‘Merry Christmas,’ Ezz, Thea and Dev all said at once, rushing to hug Barnaby’s warm little body. He smelled of chocolate.
Through the open front door, Ezz spied Valentina, festooned with bags, plodding up the path. Deveron hurried out to help, while Thea threw herself into Valentina’s arms. ‘Have you come for Christmas after all? This is awesome.’ Then, slowly, drawing back: ‘Is everything OK?’
‘Let me get in first.’ Valentina smiled but her voice was flat. When she and the bags were indoors and the front door shut against the wintry chill, her eyes sought Ezzie’s. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. And, after a hesitation: ‘To land on you like this. It’s been a difficult few days.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Ezz, with no idea what was going on but alarmed at the anguish in her sister’s eyes.
Barnaby clapped his hat back on. ‘Grandpa’s ill so Dad’s gone to be with him and Grandma.’
Valentina patted his shoulder. ‘That’s right. So, we wanted to come here, didn’t we, Barns?’
‘Yep. We’ve brought most of my presents, so I’ve gotlots to play with.’ Barnaby pointed at a Santa sack with his cutlass. His body language was totally different to Valentina’s. He was bouncing and beaming, clearly confident that wherever he went, Christmas would come too. She looked as if she’d been hit by an emotional truck, face pale and eyes haunted. Every line of her body drooped with exhaustion, yet was strung tight with strain.
‘What a wonderful surprise,’ cried Ezz. With Barnaby present, Valentina wasn’t about to confide further details about their sudden appearance. ‘What would you like to drink, Barnaby? Fizzy orange? Or hot chocolate? Sit down, Valentina, and I’ll get you a drink too.’
‘Where’s your Christmas tree?’ Barnaby demanded indignantly, peeping into the lounge.
‘I didn’t know you were coming, so I didn’t put it up,’ Ezz answered. It had seemed a pointless exercise, when she’d only wanted to get Christmas over with as soon as possible. Feeling she’d been a grinch, she sidled into the lounge and switched on the golden fairy lights over the mantelpiece. ‘But if you ask Uncle Dev nicely, he might get it and the decorations out for us, and you could put it up while I cook dinner.’
‘Yeah,’ breathed Barnaby. ‘Please, Uncle Dev?’
The look Valentina sent Ezz brimmed with gratitude, yet at the same time she appeared to be fighting back tears. She whispered, ‘Can I grab an hour alone?’
‘Of course,’ Ezz whispered back, feeling strange to be talking to her as if their quarrel hadn’t happened. So, Valentina vanished upstairs under the guise of putting up the camp bed for Barnaby, while Ezz peeled and parboiled potatoes and made sauce for cauliflower cheese, listening with one ear to laughter from Barnaby, Dev and Theaputting up the tree in the lounge, and with the other to Valentina moving around above her head.
Later, Dev brought the patio set into the lounge, and the five of them squeezed around it, with Daisy at their feet in the hopes of scraps of turkey or sausage stuffing raining down. ‘But where are the crackers?’ Barnaby demanded.
‘We’ll just tell each other jokes instead,’ said Ezz. Crackers were on the long list of things she hadn’t bought.
‘I’ve got a joke book.’ Barnaby scrambled down and yanked it from his bag, proceeding to eat his dinner with one hand while he held the book in the other and read out such gems as, ‘Why did the teddy bear have no pudding? Because he was already stuffed,’ while the others ate crunchy roast potatoes and dark green Brussels sprouts and laughed in the right places. The fact that Valentina said not one word about Barnaby’s unorthodox mealtime behaviour told Ezz just how wrong something must have gone. She exchanged anxious looks with Thea.
After dinner, Dev and Ezz cleared away the dishes. ‘I’m too full for pudding,’ said Barnaby, summing up the feelings of all, with the possible exception of Valentina, who’d pushed her food around her plate more than eating it. ‘Mum, can you help me work out how this car transforms into a dinosaur?’
‘I’ll help too,’ Thea volunteered, patting Valentina’s arm.
After he’d helped Ezz with the clearing up, Dev tried to get Barnaby to come out with him to walk Daisy in the dark. ‘We can count Christmas trees in windows and leave your mum and her sisters to chat.’
But Barnaby might not have been as oblivious to whatever was going on as he’d seemed, because first hesaid, ‘I want us all to go.’ Then he burst into tears. ‘I want Daddy.’
Valentina hugged him tightly. ‘You’ll see Daddy again soon.’ And then they all went out together, the stars twinkling down from a clear sky and the frost twinkling up at them. The Christmas tree count was over thirty, which wasn’t bad for a tiny village. It was nearly nine p.m. before Valentina finally got Barnaby to bed, his tears dried, his joke book and his dinosaur car on the camp bed with him.
While Daisy snored in the kitchen, Ezz, Thea and Dev waited in the lounge for Valentina to come down, passing around the Christmas chocolates. Finally, she trudged in, great shadows below her eyes, and flopped on a sofa. Thea gazed at her. ‘What’s happened?’
Valentina dropped her face in her hands, her voice emerging dreary and muffled. ‘Gary had an affair. I’ve known for a couple of months. He says it’s over and wants – expects – forgiveness but I can’t force myself to feel it. He’s gone to spend the rest of Christmas and New Year with his parents and brother. That’s what he says, anyway. He’s been lying a lot. We had a row after Barnaby was in bed last night because Gary left his phone on the sofa and a message came up on his lock screen with a number rather than a name. It was just “Merry Christmas, sweet man” but he blushed like fire, so it was obvious who it was. He blustered that he’d blocked her, and she must have changed her number to get round it, so I was making a fuss about nothing. I lost my temper and said I couldn’t face the Christmas holiday with him. He agreed to go to his parents after he’d seen Barnaby unwrap his presents on Christmas morning, and so began the whole “Grandpa’s ill” subterfuge. I hate to think what his parents, Pearl andFrank, think about it – probably that somehow it was my fault.’
‘Oh, Valentina, that’s shitty,’ Ezz breathed, horrified.
Thea slid her arms around Valentina in a big, wordless hug.
Dev muttered, ‘What an arse. And she was obviously trying to be disruptive, so she’s not a nice woman.’
Valentina propped her face on her hand. ‘Ezz, I owe you an apology.’ Her eyes were dull. ‘When you came to Fishermen’s Cottages with Mats, I’d been planning to get you alone to talk over the whole affair thing, because Gary said I ought to be trying harder to get past it for Barnaby’s sake. When, instead of unloading onto you, I had to listen to you confess the truth about that accident, I turned into a shitmonster. I’m so sorry. I was just lashing out.’
‘What?’ Thea whispered and turned her gaze on Ezz. ‘Valentina knows?’
‘Oh,’ said Dev, hollowly, his dark eyes apprehensive as his glance flicked between Thea and her sisters.
Ezz pulled an agonised face in case it would be Thea’s turn to give Ezz the cold shoulder. ‘Mats accidentally spilled the beans. Valentina was really hurt at being excluded, but I didn’t want to tell you because of the baby. Sorry if I did the wrong thing, but if you’d got upset and something had happened …’
