Breakdown (18 page)

“Yeah, it is.” He tried to smile. “Shopping’s harder, though.”

Pauline grinned again. “We have to be more creative,” she agreed. “No more gift cards.” They started walking again.

“No more credit cards,” Chris said.

“No more overspending on useless things.”

“Um, well, I think I overspent on that ornament,” Chris confessed.

“You seem to know how to bargain,” Pauline said, and then, almost without pause, “No more department stores.”

“No more personal shoppers.”

Pauline grimaced. “You didn’t have a personal shopper, did you?”

“No, no,” Chris assured her. “But I knew people who did.”

“Where’s Wes?”

“He’ll meet us at the van.”

“Is that safe? To leave him alone?”

“For him? I think so. For the stallholders? I’m not so sure.”

Pauline snorted.

Savor Your World
(excerpt)
(Wolcott/Price, 1991)

Light and hope I cannot know
Come from you in easy ways
You plant blooms that always grow
Barren places fill my days.
I want to savor your world.

CHAPTER 15

P
auline wore a skirt and festive jumper from the back of her closet for the Christmas party at the pub. She’d used the last of the shampoo from Michael and tied up her hair with a green ribbon. Chris made noises about staying home, but Mum persuaded him to come along.

“There’ll be music and dancing,” Pauline told him on the walk down. “Mr. Weeks is a jolly good fiddler.”

“I don’t dance.”

Pauline thought Chris drank his first beer too quickly, then she figured he must feel uncomfortable in such a crowd. A couple of beers to loosen him up couldn’t be a bad thing.

All the booths and tables were full, but Pauline managed to find a seat for Mum. She spent some time greeting and chatting, and lost track of Chris. Music started up in the darts room. She headed that way, along with a good bit of the crowd.

Laughter and the stamp of feet mixed with the fiddle to fill the air. Pauline found herself drawn into the dancing, clasping hands most often with other young women, doing a quick turn with a grinning older man. The first few dances were slower, more hesitant, as people remembered the steps and loosened up. Someone started beating on a pot from the kitchen, and the music got faster. The steps became less important. Skipping circles collided and reformed as someone shouted instructions. Pauline broke away finally, panting, to find her beer and push up her sleeves, wishing she’d worn a lighter top. She caught sight of Chris in the corner, watching.

Freddie approached him, put a hand on his arm. He scowled and shook his head. Freddie stayed a moment more, then turned away as he said something short to her. Chris turned the opposite direction and moved toward the door. Pauline pushed through the crowd and met him in the doorway.

He scowled at her too.

“I’m not going to ask you to dance,” Pauline said.

“You’re the only bloody one, then.”

“Are you okay?”

Before he could answer, Diana’s cheerful voice called out, “We’ve got a couple under the mistletoe!”

The music and dancing went on in the background, but the people nearby all turned toward them expectantly, calling out encouragements and laughing.

Pauline’s eyes went up to the little bundle of leaves above them. She gave Chris a little grin and a shrug, but he wasn’t smiling. His face had gone hard; he stood still, leaning away from her. The laughter died away, but everyone stood watching, wondering what would happen next. Chris grunted and walked away into the main room.

Pauline turned to Diana.

“What’s wrong with you?” she said, her face hot.

“What? It’s mistletoe. I would have said it whoever was standing there.”

“But you know what he’s like.”

Diana tossed her hair. “Well, I figured if he’d kiss anyone, it would be you.”

Of course it was just a silly misunderstanding. Pauline tried to keep her anger in check.

“Maybe you should just leave him alone,” Pauline said. She imagined people watching her as she returned to the table where Mum was sitting with her friend Helen.

She spent an hour sipping a half-pint, deflecting questions about Chris, waving off a few apologies, exchanging Christmas greetings with those folks she didn’t see often. She scanned the crowd for Chris but didn’t see him. George and Marie came in from dancing to take Mum home. Pauline went in search of Chris. In the darts room they said he’d left a few minutes before. She got her coat and went out into the cold night.

He was leaning against the wall across the road, arms crossed, staring at the ground in front of his feet. The bright moon and the light from the pub windows gave just enough illumination. He had his jacket on, his hood up. He didn’t move as she approached.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked.

