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

time Valerie was getting impatient with me for “sitting staring out of the window, when I’m getting ready for our guests,” the Charleses had still not arrived and my heart had grave misgivings. Perhaps the snow had held them up. Perhaps their car had broken down. Perhaps his parents had decided to see out the New Year with their own relatives. Each thought was worse than the last. In two days he’d be back at school and I would have little enough chance to catch a glimpse of him, unless I was lucky enough to see him after his club.

I took the twins as ordered, dropping them off at Ann’s. They left me without a backward glance. “I’ll pick them up in the morning—around eleven,” I shouted.

“No hurry,” she called back. “You’ll probably be worse for wear.”

“I’ll ring you before I set out, then. Specially if the roads get worse.”

She waved and I drove home. No lights were showing next door and the snow was thick on their driveway. I felt sick with disappointment, and coming back inside to find my own house warm and bright, glasses on every surface and the smell of various finger foods being created did not raise my spirits as it might have done in other years.

I downed a glass of port before digging out the punchbowl and made a punch that was evil in its innocence. Then I went into the kitchen and bothered Valerie and Mrs. Tudor until they herded me out to clear the driveway for guests’ cars.

With the port inside me, and the promise of more port—and more snow, which I loved like a child—I worked myself into a better mood. I recovered enough to change into my dinner jacket and hang enough mistletoe throughout the house so that all of our guests would have no trouble at all finding a piece under which to celebrate. By the chimes of Big Ben, they would have no need of such props, but it got people in the mood, even the most straight-laced of old spinsters.

That night was also memorable for the meeting of Phil and Claire. They arrived almost simultaneously—Phil had a taxi deliver him and I made a point to corner him later that evening and ask him if he’d had trouble getting home on Christmas Day. The meeting was cool but civilised. Valerie grabbed Claire and Fred and dragged them into the sitting room for Claire to meet various neighbours she hadn’t seen for months. I admit to being surprised at Fred, who couldn’t have been less like Phil if he had worked at it. If I had seen him in the High Street or a pub, I would hardly have noticed him. He was just…average. Average height, average colouring, mousy brown hair. I had some idea that artists were supposed to be dynamic and full of personality, but Fred was more like an accountant than an artist.

I wondered, though, if Claire was tired of personality; Phil was at his very best that night, and I have a good idea that it was Fred’s presence that drove him to be the life and the soul of the party.

By ten, I was comfortably squiffy. I was no longer needed on the bar, as inhibitions had broken down and everyone was helping themselves. Even Maureen Ringwall from the solicitor’s office, a life-long teetotaller, was telling everyone who would listen how much she “always enjoyed Mr. Johnson’s parties” as no one minded that she only drank the fruit punch. Everyone smiled indulgently as she raised her punch cup to them and said “I think I will have another,” for they all knew that beneath the placid orange and bitter lemon was a deadly concoction, the recipe of which will follow me to my grave. I never drank it, either.

We had begun the games. These were a staple of “Mr. Johnson’s parties,” especially New Year ones. I pride myself that people came to my New Year gatherings because of the games. They were mainly silly, but they were good ice-breakers. Games that involved standing up and getting too close to strangers were ideal after a few cups of punch.

I was umpiring “the orange game,” which involves two teams each with an orange who have to hand the orange up the line without using their hands or teeth. The first person who gets the orange up and back down the line wins. Simple but hilarious—especially if you arrange the line-ups particularly so that Miss Pearson, the local Akela (who, as far as The Avenue gossip went, had never had any man in her life older than a Cub Scout) next to David Greckle, the local and much-married spiv, followed by Janice Meadows, who, it’s rumoured, has been having an affair with David for several years, off and on. As I say, simple amusement in more ways than one.

I was thusly busy, so I didn’t see or hear the new arrivals; the record player was on too loud. It wasn’t until I announced the winning team, gave out small prizes to all involved, and turned the music down a little for everyone to rehash the fun that I realised that Sheila, Alfred and, most importantly, my Alexander had actually arrived. My heart jolted—I felt my entire body was joined to his, pulled around, like a compass needle towards that irresistible force.

Arming myself with paper squeakers and three hats, I greeted them. “Another hour and you’d have been our First Footer,” I said handing them the party things. Alex took them delightedly, his parents rather less so.

“You’ll have a drink?”

“Valerie is seeing to us, we are going to be boring and stick to the punch,” Alf said.

“Alec?”

“Mrs. Johnson’s getting me a Coke.”

I appealed to his parents, becoming the new devious Edward. “Oh, come on—we can do better than that, surely? Isn’t he eighteen this year?”

“February,” Alex said. “The twentieth. And I’ve told Dad a hundred times it doesn’t matter at home, anyway.”

Sheila smiled. “Well, maybe one small