I felt a tug on the sleeve of my coat and looked down to see Artemis slip her hand into mine and pull me down to her level. Much to my delight, her hair had darkened over the last year and was almost the exact same shadeof reddish-brown as mine, turning into my sweet little mini me.
‘I already know there’s no Father Christmas,’ she whispered. ‘I heard Mum and Dad arguing about who was supposed to buy my Barbie Dream Home like, five years ago but I didn’t tell Arthur.’
‘That’s very nice of you,’ I replied, not sure whether I was supposed to confirm or deny. She’d already grown up so much since Cerys and Oliver’s break-up and I didn’t want to push her down that road any faster than necessary.
‘Here we all are,’ Dad beamed as everyone settled into a comfortable spot. ‘Everyone’s home.’
‘Almost everyone,’ Mum corrected and no one spoke for a second.
‘Do you need any help with anything, Care?’ I asked before things could get too maudlin. Nan wouldn’t want that. ‘Happy to make a start on the veg for tomorrow.’
‘Despite the fact I offered to host to save Mum the work, she turned up with half of Tesco in the back of the car,’ Cerys replied, casting a look of disapproval at my mother. ‘We’ve just got to throw it in the oven in the morning.’
‘And I’ve got the bird in the back of the car,’ Drew added. ‘He’s a beauty.’
‘As long as it’s not a capon,’ I muttered into my glass.
Mum looked around the room, her bottom lip quivering and threatening to break at any second. ‘This is the first Christmas we’ve had away from home since Cerys was born. Can you believe it?’
‘We could do Christmas at ours next year,’ Manny suggested, curling his hand around Drew’s and beamingup at his love. I’d never been so happy and so heartbroken at the same time as I was when he told me he was moving back to Baslow in January and buying a house with Drew. I would miss him horribly but the two of them really were made for each other. Cerys wedged herself in between them and leaned forward to help herself to a handful of crisps.
‘Before we commit, will you have a settee by then?’ she asked innocently.
‘The cheek of it,’ he replied, swiping her snacks. ‘Give us a chance to get settled. Not all of us conveniently acquired a house from our grandmother.’
‘There was nothing convenient about it,’ a voice boomed from the hallway.
Myfanwy James walked into the living room, a set of house keys in one hand, elegant black walking stick in the other, which she immediately used to crack Manny around the shins as he jumped up to hug her. ‘Why are your jeans four sizes too big? Are you keeping ferrets down there? You want to get yourself a nice pair of trousers like Drew.’
Just as it always did, my heart doubled in size at the sight of her.
It had been an eventful year for Myfanwy. Right after Christmas, she had a fall and spent a regrettable two days in hospital after which the nurses called my mum, begging her to take Nan home. After she slipped again in March, it was decided (although not by Nan) that she shouldn’t be living alone. She managed two months at my parent’s house before declaring that the house was so hot, my dad was obviously trying to kill her, and finding herself a little bungalow in the Bluebellsretirement community, fifteen minutes up the road. As soon as Cerys’s divorce was finalized, Nan suggested she sell her massive house outside Manchester, pocket the cash and move into her old place down the street from Mum and Dad. Nan was like a new woman. She’d even started crocheting cases for the emergency buttons all the residents wore around their necks, finding a passion for design at eighty-three.
And that wasn’t all she’d found.
‘I parked in front of the house but I’m blocking the driveway,’ Gerald said, striding into the living room, knocking the cold off his cap. ‘I can move it if anybody needs to get out.’
‘Nobody needs to go anywhere,’ Nan said, easing herself into her favourite armchair with Manny’s help. ‘Especially me. Once I’m down, I can’t get back up.’
‘She’s having you on.’ Gerald gazed at her with such fondness, I had to cover my smile with my hand for fear of incurring Nan’s wrath. ‘She’s up and down like a whore’s drawers when it suits her.’
‘Language,’ she admonished, tittering in her seat. ‘Now somebody get me a drink.’
Gerald moved to Bluebells for the company, he’d explained the first time we all went to visit and found him hoovering Nan’s living room. His wife had passed away several years before, their kids all lived far away and all his friends ‘kept popping their clogs’ and even though he wasn’t looking for love, he fell for Myfanwy the moment he saw her. She still insisted they were just good friends but as my dad pointed out, it was a bloody good friend who waited on you hand and foot, acted as your unpaid chauffeur and always seemed tobe in your house whenever anyone called, morning, noon or the middle of the night. I didn’t care, she wasn’t lonely anymore and that was all that mattered.
Two drinks and several pounds of cheese later, the doorbell rang and Artemis thundered through the hallway to answer it at a speed only available to the under-twelves.
‘Auntie Gwen!’ she bellowed. ‘He’s here!’
Even though it was only seven days since I’d seen him last, the butterflies in my stomach fluttered when Dev walked in the room, grey coat on his back, easy smile on his face and, because he was perfect, Santa hat on his head.
‘Merry Christmas, everyone,’ he said before taking off the hat and handing it to a waiting Artemis. He bent down to press a quick family-friendly kiss to my cheek and my heartbeat quickened as our eyes met. Every time I saw him was like the first time, all over again.
‘Hello, stranger,’ I whispered.
‘Hello, yourself,’ he replied.
‘Good drive, son?’ Dad asked, asking the official first question of dads everywhere as he heaved himself off the settee to get my boyfriend a drink.