‘Great,’ said Tiger. ‘That sounds like a plan then.’
Romany leaned across and surprised herself by planting a peck on his cheek. That was something she could never have imagined doing three months ago.
‘Thanks, Tiger,’ she said again, and he smiled back. His eyes were glistening, too.
47
Maggie looked at the sparkly Christmas tree earrings and wondered, yet again, whether she could get away with them. They weren’t really her style, or even to her taste, but there was a kind of frivolous silliness about them that appealed to her. Other people wore festive jewellery and seemed to survive without looking like they were trying too hard. Maybe she could wear them in an ironic way, so that if anyone commented on how unlikely they were on her, she could toss her head and give them a sympathetic smile, as if they had completely missed the point. What if she just wore one, a nod to Christmas but showing that she hadn’t totally bought into the commercial vibe?
Or could there be a possibility that she was overthinking the entire thing? She scooped the earrings up and dropped them back into the box. Maybe next year . . .
She had never eaten out on Christmas Day before, which was, of course, the point. It was touching that Tiger had been sensitive enough to realise that Romany would need something different this year. Touching, and quite surprising. Maggie had thought that out of Romany’s guardians, she was the one with a monopoly on thoughtfulness, but in that, as in so many other things, she had been wrong.
It was sweet of him to invite her and Leon, too. There had been no suggestion that they should invite Hope, Romany’s fourth and thus far absent other guardian. Maggie had wrangled with that. It felt wrong for them all to be going out together without even running it by her. She had managed to rationalise it by thinking that the fact that the three of them had been appointed ‘guardians’ was irrelevant to their decision to spend Christmas Day together. They were doing that because they were old friends, who were, quite rarely and possibly uniquely, all available on December 25 this year. Hope would no doubt have other things she would rather be doing, like spending the day with that boyfriend, if he was still on the scene. Maggie hadn’t seen her since the reading of Angie’s will and then the conversation hadn’t strayed into the state of her love life, for obvious reasons.
So Maggie had stopped feeling bad and started looking forward to a Christmas lunch out. Romany had chosen the restaurant, a place that Maggie had taken clients to a couple of times, back when she had clients, but she didn’t remember much about it other than that it had been perfectly acceptable. It possibly wasn’t the kind of place she would have chosen for Christmas lunch but then again, wasn’t that exactly the point? A change, something new and totally unconnected to anything that Angie had done – that was the driving force behind the whole day.
She heard a car pulling up in the driveway. Leon was here. He always wanted to be in Leeds on Christmas Day morning, so that he could pop round and see his boys. This tradition would come to an end soon, she imagined. Thomas was twenty-two and would surely want to be making his own Christmases soon enough, if only to get away from the all-controlling Becky, but for now Maggie didn’t mind waking up alone on the big day and she rather enjoyed having the morning on her own, pottering about with ‘Carols from Kings’ on the sound system and a glass of something bubbly in her hand.
She slipped her feet into her shoes and took a last glance at herself in the mirror – she looked fine, she concluded, and with no need for sparkly Christmas tree earrings.
The restaurant was already busy, but there was a table for four right in the centre just sitting quietly and waiting for its occupants to arrive. It was stylishly dressed with white linen and sparkling glasses, but there were the obligatory crackers and party poppers at each place setting. You couldn’t escape Christmas entirely, then, Maggie thought, throwing a glance at Romany to see if they troubled her, but she was smiling, sharing a joke with Tiger and didn’t seem distressed. Maggie would be led by her as to whether they pulled them or dropped them discreetly to the floor.
They followed the waitress to their table and then, after a brief hesitation over seating arrangements, settled themselves down. Tiger immediately snatched up a cracker and offered one end to Romany. So much for his sensitivity, Maggie thought, but Romany seemed to accept it in the spirit that it had been offered, and soon everything that could be pulled had been and they were all sitting there in jaunty paper hats and squinting at terrible jokes.