I’m not sure how Christmas Day would have gone down if I’d not received that one single text message from Alex. I went over and over it in my mind, hugging it to myself all day, already planning how I could get to see him once Christmas was over.
‘You’re looking very radiant,’ Rebecca said, as she helped me take the multitude of dishes back to the kitchen. ‘I’m assuming you’re having lots of me time with your gorgeous husband now that he’s finally decided to take a break from his whirlwind life of travelling with the Russian trannie.’
I laughed. ‘Gosh, I’d forgotten I’d told you I thought he was a cross-dresser. I’m sure he’s not. Just my imagination working overtime, as usual.’
‘Ha ha, the gay hussar,’ Rebecca chortled. She’d had far too much to drink and was slurring her words. I quickly took the dishes from her.
‘So,’ Rebecca sat down and put her stockinged feet up on the Aga, ‘do you think Grace is going to be OK now?’
‘Yes, absolutely,’ I said firmly. ‘The old Grace really is just about back with us. Although, I would say… a more mature and thoughtful Grace. Not that she was immature and thoughtless before all this happened,’ I added hastily.
‘You’ve been there for her, Harriet. You two always did come as a pair ‒ always looked out for each other. I was always envious of that.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes… you two were so close, even when you were eleven. We all wanted a best friend like that.’
‘Really?’ I was surprised. I didn’t think Rebecca did best friends. She’d always preferred the company of men.
‘I mean, you two even went off to university together. And ended up teaching at the same school, for heaven’s sake.’
‘We did fall out last year, you know, when I was frightened that her having a relationship with Amanda’s son could affect Nick’s new business venture with David.’
‘You really are so lucky, Hat,’ Rebecca went on, not really listening to what I was telling her about Grace and our fallout the previous year. ‘You have the wonderful Nick who clearly adores you, five fabulous children, this lovely house…’ she waved a hand around her head, ‘a best friend to beat all best friends… And even Lilian now, as well.’
‘I know, I know. But you’ve never wanted all this, Rebecca. It would stifle you.’
‘Harriet, I would adore having what you’ve got. I’m almost forty, I’m alone, my kids are in Chicago and loving it. I’m homesick out there, but homesick for my kids when I’m here without them. I just don’t know where I’m supposed to be any more. I drink too much, have too much meaningless sex with nameless men who I never want to see again… I would give anything to have a lovely man like Nick.’ Rebecca smiled sadly.
‘God, the grass is always greener, isn’t it?’ We smiled at each other, lost in our own respective thoughts. Then Rebecca said, ‘I’m amazed you’ve been brave enough to have your mum in the same room as Amanda. I’m assuming she doesn’t know who she is ‒ that she’s Frank Goodners’s daughter?’
‘Well, the dementia has taken away a lot of her memory ‒ although, to be honest, it’s her short-term rather than long-term memory that seems to be affected. Anyway, she only knows Amanda as Mandy Henderson, Nick’s boss’s wife, not Amanda Goodners, daughter of Frank. She’s never actually come face to face with her before today. I don’t think Dad has a clue about any of it, either ‒ and he certainly wouldn’t remember my brother, John, having a thing about her years ago. I mean, it’s more than twenty-five years ago that she broke his heart.’
‘What is it with you lot and the Goodnerses? First your mum with Frank and then your brother with Amanda. And now Grace with Seb?’
‘God knows. It’s all a bit like something out of a Catherine Cookson saga where the mill owner’s family keeps popping up all over the place and ending up seducing members of the same millworker’s family throughout several hundred years of history.’ I laughed. ‘When you go back to the dining room see if they don’t both have a different coloured streak of hair that marks them out as seducers and philanderers.’
Rebecca giggled loudly. ‘Right,’ she said, swinging her legs off the Aga and nearly falling on to the floor, ‘let’s get those Christmas puddings alight. One for the pudding and one for me,’ she added as she doused the puddings in brandy before pouring herself a tot.
‘I think the brandy has to be heated first,’ I said doubtfully. ‘Something to do with the fumes.’
I was just reaching for the one remaining clean pan to heat the brandy when there was a knock on the back door.
