Going Home
Harriet Evans

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Harriet Evans 2005

Extract from The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, reprinted by kind permission of PFD on behalf of the Estate of Nancy Mitford © Estate of Nancy Mitford

Extract from Devil’s Cub by Georgette Heyer reprinted by kind permission of the Estate of Georgette Heyer © Georgette Heyer 1932

Harriet Evans asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007198436

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2010 ISBN: 9780007373291

Version 2015-04-15

To Rebecca and Pippa, with love and thanks for everything

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Christmas

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

Spring

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

Summer

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

Excerpt from Happily Ever After

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

Praise

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Epigraph

‘But I think she would have been happy with Fabrice,’ I said. ‘He was the great love of her life, you know.’

‘Oh dulling,’ said my mother sadly. ‘One always thinks that. Every, every time.’

Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love

Christmas

ONE

The bus ground its way slowly up the Edgware Road as I sat, like a mad old bag lady, gripping my last-minute Christmas shopping between my legs and on my lap, casting angry glances at those who tried to sit anywhere near me. It was Christmas Eve and I’d only just got round to buying my presents. With the depressing predictability of riots on May Day, rain at Wimbledon, and stories in August about hamsters who can play the kazoo, I promise myself every year that I will have bought and wrapped all my presents by 15 December, and every year I end up in Boots with an hour to go, buying my father a small, slanting glass toothpick-holder, my mother a furry hot-water-bottle cover endorsed by the Tweenies, and my sister Jess a gilt-edged notelet set that says, ‘Happy Christmas!’.

I jumped off at the lights, closed my eyes and ran across the road, praying that this would not be how I met my death. I had half an hour before Tom, my cousin, and Jess arrived to pick me up. We were going home, home home, in one of thousands of cars setting forth from London, after their occupants had put in a half-day at work, bags hastily packed, driving into the twilight. It was only three p.m., but dusk already seemed to be descending over the city.

My flat is just off the Edgware Road, behind an odd assortment of dilapidated shops that are a constant source of delight to me. There are the usual cut-price off-licences (‘Bacardi Breezer’s at 75p!’) and poky newsagents, neither of which ever stock Twiglets but promise they’ll have some next time I come in. There’s also an undertaker, a computer shop selling ancient Amstrads, a joke shop called Cheap laffs – handy when you’re in urgent need of a pair of fake comedy breasts – and Arthur’s Bargains, which, incongruously, sells pianos and keyboards. I would not personally spend my hard-earned cash on a musical instrument from a place called Arthur’s Bargains but chacun à son gout, as the French say. Off a tiny alley, so nondescript I have frequently noticed people not noticing it, away from the roar of the cars and lorries that thunder up and down the Edgware Road day and night, is a small cobbled street with tall, spindly houses, one of which is mine. Well, one of the shoebox flats on the top floor is mine.

The noise of traffic faded as I turned into my street. I could even hear the faint rumble of a tube beneath me, full of passengers escaping from work to enjoy the usual bout of indigestion, seasonal belligerence and disappointing new episodes of Only Fools and Horses. The flowers I’d bought for Mum, fiery red and orange ranunculas, crackled in their brown-paper wrapping as I grappled with the temperamental locks on the front door. I hauled myself up the stairs, struggled with my own front door, nudged it open with my bottom and lowered my bags on to the floor.

I headed into my tiny bedroom, which I love despite its size, sloping roof and lack of light. The view isn’t uniformly picturesque, unless you call Wormwood Scrubs picturesque. But it’s my flat, my view, so while other people look out of the window and say, ‘Oh, my God – is that a dead body in your street?’ I say, ‘You can see Little Venice from here, if you stand on that chair and use a periscope.’

The packing I’d been so smug about at one o’clock this morning was not at the advanced stage I’d imagined when I rushed out of the door, hung-over and dishevelled, a handful of hours later. I’d packed all my socks but no shoes, seven pairs of trousers and no jumpers, and had obviously been in a nostalgic mood because Lizzy the drunk had seen fit to pack three teddies (bears, not lingerie), a collection of Just William stories, and just one pair of knickers.

Expecting to hear the beep of Tom’s car horn at any minute, I rushed around the flat, plucking Sellotape and knickers out of drawers, contact-lens solution and moisturizers from the bathroom cupboard, shoving one plastic bag of presents inside another, watering plants picking up the papers and magazines that lay strewn across the floor and dumping them beside the sofa. The flat had a dusty, neglected air. Christmas cards had fallen over and not been picked up, videos and CDs lay out of cases, and there was a collection of unopened, unthought-of statements from BT, the bank, my mobile phone company. I loved my flat. I’d bought it two years ago from the old lady I used to rent it from. It had been painted by me, the pictures and photos were put up by me, and the hole in the plaster by the front door had been made by me kicking the wall when I was cross. It was my home. But it was at times like this, as I dashed around, longing to get away, that I knew it wasn’t really a home, not in the way Keeper House always had been, since long before I was born.

As I was cramming some old newspapers into the wastepaper basket, I heard a car horn and leaned out of the sitting-room window. Tom and Jess were waving up at me.

‘I’ve got fags!’ Tom shouted.

‘And I’ve got mags!’ Jess chorused.

‘I’m coming!’ I yelled down at them, and scooped up my suitcase and bags, pausing at the door as I spotted the answer-phone flashing. Like a cross between a t’ai chi instructor and a Russian weightlifter, I bent my knees slowly and elbowed the play button.

‘You have two messages,’ said the machine, as Tom leaned on his horn.

‘Well, come on, then,’ I said, in frustration to the machine.

‘Message One. Hi, Lizzy, it’s Ash here. I’m just ringing to say you left your chequebook at work. Anyway, happy Christmas and have a lovely time at home and I’ll speak to you when you get back. Oh, and I forgot to tell you this today and it will really annoy you but you know Sally? Press-department Sally? Well, she saw Jaden on Sunday and he told her you still haven’t told him whether you’ll go out with him or not and he thinks you don’t like him any more. He also thinks you’re not over your ex and you’re holding on to negativity in your life and all women have these flaws and essentially hate men, which is why their menstrual cycles club together when they live in the same house, to exclude men from the life of their women. But he also said he’d still like to sleep with you and that you have great boobs. I agree. ‘Bye.’

‘Oh, God,’ I said.

‘Message Two. Lizzy, it’s Tom. I’ve got this week’s heat, so don’t buy it. Also, can you bring some CDs? I’ve got a new streaming system in the car and you can play about fourteen or something at the same time. Also, I just spoke to Jess and she spoke to your mum and last they heard Uncle Mike said he couldn’t come back. He’s been out of town and has to work in a couple of days. Bye then.’

I clenched my teeth at the first message and moaned at the second. Jaden. Oh, Jaden. He was a scriptwriter and I met him at work. He lived in LA and was bloody gorgeous but totally insane, ringing me at seven on a Sunday morning to tell me that the wheat I ate was clinging to my lower intestine and poisoning my bowels, which was why my liver was wet and I felt drained all the time. When I later explained I felt drained because I kept going out and getting drunk by mistake, then waking up in the middle of the night lying on my sofa fully clothed, he simply shook his head. I’d reserve judgement about whether to see him again till the hell of New Year’s Eve was over. And as for not being over my ex, well…ha.

And it was gutting about Uncle Mike. Even though we’d all known he probably wouldn’t be able to get the time off, Christmas wouldn’t be the same without him. Uncle Mike is one of those people who makes everything brilliant the moment he walks into a room.

The horn beeped long and loud, and I roared, ‘Coming – flipping heck!’ waved goodbye to my poor neglected flat and locked the door on my London life. My heels clattered on the cobbles as I slung my bags into the boot, kissed Tom and Jess, then flung myself into the back seat.

After a heated discussion about which radio station to listen to, and having plumped for Capital, we argued about what time we’d get home and whether or not we were late. Then, once we’d reached the motorway, we argued about Jess’s request to go to the loo. I pointed out that, while she was my younger sister, she was twenty-five now and should have learned to control her bladder for the duration of a two-hour journey. Tom pointed out that it was his car and if she peed on the seat he would personally skin her alive, so we stopped at the first service station we came across.

By this time it was dark, nearing five o’clock, and a light drizzle was falling. Capital had long since gone out of range, and we were listening to a CD of carols Jess had produced ‘to get us in the mood’. Tom and I called her tragic for buying it, then sang along for the rest of the motorway, quarrelled again, then played Shoot Shag Marry, yelling rudely at each other’s choices.

‘OK, OK, OK!’ Jess shouted, as we passed the last exit before ours. ‘Tom, this is one for you. OK. Janet Street-Porter, Esther Rantzen, Lily Savage. Shoot, shag or marry?’

‘Good one, Jess,’ I said. ‘Tom, that’s easy, I know who I’d pick.’

‘But you’re weird,’ said Tom. ‘Right. I’d shoot Esther Rantzen. I’d shag Janet Street-Porter. And I’d marry Lily Savage.’

‘Are you mad?’ I shrieked. ‘You’d marry Lily Savage over Janet Street-Porter? No way! She’d eat you for breakfast. And she’d be off with Dale Winton and Cilla Black all day long. You’d be a grass widow.’

‘Hm,’ said Tom. ‘I’ll take a chance. Better than Street-Porter jawing on all day.’

‘No, I like her. She’s into hill-walking and stuff. You’d be able to have great chats. And are you gay? Lily Savage is a man in drag.’

‘Like you’d be able to tell. And since when have you been into hill-walking?’ Tom sneered.

‘That’s not the point. You’ve picked the wrong one, that’s all.’

‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ Tom snapped.

There was an awkward silence.

‘I meant in the game, not in real life,’ he said, after a moment.

‘I know you did,’ I said.

Jess cleared her throat. ‘Lizzy, your turn. OK, this is good. Right – Jonny Wilkinson, David Beckham, Mike Atherton.’

‘Easy,’ I said. ‘I’d shoot David Beckham, because I think he’s a bit of a wally. I’d shag Mike Atherton, because he seems nice. And I’d definitely marry Jonny Wilkinson – I’d live on a rugby field if he asked me.’

Tom slapped his forehead. ‘God, oh, my God,’ he moaned. ‘Are you two serious? For a start, Mike Atherton? Why include him?’

‘He’s the cricket captain,’ said Jess, looking surprised. ‘You know, for England.’

‘No, he’s not, you mallet! He hasn’t been for ages! Jesus…And, Lizzy, even if he was, are you saying you’d shoot David Beckham and shag Atherton instead? I mean, seriously?’

‘Yes,’ I said firmly, knowing I’d made a bit of an error. I mean, David Beckham may speak like a six-year-old girl but look at him! However, I couldn’t let Tom know I agreed with him. ‘I’m telling the truth,’ I said.

‘You’re lying,’ Tom said crossly.

‘So are you,’ I said automatically.

Tom frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ he said.

‘You always do this! You always pick them to annoy me, then lie about who you like best. You never tell the truth about it.’

‘I didn’t pick them,’ Tom said. ‘It’s only a game.’

‘But I’m taking it seriously and you’re not,’ I said.

‘Well, I don’t know what to say. You’re a terrible picker. And I won’t say what’s on the tip of my tongue because you’ll get upset.’

‘What?’ I asked, then realised he was going to say something mean about David. My David, not David Beckham. My ex-David. ‘Oh, right. Forget it.’

Even though Jess, Tom and I all lived in London, we saw each other less frequently than we would have liked. Jess is doing an art foundation course and living in a crummy flat in South Clapham with three schoolfriends. I love my sister, but she can’t even draw a circle, let alone a 3D object, so I’m not quite sure what she does all day.

Tom is a high-powered lawyer. He works terribly hard and lives in trendy Clerkenwell where, in his infrequent leisure time, he surrounds himself with gossip magazines and indulges his obsession for high-tech gadgets. Aside from my parents and sister, Tom is my favourite person in the world. We speak often, usually when he’s still in the office at eleven p.m. and I’m in a pub, drooling into my phone and slurring, ‘Comehere! Youneedadrink!’ Tom is terribly nice-looking. His hair does lovely floppy things without seeming outrageously Huge Grunt-ish, he’s always tanned, and he’s very smiley, which masks the fact that he is the most sardonic, annoying person in the world.

The only person Tom really loves, I’m sure, is his mother Kate, who lives near my parents. When we were both three his father, Tony, had a heart-attack and died. He was only twenty-eight, the next in age to my dad. Tom can hardly remember him now, although he can picture lying beside him in the long grass of the meadow opposite Keeper House one summer and being tickled so much he was sick. I always think that’s a rather unfortunate last memory to have of your dad, but Tom always says no, because it’s complete; he can remember what he was wearing, how he felt, what his dad looked like, and how hot it was. Tom doesn’t talk much about Tony, in fact none of us does. But our house is full of reminders of him, from a little cricket trophy he won when he was twelve to his huge collection of opera programmes, and I think Tom likes looking at them secretly when he goes there. And being in the house where his father grew up.

As we headed deeper into the countryside, the roads became thinner and darker, the trees arching over us. The car wove its way through the old familiar places, the scenes of our childhood that I always forgot about until I came back. We were getting closer and closer to home.

Past the meadow we used to own when my aunt Kate still rode and kept a pony there, and where as children we used to play Funerals for Pets, a rather ghoulish game involving the re-enactment of the various ceremonies we’d held for recently deceased dogs, cats, hamsters, gerbils and guineapigs. Along by the river that had an island at its centre, then skirting the edge of a small wood, where Tom once got lost, gave up on civilian life and determined to be a child of the forest until our other aunt, Chin, found him there. The road sloped gently down the side of the valley and now I could just make out Wareham village, a mile away – it was the same view as the one from my bedroom. Now we were driving past the house where sweet Mrs Favell lived: she had made a pet of me when I was small and rewarded me with old copies of the Radio Times, a glamorous luxury to Jess and me because it was banned in our house as a waste of money. Last time I was home I found an old copy and was disappointed to see that its most exciting feature was on the new series of Ever Decreasing Circles.

We passed the track that led down to the ivy-covered tunnel of the long-neglected railway, along which the steam trains had ferried my father and his brothers to school, and my grandparents to town. It had been closed down long before I was born, and replaced with belching, unreliable buses, crowded and sticky, especially in summer, and thoroughly unsatisfactory.

‘Nearly there,’ said Tom, as he swung off the main road, the sound of wet leaves mulching beneath the car. ‘Can’t believe it. I thought I’d die of alcohol poisoning before I made it to Christmas Eve.’

I knew what he meant. I find the lead-up to Christmas so exhausting that it’s sometimes a struggle to preserve some energy for the holiday. Some of the stores on Oxford Street put their Christmas lights up two weeks before Hallowe’en. It’s ridiculous. I remembered the slanting glass toothpick-holder and shuddered, resolving that next year I really would do my shopping before Bonfire Night.

‘So, who’s going to be there when we arrive?’ Jess asked.

‘Mum will, because we’re staying at yours,’ Tom said. Kate lived in a cottage down the road from my parents.

‘And Mike’s definitely not coming?’ I asked.

‘Mum spoke to him a week ago. He’s obviously knackered, and he has to be back in the office on, like, the twenty-seventh to finish some deal.’

‘What if he’s just lying, doing an Uncle Mike joke?’ Jess said hopefully.

‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ Tom said. ‘He’s not coming, and that’s that.’

Mike was Dad’s eldest brother and everyone’s favourite. He’s the funniest man I’ve ever met. He did a lot of the work necessary to earn that title when I was about five years old and fairly easy to impress, but he somehow knows exactly what will please you most, or cheer you up when you need it. Who else would forget his godson Tom’s tenth birthday, then arrange, a week later, for a pair of remote-controlled toy cars, complete with flashing lights, proper gears and red enamelled bonnets to be delivered from Hamleys by a man in full livery? Who, for my thirteenth birthday, took charge of the party when Mum was ill with flu and escorted me, with ten of my friends, to the cinema, where we saw a ‘15’ film (A Fish Called Wanda) then went to Pizza Express where he let us all have a glass of wine and tipped the waiter to go and buy me a proper birthday cake from the patisserie next door? Mike.

Actually, more often than not he’s useless. He never turns up, he has no idea how old you are or what you’re doing, he’s late, he’s disorganized, and when he’s there he often has no idea what’s going on, but I suppose that’s part of what makes him so fab – you never know what he’s going to do next.

Mike is a high-powered lawyer, like Tom, and lives in New York where he works even harder than Tom does and has an infrequent succession of girlfriends. ‘The law is my mistress, Suzy,’ he’d say, in answer to Mum’s hopeful enquiries about his love life.

‘I don’t care who your mistress is, you stupid man,’ Mum would reply crossly. ‘Have you got a girlfriend?’

Tom negotiated the crossroads through the village. A Christmas tree covered with twinkling lights shone through a cottage window, and in another I could see the glow of a television. The rain had stopped, and the temperature had dropped sharply.

‘Mum told me yesterday that Chin’s bringing her new man,’ Jess said.

‘I didn’t know she was seeing someone.’ Tom was obviously nettled by this information.

‘Wait! It’s not that Australian guy…Gibbo? She’s bringing him?’

‘Apparently,’ said Jess. ‘It must be more serious than we thought.’

‘Must be, if she’s willing to expose him to Christmas at home,’ I said.

Chin was Dad’s youngest sibling by a mile, and more like a cousin to us than an aunt. She was a designer: some of her scarves had been sold in Liberty and she also made necklaces and little bags. She lived in London too, but I hadn’t seen her for a while, although she had a flat not too far from me, in Portobello Road. Even now she seemed the epitome of chic Bohemian glamour, without even trying; the kind of woman who could walk into a junk shop and say, ‘Wow, what a delightful eighteen-century French armoire for fifty p! I’ll take it please,’ while if I’d been in there three seconds earlier I’d only have spotted a rusty old baked bean tin for four hundred pounds.

She’d been seeing Gibbo for a few months now and all I knew about him was that he had long hair and wore flip-flops in November. Jess had bumped into them in Soho one evening, and Chin – who normally goes out with worldly Frenchmen or devastatingly handsome record executives who break her heart, rather than dishevelled young Australians who punch her jovially in the arm and say ‘Let’s get going, mate!’ – couldn’t get away fast enough.

‘That’s it, then,’ Jess said. ‘That’s everyone.’

‘You’ve forgotten your parents,’ said Tom. ‘Perhaps they don’t count, though. I mean, it’s their house. They’re always there.’

