Last Christmas (30 page)

‘I’d love to,’ said Cat, ‘but I’m so behind. I’ve got to write up some Christmas recipes for
Happy Homes
, and work on the book a bit more. My agent thinks she’s got someone interested, and she’s pushing me to finish it.’

‘Oh.’ Noel was absurdly disappointed. He knew—thought he knew—she wasn’t rejecting him, but she had a way of looking straight through him, as if he wasn’t there. It was hard not to take it personally.

‘Sorry, Noel,’ she said. ‘I’m just feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything, what with Mum and you not working. I haven’t even started on Christmas yet. Normally I’ve bought half the presents by October. I just somehow don’t have the energy for it this year.’

Noel felt a little bit resentful. Cat had a knack of making him feel like that.
What about me?
He wanted to say, can’t you see beyond yourself to me?

‘You have had a lot on your plate,’ Noel said. ‘Why don’t you let me help you? After all, I don’t have anything else to do with my time.’

‘I’m not sure I can trust you with the turkey,’ Cat said lightly, but it made Noel bristle.

‘I’m not a complete idiot, you know,’ he snapped.

‘I never said you were,’ said Cat, looking shocked at the venom in his tone.

‘Stop treating me like one, then,’ said Noel. ‘I am capable of ordering a turkey. You just need to learn to delegate more.’

Cat looked as if she might spit something back, but then thought better of it.

‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘and I’m sorry. I am going to need your help. By the looks of things I’m going to have to be up in Hope Christmas on Christmas Eve for this wretched photo shoot. I wish I’d never suggested a sodding Nativity competition.’

‘You just leave everything to me,’ said Noel, a sudden brilliant thought burgeoning in his mind. ‘I think, if you let me, I could sort Christmas out very well indeed.’

‘Hello, is that the Woodcote Lodge Hotel?’ Noel was enjoying a certain amount of secret squirrelness about his plans for Christmas. It was going to be expensive, he knew, but GRB had at least sorted out a reasonable redundancy package for him and, despite their stretched finances, he was sick to death of being careful. For once he was going to throw caution to the winds. They might not get a chance like this again and, with Cat working herself to the bone at the moment, and all the worry she’d had with her mum, Noel didn’t want her to have to think about Christmas at all. So he’d found some hotels offering festive deals in the Hope Christmas area and, to his amazement, the place wasn’t booked up.

‘Lost a lot of custom because of the f lood, see,’ the warm Shropshire burr on the other end of the phone informed him, reminding Noel again that he’d love to make his home in such a comforting place. If only they hadn’t got Cat’s mum ensconced in the Marchmont. There was no way Cat would leave London now. She still felt so guilty about her mother, which was ridiculous as they’d done everything they could for her. She didn’t even recognise them anymore. Noel knew it was wrong to think it, but he couldn’t help wondering if it would matter if they left. Louise was lost in her own world anyway. They knew she was cared for—would she actually notice they’d gone?

But he couldn’t do that to Cat. It would break her heart.

Noel made the booking for all of them to arrive on Christmas Eve and stay for the whole week. They all deserved a holiday. He wasn’t sure Cat would go for leaving her mother that long, but he’d had a long chat to the woman who ran the Marchmont and she’d been most insistent that Cat took a break.

‘Families always feel guilty,’ she said, ‘but you can’t look after people if your own batteries aren’t recharged. Go on, have a good time and we’ll make sure that your mother-in-law will have the best Christmas she’s ever had.’

Noel doubted that somehow, thinking back to the first Christmases when he and Cat had been married and spending their time in between the two sets of parents. In the end, Cat had felt so guilty about her mother being on her own, they used the excuse of a new baby and a bigger house to have everyone to them. They had been happy years when the children had been small and cuddly and not older and spiky, when he’d felt confident in his job and his marriage. He stared out the window at the greying November sky. Things seemed to have changed so much since then. He still had Cat, it was true, although he felt he only got half of her most of the time. And the children were wonderful, he had to remember that. But he’d lost his job, his father, and now he was losing his wonderful mother-in-law.He felt more weighed down by cares and responsibilities than ever before in his whole life and where once the future had looked rosy, now it simply looked bleak.

This would never do. He turned over the card that Ralph Nicholas had given him all those months ago. Dammit, he would try to ring him again. Maybe there was some way he could do the job and commute. What was the worst that could happen? Ralph could only say no.

Marianne was making a snowman frieze with a bunch of reception children, and trying not to think too much about Gabriel. She hadn’t seen him since their disastrous meeting on the High Street and, although she understood that his life was peculiarly difficult right now, she was frustrated at his inability to see that Stephen might be helped by singing in the play. His teachers reported that Stephen, never an outgoing child, was growing more and more withdrawn. Marianne’s heart went out to him. It must be so difficult for a child to be caught up in things he didn’t understand. And, despite being still cross with Gabriel, her heart went out to him too. Pippa reported that he wasn’t eating or sleeping, and that the stress of the situation was making him ratty as hell. Marianne had thought on so many occasions that she should go and comfort him, but didn’t know if she’d be welcome.

