Wishful Thinking (3 page)

They put on their party hats and read out their Christmas cracker jokes to each other, groaning at all of them, as you do. Ben, of course, seemed to find them all genuinely funny. His laughter set everyone else off. If you could bottle up the gutsy laughter of a happy six year old and put it in a Christmas cracker, you’d soon have the whole world laughing.

Over dinner, he managed to find out a little bit about Jess. She worked in publishing, though not, she took pains to assure them all, on any grand or significant scale, just an editorial assistant. It was a well-established but small publishing house that was seriously beginning to feel the pinch from the internet and the rapid advance of electronic media. Her boss was a woman driven by ambition and the determination to succeed – and drove Jess pretty hard too, from the sound of it.

Jess said she’d been thinking of retraining to be a primary school teacher, and his mother raised her eyebrows in approval. In her world, teachers were up on the same high pedestals as doctors and nurses. They led worthwhile lives; not like his.

As for Ben’s father, it appeared he was no longer on the scene. Jess seemed uncomfortable talking about him in front of the boy and after his mother’s gentle probing, the subject was quickly dropped. It baffled him how a man could give up family – a partner as sweet and pretty as Jess and such a great little boy as Ben. That laugh of his alone would be worth crossing the world just to hear.

After dinner they looked outside at the snow-covered landscape and Ben began pleading to go out and play. He could tell Jess wasn’t too keen at first.

“I’m happy to take him – we won’t go beyond the forecourt area,” he told her. But then she relented and agreed to come too. Who could blame her? She didn’t know him from Adam and you can’t be too protective of your children these days. He was surprised at how pleased he was that she changed her mind and had to give himself a bit of a shake when she and Ben went up to their room for their outdoor clothes. A quick fling with some stranded woman with a young child was definitely
not
on his agenda, no matter how pretty she might be.

Ben shrieked with delight as he ran around trampling on the crisp, virgin snow, creating snow-art with his little footprints. He gathered up a handful and hurled it at Chris.

“Hey, buster! Let’s establish a few ground-rules, shall we?” Chris laughed.

“No!” Ben squealed. “This is war, now. Mummy and me against you.”

“Two against one? And you think that’s fair? You’re a battle-hardened warrior – I think it should be your mummy and me against you.” He ducked as another soft white ball headed towards his face. It caught him on the shoulder, disintegrating against his coat.

They romped in the snow for half an hour or so until the pristine forecourt had been well and truly desecrated and then regrouped to catch their breaths. He thought Jess looked absolutely enchanting with her flushed cheeks and shining eyes. The tip of her nose was turning pink and he had an almost uncontrollable urge to reach down and kiss it and warm it with his lips. He began to feel another urge too, which grew stronger each time she came near to him and he caught that tantalising whiff of her sensual fragrance. That needed an equal effort to keep it under control.

“Dave said there’s a garage somewhere near when I might replace my spare tyre in the morning. Do you know where it is?” She asked, the practicality of her question breaking into his romantic reverie.

“Sure. It’s just down the lane. We can take a walk there now and I’ll show you,” he suggested.

They set out down the quiet road, each holding Ben’s hand and allowing him to slide and skate along between them. A nice team effort.

“What do you, do, Chris?” Jess asked as they walked. She sounded shy, as if unsure whether she should ask. “I couldn’t help noticing your amazing tan, which I presume is real.”

He laughed and nodded. “Most of it is real. I’m just back from L.A. actually and before that Morocco.”

“Working?”

“Sort of. Just putting some final touches to a job I was doing. The garage you want is down this next road. You can’t see it from the top of the lane, but you’ll see it if you turn left down here.”

He hoped he hadn’t sounded too stand-offish. The fact that she didn’t seem to know who he was, added to her charm. He wanted to enjoy the novelty of that situation for a while longer - to spend an evening as an ordinary person, doing ordinary things. He was aware that other people might fantasise about his life and most of the time he knew he wouldn’t swap it for the world; but sometimes he wearied of it and just wanted to drop the public persona and see what it would be like if he’d taken that other road in life.

****

Once they’d established the route to the garage, they turned and retraced their steps towards the hotel. On the corner a small group of children were singing carols outside one of the houses and they stopped to listen to their sweet but not terribly harmonious voices singing “Away in a manger”. Neither Jess nor Chris had any cash on them, but Ben had two pounds in his pocket, given to him by his child-minder’s neighbour for Christmas.

“If I can borrow that from you, I promise to pay you back with interest,” Chris said.

Ben looked puzzled, clearly not understanding but Jess nodded to him and he handed the small coins over to Chris who gave them to the carol singers, wishing them a Merry Christmas.

“I don’t think so,” Jess said. “But thanks anyway.” She wondered if Chris felt embarrassed at being mistaken for Ben’s father. It was a natural enough mistake for the children to make, but he seemed taken aback, which aroused her curiosity about him even further.

He was extremely friendly and pleasant, yet at the same time very secretive. He clearly didn’t want to talk about himself and his work, which was a shame. It showed he had something to hide and that was off-putting.
He obviously doesn’t trust me, but then why should he?
But he was also irresistibly attractive and she felt herself powerfully drawn to him. On top of that, she loved the way he behaved with Ben, sharing his interests, talking to him, not down at him, and playing in the snow as if he really enjoyed himself. And Ben appeared completely at ease with him, which was a pleasure for her to watch. How could that
not
endear him to her?

