The Night That Changed Everything (22 page)

I always feel inspired when Dad talks about buildings, thinking that one day I could be as good and as self-assured as he is, but for the first time I get the fear that I haven't got it in me. I keep smiling encouragingly as he talks so he doesn't pick up on it.

The dishes are gone when we get back and Stefan is sitting at the dinner table with three glasses of Scotch and a box of After Eights, shuffling a pack of cards.

‘Shall we start with rummy?' he asks.

I feel like I need to be by myself for a bit so I rub my tummy.

‘I've got a bit of indigestion,' I lie, lifting my glass and heading for the living room. ‘I'm just going to lie down for ten minutes.'

I love this room. It's best when it's pouring with rain outside, and I get all snug on the sofa, wrapped in one of the blankets Granny knitted. Today is the first day in ages it hasn't rained, of course, which pretty much sums up my luck at the moment.

Plonking myself down on the sofa, whisky on the floor beside me, I flick on the TV. The national anthem blares out, marking the start of the Queen's Speech.

‘In the ruins of the old Coventry Cathedral is a sculpture of a man and a woman reaching out to embrace each other,' she begins. ‘It is simply called
Reconciliation.
'

I almost laugh into my whisky when she talks about how, one hundred years after the start of the First World War, Christmas is the time to celebrate forgiveness.

I should have brought the bottle through with me.

Last Christmas I was happy. Ben and I weren't at war, and I didn't leave work each day feeling defeated. Who would have thought it would all go so monumentally tits up?

‘This carol is still much-loved today, a legacy of the Christmas truce, and a reminder to us all that even in the unlikeliest of places hope can still be found,' concludes the Queen.

Tears blur my vision as I look at my phone and the choir starts to sing ‘Silent Night'.

I empty my glass then put it on the floor, picking up my phone instead.

Take back control
, Dad said.

I find Ben's number and hover my thumb over the call button. I don't know what I'm going to say but I know that I need to hear his voice, just to feel reassured he's thinking about me too.

I press call.

Dad looks at his watch.

‘It's ten past three,' he says. ‘The old witch will be done now.'

He raises his pint glass for me to clink.

‘To the Queen!' I oblige.

It was my idea to give the speech a miss this year and come to the pub instead. All that reflecting on the year that's past – I just couldn't stomach it.

Getting the idea past Mum was the hardest part. She adores the Queen. It must be her upbringing because Uncle Pete and Auntie Helen are the same. The mere sight of Her Majesty on Christmas Day can be enough to make Uncle Pete teary. Though this could also have something to do with the ‘Christmas brandy'. Which is the same brandy he drinks every day of the year, but adding ‘Christmas' makes him feel better about being drunk by half ten in the morning.

In the end, Dad suggested we use Rebecca as an excuse. He told Mum I needed to get everything off my chest, father to son.

‘I feel bad,' I tell him now.

‘I don't,' he says. ‘She's bought me a bloody rake for Christmas.'

‘How do you know?'

We don't open our presents until after dinner, which Mum refuses to start cooking until the speech is over.

‘You ever tried wrapping a rake so the other person can't tell what it is?'

I laugh, enjoying the distraction. After looking at Rebecca's laptop I made a decision: the only way I could move forward was to cut off contact, and yet every day there is still a part of me that hopes this will be the day she wonders why I haven't been in touch, the day she realizes this has all been a stupid mistake. But I'm kidding myself, and every glance at my blank screen is a reminder that Rebecca is doing just fine without me, thank you very much. I left my phone back at the house when Dad and I made our escape, because today I don't want to feel angry.

‘We should head back,' says Dad, downing the remains of his pint.

The pavements are a shade lighter today, the rain that seems to have been pouring for months having finally ceased. Dad points at a sparrow as it lands on the handle of a climbing frame in the beer garden.

‘Happy Christmas, birdie,' he says.

We watch the sparrow peek one way and the other, as if checking its flight path is clear, before fluttering away.

‘Do you reckon it even knows it's Christmas?' I say.

‘Like that Bob Geldof song, you mean?'

