Christmas Every Day Page 29

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’ I let that thought wash over me, like a warm sea.

  ‘Precisely.’

  We were the last to arrive. Or so we thought. While we were examining the course map with Sarah, Kiko, Ashley and Ellen in the car park, hoping to find a good spot to cheer Lucille on, a filthy, dented black Jeep pulled up beside Frances’ truck.

  The Jamie who clambered out looked, if possible, worse than his car. He looked as if he’d already done the Tough Muck. Twice. He had a ripped T-shirt, combat trousers coated with crusting black slime, a bloody bandage over one ear and so many bruises and scrapes we couldn’t tell where the tattoos ended and the dirt began.

  ‘Been on holiday, Jamie?’ Sarah asked, but the joke couldn’t hide her concern.

  ‘Something like that.’ He nodded, throwing her a look so intense I’m surprised she didn’t burst into flames. ‘I hoped to be back in time to clean up, but, well, these bad guys have no consideration for my schedule. Is that a changing room?’

  He grabbed a bag from the boot of his car, returning seconds later clean, the bandage replaced with a neat plaster, and wearing running shorts and a fresh T-shirt.

  Jamie looked exactly as anyone would have predicted underneath his shirts and jeans. I nudged Sarah, who glanced at me, a smile tweaking at the corner of her mouth to match mine. ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Right, Frances. Shall we get going?’ Jamie asked.

  ‘We’re going here.’ Kiko searched the map again. ‘The Assassinator.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see you there, then, won’t we?’ Frances crowed, taking off her long coat to reveal a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a fleece. ‘We’ll give you a wave.’

  ‘What?’ Ellen frowned as Frances handed her the coat. ‘Aren’t you waiting with us?’

  ‘Sitting around watching other people have the time of their life? I don’t think so!’ she exclaimed, tugging on her hat. ‘Come on, if we hurry we can get a good spot near the front of the pack.’

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ Kiko shrieked.

  I had a glorious feeling we already knew the answer to that.

  ‘We’re conquering the Tough Muck,’ Jamie said. ‘Hopefully raising some money while we’re at it.’

  As they reached the mass of runners, Jamie bent down and sort of flipped and lifted Frances onto his back. She let go of his shoulders long enough to send us a queenly wave over the other competitors’ heads.

  ‘That woman,’ Ellen huffed, wiping her eyes. ‘Incorrigible.’

  ‘I hope I’m brave enough to be where she is at her age,’ Kiko said.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind being there at any age,’ Sarah breathed, before turning a shocking shade of red and clasping one hand to her mouth. ‘I meant, in the race. Not there there. Being bold and not caring what anybody thinks. I did! Honestly! Oh, shut up.’

  We laughed all the way to the Assassinator viewing point.

  An hour, a flask of tea and a giant flapjack later, we watched the first competitors plop out of a huge pipe and land in a pit of mud. Squelching across to the other side, they then scaled a ten-foot wall using a rope, before carrying on to the next obstacle.

  Jamie was one of the first out of the pipe, immediately followed by Frances, who scrabbled onto his back again. He waded to the rope, and pulled himself up and over the wall. With a grown woman on his back.

  ‘Is he ninth at the moment?’ Sarah asked, evidently finding it difficult to speak with her mouth hanging so far open.

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded.

  ‘If he ran by himself, he’d be first.’ Ashley absent-mindedly took another bite of her coconut cookie.

  Sarah wrinkled her forehead. ‘What kind of man sacrifices the glory of first place to make a crazy woman’s dream happen? After rushing here already half beaten-up and looking like he’s not slept in days.’

  ‘A man unbothered by his ego,’ I answered.

  ‘A real man,’ Ellen said, looking hard at Sarah. ‘With no trace of dud in him.’

  ‘Imagine a man like that.’ I couldn’t help smirking. ‘Good-looking, with a successful business, who also made time for books, cooking, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Likes kids…’ Kiko added in a dreamy voice.

  ‘All right, I get it,’ Sarah said, loudly. ‘A man like that would be perfect. Okay? But not if he didn’t like me. Jamie knows I’m looking for a relationship. He clearly isn’t feeling it.’