‘Miss Moore,’ said Jeremy Boulder, at five years old the eldest and liveliest child in her class. ‘Need the toilet, Miss Moore.’

‘Off you go then,’ said Marianne. She watched him go out of the door at the back of the classroom.

‘Miss Moore, look.’ Jeremy was jumping up and down and pointing with glee at the glass door opposite her classroom that led to the playground.

‘I don’t believe it,’ Marianne laughed out loud, completely taken aback by what she was witnessing. ‘There are sheep in the playground.’ She’d never had to deal with
that
in London.

‘Where, where?’ the children clamoured around her. Marianne led them out onto the corridor. She could see that the fence in the field next to the playground had come down. There’d been high winds last night, presumably that was when the damage had been done. The sheep had strayed across into the grassy area at the far end of the playground,
and were now wandering aimlessly on to the concrete area where the children played. They hadn’t seemed to work out that they needed to go back the way they came.

‘Can we go and look at them, Miss?’

‘You’d better not,’ said Marianne, thinking of health and safety: then thought, don’t be ridiculous, what could sheep do to children?

She called Jenny, her colleague in the next classroom, and together they shooed the sheep back the way they came while the children lined up by the school wall laughing.

The sheep were baaing and running around piteously, but none of them seemed to know where they were going.

‘I hadn’t realised how much hard work it was being a sheep dog,’ Marianne laughed, as she unsuccessfully chased another sheep away from the school entrance where it had stopped to chew the winter pansies Year 3 had planted for Environmental Club.

Suddenly she heard a whistle and a black and white speeding bullet flew across the playground and started rounding the sheep up. She looked up to see Gabriel ordering his dog this way and that until, finally, all the sheep were firmly over the right side of the fence.

‘You’ve got a new dog,’ she said.

‘Yes, this is Patch,’ said Gabriel, ‘grandson of Benjy, so even Stephen has taken to him.’

‘I hadn’t realised it was your sheep in that field,’ Marianne added.

‘They’re not normally. I rotate them during the mating season, so the ewes get enough to eat. They don’t breed well if they’re too thin. I’m going to have to move them to another field now till I sort out this fencing.’

‘Right,’ said Marianne, suddenly remembering her class. ‘Best get on. Children to teach and that.’

‘Marianne,’ said Gabriel. He paused, looking awkward. ‘I owe you an apology.’

Marianne said nothing, wondering what was coming next.

‘I was rude about Stephen and singing the solo,’ he said. ‘It’s just been so hard, and Stephen is so unhappy, and I don’t know how to help him.’

‘Then let him do this,’ Marianne came up and touched Gabriel lightly on the arm. Never had she wanted more to take away someone’s pain. ‘He’s so quiet at school. If he could only do this, I think it would really help bring him out of his shell.’

‘Do you? Really?’ Gabriel looked at her intently, those dark brown eyes searing into her soul.

‘Yes, I do,’ said Marianne.

‘I’ll think about it,’ said Gabriel. ‘But right now I’d better get these sheep away before you have another invasion.’

‘It’s given the kids something to giggle about,’ laughed Marianne.

‘Marianne—’ said Gabriel, as she turned to go.

‘Yes?’ said Marianne.

‘Oh, nothing,’ Gabriel said abruptly, and turned back to his sheep. Marianne walked back to the classroom feeling crushed. For a moment there, she’d hoped Gabriel was going to ask her to come back. For a moment. But Eve was still here. Nothing had changed. It was foolish of her to expect anything else.

‘Hi, Mum, I bought you the paper,’ said Cat as she came into her mother’s room. Mum was still in her nightie, sitting in her chair rocking back and forth. Cat had come to expect this, and also come to accept any little sign that her mother knew she was there with gratitude. If she didn’t, she’d go mad with this. How could it be that her once bright, bubbly
mother was reduced to this shell sitting mumbling in a corner?

‘That’s nice, dear,’ her mother said. ‘I’m waiting for my daughter. Do you know when she’s coming?’

‘It’s me, Mum,’ said Cat, tears springing to her eyes. She still couldn’t get used to the fact that Mum didn’t recognise her at all anymore but, if she made a fuss about it, Mum only got upset. ‘Shall I wash your hair for you?’

