A Christmas Miracle
Was their chance meeting purely a coincidence, or was it the festive season working its magic?
BY ADELE PARKS
Where do people meet other people nowadays?” wonders Jen aloud. “By people, I take it you mean men in their fifties?” I comment with a wry smile. “We’ve just met six lovely women at the wreath-making class.” I glance at my attempt with some embarrassment. I perhaps hit the complimentary mulled wine a little too heavily and was lost around the time that the instructor started to name the foliage. I wasn’t able to make a clear decision between tartan or hessian for the bow. I used both in the end and it’s over the top. “Anyway, why do you ask? You are happily married last time I checked.”
“For you, obviously,” replies Jen. “Your love life is as dry as the Gobi Desert.”
“But I’m not complaining,” I point out. Jen looks concerned and shakes her head, she thinks I ought to be concerned.
We have been friends for thirty-eight years. We met at uni – a couple of comprehensive girls that recognised in one another a sense of fear and excitement. We’ve been friends through endless highs and lows together: exams, jobs, marriages, five births (I have two boys and a girl, Jen has two daughters), house moves, redundancies, promotions and most recently, my divorce.
My marriage lasted until my youngest went to university three years ago, then my husband – ex-husband – called time out. It was a shock, I’m not pretending it wasn’t, but we managed the split in a reasonably amicable way. I wanted to remain dignified and I didn’t want the children to feel they needed to take sides. I did most of my crying with Jen. She was a saint, with an endless supply of tissues, wine and patience.
However, after some months of weeping and wailing I began to recognise that part of what Matthew said had been true. Maybe we didn’t have much in common other than the children. I had thought that was enough: history and the children. But there are times, for example when I’m at yoga or pottery night class – hobbies I’ve taken up since I’ve been single – or when I’m
www.myweekly.co.uk staying late at work and don’t have to guiltily call to apologise to Matthew for nor being at home to make supper – that I think it’s all OK. A twenty-seven year marriage, even one that ended in divorce, is after all an achievement.
I’m happy. Maybe not constantly punch-the-air happy, but I am content. I have a full life. I am a solicitor, I have friends, two dogs and a lovely home. However, Jen is worried about me. Perhaps because I haven’t put up the tree this year. It seems a lot of effort when none of the kids are going to be back for Christmas. Amelia is going to her fiancé’s this year, Josh is in France – he’s a ski instructor – and Freddy is visiting his dad as it’s his turn. Fair is fair. I’m not going to be alone as Jen has kindly invited me to hers. But dressing the tree, just for me? Well… over-eating and binge drinking is seen for what it was, ruinous to one’s health. I tell myself that, in reality, Christmas is often a day of family squabbling, punctuated with the giving and receiving of unwanted gifts, but the Dickensian image of a more worthy and meaningful Christmas chews its way into my consciousness and, furtively, I long for it.
That’s why I agreed to do the wreath making class, and I suppose why I allow Jen to dissect my love-life (or lack of) while we are sitting in a packed tube, where people can eavesdrop. I want to seem game not grey!
“Do you remember when we were in our twenties and we’d just turn up at various bars and nightclubs and wait for Cupid to aim straight?”
“Meeting someone felt like fate, magical.” I smile at the memory of youthful us, swathed in a cloud of smoke and sweaty from dancing with wild abandon. Not really an option now.
“We still have dinner parties,” says Jen but she doesn’t sound convinced. Most meals I am invited to nowadays are populated by happily married couples and their almost grown-up kids. They are cosy, chatty occasions, but spare men are never served up.
I’ve tried internet dating. Jen helped me set up profiles on three sites. When I say helped, I mean she twisted my arm, quite violently. But I found the process disheartening. Men in their seventies, with the girth of Santa Claus, claim to be marathon runners in their fifties. Others fail to mention wigs and wives until two dreary courses have been endured.
“So many fibs! I bet a few of them are on Santa’s naughty list,” I say with a grin.
“And if they are not lying about themselves they’re demanding about what they’re looking for.” Most of them are looking for younger, blonder, perter, but Jen is too loyal to be specific.
“The real problem is internet dating lacks chemistry, magic and mystery,” I point out. I long for the old days where eyes collided across a crowded floor. A few people have said to me that I’m a bit picky, but Jen never says this. She’s my
best friend, she loves me and has a gratifyingly high opinion of me, she believes I only deserve the best.
