The Christmas Party (45 page)

And, do you know, I think it definitely will be.

~ The End ~

Acknowledgements

My first book,
Let’s Meet on Platform 8
, was published in 1997 and there are many people who’ve accompanied and helped me on my journey to this book, my twenty-fifth novel.

If it wasn’t for Clare Foss, my editor at Headline, then I’d never have had my first book deal, so I will always owe her a tremendous debt of gratitude. We had some amazing years together, Clare; thank you so much for that.

In recent years it has been the fabulous team at Little, Brown who have taken over the mantle and have done wonderful things with my books. My eternal and heartfelt thanks to David Shelley, Cath Burke, Manpreet Grewal and Emma Williams. It is an absolute pleasure to work with you all. I love you for your dynamism, focus, spreadsheets and so much more.

Thanks also to my lovely agent, Lizzy Kremer, and the team at David Higham Associates. Lizzy, you have no idea just how good you are. The breadth of your skills as an agent is staggering: fabulous editorial eye, total empathy with your authors and a thoughtful negotiator. There are so many reasons why I adore you and am grateful for your ministrations. Agent of the Year, every year!

To my mum, who has always been my greatest supporter. No one is better at haranguing the bookstores and supermarkets if my books aren’t on the shelves. Your love and strength of character have made me the person I am today.

To Lovely Kev, my love, my best friend, who many years ago, gave up a sensible job to run the office at Matthews’ Towers. We’ve had much laughter and some tears along the way, but this ride has given us a great life and some wonderful memories. Love you to the moon and back. (P.S. my car needs petrol).

I’m also blessed with so many good friends who have always championed my books and who have been there for me over the years. I daren’t even begin to list you all by name as it would take up pages, but you know who you are and you’re very dear to me.

Last but certainly not least, I’d like to thank my dear readers. Without you buying my books and enjoying what I write, I wouldn’t have had this fabulous career at all. Some of you have been with me since the very first book, some of you are new converts, but you’re all very important to me. I love how you cheer up my day with comments and laughs on Facebook and Twitter. You give me the best feedback on my books. We’ve been lucky enough to have some great outings together and it’s lovely to be able to class many of you as personal friends. Thanks for choosing to spend your time with me.

I owe so many people thanks for helping me to sustain a career in publishing for over eighteen years. I might write the words but that really is just one small part of being an author. So many other people have to come together to make up the rest of it. Without them, I couldn’t possibly have done it. Thanks once again.

Right. Better crack on with the next book!

Read on for a preview of Carole Matthew's much-loved title:

Calling Mrs Christmas

Calling Mrs Christmas

Chapter One

Perfume ads on the telly. First it’s Charlize Theron, strutting and stripping her way through some mansion until she’s wearing nothing but J’Adore and an alluring smile. Next it’s Keira Knightley overacting ‘fun’ for Coco Mademoiselle. Finally, for Chanel No. 5, it’s the stylised Red Riding Hood advert that’s been doing the rounds for years with the best-looking wolf you’ve ever seen. It’s only when these luscious advertisements grace our screens that you know the giddy, helter-skelter rundown towards Christmas has finally begun in earnest.

All three advertisements have been screened in a row and it’s barely mid-morning. I missed most of the ads last year. At least, the daytime ones. I hear myself sigh. It’s a bad habit and I’ve been doing it a lot lately. This year, as I am an unemployed, redundant couch potato, I am running the entire gamut of Christmas commercialism. It’s the first week of October and already Stacey and Jason are extolling the virtues of Iceland’s pre-prepared party food.

There is much laughter, much over-indulgence in these adverts, much that is red and gold and glittering. Which is all very lovely. I’d usually buy right into it. Except there’ll not be much partying at our house this Christmas. Very little, if any, party food from Iceland - or elsewhere - will be bought. Our table will not be replete with festive delights. Our Christmas tree will not be surrounded by half a ton of presents. It will be a big contrast to last year. I stop the next sigh that threatens to escape.

‘Budget’ is the watchword of the moment. Closely followed by ‘cutbacks’. Last Christmas we had a great time. As is expected, the table groaned with food, the booze flowed, we force-fed ourselves an excess of Quality Street. All the usual things. Wonderful. But last year I had a job. This year I don’t. And there’s the rub.

