The Night Before Christmas (4 page)

Lydia flashed a surprised look at Stephen, but he seemed engrossed in staring at his new surroundings.

‘Of course,’ Katy continued, ‘we’ll get the fire going once the real guests arrive, but it took me an age to get this looking right, so for now I just like to come and stare at it sometimes and threaten the children with murder if they touch anything.’

‘It is very posh,’ Lydia said. ‘I feel like I should be taking a turn around the room with Mr Darcy on my
arm. Katy, you are so clever, you’ve turned all this into a spread from
Country Living
.’

‘Do you think so?’ Katy beamed, all traces of tiredness at least temporarily banished from her round face. ‘I am rather proud of it, I must say. Come on, now for the hidden delights of the Heron’s Pike servant quarters.’ Crossing a dark, narrow, wood-panelled corridor, Katy opened another stripped door to reveal the family sitting room, about half the size of the other one, but even more lovely and infinitely more cosy, almost glowing with the warmth of a roaring fire scented with pine cones. His hosting duties over for now, Vincent curled up on the hearth, falling fast asleep almost immediately, despite the din from a room teeming with excitable children. Lydia knew that, technically, two children could not be considered great enough in number to ‘teem’, but somehow, despite being aged only six and four respectively, Jake and Tilly usually managed it.

‘Do you want to hear a song about a bra?’ Jake asked Lydia by way of greeting, the moment she entered the room.

‘Did you say a bra?’

‘Please God, not again. Jake, if you sing that one more time in my hearing, I will throw you in the lake,’ Alex grumbled.

‘You won’t because I shall just run away and you won’t be able to catch me,’ Jake scoffed, not in the least
bit offended or intimidated by his honorary aunty. ‘You’re not very fast and you are very fat.’

‘Jakey, mate, we all love your song,’ Jim said, crossing the room to greet the new arrivals, ‘but at least wait for Aunty Lydia to sit down and have a glass of pop in her hand!’ Lydia dodged Jake, and hugged Jim, kissing him lightly on the cheek, which took some doing as he was an impressive six foot four and looking rather rugged these days since he’d lost the city suit and let his sensible haircut grow out a bit. The stubble wasn’t a bad look either, Lydia mused, wondering if the same look would suit Stephen. Stunning house, strapping husband, cute if unruly kids, a slightly mutilated dog … Lydia felt a pang of jealousy; Katy really did seem to have it all.

Obviously a little merry already, Jim’s breath was scented with mulled wine, Lydia noticed before he released her to give a rather stunned Stephen one of his trademark bear hugs.

‘Glad you two aren’t dead in a ditch,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘Did Katy tell you our folks are all stuck where they are? So, no grandparents for these guys. Shame for them, but we can have another celebration in the New Year. And, you know, any day without an in-law in it is always a bonus in my book.’

‘Jim!’ Katy chided him gently as she peered into an old dark-wood sideboard and produced a couple of wine glasses, handing them to her guests.

‘Don’t pretend like you don’t feel the same,’ Jim chuckled as he filled the glasses with ruby red wine straight from a cut-glass decanter. ‘What is it you call my mum? Medusa?’

‘The children!’ Katy hissed, nodding at Jake, who, after having his song offer rejected, was now scratching Vincent’s ear, and Tilly, who was humming away in the corner as she fashioned herself an outfit made purely from tinsel.

‘Well, are you going to say hello to me, then, or am I passé now I’m the size of a house?’ Alex asked Lydia from the sofa, where she was sort of beached, her long legs resting on a footstall, her bump rising before her like a full moon.

‘Hello, love,’ Lydia said, slumping down next to her. ‘I swear you’ve gotten even more massive since I saw you last week! Are you sure you’re not due for another month?’

‘Quite sure,’ Alex said, frowning at her bump. ‘Although it is starting to feel like I’ve been pregnant for about a hundred years.’

‘Elephants are pregnant for nearly two years,’ Jake said, getting up from the fireplace, resting his chin on the bump and peering down his nose at it. ‘Perhaps you’re an elephant.’

‘Nice,’ Alex said, pursing her lips. ‘Really nice.’

‘Hello, Lydia, Stephen,’ Alex’s husband, David, said as he came back from somewhere that was evidently
quite cold, as he still had a scarf on and was rubbing his hands together. ‘Good to see you! Awful out there. Lexi, don’t, whatever you do, go into labour now, we’ve got no chance of getting you to a hospital and I very much doubt this house is sterile.’

‘Hey, I clean,’ Katy protested.

