Traditionally the men did the clearing up on Christmas Day, but Richard said he’d do it after he’d had a ten-minute sit-down and promptly fell asleep, and when Mark got up to do it, Grace stopped him. “No, Beth and I will do it, won’t we, Beth? It will give us a chance to get to know each other better.”
It wasn’t an appealing thought, but I pushed the feeling aside. If Grace was prepared to make an effort, then surely I could too. Life would be a great deal easier if we became friends. Who knew? We might find we had lots in common. We both loved Mark, after all, so obviously we had similar tastes. And anyway, Grace was always going to be present at family gatherings from now on, wasn’t she?
But while we rinsed plates and loaded the dishwasher, Grace didn’t seem to be in a hurry to ask any “get to know Beth better” questions. It was all just chitchat about the meal and the best way to stack the crockery for optimum cleaning power.
It wasn’t until I had my arms plunged in a bowl of soapy water, ready to tackle the pans and serving dishes, that Grace broached the subject for which she’d obviously brought me into the kitchen.
“I guess if things had turned out differently, you’d be with your real family today?”
On the face of it, it wasn’t such a hurtful thing to say. It was true, after all. No doubt I would be round at my mum and dad’s house if they’d still been alive. But it was her use of that word real—as if I were a complete and utter interloper—that upset me. That and the guilt I hadn’t really managed—even now—to shake off.
There had been a lot of guilty feelings when I was a kid, especially at Christmas. Every now and then, in the midst of all the excitement, it would come crashing over me. I’d be tearing the wrapping paper off my presents alongside Rosie, and suddenly I’d remember. My mum and dad were dead. I shouldn’t be enjoying myself. Shouldn’t be happy like this. It was wrong.
Either Sylvia or Richard was always on hand to give me a cuddle until the bad feelings went away. And as the years passed, the cuddles became a sympathetic smile or a shoulder squeeze, no words ever necessary. They’d always been there for me, those two, constant and reassuring. I loved them to pieces. To label them as anything but my real family felt wrong.
I swiped an arm over my face, realising I still hadn’t replied to Grace’s question. But perhaps she didn’t need me to anyway.
“We never know how life’s going to turn out, do we?” she went on. “Though we can make plans, of course. Set ourselves goals. I always said I’d be married before I was thirty, and voilà! Here I am, married at twenty-nine.”
I wanted to slap the smug expression off her face so badly that the need made me snap at her. “Was it all a question of timing, then? You marrying Mark? Right place, right time?”
She looked offended. “No, of course not. I love Mark.”
Had the woman diarised in when she was going to give birth? Very probably.
“What about you?” she asked. “What have you got planned for your life? Presumably, you don’t see yourself turning up here for Christmas every year until Sylvia and Richard pass away?”
My hands stilled in the washing-up bowl. My face had been flushed from the heat of the soapy water, but now I could feel the blood draining from it.
She knew. Grace knew how I felt about Mark. This was her way of dealing with it. Well, fair play to her. But I didn’t have to stick around while she twisted the knife.
“Excuse me,” I said, abandoning the washing-up brush on the draining board. “I’ve just got to make a phone call.”
Jaimie was surprised—but delighted—to hear from me.
“Is your invitation to spend Christmas Day with you still open? I know there isn’t much of the day actually left, but I could be with you in a couple of hours if I leave now.”
“God, yes, please come. It would be amazing to see you. As long as you haven’t had too much to drink with your Christmas lunch? There aren’t any trains running today, what with it being Christmas.”
I thought about it and realised I had drunk about as little as I had eaten. Maybe it had been some sort of self-preservation thing or something. “No, I’ve only had one glass of wine. I’ll be fine. Can you text me your address?”
Fifteen minutes later, I was ignoring my guilty conscience and heading out the door. Sylvia was upset and trying to hide it. Richard was gut-wrenchingly understanding. Mark was bemused. And Grace? Grace was smug. Of course she was. By getting rid of me, she’d achieved exactly what she’d set out to achieve. But I didn’t care.
“Has Jaimie told you about his hobby yet?” she asked as I swept past her on my way to my car.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so. What is it?”
She laughed. “If he hasn’t told you, I won’t spoil the surprise. Goodbye, Beth.”
I cried at first. Not shoulder-shudderingly dangerously. Just a steady slide of tears down my cheeks which I kept in check with my coat sleeve.
Mum and Dad were celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary in the Lake District when they died. A fog came down suddenly, and a lorry ploughed straight into them. They both died instantly, and so did my life as I knew it. I went to live with my dad’s sister, Aunt Tilda, which meant a new school, and a new routine of going to after-school clubs and childcare during the holidays, since Aunt Tilda worked full-time. I was lonely and grieving, missing both my parents and my friends, especially Rosie. In the end, sensing how miserable I was, Sylvia approached Tilda and offered to have me during the holidays and after school. I often wished I could just stay all the time instead of going home with Tilda when she came to collect me, but she did her best for me, bless her, and we did become closer. I was sad when she died just before my thirteenth birthday.
Because it was Christmas, there was very little traffic on the roads, and it was a straightforward journey along the A10 to Ely pretty much all the way. By the time I was halfway there, I was starting to feel resigned, if not quite hopeful. Grace may have been cruel, but she’d also been right. I did need to move on. All my instincts had told me it wasn’t a good idea to spend Christmas at Richard and Sylvia’s this year, but I’d ignored them because I didn’t want to upset anyone. And in the process, I’d upset myself. God, I was so glad I wasn’t still there, pretend smiling over a board game, forcing myself to eat a turkey sandwich I didn’t want. It had been fun chatting with Jaimie on the phone these past few weeks, and it would be good to see him in the flesh again.
It was dark by the time I approached Ely. Jaimie had told me to look out for the floodlit cathedral. He’d said when I saw it, I’d be only a few miles away. When it came into view, standing out like a beacon across the dark fields, I couldn’t help but gasp out loud. It was so magically pretty with its silver spires stretching up into the night sky—like a fairy castle. Somehow the beauty of it cheered me and gave me hope.
Unmuting the satnav, I followed the directions past a superstore, stopping after I’d turned left at the roundabout to sort out the mess of my makeup with the aid of a wipe and a hand mirror. Then I continued on, turning left down the next street and heading for the end of a close of twenty houses until I reached Jaimie’s home.