Tucking my hair into the collar of Mum’s jacket, I gave a tight smile, deeply regretting having turned down her offer of a hat and scarf. It was bloody freezing.
‘All good,’ I replied. ‘It’s cosy.’
A less generous soul might have described it as ‘unfit for human habitation’ but I didn’t need the lap of luxury to lay on the floor, scream-singing along to ‘Driver’s License’ while obsessing over Michael’s Instagram feed, did I?
‘A flat above a bookshop must be heaven for you,’ Dad said with a gentle chortle. ‘Does the owner give you a discount?’
I thought of the towering to-be-read piles teetering on my nightstand and down the side of the settee and my conversation with Dev the day before. Books had turned into something I collected instead of something I read and that was depressing. For a fleeting moment, I wondered what Dev was up to, my cheek tingling at the memory of our mistletoe moment.
‘You haven’t said a thing about work,’ Dad added when I didn’t answer right away. ‘Does it not quiet down around Christmas? We were always dead as a dormouse from the end of November, not that I was ever in the same league as Abbott & Howe, mind you, you’re probably working round the clock every day of the year—’
‘Let’s not talk about work,’ I said, trying to sound as cheery as possible. ‘Surely there are more festive things to chat about? You know, politics? The global economy? I heard the Doomsday clock moved closer to midnight?’
‘But I love hearing about your job,’ he countered. ‘What’s the point of Christmas if not to catch up on all the important things in our lives?’
I slipped my arm through his, Mum’s Regatta rustling against his wax jacket, and gave him a tight smile.
‘Is work that important though?’ I asked.
Dad stopped short and almost sent me face first into an unidentified pile of something brown and unpleasant.
‘Once again I am forced to ask you, who are you and what have you done with my daughter?’
‘I’m the same Gwen I’ve always been,’ I promised as he chuckled, but somewhere inside I started to wonder. Who was that exactly?
If I ever made it to New Year’s, I already had my first resolution. It was time to start exercising beyond walking all the way to the fridge and back. After an hour of walking up hill and down dale, I could feel every single muscle from my little toe all the way up to my arse and each and every one of them ached. My sixty-five-year-old father, on the other hand, strode on happily, the village far behind us and Chatsworth up ahead.
‘What do you think Christmas is like in there?’ I asked, nodding towards the great house, fantasizing about banqueting tables, centrepieces and eight-course luncheons. It was the kind of place that positively cried out for a Turducken.
‘I’m sure theirs isn’t that different to ours. Presents,telly, turkey. That’s all Christmas is,’ Dad replied, kicking a large stone out of his way.
‘You don’t mean that,’ I said, tilting my hips as I walked. My lower back was killing me. Seriously, I couldn’t wait for January to roll around so I could join the yoga studio around the corner from the flat, go every day for six weeks then never darken their doorstep again. ‘You love Christmas.’
He tested his walking stick against the edge of an inviting-looking bench, the highly polished pole rattling against the dull old wood, but he didn’t stop. Instead, I noticed that his smile wavered and softened into something more complicated as we carried on walking.
‘Love is a strong word,’ he said. ‘Bit of a mixed bag for me.’
‘Because of Uncle Jim?’ I asked.
He nodded and quickened his pace until he was half a step ahead, leaving me to feel the full weight of my foolishness. Of course it was hard for him, how could it not be?
‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a happy time, you know there’s nothing I love more than having all you kids under one roof,’ he said, adding some starch to his stiff upper lip. ‘But this time of year has a nasty trick of reminding you of all the things you’ve lost. Christmas is a celebration you’re meant to add to, not take away from. Once a piece of the puzzle is gone, it never feels quite complete again.’
For a brief moment, all the things I’d lost over the last year flitted across my mind, but it wasn’t the same, not really.
‘I’ve never thought about it like that,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, Dad.’
‘Don’t be,’ he replied, an order as much as a suggestion. ‘The sad only outweighs the happy if you let it, so I don’t let it. Do you think your uncle or your granny and grandad would want me sulking away all Christmas? Certainly not. A bad attitude never helped anyone.’
He slowed to a stop and dug his walking stick into the cold ground. I stood beside him, relieved to see he was smiling again, a little misty-eyed perhaps but content enough, and I felt my expression lift to match his.
‘They would have been so proud of you,’ he said, staring straight ahead. ‘My Gwen at a Magic Circle firm, hop, skip and a jump away from being a partner. You’ve always been the one with her nose to the grindstone, nothing you can’t do when you put your mind to it. I do hope I’m still here to see it when you’re running the place, chicken.’
My smile faded away. It didn’t matter that it hadn’t happened. I could still see the disappointment on his face, fireworks going off behind him, everyone whispering and staring. I wouldn’t let it happen again.
‘Dad,’ I said slowly. ‘If you could wish for absolutely anything, what would it be?’
He shook his head, still looking off into the distance.