TWO

It was my parents’ house, but it felt like home to all of us. The home of the Walter family. It had been for over a hundred years, pretty amazing when you think about it. My great-great-grandfather, Sir Edwin Walter, had been a successful society artist who painted Victorian ladies who lunched. Elise was the dark-eyed eighteen-year-old daughter of a paper manufacturer. They had fallen in love when he painted her. He asked her father if he could marry her, and her father said no, that Edwin was a flaky London painter without roots, living in a shambolic studio in Hampstead, of all places.

So my great-great-grandfather, who until then had never thought about anyone but himself, went looking for somewhere to settle down, and found Keeper House. The owner had just died: his family had lived there since it was built in 1592, and he was the last of the line. Just one family, for three hundred years. It was small, dilapidated, unloved and scruffy, but my great-great-grandfather looked out over the valley, at the meadows, the fields and the stream, and up into the twinkling windows, and knew immediately he would live there with Elise. When he persuaded her father to bring her down to see it, family legend has it that all three stood in the hallway and toasted Elise and Edwin’s future happiness. I’ve always loved that story.

Keeper House is built in a mellow golden stone that gleams in summer and glows in winter. It’s L-shaped, with high, leaded windows whose casements jam in wet weather, long, rambling corridors with uneven floorboards, and evil hot-water pipes that rarely work and sound like the Edinburgh Tattoo when they do. It’s a beautiful house, and we were lucky to have grown up there. It is encircled by a wall, and at the front there is a terrace of flagstones, worn smooth with age, where tiny white flowers spring up in the cracks each spring. At the back there is a long lawn and a walled garden, where rows of lavender stretch from the kitchen door, punctuated by tumbling, sweet-smelling roses, mustardy lettuce and the tastiest potatoes.

In summer it’s the best place in the world to live. In winter, it can be a nightmare: freezing, draughty, prone to break-downs and temperamental behaviour, but we never mention this out of politeness to the house – at least, I don’t. I once found Mum hugging the ancient boiler and banging her head against its red-painted curves, moaning, ‘Why do you do this to me?’

Tom took the last corner and we veered left down the driveway. Jess and I craned our necks like a couple of five-year-olds. ‘There’s Chin, and that must be Gibbo,’ Jess said. I could see them all through the big leaded bay window as Tom brought the car to a halt – Mum, mug in hand, half standing, smiling, Dad beaming as he walked towards the front door, Chin and Gibbo following him, then Kate.

They filed out one by one. ‘Hello!’ we cried. ‘Hello!’ I hugged Dad, shook hands with Gibbo and kissed Chin.

‘Darlings, you’re here!’ My mother was holding a stodgy-looking piece of cake, which she waved at us. ‘Oh, I’m so glad to see you. You made good time, didn’t you?’ She kissed me and Jess, then Tom. ‘Come inside, we’re having a Bavarian stollen I’ve made.’

Jess and Tom rolled their eyes, just as Kate appeared. ‘Hello, Tom,’ she said, and gave him the kind of hug that the Rock would have been proud of.

As we entered, the smell of home flooded over me, a potent blend of damp old flagstones, burning logs and something baking in the Aga. Then I caught the scent of the Christmas tree in the hall and the boughs of pine that were laid along the windowsills throughout the house.

‘I’ll make a fresh pot of tea,’ Mum said. ‘Why don’t you shove your bags upstairs so we don’t fall over them?’

Jess and I lugged our suitcases up the carved staircase that curved over the hall, along the galleried corridor, from which you could drop things on the heads of new arrivals, past the alcove with the worn-out rocking chair and a bookcase crammed with green Penguins and cheap old cloth hardbacks, past our parents’ room, to the corner of the L where my bedroom was, a long low room with windows on both sides.

I threw off my shoes, flung my bags of presents on to the bed, then went to open the corner casement. Out beyond me stretched the sloping valley, with the lights of Wareham in the distance, smoke curling from the occasional chimney. The clouds had cleared and the stars were out, shining in clusters above the fields. The mulberry tree on the terrace had been festooned with white lights that shone like magic in the dark. I could hear Mum talking to Kate in the kitchen. An owl hooted in the woods behind me.

‘I’m home,’ I said, and hugged myself.

There is a tradition in my family that on Christmas Eve we drink sloe gin. This is one of the many traditions that characterize the yuletide period of joy, which starts in October when we pick the sloes in the hedgerows above the house. Armed with plastic bags and hats, because it always rains, we all set forth from the house searching for the plump, blue-black berries that nestle between the thorns.

It’s not easy, sloe-picking. A film executive from LA took me out to lunch in a glassy Soho restaurant this year and peered quizzically at my scratched hands, which looked rather dramatic against the white linen tablecloth. ‘I do all my own stunts,’ I said, then told him how I’d spent Sunday afternoon. He evidently thought I – and my family – was completely mad.

When Jess was little she looked like a monkey, not facially but in physique. She could climb anywhere, once Mum smacked her for climbing on to the roof at home and playing her recorder there (a bit like Brian May at Buckingham Palace, but smaller and with less hair). She used to put up the lights in the mulberry tree, scampering among the branches until she had nearly garrotted herself. When our late cat Seamus climbed up to the highest bookshelf in the study and refused to come down, Dad handed Jess a fiver and a ladder and left the room. She was brilliant at sloe-picking – small and lithe, she would have located lots of berries while the rest of us were crying, ‘Ooh, where’s the bag? I think I’ve found one!’ This year she had excelled herself, so there was a lot more gin than usual to drink.

Later that evening we all gathered in the sitting room to taste the results of our hunter-gathering, and wish each other a happy Christmas. If I’d been at home in London, I’d have been settling down with a large glass of red wine and a plate of pasta mixed with butter and Marmite (don’t knock it till you’ve tried it) in my bobbly old socks with my hair pushed back in a bobbly old hairband. But at home in Keeper House the formalities of another age lingered: although no one dons white tie and tails or dusts off the tiara, I had still felt it necessary to run a brush through my hair, change my top and put on some more lip gloss. Mum and Kate, both creatures of habit, were modelling Marks & Spencer’s festive collection – a riot of burgundy crushed velvet and elasticated palazzo pants.

Mum had put ivy along the sitting-room mantelpiece and around the lamps, and sprigs of holly on top of the paintings. She was pouring the sloe gin into little glasses and singing along to a Frank Sinatra CD, while Dad was handing round crisps. Gibbo, who had endeared himself to us by calling Chin ‘mate’ and giving her a fireman’s lift up the stairs, was standing by the fire. He’d smoothed down his extraordinarily curly long hair with water and now wore a plaid shirt buttoned to the neck and a confused expression.

‘No sign of Mike, then?’ asked Kate, as she came into the room.

‘He could still turn up, you know,’ said Dad. ‘He booked his flight and the car ages ago. Perhaps he’ll call.’ He looked hopefully at the phone, as if he expected it to suddenly say, ‘He’s on his way, sir, just passing Membury Services now in fact.’

‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’ Tom asked.

‘Not sure – Kate, he rang you last week, didn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ Kate said. ‘When did he phone you?’

‘Last week. But he left a message yesterday – it didn’t make much sense. I think he was a bit the worse for drink, unfortunately. Still, I got the impression he hated work and wouldn’t be able to make it.’

‘How?’

‘Well, he said he hated work, and that he wouldn’t be able to make it.’

‘Take a glass,’ said Mum, distributing drinks. ‘Ah, Chin, don’t you look lovely?’ she continued, as Chin appeared in the doorway, wearing a beautiful black velvet skirt and a skinny wool top printed with roses and studded with little sequins – which Jess was staring at enviously.

‘Thanks, Suzy,’ said Chin, helping herself to a glass. ‘So, young Lizzy, how’s work?’

I cannot tell you how much I hate that question when I’ve just stopped thinking about work for the first time in weeks. I work as a scout for the film company Monumental, searching for books, magazine articles, TV programmes and, of course, scripts that would make good films. Then I develop these projects, and it’s a sign of how totally stupid my job can be that I’ve been doing it for three years and only one film has come about as a result of my work. Two near misses one that got to casting stage but fell through for lack of money and a bastard American producer who pulled out, and the one I’ve just started working on, but that’s it. ‘Work’s fine,’ I said firmly. ‘It’s lovely to be on a break now, though. I’m exhausted.’

‘I know what you mean.’ Chin nodded. ‘But I’m practically the only person I know left in the country. All my friends have buggered off to get some sun.’

I could well believe this since most of Chin’s friends seem to be trust-fund millionaires who either run crusty cafés serving green tea in Notting Hill, design jewellery, write screen-plays or check into Promises rehab centre in Malibu. ‘Gibbo seems nice,’ I said casually. ‘Where did you meet him?’

Chin looked around. Gibbo was talking to Dad.

‘Oh, here and there.’ She said. Chin is always secretive about her love-life. ‘He’s a carpenter, so I thought he’d like to see the house. Especially the staircase,’ she added unconvincingly.

I tried not to laugh. Very brave of you to bring him along.’

‘Well, you know.’ Chin took a swig of gin and briskly changed the subject. ‘So, we’ve done work. How’s your love life?’

I didn’t run away screaming ‘Help!’ at this question because Chin is very good with relationships – not because she wants to see everyone settled down and going to B&Q at weekends but because she is obsessed with the detail of people’s lives.

‘What happened with Jaden, the film writer?’

‘He was called Jaden,’ I replied.

‘Nuff said. It’s over, then?’

I wanted to get this bit of the conversation wrapped up as quickly as possible. ‘It was never really under, if you know what I mean. We – well, I saw him a couple of times when he was in London. I might be seeing him when I go back. He’s nice but he’s bonkers.’

That, at least, true. I knew what she was going to ask me next. There was a brief pause. Then—

‘So…have you heard from David lately?’

I shook my head vigorously and looked away.

‘Your mum’s been asking me. She’s worried about you. But she doesn’t want to ask you. You know how it is.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I said.

‘Don’t you know where he’s going to be for Christmas?’ she persisted.

‘No,’ I said. ‘And I don’t want to.’

Chin squeezed my arm. ‘I know, darling, I know.’

Embarrassingly I felt tears squeezing into the back of my eyes, and my throat constricted. I stared at the portrait of my great-great-grandmother and thought about how she would have celebrated Christmas in this house, nearly a hundred years ago. Had she loved her husband so much it almost hurt? Had she been afraid of her own happiness when she moved into this beautiful house? I looked at the non-committal dark eyes, at her hand on her silk lap with one finger marking the page of a book. She met my gaze, as she always did.

‘Ooh, crisps!’ Chin exclaimed, and passed me the bowl as Mum clinked two glasses together.

‘I can hear the carol singers coming,’ she said.

‘Wha-hey!’ Gibbo yelled.

We stared at him, and Jess peered out of the window. ‘Yes, they’re at the gate,’ she said.

We processed outside and stood in the porch. The night was bitterly cold and a frost was creeping over the lawn. The carol singers, several of whom I recognised from the church in Wareham, stamped their feet and called greetings to Mum as she hurried forward to open the gate and let them in. We could see their breath rising in the air, wispy in the torchlight, as they formed a little knot, the children in front, muffled up with hats and scarves, eyes shining with the excitement of staying out so late.

They started with my favourite carol, the one that sums up Christmas for me, especially Christmas Eve and arriving home.

‘It came upon the midnight clear,

That glorious song of old,

From angels bending near the earth

To touch their harps of gold.

“Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,

From heaven’s all gracious King.”

The world in solemn stillness lay,

To hear the angels sing’

‘Nice carol,’ I heard Gibbo inform Chin in a stage-whisper. ‘Look at the bloke on the left with the big brown beard – it sticks out from his chin at like forty-five degrees! What a guy!’

Having been a little nostalgic and sad – in the way that happy family occasions can sometimes make you feel – I was suddenly overtaken with a fit of the giggles.

‘And that old girl there. Look at her! She’s mad as a bag of snakes.’ Gibbo nudged me now, his eyes on Mrs Thipps, the organist’s wife, who opened her mouth incredibly wide on every word and shut it with a snap as she sang.

When the choir struck up with ‘Whence Is That Goodly Fragrance Flowing?’ and Gibbo said rather loudly, ‘What the hell are they singing about now?’ Kate turned and said, ‘Be quiet, you fool.’ Amazingly, Gibbo smiled, said sorry, and was as quiet as a mouse for the rest of the recital. At the end, Mr Thipps came forward with a velvet cap and we all put in some money while Dad stepped forward with a tray of paper cups filled with sloe gin.

‘A Nice Change From Mulled Wine,’ enunciated Mrs Thipps, as she gulped hers down.

Gibbo turned back to the house, fighting hysteria, and as he did I saw Kate catch his eye. My aunt is a fierce creature, someone who doesn’t smile a lot, but when she does she’s beautiful. Her lovely dark green eyes sparkled and she patted Gibbo’s hand. I was glad she liked him.

‘Thank you, all, so much,’ said Mum, as the group turned to leave.

‘Yes, thank you,’ we echoed. ‘Happy Christmas! See you at church!’

We hastened, shivering, back into the warmth of the house. The wind was getting up now, and the french windows rattled. Tom threw another log on to the fire, and sparks hissed out on to the carpet.

‘Supper’ll be ready in a few minutes,’ said Mum. ‘Time for one more glass?’

If catchphrases were written on headstones, that one would do for both my parents.

‘I’ll do it,’ said Tom, picked up the decanter and went round with it.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

‘Yes, of course I am.’ He looked surprised. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘You’re a bit quiet,’ I said.

‘Oh, God.’ Tom laughed. ‘I’m fine. I was just thinking about something I didn’t do at work.’

‘I’d like to make a toast,’ announced Dad. Jess and I groaned. Dad loves to make toasts or little speeches – it’s part of his ceaseless quest to reclaim the title ‘World’s Most Embarrassing Dad to Two Teenage Girls’, which was his for several years during my adolescence.

‘Shut up, girls,’ said Mum, even though I know she agrees with us.

‘Yes, shut up,’ said Dad, placing his glass on the table. ‘I would like to say a couple of things. It is wonderful to have you all here tonight. Lizzy, Jessica and Thomas, you’ve come away from all the important things you do in London, and we’re all very proud of you and glad you’re here. And my little sister, Chin, doing so well with her scarves and bags that not only have Liberty taken some more I hear a shop in…’ he paused before he said the words, then pronounced them as if he were a judge asking who the Beatles were ‘…Notting Hill – yes? Is that it? – wants to do the same.’

‘Oooh,’ we all murmured.

‘Leave it with the J.R. Hartley impressions, John,’ Chin said, bashing his thigh.

The mulberry tree’s branches rattled against the window and the logs crackled on the fire. Dad went on, undaunted, clearing his throat: ‘I’d like especially to welcome Gibbo. It’s great to have you with us for Christmas, and while this year you’ll be substituting, ah, raincoats for sunblock, we all hope you don’t feel too homesick’ – honestly, that’s the best Dad’s humour gets – ‘and we’re very pleased to meet you. So, to us all, happy Christmas, and welcome home!’ He raised his glass and drank, and we were about to follow suit when there was a loud crash in the hall. (Later, after the excitement was over, we found that a window had blown open half-way up the stairs and sent a little jug filled with holly flying on to the floor, where it smashed into tiny pieces, with one of the boughs of pine.)

We jumped, and Kate and Mum grabbed each other and screamed, like spinster sisters in a horror film.

Then the french windows swung inwards.

This time we all screamed. A shadowy, windswept figure stood outside. Dad brandished his minute gin glass at it, as if it were a gigantic blunderbuss. We all took a step back. The figure came into the room and flung off its trilby. ‘Happy Christmas, everyone! I’m so sorry I’m late, but I’m here! God, it’s good to be back! Is that a new armchair?’

‘Mike!’ Jess yelled, the first to recover. ‘You’re here! This is fantastic.’

‘Damn you, Mike,’ Kate said crossly, as we all breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Suzy…’ Mike threw his hat on to the sofa and gathered my mother into a hug. ‘Look.’ He fiddled with his coat. ‘Oh. Damn…I wanted to be able to produce them with a flourish, you know. Ah, here they are. Ouch. Fuck. Sorry.’ He pulled a limp, cellophane-covered bunch of motorway service-station roses out of his sleeve.

‘It’s lovely to see you, you annoying man. Thank you.’ Mum beamed and moved to close the french windows. She started. ‘Oh…my God. Is someone else out there?’

As the wind whistled and the chimney belched smoke into the room, Mike said, ‘I’d like you all to meet Rosalie.’

He grinned rather shiftily, and a second figure appeared from behind him, immaculately made up, not a hair out of place, despite the wind, an early-forties minx-a-like with – and this was obvious even through her cashmere coat – a spectacularly pneumatic chest.

‘This is Rosalie,’ Mike repeated. ‘My wife.’

Rosalie stepped forward. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet y’all,’ she said, and smiled, revealing a set of shockingly white teeth.

THREE

We’re so British, my family. If we’d been Italian we’d have jumped up and down, waving our arms, demanding to know where Mike had met her and when. If we’d been Afghan, French or Brazilian we would have come out with at least some of the questions we were dying to ask. Instead we simply nodded and stood quite silently.

Then Kate broke the spell. ‘Congratulations! Wonderful!’ she said, then kissed Rosalie and Mike, who clutched her hand.

‘Bless you, Kate,’ he said.

Mum and Dad followed suit, murmuring politely, and Tom and Gibbo shook his hand bashfully. For all his Antipodean forthrightness Gibbo could clearly hear ancestral voices calling when an awkward situation loomed.

Mike hung their coats on the long wooden rack in the hall, and took Rosalie upstairs to show her their room, the long low one at the front of the house with the rose wallpaper, which Mum said was so appropriate for Rosalie, as if she’d known her brother-in-law was about to turn up with a complete stranger to whom he’d just hitched himself. We stood around like Easter Island statues, until they came back, five or so minutes later, looking rather ruffled.

‘Get rid of that God-awful gin and let’s have a proper drink.’ Mike produced two bottles. ‘We brought some champagne.’ He whipped off the foil and wire, popped a cork and out it flowed, thick and creamy, into Dad’s empty sloe-gin glass, which Mike now drained.

There was a silence. I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. Kate hummed and looked at the cornices.

‘Let me get some more glasses,’ said Mum suddenly, and hurried into the kitchen with Chin.

‘We met at a law conference in November,’ Mike said, out of the blue, as Rosalie smiled up at him.

