Magic Moments

Decorating the tree always led to special memories – and this year was no exception!

ILIKE that one!” We had only just walked into the garden centre and I was eyeing the rows upon rows of Norwegian spruces, wrapped in their stockinet coats, wondering how long it was going to take to choose our Christmas tree.

Ginny had made her mind up in half a second. “Definitely not!” Somehow, she’d made a beeline for what must have been the largest tree in the shop.

She flounced and pouted at me.

“Why not?” “Because one, we won’t get it in the car, and two, we won’t get it in the house.”

It took us a further 20 minutes to agree on a tree that was bushy but not likely to take over the lounge, and short enough not to scrape the ceiling.

It was getting dark when I finally parked outside our front door and we began the task of setting our purchase on its stand in the corner by the fire, and removing the stockinet so we could see it properly.

“Ow! I thought Norwegian spruce wasn’t supposed to drop needles!” I complained, pulling a sharp green barb out of my finger.

“Mum, you’re the only person I know who’s not safe to be left in charge of a Christmas tree!” Ginny laughed. “Shall I get you a plaster?”

“No, love, I’ll go and wash it,” I replied, and left her to it.

Cal, her boyfriend, was coming round and the two of them planned to decorate the tree and the house after dinner.

I went to the kitchen to try to perform some magic on an insipid-looking trio of pork chops, and reflected that when Ginny had been little, I’d loved putting up the Christmas decorations.

I could never get enough of seeing the wonder on her face when she spotted lights sparkling through the Christmas tree branches. She’d clap her hands at the bright loops of coloured paper hanging from the ceiling.

The doorbell went and Ginny rushed down the hall to answer it.

Moments later, she came into the kitchen with Cal. “Hello, Mrs D.”

I had given up telling him to use my first name, Susie. When he first met me he’d insisted on calling me Mrs Davies.

Now that he was a regular feature in our lives, he’d gradually moved to just Mrs D. It was his way, I suppose.

He was a nice lad. “Hello, Cal. How are you?”

“Starving!”

His eyes were on the chops. Cal had recently moved into a shared flat near the college where he and Ginny were students, but I don’t think he’d managed to grasp the concept of self-catering.

He was tall, towering over us, stick-thin and always hungry.

“Well, dinner will be ready in about half an hour,” I said. “Why don’t you make a start on the decorations? They’re under the stairs, Ginny.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mum, I know.” Later, we all sat down around the kitchen table.

Instead of attacking his food like a ravenous wolf as he normally did, Cal regarded me seriously. “Mrs D . . .”

I gave him a moment, but nothing further seemed to be coming.

“Yes, Cal?”

“I’ve been thinking.” He pushed a lock of curly blond hair out of his eyes. “All this food.”

I waited.

“I think I should pay you for it.”

Ginny’s mouth fell open; mine, too, probably.

Cal frowned in concentration.

“See, you feed me every time I come here. Sometimes twice. And I come here a lot because I really like Ginny. And you, too, of course,” he added hastily.

I couldn’t hold back the smile.

“Well, I’m glad you like us, Cal,” I said gently. “We like you, too. I don’t want you to pay for your meals, because that would make us a restaurant, and you a customer.

“I much prefer it that we’re friends, and friends can eat together.” Ginny was staring at him. “Cal!”

Cal coloured, and dropped his gaze to his plate.

“I just thought I ought to say something,” he muttered.

“I’ve a good mind not to go out with you tonight!” Ginny snapped.

“Tonight?” I asked. “I thought you were staying in to help put up the decorations.”

“No, we’re going bowling with Tia and Ed,” Ginny replied. “That is, if I actually go!”

Cal turned beseeching eyes on her. She gave in.

“Oh, all right! But don’t go saying anything daft like that to Mum again. Honestly!”

I made a mental note to have a gentle word with her at some point, if she’d let me. I was quite touched that he had thought to offer.

“We’ll do the

decorations tomorrow,” Ginny said. “Cal can come round in the morning.”

The lad perked up. “Sunday lunch?” Ginny caught my eye and suddenly we burst out laughing.

“OK. It will be cabbage and cold porridge sandwiches!”

Ginny appeared for breakfast at half-past ten the following morning. I’d been up for hours and was just sitting down with a cup of coffee.

“Good night?” I asked. She nodded.

“It was OK. Mum, what did you do?”

I was puzzled. “When?”

“Last night.”

I thought.

“Well, after you went out, I found a channel showing soppy movies, poured myself a glass of wine and made a very good start on the Christmas chocolates. Why?”

Ginny tipped yoghurt over her cereal and picked up a spoon, frowning.

“It was Saturday night. You should have been going out, having fun.

“Honestly, Mum, at the bowling alley there were loads of women your age and older, and they were all having a laugh. You don’t involve yourself in anything!”

Oh, no, I thought. Here we go again.

