‘I want you and Michael to get back together, I’d wish for you to sort your love life out.’
Well, someone had relaxed a bit too bloody quickly, hadn’t they?
‘All I want is for you to be happy,’ Nan said. ‘And don’t try to put me on, Gwen Baker, I know you’re going to say you are, but are you? Are you really?’
I opened my mouth to tell her she didn’t need to worry about me but when I tried to speak nothing came out.
‘Seeing you kids happy is what makes me happy,’ she added when I didn’t reply. ‘I won’t lie, I was disappointed when your mother told me about you and Michael. You always seemed like such a good match, and he doted on you. I can’t understand why the two of you couldn’t work out your differences and make a go of it.’
Sat on the living-room floor, I stared up at my grandmother, utterly incredulous. Getting rid of every pair ofripped jeans on the planet and destroying the internet suddenly seemed like the easy option.
‘Are you serious?’ I asked. ‘You could wish for anything in the world and what you want is for me to get back together with Michael?’
‘When you get to my age you understand what’s really worth wishing for,’ Nan said, dismissing my nonsense with a royal wave. ‘Everyone wants to click their fingers and have it done these days, they don’t realize you’ve got to put the work in. And as soon as it starts to get hard, they open the phone and order a new boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever you want to call it. You want to thank your lucky stars those apps weren’t around when I met your grandad or you’d never have been born. I never could make a decision and stick to it.’
‘No need to pull on that thread,’ I replied, pulling a face.
Nan smiled as she reached for the remote control and turned on the TV. ‘You asked.’
‘You know what? Fine,’ I said, rising to my feet, half wishing I’d chosen Cerys instead. ‘I don’t get to decide what you wish for, do I? One wish, coming right up.’
‘If you say so, pet,’ she replied. ‘But while you’re sorting out the wish could you get me a sherry?’
‘I will drive to London and I will get Michael back,’ I muttered as I went to fetch the Harveys Bristol Cream. ‘Can’t be any worse than blowing myself up, can it?’
‘This is so much worse than blowing yourself up,’ Manny said, sticking his head through the driver’s side window as I attempted to coax his car into life. ‘Admittedly you’d be dead, but least you’d have your dignity.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d woken up on the same morning for the best part of a week,’ I replied, checking my hastily applied eye make-up in the rear-view mirror. It was, as I expected, terrible. ‘Besides, maybe Nan’s right. I didn’t try, I just left. Maybe I should have fought harder for me and Michael.’
‘I did not live through all those hours of listening to you play the same Taylor Swift album on repeat for you to get back together with that bell-end,’ he snapped. ‘Sometimes there’s nothing left to fight for.’
‘Firstly, it was not the same album on repeat, it was the original version ofRed, andRed(Taylor’s Version), and I would thank you to note the difference,’ I said, revving the engine as I stomped up and down on the clutch. ‘And secondly, what if this is it? What if this is the reason I’m stuck here? You were the one who said I could use a little Hallmark holiday movie magic in my life, what’s more romcom than getting stuck in a time loop until I make things right with my ex-boyfriend?’
‘I don’t know, getting drunk and shagging the neighbour?’
‘The neighbour is engaged,’ I replied, the memory of Dev’s perfect forearms lingering in my mind for a moment too long. ‘Unless you’re talking about Dorothy?’
‘As much as it pains me to admit it, I’m not always right!’ Manny cried as I pulled the gear stick into reverse. ‘I also said Chris Pratt seemed like a cool guy and that TikTok would never take off! Please don’t do this, I’m begging you. Michael is a wanker. He looks like a squirrel, he never gets a round in and he treated you very shabbily. You deserve better than this, Gwen.’
‘Squirrel or no squirrel, I have to do this,’ I said, firing up my Spotify playlist and setting my emotional dial to‘determined’ as the opening strains of ‘All Too Well’ (the ten-minute version) filled the car. I could not bear the thought of one more Christmas carol. ‘I haven’t spoken to him face to face since we broke up. I have to go and see him. After that, we’ll see what happens.’