‘This November?’ Dad enquired, like a man in the final throes of strangulation.

‘Nuts, Rosalie?’ Tom asked innocently.

‘Shut up,’ I hissed.

‘Well, thank you – Tom, is it?’ Rosalie breathed, and flashed him a brilliant smile.

Tom coughed.

‘So…when did you decide to get married, then?’ Dad stammered.

‘Well…’ Rosalie and Mike looked at each other and giggled.

‘Well, John,’ said Rosalie, ‘you’re not going to believe this, but we got married yesterday! City Hall, eleven thirty a.m.! Then we decided to get on a flight over here.’

‘I’m going to check on the glasses,’ said Tom, to no one in particular, and left.

‘But how did you get a flight at such short notice, Rosalie? Aren’t they all booked up?’ Jess asked.

‘Weeeell,’ said Rosalie, ‘you have a very wonderful uncle.’ She clenched her hands into tiny fists and punched the air. ‘Hey! Thank you for this man!’

I glanced covertly around me, not sure whom she was thanking. Us? The Lord? Jim’ll Fix It?

She went on, ‘He actually had me booked on to a flight the week after we met – he was always going to get me to come over with him because he wanted me to see your beautiful home. And, I must say, it’s such an honour to be here. You truly have a really…beautiful home.’

‘Oh dear, where are those glasses,’ I said, and slid out of the room.

At the kitchen table, Mum, Chin and Tom were whispering like the three witches in Macbeth. They sprang apart guiltily as I walked in, then visibly relaxed.

‘I was just telling them he met her at a law conference last month!’ Chin hissed across the table at me.

‘I know,’ I said.

‘And they only got married yesterday!’ Tom said, slamming his hand on the table for emphasis.

‘I heard that too,’ I said.

They looked at me crossly, as if I was ruining their fun.

‘I can tell you that she’s just given thanks for such a wonderful man and she thinks our home is really beautiful,’ I said, with a glance over my shoulder to make sure the coast was clear.

‘Noooooooooo!’ they chorused.

‘Also that Mike booked her on the flight home a week after they met because he knew even then he wanted us to meet her.’

‘Noooooooooooooooo!’

‘Yes,’ I said, much gratified at their reaction.

‘Is she a money-grabbing whore?’ said Tom.

‘Is she even a lawyer?’ said Chin. ‘She doesn’t look like one.’

‘I’m sure she’s a very nice girl,’ said Mum, suddenly becoming a grown-up again.

‘But I bet she saw a picture of the house early on and convinced herself Mike’s, like, a duke or something,’ said Chin.

‘I’m sure of it,’ said Mum then she paused and collected herself. ‘Well, anyway, it’s lovely to have Mike home and I’m glad for him. She seems lovely and I’m sure they’re very happy.’

We glared at her, disappointed. Mum picked up the glasses and another bottle of sloe gin – thank God for Jess’s nimble fingers in October. We were positively racing through the hooch that night.

‘Let’s have one more quick drink and then supper.’

We glared at her again, and Tom sighed. ‘Aunt Suzy, don’t be a Goody Two Shoes.’

‘Hello!’ said a voice at the door. We whipped round, and there was Rosalie.

‘Good grief, Rosalie, you made us jump! I was just getting you a glass. Everything OK?’ said Mum, running her fingers through her hair.

‘Yes, of course, Susan,’ said Rosalie. She brushed invisible dust from her sleeve, smiling as if she was visualizing chapter two of a self-help book on forging relationships with strangers. ‘Hi, Ginevra, hi, Tom, hi, Lizzy. I just wanted to know if there was anything you needed help with out here.’

‘How kind of you, but don’t worry. You must be exhausted. Go back into the sitting room – supper’s nearly ready,’ said Mum, with a glint in her eye. I could tell she was looking for something to like in her new sister-in-law. Tom, Chin and I shifted from foot to foot: we are not nice people and didn’t want to like her.

‘Come and help me set the table if you want,’ I offered finally.

Rosalie looked delighted, and so did Mum. It was almost a touching domestic scene.

We went into the dining room next door and started with the cutlery. ‘There are ten of us, and the plates are in that cupboard. I’ll get them,’ I said.

Rosalie painstakingly counted out ten knives and forks. Was she a lawyer? She looked like a fully-clothed member of the Baywatch cast. Who moves their lips when they count to ten? I thought, then realized that I did.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘The wine and water glasses are here. And the napkin rings – can you fetch that bowl from the dresser?’

Rosalie reached behind her and put the bowl on the table. ‘Do you all have them? They’re, like, silver!’ she cried.

‘Er…yes, we do. They are silver. We were all given one as a christening present, but my dad has my grandfather’s – he died a few years ago. So there’s a spare for Gibbo.’

‘The Australian guy, right?’ She paused. ‘But, hey, since I’m a member of the family now, I suppose – shouldn’t I have it? Gibbo’s not, like, married to Ginevra, is he?’

She asked it so artlessly, but with such cunning, that I was taken aback. It was such a tiny thing, but I saw that it could easily be the Thin End of the Wedge, plus I’d recently watched a late night American made-for-TV movie starring Tori Spelling called Mother, May I Sleep With Danger? about a woman who keeps giving in to her thankless, dim cheerleader daughter which results in the daughter nearly getting killed by her boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks who has a penchant for bumping off his inamoratas with a wooden chopping board. It is all super-ironic because the mother knows she could have prevented the near-death by being firm with her daughter from the get-go. Anyway.

‘No, you can have this one,’ I said firmly, and handed her a wooden ring. I looked at her. She bowed her head, as if admitting defeat, and I felt like Maximus Decimus Meridius in Gladiator, accepting the cheers of the crowd in the after-math of a particularly bloody bout.

Mum came in. ‘I’m going to ring the bell now,’ she said, and looked at Rosalie. ‘Or would you like to do it? First time in the house, and you’re a member of the family now, aren’t you?’

Damn you, Mum, I thought.

Rosalie seemed delighted, and swung the huge Swiss cowbell that my great-great-grandfather brought back from a painting trip in the Alps and which had stood on the shelf in the dining room ever since.

The others came in, and we all sat down. Jess poured the wine and Dad stood up. ‘I’d just like to make a little speech.’

Saints preserve us! Two in one evening. By this stage I was wondering why I’d come home for Christmas at all, and feeling that my flat – even though the only food in it was those white beans you have to soak overnight so you never get round to cooking them – would be a lovely place to spend Christmas with a bottle of wine for company.

‘Erm, well, here’s to Mike and Rosalie,’ Dad said, in a rush, drank and sat down. It was his shortest speech ever, but at what a bitter price: the sacrifice of my favourite uncle to a fake-bosomed troll who was, at that very moment, studying the cutlery to see if it was silver-plated.

‘Thank you, John,’ said Mike. He stood up, ruffling his hair with his hands – he always did that. ‘Thanks very much.’ He gave us such a big grin I thought his face might explode. ‘God, it’s fantastic to be at home again. Ahm – just want to say it means more to me than you can possibly know,’ he said, swallowed and looked rather wildly up and down the table. ‘Here we all are. It’s Christmas Eve…’ We waited, politely, for so long that I wondered if he was seeking confirmation of the date or had something else to say. Then his eyes came to rest on Rosalie and he gave her his sappiest smile. ‘Happy Christmas, everyone,’ he said.

Supper took on a dreamlike quality, as if we were all being filmed for a reality TV show.

The side of beef was delicious, as was the mash, but Mum’s Christmas Eve speciality, her mini Yorkshire puddings, had fallen by the wayside. I’d seen them earlier, all ready to go into the Aga in their little cups, but they never appeared on the table. Either they’d gone horribly wrong or we were two short and Mum had thrown them away rather than make Rosalie and Mike feel guilty. Hm. I watched Rosalie through slitted eyes as she munched happily away.

After supper, Mum and Kate had the usual stand-off about who was going to do the washing-up.

‘Go and sit down, Suzy, you’ve done quite enough this evening.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Kate. You had to work today, you should be relaxing.’

‘Not at all. I won’t hear of it! Move out of the way!’

‘No, you move out of the way.’

‘Ow, you’re hurting me!’

‘Stop pushing!’

‘God, this is ridiculous,’ said Chin, from the doorway. ‘Both of you, go and sit down in the other room. Why don’t you get started on the sprouts for tomorrow? I’ll bring you through some coffee and we’ll do the clearing up.’

Tom and I looked at each other. ‘Jeez, thanks a lot, Auntie,’ said Tom, but he went into the kitchen and started loading the dishwasher.

Kate dragged a sack of sprouts out of the larder, and she and Mum disappeared into the side-room, with the TV and comfy chairs. It was where we ate when we weren’t having formal meals, lovely and sunny in daytime but surprisingly cosy at night too, with a big open fireplace, shelves of magazines, videos, gardening guides, reference books, photos of the family and postcards from around the world – lots from Mike especially. It was one of my favourite rooms in the house – we’d transformed it from what had been the servants’ hall into what Americans would call a den.

The kettle whistled and I poured water into the cafetière as Tom plucked mugs off hooks. I could hear Rosalie gabbling in the hallway to Mike. Gibbo appeared and asked if we wanted any help.

‘Don’t worry, hon,’ said Chin.

He whipped the tea-towel out of her hand and kissed her. ‘Come on, gorgeous,’ he said into her ear. ‘Time for bed.’

Tom and I exchanged a glance of mock outrage.

‘It’s Christmas Eve. I’m not going to bed yet, even if it is with you, you…’ Chin murmured something that made Gibbo stand up straight, blush and give a little cough. She patted his arm and went back to the drying-up.

‘I’ll be with the others, then. See you in there,’ he mumbled.

‘No fear. I want to watch a bit of TV – I’ve had enough family chats for one night,’ said Chin.

‘Oh.’ Gibbo scratched his cheek. ‘Rosalie’s watching TV. Apparently her favourite film’s on, so she asked Mum and Kate if they wouldn’t mind watching it too.’

‘Urgh,’ said Tom. ‘She’s such a muscler-inner! I wonder what it is – Weekend at Bernie’s? Pretty in Pink?’

‘Pretty Woman,’ I suggested. ‘No, Risky Business. No! Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves!’

‘I’ve got it,’ Chin yelled. ‘Showgirls! In a tie with Top Gun!’

‘Actually,’ said a voice from the door, ‘it’s Some Like It Hot, and it’s on now.’

We turned. There was Rosalie again. The world’s quietest walker. Damn. There was total silence.

Then Rosalie spoke: ‘Hey, where’s that coffee? I bought some chocolates, and your dad says there are chips in the cupboard bit at the back of the kitchen…’ She bustled through to the larder. ‘Here, yeah,’ she said, emerging with two big bags of crisps. ‘I’ll see you in there, but hurry up. Tony and Jack have just nearly been shot – they’ll be getting to Florida any minute.’ She walked out and we gazed after her in astonishment.

‘Is she all bad?’ Chin wondered aloud. ‘Clearly not. And yet, my friends, it is easier to hate her than to like her, no?

‘I say you’re all horrible people,’ said Gibbo, picking up the milk jug and bending over to kiss Chin again. ‘Come on, let’s go and join them.’

Mike appeared in the hall as Tom and I were negotiating our way to the side-room with the mugs and the cafetière. ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘Let me get the door. Hey, Titch, isn’t that the mug you painted for me in that stupid craft class you used to go to after school?’

‘It wasn’t stupid,’ said Tom, defensively. ‘It was really interesting. And you said it was the best present you’d ever had.’

Mike picked it up and considered it. ‘I dare say. It’s got a dent in the middle, though, hasn’t it? Look.’ He held up Tom’s masterwork, fashioned in blue with ‘Unkle Mike’ in a childish, uneven script. As a drinking vessel it wasn’t an unqualified success – goodness knows why we still used it. It sloped on one side and the handle bent in on itself, which made it difficult to hold. ‘Looks as if it’s had one or two too many, if you ask me. Can I take it back to New York?’

‘Of course you can,’ Tom said, rather chuffed. ‘Sorry I forgot to wrap it.’

‘So that’s the way the land lies, is it?’ Mike said. ‘Très charmant. No presents, after I come all this way.’ His head drooped. ‘Oh, well…’ He brightened, taking the cafetière out of my hands. ‘I haven’t got you chaps anything either, so we’re evens. But Rosalie and I are going to stop off in London before we fly back. We’re staying at Claridges. How about we take you shopping, get you each a present, then treat you to dinner? Jess too.’

‘Oh, do Jess and Lizzy have to come?’ Tom asked. I kicked him. ‘Ouch! Blimey, Mike, that’s really kind of you. Are you sure? Claridges, eh?’

‘Well, in for a penny, in for a pound,’ Mike said. ‘Can’t do these things by halves, can you? Let’s give the coffee to the thirsty troops. And ssh – don’t mention it to the others. It’s a surprise for Rosalie and I don’t want her to find out.’

If you’d told me eight hours previously that I’d spend the rest of Christmas Eve watching the World’s Greatest Film with Mike’s new wife, I’d have said you were mad. But that was what happened. Rosalie hadn’t made a very good first impression – unless a brunette version of Anna Nicole Smith in a twin-set is your idea of a good first impression – but I had to admit she might turn out to be not too ghastly.

She helped with the sprouts and adopted the Walter tried and trusted technique – remove the outer leaves and cut a cross in the base, which helps them cook better. I love sprouts. Rather unsociably, Dad and Mike had disappeared into the study for a catch-up. I bet you any money you like that at no time did Dad say, ‘So who on earth is she, bro?’ No, they’d have been talking about some shares of Grandfather’s that were currently worth zero, and whether the wall in the kitchen garden needed rebuttressing.

‘So,’ Rosalie said, toned thighs clamped round a bowl as we all sat in the side-room, intermittently roaring with laughter at the film, ‘Suzy, you’re a doctor, right? Where?’

‘I’m a GP at the local surgery,’ said Mum, deftly whisking off a rogue stalk.

‘I’m sorry?’ said Rosalie, looking blank.

‘She’s a family doctor at a clinic,’ said Tom. He had performed a remarkable volte-face and become Rosalie’s new best friend. He was even speaking with a semi-American accent.

‘Wow,’ said Rosalie. ‘That’s hard work, right?’

‘Right,’ said Mum. ‘I’m lucky, though, I’ve got three days off for Christmas.’

‘Gaahd!’ screeched Rosalie. ‘I don’t know how you do it. I have such admiration for doctors and nurses and those who help.’

My mother and Kate shifted closer to each other on the sofa.

‘Er, yes,’ said Kate. She cleared her throat. ‘So, Rosalie, what about you? What do you do?’

‘Me? Oh, gosh, nothing real interesting. I’m an attorney with Wright Jordan Folland. That’s how I met Mike. I head up their commercial property arm,’ Rosalie said casually, tossing a pile of uncropped sprouts into her lap.

‘Really?’ we said in unison.

‘Are you serious?’ Chin said.

‘Sure, why?’ said Rosalie.

‘I just…’ mumbled Chin. ‘No reason.’

‘Well, that must be a much more stressful job than mine,’ said Mum. ‘Good grief, you’ve done so well to get so far, and you’re so young! How old are you?’

‘Oh, my God, my favourite bit!’ yelled Rosalie, neatly deflecting the question as Tony Curtis cycled towards the hotel after a night spent kissing Marilyn Monroe.

‘He’s brilliant,’ said Tom.

‘Creep,’ I muttered under my breath.

‘Tony Curtis! What a man!’ Tom continued, unabashed.

‘I was his attorney a few years ago when I was living in California,’ Rosalie said. ‘Nice guy. Some asshole was trying to screw him around on the money and I guess I ironed things out. He gave me one of his paintings.’

‘Oh, my God!’ said Tom. ‘You met him?’

‘All part of the job, honey,’ said Rosalie, tossing her hair off her face and putting the bowl on the floor. She smiled at me as she looked up again and I smiled back, unable to resist her. ‘So Lizzy,’ she said suddenly, ‘I want to know more about you. You got a boyfriend?’

The room fell silent – apart from the rise and fall of Gibbo’s breathing as he dozed in the corner.

‘No,’ I said.

‘But what about that David guy? Doesn’t he live round here?’

‘David?’ I asked. How did she know about David?

‘Mike and I met him for a drink in New York. I liked him.’

The atmosphere was as thick as stew.

‘You met David?’ breathed Jess. ‘You saw him?

‘David…Lizzy’s—’ Mum broke off. ‘David Eliot?’ She made it sound as if she barely knew him.

‘I’m sure that was his name.’ Rosalie looked confused. ‘You guys dated, right? Journalist? Kinda cute, short brown hair, real tall?’

‘Argh!’ I said, in a kind of strangulated scream.

Chin sat up straight. ‘Well, actually, Rosalie, we don’t talk about him any more. Do we, Lizzy?’ she said.

‘No, we do not,’ I said, as firmly as I could, though the mere mention of his name made me feel as if someone had scooped out my insides.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Rosalie. ‘Hey, Lizzy, I hope I didn’t—’

I raised my hand. ‘Don’t worry. David and I finished last year. He went to New York but his mother lives just over there,’ I said, gesturing towards the window, ‘in the village.’

His mother has a little orchard where David had kissed me in spring, surrounded by gnarled little apple trees, festooned with white blossom, and told me he was going to New York.

‘Right. I’m sorry. Is that how you met? Down here?’ said Rosalie.

‘Yes,’ I replied, plaiting my fingers in my lap.

Although I’d known his younger brother Miles for a while, I hadn’t met David until he ran over my bike in his car after I’d left it outside the post office on a baking hot summer’s day. When I’d heard the crumple of steel and loud swearing, I’d appeared at the doorway with an ice lolly to see it buckled round David’s bumper. He took me for a drink to say sorry. We ended up spending the night in a room above the pub and the next four days together.

‘Why did you split up?’

‘Ask him,’ I said flatly.

‘I did,’ said Rosalie. ‘But he went kinda weird and said I had to ask you.’

I’d deleted the email Miles had sent me, only four months ago, confirming that in New York David had slept with Lisa, a friend of mine from university. I didn’t want it in my computer: I knew the temptation would be to come back to it, like picking a scab. My best friend Georgy still has it, though, and has said she’ll forward it to me if I need to read it again.

‘Ha,’ I said bitterly. ‘Ha. No disrespect to newly-weds, Rosalie, but all men are bastards.’

‘You’d better believe it,’ said Rosalie. ‘Apart from your uncle, honey – that man is good through and through. My first husband though. My gosh, that man was bad. Turned out he only married me so I couldn’t testify at his trial. There. All done.’

