the whistling kettle into the pan. ‘Why didn’t you didn’t tell me about Jackson as soon as you found out that he and I had …’ Lydia said, ‘I’d have told you.’

‘Oh, would you?’ Joanna looked sceptical. ‘You went through that whole affair with him, more or less disappeared off the face of the earth for weeks, and barely
said a word to me about him. And we lived together. Why not?’