‘Um, he’s on the phone.’ Both literally and figuratively. ‘He can meet us over there. Let me get my jacket and I’ll come with you.’
‘And maybe put a bit of blusher on,’ Mum suggested, earning a warning scowl for her troubles. ‘Humour me, Gwen, it’s one day of the year. Would it kill you to make an effort?’
‘I’m wearing blusher,’ I said, waving a demonstrative hand in front of my face. ‘I’m wearing a face full of make-up.’
‘You’d never know it,’ Nan said as she sailed by inher wool topcoat. ‘Why don’t you borrow that nice lipstick your sister’s wearing?’
But Cerys shook her head. ‘No way. She’s not getting her germs on my Lisa Eldridge.’
‘And I’d rather smear my face with the blood of a sacrificial reindeer,’ I added politely. ‘If you want me to go, I’m going like this.’
My mother and my grandmother stared at me, mirror images of each other, both of their mouths disappearing into tight little lines in the middle of their faces.
‘Fine.’ Mum gave in first as Nan tutted with disappointment. ‘Go and get the wine from the kitchen then. It’s on the side in a gift bag. And lock the back door, we’re going out the front!’
I grabbed my jacket from the end of the stairs on my way into the kitchen where two bottles of red sat on the counter in a glossy red gift bag. ‘I know what’ll put some colour into my cheeks,’ I muttered, opening the fridge to find the bottle of cream liqueur beckoning me like the star of Bethlehem. Quickly unscrewing the lid, I took a deep, delicious swig, the creamy goodness drowning the unsettled feeling in my stomach, the scenes from Manny’s room already melting away.
‘Gwen?’ I heard Dad call from the front of the house. ‘Are you coming or not?’
‘Coming,’ I confirmed, closing the fridge, grabbing the wine and setting off out into the cold afternoon air with a warm, whisky glow in my belly.
Dorothy-Across-The-Road’s Christmas Open House was a thing of legend. Every year for as long as I could remember our neighbour had welcomed all and sundryinto her home for mince pies, cocktail sausages and cheese and pineapple on sticks, starting somewhere around mid-afternoon and ending when the last man standing passed out on her living-room carpet. When I was little, running around a grown-up’s house unsupervised was a total thrill, but it wasn’t until I was seventeen that my dad let me in on the real reason everyone looked forward to Dorothy’s party so much; her rum punch. One cup made you merry, two cups made you jolly and three would see you unconscious until New Year, an idea that was becoming increasingly appealing.
‘Come in, Bakers!’ Dorothy’s door opened before I even had a chance to knock, the lady herself ushering us inside with both arms. Somewhere between fifty and a hundred (and it was impossible to estimate with any greater degree of accuracy) Dorothy’s not-at-all-natural red hair was piled on top of her head and she wore a white and silver caftan accessorized with fluffy white wings and a tinsel halo on top of her head. One glance at Nan’s face was enough to confirm she did not approve.
‘Don’t stand on ceremony, coats off, let’s get a drink in you,’ Dorothy ordered as we moved through the hallway as one. From the looks of it, more than half the village was here already. ‘My, Cerys, it’s hard to believe your littles have got so big. I remember when you and Gwen were that age, feels like yesterday.’
Artemis and Arthur squirmed away from her effusive kisses, twisting and turning exactly as we had. I smiled at my sister, who replied with a scowl before grabbing her children by the scruff of the neck and directing them into the dining room, following their father who had already run off in the presumed direction of the punch.
‘And Gwen, where’s that handsome man of yours?’ Dorothy asked, batting what looked like several pairs of false eyelashes.
‘Oh, he’s not here,’ I replied, smiling politely.
‘They broke up,’ Dad clarified, a cartoon bubble that said ‘yikes’ practically hovering over his head. ‘But you’re better off without him, aren’t you, chicken?’
Dorothy’s halo bobbed up and down as she nodded in agreement. ‘Nothing wrong with the single life. You know I never married and it never stopped me having my fun.’
‘Certainly seems to have stopped her from dusting her skirting boards,’ Nan whispered in my ear.
‘Drinks!’ I declared brightly. ‘Why don’t I go and find us some drinks.’ Without waiting to find out what anyone wanted, I slid away from the rest of the family in search of peace or punch, entirely happy with whichever came first.
Dorothy’s house looked like an explosion in a tinsel factory, every single room festooned with shiny sparkles in every single colour the good people at Chatsworth Garden Centre had to offer. And we were talking about a lot of rooms. Her house was a labyrinth and not the fun kind full of David Bowie and a load of Muppets. Every room flowed into another but none of them ever seemed to lead back the way I thought I’d come. The living room led to the dining room which led to the kitchen which led to another sitting room which led to a conservatory which was where I found myself, sat at a wrought iron table next to a shiny silver tree covered in miniature Santas who were doing unmentionable things to Mrs Claus. I draped my coat over the back ofmy chair and set two very full cups of rum punch carefully on the table, one for me and the other also entirely for me, a well-deserved Christmas present to myself.
Outside, heavy clouds filled the darkening sky and with only one flake of warning, snow began to fall, soft and silent. I checked my watch and saw it was almost six and frowned. The day seemed to be moving very slowly. And even though the house was packed to the rafters, I felt completely and utterly alone. Just me and the snow and my two cups of punch. So much for Christmas turning into a real-life Hallmark holiday movie. Where was a down-on-his-luck duke when you needed one?
‘Can you believe the weatherman got it right?’ asked a voice behind me right as I was about to give up and go home. ‘First time for everything, eh?’
I looked over my shoulder to see a man. A tall, beautiful specimen of a man, with good hair and a lopsided smile and perfectly straight white teeth. Immediately I glanced around to see who he was talking to and realized after one moment too many, he was talking to me.
‘Will wonders never cease?’ I replied, packing away my sad thoughts as he came closer. Dear God, he was good-looking. As in cover-of-the-romance-novels-Cerys-used-to-get-out-from-the-library-then-hide-under-her-bed good-looking. ‘My first ever white Christmas.’
‘I’ve seen a couple at home,’ he said, a thick Scottish accent curling around his words. ‘Didn’t expect to see one so far down south.’
I laughed at the idea of my ‘Up North’ being his ‘Down South’ and silently thanked the Christmas gods for sending him to say hello. If it turned out he was even tangentially related to any member of any royal family,I would scream. He must have been about my age, but he was a big meaty man, much taller than me with short, dark blond hair, crystal-blue eyes. If it weren’t for his Scottish burr, I’d have said Chris Evans had an identical twin we didn’t know about, but not even Chris Evans was a good enough actor to pull off that accent.
‘There she is!’
My eyes narrowed with confusion as Mum appeared behind the Scottish superhero and wrapped her arms around his waist, barely suppressed excitement all over her face.