‘Blimey,’ said Kate, recovering her poise before the rest of us. ‘Er. thanks for doing those, Rosalie.’

‘My pleasure,’ said Rosalie, stretching herself on the sofa and patting my hand. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out, honey. But look at you – so pretty. You’ll find someone much better. I did.’ The irony was lost on Rosalie but not on us. ‘Come on, let’s watch this darned film,’ she said.

Dad and Mike appeared, rather flushed, as Geraldine, Daphne, Sugar and Osgood were sailing away. Mum stood up and went over to them. ‘OK?’ she asked.

‘Absolutely,’ said Mike. He dropped into the armchair next to me and yawned. ‘I’m shattered, though. Er…Rosalie?’ he said, as if he wasn’t sure that was her name.

‘Heigh-lo,’ said Rosalie.

‘You all right, old girl?’

‘I’m just fine, Michael darling.’

‘I’m pretty tired,’ said Dad. He took my mother’s hand and held it. ‘Look at the sky,’ Mike said. ‘It’s clear as you like, look at the stars.’

Mum turned off the overhead light. I always forget how many more stars you can see outside London, and there was a new moon, the thinnest sliver of a bright white crescent in the sky. ‘It’s Christmas Day,’ she whispered. ‘Happy Christmas, everyone.’

‘Happy Christmas,’ we murmured back.

‘I’m off to bed,’ she said, and padded out of the room. As I turned away from the window, I caught Rosalie gazing at Mike. I’ve never seen such naked, all-consuming love on anyone else’s face. It lit hers, but there was something unsettling about it, which I couldn’t put my finger on. When I told Tom on our way up to bed, he said, ‘But they’ve just got married. Of course she’s in love with him, you strange girl.’

But that didn’t explain why it had been scary.

I stopped by the old bookshelf, picked out a Georgette Heyer I hadn’t read for years, then went to my room, undressed and got into bed. How lovely it was to sit in bed, to feel my feet push down, along the clean, smooth sheets, to feel as snug and warm as anything in my new fleecy pyjamas, and not to have to worry about work, about crazy Jaden, about my boiler, which was on its last legs, about tidying the flat, about making sure Ash at work was all right. It was Christmas Day. I was at home. All I had to do was enjoy being here, in my bedroom, which smelt of lavender, with the presents I’d half wrapped scattered across the floor and Devil’s Cub on my knee.

I started to read: ‘There was only one occupant of the coach, a gentleman who sprawled very much at his ease, with his legs stretched out before him, and his hands dug deep in the capacious pockets of his greatcoat…’ But my eyes were growing heavier and heavier, and I must have fallen asleep, because in the middle of the night I woke up and had to turn the light off, and the book was still on my lap.

FOUR

When I woke again, bright sunlight was flooding into my room and I could smell cinnamon. I pulled back the faded curtains and my heart leaped. It was a bright blue day, and the view to the village was as fresh and clear as it was on a spring morning, but coated with the glittering frost of winter.

I showered and dressed in the clanking old bathroom, singing ‘Hark the Herald Angels’ very loudly, and rushed downstairs, eager for some pre-church bonding with my family. But everyone was already in the hall, putting on their coats.

Mum appeared with a plate and thrust it under my nose. ‘Grab one of those muffins and let’s move it,’ she said, then pulled on her gloves like a member of the A-Team. I declined: I’m of the strong opinion that, when it comes to breakfast, if it doesn’t have Marmite on it, it ain’t worth it.

Jess came down the stairs, rubbing her eyes. ‘Come on, Jess, we’ll be late,’ said Mum testily.

Every year my relatives get themselves into a frenzy about being late for church. I have no idea why. It’s a twenty-minute walk, and we always leave with half an hour to spare. Now, short of a hurricane, driving snow, frogs dropping from the sky, we would be sitting in our pew with ten minutes to spare while every other member of the congregation rocks up fifteen minutes late, and stand in the aisles chatting and exchanging pleasantries.

Old habits die hard, and we set out straight away, crunching across the terrace flagstones. Dad opened the gate and Gibbo appeared barefoot in the doorway, trousers trailing on the ground, hair whipped up into a storm around his face. He wasn’t coming to church, he said. It made him fall asleep. ‘Bye, you guys,’ he called, and waved, a piece of toast in his hand.

‘What’s he going to do?’ asked Jess, a little enviously.

‘He’s a great cook,’ said Chin. ‘He’s sorted it with your mum. He’ll start the Christmas lunch so it’s all ready to go when we get back.’

I doubted that Gibbo could start a fire with a can of petrol and a match, let alone a Christmas lunch for ten people, but I kept quiet.

It was a beautiful walk, along the well-worn path through the fields. We owned the first, and the rest of the land before the church was the village common, a long sloping expanse of meadow with a stream at the bottom. This morning it was frozen at the edges, though a little water trickled through the centre and a forlorn-looking robin hopped from branch to branch.

Mike was just ahead of me, humming, Rosalie’s arm tucked through his. They made a comforting picture, his checked wool scarf wound tightly round his neck, Rosalie in her beautiful pale coat, little heels clicking on the hard ground alongside him. The crown of his head showed beneath his thinning hair and I felt a rush of affection for him, with a kind of protectiveness. He and Rosalie stopped and turned. I caught up with them and Mike put his arm round my shoulders. ‘It’s lovely to see you, Lizzy,’ he said. ‘God, it’s nice to be home again, you know?’

‘It’s great to have you back,’ I said. ‘I wish you’d come over more often. Can’t you go part-time and supplement your income with bar work over here?’

‘Good idea,’ said Mike. ‘Bar work. Haven’t been back for ages, you know.’

‘A year,’ I said.

‘Pah! Not a year – I came back at Easter.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ I said. ‘You were going to, for Dad’s birthday party, but you had to cancel.’

Mike appeared to be in the grip of some unpleasant memory. ‘You’re right, Titch. Matheson deal. Phones ringing off the hook. Screaming. I don’t think I left the office for three days…’

‘Ooh, Mike,’ I said, ‘you’re so important and hardworking, aren’t you?’

Mike had been supposed to make the speech at Dad’s party, which had also celebrated my parents’ silver wedding anniversary (I know! You do the maths…) but, typical Mike, at the last minute he had to cancel his trip and Chin made the speech. The party was good, but Chin was a bit of a flop, drunk and rambling. And, besides, she wasn’t Mike, who would have told a story, played the kazoo, got the audience to sing along, then probably slipped over and lain, with aplomb, on the floor unconscious for the rest of the evening.

‘Well, you’re back now,’ I continued, seeing that he was looking rather depressed.

His face twitched into a smile. ‘And I can’t imagine how I stayed away so long. I could give it all up and live in the shed in the garden just to be near the old place. Does that make sense or sound completely crazy?’

‘No, it makes sense,’ I said, because I’d been thinking that more and more often lately. ‘But you can come back any time. You know it’s always going to be here.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Mike, darkly. ‘Your dad might sell it and move to a bungalow on the coast.’

‘Or form a nu-metal band,’ I said.

‘Or join the Rotary Club,’ Mike replied, jamming his trilby on his head and smiling.

‘Or the Steven Seagal fan club. Why did you meet David for a drink in New York?’ I asked suddenly, hoping to catch him off-guard.

‘Ah.’ Mike stopped and looked down at me. ‘Did Rosalie say something? I’ve met up with him a couple of times, actually. Since…er…you two…He’s a nice bloke.’

‘Bollocks,’ I said.

Mike corrected himself: ‘Sorry. He’s Satan’s master-worker, and I hope his eyeballs dry up, but that aside, he’s a pretty nice bloke.’

We were approaching the village. Mike patted my arm.

‘I’m sorry, Lizzy, my love, I should have told you but it isn’t a big deal. Look at it this way. He doesn’t have any friends, he’s been ostracized from normal society, so that’s why he doesn’t mind meeting up with me.’

I released Mike’s arm. ‘Does he ever ask about me?’

Mike looked alarmed, as if this was some kind of test and he didn’t know the answer. Then he said, slowly, ‘He’s mentioned you, but I’ve told him not to. He’s a great bloke in many ways, but he’s weak. The way he treated you…Bit crap, really. So we just don’t…Well – you know. It’s over, isn’t it?’

I nodded.

‘Dear girl, have I said the wrong thing?’

‘No, no, not at all,’ I replied. ‘In fact you’ve said absolutely the right thing. Don’t worry.’

Mike was saved by Jess running past. ‘Come on, people,’ she called. ‘We’re nearly there – and it’s Sandringham time.’

Every year we play Sandringham Church, a game Jess invented when she was a teenager and obsessed with Hello!. We all pretend to be a different member of the Royal Family walking to church on Christmas morning, waving to the crowd of well-wishers, though to those who choose to wait outside in the freezing cold on Christmas Day to see Prince Edward I say, Think about what you’re doing and whether you need medical assistance.

Anyway, Mike is brilliant as Princess Anne, while I always get landed with someone totally duff. This year I’d got Sophie Rhys-Jones, Tom was Fergie, which is great (mad eyes, shunned by the others and sucking a finger as a toe-substitute), and Mum was an impressive Prince Philip, shouting at imaginary foreigners. We had to keep stopping to laugh and help Rosalie with her portrayal of Mrs Simpson (she offered).

The organ was playing and there was a buzz of excitement, and Mum, Dad and Kate paused to kiss people and chat. Tom, Jess and I grabbed two pews and watched our parents gesturing to Rosalie, smiling and explaining about Mike’s new wife as something they were all over the moon about. Rosalie was loving it all, you could tell the words ‘quaint’ and ‘cute’ were hovering on her lips as she gazed at the stone carvings, the little gargoyles above the arched windows and the pretty stained-glass picture of the flight into Egypt.

‘Is that Mary and Joseph?’ she asked, sitting next to me and pointing as the other grown-ups chatted in the aisle.

‘Who? Oh, yes, and that’s Jesus. They’re fleeing from Herod,’ I said, niftily disguising that almost all my Bible knowledge comes from The Usborne Illustrated Bible Stories. ‘Into Egypt.’

‘Praise be,’ said Rosalie, solemnly, bowing her head.

Kate had sat down and was tapping her watch crossly because the service was late starting and she hates that. It applies to all events in which she is participating but not the leader – church services, concerts and dinner parties.

A few seconds later the organ stopped, there was a shuffling sound, and it started up again, wheezing into ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’. We stood up and sang as the choir shuffled down the aisle. As always, Silas Hitchin, the oldest member, brought up the rear, about fifteen feet behind the rest, singing a different carol – I think it was ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’.

Tom and I were convulsed with laughter and Mum turned to frown at us. I snatched my glove out of my pocket to shove it into my mouth, and the other sailed out to land in the pew behind.

Someone tapped my shoulder. ‘Disgraceful behaviour,’ a familiar voice said. ‘Here’s your glove.’

I look round and then blinked, to see if I was dreaming.

It was David. My David. David Eliot.

He was smiling at me, holding out my glove. I dropped my hymn book.

When I was eight I had nits and was sent home from school early to be deloused. It was horrible. I was one of only three culprits in my year so I was shunned. My parents had only just moved into Keeper House and I was new at the village school. My mother was accosted in the chemist, our doors were daubed with sheep’s blood and we had to move to a new home. Well, not exactly, but I felt like a leper and, worst of all, even after I was 100 per cent nit-free, I had to sit in assembly with a row of girls behind me and the gnawing fear that overly acrobatic lice might leap across the gap. Ever since I’ve had a thing about people sitting behind me, and now was no exception.

As the carol finished, I took my glove and sat down. The back of my neck felt cold, though the rest of me was hot and my heart felt as if it might burst out of my chest.

The vicar’s Christmas sermon might have been the calendar for the Barron Knights’ next UK tour: I have no memory of the rest of the service, except that I was seized with the desire to run screaming from the church and all the way home.

David Eliot was back. Why? When? How?

As we filed out, Chin hissed, ‘Is that David?’

‘Where?’ I asked casually.

‘Behind you! Leaving his pew! Kissing your mum and shaking hands with Mike! Looking gorgeous in a black coat! With—’

‘Yes!’ I said. ‘Shut up!’ I fingered the silky-thin tassels on my scarf, not wanting to look up. ‘Say something to me, pretend we’re having a great chat.’

‘Hahahahaha!’ said Chin, casting her eyes around the church, which was emptying rapidly. ‘Good one, Lizzy!’

I stared at her in despair. ‘God, you’re awful, aren’t you? Come on, he’s nearly outside. We can go now.’

Gavin, the vicar, was relatively young and trendy. As I passed into the porch I shook his hand and stopped to say hello. Chin drifted off to join the others. ‘It’s Lizzy, isn’t it? I’ve just seen your sister,’ he said.

‘Yes, it is. Happy Christmas, Gavin. That was a lovely service.’

Mrs Kenworthy from the choir brushed past. ‘Sorry, Lizzy. Just getting your uncle Mike a history-of-the-church pamphlet.’

‘Ah – for Rosalie, I suppose,’ I said.

‘Is that his new wife?’ Mrs Kenworthy didn’t sniff, but there was a degree of doubt in her voice.

‘Happy Christmas, Lizzy,’ said Gavin. ‘Well, I hear the carol singers weren’t the only visitors to Keeper House yesterday.’

Rosalie, in her pale pink cashmere coat, was standing nearby, talking politely to Mr Flood, who used to work the Earl of Laughton’s whacking great estate nearby. He’s retired now but must make an absolute fortune; he’s in every single documentary about old agricultural practices, life in a great house before the war, after the war, during the war, and in those village reminiscences that people publish. He’s even thought about getting an agent. The sight of this very old, hairy man grasping the cuffs of his too long shirt in his fists and waving them enthusiastically at the immaculate Rosalie was quite special, and I looked at Gavin, who is perceptive about these things.

‘You’ve met Rosalie, then?’ I said politely.

‘Yes,’ said Gavin, and I knew he understood it was a little strange for us all. ‘But it is the season to be jolly, isn’t it? And to welcome those without shelter into our homes,’ he added, his face pink with pleasure at the relevance of the Christmas message.

‘She’s got an apartment two blocks from Central Park,’ I told him. ‘I don’t call that being without shelter.’

‘People find shelter in different places,’ said Gavin. If he hadn’t been a vicar I might have punched him, but it’s the kind of thing vicars are supposed to say.

‘You’re right. Thanks, Gavin,’ I said.

A voice at my side said, ‘Hello, Lizzy.’

I searched desperately for Chin, and saw all of my family making their way to Uncle Tony’s grave, so I turned and looked up at him. David sodding Eliot, the man who had ripped out my heart and used it as a doormat. He was so tall – I always forgot that.

‘Hello, David,’ I said.

FIVE

‘Hello, Lizzy,’ he repeated.

It had been such a long time since I’d seen him properly that I’d forgotten little things about him – the tiny scar next to his mouth, the hollow at the base of his neck. How dark his eyes were. I’d tried to remember all this so many times since he’d left, tried so hard to picture what it would be like to have him standing in front of me, and now that he was I almost wanted to laugh with the strange, strange shock of it all.

‘Sparkling conversationalists, aren’t we?’ he said, gazing into my eyes. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine,’ I said, pulling myself together. ‘When did you get back?’

‘The day before yesterday.’

‘From where?’ Of course I knew the answer to this but I wanted to sound as if his movements weren’t of the slightest interest to me.

‘Still New York.’

‘Going well, is it?’

‘Yes, thanks. I’ve seen your uncle Mike a couple of times.’

‘Good,’ I said briskly. ‘Well, give my love to—’

‘So, you’ve met your new aunt,’ said David. ‘That’s a turn-up for the books, isn’t it?’

‘What did you think?’

‘I think she’s nice.’

‘Yes, well,’ I said, glad we were keeping the conversation afloat, ‘I’m not sure about her, but she likes Some Like It Hot, so she can’t be all bad.’

There was an awkward silence. Some Like It Hot was the film we had watched on the night before David left me. Sheesh, it’s a long story, I’ll get to it later.

Tumbleweeds rolled casually by and a church bell tolled mournfully (no, it really did, we were outside the church) David frowned and stared at the gravelled path. People were drifting away – I think. Suddenly I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t involve talking about us.

‘How’s Miles? And your mum?’ I asked eventually.

‘Mum’s good, been working hard. Miles is fine, working hard too.’

All the rest of the Eliots were accountants, which I imagined must make for captivating exchanges around the family hearth.

‘They’re over there,’ he said, pointing towards the lychgate. Miles raised his hand in a gesture of greeting. I looked to where my family was standing, staring at us intently, making no attempt to pretend they were thinking solemn thoughts at my uncle’s graveside. Rosalie even waved at David.

Suddenly the spell was broken and I remembered that he’d left me at Heathrow last year on a beautiful spring day, promising to phone every day, to write letters, emails, texts, telegrams, poems, essays and doctorate papers about how much he loved me. I never considered that we might break up. I remembered how his lips felt when he kissed me.

But as I looked at the man who had kissed me with those lips, I remembered he was also the man who, before the first month of our separation was over, had slept with someone else, then dumped me by email. Turns out it’s not such a long story after all. Breezy, be breezier than a sea breeze, I told myself as a wave of enormous sadness washed over me. ‘Well, glad to hear all’s well.’ I wrapped my scarf round my neck. ‘Happy Christmas, David.’ I allowed myself one last glance at him as I turned away. A fat wood-pigeon was cooing loudly in the yew trees skirting the churchyard.

Abruptly, David reached out and grabbed my arm. ‘Tell Mike I’ll be in touch. How is he?’

‘Oh, you know, happy, successful, just closed a big deal, got married – so in quite a bad way, all in all,’ I said, with a feeble attempt at sarcasm.

‘I mean it. Tell him I’ll give him a call. There’s something I want to ask him.’ I felt the warmth of his hand on my arm. He looked at me intently and I could feel his breath on my cheek. ‘Don’t hate me, Lizzy,’ he said. ‘It’s not worth it any more.’

‘I don’t hate you,’ I whispered. ‘Let me go. I don’t want to see you again.’

He released me at once, then caught hold of my hand. ‘I’m sorry. I just – I want to tell you something. I want you to know—’

‘No, David,’ I said. My face flamed. ‘I don’t want to do this again.’

‘I don’t see why not,’ he said. ‘I talked to Miles about it yesterday and I’ve never understood why you wouldn’t give me another chance.’

