Alberta Clipper (29 page)

“I think everyone's a bit full.  I'm going to make coffee and we can have it in the sitting room.  We can have dessert later on.”  Christine thought
Nina
was slurring her words slightly.  “Are you having fun Chris?  What
really
happened with
Gavan
?” 
Nina
was trying to whisper, but clearly the noise of the dining room was still ringing in her ears, and she wasn't being as discreet as she thought.  “What did he do?”

“Nothing, nothing.”  Christine glanced at the cloakroom door.  “I'll tell you all again.  I don't want to think about it tonight, okay?”

“Okay.  Sure.  Okay.”

Just then the dining room door opened, and the other guests filed out noisily into the hallway holding their wine glasses. 

Sandra stopped and looked guiltily at
Nina
.  “I'm just popping out for a -”  She waved a box of cigarettes surreptitiously at them.  “Will I use the kitchen door,
Nina
?”

“Sure, come on.  I'm going to make the coffee.  You can stand at the back door and keep me company.”  She looked at the box.  “Ooh, I would so love one of those.” 
Shay
disappeared into the sitting room with the others.  “Maybe I'll have one.  It is New Year's for goodness sake.”

Christine shooed them off in the direction of the kitchen, and went to retrieve her wine glass from the dining room table.  The room was strange in the silence.  The once perfect table was
strewn with
discarded napkins and scattered cutlery.  The reflected candlelight sat in ghostly suspension in the black window.  Christine drained her glass, and looked around for another bottle.  More fireworks flared in the distance. 

In the quiet of the room, s
he tried to make sense of the last ten minutes, but she couldn't think clearly.  It would be better to return to the others.  She filled her glass generously, and took it with her back to the sitting room, stealing a glance at the closed cloakroom door as she passed through the hall.

Inside, Erica,
Shay
and Robert were seated back around the coffee table.  Christine walked over to the tree.  Up close, its decorations showed evidence of the younger inhabitants of the house.  She lifted one, a hanging silver frame of a picture of Santa in his sleigh, with three little waving people photo
-
shopped in behind him.  Crayoned paper chains hung from the branches next to expensive looking beading.  There was even one stale looking star-shaped cookie hanging from a ribbon at the back of the tree, just out of reach.  Christine remembered making those cookies with her mother.  Once, they had made a whole batch, forgetting to pierce a hole for the ribbon
before baking them.  A ten-year-
old Christine had been distraught, until her father had come home
from school
.  He had poured four glasses of milk, and they had sat around the kitchen table together, and eaten all the defective cookies in one go. 

“They're gorgeous kids, aren't they?”  Erica appeared beside her, lifting the photo of Santa's sleigh in her scarlet painted fingers. 

“Yeah.  They are.”

“I don't know how
Nina
does it.  Giving up work to mind them all day long.  It just seems so, relentless.”

“I suppose it doesn't feel like that when they're your own.”  She found it difficult to make eye contact with Erica.  At that moment, Mark appeared in the doorway.

“Mark.  Thought we'd lost you,”
Shay
said.  “Grab your glass from inside on the table.  I've a bottle open here.”

Mark nodded and went to retrieve his glass, but not before glancing quickly at Christine.  She caught his eye and looked back at Erica to find her staring at her. 

“Must be nice to have a boss like Mark,” she said.

Christine drank from her glass.  “Mmm.”

“Have you ever been skiing, Christine?” 
Shay
called from the sofa.

“Pardon?”

“Skiing?  Have you ever been?”

“No.”  She took her opportunity to escape from Erica, and sat down between
Shay
and Robert on the sofa.  “Have you?”

“Years ago.” 
Shay
looked nostalgic.  “Not since the kids.  Though Sandra and Robert here go with their two.”

“We're off next week to Chamonix.”  Robert sat back against the cushions, his arm draped around the back of the sofa behind Christine.  His shirt was open at the top, artfully exposing a suggestion of his tanned, toned chest.  “The kids love it.  We've gone every year since we got married.”

“Wow.  You must be fantastic skiers.”

“I love Saalbach myself,” Erica flopped down on the sofa opposite, twisting one long, slender leg around the other.  Christine sensed both men notice them.  “Austria is just so beautiful.  And the shopping is great, Christine.”

“I would like to go.”  Christine didn't know why she said that.  She'd never had any interest in skiing.  “Maybe next year.”

There was a muffled thud from above them, and they all fell silent for a moment.

“Aren't the kids at your mother's?” Erica asked
Shay
.

He listened for a moment.  “Must be Laura.  She's staying up in the spare room.”  He pointed up at the ceiling.  A second later, the sound of a
man’s
laugh was clearly audible, followed by
a squeal, and
another mu
t
ed bang.  Erica arched a finely tweezed eyebrow and inspected her fingernails. 

Shay
reddened.  “Maybe I'll turn on some music?” He stood up and went over to the corner of the room.  The awkward silence was filled with some gentle jazzy song Christine didn't recognise.  “Everyone warm enough?” 
Shay
pointed towards the gas fire which was burning away exactly as it had been when the evening began. 

Before Mark had held her to him. 

Like nothing had changed. 

But the gas fire couldn't know that everything had changed.

“Super, super.”  Robert said from the sofa beside Christine.  Then the door opened with a bump, and Mark entered holding a tray of cups and saucers, followed by Sandra, and then
Nina
, who was carrying a large cafetiere. 

“Oh great.  Thanks guys.”  Erica moved some glasses on the coffee table to let him set the tray down. 

