Lucy Gordon - The Millionaire’s Christmas Wish

‘Treasure it.’ She laughed. ‘You just paid a high price for it. I expect you’re ready for something to eat.’

‘I don’t know when I last ate,’ he admitted.

‘I do,’ she said, giving him a friendly smile. ‘Breakfast was a cup of black coffee. You meant to catch up at lunchtime, but you were caught between meetings so you made do with a sandwich.’

‘Am I that predictable?’

‘Yes.’

‘I had a roll in the car on my way here.’

‘Oh, well, then. You don’t need the steak I got for you.’

Suddenly he was ravenous. ‘Just try me.’

She poured him some tea, very strong and heavily sugared, as he liked it, and he wandered into the next room. Like the rest of the house, it was decorated with paper chains and tinsel.

It was an old house, full of a kind of shambling charm. The original fireplace was still there, although only a vase of artificial flowers adorned it now, and, out of sight, the chimney was blocked to keep out draughts.

Beside it stood the tree. It was smaller and less impressive than the one in his office, and the fairy on the top looked wonky, as though she were clinging on for dear life. But the parcels around the base were all addressed to people and, when picked up, rattled reassuringly.

Alex stood looking at it and suddenly the inner light shone again, showing him that this was a real tree, with real presents, for real people.

He looked at some of the labels. There were gifts from Corinne to the children and from them to her, gifts from Jimmy to all of them, and from them to him. It occurred to him how often Jimmy’s name appeared.

‘Time for bed, kids,’ Corinne called. ‘There’s lots to do tomorrow.’

‘I want Daddy to put me to bed,’ Mitzi said at once.

‘All right,’ Alex said. To Bobby he added, ‘What do you want?’

‘I put myself to bed,’ the child said gruffly. ‘But you can look in, if you want.’

‘Fine.’

His daughter bounded all over him and rode on his back down the hall to her bedroom, which turned out to be a shrine to horses. Horse pictures adorned the walls; horses leapt all over her duvet cover. Her slippers were shaped like horses and picture books about horses filled her shelves.

Alex spoke without thinking. ‘Now I understand.’

He meant the Marianne doll in the riding habit that she had mentioned to Santa earlier. With his little girl’s eyes on him he remembered, too late, that he was supposed to know nothing.

‘Now I understand what you’ve been doing recently,’ he improvised. ‘We’ll have lots to talk about tomorrow. Goodnight, pet.’

He kissed her and departed hastily before he could make any more slips.

Bobby’s bedroom was curiously unrevealing. There were no pictures on the wall, or books, beyond a few school books. Alex flicked through one of these.

‘Good marks,’ he observed. ‘You’re working hard, then?’

Bobby nodded.

‘That’s good. Good.’ He was floundering. ‘Are you all right, son? All right here, I mean?’

‘Yes, it’s nice.’

‘Don’t you miss your old home?’

Bobby hunted for the right words. ‘Places don’t really matter.’

‘No. People matter. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘Well, I’m here now.’

‘Yes.’

Alex searched his face. ‘You are glad, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, of course I am.’

He would have doubted it if it hadn’t been for their memory of the earlier conversation. How could all that have gone?

Because now he knows it’s me.

‘Tomorrow’s a big day,’ he said cheerfully.

‘Yes.’

It was becoming a disaster. He had resolved to act on what he’d learned from Bobby that evening, and use it to make this visit a triumph. That was the secret of success-good intelligence and knowing how to use it. But all his gains were slipping away.

‘Daddy-’

‘What is it?’ His voice betrayed his eagerness.

‘Tomorrow, will you ask Mitzi about the school play? She was ever so good in it.’

The school play? The school play? His mind frantically tried to grapple with this. When had it been? Why hadn’t he known?

‘It was a pantomime-’ Bobby said, reading his face without trouble ‘-and Mitzi was an elf. She had two lines.’

‘Er-?’

‘It was last week. You were abroad.’

‘Of course-yes-otherwise I’d have-’

‘Yeah, sure. You will remember to ask her, won’t you?’

‘Of course I will. Goodnight, son.’

Corinne said her goodnights after him. As they passed in the corridor she said, ‘I’ve put you in that room at the end. Your things are in there.’

He looked in before going downstairs. It was a small, neat room with a narrow bed.

Alex thought about the other rooms. Presumably Corinne had the big room on the corner of the house, but where, he wondered, had she put Jimmy?

H E CAMEdown the stairs so quietly that Corinne didn’t hear him, and he had a moment to stand watching her as she worked in the kitchen.

The steak smelled good, and suddenly he was transported back to the early days of their marriage, when steak had been a luxury. But somehow she had managed to wring the price out of the meagre housekeeping money they had.

They had been partners-laughing at poverty, competing with each other in loving generosity, squabbling to give each other the last titbit. But that was long ago.

The years had barely touched her, he thought. The slim, graceful figure that had once enchanted him was the same, two children later.

She had been gorgeous at eighteen-beautiful, sexy, witty, knowing her own power over young men and enjoying it. They had all competed for her, but Alex had made sure that he was the one who won her.

Her face had changed little, except that it was thinner, and the ready laughter no longer sprang to her eyes. They were still large, beautiful eyes but there was a sad caution there now.

‘It’s ready,’ she called, seeing him.

Like every meal she had ever cooked him it was excellent-the wine perfectly chosen, the salad exactly as it should be.

Their last meeting had been three months ago, and it had ended in a fierce quarrel. Since then there had been communication between lawyers, and the odd phone call that had left each of them resolved that it should be the last. Her invitation for Christmas had been delivered through a letter addressed to his office.

‘Thank you for letting me come,’ he said quietly.

‘I didn’t think you would. I was amazed that you actually turned up early. What happened? Did something more important fall through?’

He winced.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said at once. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘There’s nothing more important than being with my family,’ he said emphatically.

‘It means the world to the children.’

‘What about you, Corinne?’

‘Never mind about me. This is their time.’

‘But I do mind about you. It’s ours too, isn’t it?’

‘Well, it’s a chance for us to be civilized with each other. We haven’t done much of that lately.’

‘And that’s all?’

‘Yes, that’s all. I’m not your wife any more-’

‘The hell you aren’t!’ he said with the swift anger that sometimes overtook him these days. ‘We’re not divorced yet, and maybe we never will be.’

She regarded him with a quizzical air that was new to him. ‘You have to win every negotiation, don’t you? But you won’t win this one, Alex. So why don’t we just leave it there? I don’t want to spoil this holiday.’

‘Is there someone else?’

The question jerked out of him abruptly, without finesse, tact or subtlety.