‘What?’ I said. My throat seemed to be closing up.

‘I made a mistake, but…Come on, Lizzy, isn’t it time you stopped being Miss High and Mighty about it?’

‘How dare you?’

‘You always do this!’ David said, raising his voice. He swallowed hard, trying to bring himself under control. ‘It’s always you who’s the one who’s hurt, who has to be at the centre of attention. Did you ever think about how it affected me? I just hoped you weren’t as selfish as I thought you were. But you were. And you still are.’

Tears welled in my eyes, just as Kate and Alice Eliot appeared beside us. They greeted each other, in unison, as we glared at each other. ‘Well, I want to know something too,’ I said. ‘I want to know how you pulled Lisa in the first place. How soon was it after I’d gone? Or did you fix up a time to meet up for a quick fuck while I was still in the room?’ David’s mother looked totally shocked and she and Kate huddled together like the humble servants in Dangerous Liaisons, watching with trepidation from the sidelines.

‘I managed to persuade you, didn’t I?’ David said, eyes glittering with rage.

‘That’s true.’ I could have hit him. ‘But you certainly punished me for it, didn’t you?’

David was white with fury. I’d never seen him look like that at me or anyone else. He swallowed, took a step back, and said, in a much calmer voice, ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I know I was wrong, but you were too. And since you’ll probably never understand what you did, perhaps it’s best we leave it at that. Bye, Lizzy.’

‘You always have to have the last word, don’t you?’ I couldn’t put my gloves on, my hands were shaking so badly. ‘I know you better than you think. Goodbye, David.’ (Please note this shows I, in fact, had the last word.)

As I walked towards Tony’s grave I could feel David’s eyes on my back, and had to cling to Kate’s arm to stop myself running back and either stabbing him with a nearby icicle or throwing myself into his arms. I couldn’t help it. I’d tried to stop feeling this way for nine months but suddenly the gates were open again and I felt totally miserable but incredibly happy because I’d seen him again.

I shook my head involuntarily and murmured, ‘No’ and Kate put her arm round me. ‘You are bonkers, aren’t you, darling? Never mind, we’re going home soon and you don’t have to see him ever again.’

‘I know,’ I said quietly. ‘But I want to.’ We were almost at Tony’s grave. ‘Was it ever like this with you two, Kate?’

Kate set her jaw in a firm line. ‘Erm – no.’ She bit her lip. ‘We were never apart from the moment we met.’ She smiled at the memory of the husband she had married when she was a slip of a girl and whom she had had every right to expect would be around for the rest of her life, not taken away from her when she wasn’t even thirty and had a small child.

I was horrified by my selfishness. ‘I’m so sorry, Kate,’ I said. ‘Forget about it – stupid David Eliot and his stupid bloody gorgeous eyes.’

She looked at me, perplexed, and kissed my cheek. ‘You are bonkers, you know.’

‘Conditions at base camp, the forty-eighth day after settling here by the graveside, are poor,’ intoned Tom. ‘Tom Walter had a simple wish, merely to visit his father’s grave. But he was to be plunged into a horrifyingly tedious wait that no modern Briton should be expected to endure. In freezing temperatures, he was forced to watch as his cousin flew into a strop with a tall dark stranger from her past and screamed obscenities in a way that brings shame not only on herself but also on her family and friends. Are Britain’s young women binge-drinking? Are they descending into a spiral of drink and drugs hell? Are they—’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Kate. ‘Come on, let’s get this over with.’

Since we were really only there to pay our respects and she was the one who’d brought the flowers, none of us was quite sure what to do next. There was a silence. Eventually Mike touched the headstone. ‘We miss you, old man. Happy Christmas.’

‘Happy Christmas,’ we murmured softly. Each year on Christmas morning, Mum and Kate unpick the wreath of holly, ivy and mistletoe that hangs over the front door at Keeper House, and make it into a bunch of greenery to lay on Uncle Tony’s grave. Now Kate picked it up from the grass where she’d left it and put it on the grave. ‘Happy Christmas, Tony,’ she whispered. Mike put his arm round her and kissed her hair. Tom’s head was bowed and his lips were moving, as if he was praying. Neither of us remembered his father – when Tony died, Tom was a barely toddling two-year-old – but the loss had affected us badly. I slid my arm through his, and we walked away from the grave.

The wind was biting cold and cut into our skin, but the sight of the house across the field, its windows glittering in the winter sun, was calming. Mum, Dad and Rosalie walked together, chatting quietly, while Mike strode along behind them, his arm round Kate, who occasionally laughed at him. Chin, Tom, Jess and I brought up the rear.

‘So, David Eliot, Lizzy,’ said Chin, and I could tell she was trying to take Tom’s mind off Uncle Tony’s grave.

‘Yes?’ I answered.

‘What were you talking about? It looked from where we were standing as if the two of you were about to fight.’

‘We almost did,’ I said. ‘I’d forgotten how…’ passionate he was, I wanted to say, but that sounded so corny ‘…worked up he got about things. Weirdo. Idiot. Jeez.’

‘I don’t understand him,’ said Jess. ‘Why’s he so cross with you? He’s the one who slept with your friend, for God’s sake.’

‘I know!’

‘He broke your heart. You didn’t go out of the flat for a week and you wore those pyjama bottoms through in the bum,’ Tom chimed in. ‘He really has got a nerve, acting like you dumped him.’

I had trained myself to harden my heart against David after he’d sent me that email and since the terrible, short phone call when we’d decided to split up. I couldn’t think about him without sadness, so I tried not to think about him at all. Early on I used to dream about him every night, tortuously realistic dreams where none of it had happened, then wake up and cry because it wasn’t my real life. Then grit my teeth and get ready for work.

I’d just have to do that again now – forget how lovely he was, and how he had seemed generally perfect to me in the departments of height, looks, taste in things like films and TV and, finally, sex. I nodded at Tom, with tears in my eyes, cursing my selfishness and wishing I hadn’t seen David today of all days.

Then I remembered something I’d learned on a slightly dubious self-motivational course at work which is that whether or not you have a good day is mainly up to you. So, I would enjoy the rest of Christmas and not let this ruin it. I tugged some ivy off a tree next to the path. The leaves were green, glossy and thick. I twisted them into a little crown and put it on Tom’s head as we walked. ‘I hate men – except you, of course, Thomas.’

‘Thank you, Elizabeth.’ He squeezed my hand. ‘Good grief, what is he doing?’

We were still a little way from the house, and as we caught up with the others we could see a smallish figure emerging from the front gate, trousers and hair flapping in the wind. It was Gibbo, and as we got nearer it became apparent he was carrying a tray loaded with glasses of champagne. ‘Happy Christmas, people!’ we heard him cry, as he came towards us. ‘Hurry up, it’s good stuff here and I don’t want to drop the tray.’

‘You crazy man,’ Chin shouted. ‘Put some proper shoes on! I can’t believe you’re wearing those horrible old flip-flops!’

‘Love me, love my thongs, woman,’ Gibbo said, as we reached him.

‘I think you might be a contender for the title of Greatest Living Australian, Gibbo,’ said Mike, as he took a glass. ‘Chin, I love your boyfriend, in an American, warm and fuzzy way.’

‘Me too,’ said Rosalie. ‘You’re a class act, Gibbo.’

‘Thanks, Rozzer.’ Gibbo handed her a flute. ‘Here you go – take one, Suze.’ I don’t think anyone’s called my mother ‘Suze’ since she was about fourteen. ‘Get stuck in, everyone. Lunch is totally under control – you don’t have to worry about a thing. I’ve been a bit experimental too, Suze, hope you don’t mind.’

I love Gibbo.

SIX

As we entered the house there was a warm reassuring smell of something good happening in the kitchen, and Mum breathed a sigh of relief. Despite her passion for experimentation, she’s still a megalomaniac when it comes to culinary matters. There was a brief but tense stand-off over ownership of the oven gloves (the kitchen equivalent of the remote control), but Gibbo emerged victorious and proceeded unchecked towards the Aga. Mum leaned against the doorframe, looking pale.

‘Come on, Suzy, finish off your champagne,’ said Kate, bustling in behind her. ‘Gibbo, do you need a hand?’

‘No, everything’s under control,’ said Gibbo. ‘No worries, go and relax.’

‘But I can’t!’ wailed my mother, grinding her teeth. ‘You’ve disenfranchised me. What shall I do?’

‘I can’t believe you’re a doctor and you’re allowed to be so irrational, Suze.’

‘You’re quite right,’ said my father, appearing behind me. ‘Come on, darling, you can be my helper. We’re going to hand out the presents in a minute.’

‘Do I get to wear the hat?’ asked Mum hopefully. ‘I’ll do it if I can wear the hat.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Dad, patting her shoulder like he used to pat our ancient Labrador, Jockey, towards the end when he was old and confused.

We always open our presents after church on Christmas morning, and Dad is always Santa, with Tom as his helper. Long ago our grandmother knitted Dad and Tom bright red bobble hats to wear as they were giving out the presents. Dad’s still has a white pompom, but Tom’s fell off ages ago, and they’re both rather lopsided and uneven because she was quite short-sighted when she made them.

I followed my parents into the sitting room, where Mike was on his knees lighting the fire, and watched my father trying to wedge Tom’s hat on Mum’s head. I wondered where its owner was. Tom was the only person I’d ever really talked to about David, and I wanted a debrief with him now.

‘Are you OK, darling?’ Mum asked.

‘Yep, thanks, Mum,’ I said. She snatched the better Santa hat away from Dad. ‘We should have realised David would be there, I’m sorry.’

I was outraged that they’d known David was back and had said nothing about it, but I merely smiled. ‘Mum, it’s fine. He didn’t kidnap and torture me, we split up. I can cope with seeing him for a few minutes each year, you know.’

‘Did—’ Mum began, but Dad tapped her shoulder and solemnly removed the Santa hat from her grasp.

I felt depressed. Both my parents had loved David, and neither of them understood why we split up, because I didn’t tell them. I think Mum had thought we’d have an emotional reunion by the gravestones. Well, yet again I was going to have to disappoint her. I went back towards the kitchen, looking for Tom. As I passed the study I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and peered through the gap between the door and the frame, where the wood had warped. Rosalie was sitting at my father’s desk, still in her coat, with an open box file, scribbling notes furiously on a pad.

What was she doing? Why was she in there? I turned to go upstairs, and Mike was standing behind me. I jumped, and heard rustling in the study. ‘What are you doing there?’ he asked. ‘You look like you’re in a world of your own.’

‘N-nothing,’ I stammered. ‘Is Tom in there?’ I gestured towards the study.

His eyes flicked to the door. ‘No, that’s Rosalie. Hey, did you find the Sellotape? We were looking for some earlier and I’ve got one last present to wrap. Ah! Hello, gorgeous, any luck?’

‘Yes, here it is!’ said Rosalie, emerging from the study, holding a dispenser. ‘Hey, Lizzy, how are you?’ She slid an arm round Mike. ‘Shall I run upstairs and do that last one?’

I couldn’t tell if she’d worked out I’d seen her. Or if Mike knew I’d seen her, or if he even knew what she was doing, going through Dad’s stuff.

‘A wife and a present-wrapper, rolled into one. What more could a chap ask for?’ Mike dropped a kiss on her shoulder.

‘I’m going upstairs to get Tom,’ I announced in a loud, peculiarly am-dram way. ‘See you later.’ I stomped upstairs thinking the world was going mad.

On the landing I paused to look out of the leaded window across the valley. What was David doing now? Was he with Alice and Miles, having a drink and opening presents? Was he pacing the floors, dashing tears from his eyes because of his stupid behaviour and thwarted love for me, like the Marquis of Vidal in Devil’s Cub?

Ha. I gave a mirthless laugh, like a world-weary torch singer. I knocked on Tom’s door. There was no answer, so I opened it slowly and looked in. Tom was lying on his bed, staring into space. ‘Tom, darling,’ I said, and sat down next to him. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Go away,’ he said dully. The old iron bedstead creaked beneath us. ‘I don’t feel well.’

‘Is it your dad?’ I said, putting my arm round his bony shoulders.

‘What do you mean?’ he said, shrugging me off.

‘Well, it’s Christmas Day and all that. It must be sad.’

Tom turned back to look at me without expression. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘But…’ I didn’t want to sound stupid. ‘We visit his grave every year, why are you so upset this time?’

‘I just am, that’s all. It’s different this year.’

‘But why?’

‘I’ve been thinking about something you said in the car yesterday. And about Mike and stuff.’

‘Oh, God, what?’ I said, alarmed that something I’d said and couldn’t remember should send Tom into a decline.

‘Nothing, just about us all in general. It’s not a big deal, and it’s none of your business. Go away and stop being so nosy.’

Downstairs I heard Mum shout, ‘Change of plan! Lunch is ready! Presents afterwards!’ followed by the dull clang of the bell. I didn’t know what to say. Tom is more than a cousin to me: he’s like my brother – but I often feel I don’t know him very well. I went to his birthday party last year, in a wine bar in the City, and I knew lots of his friends but he seemed…different. More relaxed, happier. And I suppose sometimes the people who know you best are the ones you want to run away from most.

I stroked his arm again. ‘Tom, whatever it is, I want to help. You know that, don’t you?’

There was no answer so I got up and opened the door. Then Tom said, in a muffled voice, ‘I’ll see you downstairs, Lizzy. Thanks.’

‘And the glory, the glory of the Lord…’ boomed the CD player, as I went downstairs. I could hear Dad sharpening the carving knife in time to The Messiah and rushed into the dining room. The table was set, the fire burned in the grate, and the smell of Christmas lunch was drifting through the kitchen door. Mum and Kate were giggling: in a few short hours Gibbo had twisted them round his little finger, and I could see why. If I’d caught him rifling through Dad’s desk I’d have told him to take what he wanted.

One by one we sat down and the dishes came forth from the kitchen. Slices of stuffing, sausage and chestnut, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, Brussels sprouts, and a huge platter of roast potatoes. And finally, with a flourish, in came Mum with the turkey. I sat on my hands to stop myself picking at anything.

Tom appeared at last, a grim expression on his face, and proceeded to down a glass of red wine.

As Dad finally sat down, we raised our glasses and said, ‘Happy Christmas.’

I looked round at all of us and thought what a pickle we were in, even though we appeared to be a normal happy family enjoying Christmas. I wondered what Georgy, Ash and my other friends were doing. Were they as confused by their own family Christmas as I was? Whoever had said that each family was barking insane in its own way was right. Just look at the evidence:

I’m sure our ancestors were all scavenging peasantry because I’ve never known anyone like my family when it comes to attacking a meal with gusto. Silence reigned as we ploughed through the mountains of food in front of us, with only Rosalie making an attempt at conversation.

‘These are beautiful, Suzy,’ she’d say, picking at a crumb of roast potato.

‘Mmm,’ my mother would answer, as her nearest and dearest guzzled, pausing only to open another bottle of wine. conversation broke out. I must say we were rather knocking back the wine but as they say, Christmas comes but once a year, and it is the season to be merry. It was probably nearing teatime but, just as at weddings, where one has nothing to eat for hours and then lunch at 6pm, we’d lost all sense of time.

After the pudding and mince pies, we had toasts where – yes! – we all propose toasts. When we were younger we found the adults desperately tedious by this stage: they were clearly drunk, found the oddest things hilarious, and would hug us, breathing fume-laden declarations of affection into our faces.

‘Lizzy goes first,’ said Chin, giving me a shove.

‘I’d like to toast Mr and Mrs Franks, and Tommy the dog,’ I said, getting up and downing the rest of my wine.

‘Hurray!’ said the others, except Gibbo and Rosalie.

‘They live in the village in Norfolk where we go on holidays. They’re gorgeous,’ said Chin. ‘You’ll meet them there this summer. It’s wonderful.’

Gibbo and Rosalie, bound together by fear of the unknown and the solidarity of the outsider, shot each other a look of trepidation.

‘Jess, you next!’ Tom yelled, prodding her in the thigh.

‘I want to toast Mr and Mrs Franks too,’ said Jess, determinedly.

‘You can’t,’ I said. ‘That was my idea. Think of someone else.’

‘I miss them,’ said Jess, her lower lip wobbling. Jess cries more easily than anyone I know, especially after wine.

‘Me too,’ said Chin, gazing into her glass. ‘I hope Mr Franks’s hip is OK.’

‘My turn,’ said Mike, standing up straight and holding his glass high in the air. ‘To…to Mr and Mrs Franks and Tommy the dog.’

We all fell about laughing, except Jess. ‘Mike! Be serious.’ She glared at him.

‘I stand by my toast,’ said Mike. ‘I send waves of love and vibes of massage to them, especially Mr Franks and his hip.’

‘Oh, Mike,’ said Jess, ‘don’t take the p-piss. You are mean.’

‘Sorry, darling,’ said Mike. ‘I change my toast. To my lovely new wife.’

‘To Mike’s lovely new wife,’ we all chorused. Rosalie beamed up at him.

Mum got up next. ‘I would like to toast Kate,’ she said quietly. ‘It was thirty-three years ago this week that Tony met her and we always remember him today, but I want Kate to know we all…Anyway, we do. To Kate.’

‘To Kate,’ we echoed, and Kate looked embarrassed and buried her face in her glass.

Mike opened another bottle as Dad stood up. ‘To the district council and their planning department,’ he said darkly, and drained his glass.

Jess and I rolled our eyes. Dad is always embroiled in some dispute over the field next to our little orchard, which is owned by the local council. They’re always threatening to chop down the trees opposite the house, or remove the lovely old hedgerow that flanks it and similarly stupid things.

‘The district council,’ came the weary reply.

It was Tom’s turn. He stood up slowly and surveyed the room. I noticed then, with a sense of unease, that he had a red wine smile: the corners of his mouth were stained with Sainsbury’s Cabernet Sauvignon. ‘The time has come…’ he began, and stopped. He swayed a little, and fell backwards into his seat. We all roared with laughter and raised our glasses to him. Somehow he got up again. ‘The time has come,’ he repeated, glazed eyes sweeping the room. ‘I want to tell you all something. I want to be honest with you.’

Kate looked alarmed. ‘What is it, darling?’ she asked, balling her napkin in one hand.

Tom waved his arm in a grandiloquent gesture. ‘You all think you know me, yes? You don’. None of you. Why don’t we tell the truth here? I’m not Tom.’

‘What’s he talking about?’ Rosalie whispered, horrified, to Mike. He shushed her.