This Christmas, any tightening of the belt will be entirely down to our dwindling finances and not, for once, caused by the calorie overload of the festivities. I have now been out of work for a grand total of eight months, four days and, checks watch, three hours. It’s fair to say that no one seems to be missing the great contribution that Ms Cassie Smith, age thirty-five, of Hemel Hempstead in the fair county of Hertfordshire has made to the cut-throat world of commerce.

I switch off the television and stare at the walls of the flat. This place has become my prison and my refuge all at once. I hate being trapped in here all day with nowhere to go. Yet now when I get the chance to go out, spread my wings, I’m frightened. My heart pounds, my mouth goes dry and my palms sweat at the thought of stepping out of my comfort zone. Do you think that’s how budgies feel? Do they desperately want to fly free, but as soon as that cage door is open, they freeze? If it is, then I feel so sorry for them. I used to be sure of my place in life, but my selfconfidence has dwindled just as fast as our meagre savings.

My job, I have to admit, wasn’t fantastic. I grumbled about it a lot. To anyone who would listen, really. But, my goodness, how I miss it. I would give anything to be complaining about hauling myself out of bed on a frosty morning, scraping the car windscreen, blowing on my fingers to keep warm, muttering about the crap office coffee. Instead, when Jim gets up for work, I simply turn over and go back to sleep. No need to get up. No need to rush. No need to do anything. No need to be here at all.

I worked as a secretary and general dogsbody for a small engineering company specialising in component design and fabrication. The price I paid for daydreaming in school. But I was good at my job, efficient. People liked me. I was a dedicated and diligent dogsbody. I could turn my hand to anything and frequently did. Sometimes it felt as if I was running the flipping place. Jim and I went to my boss’s house for dinner. Three times. He opened champagne. I always went that extra mile, my boss said. He said I was indispensable. In fact he said it the very morning before he called me into his office and told me that, from the end of the week, I would be surplus to requirements. Not enough people, it seemed, needed components designed or fabricated.

I push my misery aside and phone Jim. Just the sound of his voice can pull me out of a downward spiral. His mobile rings and rings. My other half, for his sins, is a prison officer based in the Young Offenders’ Unit at Bovingdale Prison. He can’t have his phone with him when he’s on duty, but I’m hoping that I might catch him on a break when he tries to go out to his locker if he can, snatching a few minutes to listen to his messages and look at his texts. He never used to go out to his locker during his shift when I was at work because I never had time to phone him during the day. We did all our catching up on the evenings when Jim’s shifts allowed us to fall exhausted onto the sofa together. Now I spend my entire life on the sofa – primarily alone - and Jim is conscious that he’s my lifeline to the world, so he checks his phone as often as he can.

As I think it’s about to go to voicemail, Jim picks up. ‘Hi, love,’ he says, sounding harassed. ‘A bit busy right now. Just got a call on the radio. Can I ring you back later?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Was it anything important?’

‘No. I’m just bored.’

‘OK. Catch you when I’ve got a spare mo. Love you.’ He hangs up.

‘Love you,’ I say to the handset.

And that’s the trouble when you’re not busy. Everyone else is. I switch the television back on. The John Lewis advert. Something sentimental to have you reaching for the tissues as usual. The Argos ad. Then Boots who seem to be trying to guilt mothers into excess present buying. No wonder vulnerable heartstrings are stretched to breaking point. Soon everyone but me will be wrapped up in Christmas. A time when all sensible spending goes out of the window and everyone racks up the debt on their credit cards to pay another day. Well, we can’t do that this year.

To be honest, I didn’t particularly worry when I was made redundant although, equally, I wasn’t exactly overjoyed, as in my view I’d done my best for the company and I believed they were happy with me. But then I thought I’d get a job really easily. I’d waltz straight into another company who’d love me and appreciate me more. Who doesn’t need secretaries? What sort of company doesn’t have a dogsbody on which to dump all their most depressing and unwanted tasks? Who doesn’t want someone to mollycoddle and care for all the staff and their various crises? An office angel. I assumed that the local paper would be filled with opportunities for someone with my skills and experience. It seems that I was wrong.

