It’s a Wonderful Life: The Christmas bestseller is back with an unforgettable holiday romance

Great, now I feel really old, but then, my first picture book did come out seventeen years ago.

‘Thanks,’ I say, attempting a smile. It’s the first vaguely positive thing she’s said to me.

‘Come on in.’ She ushers me into a bright, airy room. ‘I’ve asked our new art director to join us, I hope that’s all right.’

‘I didn’t know you had a new art director,’ I say.

‘Oh yes, Andrea left just after Christmas, didn’t anyone tell you?’

‘No,’ I say, my heart sinking. Damn. The previous incumbent, Andrea, was with the company for five years. She, Karen and I had made such a good team. Now I’ll have another new face to contend with and win over. I’m not sure I’m really up to the challenge at the moment; I’m beginning to feel hemmed in and slightly panicky.

The door flings open and a good-looking man in his late thirties strides through it. I look into his eyes and I’m stunned – it can’t be. My legs nearly buckle from the shock.

‘Beth, can I introduce you to Jack—’

‘Stevens,’ I stammer in confusion, and my face flares red. ‘Yes, we – know – knew each other …’ My voice stutters and drops away.

The years melt away and I am eighteen again, standing in the college bar, seeing Jack Stevens for the very first time. He is beautiful. Every head in the room turns as he walks through the door. I long for him to look at me, but of course he doesn’t. Not that first time anyway …

How can Jack Stevens be here? I haven’t seen him in over twenty years. And now he’s standing right in front of me, every bit as gorgeous as the last time I saw him. Oh, God.

‘Lizzie Holroyd!’ Jack throws his arms around me with delight. ‘I’m such an idiot, I didn’t make the connection when I saw your name.’

I return his embrace in stunned silence. Jack Stevens is the new art director? Jack Stevens who I loved so unrewardingly through art school, Jack Stevens who I haven’t seen for years, Jack Stevens who is standing here in front of me with his still mesmerising blue eyes, which annoyingly are still working their old magic. I feel faint and dizzy, as if I’ve just walked out of the dark into the sunlight.

Jack Stevens, a blast from my past. The one who got away. And he’s working on my new book.

Lou

‘Mum, when are you going to tell Dad to leave?’ I say as we mooch our way round Sainsbury’s on a grey wintry day. We’ve managed a step forward this week, I’ve actually got her out of the house a few times, but it’s a huge effort. She always has an excuse not to go – mainly blaming the weather. But today the sun shone for about five minutes, which was enough of a reason for me to drag her out. It’s gone back behind the clouds now, of course.

‘But where will he go?’ she says.

‘Mum,’ I say as gently as I can, ‘he can go to Lilian’s or one of his mates, or even a hotel for all I care. It doesn’t matter. But he has to go. You can’t carry on like this.’

And to be honest, neither can I. Living with the two of them is horrendous. The atmosphere in the house is either glacial, with the pair of them passing icy requests to the other through me, or explosive when they have a massive row. Or to be more accurate, Mum occasionally remembers she’s angry with Dad and stirs herself to shout at him, and he looks crestfallen and says nothing. It drives me mad that he won’t even try to justify his behaviour. He just looks mournful and says things like, ‘I never meant for this to happen.’

‘You just fell into Lilian’s arms by magic?’ I snarled at him last time he said it, and he looked even more sorry for himself, and said, ‘I don’t expect you to understand.’

Which is true, I don’t. I cannot comprehend what he is playing at, especially at his age.

‘How will he manage?’ Mum says now. ‘You know what he’s like, he can’t even boil an egg.’

And whose fault is that? I think. Mum has never ever let Dad do anything in the domestic sphere. It’s her fault as much as his that he’s so incapable.

‘I know, he’s utterly hopeless,’ I say, ‘but Mum, you can’t worry about that. For your sanity you have to let him go. He cheated on you. He’s betrayed all of us.’

As I say this, I realise just how angry I am with Dad for what he’s done. It’s like he’s blown apart my whole world view; I have always clung on to the certainty of their relationship amidst the multiple wreckages of my own. How can I survive if theirs has been a lie this whole time?

