Meet Me Under the Mistletoe

‘Yes.’ He nodded slowly. ‘It was at Christmas time, too. I still don’t celebrate it.’

‘You don’t celebrate Christmas? Not at all?’

‘Nope. I hate it. Everything about it pisses me off. The lights, the trees, the decorations. The way people rush about all stressed-out, spending money they haven’t got. The wasted food. The drunk drivers on the roads. That’s how my dad died. Head-on collision with a drunk driver, asleep at the wheel.’

‘Oh no, that’s horrible! I’m so sorry.’ Covering my mouth with my hands, I looked at him, eyes wide with horror.

‘I expect you love Christmas, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

He nodded. ‘My mum and brother celebrate. It’s just me who’s the miserable bastard.’

‘Well, it’s understandable. How old’s your brother? Does he remember?’

‘Sort of. He was only nine when it happened. He’s married with two kids now.’

‘Will you see them on Christmas Day?’

He shook his head. ‘I’ll send presents.’

‘What about your mum?’

‘She’ll go to my brother’s.’

‘So, you’re alone for Christmas?’

He shrugged. ‘Just another day.’

I gave him a sad smile. ‘Has your brother taken on this family business then?’

‘No. My mum still runs it. Do you want a coffee or anything?’ Leaning over, he picked up my empty plate and put it with his own before taking it to the kitchen.

‘Oh, err, yes, please. Unless you want me to go?’

‘No, you can take me through your timeline.’

‘Oh great. I might have known I wouldn’t escape that easily.’

‘Of course not.’ He chuckled as he placed a coffee pod into the coffee machine on the side and waited while it filled the mug below. Crossing to the breakfast bar, I took the lid off the hat box I’d brought and took out the list.

‘Go and sit on the sofa.’ Anthony pointed towards the big, oyster-coloured squashy sofa in the living-room area.

‘I love this sofa,’ I said, sinking into its soft depths. It was made from a suede material that my dad said was completely impractical for a rental property. He had a point, but I’d managed to convince him by telling him he needed nice furniture to attract the right type of tenant. ‘I helped choose it.’

‘You did?’ Anthony sounded surprised. ‘The colour’s quite muted for you, isn’t it?’

I laughed. ‘I chose the paint for the walls, too.’

He looked at the pastel green in surprise. ‘Thank God they’re not pink!’

‘I was under strict instructions from my dad. Thank you,’ I said, accepting the coffee he passed to me. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m a bit fed-up of all the pink myself. Maybe I’ll redecorate at some point.’

Anthony sat down on the sofa next to me and pulled the coffee table nearer so we could put our drinks down. Placing my coffee on the nearest leather coaster, I smoothed out my list and offered it to Anthony.

‘It’s not very interesting. I doubt it will lead anywhere.’

Anthony’s eyes scanned the list. Pressing his lips together, he frowned. ‘Hmm.’

‘It’s funny really, looking at that list. It shows how little time we actually spent together.’

‘Hmm,’ Anthony repeated.

‘I must have been mad to agree to marry him.’

‘Yep.’ Anthony laughed.

I looked at him, surprised, and he shrugged. ‘Well, you know… it doesn’t look good on paper, does it?’

There wasn’t much I could say to that really. I’d pointed it out, after all, and it really didn’t look good at all. But then that list didn’t take into account the emotion of those meetings. The laughter and affection we’d shared and the sheer joy of seeing him and spending time with him. Maybe the rarity of our meetings had made them even more exciting. All that longing to see him just fed the passion. Of course, in the early days there had been phone calls and gifts to keep me interested between visits. It was when the phone calls stopped and his visits got rarer that the excitement and passion fizzled out, replaced instead by resentment and sadness.

I’d been a fool. But everybody was a fool in love, weren’t they?

He pushed his glasses up his nose as he held up two boarding passes from the trip to Paris. ‘So this plane ticket to Paris, it says you flew from Gatwick, but you came back to Liverpool?’

‘Yes, he had business in Paris so I flew back alone.’

‘But you went to London and flew to Paris with him?’

‘Yes. We stayed somewhere in London the night before. A flat in Fulham.’

Anthony’s eyes lit up. ‘Whose flat? His flat?’

‘He said it was his friend’s flat. There was hardly anything in it. It was really sparse and unlived-in. Nice and trendy but… unlived-in. We were only there overnight anyway. I can’t remember the address. Patrick met me at Euston train station.’

I sorted through the papers until I found the train ticket. Anthony picked it up and looked at it.

‘But you can’t give me an address? Not even the name of a road?’

‘No. Sorry.’

‘Can you remember any landmarks? Was it near a tube station?’ He got up from the sofa and went to get his laptop from the dining table.