‘I’m not the Tom you think I am, that Tom,’ said Tom, and licked his lips. ‘None of us tells the truth. Listen to me. Please.’

And this time we did.

‘I want to tell you all. You should know now. Listen, happy Christmas. But you should know, I can’t lie any more to you.’

‘Tom,’ I said, as the cold light of realisation broke over me and I suddenly saw what he’d been going on about. ‘Tom, tell us.’

‘I don’t think we’re honest with each other,’ he went on. ‘None of us. I think we should all tell each other the truth more. So I’m going to start. I’m gay. I’m Tom. I’m gay.’

The old clock on the wall behind him ticked loudly, erratically, as it must have done for over a hundred years. I gazed into my lap, then looked up to find everyone else doing the same. Someone had to say something, but I didn’t know what.

Then, from beside my father, Rosalie spoke: ‘Honey, is that all?’ she asked, reaching for a cracker. ‘You doll. I knew that the moment I laid eyes on you.’

Another silence.

‘Well, come on,’ said Rosalie. ‘Did any of you guys really not know?’

Kate cleared her throat and pouted. Tom was staring at her, with what seemed to be terror in his eyes. ‘I have to say I’ve always thought you might be, darling,’ she said. She reached across the table for his hand.

‘Er…me too,’ said Chin, and my mother nodded.

‘And me,’ Jess added, her lip wobbling again. ‘I love you, Tom.’

‘Oh, do be quiet, you fantastically wet girl,’ said Tom. A tear plopped on to Jess’s plate.

‘Good on you, mate,’ said Gibbo.

‘Come on, Mike,’ Rosalie appealed to her husband. ‘Didn’t you wonder?’

‘I must say I did,’ muttered Dad, which says it all, really. If Kate and Dad – people who think ‘friend of Dorothy’ refers to someone who is acquainted with Maisie Laughton’s sister in the next village – can be aware of Tom’s sexuality, then who had he thought he was kidding?

Tom looked discomfited. It must be awful to get seriously drunk and reveal your darkest secret to your family, only to discover that they knew it already.

‘What about you, Lizzy?’ said Tom. ‘Didn’t you wonder why I never talked about girls? Or boys?’

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I just thought you might be and you’d tell me if you wanted to.’

Mike agreed. ‘I always wondered, Tom, you know. You asked for that velvet eye-mask for your twenty-first. I wondered then whether you were going through a Maurice phase. Jolly brave of you, must have been nerve-racking telling us today. I cancel my toast to Rosalie. Stand up, everyone.’

Our chairs scraped on the old floorboards. ‘To Tom,’ he said. ‘You know…we’re proud of you. Er. You know. For being your way. Here’s to Tom.’

‘You’re proud of me for being my way?’ said Tom, incredulously. ‘Good grief! This is like being on Oprah.’

‘Shut up, Tom,’ I said. We raised our glasses and intoned, ‘To Tom,’ and sat down again.

‘Well,’ said my mother. ‘Does anyone have room for another mince pie?’

SEVEN

By the time you’ve finished Christmas lunch, it’s incredibly late, and even though you’re stuffed you have to have tea with Christmas cake and Bavarian stollen, made by my mother, and by about nine p.m. you’re starving – the huge amount you have ingested over the last four hours has stretched your stomach, which is now empty and needs to be filled again. So you have the traditional Christmas ham, accompanied by the equally traditional Vegetable Roger, which is what Tom called it once when he was little, and which is Brusselsproutscarrotsroastpotatoescabbagestuffingand-breadsauce but not necessarily in that order, all whizzed up in the food-processor, then served with melted cheese on top. I console myself with the thought that this was what kept Mrs Miniver going through times of stress.

Because it was a time of stress. I’ve been underwhelmed in my time (George Alcott, 1995, step forward), but never quite so much as by Tom’s outing himself for the benefit of his family. The drama of the moment wasn’t matched by the significance of the announcement. Ever since Tom showed me the picture of Morten Harket that he kept hidden in a secret compartment of his Velcro-fastening, blue and red eighties wallet, I’ve always suspected that he was as gay as a brightly painted fence.

Immediately after lunch, Kate ordered him to bed for a nap. He protested loudly (what a great way to start your new life, being sent to bed by your mother), but he was so drunk it was for the best.

We sat downstairs, opened our presents, then had tea. Tom’s presents sat in a forlorn heap in the corner of the sitting room as we leaped up to thank each other, exclaimed with horror, amusement or pleasure at our gifts (all three, in Jess’s case, when she unwrapped a parcel from her flatmate without knowing it was a vibrator. I thought Dad was going to pass out).

I can’t say with my hand on my heart that my immediate family were overjoyed by their presents from me but, then, Jess gave me a ‘Forever Friends’ key-ring and Get Your Motor Runnin: 25 Drivin’ Classix for the Road on cassette, and I know the only place you can get those tapes is at a service station.

Mum and Kate both loved Tom’s presents: bottles of wine, gift-wrapped in a couple of rather creased Oddbins bags.

‘Ah, he knows just what to get his old aunt,’ chuckled my mother, affectionately.

‘Now, that’s what I call a present,’ said Kate, indulgently. ‘Bless him.’

‘Yes,’ Chin said sharply. ‘The masterstroke of asking for two separate plastic bags must have taken him ages.’ She had given her sisters-in-law individually crafted, velvet-beaded bags and was quite rightly annoyed at the reception lavished on Tom’s wine. As was I, but with less justification.

Later, as Mum and I were clearing up after the ham and Vegetable Roger I decided to wake Tom, so that he could enjoy a bit more of his Christmas Day, rather than coming to at three a.m. with a raging thirst. ‘I’m going to go and get Tom in a minute,’ I said to Mum, as we stood by the sink, washing the Things that are Too Big to Go in the Dishwasher.

Mum was in a philosophical mood. ‘Ah, Tom,’ she said, staring out of the window into the dark, windy garden. ‘Lizzy, did you really never ask him?’

‘No,’ I said firmly.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said, placing an earthenware pot on the draining-board. ‘Didn’t it ever come up?’

I felt a bit impatient, as if I was being accused of being a bad cousin/friend. ‘No, it didn’t.’

‘But why not?’ said Mum, lowering another dish into the soapy water.

‘Because you don’t ask big questions over a glass of wine or on the way into the cinema,’ I explained. ‘How do you say, “Hi, Tom, the tickets for Party in the Park have arrived and, by the way, do you prefer the manlove?” It was up to him to tell me if he wanted to. I’d do anything for him, he knows that.’

‘I know, darling,’ said Mum. ‘I do understand. I’m just glad he felt he could tell us now. It was all so different in My Day.’

‘Right,’ I said, hiding a smile in a tea-towel and not particularly wanting to hear about the famous ‘My Day’, although I’d very much like a specific calendar date for it at some point. In My Day blokes were called chaps, rad fem med students like my mother wore Pucci tunics, had big hair with black bows on top, applied their eyeliner wearing oven gloves while sitting on a bumpy bus, and marched during the day against the Midland Bank or Cape fruits while in the evening they grooved and bed-hopped at someone’s shabby stucco South Ken flat. In My Day you knew one chap who was ‘a queer’, usually a photographer or a film director, and you told people about it in a subtle way that implied you were a free-thinking liberal.

‘Well, it’s been quite a Christmas so far, hasn’t it?’ said Mum, wiping her hands. She advanced towards me. ‘And I’ve hardly talked to you since you got back, darling. How are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said, alarmed by the sudden maternal probing.

‘Was it very awful seeing David today?’ she said in a casual way, filling the kettle.

From the other side of the house I could hear Mike and Gibbo doing something to Chin that was making her scream. I put my elbows on the counter. ‘No, it was fine, thanks.’

‘Do you miss him?’ my mother persisted.

My elbows were soggy. I straightened hastily. ‘Erm…in what way?’

‘Oh, come on, Lizzy,’ my mother said, crossly, I thought. ‘Either you miss someone or you don’t.’

‘Not necessarily,’ I said, patting my damp arms. ‘What if there’s more than one factor involved? What if, say, you were madly in love with that person and would still be with them if it was up to you? Then you miss them. But what if that person slept with your friend in New York a month after he moved there and after he’d told you he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you? Well, yes, you still miss them, but you kind of don’t any more so much.’

My mother stared at me, involuntarily wrapping her arms round herself. ‘What?’ she said, with a catch in her throat. ‘I knew it was serious, but…oh, my darling…’

‘Yes, blah blah,’ I said. ‘But it turns out he’s a lying so-and-so and I was wrong about him, so let’s forget about it, shall we?’

‘Yes, let’s,’ said Mum, and gave me a hug. ‘I don’t know, you children. I know I’m always saying this, but in My Day…’

Thankfully, Kate came into the kitchen. ‘I was going to go and wake Tom. He’s been asleep for nearly six hours, you know. He told me he hadn’t slept at all the previous three nights because…he wanted to tell us.’ She smiled wanly.

‘I’ll go and get him,’ I said.

‘Be nice to him,’ said Kate. I stared at her. Kate, the scariest woman south of the M4? Kate, who made the postman cry? I expected her to support her son but in a bluff, Kate-ish way, but there were tears in her eyes.

‘Oh, Kate,’ I snapped. ‘Is it that much of a surprise to any of us? It’s hardly like finding out about John Major and Edwina Currie, is it? I mean…’ I tailed off. She was looking at me in a really scary way. ‘I’ll be off then,’ I said hurriedly, and ran out of the door. I bounded upstairs, shoes clacking on the wooden staircase, and knocked on Tom’s door. No answer. I banged again.

‘Hello…?’

‘Tom, it’s Lizzy. Can I come in?’

‘Lizzy…’ The voice was muffled and distant. ‘Hello…ouch.’

I pushed open the door. ‘Hello again,’ I said, and sat on the bed.

‘Hi,’ said Tom, from beneath his duvet. ‘Oh, God…’

‘Your mum sent me to get you.’

‘I can’t go down there and face them.’

‘Why not?’ I enquired.

‘I just can’t. I made such a fool of myself earlier.’

‘It doesn’t matter, silly,’ I said, stroking his feet. ‘They don’t care – none of us cares.’

Tom sat bolt upright and stared at me. His hair was incredibly amusing. It was springing out stiffly from his head at a 45-degree angle. I giggled.

‘That’s just it,’ Tom said angrily. ‘None of you cares. You knew all along. Here I am, carrying this awful secret around, living this double life where everyone at work and most of my other friends all know, and I haven’t told you, the people who mean most to me in the whole world. And when I pluck up courage to tell you this terrifying thing, all you do is laugh. Well, I wish I’d never bothered.’ He ran his fingers through his hair.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered, horrified. ‘Honestly, none of us is laughing at you. We’re proud of you for having the guts to do it. Even if we did know. And I wasn’t laughing about that just now – your hair looks mad.’

‘I made a fool of myself,’ Tom moaned.

‘No, you didn’t,’ I said.

‘Yes, I did. Don’t lie to me, Lizzy.’ He stared up at me briefly, then buried his head under the duvet again. ‘Just go away,’ he mumbled.

I decided honesty was the best option. ‘Well, yes you did,’ I said quickly, ‘make a bit of a fool of yourself. But – oh, Tom, can’t you see why? You had red wine round your mouth, you were swaying and you fell over! That was why it was funny at first, and that’s what you’re probably remembering – if you can remember it,’ I added. ‘And the only way to show it doesn’t matter is if you come downstairs with me now, have a coffee, and make the others laugh so that they think you’re OK and they don’t have to be embarrassed about it.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. But…I just don’t want to go back down there.’

‘Oh, come off it, Tom,’ I said. ‘Get a grip. Look at the sorry collection of humans downstairs. Jess? What does she care if you’re gay, straight or a homicidal maniac? Gibbo? He’s only known you a day – I hardly think this is a body blow to him. Chin? Her friends are always coming out of the closet – look at Marcus.’

‘Marcus is gay?’ said Tom, pursing his lips and making snake eyes at me. ‘Fanbloodytastic.’

‘And, Tom,’ I continued, hoping I was on the home straight, ‘what do you think our family’s going to remember this Christmas for? You telling us what we already knew? I don’t think so.’

‘Mike…’

‘Exactly,’ I said, slapping his thigh. ‘When you look at it objectively, your news hardly compares with the ageing lawyer uncle bursting in on Christmas Eve with his busty bride of two days and acquaintance of four weeks. Think about it.’

‘Holy guacamole,’ said Tom, ‘you’re right.’

‘Of course I’m right. Come on, get up, you idiot.’

‘Lizzy,’ said Tom, hugging me, ‘you’re great.’

‘Yes, I am,’ I answered, and I allowed myself a moment of internal glow for my good deed.

‘I’m not playing Shoot Shag Marry with you again, though,’ said Tom, swinging his legs off the bed. He picked up a glass of water from beside his bed and glugged it down. ‘You’re terrible at choosing – you always pick completely the wrong people. And I don’t just mean David. Remember when you said you’d rather marry Duncan from Blue over Ryan Philippe?’

‘I stand by that,’ I said, as Tom pushed me through the door. ‘Duncan’s gorgeous and he’ll cut the mustard when he’s fifty, but Ryan’s pretty-boy looks will be gone in a flash.’

‘You’re hopeless,’ said Tom, as we trotted downstairs together. ‘Really you are. You’re the one who needs the sympathy, not me. You couldn’t spot a good thing coming if he was completely gorgeous and wearing a T-shirt that said “Good Thing Coming” on it.’

‘I know,’ I said, linking my arm through his.

‘I hope so,’ Tom said. ‘What about Miles? You could always shag him – he’d be up for it.’

‘You make me sound like a complete slapper,’ I said, not without a note of pride in my voice.

‘Oh, Lizzy,’ said Tom. ‘You wish. But listen to me. Anyone but David or that madman Jaden, and you’ll be fine.’

I couldn’t say, ‘But I don’t really want anyone but David,’ so I said nothing except ‘Come on, we’re here.’

As we stood in the hall, I looked through to the sitting room. There, framed in the doorway, my father was enthusiastically poking the fire with the end of the bellows and Mike was leaning against the mantelpiece, holding Dad’s whisky glass. ‘Bollocks, John,’ he said, as Dad jabbed ineffectually at another log. ‘No, that one there! Get that one over it, fella’ll burn for hours. No, no! Give it to me!’

‘Get off!’ said Dad, brandishing a poker, as if he and Mike were little boys again. Mike scowled and flopped into the armchair next to him, then picked up an old Eagle annual and popped a chocolate into his mouth.

Rosalie sat in one of the battered old chintz armchairs to their left, with Chin perched on the arm. They were both laughing – I could hear Gibbo reaching the end of a convoluted story.

Suddenly Mike caught sight of us. ‘Hello, you two,’ he said, leaping up and striding towards us. He slapped Tom on the back. Come and get a drink – get one for Lizzy too. Here, have one of my chocolates!’

I sat down on the one empty sofa and felt the old springs sag. Mike handed me a glass of whisky, and Rosalie winked at him.

‘All right, darling?’ hissed Kate across the room, under cover of Gibbo’s story.

‘Yes, thanks.’ Tom grinned.

‘And then,’ Gibbo continued, ‘they said, “Get out of Bangkok, and if you show your face in here again, we’re going to put you in prison.” And I said, “Well, that’s not fair,” and the bloke cuffed me and I woke up on a boat with all my stuff gone.’

‘Right,’ Jess said. ‘Have you ever been to the street where they film Neighbours, Gibbo?’

Several more stories from Gibbo, a lot more alcohol and three Frank Sinatra albums later, our Christmas Day party broke up and, one by one, we trickled off to bed. Mum went first, followed by Kate, then Chin and Gibbo, till only the hardcore were left. Tendrils of ivy clattered against the panes as we talked. Each of us was eager to reassure Tom. Mike, with the grace of the seasoned conversationalist, picked up the baton and referred affectionately to Tom’s ‘break-out’. Tom, the lawyer, laughed in bashful but genuine amusement and threw it back, with a comment on Mike’s new comb-over. My father, the erstwhile captain of his university debating team, rolled the thinning-hair and outed-nephew gags into one with an anecdote about Oscar Wilde that gracefully touched on each but undermined neither. Jess, whose grey matter I sometimes worry might be composed of dead skin cells, sat up suddenly and said she didn’t get it, so we took the piss out of her until she dozed off on the sofa.

By the time I got into bed the wind was howling. I pulled the duvet tightly round me as rain lashed against the windows. A gate was slamming and creaking in the gale, and as I wondered when it would stop I heard Mike pad downstairs and venture out into the storm.

I peered outside and saw him, in a battered old woollen dressing-gown and stripy pyjamas, twisting a piece of wire round the catch. As Confucius so rightly said, ‘There is nothing more pleasurable than to watch an old friend fall from a rooftop.’ The wind wailed louder. Wait! It was a human wail. I got up, unfastened the window and looked out. Rosalie was hanging out of hers. ‘…eee…areful…ike…’ she yelled. ‘Ohmigod…don’t sli…Wet path!’

‘Aaargh!’ Mike shouted, and slipped. He got up, looking furious, knees and hands covered with mud. ‘…ucking…couldn’t…simple thing…a gate?’ he growled, his normally unruffled nature clearly very ruffled.

‘Are you OK, honey?’ I heard Rosalie say as the wind dipped momentarily.

Mike brushed himself off, spread his arms wide and beamed up at her, rain streaming down his face. ‘I am coming back up to you, my sweet,’ he bellowed. ‘Wet, dirty, covered with mud and rust, I shall bring you this token from my garden.’

He picked up a handful of streaming wet gravel. ‘I’m putting this down your nightie. Now lie still, I’ll be up in a minute, to give you a—’

I shut the window hurriedly.

And that was Christmas. As I lay down, the events of the day rushed through my mind in reverse order, a bizarre kaleidoscope of images: Mike yelling up to his wife in the pouring rain; Mum washing up in the kitchen; Tom’s redwine smile; the clinking of glasses as we sat down to lunch; Rosalie flicking through the papers in the study; the hollows beneath Kate’s cheekbones as she laid the wreath on Tony’s grave; David at the church, looking at me with those dark eyes…and all the way back to this morning, when I ran downstairs, excited as a little girl by the prospect of what the day would bring. And then I must have fallen asleep. Perhaps it was inevitable that I’d dream about David. I hadn’t for a while, those dreams where he still loved me and I could see him, hear him, so clearly that I was sure I wasn’t dreaming and that we were back together again until I woke up. Six months ago I had them every night. And it was still the same feeling then, as now – it was still the most bittersweet torture of all.

