The Twelve Dates of Christmas (18 page)

‘He’s not even your actual boyfriend yet, Miss Desperado.’ She picked up another Post-it. ‘It’s not my dream job.’ Con. No – that was a cop out and needed more breaking down. She screwed up the Post-it.

‘Still won’t be dancing.’ Con.

‘Don’t know anything about writing/photography.’ Con.

‘People have faith in me, that I can do it.’ Pro. That was nice. She put this one at the top of the board.

‘New adventure.’ Pro.

‘Helps get out of rut.’ Pro.

‘Might always feel like a bit of a groupie.’ Con.

‘Lots of freedom.’ Pro.

‘Get to build my own schedule.’ Definite pro. She could work it around the new Beyoncé dance class she’d seen advertised at Sadler’s Wells. Priorities.

‘Will miss Edurné ladies A LOT.’ Big, huge con.

‘Edurné ladies just round corner for posh-lady
lunches.’ Hmm, pro.

‘If I take it, I’d have to hand in my notice and disappoint Laura.’ Urgh, con.

‘If I don’t, I’d have to turn it down and disappoint Nick.’ That was a good reason for taking the job, which meant an extra Post-it in the ‘pro’ column.

She surveyed the board, and picked up another leaf. ‘Exciting,’ she whispered, and stuck it in the pro column.

‘Scary.’ She stuck that in cons. Then she pulled it back off and shuffled it over to the line separating the two. Scary was not necessarily bad. Rollercoasters were scary but fun, and you always felt brave and glad you did it afterwards. Unless it made you puke.

Food for thought. Time to move on to the ‘dream job’ section.

‘DANCING.’ She wrote that in block capitals and put it directly under the heading.

‘But not to an über-skilled professional level.’ She stuck that under the ‘DANCING’ Post-it. She had to face facts that it was a little too late for that.

‘Fun.’ ‘Be my own boss.’ ‘Something
involved
– not on the sidelines.’ Stick, stick, stick.

‘Show other people how dancing can make them feel.’ She thought back to how she’d felt on the ice rink, the music pumping through her body and the ecstatic happiness of spinning, twirling, letting it completely overtake you, and feeling like you’re doing it
well
. It was an adrenaline rush, a sugar high she never felt anywhere else. She wanted that feeling to be part of her life.

Salivating at her DREAM JOB section, she thought of another con for the Royal Ballet offer. She didn’t choose that job, it had been chosen for her. She didn’t want to base her career on something someone else had decided would be a good fit.

‘Not my dream job.’ She underlined the ‘my’.

Lots of pros, lots of cons, lots of elements of a dream job to think about. Phew, that was probably enough of a step forward for today. She had bigger, more pressing and life-changing decisions to make now. No longer being the nineties – but seeing as it was Christmas – could she get away with glitter eyeshadow for her date tonight?

Nick had told Claudia she’d be picked up at six, but when she left her building she hadn’t expected to see a silver Mercedes with a driver waiting for her. He handed her a note.

‘
Claud, sorry I can’t be there in person – coming straight from work. I’ll be waiting for you when you arrive. The driver knows where to go, you sit back and relax. Don’t worry, he’s not a murderer (he’s my uncle).
’

‘
Bonjour
,’ said the driver in a thick Cockney
accent. ‘
Jem’apple
Dave.
Avay voo un
seat in the back.’ He gestured to the car.

‘
Merci, señor
,’ said Claudia, climbing in.

Claudia saw something very exciting as she glided onto the leather seat. ‘What’s all this?’

A hamper sat next to her, filled with her favourite festive snacks: Waitrose all-butter mince pies, a Chocolate Orange, some roast turkey Kettle Chips, a flask which she opened and sniffed – gingerbread latté!, a box of Quality Street. And the Christmas
Radio Times
with a candy cane-shaped pen attached.

This was so thoughtful; no one had done anything like this for her before. It was a small gesture, but how well Nick knew her, how much thought he’d put into this. Claudia had never felt so far from missing Seth.

‘Dave, have you seen all these things Nick’s left?’ she called to the front seat as he pulled out of the end of the road.

‘He’s a good lad, my nephew. Ooo, nearly forgot to give you this.’ He passed back a huge plastic bag and Claudia pulled out an enormous pair of reindeer slippers, big enough to fit a man. There was another note tucked inside.

