Chapter 10

Christmas Day

SCOTTY HAD risen the earliest in the Shillingstone household, which was a miraculous event in itself, before going downstairs to help himself to a glass of milk and a handful of cookies from the jar. Clare had heard him get up and followed him downstairs a few minutes later, although she had been awake for what seemed like hours. His kitchen foraging was all too clear. He had left the lid off the cookie jar, as usual, plus deposited a trail of crumbs on the counter. Sitting on the side of the counter was the two-litre milk container with the lid left off, and the refrigerator door hadn’t been closed properly, leaving the built-in alarm beeping away steadily as the temperature inside rose towards room temperature. She closed the fridge door, cleared up the mess, put everything away and filled the kettle with fresh water to make herself a cup of tea.

When Clare had first heard Scott rise, she glanced at the bedside clock, noting that it was already twenty past nine. Clare was alone in the bed but then she had been sleeping on her own since the bombshell first dropped on Monday night. She recalled that Amos had sat in his home office since he had come in during the early evening, saying he didn’t want any dinner. Clare had looked in on him after switching off the TV in the lounge before going up to bed. She found him sitting there, weeping, with his head in his hands. Clare had put a comforting hand on his shoulder and he had jumped up and pushed her away. When Clare asked what was wrong, he had glared at her and said she knew what was wrong, emphasising that he knew her secret. He looked at her accusingly, his eyes red, sad and disappointed, as well as angry. Clare had put her hands to her mouth, shocked. She had been so careful and the affair was all over days before anyway, surely he couldn’t know! How could she even admit it? She had started crying then and ran up to the bedroom alone. Amos slept on the living room couch that night; packed a small case and went to work early in the morning and she had only personally heard from him once since. The next evening Amos only came home briefly to drop off copies of the divorce papers, that his lawyer friend had drawn up quickly and submitted to the courts, and disappeared without a word to her. He had changed his mobile phone number, so she couldn’t call him, nor would anyone allow her entry to the bank offices so she couldn’t see him at work.

Now it was Christmas Day and the house seemed just like a morgue. She hadn’t felt like putting out the usual decorations, she hadn’t even bought a turkey or the trimmings. When she tried to buy groceries the day before she found that all her credit cards had been declined. She had never worked since she married, had no income of her own, so wasn’t even sure how to go about getting a credit card in her own name, or a job without any qualifications.

Amos always bought the tree, no doubt from one of his clients, and decorated it himself on Christmas Eve, so there was no tree this year. There were no family presents to put under where the tree usually stood, either. She did have a present for Amos at the back of the wardrobe that she had bought back in October. It would never be wrapped and given to him now and she bought it cheap in a sale so she could not even take it back. Damn it, Clare thought, there was no longer any way to get her family life back. She didn’t even know why she had started the affair, she still loved her husband, she loved the idea of family and all three of them being together. She had enjoyed the status of being the bank manager’s wife at all the business functions they were invited to. Now she was nobody worth inviting anywhere.

She took a lover, she supposed, for the extra excitement of it. She didn’t feel anything for the young man; she only wanted what he was able to do for her. They hadn’t even made love as such, it was just sex, not even particularly good sex at that. The boy Richard hadn’t bothered much with foreplay, hadn’t eaten her out to bring her to the boil like Amos always did; he hadn’t even had much finesse in his technique. It had all been about him. Clare felt that she had been wholly incidental to Richard’s pleasure. There was no affection or loving involved, Richard had not even been upset when she had ended the short relationship last Friday. Clare had thrown away twenty years of receiving undivided love from a thoroughly nice man, someone who had once adored her unreservedly and who she still wanted, if it was at all possible, to grow old with. She had exchanged her future for half-a-dozen rolls in the hay with a lad, not much older than her disappointing son, who didn’t care a fig about her. Stupid, stupid, weak woman, she knew she had lost Amos, lost him forever. Clare had followed him in her car when the bank closed early on Christmas Eve to Monroe’s. She waited outside for two hours, then saw Amos help his young secretary and her cute daughter into her car with a guiding hand gently holding the young woman’s upper arm. They then drove in convey together to a rather Spartan-looking block of flats and all three went in holding hands with Amos in the middle. Clare had dallied with a handsome younger man and by doing so had lost her husband to a beautiful younger woman and an adoring new family.

Scott broke into her thoughts as he called to his mum from the lounge, wanting to know when dinner was going to be ready, as he wanted to go out and see his mates. Clare could feel her hackles rise.

“If you want to get your dinner, there are sausages or fish fingers in the freezer and some nearly-fresh vegetables in the rack in the pantry. Or there’s tins of beans in the cupboard. Get off your lazy arse and do it yourself, I’m going back to bed!”

