Junction X (20 page)

“All right.” He hefted the Guy onto his shoulder and together we positioned the macabre thing on top of the pile of wood. I lit the bonfire and, as I did so, noise erupted from the house as the visitors poured from the back doors, some holding lanterns, others torches, casting erratic firefly lights across the herbaceous borders. The children arrived at breakneck speed and demanded giant sparklers, which they were not allowed until they had given one to everyone else.

I mingled for a while, the taste of Alex sweet and heavy on my tongue, while Guy burned and we all cheered. It wasn’t until Phil joined me, offering to light the rockets, that I realised I hadn’t seen Claire and her artist.

“Val thinks she must have seen my car outside and driven off,” he said when I pointed this out.

“Makes sense.”

“I met your new neighbours, by the way. They seem…nice.”

I lit the Catherine Wheel, and we both stood off to one side as it spectacularly failed to spin. “You are a snob.”

“Guilty as charged. They could hardly speak of anything except their genius son, though. You never mentioned he was a genius.”

“He’s aiming for Oxbridge.”

“Oh, that explains why they moved him to St. Peter’s. Is that their boy?” He nodded towards the edge of the crowd where Alex was showing the children how to write their names with sparklers. I had a twinge of guilt that they’d never done that before.

“Yes.” I pretended to sort through the remaining fireworks as Phil lit rockets and the party guests oohed and aahed.

“Looks like a nice kid.”

“Seems so. The children like him.”

The subject drifted away from Alex, thankfully, after that, and the rest of the event was a non-event.

Only one other memory stays clear, precious and crisp. The fire was at its height, but the fireworks were done. Most people had gravitated back to the house, but I was picking up the silver foil from the potatoes. As I straightened up, I saw a figure wearing a short coat and bobble hat and carrying a lit sparkler facing me, spelling “I Love You” in mind-imprinting golden fire.

Chapter 15

I had to carry the memory of the stolen kisses with me for some time after Guy Fawkes’. Even though it was dark enough at seven at night to collect Alex from his after school club and drive somewhere where we wouldn’t be seen, the fates conspired against me, making every Wednesday between Guy Fawkes and the end of term too busy for me to do just that. Time slipped away from me and before I knew it, the schools had broken up and Valerie was littering the study with Christmas wrapping paper, ribbon and endless, endless lists.

I had one small consolation in that I had heard back from the Railways Board and they had asked for a reference. After a day of indecision, I submitted Phil and waited for further developments. I didn’t expect to hear before Christmas, and I wasn’t disappointed.

That Christmas was strange. I look back at it now as if I were a man pressing his nose against a house’s windows, watching the family he doesn’t have experience a celebration he can’t share. And while I was living it, it felt exactly the same way. Nothing had changed on the surface; the usual flurry of shopping, hiding presents, over-excitable children, bundles and boxes of jars and tins for the elderly, and endless evenings making paper chains while complaining of the taste of the glue.

But all the time I went through the familiar, it was if Edward—this new Edward—had never done any of these routine tasks before. I was Hyde, but my secret was now too near the surface for me not to be aware of it.

I remember that Alex and his family went away, and I remember the ache I had. Dull and empty, I threw myself into celebrating Christmas, but it was surface gloss. Though I don’t think anyone else noticed.

We’d had one small meeting between Guy Fawkes’ and New Year’s. School had just broken up. I was about to take the Bentley to the garage to be cleaned and serviced and was tidying it up before I did. I know how irrational that sounds. Alex appeared, muffled almost completely in his scarf and hat against the December wind that seemed cold enough to flay the skin from your ears.

“Looks like snow,” he said, tipping his head to indicate banks of dark grey-green clouds.

“Too cold for it.”

“That’s what Dad says.” He looked at me as I opened the boot. “No golf in this weather?”

“No.” I felt bad because I hadn’t had time to see him—not a moment to explain what a Johnson Christmas entailed. “Getting the car cleaned. We do a lot of visiting over Christmas.”

“Oh.” He moved forward and leant on the wall between the driveways. I dared not move closer to him, not in front of every window in the curve of the road. “We’re going away. Until the 31st.”

I’ll never forget the look in his eyes or the twist in my gut. I nodded. Nothing we could do.

“My aunt. Dad’s sister,” he said, almost apologetically, as if it was his fault. “We always take turns, one year with her, one year with us.”

“Does she have a big family?” I don’t care, I remember thinking. I don’t care, just keep talking. Talk to me of mince pies and empty hopes
.
I’d missed his voice so much.

He gave an infectious grin. “Yes. Too large. Her sisters and her cousins and her aunts.”

“One good thing about that.”

“What?”

“Lots of presents.” I suddenly knew I had to get him something, not for Christmas, but maybe in the New Year. Something he would accept. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? I didn’t even know when his birthday was; I might have already missed it.

“Mostly socks.”

“You too?” We laughed but it was brittle, falling on the frozen ground and breaking between us. “When do you go?”

“Early in the morning.” He reached down and produced a small bag which rustled. “Mum says these are for the twins. Mum was going to bring them round, but I spotted you out here.” I stepped close to the wall, glad for an excuse to do so, and took the bag from him. When he spoke again, it was so quiet I nearly didn’t hear him myself. “I wanted to see you. I’ve missed you.”

My skin tingled, starting from my shoulders and rippling deliciously down my body. I pulled my glove off and held out my hand, and said loudly, “Well, have a great Christmas. I look forward to hearing your New Year resolutions. Perhaps you can convince the twins to keep theirs.”

