I don’t want to do Christmas.
Also, even though I’m thirty-four years old, I don’t want to leave the sanctuary of my childhood bedroom. I don’t want to have to face all the people my mum’s gathered for her annual Christmas Eve party. I want to crawl under my duvet and pretend that everything is still the way it was exactly one year ago.
Last Christmas, we were a happy family consisting of my parents, me and my (then) husband Jed, and my two brothers, Vinny and Antonio, plus Vinny’s wife and kids and Antonio’s husband. We had a lovely few days all together here in my parents’ house in the Cotswolds, and then we all went our separate ways to celebrate New Year’s Eve, all of us clueless that one month later we would have lost my dad, and that by the end of the summer Jed and I would have split up after five years of marriage and seven years together.
This Christmas, I feel as though putting on a face as brave as the one Mum’s wearing might be a little beyond my acting abilities. I dohaveto go downstairs, though, for Mum’s sake. I really should produce a big smile and gonow.
Maybe in five minutes’ time.
I look around the room from my vantage point perched on the end of my childhood, much-smaller-than-average double bed. It’s a long time since I slept in this room, because until recently I hadn’t been single in a long time, and when Jed and I came to stay with my parents we were in a king-sized bed in the spare room.
I have a sudden flashback to the one and only time I ever slept in this bed with someone else. (When my girlfriends used to come for sleepovers they’d sleep on the pull-out truckle that lives under the bed.)
Dominic Rock.
That was a very long time ago, when I was young and so, so naïve. I genuinely believed that love at first sight (or first adult sighting) was a thing. And that he felt exactly the same way.Sostupid.
I shake my head at my younger self and stand up. I shouldn’t be sitting here thinking. At the moment, thinking too much inevitably leads to me feeling a bit down. I should instead be positive and get downstairs and support Mum.
And in fact the party will be fine – lovely even – I’m sure, once I’ve got through the obligatory divorce-related conversations. Most people – I imagine – will be sensitive to the fact that Iobviouslyam not going to want to talk about it, but I’m sure there’ll be the odd one who cannot resist a bit of prying. Unfortunately, they all met Jed at various times during our marriage (Mum loves to throw a party) and most of themlovedhim. Schmoozing (some might say smarminess) is one of his key skills.
Okay. I have to go downstairs right now or I’ll be making a conspicuously late entrance, which definitely won’t help.
I inspect my reflection in the heart-shaped mirror above the mantelpiece, chosen by my twelve-year-old self over twenty years ago, and pull my Christmas jumper into place. (Mum has massively bought into British Christmas traditions, old and new, and isextremelystrict on Christmas Eve attire – ithasto involve a very heavy nod to the season.) Then I apply another coat of confidence-inducing red lipstick, before heading out of the room towards the stairs.
By the time I’ve reached the bottom, I’ve widened my lips into a big smile, and I’m ready to take on the world. Mum needs me by her side this evening and I can totally survive a few annoying comments about my marriage break-up.
I widen my fake smile further, in preparation for entering the fray, pick up my pace a little, and bump straight into a very large and very solid person.
‘Oof.’ I take a step backwards and discover that I have, in a strange throwback, bumped into Dominic Rock. This time, I recognise him immediately, although he does not look exactly as I remember him.
I do a quick calculation and work out that it’s over nine years since I last saw him.ThenI was heartbroken that we were going our separate ways. He’d just returned to London from three years in New York. He asked me out and I had to tell him that I was going to Kazakhstan for a year the following week. And then he told me he loved me, and I told him I loved him too – because I really believed I did – and then… well, then that was that. I ended up living abroad for the next nine years and he… well, I don’t really know. He’s good friends with my brother Vinny, and our mums are also good friends, so I’ve heard snippets about him over the years, but this is the first time I’ve seen him since then.
‘Flavia,’ he says. He’s smiling, a bit, and he does still have the same nice smile, but somehow he looks very different from before. I amincrediblynot getting the vibes I got all those years ago.Then, I thought he was the sexiest, most gorgeous man I’d ever seen.
Now… well now I’m just marvelling at my younger self.
Yes, he’s remarkably good-looking. But in a very kind of classic way. There are other classically good-looking people. He’s dressed in well-ironed beige chinos and a navy blazer, with a pale blue shirt and a vaguely Christmassy tie (red with a green holly pattern). I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s wearing Christmas socks and genuinely believes he’s pushed the boat out amusing-Christmas-apparel-wise. If I were holding a drink right now I’d be getting jittery with worry over possibly spilling it over him, because he has the air of a man who doesnottake well to any kind of mess.
Basically, he reminds me extremely forcibly of Jed. Which is not surprising, I suppose, because when I met Jedhereminded me very strongly ofDominic. In fact, that might, if I’m honest, have been the reason I let Jed buy me our very first drink, before the rest became history. I did, for a long time, hanker over the memory of Dominic.
From what I’ve heard over the years, Dominic’s certainly like Jed when it comes to relationships. Before he met me, Jed had alotof girlfriends. I met several of his disgruntled exes during the course of our marriage, and discovered him flirting outrageously with other women on more than one occasion. The grapevine tells me that Dominic has also had a lot of short-term relationships, leaving a string of broken hearts behind him. Apparently he dumps women exactly when they think he’s their One and that they’re going to be blissfully happy together for life, and then they’re devastated and struggle to get over him. One of those women was an old school friend of mine, and once, during one of my summer visits home, I had to listen in excruciating detail to how great he was in bed before he dumped her.
‘Dominic,’ I reply, realising that I’ve been staring at him for far too long.
‘How have you been?’ he asks, sounding really quite uninterested.
‘Great, thank you. You?’ I don’t bother to try to sound any more interested in his response than he did in mine. I have way more to think about than my crush from my early twenties.
‘Also great.’ His extreme politeness annoys me for some reason, despite the fact that I reallydon’tcare.
‘Excellent. Well, I must go and greet all our other guests. Happy Christmas!’
He nods. ‘Of course. Happy Christmas.’
Wow, I think as I continue into the kitchen, where everyone is congregated.Wow. Both before he went to New York and before I went to Kazakhstan, I thought seriously about trying somehow to start a committed, long-distance relationship with Dominic. Wow. I was so young and stupid then. For him, I would then just have been another dumpee. And for me, he would have been an early Jed. I cannot believe I ever thought we had any kind of love-at-first-sight situation.
* * *