‘And I’m not due for five weeks!’ Alex snapped. ‘Can we all please stop dwelling on my huge, massive stomach and talk about something else for once,
please
!’

‘Hormones,’ David mouthed silently at Lydia, causing Alex to shoot him a look that would have killed him, if only the laws of the universe would allow it.

‘So!’ Lydia said, taking a seat besides Alex and holding her hand. ‘Isn’t this perfect? The four of us together at Christmas. Do you know that, in all the years we’ve been friends, we’ve never done this? Even when we were at uni, we always went our separate ways at Christmas. And then there were boyfriends, husbands and in-laws. And look at us now, there’s snow, and a fire, and a tree, and countryside and isn’t it just a wonderful life?’

‘Bloody hell, have you been possessed by the spirit of Judy Garland?’ Alex asked irritably. ‘I expect it
is
wonderful, if you don’t have piles and constant acid reflux. And cankles, just look at my cankles! What if I never get my ankles back? What if I turn into one of those women who can only ever wear elasticated trousers and who constantly have their kids’ tea down their top and never get a decent haircut?’

‘What are you saying,’ Katy said, self-consciously tucking her mass of blonde curls behind her ears, and rubbing at an orange stain on her top. ‘And this isn’t the kids’ tea, it’s yours. I made you lasagne, Alex, because it’s your favourite. Because I
love
you, you fat cow.’

Alex buried her head in her hands and groaned. ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m such an awful bitch at the moment, it’s the hormones.’

‘That’s what I said,’ David interjected, earning him a reprise of the killer look.

‘Cows are pregnant for the same time as human beings,’ Jake told her. ‘You do look a bit like a cow.’

‘And now,’ Tilly said, emerging from the corner, a shimmering spectacle of a fire hazard, ‘I shall put on a show.’

‘Oh, God save me,’ Alex wailed, once more burying her head in her hands.

It was at that exact moment the doorbell sounded and Vincent leaped from his slumber like a rather lopsided attack dog.

‘Oh, that’ll be Joanna,’ Katy said delightedly, looking at Lydia.

‘And Joanna’s new boyfriend!’ Lydia exclaimed. ‘Come on, let’s go and get a look at him!’

Two women, two children and a dog raced for the door, all of them, with perhaps the exception of the dog, keen to get a look at the latest man in Joanna Summer’s life.

‘Wait for me!’ Alex yelled, gesturing frantically for David to pull her to her feet, her voice receding into the background as Lydia and Katy vied for first place. ‘Bloody wait for me, you bastards!’

In the end, Katy, who wasn’t wearing a stylish but impractical pair of stiletto boots, made it first, flinging the door open and dragging Joanna inside for one of her biggest hugs.

‘Jo-Jo!’ she yelped happily, as Vincent did his best to maul the latest arrival. ‘Look at you!’

Joanna was indeed a vision of loveliness. Wearing a white woollen coat trimmed with faux fur, and a matching hat, her red hair cascading down her back. She looked like she’d just stepped off the set of a remake of
Doctor Zhivago
.

‘How do you get out of a car after three hundred miles looking like
that
?’ Lydia asked her old flatmate, kissing her on the cheek.

‘I don’t know, darling, I’m just naturally glamorous, I suppose.’ Joanna grinned at her. ‘And so are you two. Look at you, Katy, with your country rosy cheeks, and you, Lyds, all city sophistication – you put me to shame, the pair of you.’ It was part of Joanna’s charm that she always responded to a compliment with one of her own. Now she bent down and graciously kissed Tilly, before ruffling Jake’s hair, distastefully but gently edging Vincent out of her way with the toe of her boot.

‘We want to know if you are really going to get married this time!’ Jake told her.

Katy shrugged. ‘I’m not even going to pretend that I haven’t coached him to say that. So, are you?’

‘And can I be bridesmaid?’ Tilly followed up.

‘Shhh!’ Joanna put her fingers to her lips, glancing over her shoulder into the night. ‘It’s early days, but the signs are good.’ Careful to address the children directly, she added, ‘But we don’t want to frighten him off, do we, kids? So if you can manage to keep your questions to yourself, then, yes, Tilly, you can be bridesmaid and, no, Jake, you don’t have to be pageboy.’

‘Aunty Jo,’ Tilly said, ‘I watch you on telly all the time. I hope you’ve got me a tiara for Christmas, like the ones on your show made from purest diamonique.’

‘Any chance anyone could give me a hand with this trunk?’ an American accent enquired from behind an armful of presents. ‘I think Joanna’s packed London!’

Lydia froze. Something in those few muffled words sounded a chime of recognition within her. No … it couldn’t be, could it?’

