Nicola walked across the cobbled yard towards the three mews houses along the River Thames. The one on the right had a wreath of evergreen and holly on the door and tasteful white lights around the windows. The one on the left had a wreath of silver tinsel and plastic baubles and flashing coloured lights around the door. The house in the middle was dark.
Her house.
Nicola shivered as she unlocked the door and went inside. The heating was off – she spent so much time at work that she didn’t even bother with the timer any more. She adjusted the thermostat and took off her coat. A hot bath, a glass of wine (she hadn’t managed to buy a bottle of red at the station, so she’d have to settle for white) try to forget about the evening with Ollie that hadn’t happened, and the embarrassing ‘incident’ with the choir that had.
God, had she really done that! Kicked over that basket, made a scene? Everyone must have thought she was a complete nutter! The choir director – he’d been laughing at her, she realised, with that bright ‘Happy Christmas’. No doubt he was off home to his family: a wife, a couple of kids. Though it was barely even December, they’d have their tree up already, with shiny presents underneath. Stockings hung by the fire, music, laughter… Things that she might have wanted once – or not. She really didn’t know any more.
Nicola took off her coat and hung it on the rack next to the gilt-framed mirror. She looked at herself in the glass. Smart suit that accentuated her figure, and underneath she was wearing some of Ollie’s numerous ‘gifts’, of the satin and lace sort. Most people – men in particular – saw the image she projected: confident and sexy, in control of every aspect of her life. Tonight had proved that nothing could be further from the truth.
She closed her eyes for a second, imaging the evening that should have been: lying in bed next to Ollie in their hotel room, her hair splayed out on the pillow, drinking chilled champagne. Sometimes she’d have him only for an hour, occasionally, the whole night. Sometimes he would talk about going away together – to Paris, or New York – and starting again. The words would wash over her like a warm tide. Having a life together, a family even…
Nicola opened her eyes as the fantasy fizzled away to nothing. Ollie already had those things. His wife was called Chloe. Nicola had never met her, tried not to imagine her. Or his children, a girl and a boy, aged five and nine.
She took off her high-heeled shoes and rubbed absently at a blister that was forming on her toe. For months now, she’d felt a gnawing urge to end it. To let go of the guilt that she felt, even if he didn’t. And yet, up to now, she hadn’t done so—
Her phone rang, jarring her from her thoughts. She fumbled for it in the pocket of her coat. If it was Ollie, she’d silence the call. Tonight’s effort had been a last-ditch attempt to save something that never should have been in the first place. It was over and acknowledging it would be a relief. If only it wasn’t December, the long run-up to Christmas… What she’d had with Ollie had been very little – but it was better than being alone.
Nicola pulled out the phone. ‘Jules’ came up on the screen. By force of habit, she answered with a cheery ‘hello?’
‘Nic – you OK?’ Her sister sounded hassled and out of breath. Jules had what many people would consider the perfect life: a perfect husband, a perfect house and three perfect children – and therefore took it upon herself to appear busy and stressed at all times.
‘Yeah,’ Nicola said, ‘I just got home from work.’
‘Really? That’s early for you.’
Nicola went up the stairs. The house had three floors: two bedrooms on the ground floor, a sitting room and kitchen on the first floor, and the master suite taking up the entire top floor. She made a beeline for the kitchen – she needed that glass of wine. ‘Yes, well, I had a client do but it got cancelled.’ The lie came out so easily.
‘You didn’t answer my email about when you’re coming over,’ Jules said. ‘Is it Christmas Day, or Boxing Day? Mum, Teddy and Ben are coming on Christmas Day. So that’s probably best. And are you bringing Ollie? I need to finalise numbers.’
Nicola cringed inwardly. For the last two years she’d made up a story for Ollie’s sudden and unavoidable absence at the family festivities. It wasn’t vanity that made her lie – not just vanity, anyway. It was the fact that all their lives, Nicola had done her best to shield Jules from the ugly truths about life. Not that it had worked, but she still felt it was her duty to try.
‘Sorry,’ Nicola said. ‘I just need to confirm, OK?’ Putting the phone on speaker, she checked the bottle rack underneath the worktop. No red, as she’d suspected, but there was a bottle of champagne from a closing that she’d forgotten about. Perfect.
‘Sure,’ Jules said. ‘I mean, assuming you even want to come at all. That you’re not jetting off somewhere exotic.’ Jules sighed. ‘God, I envy you. With your career, your glamourous life. Tickets to Paris Fashion Week, business trips to Milan, dinners at—’
‘That’s just work,’ Nicola said, cutting off the litany of so-called enviable things. In the beginning, when she’d joined Privé Capital, it had been glamourous. The private equity firm specialised in raising finance for fashion and luxury goods companies. She’d risen through the ranks quickly and become one of the youngest partners. Not to mention the only female one. Jules might see the glamour in it, but she didn’t know about the sacrifices it had taken to get to the top and stay there.
‘Whatever,’ Jules said. ‘But if you and Ollie are coming, I need to figure out where I’m putting everyone.’
‘OK, sure. I understand.’ Nicola opened the fridge and closed it again. With the hours she’d been working lately, she hadn’t bothered with a grocery delivery. It was looking like dinner would be champagne and Weetabix.
