Miss You (10 page)

She pointed at the cube on the table, which my mother unwrapped to reveal a box with a pink amaryllis on it.

‘You plant the bulb and it shoots up a lovely flower,’ Charlotte said.

‘I’ve always wondered if they work,’ said my mother doubtfully, turning the box over and peering at the instructions.

‘Of course they work!’ I said, dismayed to see that Charlotte was slipping her narrow shoulders into the satiny sleeves of her coat. The knitted red scarf looked as discordant
against her outfit as the parcel had when she came in. I wondered how far she would drive down the road before taking it off.

‘Well, I must be getting going,’ she said.

Charlotte air-kissed my mother, then, after holding out her hand to be shaken, stiffly allowed my father to give her a hug.

So that there was no question of looking as if I was expecting a kiss or hug myself, I rushed to the front door to see her out.

‘Thanks for coming,’ I said. ‘Cheered them up no end.’

Charlotte looked up at me. Her eyes, I noticed, were a greeny colour, like a cat’s.

‘You’ve grown so tall, Angus,’ she said. ‘Goodness, I think you’re bigger than Ross now.’

‘He’d hate that!’

It just came out and I was immediately ashamed that I had made the only reference to him irreverent.

Charlotte’s forehead was furrowed with a small frown, as if she was considering the truth of the proposition, and then, to my great relief, she smiled, a genuine smile, as if remembering
something pleasant.

‘You’re absolutely right! He would!’ she said, and gave my arm a tiny squeeze before stepping out into the cold.

Although it was just the three of us, my mother was up before dawn on Christmas Day to put a huge turkey in the oven. I hadn’t slept well and went downstairs as soon as I
heard the clanking of baking trays. The kitchen was already swathed in a warm mist of offal from the giblets she was boiling for gravy. I drank the cup of tea she put in front of me, and told her I
was going for a run.

‘Blow away the cobwebs,’ she said.

Outside, the air was opaque with freezing fog, the pavement laced with frost which stuck slightly to the soles of my trainers. With zero visibility, I found myself jogging slowly, as if some
primal instinct had kicked in, causing my brain to think me blind and in need of protection from obstacles that might loom in my path. I couldn’t get up to the precious speed where thought
left my body and nothing mattered but the pounding rhythm of feet hitting the ground.

Suddenly aware of another person’s steps, I slowed to a halt.

Perhaps you’ll run into each other!

A man I didn’t know ran past. He must have eaten garlic the night before. The acrid odour hung in the still whiteness as his laboured breaths receded into silence.

There was a smell of burning when I returned to the house. My mother was standing over the kitchen sink scrubbing at the blackened giblet pan. She didn’t look round as I stood in the
doorway, but from the angle of her shoulders, I could tell she was crying.

I showered for a long time, enjoying the hot water streaming over my cold face.

When I came downstairs, my father was sitting at the kitchen table in his usual Christmas mufti: thick tweedy sweater over checked shirt and corduroy trousers.

I’d noticed a slight air of impatience about him since my return, like a man waiting beside a motorway for the RAC to turn up.

My mother brandished one of her Christmas platters. ‘Smoked salmon and champagne?’

‘It’s a bit early, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Some of us have been up for hours!’

I had heard the same exchange every Christmas morning for as long as I could remember.

‘Well, you only live once!’ was my father’s standard reply. But obviously he wasn’t going to say it this year.

Previously, I had been allowed only half a glass of champagne, but at eighteen, it appeared I could have as much as I wanted. It slipped down my throat like cream.

‘It hardly seems worth lighting the fire in the living room,’ my mother was saying.

For the last few years, that had been Ross’s job. I couldn’t decide whether she was hinting that I should do it this year, or indicating that she would be happier not to go in the
living room where we’d be surrounded by photos of him.

‘Why don’t we have our presents in the kitchen?’ I suggested.

‘Nice and warm,’ said my father immediately.

‘Why ever not?’ My mother seemed almost excited about the break with tradition.

She had bought me a pair of pyjamas, a voucher for ten driving lessons at the British School of Motoring, and, from my father, a pedometer.

‘Let’s have a look,’ he demanded, making it clear that it was the first time he had seen it.

‘It counts how many paces you’ve done!’ said my mother.

