The French for Christmas (11 page)

At midnight, as the countdown started, he pulled me to him under a bunch of mistletoe that hung in one of the tall window bays, and he kissed me as the clocks chimed and the room erupted in cheers. He leant in and whispered something in my ear. I couldn’t quite hear what he said over the excited hubbub all around us, as so many beautiful young people heralded in the New Year and a future where everything was possible.

I put a hand behind my ear, turning my head to hear him more clearly as he whispered again.

‘Marry me!’

I stepped back in amazement and gazed at his handsome face, his eyes glittering with the same delight that flooded my body. I took it all in for a moment, suspended in time: I can see it all so clearly still. The elegant room, the mistletoe hanging above us, the Paris skyline framed in the window, fireworks sending up bursts of multicoloured stars into the night above the Bois de Boulogne. And, of course, I whispered back, ‘Yes!’

On my bleak hilltop, I shiver as the balls of mistletoe in the bare trees wag their fingers in warning. I should have known. Because, yes, it was all so perfect. But that was the problem. It was so perfect that our relationship had never been tested. We were young, living in a golden bubble of joy and hope and possibility. We had no idea that, like the bubbles in the glasses of champagne that were thrust into our hands as we celebrated that night, ours would disappear too, popping when it met the real world outside, unable to withstand the pressures of life.

I think about what Eliane said in the graveyard above her cottage. About forgiveness. She’s right, I realise. I probably have turned the helpless anger that I feel towards myself—or, more accurately, towards the universe over which I have no control—against Will. And, impossible though it may seem, I need to try and let it go. For my own sake, as much as for anyone else’s.

I hesitate, then type Will’s name into Google. The screen on my phone fills with listings, reviews, photos, interviews with the new rising star of celebrity chefs. He seems in his element again, just as he was in our student days. Prince William. The centre of attention.

And I know it’s not too late. I could be part of it too. He said so all along, urging me to get up out of bed when I lay there, poleaxed by grief, to come join him in the kitchen; to take an interest in the offer we’d received for the bistro; to help him decide whether to risk pursuing the route to a possible career in television or whether to carry on building the success of our restaurant...

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t decide. I couldn’t summon up the energy to lift my head from the pillow, let alone get up and get going again. I was marooned in the fog of my depression, post-natal hormones running riot. And so, reluctantly, he reached out and grabbed the life preserver that was being held out to him, saving himself. Because he couldn’t save me. He couldn’t save
us
.

That last day, the day when he came to tell me that he’d made his decision, to go live up north for a while, closer to the TV studios, because he’d be so busy with the filming, I recall with shame. For a few, searing moments, I was filled with a blinding rage as I wrapped all of my pain up into a ball and hurled it at him. ‘
Go then
!’ I screamed. ‘You’re never here anyway. You weren’t here when I needed you. So
go
!’

He didn’t even reply, just hung his head, bowing under the weight of his guilt and the storm surge of my anger. Stranded there in his own pain and sadness too. Each of us immersed in our shared grief, but unable to offer comfort to the other. I said some terrible things that day; I can understand why he left.

Yes, I can understand. But forgive? Well, I guess I need to keep working on it. And, as Eliane said, maybe I’ll have to go on working on it every single day of my life. And hope, too, that one day he’ll be able to forgive me back.

I scroll down the list of articles that mention Will, choose an interview from one of the Sunday newspapers and read it through. One particular paragraph catches my attention. “I owe so much to my wife, Evie. She and I started the restaurant together and she is an incredibly talented chef in her own right. It’s a great sadness to me that we’re not still together...” I re-read the words, letting them sink in. It seems like he’s holding out an olive branch. When he said those words, did he hope I might read them, somewhere, somehow?

Darn this combination of the cold wind and my muddled emotions! I fumble for a Kleenex and blow my nose.

So. Forgiveness, hey? I guess I have to start somewhere.

Taking a deep breath, I type a brief email.

To: Will Brooke

Subject: Congratulations

Dear Will, just wanted to congratulate you on the programme’s success. Am so pleased for you.

Love, Evie.

Before I can think too much and delete it, I hit ‘send’. Then, quickly, switch off my phone and shove it deep into my pocket.

My legs are cold and stiff and I lean on the milestone to haul myself up, stomping my feet on the cold ground to get some circulation back into my frozen toes. I gaze at the view for a moment, at the dead-looking, wizened vines and the bare branches of the trees, stark against the December sky.