‘Fine,’ he groaned. It always took Manny longer than it should to know when he was beaten. ‘If you’re going to go, go. Have you got the address?’ I nodded and gave him a thumbs-up. ‘Text me when you get there and don’t forget to tell him I hate him.’
‘Will do and will do,’ I promised. ‘I think this might be it, Manny, I can feel it in my waters.’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘That’s my suspension. It’s been shot ever since I shagged that guy from Beck’s birthday party in the back seat.’
‘And on that note,’ I said, rolling up the window as he waved goodbye. With Taylor’s voice blaring out of the speakers, I tore off down the road, on my way to Michael and hopefully, my destiny.
For me, Christmas wasn’t Christmas unless I was at home, chock full of Mum’s mince pies, Dad’s terrible jokes, a stocking stuffed with satsumas and all the other clichéd traditional things that confirmed it ’twas the season. For Michael, Christmas was a cheeky week off work at the end of the year that would have been better spent anywhere else and he’d never really forgiven me for making him spend it with my family. Every year, around September, he floated the idea of going away, either on a proper holiday or a swanky staycation at some country hotel and every year I nixed it. My refusal to spend thousands of pounds on a Christmas jolly might not have been the straw thatbroke our relationship’s back but, as I headed towards to The Elms, the very fancy hotel in deepest, darkest Hertfordshire Manny said he’d tagged on Instagram, I knew it was at least a factor. The Elms was the sort of hotel where reality TV stars got married and footballers pretended to play golf before getting hammered in the clubhouse. Two years ago, Michael sent me the link to their ‘festive bliss’ package and I replied with a gif of a budgie shaking its head. Two and a half grand for three nights when my mum was offering full bed, board and unlimited biscuits for free? It didn’t make any sense. Best-case biscuit scenario at The Elms was if they had a mini packet of Walkers shortbread cookies tucked away with the coffee maker and what kind of Christmas was that? No, thank you.
The roads were practically empty on the drive down, but two and a half hours alone with Taylor Swift’s back catalogue and my own thoughts still felt like an awfully long time. Four years Michael and I had been together. Four years of the most textbook relationship you could possibly think of. We met on an app, like everyone else. He took me to cool cocktail bars where smoking Old Fashioneds were served under a cloche, and restaurants that described themselves as ‘gastronomic experiences’. He whisked me away on weekend minibreaks in Europe and took me to music festivals in the summer, his friends turning into my friends and my friends becoming increasingly annoyed by how bloody perfect he was. After a year, he suggested I move out of my shared flat and into his lovely west Hampstead home, a house that I could never afford, even as someone who had paid off her student loans and was bringing in a London lawyer’s salary. But with Mummyand Daddy’s help, Michael had bought it outright years earlier and me and my two suitcases of stuff fitted right in, like we were part of the classic but comfortable mid-century-modern furniture. After that, it was only a matter of time until we got engaged, everyone said so. Every weekend from April to September was someone else’s hen do, engagement party or wedding and every weekend, that someone would pull me to one side, slightly pie-eyed and say ‘You next!’, as though it was already confirmed, part of some bigger plan. And I loved plans.
Except, I sniffed, as I pulled off the motorway, swiping at my eyes with the back of my wrist, things didn’t quite work out like that, did they? After an extremely steady drive up the crunchy gravel driveaway, I hid Manny’s decrepit Volvo in the back of the car park, apologizing to all the Jaguars and Aston Martins for its general existence. Pulling his buttery beige teddy coat off the backseat, I slipped it over my shoulders and glanced down at my red tartan pyjamas. Should I have taken the time to change before I drove down? Maybe, but Christmas wishes and the M1 waited for no man.
From the outside, The Elms looked like every other stately home-slash-hotel in England. Solid, square Georgian architecture and slightly foreboding in a public school kind of a way with its straight lines and regimented gardens, but on the inside it couldn’t have been more different. Everything was shiny and new, all sleek glass and black marble with low light and brittle staff. Lingering inside the front door, my senses were overwhelmed by the smell of a thousand Diptyque candles burning at once and for a second, I completely forgot why I was there.
‘Good morning, madam, can I help you?’