And he’s there.
In red velvet breeches and black boots, buttoning his red coat over a white T-shirt, just how he looked that night two years ago at The Salutation when I realised he was really kind of amazing but I was too distracted doing what I thought was expected of me, thinking Don was the only answer for me, not understanding at the time where the hell I was going wrong.
‘Margi?’
He blinks at me, once, twice, and his mouth hangs open a little.
‘I know we don’t have long,’ I tell him. ‘There’s a queue of kids out there desperate for some budget stationery and a bear. But I had to see you.’
‘You didn’t answer my calls,’ he says, and I see what that’s done to him. Hours of waiting are etched in his face.
‘I was… hiding,’ I say weakly. ‘All this time I’ve felt like a laughing stock in the village, and now I really am a laughing stock. I’m a meme, apparently.’
‘Oh, God.’ Patrick drops his head. ‘That’s my fault. I just didn’t know what you wanted me to say. I didn’t know if you wanted me announcing live on the news that I was your lover, after you’d been so cautious, knowing you felt so embarrassed after Don. You’d made your feelings pretty clear about how you thought Wheaton saw you. And we hadn’t spoken about what we were to each other after sleeping here and everything…’
‘I know,’ I blurt. ‘You couldn’t have known what I wanted you to say. You were put on the spot, and I realise you were thinking of me.’
Patrick goes on, words rushing out. ‘It’s been so hard, liking you, when you’re so fixated on this age difference thing. I’ve never known how to play it when it has never once, not for a second, been a big deal for me.’ There’s a note of sternness in his voice. ‘I don’t understand when you became so worried about age.’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It just happens. I hit sixty, andpoof!I suddenly turned invisible and irrelevant with no warning whatsoever, you know? Now nobody can see me, and if they do, they’re seeing a doddering blur of elderly aura and nothing else.’
‘Not true.’
He’s finding all this exasperating, I can tell. But he asked the question, so I’ll answer it truthfully.
‘And then everything just got so bloody hard,’ I go on. ‘When I was left on the scrapheap by Don, and after I’d been planning on being fabulous all through my sixties before rocking my seventies and positively slaying my eighties. I had such big ideas about how I wouldn’t let numbers define me and I’d work on being happy and confident, but then that just… disappeared, around about the time my husband ran out the door with the words “I do” still fresh on his lips.’
His eyes narrow like he’s thinking, and after a moment, he snaps. ‘Well, Don can’t have you. I won’t allow it. He swept in and took you? Fair enough, you wanted him.’ He shrugs in acceptance. ‘But I won’t let him have you now he’s buggered off. He can’t have all the years of the rest of your life.Iwant them, actually. Sorry if it sounds unbelievable and stupid to you, but there you are.’
I peer at the crease between his brows and his jaw flexing away.
‘Are you cross?’
‘Little bit. Maybe.’ I see him feeling ridiculous, then recovering himself. He surrenders with a smile. ‘I can’t help feeling this way. You’re the one telling me I’m too young for you, but you’re giving me no say in deciding for myself, and I’m sorry, but I already decided, actually, on the day I met you. I’ve tried to show you ever since, in my actions.’
I have to give him that. He really has. ‘That’s true,’ I say. ‘I haven’t run short on logs for years. And you’ve baked all those gingerbreads with me.’
‘I don’t even like gingerbread,’ he says.
‘No!’
‘It’s true. I’m a Tunnock’s Teacakes kind of man. Look, I’m standing here dressed as Santa, for God’s sakes. I’ve been showing up for you for years.’
‘I know, and I’ve kept you at arm’s length. I’m sorry.’
‘So…’ he begins, and I wait, screaming inside: Don’t let him give up on me now. Let him still want me.He swallows. ‘So, what do you want to do?’ he says.
‘It’s not up to me,’ I say. ‘I’ve pushed you away and told you over and over you deserve someone… fresher, someone who hasn’t been around the block with two husbands. But I know now that none of that matters, and it took all this,’ I gesture around me, ‘a village of volunteers, a hundred thousand people on the internet, two entire years of being distracted… to figure out what matters is that you want me, and I want you.’
He runs a hand over his head but doesn’t move.
‘Do you?’ he says. ‘Doyou want me?’
I step closer to him. ‘I want you out loud and in the open and with nothing hidden.’
That’s all I have time to say before he closes the space between us in one stride and pulls me to him.
I lift myself to kiss him just as the elf, who I’m sure has been listening in, pulls open the curtain and the whole world sees us as our lips meet, and we’re awash in whoops and cheers and whistles.