  ‘Lucille!’ Kiko shouted, and we raced to the front of the fence, screaming and hollering as she sploshed through the mud.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Ellen yelled.

  Lucille looked up, gasping. ‘I think I might just lie down and sleep in this lovely mud for a bit.’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ we hollered back. ‘Think of Chris, Toronto and Summer waiting for you at the finish line. Think of the struggle of women everywhere, for thousands of years, fighting against men saying, “You can’t do it, just lie down and have a rest, little lady.” You didn’t lie down and sleep in the middle of your forty-seven-hour labour, did you?’

  ‘I lied,’ Lucille cried. ‘It was only thirty hours. The first time I went to hospital it was false contractions.’

  ‘Well, you bloody well get up that wall anyway!’ Sarah screamed. ‘You show ’em, Lucille, all the mums at school who think you’re stroppy and snobby and take the mick out of you for going to that phoney college!’

  ‘What?’ Lucille froze mid-stride. The man behind bumped into her, sending her headlong into the mud. What emerged a few seconds later was a beast. Teeth bared, arms pumping, Lucille thrashed her way to the wall, grabbed that rope and launched herself over.

  ‘Well, we know what motivates Lucille, then,’ Kiko said.

  ‘We’d better get to the finish line.’ Ellen headed off with Kiko and Ashley.

  ‘Ahem,’ I coughed in Sarah’s ear. She jumped so hard she nearly tumbled over the fence into the mud pit. ‘Thinking about anything, or should I say one, in particular?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  From our vantage point near the finish line, we could see the last obstacle, ‘Log It or Lose It’. A spinning log, stretching across a mud pit. The only way out of the pit was swimming through a pitch-black tunnel of freezing cold water. Several runners didn’t even bother with the log, plunging straight into the mud and through the tunnel. Most who tried fell at least once, usually more. But we had faith in Jamie. At least, the figure encrusted in mud from head to toe with a woman on his back, powering over the top of the hill and towards the final straight, who we hoped was Jamie.

  As they approached Log It or Lose It, Frances slithered off his back, the only competitor still mud-free from the shoulders up; Jamie must have done something spectacular to get her this far with her head above water.

  They appeared to be having a brief argument, Frances folding her arms and Jamie eventually shaking his head before turning his back on her and sprinting over the log, carrying on until he crossed the line in sixteenth place. Not that anybody was there to congratulate him. The eyes of every spectator were locked on the old woman tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ears before hurling herself onto the log.

  She nearly made it, too, but halfway across she slipped and went in. The crowd went berserk, hollering and cheering and whistling as she staggered upright, thigh deep in the mud.

  Holding her hands above her head in a dripping thumbs-up, Frances ploughed on towards the tunnel. The cheers faded as she disappeared inside and every single person seemed to be holding their breath.

  ‘It’s ten metres,’ Ashley muttered. ‘Can she even swim any more? She’s going to drown. Or freeze. Or else her heart will give out. Shittlesticks, Frances. What the hell were you thinking?’

  ‘What the hell was Jamie thinking, more like?’ Sarah sobbed. ‘We all know Frances is bats, but Jamie should know better. How could he abandon her right at the end?’

  It felt like forever. The crowd began to fidget and mutter. Three more competitors came charging d
own the hill and across the logs.

  ‘How long until someone goes in to get her out?’ Kiko asked. ‘They must have rules. Did the race officials even see her go in?’

  I grabbed onto Sarah, our hands trembling together.

  Still we waited. How long had it been? Five minutes? Six? It felt like ten times that long.

  ‘Jamie,’ Ellen breathed as he jogged back towards the tunnel exit, crouching down to look inside. A tiny hand poked out of the rim of the tunnel and batted his away.

  The people around us began to buzz as another hand joined it, soon followed by an arm.

  ‘The tunnel’s deep,’ someone said. ‘You have to pull yourself up as well as out.’

  My heart was jammed somewhere in my windpipe. We clung to each other, praying for our friend.

  ‘Jamie’s there, it’s fine,’ Sarah repeated over and over. ‘He’ll not let anything happen to her.’