I would never use it, but I recognized the thought that had gone into the gift. I could almost hear her saying to her WI friends, ‘I can’t think of a thing for Angus. All he does
these days is run!’

My father appeared satisfied with his gift from me, but there was something about the way my mother said, ‘Oh! Lavender!’ when she unwrapped hers, that made me realize that she
didn’t like the fragrance. She turned the pretty box over and over in her hands.

‘Ross always used to buy me Yardley guest soaps,’ she whispered, throatily.

A barb of resentment stabbed through the cotton-wool cocoon the champagne had spun around me.

‘
No, he didn’t!
’ I wanted to say. ‘
You did! Why does he have to be a saint?
’

The clock ticked on the wall. The turkey spat and sizzled in the oven.

‘Good Lord, is that the time?’ my father suddenly said. ‘I said I’d have nine holes with Brian!’

‘Why don’t you take Angus along?’ my mother suggested.

I sensed a slight hesitation.

‘Would you like to come?’

I knew that he would have preferred me to say no, but my mother seemed equally keen for me to go.

I waited in the hall for him to come downstairs jangling his car keys amid a powerful waft of some cologne I’d never smelled on him before.

We drove several miles to his golf club. There were a few diehards in the club lounge, and a lone woman sitting at a table by the log fire. As I pushed open the door, she glanced up expectantly,
then down again when I was not the person she was waiting for.

‘What’ll it be?’ My father put an arm around my shoulder, ushering me towards the bar.

I asked for a half of bitter knowing he wouldn’t hesitate to voice his thoughts about lager drinkers to anyone who would listen.

‘Two halves of your best!’ he said loudly to the bartender, then turned to me. ‘Don’t think we’ve had a proper drink together, have we?’

‘I don’t think so.’

We both knew we hadn’t. My eighteenth birthday in April had come and gone without anyone really noticing it.

‘Pubs in London any good or are you more of a wine-bar man?’ he asked.

‘I haven’t been to that many.’

‘Cheaper at the Union, eh?’

I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to be a hearty drinker or whether it was a trap.

‘I suppose so!’

‘He supposes so!’ said my father, as if to invite the others at the bar into our manly tête-à-tête.

There were a few smiles but no takers.

He drained his glass.

‘Another?’ I asked.

‘Better not,’ he said. ‘Not when I’m driving. Look, while you’re finishing up, I just need to point Percy.’

I stood at the bar, trying to ignore the drainy taste of the warm ale as I gulped it back.

My father returned with the woman I’d noticed when we came in.

‘Angus, would you believe it! This is Samantha, my new nurse at the practice!’

‘Not that new!’ she said with a little laugh, looking at him, not me, as we shook hands.

Like most dental nurses I had encountered, she was pretty, in a clinical sort of way, with short hair, good teeth and sensible little stud earrings. She was wearing tight, clean jeans tucked
into leather boots, and a pale blue fluffy jumper. A silk scarf with a navy border and a pattern of gold buckles was draped around her shoulders, slightly at odds with the rest of her outfit. I
imagined it was his Christmas present to her. She wasn’t yet the age for silk scarves.

‘How long is it now?’ my father was asking her.

‘Seven months,’ she said.

‘Is it really? So, you’re a member here, are you?’ he asked, as if anyone was going to believe that she was the sort of girl who would nip out on her own to practise her swing
on Christmas morning.

‘Daddy is,’ she replied. ‘I’m spending Christmas with my parents.’ She caught my eye for the first time, as if we both knew what a pain that was. ‘I really
should be getting back.’

In the car on the way home, I couldn’t decide what I felt, if I felt anything at all. If Samantha was the way he had found some comfort, then good for him. I guessed she wasn’t the
first. My mother probably suspected – she had been his nurse herself – so perhaps her suggestion that I accompany him had been mischievous? One thing I was clear about was that she
would not want to be told by me.

‘Samantha seems nice,’ I ventured, with a hint of complicity.

‘What? Oh, yes, she’s not bad at all,’ my father replied, keeping his eyes focused on the road.

There was a yellowy glimmer of impending snow in the fading light.

As we turned into our drive, my father suddenly remembered his alibi.

‘I don’t know where Brian got to!’ he exclaimed.

‘We were rather late,’ I said.

