Naomi smiled. “Tony is a man in love,” she said. “Totally besotted. He’s been great, which is just as well, you know? Because it’s all quite . . . well, all-consuming, I suppose, this parenting thing.”
There had been just a hint of vulnerability in Naomi’s voice, but I wasn’t surprised when she quickly hid it with a smile. Naomi wasn’t the type to admit weakness of any kind. I was glad she had a diamond like Tony to support her.
Bembe had finished feeding by this time and fallen asleep. Naomi held him out to me. “You wouldn’t take him for a moment, would you? While I adjust myself? And I wouldn’t say no to a few Christmas chocolates, Tia. I’m still eating for two. And I know for a fact you’ll have an open box stashed behind reception.”
While Naomi and the other girls ate chocolates and fielded phone calls, I got to cradle Bembe in my arms. I gazed down at his long eyelashes and the dark fuzz of his hair. With his sleeping face; delicate, shell-like ears; and rosebud mouth, he was perfect. Utterly perfect.
“Does this new man of yours want any more children?” Naomi teased as she finished off a strawberry cream chocolate.
I smiled. “I have no idea. And he’s not my new man.”
“Yet.”
“We’ll see.” I handed Bembe back, instantly missing his weight as she took him from me. “But now I’ll have to love you and leave you. Snoopy’s anal glands await me.”
“Ah,” said Naomi. “I do miss the glamour of this job.”
I was excited when I met up with everybody later to go ice-skating at the temporary rink outside Somerset House. Everyone was, because we loved this particular Christmas tradition, but I guessed I needed it more than anyone, if only as a means of forgetting the wedding. Anyway, the banter flew thick and fast between us as we queued to get in, and as soon as we were on the ice, we divided naturally into two groups—those of us, like me, who were confident skaters and those who needed to keep to the edge and proceed more cautiously.
As a child, I’d always liked to pretend I was performing in the Olympics whenever I skated. Even now, I felt a bit like a performer as I whizzed happily around the rink. Ice-skating is something I can do, and where better to do it than surrounded by pink-floodlit architecture, the neoclassical stonework transformed into a giant cake, the skaters into flamingos? The graceful ones, anyway.
For half an hour, I forgot about everything else. Even Mark, Grace, and Paris.
Afterwards, there was hot chocolate under a giant Christmas tree decorated with lights and cute miniature Fortnum & Mason hampers, with everyone chattering about their plans for the holidays. And in the middle of it all, my phone rang.
“I bet that’s him!” Tia shouted out loudly, high on sugar and endorphins. “The man from the wedding! Go for it, Beth!”
Tia’s excitement was catching. I hoped it was Jaimie. Just in case, I took the precaution of walking a little distance away from my colleagues before taking the call. “Hello?”
“Hi. It’s Jaimie. From Saturday night? At the wedding?”
I smiled. “Yes, I do remember you.”
He laughed. “Sorry, of course you do. How are you?”
“I’m good. How about you? How was your day with your girls?”
“Oh, you know. It flashed past, as usual. I’d planned to take them into Cambridge to see Father Christmas, but Harriet had got in before me on Saturday.”
I could hear the disappointment in his voice. “What did you do instead?”
“Well, it will probably sound a bit lame, but I took them to a Christingle service at the cathedral. You know, where the kids all get a candle stuck into an orange? It kept them happy for an hour or so. Then we walked down to the river to feed the ducks.”
“I loved feeding the ducks when I was a child.”
“Ah, but I bet you didn’t have special ducks where you went. We have Muscovy ducks here in Ely.”
I laughed. “Are you up-ducking me?”
“Might be.” He laughed. “It’s good to talk to you, Beth. In fact, I must confess, I haven’t stopped thinking about you since Saturday. Well, in the spaces between finding Olivia’s missing shoe and making sure the duck bread was divided up absolutely equally, you understand.”
“I’ve thought about you too,” I said, because it was true. And it hadn’t always been in a comparing-him-to-Mark kind of way either. Jaimie was an attractive guy in his own right.
“I’d really like to meet up with you again.”
I felt a glow at the thought of having something to look forward to.
“But I’m not sure it’s going to happen before Christmas, sadly. I’ve got the girls again on Sunday, and I must go Christmas shopping on Saturday. But straight after Christmas if you’re free? And can we chat again before that?”
“Sure.”
I was grinning when I rejoined my colleagues. Tia cheered and raised her cup of hot chocolate to me. “It was him, wasn’t it?” she said. “Shall I start looking for a wedding hat?”
Jaimie was as good as his word. By the time I met up with Rosie to see the Christmas lights along Regent Street a few days before Christmas, I’d heard from him pretty much every day.
Rosie and I always met up in December to see the lights on Regent Street—it was one of our Christmas traditions. They were amazing that year—it looked as if giant luminous snowflakes were falling from the sky. And the snow-scene window display at Harrods on Oxford Street was its usual inspirational self. I was feeling smug about having finished my Christmas shopping too; I was glad I wasn’t one of the brow-creased shoppers searching for last-minute inspiration. I was particularly pleased with my gift for Rosie—it was a Giorgio Beverly Hills bear wearing yellow dungarees with Giorgio emblazoned across the front. She seemed slightly distant that evening, though—as if she weren’t quite present with me. Something was obviously up.
Finally, I nudged her, deciding to find out what was wrong. “Everything okay?”
Rosie pulled a sorrowful face. “I’ve got something to tell you. Something you won’t like.”
My heart sped up. Was she ill? Had something happened to Mark in Paris? “What?”
She sighed. “I’m really sorry, but I won’t be home for Christmas after all. Giorgio’s invited me to spend Christmas with him in Rome. I booked a last-minute flight. I leave tomorrow.”
My first response was to be pleased for her. “Wow, Rosie, that’s so romantic!” But then I quickly realised exactly what her romantic tryst would mean for me: having to deal with the honeymoon couple on my own. Oh God.
“Weren’t you the one who told me your mum needed ten months’ notice if we weren’t going to be there for Christmas?”
“I know,” she said. “But actually, Mum’s fine with it. Probably because there’s a man involved. She thinks it’s romantic too. Look, I really am sorry, Beth. He asked me, and . . . well, I just folded, I suppose. He said it’s a perfect time to visit all the sights. And there’s this huge Christmas market or something. It sounded fun.”
“I won’t be able to give you your Christmas present,” I wailed, already thinking the Giorgio bear wasn’t as great an idea as I’d thought it might be. After all, who wanted a Giorgio bear when you could have the real Giorgio, complete with romantic Rome?