The care in the home was patchy. Sometimes Mum was dressed when she came in, sometimes she wasn’t. When Rosa was on, Cat always felt relief. Rosa clearly loved Mum and was gentle and tender with her, but then there’d be days when Rosa wasn’t there, and the care assistants that Cat referred to as The Lazy Gits would be there instead, sitting down at every opportunity, delighted by Cat’s arrival because it relieved them of their responsibility. Cat preferred to wash her mother’s hair than let them do it—she’d seen how rough they could be. Though she’d complained to Gemma, the owner of the Marchmont, nothing much seemed to get done. As ever, there was a gnawing guilt about whether she’d done the right thing. But what, as Noel said, was the alternative?

Gently, Cat led her mum to the sink in her bedroom and got her comfy, then ran the water through her mother’s hair. Once Mum had done this for her; Cat could still remember the comfort of having her hair washed as a child. Once Cat had done it for Mel, who now wouldn’t dream of letting her mum get involved in the ritualistic hairstyling of the preteen. Now, here she was, the child becoming the mother, the mother whose child was needing her less and less. Cat was at a loss to know what her role was anymore. Never had she felt more lost and in need of her mum, and never had the strength of that loss felt more heartbreaking.

She finished washing her mum’s hair, and dried it with a towel. Then she sat Mum in front of a mirror, and slowly curled her hair the way she knew she liked it. It was gently soothing to do this task. There was so little she could do for her mother, but she could do this one thing.

When she’d finished, she said, ‘There, don’t you look nice.’

Mum smiled at her, and patted her hand.

‘You’re a good girl,’ she said. ‘Just like my Cat. She’s a good girl too, I can’t think why she doesn’t come.’

It never ever got any easier, but Cat had learnt that repeating that she was there only got Mum more agitated. ‘Shall we have a cup of tea?’

‘Yes, a nice cup of tea and a biscuit would be lovely,’ Mum said. ‘I’m glad you’re here. You always look after me so nicely. I shall tell Cat when she arrives what a good girl you are.’

Blinking away the tears, Cat went to ask the staff for a cup of tea.

She came back and sat down next to her mother again, taking her hand and squeezing it tightly.

‘I’m glad I’m here too,’ she said. Even if her mother didn’t recognise her, at least she knew she was here to look after her. That was the most she could hope for now.

Gabriel came back to the house to find it in darkness. Eve had taken to picking Stephen up from school every day and taking him home for tea. It was an uneasy arrangement, but so far had worked without incident.

His heart was in his mouth as he turned on the lights, calling Stephen’s name. Where were they? Eve hadn’t mentioned that she was taking Stephen anywhere.

‘In here.’ Eve was sitting alone in a darkened kitchen. The last rays of a wintry sun were setting across the valley.

‘Where’s Stephen?’ Gabriel had a sudden shocking thought that she might have hurt him in some way.

‘He’s with Pippa,’ Eve was twisting a cup round and round. Suddenly Gabriel had a feeling he knew what she was going to say.

‘You shouldn’t be sitting here in the dark,’ he said gently. ‘What’s the matter?’

Eve was silent for a moment.

‘It’s me,’ she said, ‘it’s me that’s the matter.’

‘What do you mean?’ Gabriel felt the need to proceed with caution.

‘I’ve made a mess of everything. Of life with you. Of life without you.’ Eve was shaking. ‘I’ve been a lousy mum to Stephen. I am a lousy mum to Stephen.’

‘You’re not,’said Gabriel. ‘He loves you to pieces.It’s done him so much good to have you here.’

‘Has it?’ Eve stared at him with a look of such painful intensity it pierced his soul. ‘All I’ve done is brought him more heartache. I thought I could do it, I really did. But I just can’t do this school run thing and being a mum. I do love Stephen. Really I do. I’m just not cut out to be a mother.’

Gabriel sat down next to her and put his arm around her.

‘Eve,’he said,‘you’ve made such great strides.You’ve done so well. Don’t give up on yourself or on Stephen. He needs you, you’re his mum.’

‘No, he needs you,’ said Eve. ‘I realise that now. You’re mother and father to him in a way I can never be. It was selfish of me to come here and try and take him away from you and I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be,’ said Gabriel. ‘You can’t help who you are. But you can help your son. Go if you have to. Don’t have him living with you if you don’t think you can. But never forget you’re his mother. He needs you and you need him. I’ve seen
how happy he’s been around you. We can build on that, all of us. Just not in a way that might be terribly conventional.’

‘What on earth did I do to you, all those years ago, Gabriel North?’ said Eve with the inkling of a smile. ‘I bet you wish you’d never met me.’

‘If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have Stephen,’ said Gabriel. ‘We might have messed everything else up, but we did that right. If you drop your battle for custody I’ll never stop you from seeing him. He needs you in his life.’

‘And you need me out of yours,’ said Eve. ‘I’ll explain everything to Stephen this evening. I’ve booked a train to London tomorrow. But this time I promise I’ll come back.’

Gabriel kissed her on the head, and sat back with relief. He was going to keep his son after all.