‘
These are mine, you can’t bloody keep them, but thought you might want some comfy shoes for the journey so as not to cause your ankle any more pain. Sorry again about that!
’

Claudia slipped her poorly ankle out of her tight-feeling boot and slid her foot into the big plush reindeer. She ripped into the box of mince pies and settled back to circle some Christmas TV as Dave edged through the traffic of London.

Bliss. If Nick were a set of questions in a magazine’s ‘Is he Mr Right?’ quiz, he’d be slowly ticking all the boxes.

Claudia was utterly engrossed in an internal debate as to whether to watch
Back to the Future
or
Jools Holland’s Hootenanny
on New Year’s Eve when she felt the car roll to a stop.

‘Here we go,
madmanmoizelle
,’ said Dave, opening her door.

She popped her foot back into her boot and stepped out in front of St Paul’s Cathedral. ‘Oh, we’re here!’ The columns were lit from beneath, the iconic dome peeping out above them. A dense queue of people dressed in smart yet toasty clothing snaked from the entrance around the side of the building.

The dusting of snow and smell of warm, sugary chestnuts gave Claudia the sense of being in Dickensian London. She waved goodbye to Dave, and was buying a bag of nuts for Nick when she heard him call her name.

She turned and leaped into his arms. ‘You! How come you’re so nice to me?’

‘Hello, and you deserve it.’

This would be a good time for that kiss. But something was burning
against her chest. She detangled herself and pulled away, peeling the bag of hot chestnuts from the front of her coat. ‘These are for you.’

‘Thanks, Claud!’

‘It’s nothing compared to what you gave to me, but I know you love them.’ He gave her romance, he gave her adventure, he gave her happiness without her having to ask for it. All the things Seth never gave her.
Stop thinking about Seth
. She couldn’t help it; the comparison left her awestruck. There
was
no comparison.

Nick took her hand and led her toward the cathedral.

‘What are we here for?’ she asked.

‘A candlelit carol concert. Is that okay?’

‘That sounds amazing. I’ve never even been in St Paul’s; how bad is that?’

‘Really? Then I hope we get in tonight. I had no idea it would be this busy.’ They joined the end of the slowly moving queue.

‘Did you manage to stay out of trouble today, you big crim?’ Claudia teased.

‘I showed a few people who was boss. And I totally nicked a spirit level from work. But I’ll take it back in a couple of days. I’m just convinced my Christmas tree’s wonky and it’s driving me mad.’

‘On a scale of one to ten, how excited are you about Christmas Day?’

‘Ten times ten. But it’s not just about the actual day, the whole month gets me excited. Seeing this city transform, in looks and atmosphere, it feels like a mini-adventure every year. Do you know what I mean?’

‘I do, but until this year I guess I’ve always enjoyed it from the outside looking in. A bit like when you watch a Christmas movie. It feels nice and festive, but it’s not a unique experience just for you. This year it’s like I’m
in
a Christmas movie.’

‘I’m glad you feel like that.’

‘Do you know this is the eighth date I’ve been on this Christmas?’ Eight dates. That was, like, a 700 per cent increase on last year’s dating record as a whole. She wasn’t counting Mikael. Yes, it was technically a date but it was very short, not very sweet, and he was a knob.

‘First eight of many.’

‘Do you think we can keep this up?’

Nick took hold of the ends of her woolly scarf and smiled at her. ‘As God as my witness, through the power vested in me, as we stand here outside the massive Pauly-Wauly’s Cathedral, I vow to you that I will take you on as many dates as my humble wallet will allow.’

Claudia wrapped her scarf tails around
his hands. ‘And I pledge my allegiance not to be a grumpy old cow, not to refuse to change out of my pyjamas on Sundays, and not to get too outstandingly drunk, stampy and crazy with you again.’

‘Actually, I’m pretty fond of grumpy, pyjama’d, wasted Claudia. You need to do another one.’

‘How about if I promise to take you on lots of dates too?’

‘Cool.’

‘But since you made me take back my other vow, I now no longer promise not to be stampy and crazy. So you better give me that kiss tonight.’

He smiled at her. ‘Come and get it.’

The queue moved forward.
Come and get it
. Claudia’s cheeks flushed pink – she needed a cold flannel.

‘You come and get it,’ she said shyly.

‘It’s up here; it’s been waiting for you for years. Come and get it.’