  Frances was dying. Her own cells were turning on her, wreaking destruction and chaos. She had appeared so frail in recent weeks, as though a fit of coughing could shatter her into pieces. But we had underestimated quite how a stubborn mind, unshakable spirit and three decades of hauling haybales, sledgehammering fence posts and dealing with unruly cows could overrule a disease, telling it, ‘No, you can’t, and don’t you dare.’

  Like Lazarus from the tomb, Frances groped and fumbled and would not quit until she lay in a brown muddy heap on solid ground.

  ‘He’s got to carry her now,’ Kiko said.

  Or not, apparently. Jamie bent down, one hand on Frances’ back, hopefully checking she was still breathing, then waited another endless three minutes until she hauled herself first onto all fours, and then upright.

  ‘Come on, Jamie,’ Ellen urged. ‘At least take the woman’s arm. Hold her hand.’

  But no. Jamie walked with Frances, didn’t take his eyes off her, but didn’t offer so much as a finger as she hobbled, shuffled, dragged and carried the proud body that had taken her through a lifetime of challenges and adventures over the finish line, Lucille careening past a few seconds later.

  I was too darn relieved to be crying. But I might have been the only one who wasn’t.

  We hurried over, wrapping Frances in a blanket along with so many hugs she grew irritated and ordered us to stop. ‘Well, I would say I told you so.’ She smirked. ‘But it isn’t very gracious.’

  ‘Frances, you nearly gave us a stroke,’ Ashley cried.

  ‘Well, you should have more faith, then.’

  ‘Is that it, now?’ Ellen asked. ‘Are you finally done with all these challenges?’

  Frances tried to pull up a corner of the blanket to wipe a streak of mud off her cheek, but her arm couldn’t quite manage it. Ellen gently patted her face clean with a tissue, taking hold of Frances’ hand when she’d finished.

  Frances closed her eyes. ‘Yes. Just one adventure left. The big one I’ve been waiting for. I’m ready.’

  40

  With Frances safely in bed, I hurried back through the woods to the Common, where the rest of the club were enjoying a post-Muck celebration.

  Sarah dragged me into the kitchen the second I arrived. ‘I don’t know what to do. I’m totally freaking out. I can’t even look at him. How did I never clock how hot he was before?’

  ‘Maybe it was the shorts?’

  ‘No! Not his looks! Him carrying Frances round that course was about the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.’ Her eyes grew round. ‘He’s lovely!’

  ‘There’s no need to look so horrified about it.’

  ‘But I feel really we-e-e-e-eird.’ She buried her head on my shoulder. ‘We’re friends now. What if I say something stupid and ruin it?’

  ‘I genuinely think that’s impossible.’

  ‘What if I go on a date with Jamie and then HeartBaker comes back with a brilliant explanation and I have to choose between them?’

  ‘Who would you choose?’

  She groaned. ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Well, you need to decide. Jamie deserves better than you dating him with one eye on your inbox.’

  ‘ARGH!’ She picked up a wooden spoon and threw it across the kitchen where it clattered into a tower of saucepans. Three seconds later Jamie burst in.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  Sarah gaped. They both turned red in sync, which looked so cute it was ridiculous.

  ‘Um, actually, Sarah, I wanted to talk to you.’ Jamie stuck his hands in his jean pockets. I would have sidled out but he was blocking the doorway.

  ‘Ungh?’ she mumbled.

  ‘It’s about HeartBaker.’ I’d seen Jamie pretty sheepish more than once over the past few months. Today he looked at risk of being roasted and gobbled down with mint sauce.

  ‘What?’ Sarah grabbed the counter behind her. ‘You didn’t hunt him down, did you? Is that why he stood me up? Have you done something to him? And all this time I thought he was a selfish, lying slime-ball.’

  ‘No!’ Jamie looked horrified. ‘I don’t know what you think it is I do, but I don’t hurt people. Well, unless strictly necessary to avoid other people being hurt… Anyway, no! And he’d tried to get in touch with you. He was mostly in areas with no signal. Underground. Out at sea. Places like that. When he left, there was no time to explain and he thought he’d be able to let you know later on, but things kicked off a lot quicker than planned, he was kind of… ambushed. And he’d have walked away, left someone else to deal with it, put you above his work but there was a kid. A boy. And he thought, if this was Edison, Sarah would want him to get her boy back. HeartBaker would do anything to get him back. And if he walked away from that, just to find a phone signal so he could call and cancel a date, or explain why he didn’t turn up, he wouldn’t be good enough for you anyway.’

