Callum was home in time for Christmas.
13
An atlas of lost places – from Ava to Callum
Callum
Home wasa different place since I’d started bringing Wren to it. Beforehand, it was where Marie was; the one person I had a gravitational pull towards. I loved my siblings, but we could do months without seeing each other, email and text messages enough to sustain us, but Mum was different. She needed to lay eyes on me and not via video link, so over the years as I’d wandered, she’d pulled me back each time to this house that had never felt like home.
Until Wren had come back with me, as more than my friend, and then I’d understood.
“I thought you were away for another day.” Marie took hold of my face in her hands and held me still while she examined me with her eyes. “You said Christmas Day.”
“I lied. Thought I’d surprise you all.” I looked at Wren over her head.
My fiancée, because the woman had been mad enough to agree, gave me a smile that looked sweet, but contained enough salt to make sure I kept my mouth shut.
“This doesn’t get you out of giving us presents though!” Seph had strode over to us and clapped me on the back, then gave Wren a big hug, whispering something in her ear that I couldn’t hear above the commotion from everyone else.
There were questions bandied round, the odd quip about Santa turning up on Christmas Eve and more hugs.
“Is this what you’d planned from the start?” Marie eyed me. “Surprising us?”
Wren settled down on the sofa next to me. We’d shifted Seph out of the way on to the floor. “We knew we could get back earlier if the vet from France arrived, which was dependent on his family situation. He was even earlier than we’d hoped, so we landed this afternoon, called in on my mum and then headed straight here. We haven’t been home yet.” She glanced round at me.
We weren’t staying at the house with my family. It was too much for both of us, especially Wren who needed quiet time and space to breathe. Her family hadn’t supported her particularly, her mother complex and difficult, but she visited when she should, told them what they needed to know about her life.
“How was Marrakesh?” Ava was sitting on the chair our father usually favoured, Eli below her, massaging her foot.
“Amazing. You need to go next year; you’d love the souks and the style of the houses. The riad where we stayed was in one of those interior magazines you read.” My hand creeped under Wren’s sweater onto her back as I sought her skin. We didn’t always get to work together, not as closely as we had been doing over the last few weeks, even though we had our own practice here in Oxford. Both of us worked for London Zoo and consulted with others, sometimes away by ourselves for days or even a week at a time. The last three weeks had been blissful, and we’d come back knowing our days of being apart so much were over.
Ava squinted. “I thought you stayed in a tent.”
“We do sometimes. Not this time though.” There had been reasons for that which my family would find out a little about later – not all of them; they were between me and Wren.
“And it’s more of a yurt than a tent,” Wren said, smiling. “We only rough it when we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“I wish you’d stop going to the middle of nowhere.” The grumble was from Marie. “It worries me. I know you’re careful and you take all precautions but you can’t plan for a rogue bear or tiger attacking you while you’re asleep, and I do have nightmares about it.”
I chuckled. “If it makes you feel any better, we’re not planning on being away so much next year.” My arm went around her waist, settling on her side. I knew she was nervous about this, not wanting to overshadow Max and Victoria’s wedding in a couple of days.
“Why’s that?” Seph tipped his head onto one side and looked at me. “Not that it won’t be good to have you around more.”
“You’re not moving in with us.” I pointed the finger of my free hand at him. “You have your own place and a flatmate.”
He shrugged and nodded, picking up his beer. “Be good if the flatmate was there a bit more.”
Shay leaned forward. “What the…” he shook his head. “I’ve said I’ll be around more to hold your hand. Can’t you find yourself a nice girlfriend instead?”
“Back to Callum.”
I knew my mother would smell blood.
“Wren and I have somewhere we’d like to be on New Year’s Eve for an hour tops.”
Wren intertwined her fingers with mine at her waist.
“We’re having a wedding ceremony on New Year’s Eve.” She announced it with far less drama than I was intending, but then the drama started to unfold.