Jules continued to rattle on about menus, Christmas puddings, quantities of alcohol. In a way, it was comforting to know that these were the biggest stresses her sister was likely to be facing. Nicola pictured Jules in her enormous kitchen, making lists and seating plans. Jules had always been methodical. Every year as a child, she’d written a detailed letter to Father Christmas about what she wanted for Christmas, managing to post it to the North Pole before the start of December. Jules always wanted a puppy, a pony, or a kitten. Up until age eleven, she never got one. Still, despite Jules’ inevitable disappointment on Christmas morning, those years had been happy ones.
Nicola twisted the wire from the top of the bottle and popped the cork into a tea towel. She fizzed the liquid into a glass and went into the sitting room. The room was tastefully furnished in shades of cream, beige and green, with a wall of books, and French doors that went out to a balcony overlooking the river. There were no Christmas decorations or cards, no photos. The only thing in the room that jarred was the old piano from their childhood home that was next to the balcony doors. She had never played, but she remembered that piano from holidays long ago. Her mum had trimmed it with an advent wreath of fir branches, a red bow and four tall red candles. Her dad had played at family Christmases – lively nights of carolling and board games.
She sat down on the sofa, staring at the piano. Maybe it had been the choir at the station – their overwhelming enthusiasm and festive cheer – but for some reason, Nicola felt an unusual pang of nostalgia.
‘Do you remember when we were kids?’ she said to Jules, the memories taking shape. ‘When Grandma came round just before Christmas and we made a gingerbread house?’
‘What?’ Jules stopped mid-flow, sounding surprised. They rarely talked about those days – those Christmases before. Before their mum moved out, divorced their dad and married her boss, Teddy. Nicola had been fourteen; Jules, eleven. ‘I guess so,’ Jules said. ‘We made iced biscuits too, didn’t we? And got sprinkles all over the kitchen trying to decorate them.’
‘Yes, we did.’ Nicola smiled, thinking of their mum’s face as the sprinkles crunched underfoot, ground into the lino.
‘And the tree had pink and purple baubles,’ Jules said.
‘Yes,’ Nicola said. ‘And all those awful decorations we made at school.’ They both laughed – for a second.
‘God, whatever happened to all that stuff?’ Jules sounded wistful.
Nicola took a long sip of champagne, the good memories fading away. ‘In my attic, I guess, along with the rest of Dad’s stuff.’
This time, the pause from Jules was much longer. Nicola wished she hadn’t brought it up in the first place.
That first Christmas in the new regime, Teddy had bought Jules the puppy she’d always wanted, along with horse riding lessons. Her loyalty and affection thus sorted, Jules went to live with them. Nicola had stayed with their dad – someone had to. Wracked by depression, his decline had been swift and total. She’d tried to take care of him: cook his meals, get his newspaper, return his books to the library. But despite her efforts, it was like the dad she loved – the one who was kind, and funny, and full of life – wasn’t there any more. The next four or five Christmases were spent shuttling back and forth between her mum’s new family (by then, the family had an addition: Nicola’s stepbrother, Ben) and the flat she shared with her dad in Isleworth. Nicola had tried to brighten the place up with a tree decorated with a string of cheap lights and the pink and purple baubles that their mum no longer wanted. She’d got a cookbook and tried to cook turkey with all the trimmings and make mince pies – her dad’s favourite. Her cooking efforts never turned out quite right, but it didn’t matter. In the end, she was powerless to stop the rot. Turning down a place at Durham, she went to uni in London so she could continue to look in on him. Which she’d done almost every day, even on that last morning – when her dad was run over by a woman in a Range Rover doing the school run. The woman swore he’d stepped in front of her. No one, not even Nicola, had tried to argue.
‘Yeah,’ Jules said, slowly. ‘Your attic – that makes sense. Do you think maybe—?’
But Nicola wasn’t listening any more. The memories continued, unstoppable, careering towards the place in her mind that she kept locked away. Christmastime, a holiday party… The breath seized up in her chest; the hand holding the glass started to tremble. Breathe… this was silly. Christmas… She’d never told Jules, or anyone else, the real reason why she hated this time of year. Ice on the pavement… footsteps behind her… that smile… Jules was her little sister – she had a duty to protect her. There were some things that she didn’t need to know—
‘Nicola, are you still there?’
‘What?’ She gasped out the word. It was fine. Everything was fine. As quickly as it came, the panic subsided. She was home. She was safe. How ridiculous.
‘I said, can you come over early and help me cook? Or watch the twins? It would really help.’
‘Cook?’ Nicola gave a sharp laugh. ‘Think of your guests – are you sure you want me to?’
‘Just to help out. Remember, Mum will be there too. And I’ll email you the list of presents. Ben wants a Chelsea away kit, so I’ve put your name down for that. He’s going to be seventeen in February. Can you believe it?’
‘Seventeen?’ Nicola hadn’t realised, but she could believe it. To say that she had no relationship with her half-brother was an overstatement. When he’d been a little kid, she’d been at school or at uni, and now that he was a teenager, almost an adult, he might as well be living on a different planet rather than with her mum and Teddy in Esher.
‘Yeah.’ Jules sighed. ‘And he’s still a little twat. But family’s family – right? And anyway, it will be good to see you.’
‘I’ll let you know by Friday,’ Nicola said. Right now, all she wanted to do was put Christmas – everything really – out of her mind. A hot bath, snuggling up in her pyjamas…
‘Mum, Lottie kicked me!’ a tiny voice yelled from somewhere down the phone line.
‘I gotta go,’ Jules said. ‘But tell your mysterious Ollie that we all want to meet him. It will be such fun.’
The call cut off.
‘Yeah,’ Nicola said into the dead line, raising her glass in a toast. ‘Such fun.’