I laugh again, rejecting his offer of a cigarette.

‘Do you remember the time you caught me smoking in the shed?' I lean against Dad's black cab while he puffs away. ‘You asked me to hand the packet over and my heart was beating so fast – I was shitting myself.'

I watch the memory return to him.

‘Then I realized you only wanted them so you could light up yourself,' I say.

‘I was out there for the same reason as you,' he says. ‘To get away from your mother.'

We snuck out there regularly after that. Our little act of rebellion.

Dad bends down to stub out his cigarette on a drainage gate and we're off. Because there are no other cars on the road the chug of his diesel engine seems even louder than normal, each gear shift eliciting a noisy jerk.

I notice a chip in his windscreen and recall an advert from a few years ago: all chips turn into cracks eventually. Is that what my Danielle secret was? A chip in a windscreen?

It's as though Dad has read my mind because he asks if I've heard from Rebecca. I gesture
No
and leave it at that. I've always been able to share things with Mum and Dad, but this afternoon, for the first time in months, I've felt like
me
again, and I want it to last just a little bit longer. And anyway, I haven't even told Jamie about cutting off contact. How would I explain why?

‘Your mother and I almost split up once, you know?' says Dad when we pull up at some lights. ‘Before you were even thought of.'

I turn to him, shocked. I've always thought they were unbreakable. Even the way they met was special. Dad had been homeless as a teenager. His parents booted him out when he was fifteen after he got expelled from a fourth school for shoving a teacher to the ground. He spent two years on the streets before someone agreed to give him a job washing taxis. He learnt to drive by moving cabs around the company's yard and one day they were desperate for a driver, so they gave him a chance. That was how he met Mum: driving her home early from a Christmas party. She asked who he was spending Christmas with and he said no one, and when she said there must be places for people who don't have anyone to spend it with, he said he didn't think so. So Mum set one up at her school and Dad went along. That was more than thirty years ago. I never realized it almost turned out differently.

‘I saw some fella in a bar with his hand on her arm,' explains Dad, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. ‘So I floored him.'

I'm always surprised when Dad tells me stories like this. It's not the man I know.

‘Turned out to be her boss.'

I wince.

‘She didn't talk to me for a month,' he says, glancing at the lights. ‘I dropped two trouser sizes.'

‘How come?'

‘I was so miserable I couldn't eat.'

I reach over to pat his belly as the lights change and the car struggles into motion once more. ‘Maybe Mum should stop talking to you again for a few months?'

Mum was the only person here when we left, but most of her side of the family have turned up now. Uncle Pete is stationed on an armchair, clutching a hanky in one hand. He never married or had children, but two of my other cousins from Auntie Helen's side are here. Felicity, who recently turned seventeen, offers me and Dad a dutiful smile while Conor, who's a couple of years younger, grunts some form of greeting but doesn't look up from
my
iPhone.

‘Oi.' I swipe it from him and click off the game he's been playing.

‘You missed a wonderful speech,' says a voice from behind us.

I turn around to see Auntie Helen wearing a red tissue hat like a crown. I make a show of looking disappointed at missing out.

‘Don't worry,' she says, her face becoming gleeful. ‘We recorded it so you can watch it later.'

Auntie Helen opens her arms. I go to kiss her cheek, noticing the smell of hairspray mixed with peppermint as she whispers into my ear: ‘Probably best waiting until Uncle Pete has gone, mind – it was all a bit too much for him again.'

‘Thanks, Auntie Helen.'

She seizes both of my hands and squeezes them. ‘Now, let me look at you.' She examines my face as though peering through a magnifying glass. Finally she says: ‘Good.'

Without elaborating Auntie Helen releases my hands. ‘Conor and Felicity are here,' she says, just in case I'd missed them sitting a few feet away. I humour her by waving at them and this time they completely ignore me. ‘Sadly your cousin Matthew couldn't make it,' adds Auntie Helen. ‘He's gone to Switzerland with a friend.'