‘Now, if we were in a story, that would be Anna Fitzgerald knocking on the door, come to claim your Nick.’
Or Alex, I thought, heart pounding, come to claim me as his Christmas present.
It was neither. When I opened the door I saw it was my brother John who, I was horribly afraid, had come to claim Amanda.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I hissed at John as his wife, Christine, popped into the downstairs loo. ‘You knew Amanda Henderson was going to be here.’
‘Did I?’ I could smell alcohol on John’s breath as he smiled a little smile.
‘Yes, you damned well did. I told you so a couple of weeks ago. Said I couldn’t invite you and Christine here for obvious reasons. I told you to make up some excuse to Christine as to why I couldn’t invite you two as well.’
John just smiled and I wanted to slap him. I wasn’t totally sure how much John still saw of Amanda ‒ if at all ‒ and I’d no idea how much Christine knew of his continuing infatuation with the woman he’d fallen in love with so many years ago. He’d confessed to me last year, when Nick first went into business with David Henderson, that he was still obsessed with her and that she still continued to lift her well exercised little finger and he’d go running. Christine obviously knew about Amanda and John’s history ‒ she’d got herself pregnant when Amanda threw John over when she went up to Oxford ‒ but I had absolutely no idea if she knew they ‒ allegedly ‒ continued to see each other. And I didn’t want to know. Hypocrite that it might make me, I didn’t want to know about anything that was going on between my brother and Amanda Henderson.
‘We’ve been over at Christine’s parents all day,’ John was saying. ‘Even Christine had had enough of her mother. And with our Hollie not at home, she was more than happy to get out of there. Said we’d promised to spend some of Christmas with you. See the twins and all that.’ Like Rebecca, John was slurring his words.
Christine bounced into the kitchen, twittering as only my sister-in-law can twitter. ‘Where are those gorgeous babes, Harriet? I’ve presents for them. It’s very difficult to know what to get the older kiddies, so I’ve bought them book tokens ‒ always goes down well, a nice book token, don’t you think?’ She wafted envelopes in my face. ‘But I couldn’t resist getting things for the twins. I spent all morning in Toys R Us a couple of weeks ago.’
‘Er, right. Do you know Rebecca, Christine?’
‘No, I don’t believe we’ve ever met. Hi, Rebecca. Are you just at the pudding stage? We had to eat terribly early because of Mother’s irritable bowel. Anything after midday and the poor love is awake all night. Can I give you a hand with that? I have to say, it looks quite delicious. Mother won’t have Christmas pudding on Christmas Day ‒ says it’s far too rich for her digestion ‒ so we had jelly and Wall’s ice cream.’
‘Er, right.’ Rebecca looked round at me for help and then towards the door for an escape.
I was glaring at John behind Christine’s back, mouthing at him to just leave the children’s presents, make an excuse and go. He took no notice.
‘Are we all in the dining room, then?’ he asked, picking up the two jugs of rum sauce, one in each hand, and heading for the door. ‘Phew, there’s some alcohol in here,’ he said, sniffing appreciatively at the sauce. ‘This is better than your mum’s jelly, Chris.’
Bugger.
‘It might be OK,’ Rebecca whispered, hurriedly setting the puddings alight and coming perilously close to losing her eyebrows into the bargain. ‘They might just pop in, say “hello” and leave. I mean, there’s nowhere for them to sit, and they have eaten ‒ albeit jelly. Bloody hell, who eats jelly on Christmas Day?’
‘Those entrenched in a Jelly Deal?’ I muttered. ‘Come on.’
Nick and Diana, obviously in the know both about John’s continuing infatuation with Amanda, as well as Mum’s being abandoned as a pregnant seventeen year old by Frank Goodners, Amanda’s father, were looking distinctly worried. They had left their seats and were sort of herding John and Christine into a corner of the dining room away from Mum and Amanda. Christine, always a stalwart royalist was, I could see, desperate to ingratiate herself with Sir Colin and Lady Sylvia Fitzgerald and was about to make a break for it out of the tight little spot Di had her in up against the cheeseboard, mince pie and coffee cup laden sideboard.
