I have always seen myself as Perdita, and that is the only flaw of this play, this winter’s tale – her ready forgiveness of a father who was willing to leave her to die on a mountainside. Maybe I’m not Perdita, maybe I shouldn’t be aiming to be quite so forgiving and meek. Maybe I am kick-ass as well. In all my years I have never seen anyone stand up to my dad. And I had done so, in the lion’s den with all the other lions there, ready and happy to rip my throat out.
IamPaulina!
We head out of the theatre into the bright winter sun and I notice Rory is not fully present, the conclusion of the play presumably hanging over him. I try to change the mood; it’s obviously best not to mention the play anymore.The Winter’s Talemay be beautiful but the fact that Rory will never have his loss made whole is breaking my heart a little, so God knows what it is doing to him.
‘Shall we go see if you can work out any more of the clues?’ I ask brightly, aware that my silly little present is no remedy for the deep grief this man must feel, flashes of which I have seen in him on this visit, my mind flicking back to the sight of him in the hospital that day all those years ago. Details of which he told me the night he made me Christmas dinner and opened up about his grief.
‘Yes, let’s. Now I know it’s not twenty-four pizzas but my interest is piqued.’
We buy coffees and sit on a bench just outside the theatre with his gigantic box.
‘So the next clue…’ He opens the envelope but his heart isn’t in it. The distance that dawned when the curtain fell is still there. A chasm I don’t think I can bridge.
‘Yes,’ I say forcing jollity. Such a generous gesture on his part has led to the opening up of a wound far from healed. I could kick myself. Why had I ever mentioned the damn play to him in the first place? ‘This is your final clue. Are you ready?’
Even if he is, I’m not sure I am. What seemed like a sweet idea last week now pales into insignificance compared to his gift but there is no turning back, I will sit through the unwrapping and the drive home and then go to bed and try and recall the magic of today, how spoilt and how lucky I am, rather than dwell on the hurt it may have caused the man sitting next to me shaking his Christmas gift box.
Rory stops shaking and opens the last envelope. ‘I was scared, I was petrified but now I know what fun it is to be alive…’ He reads the last clue and looks at me, eyebrow cocked. Jesus! What had I been thinking when I wrote these clues? I remember cackling as I wrote this one out, the memory of his face on the day that had prompted this present making me laugh time and time again.
But not now. Now it feels stupid, self-absorbed. I’d been so pleased with myself when I had written and wrapped this and now I wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole. Seriously … what fun it is to be alive? After he had opened up to me about his grief and the worries about his mum? Straight after this play has bought Jessica to the forefront of his mind?
‘I have no idea what this means. Give me another clue. I can’t work it out at all. This is the final clue?’
‘Yep, the final one.’
‘And this clue means something I have done that I was scared of and now am not.’
‘Yes,’ I say, determined to pull myself together and make the best of this. Rory has done a wonderful thing for me today, I am not going to make it any worse by getting inside my head. ‘Not that you, great and brave he-man that you are, are a scaredy-cat, not that at all…’ I quickly make strongman arms to show I’m teasing. I try to pull it back. ‘You’re definitely all man.’
Jesus Christ. Gaffer tape my mouth shut now!
‘Look, this present seems silly now but at the time of getting it I wanted something you could take with you back to Oz – if you want to, obviously, you can bin it if you don’t, I won’t mind – and hopefully think of me whenever snow falls and you want some fun.’ I mean I would mind, obviously, I would. This present means heaps to me but that doesn’t mean it will to Rory and he may not want to use up precious baggage allowance.
‘I think it’s safe to say that when snow falls I’ll always think of you and … oh, I think I may have it. No, surely not. Hang on.’ His fingers tear at the tape this time, his decorum lost and, if nothing else, that is gratifying. I offer up a little prayer that he won’t be disappointed.
‘Oh wow. Oh wow. You didn’t. But this is your special thing. Yours and Marsha’s.’ He unwraps the final box to see an old tin tray nestled in a bed of tissue paper.
‘It was, and now it’s yours too. Look.’
He picks the tin tray up and turns it over, a little gasp coming from him as he spots his name. Like mine, it is scratched in with my old school compass, the letters spiky and childlike, but done with love.
‘You’ve put my name on it.’
‘Yep, that’s yours now you are a permanent member of the hill-sledging tray club and this is an open invite anytime you see snow to race down the nearest and hilliest hill at super speed, a little bit scared and remembering us.’
‘A permanent member.’ He is still turning the tray over in his hands, running a finger alongside the bevelled edge and looking as if he has won the lottery. It’s my turn to well up. This beautiful man likes my gift.
Carefully he places it back in the box, grabs my hands and squeezes them and then lifts one of his hands to my face, to cup it, stroke along my cheek line. He is going to kiss me. I can feel it. I’ve read everything wrong. Rory Walters is so taken with the gift he wants to kiss me. I can see it in his eyes, feel it in the pace of his breathing. He’s going to lean in any minute and all my worries about him being upset or my gift not being meaningful to him vanish. Rory Walters is going to kiss me! My heart is pitter-pattering in my chest as he looks into my eyes and I try not to close them in anticipation.
‘Belle, this gift, this gift … it means the world.’ And he slowly starts to lean in and I start to think of the life we could have together – I know, skipping ahead a bit – and I can’t believe today is panning out like this after all. Best Christmas ever. I close my eyes and tip my head and feel him coming closer and closer and then his lips graze my cheek.
‘Thanks, Belle. You really are the best mate any man could ask for.’
Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak
Whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.
December Twenty-seventh.