And then, unbidden, Didier’s face springs to mind. I remember his smile like the sunrise in a winter’s sky and I remember his fingers closing around mine. Holding on to the hope that one day this winter will end, that spring will come eventually, that from the dead-looking branches soft green leaves will unfurl, the bare stems will blossom, life will return… No matter how impossible all of that might seem in the here and the now.

I
n the bleak
midwinter

Frosty wind made moan...

I
pile
a couple more logs on the fire, the flames leaping high and making a hushed roar in the chimney which competes with the gusting and buffeting of the wind outside. I’ll need a cosy blaze tonight to keep the cold at bay, because the temperature has plummeted.

I go to the kitchen to make myself a cup of hot chocolate which will warm me to the core before I have to brave the chillier reaches of the house upstairs on my way to bed.

In the hallway, borne on the wind across the yard from the garage, a faint sound of drilling can be heard. Good grief, it must be freezing out there! I decide to make two cups of the warming hot chocolate and go see how the latest modifications to the anaesthesia machine are coming along.

Didier is so engrossed in his work that he doesn’t notice me come in, balancing two fragrantly steaming mugs on a tray. I watch him for a moment, my heart melting like the tender centre of a hot chocolate soufflé at the sight of his handsome profile bent over the workbench as he concentrates on fitting two lengths of tubing together.

‘Aha, Doctor Didier, that looks a little like a de-pressurising chamber for the removal of humidity, if I’m not mistaken,’ I say, mock-seriously, and he glances up with a look of pure, unadulterated joy. At the sight of me? Or maybe just at the thought of a welcome break and some warming sustenance?

‘You are correct in your surmise, Doctor Evie. We are going to call it the Evie Brooke Chamber, in honour of the talented woman who inspired the idea.’

‘Cool. I’ve never had a de-pressuring chamber on an anaesthesia machine named after me before, but I guess there’s always a first time.’ I have to confess, I feel inordinately proud of my own small contribution to his project; it gives me a sense of having a stake in it, even if it is only a tiny one. ‘Here, I thought you might need to be thawed out, working in these sub-zero temperatures.’ I hand him one of the mugs.

He nods, slurping his drink appreciatively. ‘You’re so very kind. It
is
a little on the chilly side out here this evening.
Mon Dieu
, that’s good hot chocolate. What’s in it?’

‘The secret is to put a couple of cinnamon sticks in with the milk as you heat it. It adds that certain
je ne sais quoi
.’

‘Another of your grandmother’s tips?’

I shake my head. ‘Uh-uh, this one I came up with myself. How are you getting on here?’

‘Great. In fact, I think we might be ready to try this out. How timely your visit is—I need a guinea pig.’

‘Are you going to put me to sleep?’ I have to confess, the idea freaks me out.

He shakes his head. ‘Certainly not. We’re just going to hook you up and let you breathe some nice oxygen-enriched air for a few minutes.’

‘What will that do? Get me high?’

‘No, I’m afraid not!’ he laughs. ‘You won’t notice any difference at all. But we’ll hitch you up like so’—he clips a plastic peg to the end of my index finger—‘and monitor your blood’s oxygen saturation level.’

He flicks a couple of switches and the machine whirrs into action.

‘It sounds like someone breathing,’ I exclaim.

‘Exactly so,’ he says. ‘You see, the machine inhales air from the atmosphere around us here, and then it exhales it, having increased the oxygen in it, through here for you to breathe in.’ He hands me a plastic mask which is attached to one of the lengths of tubing protruding from the guts of the machine. ‘And now here’—he gestures to the electronic screen and I edge round so I can get a better view—‘we see your heartbeat on this trace. And this figure here is your blood’s oxygen saturation. You’re currently running at ninety-nine percent—probably because it’s so cold that your circulation’s a little sluggish at your fingertips. Give it a few nice, deep breaths and it should go back up to one hundred.’

My heartbeat pulses across the screen as a zigzagging green line. I concentrate hard on breathing slowly, because standing so close to him is making my heart race a little, and it would be extremely embarrassing to have him see that playing out so obviously, on the screen in front of us.

He explains a few more aspects of the way it works and then, satisfied with the test, removes the mask from my mouth and the peg from my finger.