‘I’ll just congratulate your mother on her marriage, Nick,’ Christine was saying and, before Di could hold her in any longer, she was off, hand outstretched.
Grace, summing up the situation, leapt in to help Rebecca serve the puddings, making a big deal of their size and general yumminess ‒ anything to take the attention from Amanda, who had gone quite pale and was hiding behind the somewhat extravagant, if not downright vulgar, Christmas decorative centrepiece she had brought and contributed to the table earlier that day.
I glanced across at David Henderson calmly chatting to Sandra Duck-Lady but ‒ astute man that he was ‒ I was sure that he was taking in all that was going on. I’d never known how much, if anything, he’d known about his wife’s dalliance with my brother over the years ‒ I’d not wanted to rock any boats, as it were, now that Nick and David worked together ‒ but one didn’t get to be known as the Richard Branson of the North (with all that that entailed) without being pretty astute about every aspect of one’s life. Last year ‒ when John had confessed to me that he’d never got over her, and that Amanda continued to dangle him on a string ‒ I’d been terrified of David finding out, with the resultant potential folding of the new business, L’uomo, before it had even taken off. David had intimated to me he was fully aware of Amanda’s predilection for playing games with other men, including Nick, but I didn’t know if this awareness had included the twenty-five year old game she’d been playing with my brother.
David had a great gift for putting anyone at their ease ‒ unless you were foolish enough to cross him in business ‒ and he was helping Sandra to sauce for her pudding and offering her dessert wine. He must have known I was panicking, terrified that John was going to make some sort of scene, for he raised his eyes to mine, smiled slightly and mouthed, ‘It’s OK,’ before giving his attention back to Sandra.
Christine, after almost curtseying to Sir Colin, was thoroughly enjoying herself. He’d shifted to one side so that she could share his chair and, with one arm around her waist, was now plying her with wine.
‘And do you know Prince Charles?’ she was asking in between genteel sips of wine.
‘I was once at a law dinner where Prince Andrew was the speaker,’ he guffawed. ‘Will that do?’
‘Oh, absolutely,’ Christine said, thrilled. She peered over her glass of wine ‒ which seemed to be going down rather too well, I now realised ‒ at the rest of the guests, who were tucking in to Christmas pudding and rum sauce. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know everyone here…’
‘Well, who don’t you know, m’dear? Let’s see, I’m sure you know Grace. And the lady over there is something to do with ducks, I believe. Don’t ask me what.’ Judge Colin guffawed again, his red face turning a rather worrying shade of purple. Then the chappie next to her is young Kit’s teacher ‒ have to say I’m not sure what he’s doing here, either… And the lovely lady right at the other end is Mandy…’
Oh, bugger to the power of ten.
I saw Christine visibly stiffen. ‘Mandy?’
‘Mmm. Mandy, David Henderson’s wife.’
‘Mandy Henderson?’
‘That’s right. Local mill owner’s daughter, I believe.’
‘Amanda Goodners?’ Christine asked, loudly. The name seemed to hang in the air, as if it had a life of its own.
‘Mandy Henderson, not Goodners.’ Judge Colin looked puzzled.
Grace’s, Rebecca’s, Diana’s, Nick’s, David’s and my eyes met.
Two bright spots now burned in my sister-in-law’s cheeks. She stood, pushing Colin’s hand away from its resting place on her bottom and turned towards John, stumbling over her handbag as she did so. Colin reached for her. ‘Steady on,’ he said, surprised at her sudden movement.
‘You knew,’ Christine hissed at my brother. ‘You damned well knew she’d be here.’
‘Christine,’ Di said, taking her arm. ‘Not here, not now. Don’t make a scene. Not in front of the children.’
‘Not now?’ Christine laughed mirthlessly. ‘When, then? When he was having it off with her while I waited for her to have her fun and go off to Oxford? When I was pregnant with Hollie and he was sneaking off to see her? Or last year, or the year before or the year before that? When, Diana? When would you have preferred me to make a scene?’