EIGHT

In the year and a bit that David and I were together, I was sure of three things: one, that I loved him; two, that he loved me; three, that this was the way it was always going to be. I didn’t worry about whether we’d get married or look at cots and sigh longingly. I never thought about the future because all that mattered was that I’d found him and he loved me.

I’ll never make that mistake again. I learned a lot from David, but the most important thing is that loving someone so much your heart turns over with happiness every time you draw breath isn’t enough. It can’t save you; the only thing you can do is to try and get over it.

When we’d been going out for nearly a year, he was offered a job in New York. It was a good one – with a highly respected newspaper – and it meant more money as well as a step up the career ladder. In every way, it was the most simple decision to make – except one. I didn’t want him to go, and he didn’t want to leave me.

Of course, we were terribly adult about it. I never said, ‘Oh, God, please don’t go. I’ll miss you so much. I’m glad you’ve got this job and I’m so proud of you but don’t go.’ Sometimes now I wish I had, just so he knew how much I loved him. How much I really loved him.

It was strange helping him pack up his flat, having endless farewell parties and dinners, where the same conversations were rehashed over and over again. ‘You’ll miss him, won’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you going out to see him?’

‘In a fortnight’s time.’

‘Well, you’ve got email and the flight’s really not that long, is it?’

‘No.’

Sometimes, when I was having these conversations, I’d look up and see David watching me, as if he wasn’t sure about something. As if he couldn’t decide whether he wanted me to be weeping and devastated, or calm and businesslike about his going.

I loved him so much it hurt. When I closed my eyes and thought about him, my heart would clench – even if he was standing next to me. And I was almost as happy when he wasn’t there, because having him in my life, loving him, knowing he lived in the same place as me, that I had held him and made love to him, made me feel gorgeously lucky, young, happy and in love. Until I knew I had to say goodbye to him.

On one of the first days of late spring, a beautiful English day when the trees, the grass and hedges are at their most green, we went together to the airport. We checked in his bags, then sat at a café in near silence. I couldn’t cry: I didn’t want him to leave a weeping, drooping fool (and I didn’t want his last memory of me to be as a honking, pink-nosed pig with rivulets of mascara around my eyes and on my cheeks). As the time drew near for him to go through, the silence between us pooled, lengthened. I felt dizzy, hot, muffled with cotton wool. Suddenly I wanted to say, ‘I love you. Don’t go. I don’t want to spend another night apart from you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I love you.’ I opened my mouth: my throat felt dry.

The flight was called. David drained his coffee and said easily, ‘Right, I’d better go.’

I should have made my speech then but he was swinging his backpack over his shoulder. Instead I said croackily, ‘Did you pack the Rough Guide in your suitcase or have you got it with you for the flight?’

‘In here, thanks,’ he said, indicating his rucksack.

‘Good.’

As I stood at the gate and kissed him, he drew back. I smiled brightly and swallowed.

‘This is for you,’ David said. He handed me a crumpled brown-paper bag. ‘I should have given it to you earlier. Listen, I – oh, God, they’re calling the flight again. I’m late. Open it when you get home. I love you, Lizzy. Tell me you love me.’ His eyes were on me, almost pleading, alert, looking for something.

‘Of course I do,’ I said, clutching the package to my chest. He kissed me suddenly, turned and walked through. He didn’t look back.

When I got to my flat, I threw myself on the sofa and cried as if my heart would break because it physically hurt, him having gone. Then I made myself a strong gin and tonic. I reread the letters David had sent me, looked at some photos of our holiday in France the previous year, and cried some more. I moped, drank more gin, put a scarf round my neck, which made me feel like a tragic film heroine or Edith Piaf, and sang ‘I Know Him So Well’ drunkenly into my remote control. Then I remembered the package. I tore it open, and found his copy of the Rough Guide to New York. Stupid man, I thought. He’s given me the wrong present. He’d been annotating it for weeks, putting sticky markers on pages of restaurants, bars, shops, museums – anything people had recommended to him. Now he was half-way across the Atlantic and without this book, which had maps, and information on where to buy milk, headache pills and sheets – I started to cry again, huge racking sobs for him on his own and me on my own and him without his Rough Guide. He’d wrapped an elastic band round the spine as a marker and the book fell open at the title page, where David had written, ‘Lizzy, I need you and I need this book. Bring it over soon. D. PS I tried to give you this ring last night. Wear it, I love you.’ It was threaded on to the elastic band, thin yellow gold, battered and beaten, with a cluster of tiny diamonds that formed a flower.

But it turned out that the old chestnut ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’ isn’t true. Perhaps our relationship wasn’t strong enough to survive our separation; still that doesn’t explain why we split up, and every time I force myself to think about it, none of it makes sense.

When David had been away for a fortnight, I flew out to see him. I’d been to New York a couple of times before, for work, but I love it so much that flying there and seeing David again meant I was almost sick with excitement. While the dreary suburbs and endless grey roads into London must be a shock for your average tourist coming from Heathrow who’s expecting castles and thatched cottages, New York doesn’t disappoint. There, you arrive and the following things happen, as if you were in an episode of a super-merged programme called Cagney and Lacey and Sex and the City:

1. Woman with enormous hair and nails shouts at you to move on in queue for Passport Control. ‘Hey, you! Yeah…you, lady! Move it!’

2. Get into yellow cab. Hurrah!

3. During drive past graveyards and factories, you look up and there in front of you is the river, with Manhattan, including real-life Chrysler Building and the Empire State, gleaming in the sunshine!

4. Three doors down from your scabby hotel there will always be a bar like an old hairdressing salon that stays open till two a.m., where Cosmopolitans are three dollars each, and an old guy plays brilliant jazz piano!

I love it. But now the thing I loved most was David’s being there. The city would be ours, the wide streets, the park, the tiny bar I’d told him about opposite his apartment. We’d live in black and white and Gershwin would play in the background, like in Manhattan. We’d ride through Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage. We’d laugh in slow-motion and wear Gap scarves and David would push tendrils of hair off my face.

But it wasn’t like that, quite. And that was where it all started to go wrong.

The night I arrived one of David’s colleagues was having a party in a downtown bar. I wasn’t tired. I wanted to go out and see the city, and I wanted David to cement his friendships with his new work pals. David wanted to stay in, watch a movie and have sex, basically. I pointed out we’d just spent three hours doing that. He said we could happily spend another three hours doing it, and came up with some suggestions that I’ve been wishing ever since that I’d taken up. We had a bit of a row and went to the party in a slight atmosphere, neither of us understanding why when we were so pleased to see each other.

And how life laughs at you when you don’t realise it’s about to. For as we walked into the bar, a trendy, dim-lit place off Spring Street where the seats were cubes in primary colours and everyone wore black, I saw Lisa Garratt. The frienemy to end all frienemies. Lisa, an old acquaintance of mine from university, Lisa, who by coincidence worked on David’s paper too. Tall, tanned, muscular. She had thighs like tree-trunks, I remembered – she was captain of the ladies’ rugby team. She was always louder, more confident, more energetic than everyone else around her at university – an irritating mix of sporty and horsy with a bad slutty-party-girl edge. She was the one who’d say, ‘Hey, I know! Let’s stay up late and play Scrabble all night doing tequila shots and strip poker at the same time!’

‘Oh, God,’ I murmured to David as we walked in. ‘It’s Lisa.’

He was checking in our coats. I smoothed his hair and kissed him, relishing the luxury of being able to touch him. ‘Lizzy,’ he said, pulling something out of my coat, ‘Why did you bring gloves with you to New York? It’s June.’

‘I’m aware of that, thank you,’ I said. I’m never quite sure what temperatures to expect around the world and I believe in being prepared. Gloves don’t take up much room.

‘Is this like the time you took that bobble hat to Prague because you thought it always snowed there?’

‘No,’ I said, affronted. ‘I’m using the gloves to store things in.’

‘It was thirty degrees in the shade and you packed a woolly hat because you thought Prague was snowy all year round, didn’t you?’

‘You patronizing ratbag,’ I said, hitting him. ‘Don’t forget that you thought Adrian Mole was a real person writing real diaries until you were sixteen.’

‘I wish I’d never told you that.’ He kissed me. ‘Hmm…’ he said, a moment later. ‘What were you saying before the glove debate, bobble-hat girl? Who’s here?’

I remembered. ‘Urgh, yes, Lisa Garratt. Does she work with you?’

‘You know her?’ David said. ‘Don’t you like her?’

‘She’s the original frienemy,’ I said.

‘The what?’ David said, kissing my neck. ‘Let’s go in. Lisa’s OK. I’ll fetch you your gloves if you get cold. How’s that for a deal?’

‘I’m sure she is. It’s just I’ll have to pretend we’re really friendly and I don’t like her much. Hey,’ I pressed closer to him, feeling his hard chest and strong arms round me, ‘I’ve changed my mind, let’s go home and have sex all night. I want to try the thing with the ice cube and the needle now.’

But David broke away from me and took my hand. As we pushed through the crowd he said, slightly brusquely, ‘Come on, Lizzy, we’re here now. She’s nice, honestly. A real laugh. Hi, Garratt. How are you?’

Lisa was still the original boys’ girl. She was a massive flirt, the biggest drinker, likely to start a fight, and to wear slaggy clothes. Because she was a real lad the blokes loved her company, and because she was a real sex bomb they all wanted to shag her, but thought it was OK because they could explain her away as ‘one of the lads’. I’d never liked her at university and I didn’t now. I saw her appraising me as she smiled a sharky smile and slapped David on the back. I saw her deliberately exclude me in the subtlest of ways as she drew David and the other men into her group. Jokes about the office, about the subway ride into work that day, about what was on TV last week. I couldn’t make a fuss about it because I wanted David to be happy and have friends.

The rest of the weekend was fine, but it wasn’t as wonderful as I’d assumed it would be. We didn’t mention the future, although I was wearing the ring. I didn’t know what it stood for, and I couldn’t bring it up without sounding either ungrateful or hysterical. The thin end of the wedge was already there. It wasn’t Lisa. I don’t blame her. Well, I do, the evil whore: she was a woman on a mission. But it was other things too. We were separated, leading different lives. And neither of us noticed until it was too late.

A month after I got back from New York I had a bad row with David. It started when he told me he wasn’t coming over for a friend’s wedding, and escalated into all sorts of things. I missed him; I was miserable. He told me he missed me too. But while I was still living the same life, if without him, I’d heard enough to know that he was having a great time, try as he might to deny it. And, of course, I wanted him to – I wanted him to be happy. So I felt guilty about being jealous of him, and he – well, I don’t think he missed me that much. I think he got along just fine without me.

He had this thing about how us being together was a big step – ‘It’s a big step’, ‘We’re taking a big step’, ‘Our relationship is a big step’ – which made the word step lose all meaning for me. I found it vaguely amusing, but now, in the cold, Davidless light of day, I realized he was trying to tell me that he wasn’t in serious-long-term-relationship mode. So while I think he bought the ring meaning to propose, he must have bottled out at the last minute. And that says all there is to say, really, so the row ended with us both half-heartedly saying sorry and ringing off. What I should have done was call him back; I should have been the bigger person. But I didn’t. I was afraid, and so I bottled it.

Then, three days of silence later, Miles rang up and took me out to dinner. Miles and I had been friends when we were teenagers; he’d lived in Spain with his and David’s father till he was fourteen, then come back to Wareham, which was when Tom and I became his pals. David was at university then, in Edinburgh.

In addition to having a variety of jobs to pay his way up there, he volunteered to visit an old couple twice a week, did their shopping, and was on the committee for rag week, stuff like that. He rarely came back for the holidays, and when he had we’d never met him. I remember saying to Miles that he sounded like a Goody Two Shoes, and Miles offering me a Mayfair cigarette and saying, in a bored tone, that he was, and it was annoying to have such a girl for a brother.

Miles, Tom and I thought we were a right cool teenage gang. On my eighteenth birthday I went to the Neptune in Wareham with them and some friends from school, and got royally drunk. Miles and I even snogged. In fact, in the summer of our first year at university we nearly slept together, but Miles got stage fright and his enthusiasm, as it were, wilted. He was mortified, but I told him I took it as a sign that we were meant to be friends and that was what we became. Of course, it was a bit different after I’d met David and fallen in love with him, but old friends stay old friends whatever happens. They’re there for you when things go wrong. They’ll tell you what no one else will because they love you.

So, over dinner, with anguish on his face and in his voice, Miles told me that David was sleeping with Lisa, that she was virtually living in the apartment, that – and even now I think he could have spared me this bit – they had been caught in the photocopying room together. My David cautioned for fucking a colleague at the office, with his trousers round his ankles.

I called David, and he was out. I left him a message. I couldn’t bring myself to mention her name. I just said that because of what had happened it was over and I never wanted to see him again. So, theoretically, I dumped him by leaving a message on his answering-machine, which is something you do to someone you barely know, not someone you’d wanted to spend the rest of your life with.

I had an email from him in reply, just as I was leaving work.

Lizzy

If you say it’s over, then it’s over. I think it’s for the best and you obviously do too. I’m sorry for what’s happened. Anything else sounds trite.

For what it’s worth, I never thought this would happen. I’ve missed you.

D

And then another, thirty-two seconds later:

PS Keep the ring. I don’t want it.

Lisa emailed Emma, a mutual friend from university, and told her (really – what a total cow): Emma rang and asked Georgy was it true about Lizzy and her boyfriend? Georgy happened to be at my flat trying to cheer me up. I could hear Emma’s braying, strident tones from my end of the sofa, the first of what would be too many calls and questions about what had happened. Georgy looked at me – what should she say?

I leaned forward. ‘Tell her it’s not true. Tell her it was Lizzy’s ex-boyfriend. Because he’s not my boyfriend any more.’ The Rough Guide was lying on the floor. I picked it up and put it on my bookshelf, the spine facing away from me and since then I’ve tried not to think about David and anything to do with him at all. I try not to. But, occasionally, I dream about him again and it all comes flooding back.

This time I dreamed we’d just split up because we’d both received anonymous letters saying we hated each other, and then David’s father had died and he had to scatter the ashes in my flat, and I kept saying I needed to Hoover them up and he kept yelling that I was insensitive and horrible for not understanding those were his father’s ashes.

I woke up as David was coming towards me in my flat, smiling at me with his dark eyes and kind, stern face and banging the anonymous letters together incredibly loudly. (It turned out Jaden had sent them out of jealousy. I know, I know.) I could feel myself swimming back into consciousness, as you do when you wake from a deep sleep, and I rolled over and looked at my watch. It was ten thirty a.m. already and after a few seconds I realized that Tom had woken me by banging my hairbrush on my dressing-table.

‘Tea! Wake up, young laydee, wake up,’ he screeched, as I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus on him. ‘Mum’s bouncing off the walls. She wants to go for a walk. So’s your mum. Rosalie’s wearing a fantastically humorous outfit – kind of Burberry meets the baroness in The Sound of Music, and I’ve already found her counting the pewter bowls in the dining room. Mike’s about to make scrambled eggs for late risers, so get a move on.’

I stared at him in frank astonishment. ‘Who are you?’ I asked.

‘Whadyou mean?’

‘I mean,’ I said, pulling my knees up under my chin, ‘last night you were so drunk you passed out for three hours. How can you be so chirpy this morning?’

Tom handed me a mug of tea and strode to the window. He pulled back the curtains to reveal a grey, overcast day. ‘I’m right as rain. Must have slept it off. And I feel fantastic. Everyone knows. No more secrets. No more lies. Layers stripped away. Family reunited. Ho, yes.’

I took a gulp of tea and, amazingly, felt better too. ‘I’m so glad, Tommytom.’

Tom gazed out of the window, musing and stroking his chin. Then he stopped and picked up Flossie, my first doll, who had a tremendously exciting tulle skirt and light blue top and used to be the centre of my world but now led a nice quiet life, sitting on my windowsill next to Manfred, a boy doll with a willy it could wee through (it was French). Tom looked challengingly at Flossie, as if he expected her to give him some backchat. Her flecked-blue marble eyes rocked open as he picked her up and she gazed blankly at him. ‘I want everyone to know what it feels like to be totally honest.’ He put Flossie back on the windowsill. ‘To free yourself from the tyranny of repression.’

‘What?’ I said.

Tom sighed. ‘Never mind. No more secrets and lies in this family, is all I’m saying. Come on.’ He threw me an ancient baggy jumper that my grandmother had knitted for me. I pulled it on and rolled out of bed, yawning. I felt incredibly tired.

‘You look knackered,’ he said.

‘Tom,’ I said, as I freed my hair. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Have you…’ I stopped. ‘Have you…Sorry, this is embarrassing. But you’re right, let’s be honest. Are you seeing anyone at the moment, then? Like…a…a boy?’

Tom shut the door again. ‘Er…no, I’m not. Thanks for asking, though.’

‘But,’ I persisted, ‘when did you last…So how did you…’ I trailed off. ‘Sorry, I’ll be honest again. Right. When was your last relationship? And how did you meet?’

Tom avoided my gaze. ‘Mind your own business.’

‘But you just said—’

‘I know, but I don’t ask about your sex life so don’t you ask about mine, OK? I’m not seeing anyone, I don’t particularly want to. But if you must know, I’m not going without.’ He turned in a mini-flounce and opened the door again. ‘Come on, let’s go downstairs.’

I opened and shut my mouth. ‘Righty-ho,’ I said. ‘Great. I’m pleased for you.’

‘Thanks. I’m pleased for me too.’

‘So now we don’t have any more secrets, do we?’

We headed downstairs and I smelt something nice coming from the kitchen. Oh, it was lovely to be home. Even when it was more of a lunatic asylum than usual. In the light of a new day, I remembered how much I missed it when I was in London.

Tom stopped so suddenly that I nearly bumped into him. ‘You’re so blind sometimes, Lizzy.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing. Don’t worry about it. The truth is out there,’ he added. ‘It’s important to catch it while you can.’

I scratched my head. ‘I don’t suppose you could give me an example?’

‘I’m going to, just you wait and see.’ He stared at me. ‘You know, you do look exhausted. Didn’t you sleep?’

‘No…I did,’ I said, brushing my hair out of my eyes. ‘I just had a bad dream, that’s all.’