Ginny had it in her head that, four years after her father’s death, I should be dating.

“I’m not ready,” I murmured.

“You’re just too scared!” she exclaimed. “Tia was telling me that her mum met a French millionaire on a dating website and they’re all off to his chateau at Easter.

“He’s got three swimming pools and a Ferrari. Why can’t you just give it a try?”

I considered my response carefully.

“Apart from the fact that I don’t want to, you did rather put me off.”

Ginny threw her spoon into her bowl and stood up.

“One little mistake and you’re never going to let me forget it, are you?”

Bowl in hand, she flounced out.

Well, I was certainly never going to forget it, I thought.

A few months earlier, Ginny had signed up to an online dating website using my name and photo, with my credit card.

She’d selected a “match” she thought would suit me and arranged for my date to pick me up from the house.

When he came calling she still hadn’t got round to telling me anything about it. I found myself opening the door to a tattoo artist from Hull who had the bushiest beard I’d ever seen – and a ponytail.

We spent an awkward half an hour over a cup of tea until he eventually vanished off into the night, and I hadn’t seen him since.

But it would be fair to say that, yes, the experience had left its mark.

Ginny put her head round the door. I braced myself for Round Two.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “It’s just that I worry about you, Mum. I miss Dad, too, really I do, but I won’t be living at home for ever and when I go, well, it’ll be just you. You’ll be lonely!”

I held out my arms to her. She ran to me and we hugged.

“I do love you, you know,” she whispered.

“And I love you, my darling,” I said.

Tears were running down her face, and I was choked up. The doorbell rang and saved us both.

Ginny grabbed a piece of kitchen roll, blew her nose and ran to the front door.

The putting up of decorations caused much merriment.

It made me smile to hear Ginny and Cal hooting with laughter as they decorated the tree, tested the lights, fetched the stepladder from the shed and found a box of drawing-pins in a kitchen drawer.

Just before lunch, they called me in to inspect their efforts.

The tree was dressed in tinsel, silver balls and two strands of fairy lights. The mirror over the mantelpiece had been framed with a shiny purple ribbon.

“Oh, that’s beautiful!” I said, and meant it. Ginny had a much better eye than me for any type of design. “Have you finished?” She shot me a look. “There’s half a box to put up yet. We’ll finish it this afternoon.”

I took another look at the tree.

“Where’s the golden star?”

Ginny shrugged.

“Probably in the bottom of the box. We’ll find it eventually.”

We always put the big gold star at the top of the tree. David had brought it into hospital just after Ginny was born, two weeks before Christmas, all those years ago.

“A big star for a little star,” he’d said, cradling her in his arms and kissing her head.

I went back into the kitchen and put the vegetables on the hob.

Once they were simmering I returned to the lounge, picked up the decoration box and up-ended it on to the dining table.

“Mum!” Ginny was holding the ladder for Cal. “What are you doing? There is a plan, you know!”

“Just looking for the star.” I rummaged through the brightly coloured muddle of paper, tinsel and glass on the table. “It isn’t here!”

“Of course it is,” Ginny replied. “We’ll find it.”

I had roasted chicken and potatoes with carrots and broccoli. Cal ate a leg and a breast, demolished the whole dish of roast potatoes, then mopped up the gravy on his plate with a slice of bread.

“Pudding and custard, anyone?” I asked.

When we were on our own, Ginny and I seldom bothered with dessert. Without really realising it, I’d started to make puddings for Cal because he enjoyed them so much.

“I couldn’t eat another thing!” Ginny protested, holding her stomach.

When I put the pudding on the table with a jug of custard and some extra syrup for pouring, she changed her mind.

I watched as she filled her bowl, and Cal finished off the rest.

“Smashing lunch, Mrs D,” he said when there really was nothing else left on the table to eat.

I had just finished loading the dishwasher, and was wondering whether the cooker would get away for another week without a clean, when there was a loud crash in the lounge, a cry and a scream from Ginny.

By the time I got into the room, it was clear what had happened.

The stepladder was lying on the floor with Cal beside it, holding his shoulder.

Ginny was kneeling beside him.

“Mum! Do something!” The main injury seemed to be to Cal’s arm and shoulder. When the ladder had tipped he’d put an arm out to break his fall.

He winced when I told him to make a fist.

“I think I’d better run you to the Accident and Emergency Department,” I said gently. “You’ll need an X-ray. Had we better call your parents?”

Cal cradled his arm with his good hand.

“Mum lives in Spain and I expect my dad’s off doing something with his latest girlfriend.”

Between us, Ginny and I got him to his feet and led him out to the car.

Ginny sat next to him on the back seat,

There was a loud crash in the lounge and a scream from Ginny

fussing over him, tears pouring down her cheeks. “It’s all my fault! I let go of the ladder!”

I glanced in the rear-view mirror. Cal had his phone pressed to his ear.