Amos also woke up alone in bed, although he did rise much earlier in the day than his estranged spouse and with a much more buoyant spring in his step. He hummed a happy tune, one that Janice had sung to him yesterday evening, while shaving. In the background he could hear the coffee brew up in Michelle’s neat little galley kitchen. His new landlady was a beautiful woman, both in appearance and common decency, who was clearly the intended of his favourite client, who also happened to be one of his oldest and dearest friends. She had only moved out all of her clothes, leaving the flat free and fully furnished. This meant he was able to move in and make himself comfortably at home with the minimum of inconvenience to himself. He popped a couple of pieces of bread under the grill while he waited for dawn to break outside. He thought he had perhaps half an hour or more before leaving and he needed to keep himself occupied in the meanwhile. The few presents he had lovingly packed last night were in carrier bags waiting by the front door. He was conscious that Pam said he could come over as early as he liked, but he was also extremely anxious not to overstep the mark. He was desperate not to spoil things or take anything for granted. Things had been going well between him and Pam and he had enjoyed a wonderful family tea and evening with both Pam and Jan at her house last night. He almost had to force himself to leave when the excited Jan eventually went to bed to await Santa’s visit. Now Amos was looking forward to the rest of today. He smiled to himself as he made himself a Christmas wish that he had a hopeful future to look forward to, so soon after the bottom appeared to have fallen out of his little world.

He was idly scraping the toast that he had left under the grill a little too long, while his thoughts were so preoccupied, when his new replacement mobile phone started chirping. He jumped at the sound, as his mind had been miles away. Janice had been playing around with his new mobile yesterday at the bank and downloaded this sample of birdsong as a new ringing tone. He had to admit that it was rather more interesting than the standard factory default that Amos had been happy with before. That ring tone seemed to fit his new life. It was suddenly so much more interesting than it had ever been before. He hadn’t realised until his marriage was over that it had been dragging down his spirit for so long. He now felt as if he had been released from servitude and his spirit soared as a result.

“Hello, that you Pam?” he asked, inwardly cursing how dumb that must have sounded as the caller’s name came up emphatically in the mobile’s display, having only been entered in his directory the previous day.

“No, Mr Shillingstone,” the high-pitched voice giggled through the airwaves to him, “It’s Jan. Merry Christmas!”

“And a very Merry Christmas to you and to your mother!” Amos chuckled; remembering that it had been years since his own child greeted him with any kind of enthusiasm, probably ever since Scott had become a grumpy morose teenager, which seemed forever ago. “Have you been up long?”

“Ages, Mum and I were wondering when you were coming over, we have been waiting for you for a while and Mum wanted to start getting breakfast ready.”

“Oh, I am all dressed and ready,” he said, “I didn’t want to come round too soon. I don’t want to be a bother.”

At the other end of the phone he could hear Janice telling her mother that he didn’t want to be a bother. Then he heard the pair of them laugh at the other end and the phone being fumbled.

“You are no bother, Amos,” said Pam, taking over the phone from her daughter, and still laughing, “In fact, you coming to celebrate Christmas with us has become the highlight of our day, our year, in fact. So, if I may be so bold, we would appreciate it if you got your cute butt over here as soon as!”

Amos laughed too, with relief and pleasure, “I am on my way!” He abandoned the toast and stood up, “And Pam,”

“Yes?”

“Merry Christmas to you, Pam, my love.”

“Oh, hurry over, Ammo, my love, please hurry!”

Becky and Jim thought that of all their acquaintances they must have got up earliest of all. Tina was very excited that it was Christmas Day. She sort of remembered being excited last Christmas but it was all too new then and hardly understood what she expected of the day, or what was expected of her. Back then she had lain in bed, too excited to open any of the small brightly coloured presents she could see poking out of the top of the sack at the foot of her bed. Last year, Becky and Jim were also excited, looking forward to Tina’s reaction and also being uncertain of the effects. This year, though, any thoughts of hesitation on Tina’s part were shot. She woke in the middle of the night, well it seemed like Becky and Jim had only just closed their eyes before Tina was awake and bouncing on their bed.

“Three-thirty,” groaned Jim as Becky picked up Tina and carried the three-year-old back to her room.

“Honey, it’s still in the middle of the night,” pleaded her Mum.

“But Santa’s been,” insisted the child, a huge smile on her wide-awake face, as if that was all the explanation that was required for bein’ up already, “I’ve got presents and everything!”

“OK,” laughed her mother, “What presents has Santa brought you?”

“I don’t know, Mummy, I haven’t opened any yet.”

“Well, turn your light off and have a snooze for a couple more hours. I promise I won’t let you oversleep and then we can open them up and see what you’ve got, OK?”

“OK, I love you Mummy.”

“I love you too, poppet.”

Jenny woke up a little earlier than she had planned and lay there thinking dreamily of lovely comforting thoughts for a few minutes in the dark, cuddled up against the warm body of her husband. Roger was lying on his back, snoring slowly, gently, reassuringly constant, as she believed he always had been for the 22 years she had known him. She had never had any doubt at any point in all that time that this wasn’t the man of her dreams. She could happily lie there all day, well, she smiled to herself, any other day bar this one.

Her alarm was timed to go off at a civilised five minutes to eight. She needed to be up by eight in order to get the croissants in the oven for breakfast. A glance at the clock showed she had three or four minutes’ grace, so she snuggled down deeper into Roger’s warm cosy side. He stirred and turned towards her without actually waking. They had polished off a bottle of wine between the pair of them last night, dining at home quietly on their own, before retiring to bed early, although, she recalled, smiling, that they didn’t actually fall asleep exhausted, sated, until very late.