Darcie Boleyn - Wish Upon A Christmas Cake

So Christmas was going to be different to the version I’d imagined when Karl had first suggested it. A happily married couple and their children would be joining us over the festive period. Unfortunately, the husband happened to be the man I’d once loved with all my heart. The pleasant warmth of the lust I’d experienced at seeing Sam so big and brawny had now completely melted away and the biting chill of the air that swirled around the house made me shiver.

‘You’re cold,’ Sam said. ‘It’s warm and cosy inside, come on.’ Had it really been nine years since I’d last seen him, when I’d told him that it wouldn’t work between us? And all because I’d thought that we wanted different things from life and that I had something to prove to myself. I’d thought that I was doing the best thing for both of us; helping us to leave a terrible experience behind. How could we have continued, moved on and loved each other, after what we’d been through? And what if it had happened again, if I’d ever had the courage to try to get pregnant after our loss, that was. No. I’d done the right thing at the time, for sure.

Sam opened the door and the heat coming from the large brightly lit kitchen literally hit me in a wave, along with the delicious aromas of roast chicken, thyme and potatoes. My stomach grumbled automatically. My mother had clearly been busy and the woman sure could cook. Sam stood back to allow me to enter first and I walked into the room.

‘There you are. At last!’ My mother’s clipped tones stopped me in my tracks. Back out…go back through the door. Leave now before she says anything else. I shrugged the traitorous voice away. As if I could actually walk away from Esther once she got going. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d pursued me, just like that time when I was seven and I told her she reminded me of Miss Piggy from The Muppet Show . She’d chased me around the streets and confiscated my favourite Barbie doll for a week as punishment. Even then, I hadn’t meant that she resembled the puppet pig physically, just that she had the same snooty self-important air and that she treated my dad a bit like Kermit.

Sam placed the box of cakes on the counter and held out a hand. ‘I’ll take your bag through to the hallway if you like. I bet you and your mum have lots to discuss.’

I allowed myself one last perusal of his lovely face with its shadow of stubble and full sensual lips and smiled. ‘Yeah. I bet we have.’

‘See you at dinner.’ He grinned at me and, in spite of my disappointment, I grinned back as I handed him my holdall. Even if he was here with his wife and kids, it would still be nice to catch up. I hadn’t seen him in such a long time and we’d once been so close.

A flush stole over my chest. At the height of my teenage crush on Sam, he’d seen me as little more than his friend’s younger sister. Yet he was always really kind, polite and considerate. He’d been bright and mature, nothing like the boys in my year at school who only ever spoke to me to comment on my big jugs. That was until I’d gotten a bit older and one night, when Sam was home from university, we’d ended up alone and realised that there was more than just friendship between us. Six years later, we’d seemed to have it all but then it had turned sour and we’d parted ways. Amicably, though it had broken my heart at the time. So yes, it would be good to hear what he’d been up to and to see how the years had treated him.

But now I had to deal with Esther and it was an experience that called for a stiff drink. I grabbed the single malt off the counter and a crystal tumbler from the tray on the side then poured a generous measure.

Here I go! Merry Christmas…

Chapter 2

Esther Marie Warham. Sixty-two. Five foot eight. One hundred and twenty-four pounds. Shoulder-length platinum-blonde hair. Wife of Charles Michael Warham. Mother of Karl Lewis Warham and Katie Alice Warham. Currently clothed in a fawn silk gypsy-style blouse and fitted black trousers which showed off her pert gym-toned bottom and nude heels.

I sipped my Jura and held the fiery amber liquid in my mouth as I waited for my mother to begin talking herself in circles.

And waited.

‘How are things at the shop, Katie? Were you busy today?’

I swallowed the whisky and stared at my mother. What, no reprimand for being late?

‘Good thanks. We’ve been really busy.’

‘Will Ann be all right there tomorrow without you?’

I took another swig from my glass. ‘Uh, yeah, her boyfriend’s helping her out.’

This wasn’t my mother; it must be an imposter, a dopplegänger arrived to lure me into a false sense of security so it could dash my confidence to the ground once more.

‘Ah there you are, my favourite girls!’ My father crossed the kitchen and planted a kiss on the top of my head. ‘How was your journey, Katie?’

I snuggled against his chest and breathed in his familiar and lovely Dad smell of pine aftershave, washing powder and cigars. Despite Esther’s protests, my dad still indulged in an evening cigar or two; it was a habit I doubted he’d ever quit. I gazed up at him, grateful for his arrival, yet wondering if he’d noticed this strangely altered version of my mother. In the past, he’d often rescued me from Esther’s tirades before I completely crumbled into a blubbering heap or snapped and gave her a tongue lashing in return. I hadn’t really done the latter since I was about twenty-three and I was proud of my self-control. I loathed confrontation of any kind and had always been keen to avoid it. ‘Hey, Dad. There were a few delays along the way but it wasn’t too bad, thanks. How’re you?’

With his thick white hair combed back with pomade, his naturally jet-black eyebrows and his year-round tan, Dad reminded me of Blake Carrington from 80s TV series Dynasty . Of course, he could have been said to resemble Alistair Darling, but Blake Carrington was a preferable comparison in my mind. Dad was handsome in that traditional way, like the movie stars of the thirties. Somehow, the white hair and black eyebrow combo suited him. He had charisma, strength, self-confidence and that old-school British charm.

‘I’m very well thank you, angel. Thoroughly enjoying my retirement, actually. Plenty of golf, tennis and time with my wife.’ He squeezed my shoulders and winked at me conspiratorially, then crossed the kitchen to my mother’s side. She was mashing potatoes and her powerful movements had caused her well-maintained blonde waves to fall over her face. I watched as Dad tenderly pushed her hair behind her ears then kissed her cheek. She immediately coloured and stopped punishing the spuds before turning slightly to allow my father to kiss her on the lips. I’d never understand my parents. They were such a strange combination. I seemed to have come out somewhere in the middle – I had some of Dad’s business sense and drive, yet I also occasionally suffered from Mum’s neuroses. But no one’s perfect, right?

Just then my Aunty Gina floated into the kitchen. Gina is Dad’s younger sister. She’s ten years his junior. Granny and Granddad had a surprise arrival, as they liked to call her. Knowing my aunt as I do, I bet she was a surprise.

‘Ooohhh! Hello, Katie. So good to see you, darling.’ She drifted over to me. Gina doesn’t walk, she floats and drifts. She always dresses in brightly coloured billowing materials and refers to herself as a spirit of the revolution, even though she would only have been a child during the sixties. But she constantly plays The Mamas and the Papas, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and when she gets drunk, which she does all too often, she rants about capitalism and her time on a Kibbutz and how we’ll all be sorry one day.