“I told you,” he said. “Dad’s not around. I’ve left him a message.”

The hospital was half an hour away. Eventually we pulled up outside.

I took a ticket from the machine and the swing arm opened to let us in.

“I’ll drop you by the entrance and then I’ll park the car and meet you,” I said.

“Shall I go and get a wheelchair?” Ginny asked.

“I can walk, you know!” Cal protested. “It’s my arm that’s bust, not my legs!”

I got as close as I could to the main entrance, and they climbed out.

Because it was Sunday afternoon, and visiting time, the car park was almost full.

I drove round until eventually I saw a car backing out of a space. I let it out and started to reverse into the gap.

As I twisted round, my eyes were drawn to a sprinkling of glitter on the back seat, twinkling in the sunlight. It must have clung to Ginny’s clothing, from the decorations.

It reminded me of the missing golden star, and suddenly I knew where it was.

It had been the last thing to go into the box when I was taking the decorations down the previous year.

I’d picked it up, held it, and been hit by such a strong sense of David, I couldn’t put it away.

I’d taken it to bed with me, slept with it under the pillow, then in the morning I had put it in the bottom drawer of my bedside chest, the one I never use,

I felt a huge wave of relief. That was when there was a bump, a crash and the blare of a loud car horn.

I had completely forgotten I was reversing my car.

I opened the door and climbed out. Behind me was a shiny BMW. A man was standing beside it, a look of disbelief on his face.

“I . . . I picked this car up from the showroom half an hour ago!” he spluttered. “It’s only got thirty miles on the clock! Look what you’ve done! What did you think you were doing?”

Good question. I didn’t have a good answer.

“I’m very sorry,” I apologised. “I got distracted. I’ll give you my insurance details. At least neither of us is hurt!”

“You shouldn’t be allowed on the road!” the man yelled.

By the time I’d sorted things out, parked and made my way to the A&E department, Ginny and Cal were nowhere in sight.

A nurse directed me to a curtained-off cubicle. Cal was lying propped up on a bed, Ginny sitting beside him.

“The doctor thinks he’s broken his wrist,” Ginny told me sorrowfully. “We’re waiting to go down to X-ray.”

I made sympathetic noises and wondered about going to the hospital shop to buy a magazine.

I was turning to go when the curtain was swept aside and I found myself face to face with the BMW driver.

“Now, look,” I said sternly. “I’ve admitted liability and you’ve got my insurance details.”

“Hello, Dad,” Cal said. “You made it, then?”

A porter arrived, pushing a wheelchair.

“Mr Potter for X-ray?” Cal’s dad and I stared at each other.

“Cup of tea?” he suggested.

We sat in the coffee shop over mugs and a plate of biscuits.

Once Andrew, as he introduced himself, had stopped scowling, I could see how much Cal looked like him. There was the same shock of curly hair and the warm brown eyes.

“I really am sorry about your car,” I began. “I’m not normally a bad driver.” Andrew smiled gently. “That’s all right. I went over the top – I’ve had a terrible week. It’s me who should be apologising.”

I found myself telling him about the golden star, and the glitter on the seat. Andrew listened intently. “We used to have a wooden angel that went on top of our tree when I was a kid,” he said thoughtfully. “As soon as I saw it come out each year, the magic started. I would get so excited I couldn’t sleep for a week.”

“Ginny was like that,” I agreed.

“Did you ever take her to see the Christmas lights in London?” Andrew asked. “We took Cal every year. I can remember his face. His eyes were like globes!”

“We used to take Ginny to Blackpool,” I said softly.

It seemed a lifetime ago now.

Andrew looked at me. “I don’t suppose . . .” he began. “What?” I returned.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to come up to London with me to see the lights? Say, Tuesday?”

I stared at him. I began to search for the words to say no, but before I knew it, the opposite had happened.

“I’d love to!” I said.

The following week found me once again setting the table for Sunday lunch.

Ginny, her face serious, was hunting for glasses in the cupboard.

“Mum, I’m worried.” “Oh? Why’s that?”

She put her arm around me.

“I just hope you’re not rushing things!”

I was saved from finding a reply by the doorbell.

Ginny dashed out the kitchen.

A moment later Cal came in, looking surprising tidy in clean jeans and an ironed shirt.

Red in the face, with his good hand he thrust a box of chocolates at me. “Thanks, Mrs D!”

The plaster cast on his arm was grubby round the edges and covered with scrawled signatures and messages.

He was followed into the kitchen by Andrew, who was carrying a huge bunch of flowers.

“The car came back from the body shop yesterday,” he said. “Fancy a run down to the coast this afternoon?”

I turned to Ginny.

“Is that all right with you?”

She looked at me levelly. Suddenly, she smiled.

“Oh, I think that would be OK,” she replied with a smile. “Providing you behave yourself!” ■