“Needed some air.”

“I’m sorry about that whole mistletoe thing.”

“Caught me off guard,” he said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, I know. I wasn’t embarrassed. I know it bothered you.”

“I could have handled it better than that. I just...”

“You weren’t expecting it.” She shrugged.

He looked up at her then, stared too long without saying anything.

“What?” she said finally.

“I’m a little drunk.”

“Do you want to go?”

“Sure, let’s go.” He pushed away from the wall, heading into the darkness. “So is it just some sort of game to them?”

“What?”

“Us. As a couple. Are we or aren’t we? I wouldn’t be surprised if there were bets running. It’s like they think they can keep pushing us together until we hook up like toy trains or something.”

“What do you care what they think?”

“I don’t, generally. I told you, I’m drunk. Everything matters more.”

“Does it?”

“No, but it feels like it does. Haven’t you ever felt that way?”

“Maybe.”

“You’ve never seen me drunk, so you don’t know,” Chris mumbled.

“Know what?”

“What I get like.”

“What do you get like?”

“I get morose. I get depressed. I’ll be hell to live with for the next couple of days.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” she said.

He was quiet, and they walked on for a few minutes.

“I should have just kissed you,” he said eventually. “That’s what anyone else would have done, right? A peck on the cheek. Why couldn’t I just do that and laugh it off? Instead I had to make a bloody show of not kissing you.”

“It wasn’t a show.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

Pauline pursed her lips and thought before she answered. “Michael always caused a good bit of speculation and gossip. We were on and off so much, there was always someone talking. I’m used to it. There’s not much entertainment around here. We used to be able to gossip about famous people. Now it’s just our neighbors. It’s not malicious. Usually.”

Chris grunted. “Michael’s a fool,” he said under his breath.

“I don’t think so. We’re just too different. He simply isn’t able to—” She stopped. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t bore you with my professional opinion of Michael. Not proper, really.”

“I suspect I’m ‘simply not able to’ either,” Chris said in a low voice.

“You’ve been through a long time of grief and shutting people out of your life. You can change that if you want to—and I think you do want to. I think you’ve made progress since you got here.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

A woman’s laughter carried up the road from the pub. Chris turned his head back at the sound but did not stop.

“What do you want for Christmas?” he asked her, out of the blue.

“Hmm,” Pauline mused, stalling for time. A couple of answers popped into her head, but they seemed heavy, weighted. “A pizza!”

“Huh. You could make a pizza if you really wanted to, couldn’t you?”

“Well, maybe I could, but that’s not what I mean. I want to go out to a little pizza place and order one, and sit at a cramped little table with bad music playing in the background, and have them bring it to me, too hot to eat at first, with lots of gooey cheese and hot sausage and pepperoni and black olives.”

“Green pepper and onions,” Chris said.

“Green pepper, okay, but no onions, because they really ruin your breath,” she said and laughed.

“Oh, so this is a date, then?”

“Wouldn’t have to be a date, but it would be nice to share it with someone. Better than eating alone.”

“Who?”

“Do you like pizza?”

He didn’t answer for a while, and she thought maybe she’d said the wrong thing. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft.

“There was a place Sophie and I used to go to—Carpelli’s. Little place stuck between a bakery and a card shop in a strip mall. Some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. Something about the sauce. There were only four booths on one wall, two tables for two, and a little counter where two people could sit. And you could get takeaway, too. Sometimes there would be a queue on Friday or Saturday night. We’d go every couple of weeks, usually just the two of us, but sometimes with friends. She liked pepperoni, I liked onions, so we’d get a half-and-half. And if she had to work late at the office, I’d stop and pick up a pizza and take it in, and we’d eat it at her desk.” He paused. “I really miss that.”

Pauline wanted to put her arm through his, but after what had happened in the pub, she decided against it.

“I was thinking about her, so I just kept drinking. Stupid.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “It happens. I understand.” They walked on in silence for a few minutes. “So, what do you want for Christmas?”