  ‘Urrr, just to be clear, we are talking about you here, aren’t we?’ Sarah asked.

  Jamie took a breath so deep I thought his T-shirt would burst open.

  ‘You are HeartBaker.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Okay. I will have many, many questions about that later, and you’d better have some damn good answers. For now, get over here and kiss me.’

  If it had been possible to squeeze myself into one of the cupboards, believe me, I would have. Instead, trapped behind both Sarah and Jamie, who I was fairly sure were oblivious to my presence in the kitchen, I opted for wedging myself into the corner of the room. Yes, it would have been tactful to turn my head to the wall, but I’m ashamed to say I peeped, as Jamie took three strides over to Sarah, gently cradled her head in his hands and looked in her eyes for a full minute, before slowly, so slowly I nearly shouted, ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, get on with it!’, he pressed his lips to hers.

  I spent the next few weeks working hard at forgiving myself for what was, in the grand scheme of things, hardly worth having a nervous breakdown over. Talking it through with my friends helped. Getting my mind off my own problems and onto other things helped too. Watching Sarah trying to play down how increasingly potty she was about Jamie was delightful. Kiko and Adam took the girls to Japan, and started a weekly date night. She was considering going back to work part-time, once she’d figured out what she wanted to do.

  ‘Nothing in an office.’ She shuddered as we gathered round a picnic bench on the Common on the last weekend of the holidays. She winced as Lily let out an ear-piercing scream in response to Edison and Jonno waving their muddy sticks too close to her face. ‘Or with children.’

  ‘There’s a healthcare assistant’s job going in the maternity ward,’ Ellen said, after instructing the boys to play somewhere else.

  Kiko took a sip of coffee. ‘I’d quite like to be a taxi-driver.’

  ‘A what?’ Sarah goggled. ‘Ferrying drunks home from town at all hours of the morning? Have you lost the plot?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind making sure people got home safely. I’m used to having hardly any sleep. But, I was thinking more of providing an alternative to Tezza,’ Kiko said. ‘Now the bus services
are being cut again there must be plenty of older people needing help with their shopping. Tourists who’d pay good money to access the local attractions accompanied by fascinating facts about the forest. Service with a smile, for a change.’

  ‘Tezza would be so furious,’ Ellen said.

  ‘Do it,’ Sarah added, grinning.

  ‘I’m looking into it. But Adam’s back to work in a few weeks, so I’ll need to find some child-care. If only I knew someone amazing at looking after kids. Someone local, flexible, gorgeous…’

  ‘Maddie would be over the moon to have more girls in the house,’ Ellen said, looking at me. ‘And you could get a lot more decorating done with the extra income.’

  ‘I could,’ I mused. ‘Except, I’m considering my own career change. I love looking after your kids. And that job has saved my life in more ways than one. I hate to leave you in the lurch, but I’ve been wondering about whether I could hack it as a teaching assistant.’

  ‘Yes!’ Sarah said, banging her mug down on the table. ‘Yes, you could. I’d pay you myself to assist teaching Edison.’

  Ellen beamed. ‘Talk to Will about it. He’d love to help.’

  A fortnight into the new term, after stuffing three filthy PE kits in the washing machine, texting Dawson to say that, yes, he could stay at Lily’s house for tea, and agreeing that, yes, the triplets could build a teddy cannon as long as no teddies were hurt in the process, I answered a sharp rap at the door.

  ‘Grandpa!’ the boys whispered, before promptly disappearing upstairs.

  Great. I’d heard nothing, from either Jamie or Brenda, about the possible culprit behind the intimidation tactics at the house, and with no further incidents I’d finally managed to stop jumping at every creak or bang. But I hadn’t been able to shake my suspicions about Fisher.

  ‘Ellen won’t be back for an hour,’ I said.

  ‘That’s not a problem,’ he replied, slithering past me into the hallway and dumping his briefcase at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I can wait.’