‘Mum says if you want to, you’re very welcome to come spend Christmas Day with us, although she imagines you wouldn’t want to. She thinks Christmas Day with your dad must be awesome.’
‘Yep, all festive bunting, and perfectly stuffed goose.’ I smile to show I’m teasing rather than bitter.
‘Right. I didn’t want to blow her preconceptions or your confidences by telling her the truth of it…’
‘Dad being pissed from the minute he wakes up and then verbally berating us for the entire day, whilst my mother tries to compensate with saccharine sweetness and I sit watching the clock hands move so slowly, wanting to shout at her, shake her into seeing that we all should leave. That truth?’
‘Yep, that one. No one would blame you if you wanted to escape that for one year, and you would be very welcome to come to ours.’
‘Your mum is lovely and Dave is cute, you’re all so normal.’
‘You’re just biased.’
‘A little bit, yes,’ I admit.
‘And I’m a bit scared of what the two of you might cook up.’
‘A life of crime I’m thinking, proper Thelma and Louise shit but, you know, minus the dying.’
‘Yeah, she’s already beaten death once this week.’
‘Shit, Rory, I didn’t mean—’
‘I know. You worry way too much about what you say and how people will react. And I’m in reputation management so if I’m saying this then that means something. You know, you’re tonnes wiser than me but maybe you should work on a “fuck them” principle.’
‘My dad has accused me of working that way my whole life.’
‘Yeah, and in his case, you most definitely should. But look, if people know you they love you, it’s impossible not to…’
I don’t know where to look now. I know I’m drunk but waves of gratitude are rolling over me. I feel tears at the rim of my eyes. This is what Rory thinks of me? That I’m impossible not to love?
Rory carries on speaking. ‘And they know your intentions are never anything but good, pure…’ Oh, I definitely am not finding the courage to look back at him now. Pure? Trust me, boy, the last thing on my mind this evening is purity! ‘So if they don’t value you and think the worst of whatever it is that comes out of your mouth then fuck ’em, well and truly fuck ’em.’ His arms are waving with the emotion of it on each ‘fuck’.
I start to giggle. He really is quite wasted. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this. He starts to giggle too and before I have time to think he has swept me up into his arms, both of them wrapped tight around me, my face buried on his chest by his shoulder. He holds me there and squeezes once then twice and doesn’t let go. I feel so good. Safe. Loved. Like nothing can touch me. Like nothing on this earth I have ever felt before.
Fuuuuucccccccckkkkkkk!
He’s going home in a week, Belle Wilde,he is going home in a week.
I should feel liberated knowing that it’s only a week I have to hold it together, keep my feelings in check, and that after seven days I can let all the emotion out, knowing that Rory won’t be around to see me. That my emotions won’t make him feel guilty for being the object of my affections, or repulsed – I’m still not sure what his dominant emotion would be. Instead I am filled with overwhelming sadness that I have found the perfect man and I fall so far short of him that I can’t just cling to him in this perfect moment and make all my romantic dreams come true.
And then I decide to turn my mind off and enjoy what is happening in this moment. He is just holding me. In no way has he made it sexual. I sure as hell am not going to. I’m going to enjoy the friendship offered. We turn a little and sit in silence watching the flames flit and spit and crackle and lick.
‘Hey, Wilde…’ He speaks into my hair, his chin resting on the top of my head. ‘I get you not coming for Christmas but I’ve got a shit-hot present for you, or I think I have. Will you give me the whole of Boxing Day instead?’
Who could refrain
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make’s love known?
December Twenty-fourth.
Belle.
It is clear this morning as I walk to work, though still bloody chilly, but then what do you expect at 5.30 on a December morning? And not just any December morning but Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve! I’m so excited. It’s also possible I’m still a little drunk after the party last night. But what a party! I can’t remember the last time I had such a good night. There had been something special about last night. So special I hadn’t been able to stop grinning from the minute I woke up. I’m like a twelve-year-old with a crush so enormous that I may well faint if the object of my affection ever addresses me.