She’d caught him observing her over dinner – indeed every time she looked up, he seemed to be watching her and that knowledge gave her a tingling little thrill. Being admired by such an attractive man was the stuff of dreams. It was like a golden reward after their horrible experience earlier that evening. Just when she’d thought the day could not get any worse, she had stepped into a wonderful dream. Perhaps that’s what it was. Perhaps they had died on the motorway after all, or at least been severely injured and this was all a dream from which she would awaken and find herself in hospital, battered and broken.

She ran her fingers along a low wall, scooped up a small wad of soft, clean snow and brought it to her lips. It was cold and tasteless, just as clean snow should be and it set the sensitive nerve in her front tooth on edge.
This wasn’t a dream; it had to be real.
She smiled and shook her head at her silliness.

“A monkey who wolfs down snow, of course. They eat it in secret and then feel very pleased with themselves and jump around going Woo-woo-woo!” Chris hopped around like an ape, winking at the boy.

Jess laughed. “I was just…testing something. It’s rude to spy on snow-eaters, you know. They are easily embarrassed.”

“What do you think, Ben?” Chris challenged. “Shall we make her eat a whole snowball and watch her get embarrassed?”

Jess scooped up a handful of snow from the wall and threw it towards Chris. It crumbled into powder before it reached his face but a few flakes fell on his dark hair and shone like glittering diamonds under the street lamp.

“If your aim wasn’t so pathetic, I’d declare war on you,” he said with mock-derision.

As Ben cheered her on, Jess threw another soft snowball at him which shattered in a powdery flurry against his chest. She dodged behind a lamppost as he retaliated.

“If your aim wasn’t so pathetic, I’d be worried,” she teased.

Another snowball from Ben landed on his shoulder.

“That does it! Come here, snow-eater.” He lunged at her and caught her arm. He pulled her towards him with his left arm, while with his right he scooped up a handful of snow from the nearby wall. He brought this up close to her face as she squealed in protest. “Eat snow!” He ordered, laughing, and then rubbed her face and nose with the soft powder, as Ben continued to attack him from behind with more snowballs.

As Jess struggled to free herself from his grasp, her feet slipped on the compacted snow and she lost her footing momentarily. Chris caught her other arm and saved her, pulling her upright and towards him. For a moment their faces were so close that the vapour from their mouths mingled indistinguishably and Jess felt its delicious warmth against her lips. Their eyes locked and for a fleeting, magical moment, Jess thought he might kiss her. She wanted him to kiss her. In a movie, she thought, he would kiss her and her skin tingled in anticipation. She could tell from his expression that he was also considering it. But then Ben hurled another snowball at the pair of them and the moment passed.

They walked back to the hotel together, Ben once again in the middle of them. At the rear entrance to the hotel, they stomped the snow from their boots and brushed down each other’s clothing.

“My goodness – look at your rosy cheeks!” Mrs Goodchild greeted them with a beaming smile. “Is Ben allowed a nice cup of hot chocolate before his bedtime?”

Jess considered for a moment. Since her father’s re-marriage, he had acquired a substantial extended family so he would certainly not be alone. However, Jess was his only daughter and whether Ellen, his new wife liked it or not, Ben was his actual grandson, not an acquired one. She knew Ellen wouldn’t mind if they failed to appear, but thought her father might be upset.

If she waited out the weather, it might not be worth making the journey. She only had a few days’ grace from work, having already had to take half a day unpaid today. The pay wasn’t exactly great as it was and she needed every penny she could earn. Just paying for this hotel and the new tyre was going to put her in debt well into the New Year. But having looked death in the face once, she was far from inclined to take further risks, especially with Ben’s life.

“But we can’t stay here,” she said at last. “It wouldn’t be fair on your parents, and on you. From what I can understand, they rarely manage to have you to themselves.”

He smiled and looked into her eyes with his expressive darker ones. She wished he wouldn’t do that as it unnerved her, sending strange sensations down to the pit of her stomach. She felt herself melting in their beautiful depths, her resolve disintegrating. The prospect of staying longer and getting to know him better was very tempting indeed.

“Don’t worry about them,” he assured her. “They wouldn’t want you to take risks any more than I do.”

Jess sighed and bit her lip uncertainly. “Well, let’s wait and see what the weather is like in the morning.”

3

As she helped Ben get ready for bed, she thought about all that had happened that day, from Melissa’s sourness that morning when she reminded her that she was leaving early to the mad dash to collect Ben from his child-minder’s house, to packing up the car and setting off on their abortive journey. She thought again about the accident and their narrow escape. How had it happened, and why?

Jess considered herself a practical woman and did not believe in miracles and guardian angels, but as she re-lived the bizarre experience, miraculous was the only word that came to mind. She recalled that glance in her rear view mirror that showed her an oasis of calm, the yawning, empty stretch of the motorway behind her - which should have been filled with vehicles ploughing into hers at high speed - and could make no sense of it. How could that have happened? Could any logical explanation be possible?