“Maybe this speed dating party will work,” says Jen with forced optimism. That’s where we are heading. Jen didn’t mention the singles party when she suggested a festive evening in London. She talked about the lights in Oxford Street and the wreath-making class. Only after I’d drank a glass of mulled wine did she mention the speed-dating. That’s why I had three more. Speed dating sounds horrific! Apparently, I have to pitch myself to potential suitors in under three minutes, then they respond with their pitch. If we find one another’s pitches mutually appealing, we are sent off to enjoy a cocktail together. Excruciating! Plus, apparently, I have to wear Christmas pudding head-boppers and a festive jumper, both things Jen just happens to have with her. Neither accessory will make me more appealing. I need a Christmas miracle. Atchoo! My sneeze erupts into the packed carriage. I feel the unsympathetic shudder of weary Christmas shoppers. “Bless you.”
Stunned by this level of human interaction on a tube, I turn to see who is blessing me. Astoundingly, the comment came from a good looking, fiftysomething man. I nod acknowledgement of his sympathy but wonder if I ought to explain commuter law to him. He must be from out of town or else he wouldn’t speak. Suited and booted, clean shaven, clean-cut, the Bless-You-Man is a stark contrast to me. I smell of alcohol and I think my boppers are skew whiff. I feel foolish. He’s most likely married to a very elegant woman, the sort that wears twinsets and pearls not festive jumpers and boppers. Still, I spend the rest of the journey sneaking surreptitious glances at this man and fantasising about meeting him somewhere other than a train when I’m looking ridiculous. Maybe at work when I’d be dressed in a tailored suit. I mentally pinch myself. What does it matter? He’s probably married or gay. Straight, single men, with their own teeth, are an endangered species.
Speed dating turns out to be everything I feared it would be. Trying to sell the “essence of myself” in three minutes is a trial I’m not equal to. Resulting in Jen being the only person prepared to take me for a cocktail, but that’s OK because she’s the only one I’d agree to go with.
We head for the nearest bar; it’s packed with festive revellers. I’m astonished when Jen nudges me and says, “Weird coincidence. Look over there. Isn’t that the guy from the train who blessed you?”
I start to feel my tummy tumble. Two sightings in one night, in a city of nine million inhabitants. A veritable miracle! “Don’t look now, he’s coming over.” We hastily turn towards the bar and laugh loudly to suggest we are the wittiest women in town. But the BlessYou-Man isn’t fooled; he walks straight past us and into the loos. I shrug and study the cocktail list.
“Excuse me, you’ve dropped this.” The Bless-You-Man is back, and holding out my boppers.
“Oh thanks, I hadn’t noticed them slide off my head.”
He smiles. It’s a good smile; it reaches right into his eyes. “Do I know you? Your face is familiar.”
What have I got to lose? “Erm, actually, I was on the same tube as you, earlier. I sneezed, you blessed me.”
He shakes his head. “No that’s not it. I was reading. I don’t even remember saying bless you, I say it automatically. But I do know your face.”
He chews his thumb nail and stares at me intently. It’s a long moment. I want to fill it with something fun and flirtatious but I’m suddenly incapable. I try to remember my three-minute pitch but that too escapes me – which might be a good thing.
“Funny that we were on the same tube,” he mumbles, “Even if I can’t, erm…”
“Remember me?”
He looks embarrassed. “Yeah, but what a coincidence.”
He says coincidence, I say Christmas miracle.
He rakes his hand through his hair and shyly adds, “Some might say fate. It’s a mystery but I do know you from somewhere.” Alongside the embarrassment there is an indefinable and undeniable tension between us that I almost remember. Chemistry.
He suddenly clicks his fingers, “I know! I read your profile online.”
“You never got in contact?” I’m outraged. He shrugs. “Why? Didn’t you like my photo?”
“You are striking, but you said you liked plonk and I’m a wine snob. Plus, you said you’d never look at anyone who watched action movies and I love them.” “How intolerant.”
“Aren’t we?” he says with a grin. “Fancy a drink?”
“I’d love a glass of wine – you can choose what kind,” I say, adding, “But I’m picking the movie.”
JustMyLuck, Adele Parks, HQ, PB, £7.99. Out Dec 12 in PB. Imagine winning the lottery? Imagine winning big? Think £18 million! Over the years, six numbers have been the constant for friends the Pearsons and the Heathcotes. Through dinner parties to fish and chip suppers, they’ve shared the wonders and woes of their lives, kids, marriages, jobs and houses, the big stuff… that is until one Saturday night their numbers come up and things will never be quite the same again! Adele Parks does it once again, taking a “what if?” and turning it into a masterpiece of moral dilemmas and shocking truths. A book to keep you going through those long winter nights…
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