She had no cool left, if she’d ever had any in the first place. She should just lie face down in the snow and let herself sizzle. It was the only way.

A severe-looking woman with tight curls and a ferocious bosom under her trench coat turned around. ‘If you don’t go and get it soon, my girl, I will.’

‘Hello, how many?’ asked a petite girl, stepping in between them. Claudia hadn’t even noticed they’d moved to the front of the queue.

‘Um, two please,’ she croaked. Nick was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

The girl handed them each a small white candle with a paper bobèche to catch the wax drips, and showed them inside.

Black and white tiles swept the vast floor of the cathedral, with wide, intricately carved arches rising on either side and delicate chandeliers hanging low from the ceiling. Claudia and Nick were ushered into the end of a tightly packed pew that seemed a million miles away from the altar.

‘We were lucky to get in,’ Nick whispered, achingly close to her face.
Stop it, you’re in church now
. ‘Look, they’re shutting the doors.’

‘Can’t people stand in that big gap at the back?’

‘No, I think that’s where all the choir and, um, important people hang out before they walk down the middle.’

‘Have you been to this before?’

‘No, but I YouTubed it.’

‘So this is new for both of us? That’s cool.’ Claudia looked out over the sea
of tiny flickering flames. ‘Do you think we should have asked Penny?’

‘On our date?’

‘Well, how do we differentiate what will be a date and what should be the kind of thing all three of us used to do together? Won’t she feel left out?’
I’m sorry, Penny
.

‘You do make a good point. We won’t leave her out of things, but I’m sure Penny knows that we need a bit of space to get things off the ground. Then, once you’re comfortable, I won’t be putting in nearly as much effort any more.’

‘Me neither. I’m not even going to bother with my fancy customised undies. You’re just going to get the ones that didn’t even merit a bedazzling.’

‘I hear those bedazzled undies are so gross they’d make Victoria spill every one of her Secrets,’ he whispered to her. ‘But Claud, they’re your
underwear
. You can’t talk about them to me when I can’t have my wicked way with you. Especially in church.’

Claudia couldn’t keep the beam from her face as the organ started up. Look at her, being all sexy and exciting. Nick thought she was sexy. Ha! Little did he know.

No, she
was
sexy; she’d changed this past week.

She slipped her free hand into his and they turned to watch the choir gather behind them. The lights were dimmed, and with the flickering candles and haunting melody of ‘O Holy Night’ rising to the rafters you could be a priest or an atheist but you couldn’t deny it was a beautiful sight.

Claudia was awestruck as the choir and their sea of perfect voices glided down the nave and dispersed at the stalls. It was magical. Totally like that scene in
Home Alone
where the little red-haired girl sings the same song and Kevin and Old Man Marley are watching. It was nice to be so cultured.

The carol ended and Nick squeezed Claudia’s hand. With one hand in Nick’s, and the other holding her little candle upright, Claudia unfolded the carol booklet they’d been given with difficulty, then held it out for them both to see. The cathedral erupted into a joyful sing-along of ‘The Holly and the Ivy’. Claudia lip-synced her way through while Nick boomed out the wrong notes and often the wrong words.

She started to giggle and soon she was shaking and red and had to stuff the end of her scarf in her mouth. Nick looked down at her with twinkling eyes.

‘Come on, mime-artist, give it a go,’ he whispered in her ear between carols.

‘I can’t …’

‘Of course you can, I dare you.’

Okay, she could do this. The organist started up again, the first bars of ‘Joy to the World’ pealing out across the congregation.
Come on, risk taker, this is no big deal
. Claudia was going to give it everything she had.

‘JOY—’ Oh
balls
. Crap, crap, crap. It was the wrong moment and she was
the only one who’d started singing. The ultimate humiliation.

She heard the sniggers around her, and was pretty sure there were many more she couldn’t hear further afield. Nick burst at the seams, his laughter so loud that even when the rest of the cathedral eventually started to sing it could barely drown him out.

Seeing her mortified face Nick calmed down and wrapped her in a one-armed hug, drawing her into his chest, still chuckling away. She resumed her lip-syncing for the rest of the carol.

Claudia couldn’t keep her eyes off Nick. She peeped at him constantly, often finding him peeping back at her. It was a bit of an eighties cliché, but he looked mighty fine by candlelight.