Junction X by Erastes (digital ebook reader .TXT) 📗

know how irrational that sounds. Alex appeared, muffled almost completely in his scarf and hat against the December wind that seemed cold enough to flay the skin from your ears.

“Looks like snow,” he said, tipping his head to indicate banks of dark grey-green clouds.

“Too cold for it.”

“That’s what Dad says.” He looked at me as I opened the boot. “No golf in this weather?”

“No.” I felt bad because I hadn’t had time to see him—not a moment to explain what a Johnson Christmas entailed. “Getting the car cleaned. We do a lot of visiting over Christmas.”

“Oh.” He moved forward and leant on the wall between the driveways. I dared not move closer to him, not in front of every window in the curve of the road. “We’re going away. Until the 31st.”

I’ll never forget the look in his eyes or the twist in my gut. I nodded. Nothing we could do.

“My aunt. Dad’s sister,” he said, almost apologetically, as if it was his fault. “We always take turns, one year with her, one year with us.”

“Does she have a big family?” I don’t care, I remember thinking. I don’t care, just keep talking. Talk to me of mince pies and empty hopes. I’d missed his voice so much.

He gave an infectious grin. “Yes. Too large. Her sisters and her cousins and her aunts.”

“One good thing about that.”

“What?”

“Lots of presents.” I suddenly knew I had to get him something, not for Christmas, but maybe in the New Year. Something he would accept. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? I didn’t even know when his birthday was; I might have already missed it.

“Mostly socks.”

“You too?” We laughed but it was brittle, falling on the frozen ground and breaking between us. “When do you go?”

“Early in the morning.” He reached down and produced a small bag which rustled. “Mum says these are for the twins. Mum was going to bring them round, but I spotted you out here.” I stepped close to the wall, glad for an excuse to do so, and took the bag from him. When he spoke again, it was so quiet I nearly didn’t hear him myself. “I wanted to see you. I’ve missed you.”

My skin tingled, starting from my shoulders and rippling deliciously down my body. I pulled my glove off and held out my hand, and said loudly, “Well, have a great Christmas. I look forward to hearing your New Year resolutions. Perhaps you can convince the twins to keep theirs.”

“I’ve made mine,” and his fingers—secret things—slid within the camouflage of my palm. “I intend to keep them.”

I put the bag of presents inside the gate, then got in the car and watched him walk back towards the house. His parents came out onto the step, and we all made small talk until Val and the twins appeared. I left them to it, pausing only to say, “Ask them to come on New Year’s Eve.” Then I drove off, my heart thudding in my chest and sweat trickling on my scalp.

+ + +

Christmas went by, as Christmases do, but I still felt strangely remote. Somehow I came through the pudding, the parents, the socks and the sherry in one piece. No one seemed to notice that I was glazed with a veneer I couldn’t break. But the days were long, and it took willpower not to cross off each one on the diary in the study or to put a huge red ring around New Year’s Eve.

Alex’s father and I were both wrong about the snow, though, for the skies opened on Boxing Day and it snowed in a way that the south of England hadn’t seen for years.

Phil was with us for Christmas Day itself, seemingly pleased to be in the thick of the over-enthusiasm that the twins exuded. He took some of the heat away from me, doing a lot of what I had done in previous years while I stepped backwards. I couldn’t help but wonder what Phil and Valerie would be like as a couple, for he treated her with such affection and respect and she, for her part, came alive in his company. I wondered how I’d never seen it before.

But then he had that effect on us all, I suppose. On Christmas Day he left in the evening—rather the worse for wear with a paper hat askew on his head and singing bawdy words to carols while Valerie vainly attempted to shush him. I manhandled him past the gates and to his car. “You should stay, really,” I said. “You aren’t really fit to drive.”

He turned and leant against the car, fumbling in his pocket for his keys. “I would do, but I think I would misbehave.”

“No. You wouldn’t.”

“Why not? We’ve done it under Val’s nose before. Besides, festive cheer makes me randy.”

“No.”

“Oh. Forgot. You’ve got enough on your plate already.”

I took the keys from him and opened the car door. My hospitality had melted away with his indiscretion. I realised then that he’d always been indiscreet.

“Mind the ice.” I said. “And drive slow.” He wouldn’t, for he never did when he was drunk, but it wasn’t far and his route wasn’t towards town, which was where the police would be more likely to look for erratic drivers.

The snow came in earnest the next day to the children’s delight and maintained a steady covering all that week. By the 31st, I was walking on coiled springs. I shut myself in the study on the pretence of preparing for work after the break, but really, it was to wait, like an anxious terrier, for Alex’s return. Every car that went by pulled my eyes to the window; the afternoon dragged on and on. Valerie stuck her head around the door a dozen times to remind me to take the twins to the babysitter, but I kept putting it off, hoping and hoping they’d arrive and I could get by on just a glimpse of him getting out of the car.

By the