John Gash, on the other hand, couldn’t take his eyes off my car. The Lada was sitting in the driveway, still fresh from a total valet job a couple of days before, when the Villa Balearic Three arrived.
‘You have to sell it to me, Oz,’ he pleaded as soon as he saw it. Then he took a look at the mileage on the clock. ‘The parts must look practically new,’ he mewled as we stepped into the house through the open French window from the terrace. ‘Worth a dollar fortune in St Petersburg. Tell you what; you give me that and I’ll buy you a brand new Ford Fiesta.’
I laughed at him until I realised that he was serious. ‘No,’ I told him.
‘Okay, then. How about a new Fiat Punto?’
I laid a hand on his shoulder and looked him earnestly in the eye. ‘John, forget it. I don’t want a new Fiat Punto; I want a used Lada Niva. . and I’ve got one.’
‘Please.’ He looked to Shirley. ‘Mum, help; tell him to sell it to me.’
‘Sod off,’ she advised him, maternally. ‘You’ll be wanting to buy his wife next.’
‘There’s more chance of him selling me than that bloody car,’ Prim muttered, as she handed Shirley a glass of Segura Viudas cava.
‘Maybe,’ I conceded, ‘but not to be broken up for spares.’
15
The car stayed put in the driveway for quite a while. In some parts of Spain they may take a more relaxed view of drinking and driving than we do in Britain, but Prim and I don’t.
Once Shirley, John and Virginie had gone, my dad volunteered to drive us all to Meson del Conde for dinner in his rented people-mover. On another night we might have taken torches and walked there and back, but Ellie didn’t trust Colin not to get lost in the dark. Neither did I, for that matter; he hadn’t calmed down quite that much since the dungeon business.
The wee chap was hyper, like most kids his age on Christmas Eve, all through the meal and all the way back home. Then, just as I thought we’d never get him to bed, he suddenly came over all drowsy. Five minutes later, from sitting in front of the fire peering up the chimney for Santa Claus, he was out like a light and being carted off to bed by his mother.
‘That was quick,’ I said to my dad, as Ellie climbed the stairs with her younger son in her arms.
He tapped the side of his nose with two fingers, gangster style. ‘Let you into a dark secret, son,’ he muttered. ‘See that last Coke I let him have when we got home? I slipped a bit of dark rum into it. . Not enough to make him ill, you understand, but enough to do the job. The Coke masks the taste; that’s why it’s so popular with young boozers. Aye, Santa could come in a fucking helicopter now and it wouldn’t waken the wee fella.’
‘Jesus, Dad,’ I hissed back at him, careful not to be overheard by Mary and Prim, who were making last-minute adjustments to the Christmas tree lights, ‘that was a bit extreme, wasn’t it?’
Mac the Dentist gave me a beatific smile, the one he uses when he bends over you with the high-speed drill in his hand. ‘Maybe so, but it worked with you often enough.’
I felt my mouth drop open, and snapped my teeth together hard. ‘You what. .? You mean you. .?’
‘Aye, often enough. And your sister before you.’
‘And did Mum know?’
His eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead as he looked at me. ‘You must be joking. Ellie’d better not know either, nor Mary, or it’ll be the parson’s nose for me when they carve the turkey tomorrow. You remember it though. You might find that it comes in handy at some time in the future.’
I filed away another entry in the book of wonders which my dad had written for me all through my life.
‘You fancy one yourself?’ I asked him.
‘What?’
‘Dark rum and Coke. If it works on Colin, it should work on us.’
‘Away and work yourself,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I finished with that stuff a while back, as you well know.’ He paused. ‘However, it is more than time for you to be opening that very fine bottle of Lagavulin that I brought you, all the way from Edinburgh Airport.’
We settled on that as our nightcap; the ladies turned it down and had a bottle of the Widow Cliquot instead. ‘You know,’ my dad announced, expansively, as we sat staring at what I still thought of occasionally as the Frenchman’s fireplace, ‘in my experience there are no bests, when it comes to Christmases. More than any other it’s a moveable feast. Time moves on, we move on. People grow away, people go away; for the best and the worst reasons there are symbolically empty chairs at the table. You can’t draw comparisons, because of that very fact.
‘But every so often, there comes a Christmas which is truly different. This is one of them, one that none of us will ever forget.’ He looked at me, and then at Prim. ‘Thanks, you two, for making it possible; for giving it to us.’
He was right: it was different. It was the first time in their lives, even counting living in France, that Jonny and Colin had opened their presents outside, in the sunshine. They both slept until nine o’clock; I guessed that my dad must have spiked Jonathan’s drink as well.
It was the first time that the rest of us had warmed up for Christmas dinner by drinking Singapore Slings round the swimming pool. Also, it was the first time that I had ever hosted a Christmas dinner, anywhere, with anyone. There was someone watching over us, of course; Mary and I felt it more intensely than anyone else, but once, as my dad said grace before the meal, I caught Jonny looking at me. His thoughts were written in his old young eyes, and they touched my heart.
I used to think that the time spent preparing for Christmas is way out of proportion to the time it actually lasts. Not any more. That was a different day, a special day, for all that my Dad says. Okay, it ended like all others, with the kids. . not just the kids. . watching the big movie on BBC1, but it was still a belter. I knew it for sure when Colin clambered up on me, just before Ellen took him off to bed, and gave me a great big hug. That’s his highest accolade, and it’s better than any award with ‘BE’ on the end.
Later on, Prim clambered up on me too. ‘Hi,’ I murmured. I had a slight buzz on and so did she. Somewhere in the background I could hear a noise; a rhythmic sound.
‘Hi,’ she whispered in reply. ‘I’m still here, you know.’
For some reason, that turned my head upside down for a couple of seconds. I had to wait for my mind to settle down. ‘What d’you mean?’ I asked at last. That sound was still in the background, but its beat seemed a little faster.
‘I mean that the only words you’ve said to me today. . to me alone, I mean. . have been “Merry Christmas”, and “Thanks” when you opened your present. Is anything wrong, Oz. Is there anything on your mind?’
I squinted as I looked up at her in the soft light of our bedside lamp. ‘Yes,’ I said.
Her frown line appeared, between her eyes. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘I can’t work out where that bloody noise is coming from.’
The frown vanished, replaced by a grin and then a giggle. ‘You know what Spanish bricks are like,’ she whispered. ‘I’d say that right now your dad is having a better Christmas than you are.’
I slid beneath the duvet, beneath her, partly to drown out the sound of my father and stepmother’s coupling, and partly to attend to other business. ‘That’ll never do,’ I said out loud but knowing that my voice would be muffled. ‘Not for one minute more.’
16
Next day, though, I thought about what Prim had asked me. Something had been eating at me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. It wasn’t her. No, I was pretty sure that I wasn’t still dwelling on her liaison with Ramon Fortunato, subconsciously or otherwise. I’ve become pretty good at compartmentalising my life. In other words, that was then and this is now. There was no way, I told myself, that I was going to blame her for something that happened in the past, and at a time when, honestly, it was none of my bloody business. Honestly.