“I'm surprised you let her make it,
Shay
,” Mark sounded excessively jovial.  Christine tried to catch his eye, but he seemed determined not to look at her. 

“I know, she made me promise,”
Shay
looked doubtfully at the pot before him.  “Actually, if it's awful, we can always kill the taste with this.”  He took a bottle of Baileys from a press, brought it over to the coffee table and sat down.

“Oh, lovely,” Erica smiled. 

Nina
put her hands on her hips.  “
Shay
is not the only person who can make a decent cup of coffee,” she said. 

Shay
ran his hand along her calf as she stood next to where he sat.  “Aw, don't be mad,” he looked up at her.  She caved, and sat down on his knee, while Mark handed out the cups.  She looked around.  “Where are Laura and Fitz?”

“Don't ask,” Erica said, just as another thud came from the room above. 

Nina
's jaw dropped, and she went to stand, but
Shay
pulled her back down to him.  “Forget her.  It's calmer here without her anyway.” 

Nina
sulked, but stayed where she was.  She held her cup out to Erica, who obliged with a generous dash of Baileys.  Mark handed Christine a cup.  She tried again to hold his gaze, but he kept on, filling a cup for Robert and passing it to him.  She hardly noticed
Nina
lifting the bottle and pouring from it into her coffee.

“What time is it?” asked Sandra as she leaned over Robert to reach the jug of cream.

“Time to give up the cigarettes, darling,” he said without humour.  Sandra reddened as she stirred her coffee.  “It's after eleven thirty,” Mark smiled at her.  More fireworks exploded outside, closer this time. 

“We should have got some fireworks,”
Nina
looked down at
Shay
. 

There was another thud from upstairs.  “Haven't we plenty of fireworks here already?”
Shay
tipped his head towards the ceiling and they all laughed. 

“I'm just going to pop next door,” Sandra stood up from the arm of the sofa.  “Check on the babysitter.  The bangs might have woken the kids.”

“I'm sure they're fine,” Robert made no effort to get up.

“I'll just be a sec.”  She smiled at
Nina
who nodded with understanding.  “I'll be back before twelve.”  She slipped out the door, and Christine wished she wasn't sitting so far away from Mark.  She wanted to be near him again.  For him to touch her again.  She sat in silence, drinking her coffee, while the others chatted around her.  Erica and
Shay
both took out their phones, and replied to New Year text messages. 

After a
while, Robert retracted his arm and stood up.  “Excuse me everyone.  I must phone my mother.  She'll be waiting for the call.  Bit of a tradition.  I'll just be a moment.”

Christine looked at Mark while Erica and
Nina
discussed their own parents' situations.  “No phone?”

“I have my phone alright,” he said.  “Just no one to call.”

They were sitting, looking at each other across the table, when Sandra came back into the room.  “Come outside, guys,” she beckoned.  “It's
getting close to mid
night
.”

Nina
hopped up, pulling
Shay
after her.  Erica stood and smiled pointedly at Mark, and followed them out.  Christine went quickly after her.  In the hallway,
Shay
handed out coats from the cloakroom.  “Doesn't matter if it's yours, just take one while we're outside.  It's freezing.  Oh, the champagne.”  He threw a few coats at Mark, and rushed into the dining room. 

Mark turned to Christine.  “Here,” he opened a coat, and she turned her back to him and slipped her arms into the sleeves.  She closed her eyes and wished that he would scoop her hair up from inside the collar, but he didn't.  She went outside after Erica and
Nina
without looking at him. 

Their breath turned to icy mist the moment they stepped onto the gravel, and it swirled and shimmered in the light from the porch.  They walked out onto the driveway.  Groups of voices wafted through the freezing air, other merry gatherings of friends and families close by, all ready to greet the New Year.  Fireworks were being set off all around them now, individual rockets, only amateur displays, but enough to raise the feeling of exhilaration that was already bubbling within Christine.  When she stumbled on the gravel and felt Mark's arms around her, catching her, she almost exploded herself.  She didn't look at him, but she pressed herself nearer to him.  There was a loud pop from inside the front door, and
Shay
dashed out with champagne flutes dripping from his fingers and a bottle of Mo
ë
t under his arm.  Mark's own arm didn't move from Christine, pressing into her through the thickness of
Shay
's lined Barbour, but he turned and took a
n empty
glass from Robert who had followed
Shay
out.  Christine did the same, and
Shay
tipped some fizz into each, not
concern
ing
himself with
the pouring angle, the excessive foam.  If he noticed how close they were standing, he didn't say, he just
made
his
way over to his wife,
and
pour
ed more
shots of champagne
into outstretched glasses
. 

“Shh, listen,”
Nina
silenced them, and they could hear the sound of counting drift over the hedges.

“Eight, seven, six
-
”

They all turned
to face
the road, as if it was from there the New Year might come
.
Shay
,
Nina
and Erica huddled together next to Robert, whose arm was around his wife's shoulder.  They kept their backs to Mark and Christine, possibly for no reason at all, possibly because the electricity surrounding them was too powerful to look straight at.  They stood, holding their glasses, counting down to just another moment, and at three, Mark pulled Christine
’s body to his,
and kissed her.

And by the time the shouts of 'Happy New Year' could be heard from over the hedges, and
Nina
had released Erica from her embrace and was turning to her husband, Mark and Christine were standing apart, their faces alight as they moved towards their friends, new and old, to wish them luck and happiness in the twelve months ahead.