“I’ve made mine,” and his fingers—secret things—slid within the camouflage of my palm. “I intend to keep them.”

I put the bag of presents inside the gate, then got in the car and watched him walk back towards the house. His parents came out onto the step, and we all made small talk until Val and the twins appeared. I left them to it, pausing only to say, “Ask them to come on New Year’s Eve.” Then I drove off, my heart thudding in my chest and sweat trickling on my scalp.

+ + +

Christmas went by, as Christmases do, but I still felt strangely remote. Somehow I came through the pudding, the parents, the socks and the sherry in one piece. No one seemed to notice that I was glazed with a veneer I couldn’t break. But the days were long, and it took willpower not to cross off each one on the diary in the study or to put a huge red ring around New Year’s Eve.

Alex’s father and I were both wrong about the snow, though, for the skies opened on Boxing Day and it snowed in a way that the south of England hadn’t seen for years.

Phil was with us for Christmas Day itself, seemingly pleased to be in the thick of the over-enthusiasm that the twins exuded. He took some of the heat away from me, doing a lot of what I had done in previous years while I stepped backwards. I couldn’t help but wonder what Phil and Valerie would be like as a couple, for he treated her with such affection and respect and she, for her part, came alive in his company. I wondered how I’d never seen it before.

But then he had that effect on us all, I suppose. On Christmas Day he left in the evening—rather the worse for wear with a paper hat askew on his head and singing bawdy words to carols while Valerie vainly attempted to shush him. I manhandled him past the gates and to his car. “You should stay, really,” I said. “You aren’t really fit to drive.”

He turned and leant against the car, fumbling in his pocket for his keys. “I would do, but I think I would misbehave.”

“No. You wouldn’t.”

“Why not? We’ve done it under Val’s nose before. Besides, festive cheer makes me randy.”

“No.”

“Oh. Forgot. You’ve got enough on your plate already.”

I took the keys from him and opened the car door. My hospitality had melted away with his indiscretion. I realised then that he’d always been indiscreet.

“Mind the ice.” I said. “And drive slow.” He wouldn’t, for he never did when he was drunk, but it wasn’t far and his route wasn’t towards town, which was where the police would be more likely to look for erratic drivers.

The snow came in earnest the next day to the children’s delight and maintained a steady covering all that week. By the 31
^st
, I was walking on coiled springs. I shut myself in the study on the pretence of preparing for work after the break, but really, it was to wait, like an anxious terrier, for Alex’s return. Every car that went by pulled my eyes to the window; the afternoon dragged on and on. Valerie stuck her head around the door a dozen times to remind me to take the twins to the babysitter, but I kept putting it off, hoping and hoping they’d arrive and I could get by on just a glimpse of him getting out of the car.

By the time Valerie was getting impatient with me for “sitting staring out of the window, when I’m getting ready for our guests,” the Charleses had still not arrived and my heart had grave misgivings. Perhaps the snow had held them up. Perhaps their car had broken down. Perhaps his parents had decided to see out the New Year with their own relatives. Each thought was worse than the last. In two days he’d be back at school and I would have little enough chance to catch a glimpse of him, unless I was lucky enough to see him after his club.

I took the twins as ordered, dropping them off at Ann’s. They left me without a backward glance. “I’ll pick them up in the morning—around eleven,” I shouted.

“No hurry,” she called back. “You’ll probably be worse for wear.”

“I’ll ring you before I set out, then. Specially if the roads get worse.”

She waved and I drove home. No lights were showing next door and the snow was thick on their driveway. I felt sick with disappointment, and coming back inside to find my own house warm and bright, glasses on every surface and the smell of various finger foods being created did not raise my spirits as it might have done in other years.

I downed a glass of port before digging out the punchbowl and made a punch that was evil in its innocence. Then I went into the kitchen and bothered Valerie and Mrs. Tudor until they herded me out to clear the driveway for guests’ cars.

With the port inside me, and the promise of more port—and more snow, which I loved like a child—I worked myself into a better mood. I recovered enough to change into my dinner jacket and hang enough mistletoe throughout the house so that all of our guests would have no trouble at all finding a piece under which to celebrate. By the chimes of Big Ben, they would have no need of such props, but it got people in the mood, even the most straight-laced of old spinsters.

That night was also memorable for the meeting of Phil and Claire. They arrived almost simultaneously—Phil had a taxi deliver him and I made a point to corner him later that evening and ask him if he’d had trouble getting home on Christmas Day. The meeting was cool but civilised. Valerie grabbed Claire and Fred and dragged them into the sitting room for Claire to meet various neighbours she hadn’t seen for months. I admit to being surprised at Fred, who couldn’t have been less like Phil if he had worked at it. If I had seen him in the High Street or a pub, I would hardly have noticed him. He was just…average. Average height, average colouring, mousy brown hair. I had some idea that artists were supposed to be dynamic and full of personality, but Fred was more like an accountant than an artist.

I wondered, though, if Claire was tired of personality; Phil was at his very best that night, and I have a good idea that it was Fred’s presence that drove him to be the life and the soul of the party.

By ten, I was comfortably squiffy. I was no longer needed on the bar, as inhibitions had broken down and everyone was helping themselves. Even Maureen Ringwall from the solicitor’s office, a life-long teetotaller, was telling everyone who would listen how much she “always enjoyed Mr. Johnson’s parties” as no one minded that she only drank the fruit punch. Everyone smiled indulgently as she raised her punch cup to them and said “I think I will have another,” for they all knew that beneath the placid orange and bitter lemon was a deadly concoction, the recipe of which will follow me to my grave. I never drank it, either.