And, despite my best efforts to keep my breathing calm and slow, that giveaway green line suddenly begins to make steeper peaks and troughs when he touches my hair to remove the oxygen mask, tucking an unruly curl back in place behind my ear. And then he holds my hand in his to unclip the peg from my finger and the trace cavorts wildly, the pounding of my heart writ large for all to see. Gallantly, he pretends not to have noticed, although when our eyes meet, his seem to sparkle all the more brightly beneath the unforgiving glare of the bare light bulb hanging above our heads.

The heart-rate monitor flatlines suddenly and then fades to black as he shuts the machine down.

‘Brilliant!’ he declares, turning away to check the glass flask that’s attached to the tubing on one side. ‘A very well-behaved patient. And now let’s see, yes, we have a tiny amount of water in the Evie Brooke reservoir. Of course, because the air’s so cold tonight, it doesn’t contain much water vapour, so this wouldn’t be a problem under these conditions. But you can imagine in the African rainy season, in the heat and at about eighty percent humidity, we’d be collecting far more water, preventing it from ending up in the machine where it would clog up the works and make it rust.’

‘Bravo!’ I raise my cup in a toast. ‘Here’s to saving many, many lives with the Doctor Didier Dumas patent portable anaesthesia machine!’

He sighs. ‘Well, maybe one day...’ He sounds tired suddenly, defeated.

‘What is it, Didier? Another technical glitch? Perhaps we can go experiment with more kitchen equipment to work out a solution?’

‘Sorry, Evie, it’s just that I’ve had another funding application turned down today. I don’t know who else to turn to. Now we have something that actually works, I’d need funding support from a larger company to take it to the next stage. The established manufacturers don’t want to know—obviously, because it has the potential to make their own technologies redundant, even though it could mean saving lives for far less money. And I can’t find anyone else who’s altruistic enough to risk their money on some crazy doctor’s tin-pot invention that he’s cobbled together in his garage. It’s incredibly frustrating. Looks like I’m going to have to shelve the project, even though we’re so much closer. Whatever happens, though, Africa is calling me back. At least there I’ll be doing something, even if this dream’—he pats the silent machine—‘has failed.’

‘Well, at least you will have tried.’ I’m trying to reassure him, but my words sound as hollow as his own disappointment, because a wave of sadness washes over me at the thought of him leaving. Suddenly I can’t bear to think of him not being here, even though I know neither of us will be staying in the long run.

‘True. I have tried. And we have to keep on trying. Doing what we can. Even if we fail and have to shelve our dreams from time to time. We move on.’

I nod, remembering Eliane’s words the other day as we stood in the little graveyard up the hill. ‘A wise woman once said that we are ambassadors in this world for the dead and that we should live our lives on their behalf, in order to conquer death.’

He smiles sadly. ‘It’s true. A good philosophy. I sometimes think every life I can save is one more to offset against Aurélie’s death. But I don’t know how many it will take until the score is settled. I’d hoped that, with this invention, I might stand a chance, at last, of feeling I was getting there; making such a difference that, finally, I’d find some salvation of sorts.’

‘You know, Evie,’ he continues, the words pouring out now, as if Eliane’s words have unlocked something inside him, ‘it’s not really the thought of being able to save
lots
of lives; even if we could save just one with this machine then all the hours of work would have been worth it. When I was working in the camp near Juba, every refugee who arrived had their own personal story of trauma and terror and loss. Men, women, children... The first Christmas I was there, I witnessed a very different kind of Nativity story. It lodged in my mind, in particular, because the couple were called Joseph and Mary. Joseph and Mary Abuja. They had other tribal names of course, but Joseph and Mary were the English names they’d chosen for themselves. They walked into camp on Christmas Eve. They’d fled an attack on their village three days before and had walked, afraid for their lives, to try and reach the safety of the refugee camp, with only the clothes they had on their backs. No food, no water. And Mary was pregnant. But there were complications, and there was no doubt that her condition wasn’t helped by the trauma she’d suffered. She went into labour, needed an emergency Caesarean to deliver her child safely. But we didn’t have the resources. No anaesthesia, no room in the hospital when there were so many others who so badly needed our help. So, instead of a happy Christmas ending, I’m afraid her story ends in a makeshift grave on top of a dusty hilltop, where Joseph laid both his wife and her unborn child. I saw him up there, day in, day out, just sitting, as the sun beat down remorselessly on his head. Waiting for death to take him too. All hope gone.’

