Christmas Magic

Snowy began to bark, Genevieve began to shriek. She rushed back towards the house to find something to put the flames out, and fell over Dolores’ ornamental wheelbarrow, planted with January’s snowdrops and crocuses. She lay on the grass, her lower back, always prone to stiffness, locked into a spasm of pain, and screamed.

‘I’ve got a gun, I’ll shoot you!’ roared Dolores from her window, brandishing a broom.

‘It’s me,’ yelled Genevieve in agony.

A light was turned on.

‘What are you doing in the wheelbarrow, for the love of God?’ Dolores said. There was a pause. ‘And why are you naked?’

Ben rushed out into his back garden but it was clear that the noise was coming from next door. Dogs were barking and someone was screaming. Without pausing to dial the police, he grabbed a golf club and hopped over the wall connecting the two gardens.

There, he discovered a naked Genevieve sobbing with pain and shivering with cold by a wheelbarrow.

‘She’s never done anything like this before,’ gasped the other elderly lady, emerging from the back door with a blanket and a broomstick.

‘Of course not,’ said Ben. He worked in advertising. He’d seen it all.

He stomped out the fire and rescued a piece of paper that was blowing in the wind. It had some writing on it. Something about hopes and dreams. He put it in his pocket.

He averted his eyes till the naked lady was suitably covered and then tried to calm her. She was consumed with pain and embarrassment, that was clear. The other lady kept saying, ‘What were you doing, Genevieve?’ in bewilderment.

It took a few minutes to extract Genevieve from the plants and she was surprisingly light and sweet-smelling.

‘That’s lovely perfume, Genevieve,’ he said, as if it was daytime and they were meeting out the front of their respective houses.

‘Grapefruit oil,’ she said, and he sensed her relax.

‘But, Genevieve, why? With no clothes on?’ Dolores was saying.

‘I wanted to be out at night,’ began Genevieve shakily.

‘Of course,’ agreed Ben, with no hint that midnight excursions into gardens in the middle of winter might be considered strange by most people. ‘Wonderful for putting you in touch with nature and, er …’ He looked at Genevieve for a hint on which way to go in order to soothe her worried sister.

‘God,’ she said swiftly. ‘God loves us to appreciate our world.’

‘And His great universe,’ added Ben, who only stepped into churches for weddings and funerals. ‘You had a light to see by and your dressing gown caught fire, perhaps?’

‘I had to take it off then,’ said Genevieve, grabbing this explanation.

‘Very wise.’

Ben helped her on to the couch in the kitchen, and Dolores went off to get painkilling tablets and more blankets.

He took the piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to Genevieve.

‘Thank you,’ she said, looking at it sadly. ‘Nobody’s ever come to my rescue before. Dolores would be upset if she knew what I had been doing. Going skyclad into the night. I got this magic book by mistake and it made me want to try something different, you see. I wanted to change my life before it’s too late.’

At that moment, Ben felt a kinship with this old woman.

‘I can understand that,’ he said. He thought of Lori and all the bottles, of how she’d lied, and of how he wanted it all to be different.

If only it could be different.

‘Are you all right?’ It was Genevieve’s turn to ask him. There was something about those wise eyes that made him think she’d understand.

Dolores bustled around making tea. Genevieve told her to go to bed. She’d manage.

Ben said if they wanted, he’d stay to carry Genevieve up to bed when she felt ready.

‘She’ll be safe with me,’ he told Dolores gravely. ‘Plus, the dogs are here too.’

Genevieve’s painkillers took a while to work, but when they did, the spasms were less painful and she was able to get off the couch.

‘Should you do that?’ asked Ben.

‘The doctor says you have to move around, not stay in one place.’

She made more tea, served with home-made mince pies this time, and then directed Ben to the high-up cupboard where Magic for Beginners rested.

They sat at the kitchen table and flicked through the book and talked about their lives.

Ben Cohen, who treated his grandmother with respect but never told her what was in his heart exactly, told Genevieve about falling in love with Lori, about their infertility treatments and about finding all the bottles.

Genevieve, who had never confided to a single person in her life apart from Dolores, whom she tried to protect, told him about the look of pity in Sybil’s face when Genevieve had talked about Mrs Malone.

‘Sybil knows and she pities us,’ Genevieve said. ‘She knows the two of us are prisoners here, even if Mother is dead. She doesn’t think we’ll ever go to Italy with her.

‘The book and Sybil, it’s made me see it all differently now: the past, that is. I never married or went off around the world. I should have.’

Ben looked at her face, pale now with pain, but still warm and lively for all the signs of age. He could tell she had probably been a beauty when she was younger, with those high cheekbones and the fine arched brows. He saw suddenly that she was still beautiful. He’d never seen it before when they’d made small talk in the lane. But then, he’d never seen the truth about his beloved Lori either.

‘It’s not too late,’ he said suddenly. And he wasn’t just talking about a trip to Italy.

‘Do you think?’ said Genevieve.

‘It’s not too late for either of us,’ Ben said. ‘You should tell Sybil you’ll go, both of you. I could mind the dogs for you.’

Genevieve’s eyes filled with tears, but they weren’t sad tears. They were tears with hope in them, hope for a new life because it was never too late.

‘Thank you, Ben,’ she said.

He helped her up the stairs to bed and placed a kiss on her warm papery cheek.

‘Maybe you’d come in over Christmas for a –’ Genevieve paused. ‘Some tea and more mince pies?’

‘I’d like that,’ said Ben. He meant it.

He went home and got into his cold bed. He tried Lori’s phone again, and this time she answered.