Chapter Two

I stare at the clock. Nearly ten minutes have passed since I last looked at it. Jim still hasn’t called me back. In fairness, he has a very busy job. Unlike me, he works in a growth industry. No shortage of customers in Jim’s company. No chance of anyone saying that there isn’t enough demand for
his
skill set. The Young Offenders’ Unit at Bovingdale is already overflowing and there’s a steady stream of thieving, drug-dealing, car-nicking, housebreaking kids that they can’t even begin to accommodate.

But no matter how much I hate being unemployed, I couldn’t for all the money in the world, for all the tea in China, do a job like that. My Jim is a saint among men.

We’ve been together for five years now, meeting in a less than salubrious bar in Watford just after my thirtieth birthday and just after I’d decided that true love would never find me. There he was, standing with a pint of Magners in his hand, and for me - for both of us - it was love at first sight.

Sometimes, you just can’t put your finger on what causes that strength of attraction, but you know that it’s there. It’s not that Jim Maddison’s an oil painting. I wasn’t bowled over because he’s a dead ringer for Matthew McConaughey. He doesn’t have that kind of movie-star looks. His hair is cropped close, which makes him look a lot scarier than he actually is. From his time in the army, he’s got tattoos on his toned biceps. A heart and a rose entwined on one side. A skull with flowers growing through it on the other. Between his shoulder blades there’s a colourful phoenix and I love to trace the outline of them on his skin when we’re lying in bed. He’s stocky, not that tall, has a face that’s too pale as he spends his working days locked indoors and we haven’t had a holiday in the sun in years. But my Jim has the kindest eyes you’ll ever see. They’re soft, grey and always have a twinkle in them. He smiles much, much more than he frowns. When it comes down to it, Jim’s just an uncommonly nice guy and it radiates from every pore he possesses. Everyone adores him. Me included. Jim is the epitome of the word ‘solid’ and, since the day I met him, I know what it is to be loved, to be cared for.

By the end of our first week - a week when we saw each other every night - we’d decided to move in together. Just like that. No ifs, no buts. I knew instantly, instinctively, he was The One.

I’d had a few relationships in the past, but no one had ever made me feel the way Jim did. It wasn’t that he showered me with flowers or diamonds. Quite the opposite. Present buying isn’t Jim’s forte. He isn’t romantic in a showy way at all, but I watch him sometimes when he’s making me some toast or a cup of tea. I see how much care he takes. He’s knows that I like my toast well done with loads of butter right up to the edges of the bread. He frowns in concentration as he makes sure that the jam is spread really thinly, exactly the way I do it myself, and that it’s cut in triangles, not sliced straight across. He puts his feet on my side of the bed to warm it before I get in. He opens doors for me, walks on the traffic side of the pavement and pulls out my chair in restaurants. To me, that’s love. It’s not roaring down the street in a Ferrari, it’s not skydiving out of a plane with an ‘I LOVE CASSIE!’ banner trailing behind you. I think it’s the constant, quiet things that tell you that it’s real love. And I feel that I am very loved.

My dad cleared off when I was young. I barely remember him, but something like that leaves its mark and I’ve always felt wary about getting too involved with men. I always expected them to let me down and, invariably, they did. It got to the point where I hardly dated at all, didn’t really trust men. With Jim it was completely different. This might sound mad, but it was like finding the other half of myself. From day one, I knew that I could trust him with my life, that my heart would never be mashed by him. If that sounds corny, then so be it. He is truly my soulmate.

We can spend hours just sitting reading together or walking through the woods. There’s never any drama with Jim, I don’t have to worry about where he is or who he’s with. Jim isn’t one for nights out on the lash with the lads; he’d rather be at home with me than anywhere else. And that’s all I want too. Just to be with Jim. We’re content in each other’s company. We don’t need the high life, we’re happy exactly as we are.

If it wasn’t for Jim, I don’t know how I would have survived the last year. He’s been my only brightness, always there with the right words to cheer me up or knowing when a well-timed bar of chocolate would lift my spirits. When I was made redundant, I thought I’d take a couple of weeks off, have a bit of a rest. A ‘career break’ I laughingly called it. After all, I’d been in work constantly since I was sixteen and there was no rush to find something else. I’d been given a month’s salary as a pay-off. Yeah, thanks for that.