I know their marriage wasn’t perfect, but whose is? Mum and Dad had always lived separate but parallel lives, but they’d always seemed happy enough, even though Mum drove Beth and I mad with the way she’d always run round after Dad. She might be a child of the sixties, but feminism completely passed her by. Which also explains her appalling favouritism of Ged, who can do no wrong in her eyes. Typically, we have barely heard hide nor hair from Golden Boy since Christmas, even though he and Rachel have moved into a flat in south London, which isn’t a million miles away. Mum lets him off, because, ‘He must be so busy, what with the baby coming and everything,’ but it drives me up the wall. It wouldn’t hurt him to ring Mum up occasionally, just to find out how she is.

‘You don’t understand,’ says Mum. ‘You can’t just throw forty-two years of marriage away like that. If you’d managed to keep a relationship together for longer than a year, you’d know that.’

Dammit. She can be cruel sometimes.

‘Thanks for reminding me of my failings in that department,’ I say.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean it like that,’ says Mum, looking a little shamefaced. ‘Sorry, love, I’m a bit tetchy these days.’

‘I didn’t think you did,’ I say, sighing. ‘But still, you and Dad: it’s not working, is it?’

The tension between them at the moment is unbearable. They either don’t speak or are at each other’s throats. I sit for long evenings with them both in silence, or I have to make excuses to leave the house when they start bitching at each other about who hasn’t put the bins out. Honestly, I’ve never taken so many long walks in my life. I really, really wish I didn’t have to be stuck in the middle of it all, particularly as I’m struggling to get over Jo. Every day I resist the urge to ring her or text her, and every day my own misery about being out of work is compounded by the terrible atmosphere at home. I’d rather be anywhere but here. But at the moment I have no choice. I’m thirty-eight, single, broke and living with my mum and dad. It doesn’t get more pathetic than that.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Mum says, pausing to stare at the vegetable aisle as if the carrots will give her the answer she’s looking for. ‘I’m just frightened that if he goes, he’ll never come back, and then what would I do?’

She looks so worried and vulnerable when she says this that I forget my earlier irritation. She’s so capable and organised most of the time, it’s hard to remember that she’s sixty-nine. I’m finding it tough enough picking myself up after Jo. How difficult must it be for her to start again after all this time? She’s been married for more of her life than she hasn’t.

‘Then you pull yourself together and make a life without him,’ I say. ‘Believe me, it’s the only thing you can do.’

Good advice, Lou, I think as we make our way to the checkout. Shame that right now you’re not managing to do the same.

Daniel

‘Sit up straight for Mr King.’

Daniel sighed as he regarded the student before him. Jason Leigh was one of his brightest pupils, who had done spectacularly well at GSCE, but was failing badly at A Level, so his mum had demanded an interview with the Head to see what could be done about it.

Not a lot without Jason deciding it was time to pull his finger out, was Daniel’s honest response, but he suspected that was not what Mrs Leigh wanted to hear. As far as he could see, she was part of the problem – the worst kind of helicopter parent, constantly on Jason’s case.

Daniel felt some sneaking kind of sympathy for Jason, who clearly had had enough of the education system and had done appallingly in his mocks. Miraculously, despite having taken very little interest in the application process, he actually had two offers from universities. Daniel suspected that although Jason was more than capable of getting the required grades, he wouldn’t actually bother to try.

‘So how did you feel the mocks went, Jason?’ he asked, trying to ignore Mrs Leigh, who clearly had the bit between her teeth.

There was a mumbled ‘Dunno,’ and Jason slumped into his chair even more, followed by a ‘Jason, don’t be rude!’ from his mother.

Daniel waved her concerns away. He didn’t think Jason was intending to be rude, he was just a seventeen-year-old who couldn’t see the point in any of this.

‘Come on, Jason,’ said Daniel, ‘this isn’t about me or your mum. This is your future we’re talking about. None of us can do your exams for you.’

Jason shrugged again. ‘I just don’t see the problem. It’s not as if speaking French and Spanish is going to get me a decent job.’

‘But Jason,’ said his mother, ‘you love Spanish and French.’

‘No, Mum,’ Jason said, looking tired, ‘you love that I’m good at Spanish and French.’

He slumped some more, so Daniel tried another tactic.

‘OK, Jason, so what would you rather be doing? You can always go back and take different subjects next year if you like.’