Christine hesitated, but never once took her eyes off John. Then she reached for her handbag, which had been kicked under the table when she fell over it. Head held aloft, she swung her bag on to her shoulder, inadvertently swiping Judge Colin across his alcohol flushed face as she did so. She poured herself a glass of red wine, and I thought she was going to down it in one. Instead she walked over to where Amanda sat whey faced, stood before her and hissed, ‘You can have him, Amanda Goodners. He’s all yours,’ before throwing the full glass of Merlot in her face.
Mum, on hearing the blonde woman on her right referred to as Amanda Goodners, let out a low moan of distress while Liberty, who had been sitting next to a now frozen-faced Sebastian throughout lunch, to my astonishment, suddenly flung her arms round him before reaching for his hand and holding it tight against her face.
There was a split second of calm the moment after Christine had finally released her fury at the woman to whom she believed she’d always played second fiddle. And then, like characters in a play, we all seemed to spring into action with readily rehearsed moves. It was exit left there, centre stage here and off to the right there.
Nick went over to Christine, took the now empty glass from her trembling hands and led her away from the table and Amanda, ignoring, for the moment at least, the fact that his daughter was across the table from him in an exceptionally compromising position with Sebastian.
David Henderson quickly scooped up a shocked Amanda, propelling her out of the dining room and into the kitchen ‒ where he cleaned her up before ringing for a taxi which, it now being early evening on Christmas Day, seemed to take forever to arrive.
Within seconds, Diana took Mum’s arm, ushering her out of the dining room, and almost immediately took her and Dad home.
Without being asked, Lilian assessed the situation and, together with Rebecca, immediately took the twins, Jonty and a bewildered India to the sitting room, where they sat in front of one of the new Christmas DVDs and tried to make light of what had happened. Apparently Rebecca had taken India on her knee, explaining that her Auntie Christine had had too much Christmas wine to drink ‒ silly woman ‒ and that she would be really sorry that she’d accidentally knocked her wine over Amanda.
I doubted that very much.
Sylvia, after several months of wearing her daft lady-of-the-manor head, came up trumps, put on her Mrs Practical head and took charge of Judge Colin, Kit and the remaining minor characters in this farce, rallying the troops for a bracing, post-Christmas lunch walk in the gathering dusk.
After his wife had finally done what, I suspect, she’d been building up to for years, John had sat at the table, head in hands, refusing to move.
‘What is Liberty doing wrapped round Sebastian like that?’ Katherine Greenwood demanded, glaring across the table to where my eldest daughter now sat, pale but with head held high.
Sebastian, obviously shocked to the core at seeing his much revered mother outed as a scarlet woman, rose unsteadily from the table.
‘Are you all right, Seb?’ I asked, equally shocked at the deathly pallor on his face. I forced myself to still the gamut of accusations that were in my head ‒ my main concern being with Grace, who hadn’t moved from her place at the table even when Lilian had gently removed Jonty from her arms and taken him off with the twins.
‘I need fresh air,’ he said, pushing back his chair and picking up his sweater that had fallen on to the floor. ‘I’m going to walk home.’
‘But it’s at least eight miles away,’ Nick pointed out. ‘Just hang on, Seb. I don’t think your parents have gone yet.’
‘I need to walk, Nick. Need to clear my mind a bit.’ He turned to me saying, ‘Thank you both so much for having us all,’ before moving across to Grace. He hugged her and said, ‘Are you OK? Do you want me to come back with you and Jonty now or will it be all right if I see you both tomorrow?’
Very calmly, Grace kissed his pale cheek. ‘Go home, Seb. I’m fine, really I am. Come over tomorrow, will you?’
Seb nodded, and without another word left the room.
‘I think we need to know what is going on here, Harriet,’ Grace’s mother said, glaring once more across at Liberty.
‘Not now, Mum,’ Grace said firmly. ‘Harriet and Nick have got enough on with John and Christine. Come on, I’m going to get Jonty and we’ll go home. Are you OK to drive, Dad?’
‘Well, yes. I’ve not had anything since the champagne. Not good for my ulcer,’ he added almost in apology as if, by declining Judge Colin’s fine wine, he’d insulted our hospitality.
‘I’m OK, Hat. I’m OK,’ Grace said, trying to smile. She calmly gathered up the detritus of baby things and, without a word or backward glance at Liberty, her god-daughter, left the room.