‘God, that bastard David,’ said Tom. ‘I still can’t believe what he did to you.’

I was impressed by this display of emotional intelligence, but as always when a member of my family brought up le sujet de Davide, I found myself fighting the urge to climb into the wardrobe and hide. They all loved him, damn them, and I suspected that in some obscure way they held me responsible for the end of our relationship. I gritted my teeth. ‘Thanks,’ I said, and changed the subject. ‘So you’re really feeling all right this morning, then?’

‘Tom’s eyes lit up for the first time in ages. He looked about fifteen again. ‘Ah sure am, Lizzy,’ he said, in a southern drawl. ‘Ah suuure am.’

I sat down at the table in the side-room, yawning. Jess appeared from the kitchen and sat down next to me. I poured us both some coffee.

From the corridor came a sound like the hoofs of a dainty pony, and there was Rosalie, with a tray of toast and butter. Tom was right; cashmere twin-set, Burberry scarf tied jauntily around the neck, tweed skirt and stilettos. Amazing.

‘Hello!’ she said merrily.

‘Lo,’ Jess and I grunted.

‘Mike’ll be along in a minute – he’s just finishing the eggs. They look good, I’m telling you. It’s a lovely day out there. Your parents and Chin have gone for a walk.’ It was like having our own personal CNN news roundup.

‘Where’s Kate?’ asked Jess. ‘Has she gone too, or is she back at the cottage?’

Rosalie frowned. ‘Oh, of course, and Kate too. Sorry.’

Kate and Rosalie were not destined to be best friends, I could see that. Apart from the fact that Kate was scary, and Rosalie was mad, Kate and Mike were close: they always had been, ever since Mike moved in with Kate and little Tom for about a year after Tony died. They still do things together, like go for long walks. Before all this Mike had sometimes stayed with her rather than at Keeper House. I think he sometimes found it a bit strange to stay in the house that might have been his cluttered with roller skates, wet gym gear and an endless succession of pink girls’ toys manufactured in Taiwan, it must have felt as if it was yet wasn’t his home.

At that moment he came in, carrying a pan of scrambled eggs and wearing a paper hat. He was still in his tatty old dressing-gown, which looked much the worse for his exertions of the previous night. He was singing ‘La Donna E Mobile’ in a fruity operatic tone. It struck me that he looked more at home here this Christmas than I’d ever seen him. Although if Mike’s in a good mood and you’re one of twenty people in the same room, within ten minutes you’ll be doing the conga down the street, strangers from around the corner will be begging to join in, shops will hang out bunting and sell fireworks, and the council will declare a public holiday. I perked up at the sight of him.

‘Elizabetta! Mi amore. Have some eggs. Give me your plate.’

Mike had inherited from our grandfather a gift for making perfect scrambled eggs. ‘Hold on a second,’ I said.

‘Come on, stop dousing that nice bit of toast in sheepdip and hand it over. How disgusting you are! Rosalie, my peach, my nectar called Renée, have you ever had Marmite?’

‘Yes, and it was totally gross,’ said Rosalie. ‘My first husband had a kinda fetish for it. He had it flown over from Fortnum and Mason. God, some of the memories I have stored up here. Yeuch.’

There was a pause. Jess and Tom made choking sounds. Mike said, in outraged tones, ‘Woman! Please! Remember you’re talking to your second husband now, and his beloved nieces and nephew! They do not know whence your previous spouse and his extraordinary nocturnal proclivities hailed, nor do I wish them to. I do apologize, children. Don’t tell your parents about her.’

Rosalie giggled.

‘Aaargh,’ Mike shrieked. ‘You’ve distracted me with your bizarre Marmite routine and the eggs are overcooked now.’

‘Oh, God, please don’t worry,’ I begged. ‘Honestly! I’m starving – just dish it up.’

Mike slid the eggs on to my plate.

‘What about me?’ Jess demanded.

He held out the empty pan. Jess looked as if she might cry, but that was nothing new. ‘Have some of mine,’ I offered. ‘I’ve got loads.’

‘No, I’ll make some more,’ said Mike. ‘It’ll take two secs. Hold tight, Jessica. Don’t cry.’

‘I’m not going to cry! Jeez!’

Tom helped himself to another piece of toast.

‘You OK there, Sparky?’ said Rosalie, smiling at him.

‘Sure am,’ said Tom.

The phone rang. Tom, Jess and I glanced at each other guiltily, knowing that none of us had any intention of getting up to answer it.

Mike shouted, ‘Someone get that, will you? I’m breaking eggs in here.’

I relented, and ran through into the hall, hugging myself in the sudden cold as I picked up the handset.

‘Hello?’ I said.

‘Lizzy? It’s me.’

‘Georgy!’ I yelled. ‘I’ll take this into my room, hold on.’

‘Good – but hurry up. I can’t talk for long. Uncle Clive’s just arrived and we’re all going to do handbell ringing in a few minutes. Oh, God, get me out of here.’

The purpose of any best friend worth their salt is to listen with apparent fascination while you rant about on a number of subjects, in this case 1. our families and how mad they were (Georgy’s Uncle Clive and Aunt Matilda – who makes corn dollies – were contenders, but I won, hands down); 2. men, and the hieroglypthic language they speak (won that one, too, with my tales of David’s reappearance by the grave); 3. random Christmas presents (Georgy is a glamorous girl who runs a top hotel in central London: her aunt gave her a single hyacinth bulb in a plastic bag – nice); and 4. what we were wearing to our friend Swedish Victoria’s Pikey New Year’s Eve Party.

But since Georgy isn’t really a part of this story, and since our conversation would have been of no interest to anyone but ourselves, I felt a bit strange when I put down the phone twenty minutes later. For the first time since I’d come back to Keeper House, I felt myself peeling away from home life, and wanting to be in my flat, chatting and watching TV with Georgy over a glass of wine. It’s good to feel like that, though – I always arrive at Keeper House dreading having to leave, and the desire to embrace my normal life can come as something of a relief, an affirmation that I am a rational twenty-eight-year-old, not a crazed dumped person, marooned at her parents’ home, still in her pyjamas at eleven a.m. on Boxing Day.

I went back downstairs, where Mike was lighting a fire with the ecstasy of a ten-year-old. Tom and Jess were eating their eggs in companionable silence, while Rosalie gazed into the garden, hands folded in her lap, perhaps imagining herself as Queen Elizabeth I or the gracious hostess of some elegant soirée, gliding through the halls in a silk dress, Mike adoringly at her side.

The fire crackled and Mike rocked back on his heels to take a gulp of coffee. I ran my hands through my hair and bit one of my nails. I glanced at Tom, who looked relaxed and happy, and felt content again.

Rosalie turned to him. ‘You must come and stay with us in New York. Mike’s moving into my apartment, and it’s pretty big. You’re so welcome. I want to see you all over there before the year’s out – hey, we’re family now, aren’t we?’

It’s funny when I look back at that scene now. In a few days everything would change, and at that moment I had no clue of it, no clue at all.

NINE

By the end of Boxing Day, I wished Tom had taken up Rosalie’s offer immediately. His new-found desire to help others and reveal the truth had accomplished the following:

1 Chin had threatened to kill him.

2 His mother had offered bodily violence against him.

3 He had made my mother cry.

4 And – this was a stroke of genius – he had probably managed to split up Chin and Gibbo.

I’m not sure where it all went wrong. I can see that after unburdening yourself as Tom had done, you might want to help others help themselves, and I can also see that he had imagined touching tableaux of grateful relatives kissing his hands and thanking the Lord he was gay for it had shown them the path to their own happiness. What I’d forgotten was that Tom is, and always has been, disastrously tactless. He has all the strategic acumen of – well, I’m not too hot on military history and it’s been a while since I last read Asterix the Legionary – let’s say, a really bad general. He means well, but he can’t bring all the cohorts and squadrons together in a satisfactory way.

Tom’s first course of action was to try to embrace Rosalie – both literally and figuratively – into our family. Because she’d been the first to speak up after his ‘shock’ announcement, he clearly now looked upon her as a worthy recipient of the most intimate family confidences. By the time the walkers came back we’d rustled up some lunch and, as we tucked into our turkey leftovers, Rosalie asked Chin why she’d cheated on her fiancé Bill with his best friend, then asked Kate whether she’d had any side effects from her hysterectomy.

Chin gaped, and Kate said, no – but the up-side was that she’d never have any more children like Tom.

After lunch Tom sloped off with his NBF Rosalie to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

‘God,’ breathed Chin, as she prowled around the sitting room, pursued by an emollient Gibbo, ‘doesn’t she have any tact?’

Kate stopped pacing in front of the fireplace. ‘I blame Tom,’ she said. ‘Well, I blame her too, but I especially blame Tom.’

‘Poor Tom,’ said my mother, absently, on the verge of going to sleep.

‘It’s just so…rude,’ said Chin.

‘Well, yes,’ said Mike, helplessly. ‘Rosalie seems to absorb information like a sponge…’

‘Well, tell her to mind her own business in future, OK?’ Chin fumed. ‘And, Kate, you can tell your son not to be such a blabbermouth.’

‘And you, Chin,’ said Gibbo, from the corner of the room, ‘can stop sleeping with your fiancé’s best friends.’

I shrank back into the sofa. Brave Gibbo. Brave, stupid Gibbo, we hardly knew ye.

‘How dare you?’ Chin hissed, advancing on him. ‘For your information, even though it’s none of your business, I wasn’t engaged to Henry when I slept with Bill.’

Dad raised his eyebrows and retreated behind England’s Thousand Best Churches.

‘Oh, right, right…’ Gibbo nodded. ‘Well, that’s OK, then.’

‘You—’ Chin spluttered.

Gibbo raised a long, looping eyebrow. ‘What, Ginevra?’ he said coolly. Suddenly I saw where the balance of power lay in the latest Chin relationship, and I liked it.

‘Oh, forget it,’ Chin said, and grinned. ‘You’re right. Nobody’s perfect.’

‘With the possible exception of the bloke who invented the Norton Commando,’ said Gibbo, and went back to his motorbike magazine. Chin sat down next to him, beaten but happy. She tends to be the stroppiest girlfriend in the world, which is why the cruel record executives and suave men-about-town always dumped her, but now she just sat there quietly and tucked her hair behind her ear. Gibbo put his hand on her thigh and squeezed it. Chin smiled.

‘Suzy, when does the surgery reopen?’

‘Tomorrow.’ Mum sat up. ‘And John’s got to go into town for a meeting with the solicitor about the planning permission for the roof, so he’ll be gone quite early too. Mike, are you going with him?’

‘Me? No,’ said Mike, sounding surprised. ‘I was going to take Rosalie for a drive, maybe stop off at a pub and have some lunch, show her a bit of the countryside. And possibly kit her out with a really good Groucho Marx disguise in case she says something to make you want to lynch her again.’

‘Oh,’ said Mum, ‘I must have got it wrong…I thought you were the one who suggested the meeting.’

I sighed. Apart from Mum, no one else seemed to share Dad’s all-consuming interest in the roof. I knew it needed doing, but really…

‘No,’ Mike said, ‘it’s sorted out now, don’t worry. In fact, I—’

The phone rang. Jess, on her way upstairs to fetch something, shouted, ‘I’ll get it.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Mike, leaping up. ‘I will. I think I know who it is. I’ll have a word with Rosalie, too.’ He winked and disappeared.

Silence fell as everyone picked up their books or dozed off. I looked down at my lap and realized I’d picked up a birdwatching guide from the dresser in the drawing room, not my Georgette Heyer. ‘Damn,’ I said, and got up, but no one took any notice. Kate and Mum were having a nap, Dad was reading, and Gibbo and Chin were whispering in the corner by the french windows. The fire was crackling and spitting but apart from that it was quiet enough to hear the ticking of the grandfather clock by the door. I crept out quietly into the deserted hall and heard Mike’s voice coming faintly from the study. I wondered idly why he’d gone in there to take the phone call as I went into the dining room and picked up Devil’s Cub. Suddenly I heard him say, ‘Yes, Lizzy’s here – they’re all in the sitting room. I thought you wanted me, old man.’

I know you shouldn’t eavesdrop but, really, come on. My ears didn’t exactly swivel and rotate like Inspector Gadget’s, but they came quite close.

‘David – I say, no, David – I don’t think that’s a very good idea.’

David? I flattened myself beside the dining-room dresser in case someone should walk past. My heart was pounding.

There was a pause, then Mike said, ‘You want to do what? Why?’ I could hear him drumming on the desk – a sure sign of irritation.

A floorboard creaked beneath me. The silence in the rest of the house was overwhelming.

‘Think of how it’d upset things – think of Lizzy’s feelings, David. You loved her, didn’t you? What would telling her all this do to her?’

I breathed in and looked out over the courtyard to the fairy lights on the tree, shining brightly in the gloom.

‘No, don’t come round. It’s really not a good idea. I mean it.’

The drumming continued, faster and faster. ‘Come on, old chap,’ he said finally. ‘You can still be the good guy here…What?…OK, then. Good…All right, I’ll speak to you soon…No, she’ll be fine. You’ve done the right thing. Just leave her alone.’

I heard him put the phone back on to its cradle. ‘Little shit,’ he said, quite distinctly, then slammed his hand on the desk. Mild, sleek Mike, so affable and relaxed? I caught sight of his face as I walked out into the hall and my blood froze. I’d never seen him so angry, ugly almost, eyes smouldering.

I waved Devil’s Cub at him as he emerged from the study.

‘Lizzy-lou,’ he said, as he saw me. His face instantly ironed itself, the creases of rage replaced with his usual affability. ‘You look like a man who’s just swallowed a fifty-pound note and doesn’t have any cash left in the bank. Do I mean that?’ He looked up in the air as if expecting someone to answer from above. ‘What’s up, Titch?’

‘Ooh…nothing,’ I said lamely. ‘Who was that on the phone?’

‘Christian Bell – you remember him? Nice chap. I was at university with him. Told him I was coming back for Christmas and he was ringing to fix up drinks. Now, come on, why don’t we play a game or something?’ He put his arm round me and squeezed me tight. ‘If it’s Trivial Pursuit, bags me not with Jess.’

‘Not fair,’ I said. ‘Bags me not with Jess either.’

I was thrilled that he was lying so I wouldn’t know David had called, but I was dying to know what David had said. Did he want to apologize for what had happened? Or what he’d said yesterday? Was he starting a local branch of the Young Ornithologists Society? Had he fallen on hard times and decided he needed the ring back? Well, he couldn’t have it. When people asked, in sepulchral tones, ‘So, what did you do with the ring?’ I replied sadly, ‘I’ve hidden it away. I think it’s for the best,’ but in fact I’d accidentally dropped it down a crack in the floorboards in my bedroom and never got round to retrieving it.

David would find this amusing. I was always losing things and he was always finding them. I thought of the fury in Mike’s voice as he hissed, ‘Little shit,’ and loved my uncle even more for taking care of it all.

‘Hmmn,’ Mike said. ‘Why don’t we go and find my tactless wife? I want to behave like a king. I want to lie on a sofa and eat chocolates and watch TV. Like a pharaoh. A pharaoh with a television.’

We stayed in all afternoon as the weather got worse. When Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ended, we moved on to Murder on the Orient Express. The Wizard of Oz and The Wrong Trousers. The wind raged outside and we lounged around until tea-time.

As we sat down to supper, Chin and Kate wedged themselves next to each other and glared at Tom. Chin had sworn to cut off his privates if he spoke to her again, and his own mother had told him that if he breathed another word about her gynaecological histories, she’d stick a fish knife in his leg. But Tom was undeterred. He turned to Mike and asked him what he thought of the Davis Cup – could Philipoussis stage a comeback against Capriati? I’m not sure I’ve got that right, but I’m fairly confident they were talking tennis.

Anyway, supper progressed in this vein. Dad was agitated about his meeting with the solicitor; he said nothing throughout the meal, but grated pepper over his soup for about three minutes, then ate it without turning a hair. Mum was quite looking forward to opening the surgery the next day. Getting back to work doesn’t seem to fill her with the dull, vomit-inducing dread it does most of us, even if, like me, you don’t mind your job. She was bright and sparky, joining in Tom’s and Mike’s arguments about Nasser Hussein’s batting average (perhaps it was cricket they were talking about. Who knows?).

‘You used to be so good, Tom,’ she said. ‘D’you still play?’

‘I’m in a team at work, but it’s not much cop,’ said Tom. ‘Wareham did pretty well last summer, though, didn’t they?’

‘They’re still pretty useful – but they’ll miss David this year,’ said Dad, spreading butter on his roll. ‘He was the star bowler, I seem to remember. Always saved the day.’

‘Er,’ said Tom hurriedly. ‘Uncle John…’

I got on with my soup, wishing he’d shut up.

‘How – um – how did they do in the end, then? Wareham,’ Mum asked, in the silence that followed.

‘They did jolly well, actually,’ said Mike. ‘Top of the local league.’

I stared at him. ‘How on earth do you know that? Is the Wareham team newsletter distributed on the Lower West Side?’

‘Internet, dummy,’ said Tom. ‘It’s how I know Jimmy Gooch maintains his batting average. Unfortunately, it’s also how I know he hasn’t died and turned into slime, as I fervently hoped he would.’

‘Ah, Jimmy Gooch,’ said Mum wistfully. Tom coughed and looked outraged. ‘Nice boy. I know he was a bit mean to you at school, Tom, but it was his parents. Horrible people. The father was a drunk. He used to beat Jimmy up.’

‘No, he didn’t!’ Tom exploded. ‘That is a complete myth! It was the other way round! Jimmy Gooch used to beat his father up! He’s an evil thug! He made a policeman cry!’

‘I know you didn’t like him, but he wasn’t a bad boy. I was rather fond of him,’ said Mum. ‘He had terrible stress headaches, even when he was little. Poor mite.’

Tom put his elbows on the table, made a pyramid with his fingers and cleared his throat. ‘Oh, honestly, Aunt Suzy, you’re so naïve.’ He then told my mother that all of the prescriptions she’d written for Jimmy Gooch at primary school had been sold in the playground for hard cash by the same Jimmy Gooch: he had claimed, to a circle of goggle-eyed ten-year-olds, that they were ‘hard drugs what made your bits feel funny’.

My normally cheery mother, who had made a pet of Jimmy Gooch, was devastated. She sat in silence for the rest of the evening, which alarmed all of us, even Tom, then went to bed early, muttering that she needed to get up early and check her records.

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