‘Here, let me help you,’ David offered, arriving with Alex, who waddled a step or two ahead of him, eager to greet Joanna.

‘Hello, Jo, you look like a Russian hooker!’ Alex greeted her cheerfully.

‘And you are glowing!’ Joanna informed her serenely.

‘What, like radioactive waste?’ Lydia dimly heard
Alex retort as, with everything seeming to happen in slow motion, she watched David relieve Joanna’s boyfriend of his pile of gifts, one by one. Her heart pounded in her chest as saw his head dip with the effort of dragging a large brass-cornered trunk into the lobby. Hair, light brown, thick and wavy, with that familiar much-kissed hairline. It could not be. Lydia held her breath, hoping that she was delusional or somehow drunk on one sip of wine, but knowing she wasn’t.

His heavy cargo finally in place, the mystery man looked up and smiled.

‘Hi, everyone, I’m Jack.’

But Lydia knew at once that he wasn’t Jack to everyone. To her, he’d been Jackson Blake. Handsome, American and utterly charming. Joanna’s new boyfriend was the long-lost love of Lydia’s life.

Chapter Four

The day Lydia had first met Jackson Blake had been a boiling hot Thursday in May, about a month and a half before she’d met Stephen. As in recent years, summer had arrived early, and to Lydia, as she left the heat and fug of her chambers in Lincolns Inn, it felt like three months’ worth of polite English sunshine was being burned off in a single fever-pitched day.

Lydia’s day had not gone well. She had lost a case and her client was about to serve six months for dealing cannabis. Just her luck to get an exceptionally right-wing judge that didn’t see that her elderly client had only taken up buying drugs to ease the pain of her husband’s arthritis, picking up a few extra ounces for her neighbours in the sheltered housing while she was at it. Grounds for appeal were already in place, even if the process probably wouldn’t work fast enough to get her client out of prison before her sentence was up. Lydia was determined to have the conviction quashed, not only for a client’s sake, but because she hated to lose. More than that, though, she’d hated seeing the look on Janet Thorne’s face as she’d waited to be taken away, sitting quietly in the stifling holding cell, knowing
she wouldn’t see her disabled husband again for at least three months.

Lydia had slowed down as she approached the tube station. She knew Joanna wouldn’t be at home, as she was doing the prime-time shift on BuyIt! TV. And she wasn’t looking forward to an empty flat, smelling of last night’s Indian food and beer binge that neither one of them had bothered to clear away. The pub over the road was thronging with drinkers, spilling out onto the pavement. Lydia wondered if the inside would be cool by comparison and relatively empty. Not normally one to drink in bars by herself, she had crossed the road without really thinking, and was standing at the bar ordering a long G&T before she knew it.

The inside of the old-fashioned pub, although cool and spacious, was indeed largely empty. Pulling up a stool, Lydia positioned herself at the bar, and was just about to take out some client files to go over when she thought better of it and took out her battered but beloved Penguin Modern Classic edition of
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
. Over the years, she supposed the book had become something of a talisman, a sort of lucky charm. To begin with, though, it had simply been her favourite book, one she had read and re-read ever since, at the age of twelve, her English teacher had handed it to her and said, ‘Look, I know how hard it must be, stuck in the middle of your mum and dad’s divorce. Try getting lost in a good book, I find it helps.’ She had lost count
of the number of times she had read it since, but it always helped.

Absorbed in the pages of her book, it had taken some time for Lydia to realise someone was watching her. She glanced up to catch the eye of a man across the bar, and looked down instantly, staring at the words in front of her without really reading them. In that fraction of a second, she’d gleaned that the man was rather tall, well built, wearing a pristine white shirt without a tie and had eyes that were blue enough for her to notice them across the room. Waiting for another moment or two, Lydia looked up again. The man was gone.

‘Film or book?’ a soft American accent asked her, causing Lydia to swivel round on her stool. There he was, leaning against the bar, his thick honey-brown hair a little longer than most men wore it, his open-necked shirt revealing tanned skin. He smelled divine, and those blue eyes …

‘Book,’ Lydia replied instantly, gratified to see he was impressed that she knew what his rather cryptic question meant.

‘Really? Really Capote’s Holly over Audrey Hepburn’s? The misery and bleakness over George Peppard bringing back Cat in the pouring rain? I would have thought most girls would pick the movie ending any time.’

‘The movie is wonderful,’ Lydia said. ‘And I love the
idea of Holly getting a happy ending, but the book came first so it has to be the book … and, besides, I am not most girls.’ Lydia allowed herself to say the line she knew perfectly well he’d set up for her.