My father turned and gave me the kind of blokey smile I had only ever seen him give to Ross.

‘That must be it!’

‘A girl called to speak to you,’ my mother announced as the two of us walked into the hall.

‘Oh?’ said my father.

‘Not
you
, Gordon. Angus! A girl.’

‘A girl, eh?’ My father smiled at me again.

‘Did you get her name?’ I asked.

‘Did you get her name!’ he echoed, delightedly. In a sentence I had gone from being the son he was unsure about to Casanova.

‘It wasn’t a good line. She said she’d call again later. I hope not while we’re eating.’

The phone rang as my mother was offering me custard, cream or both with my Christmas pudding.

‘It’s for you!’ said my father, giving me a wink as he passed the handset over.

I took it in the hall, my heart racing a little as I cleared my throat before speaking. But it wasn’t Lucy, it was Nash.

‘So, how’s things? Are you having a good one?’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Pretty quiet. How about you?’

‘Bloody disaster! I’ve only been here two days. Dad’s new girlfriend is a bitch. I don’t know a soul! Look, Dad says he’ll pay for a friend to fly over for New Year
. . . ?’

‘Where are you, exactly?’ I asked, thinking New York, Brussels or one of the many other cities where Nash’s father owned property.

‘The chalet in Val d’Isère,’ she said. ‘You ski, don’t you?’

‘No,’ I lied. ‘So I wouldn’t be the best—’

‘Oh, come on, Gus. Think croissants, good coffee and oodles of red wine. Please, pretty please?’

‘Sorry . . . I just can’t, Nash. Thanks for the offer . . .’

I put down the phone, and stared at the bunting of Christmas cards festooning the hall. Snow on churches, snow on trees, snowy Bruegel scenes of skaters, a snow-encrusted branch with a robin
perched on it, glittering snow on the roof of the nativity stable – did it actually snow in the Middle East? – a cute Labrador puppy with a red bobble hat, skidding in snow. Row after
row of soft, white images twinkling their snowy greetings. Had no one thought?

I saw Ross’s face glancing back at me through the thickly falling snow, his teeth white, his eyes hidden behind mirror ski goggles. There were flakes settling on his dark, swept-back
hair.

‘What offer’s this then?’ my father asked when I returned to the table.

My mind replayed the conversation with Nash, in case there was anything else they’d overheard that I was going to have to explain.

‘Nothing,’ I said.

‘Nothing, eh?’

I hated the idea of the two of us being men with secrets.

‘Look, do you mind if I save this for later? I’m stuffed . . .’

He shot me a wounded glance. Our bubble of matey bonhomie had been fragile, and now I’d popped it.

In my bedroom, I stared at the snowflakes falling past the window, thinking of this time one year ago.

The snow had started to fall as the light faded. It wasn’t safe to ski off-piste, but it was sheer madness if you couldn’t even see where you were going.

‘Why did you come up, if you didn’t want to ski down?’ Ross demanded.

My brother’s strategy was always to make me feel stupid first.

‘I thought you wanted to go down the usual way . . .’

‘We’ve done
“the usual way”
,’ he whined, mocking me.

‘Not in these conditions. It’ll still be fairly dangerous . . .’

‘“
Still be fairly dangerous”!’
Another mocking echo, then the inevitable taunt that never failed to spur me into doing things I didn’t want to do.
‘God, you’re such a fucking wuss!’

Ross looked down the slope. I looked down the slope. Then he looked at me, his eyes gleaming with the challenge.

‘Last one to the bottom gets the drinks in!’ He pulled his goggles down and was off, straight to ‘Go!’ when I was still at ‘Ready!’ just like every race
we’d ever run.

I almost followed. I almost followed. But I did not follow.

I’d heard the taunts so often, they’d lost their power. I didn’t even ski down the marked run. The little wave of triumph ebbed away as I stood alone in the bubble, drifting
slowly down through the dense fog, as if I’d finally accepted defeat.

Back at the hotel, I sat in the window of the bar, staring out into zero visibility.

After a few minutes, Mum and Dad found me. She’d been in the spa all afternoon and was looking rather pink and shiny; he’d called it a day after the snow came in and had already
showered and changed for dinner.

‘Where’s Ross?’

‘He wanted to ski down. I’d had enough.’