He pauses, remembering, little lines of sadness gathering at the corners of his clear blue eyes.

‘So giving up on my machine means giving up on people like them. Women like Mary.’

I swallow down the tears that are threatening to spill from my own eyes. His story has brought back painful memories of losing my own baby and my heart bleeds for Mary, for her terror and her fear and her pain. All those things I experienced myself, although I was in a clean hospital with nurses and doctors at my bedside and modern pain relief to help me through. Hers must have been unbearable, before death took both her and her baby. Her story gives me new strength, a new sense of determination. ‘Well, then, we mustn’t give up. We need to keep hammering on doors, telling their story, until someone listens.’

He nods. ‘You’re right, Evie. I know you’re right. Sorry, I’m just a bit tired and dispirited this evening.’ He gestures at the machine. ‘My enthusiasm has flatlined, temporarily, just like that trace did. But I’m sure I’ll feel differently tomorrow. Ready to go into battle again.’

I collect up our cups as he tidies away a few tools on the workbench and switches off the lights.

We step out into the chill blast of the wind, which snatches at my breath, making my teeth chatter as we stand for a moment under the oaks, reluctant to say goodnight. The thirteenth moon of the year is completely full at last, a perfect circle, and almost the same colour as the russet apples strewn across the grass out back by the wind. A wisp of mistletoe in the lower branches just above us flutters over our heads. My hands are occupied by the cups and the tray, and the wind catches my hair and swirls it into my eyes. Didier smiles and leans in, gently brushing the curls away from my face.

And I’m not sure whether it’s the cold that takes my breath away or that single moment, when time seems suspended, and the moon and the mistletoe both conspire in their invitation to kiss.

We stand there, and it seems as though the world joins me in holding its breath. Waiting.

But then Didier drops his hand to his side. ‘Goodnight, Evie.’ His voice is soft and low.

‘Goodnight, Didier.’

And then I turn and head for my front door, pausing for a moment to glance back to where he stands, his eyes dark pools in the shadows, watching.

I lie in my lonely bed, listening to the wind buffeting the stone walls of the house, thinking of Didier lying in his own bed just a few dozen yards away, and wondering why we didn’t kiss. Because, without discussing it, I know that we both sense a connection, a spark. The look in his eyes spoke volumes when he took my hand in his to remove the clip from my finger. And he must have seen the look in mine as my heartbeats wrote my feelings in green fluorescent light across the screen. And, I promise you hand on heart, for my part those feelings are something more than simple lust, now that I’ve discovered the hidden depths behind that movie star exterior.

But there’s also a sense that we need to wait. A sense that we each have our own unfinished business to deal with. A sense that this could be something big: but we need to be certain that it’s more than just two lost souls seeking refuge from life’s storms.

The wind gusts and blusters, making the window frames rattle, and I pull the covers up around my ears to shut out the sound and try to sleep.

I
’m still mulling
this over the next morning when I stride out purposefully, making for my office at the top of the hill. I want to check and see if there’s anything from Tess; and there’s also a long-overdue email I need to send my mother.

Today the fretful wind has dropped away completely—so Eliane’s dire predictions seem to have missed the mark again—although the still air is so cold it burns my lungs, and the little stream that runs in the ditch alongside the road is frozen into a ribbon of ice, as smooth and black as the surface of a New England lake in winter. It reminds me of the first skating expedition each year. First, Dad would take the auger out of the tool-shed and step out, tentatively, onto the frozen surface. Tess and I would watch from the shore, hopping from foot to foot with a mixture of excitement and nerves (
What if it’s not thick enough? What if it cracks and he disappears under the ice?
). Once it was pronounced safe, he’d look up and nod. ‘Okay, girls, skates on!’

With freezing fingers, having impatiently peeled off our mittens, we’d do up our boots, pulling the laces tight so that the skates became a seamless continuation of our legs, as if we’d replaced our broad, earthbound feet with those flashing, knife-edged blades. We’d totter out onto the ice, clinging to each other for balance at first and shrieking as we lurched and skidded for the first few steps. Until, all of a sudden, the balance would return, the newfound sense of freedom sending our spirits soaring into the blue sky above us as we struck out, spreading our wings, gliding effortlessly over the dark depths that, only a few months ago, had been our summer playground as we splashed and swam.