‘I can see that.’ He glanced down at his drink for a moment, and then back up at her face. He really was very good at this, Lydia remembered thinking. And perhaps that should have been a warning sign for her – the practised flirting – but she was too caught up in the moment.

They had introduced themselves, first names only, and shaken hands. Lydia remembered that, as he clasped her hand briefly but firmly, it sent a bolt of electricity through her.

‘Would you let me buy you a drink?’ Jackson asked her, and Lydia had hesitated, even though she knew she was going to say yes, playing the game as expertly as he.

‘I shouldn’t really,’ she said, slowly, thoughtfully, nipping her bottom lip between her teeth.

‘Please?’ Jackson pressed her. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve met anyone to talk about great American literature with, too.’

‘Oh, in that case, I’m afraid I will disappoint you, then, as this is really the only American classic I’ve ever read, well, unless you count
Gone With the Wind
.’

Jackson observed her with a long sideway glance. ‘You do have something of Miss O’ Hara about you.’

‘Why, thank you kindly, I think.’ Lydia let her lashes flutter, her chin dipping as she leaned forward a little, improving by just one tantalising fraction the view of her cleavage, quietly pleased that she still remembered how to flirt.

There had been a time when she and Joanna were the menaces of the male world, two finally honed flirting machines on an endless loop of dating and casual romances that never really came to anything. And then, one morning, Lydia had woken up with her mascara spread across the pillow, and a thumping headache, to realise that if she ever wanted to get ahead in chambers, she couldn’t try to keep up with Joanna any more. Her beautiful, vivacious flatmate already had it made; she had done ever since a talent scout for a modelling agency had spotted her in the shopping centre when they’d all been at university. From that moment onwards, Joanna had traded on her looks and personality to get ahead, and why shouldn’t she? If Lydia looked like Joanna, she’d have done exactly the same.

Joanna had quit uni before she completed her sociology degree – no one, including herself, believed she was going to pass her final exams, in any case. A brief career in underwear and catalogue modelling led to an appearance wearing a Chinese silk dressing gown on a shopping channel, where she had outshone the jaded and slightly drunk presenter and got herself a lucrative new job and a new beau – her director – all in one
afternoon. The career had lasted longer than the romance, in fact, but while Joanna was still content to work her way steadily through London’s male population, Lydia had begun to tire of the dating scene. The plain truth was, she couldn’t keep up with Joanna, especially if she wanted to make a success of her career. Consequently, it had been a long time – almost two years, in fact – since she’d flirted with a stranger in a bar; two years of being professional, keeping her head down, and working her behind off to get where she was today.

Only today was hot and tinged with failure, and looking at a face like Jackson Blake’s was exactly what she needed.

‘I’ll have another G&T, thank you,’ Lydia said.

As the sun sank behind the skyline, leaving a trail of stars in its wake, and the heat mercifully ebbed away, Lydia found out more about Jackson. He’d grown up in New Jersey, son of a plumber father and a grade school teacher ‘mom’. He’d worked his way through college, pounding the streets of New York as soon as he’d graduated, knocking on the door of every big-name publishing company to try and get a break. Finally, he’d landed a job as an intern at Seinfeld and Sachs, and worked his way up to become publishing director, taking a transfer to London a few months earlier with the remit of getting the floundering London office back on track.

‘What no one tells a straight, single guy about
publishing, though, is that it’s like throwing a tender little lamb into a pool of man-hungry, stiletto-wearing piranhas,’ Jackson joked. ‘As soon as you’ve stepped through the front door, they’ve got your place of residence, marital status, income, and bonus scheme out of you, and are asking which days you’ve got free next June.’

‘Oh, poor you, are all the ladies in love with you?’ Lydia pouted playfully. ‘How awful it must be for you.’

‘It’s terrible,’ Jackson confirmed solemnly. ‘And worst of all – they all get PMS at the same time! It’s the group crying I can’t take.’

‘Jackson, you chauvinist!’ Lydia had half gasped, half giggled, punching him lightly on the shoulder and feeling a frisson of excitement as he caught her hand and held it.

‘I know, I’m sorry. It’s not like that at all.’ He raised a brow. ‘Much.’

Lydia had held his gaze as he had used her entrapped hand to pull her closer to him until their lips were millimetres apart.

‘You are like a long, cool glass of water,’ he said.

Lydia had let their lips meet for a moment and then pulled back, slipping off the bar stool and picking up her briefcase.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘It’s been very nice to meet you, Jackson Blake.’

‘Would you like to meet me again?’ Jackson asked
her. ‘I work just round the corner, maybe we could have lunch?’