I know Matthew is in Switzerland with his fiancée – her parents own a chalet there – but Auntie Helen is obviously concerned about the effect such knowledge would have on the newly single me. In fact, as we catch up she goes out of her way to avoid mentioning Rebecca, which is quite amusing, really.

I go to see Mum in the kitchen, where she is tunnel-boning the lamb ready to stuff it with her special Christmas stuffing: dates, cranberries, nuts and breadcrumbs. She taught me everything I know.

I fetch the mix from the fridge, which is crammed with quiches and
Finest
pizzas and buffet selections. Mum prides herself on always having just-in-case food, but at Christmas it goes from ‘just in case we have visitors' to ‘just in case there's an earthquake and our house is designated as an emergency shelter'.

‘How's work?' I ask her.

Mum shakes her head as though there's nothing to report.

‘They're taking the piss out of her, that's how work is,' Dad interjects.

I remember Mum mentioning a few weeks ago about her role changing, but I've been so preoccupied with my own problems that I never bothered to follow up on it.

‘Why, what's going on?' I say, feeling guilty.

‘Let's not talk about work at Christmas, darling.'

‘They've changed her role without consulting her,' says Dad. ‘Now she dreads going into work every day.'

‘Oh, don't exaggerate, Trevor.'

‘This wouldn't have happened if you'd stayed in your union,' he says.

‘So your old role doesn't exist any more?' I ask.

Mum nods.

‘And this new role is not something you wanted or would ever have applied for?'

She shakes her head, more decisively this time.

‘You know you're entitled to redundancy?' I say. ‘I can help you get what you're entitled to – I can do all the work for you.'

Mum looks at me, and then at Dad, then scrunches her face up like I've suggested she joins a cheerleading team or something. ‘I'm too old to do anything else. What would I do with myself?'

She stuffs and rolls the lamb, and I hear her mumble
redundancy
and titter as I wait with the string.

‘Why aren't we having turkey like normal people?' drawls Conor, skulking into the kitchen as Mum ties the meat.

‘Where are your manners, Conor?' Auntie Helen shouts through.

‘They just texted to let me know they can't make it.'

I hear Auntie Helen sniff her disapproval from the living room but she lets it go.

‘Lamb is a better choice when there's loads of people,' I tell Conor. ‘There's lots of fat so it stays moist.'

He nods interestedly, then says: ‘Are you gay?'

Auntie Helen comes into the kitchen and whacks him round the head. ‘By the way,' she says to him, ‘your presents just texted – they can't make it either.'

‘A Kindle!' whoops Felicity. ‘Thanks, Ben!'

Seeing what I got Felicity, Conor quickly rips off the wrapping on
his
present.

‘These are, like, proper Beats!' He puts on the headphones. ‘Cheers, Benny Boy – these are the balls!'

‘Language, Conor!' says Auntie Helen.

‘What? I said balls, not bollocks.'

Auntie Helen turns her attention to me. ‘You really shouldn't have spent all that money, Ben.'

She's right, I
really
shouldn't have. But I wanted this to be a Christmas to remember.

‘A rake!' Dad is saying. ‘Just what I wanted, dear.'

‘No need for sarcasm, dear.'

Having opened all his presents, Conor nurtures an expression of complete disinterest until I unwrap my gift from Mum and Dad, at which point he snorts into his elbow.

‘Get it on,' he bawls.

Uncle Pete looks confused. ‘What is it?'

‘It's a onesie,' says Dad.

‘A bear onesie,' adds Mum.

Uncle Pete is none the wiser. ‘What the hell is a bear onesie?'

‘It's a onesie that looks like a bear,' says Conor, barely able to contain his excitement. ‘Now put it on, Ben
der
.'

Uncle Pete has given up trying to understand what is happening but Felicity has put down her phone and even Auntie Helen seems amused.

‘We want to see what it looks like on, Ben,' she cajoles.

‘Fine, fine,' I say, sulking for effect. ‘But just remember that I'm cooking brunch tomorrow and it would be a shame if all your Christmases were spoilt by a bout of food poisoning.'

When I return in the onesie Auntie Helen claps her hands in delight and orders Felicity to take a photo.