Chris took a breath and exhaled. “I want to be able to enjoy it and not ruin it for everyone else.”

This time she did put her arm through his and squeezed a little. He didn’t react, kept walking. When they reached the front gate, he pulled his arm away and opened the gate for her. They went around to the kitchen door. His longer strides got him there first.

Chris stopped with his hand on the doorknob, then turned to face her. He reached up and pushed back his hood. Faint light from the lamps in the kitchen came through the curtains, lighting his face. His dark eyes were on hers.

“I should have just kissed you,” he whispered. “Would have given them something to talk about, eh?” He slipped one hand around her waist and pulled her close. Surprise made her draw a breath. She put one hand on his arm, waited, then rested the other on his hip, not quite an embrace. Her heart beat fast; her face warmed. Chris licked his lips, swallowed. He breathed out faint puffs into the cold air. He touched her hair lightly, his face close to hers.

It’s the beer
, she thought.
Did I have that much? I need to stop this.

“Oh, crap,” Chris said and pushed her away gently. “I’m sorry. I’m drunk. I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s okay,” Pauline said automatically, stepping away and putting her hands into her pockets.

“I’d never—” Chris started, but he didn’t go on.

“It’s okay,” she repeated, confused, wondering why she felt disappointed.

“It won’t happen again; you needn’t worry. Good night.” Chris wrenched open the door and went in without waiting for her.

* * *

His hangover lasted the entire next day, and Chris hoped no one had heard him puking into the toilet in the middle of the night. At least no one mentioned it. He ate only toast for breakfast. Pauline kept
looking
at him in a way that made him feel like a guilty child. He ignored the beaming headache and pushed the familiar depression aside. He tramped through the field across the road to cut holly branches for Grace. He crawled up a ladder into the attic and handed down the boxes marked “Christmas” to Marie while George and Pauline went off to cut a tree. He even agreed—though he regretted it later—to go to church with the family on Christmas Eve when Grace brought up the subject.

“I’ll find you a nice shirt and trousers,” Grace said, and Chris knew he wouldn’t get away with what he’d worn to the party at the pub.

He sat and brooded while the rest of them decorated the tree in the sitting room. The tangled strings of electric lights had gone back in a box and right back up to the attic. George was employed to put a few ornaments on the topmost branches, then the women took over. He retired to his favorite chair to smoke a pipe.

“George doesn’t really care what the tree looks like,” Grace said. “But if you’d like to help, Chris, you’re more than welcome.”

Autopilot.
“No, don’t worry about me. I used to do the lights, but Sophie never let me touch the ornaments. She had boxes of antique ones from her mother. It all had to be just right. I enjoyed watching her do it, because she enjoyed it so.” His head pounded. The women smiled at him.

He went up to his room after tea. He’d got the red ribbon from Pauline and carefully folded the wrapping paper around the gifts he had purchased: the glass bird ornament for Grace, a pair of leather work gloves for George, a magazine of crossword puzzles for Marie, with only two puzzles started by someone in the past. He’d erased the penciled-in words. He didn’t plan to wrap the black-and-white football he’d found for Wes. He tied a piece of red ribbon around it.

For Pauline he’d bought a tortoiseshell hair clip. He used what he considered the most elegant of the wrapping papers on it, folding the extra carefully so it wouldn’t be wrecked. He tied it with a piece of gold cord he’d snagged from one of the boxes of decorations.

Two days later, Chris found himself scrubbing up after supper with a bucket of hot water in the bathroom while the women bathed downstairs. He shaved and frowned at his hair in the mirror. Too late to do anything about it now. He put on the clothes Grace had laid out for him: black trousers, a white shirt, a red tie, and a heather-green V-neck jumper. At least it wasn’t a suit. He didn’t think he could handle a suit. She hadn’t forgot shoes, either. They were a bit tight, but Chris figured he could stand them for the evening.

He carried his packages down and added them to the small pile under the tree. He remembered another Christmas: the twinkling lights, baby toys, little dresses, a bath towel with yellow ducks on it. He’d bought Sophie a cream silk blouse and an expensive watch. She’d never worn either. They were still in the boxes under the tree when he’d left the house.