‘I don’t really have the sort of job where you get a lunch break.’ Lydia shrugged, enjoying pushing her luck for a moment more.

‘Then will you meet me here again tomorrow night? I’ll make reservations and take you to dinner.’ Lydia had hesitated; she was supposed to be having dinner with Alex and the girls to talk about bridesmaids dresses, and the fact that Alex seemed determined to make them all look as hideous as she possibly could, having unexpectedly developed a new-found interest in puffed sleeves. As much as she’d enjoy an evening of looking at this sexy man across a table, a wedding planner dinner with your best friend was not something you could just duck out of, even for a lantern-jawed, prime specimen like Jackson.

‘Sorry, I can’t. I have plans.’ Lydia mentally crossed her fingers, hoping he’d persist just once more.

‘Wow, you really are playing hard to get, very unusual for an English girl, you are usually all so easy.’

‘Hey!’ Lydia scolded him.

‘Sorry. Look, I would really like to see you again. How about Saturday?’ he asked her apprehensively, cringing as if he expected a slap just for asking.

‘Yes, okay, then, I suppose.’ Lydia was very careful not to sound too thrilled. ‘But not here. I live on the other side of town, and I don’t like to come back to
where I work on my day off. I’ll meet you in The Porcupine on Tottenham Court Road at seven-thirty. Look it up and find somewhere wonderful to take me for dinner.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Jackson saluted. ‘Now, please allow me to escort you to the subway station.’

‘But why, it’s only over the road?’ Lydia asked.

‘You need to ask why?’ Jackson chuckled, shaking his head as he picked up her hand. ‘Because I need a good reason to kiss you goodbye, woman, that’s why.’

As Lydia let the rattle and rumble of the tube train lull her half to sleep on the way home, she had leaned her back against the seat and, with a slightly tipsy smile, concluded that as good night kisses go, it had been a great deal more than satisfactory.

The following day had been spent entirely fixating on two things. What to wear and would he turn up? In all the heated, sultry promise of last night, she and Jackson had failed to swap phone numbers. He had no way of letting her down gently if he’d decided to back out, and the only way she was going to find out if he’d been real or just a symptom of heat stroke, was to turn up. The thought of being stood up caused Lydia serious alarm, remembering the awful sense of humiliation she’d felt when, at the age of sixteen, she’d gone to meet Tony Bellamy outside the cinema on the high street, in shoes she couldn’t really walk in and far too
much lipstick. And how she’d had to endure the laughter and taunts of her school mates as she stood there, until one of Tony’s friends told her he wasn’t coming. He was down the graveyard getting off with Melanie Davies.

Which meant that with every outfit that Lydia now tried on, she found herself imagining not how she’d look in the arms of Jackson Blake, but instead how she’d look standing like a lemon in a silk print dress and strappy-heeled sandals on a Saturday night at the bar of The Porcupine on Tottenham Court Road, waiting for a date who didn’t turn up.

For every third minute out of five from then on, Lydia decided she wasn’t going to go. And then she remembered that goodnight kiss, and butterflies would leap and whoop and loop the loop in her tummy.

‘You may well be an utter idiot, Lydia Grant,’ Lydia told her reflection in the full-length mirror, ‘but you can’t risk missing out on being kissed like that again.’

Just before she was due to depart, Joanna had emerged from her bedroom with her hair all tangled and last night’s make-up smeared under her eyes. Yet still she looked beautiful.

‘Ouch,’ she said as she flopped across the kitchen table. ‘I think I might have officially had too much sex. Make me breakfast, darling.’

‘Breakfast? It’s almost seven in the evening, Joanna. And besides, where did you disappear off to last night
after the Great Bridesmaid Debacle? One minute we were all trying to persuade Alex that no one suits puce, and the next you’ve vanished into the night.’

‘Not the night, darling, Cuba,’ Joanna said, pouting meaningfully at the kettle, which Lydia filled and switched on in spite of her exasperation. ‘There was a salsa party happening on the first floor, so I thought I’d just pop in after I went to the loo, and have a little look. Which was when I bumped into Enrique. I was going to come back and argue about the puffed sleeve thing, but darling … the hot Latin rhythm was calling me, so I thought I’d leave it up to you to persuade Alex not to dress us as mutants. You do sort of argue for a living, after all. Enrique taught me all about hip action … and we did a bit of dancing too!’ Joanna giggled, making Lydia smile despite herself.

‘And what about Ted?’ Lydia asked, reminding her friend of her fiancé, whose ring she was even now sporting on her left hand.