of the house. The wind was getting up now, and the french windows rattled. Tom threw another log on to the fire, and sparks hissed out on to the carpet.
‘Supper’ll be ready in a few minutes,’ said Mum. ‘Time for one more glass?’
If catchphrases were written on headstones, that one would do for both my parents.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Tom, picked up the decanter and went round with it.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked.
‘Yes, of course I am.’ He looked surprised. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘You’re a bit quiet,’ I said.
‘Oh, God.’ Tom laughed. ‘I’m fine. I was just thinking about something I didn’t do at work.’
‘I’d like to make a toast,’ announced Dad. Jess and I groaned. Dad loves to make toasts or little speeches – it’s part of his ceaseless quest to reclaim the title ‘World’s Most Embarrassing Dad to Two Teenage Girls’, which was his for several years during my adolescence.
‘Shut up, girls,’ said Mum, even though I know she agrees with us.
‘Yes, shut up,’ said Dad, placing his glass on the table. ‘I would like to say a couple of things. It is wonderful to have you all here tonight. Lizzy, Jessica and Thomas, you’ve come away from all the important things you do in London, and we’re all very proud of you and glad you’re here. And my little sister, Chin, doing so well with her scarves and bags that not only have Liberty taken some more I hear a shop in…’ he paused before he said the words, then pronounced them as if he were a judge asking who the Beatles were ‘…Notting Hill – yes? Is that it? – wants to do the same.’
‘Oooh,’ we all murmured.
‘Leave it with the J.R. Hartley impressions, John,’ Chin said, bashing his thigh.
The mulberry tree’s branches rattled against the window and the logs crackled on the fire. Dad went on, undaunted, clearing his throat: ‘I’d like especially to welcome Gibbo. It’s great to have you with us for Christmas, and while this year you’ll be substituting, ah, raincoats for sunblock, we all hope you don’t feel too homesick’ – honestly, that’s the best Dad’s humour gets – ‘and we’re very pleased to meet you. So, to us all, happy Christmas, and welcome home!’ He raised his glass and drank, and we were about to follow suit when there was a loud crash in the hall. (Later, after the excitement was over, we found that a window had blown open half-way up the stairs and sent a little jug filled with holly flying on to the floor, where it smashed into tiny pieces, with one of the boughs of pine.)
We jumped, and Kate and Mum grabbed each other and screamed, like spinster sisters in a horror film.
Then the french windows swung inwards.
This time we all screamed. A shadowy, windswept figure stood outside. Dad brandished his minute gin glass at it, as if it were a gigantic blunderbuss. We all took a step back. The figure came into the room and flung off its trilby. ‘Happy Christmas, everyone! I’m so sorry I’m late, but I’m here! God, it’s good to be back! Is that a new armchair?’
‘Mike!’ Jess yelled, the first to recover. ‘You’re here! This is fantastic.’
‘Damn you, Mike,’ Kate said crossly, as we all breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Suzy…’ Mike threw his hat on to the sofa and gathered my mother into a hug. ‘Look.’ He fiddled with his coat. ‘Oh. Damn…I wanted to be able to produce them with a flourish, you know. Ah, here they are. Ouch. Fuck. Sorry.’ He pulled a limp, cellophane-covered bunch of motorway service-station roses out of his sleeve.
‘It’s lovely to see you, you annoying man. Thank you.’ Mum beamed and moved to close the french windows. She started. ‘Oh…my God. Is someone else out there?’
As the wind whistled and the chimney belched smoke into the room, Mike said, ‘I’d like you all to meet Rosalie.’
He grinned rather shiftily, and a second figure appeared from behind him, immaculately made up, not a hair out of place, despite the wind, an early-forties minx-a-like with – and this was obvious even through her cashmere coat – a spectacularly pneumatic chest.
‘This is Rosalie,’ Mike repeated. ‘My wife.’
Rosalie stepped forward. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet y’all,’ she said, and smiled, revealing a set of shockingly white teeth.
We’re so British, my family. If we’d been Italian we’d have jumped up and down, waving our arms, demanding to know where Mike had met her and when. If we’d been Afghan, French or Brazilian we would have come out with at least some of the questions we were dying to ask. Instead we simply nodded and stood quite silently.
Then Kate broke the spell. ‘Congratulations! Wonderful!’ she said, then kissed Rosalie and Mike, who clutched her hand.
‘Bless you, Kate,’ he said.
Mum and Dad followed suit, murmuring politely, and Tom and Gibbo shook his hand bashfully. For all his Antipodean forthrightness Gibbo could clearly hear ancestral voices calling when an awkward situation loomed.
Mike hung their coats on the long wooden rack in the hall, and took Rosalie upstairs to show her their room, the long low one at the front of the house with the rose wallpaper, which Mum said was so appropriate for Rosalie, as if she’d known her brother-in-law was about to turn up with a complete stranger to whom he’d just hitched himself. We stood around like Easter Island statues, until they came back, five or so minutes later, looking rather ruffled.
‘Get rid of that God-awful gin and let’s have a proper drink.’ Mike produced two bottles. ‘We brought some champagne.’ He whipped off the foil and wire, popped a cork and out it flowed, thick and creamy, into Dad’s empty sloe-gin glass, which Mike now drained.
There was a silence. I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. Kate hummed and looked at the cornices.
‘Let me get some more glasses,’ said Mum suddenly, and hurried into the kitchen with Chin.
‘We met at a law conference in November,’ Mike said, out of the blue, as Rosalie smiled up at him.
‘This November?’ Dad enquired, like a man in the final throes of strangulation.
‘Nuts, Rosalie?’ Tom asked innocently.
‘Shut up,’ I hissed.
‘Well, thank you – Tom, is it?’ Rosalie breathed, and flashed him a brilliant smile.
Tom coughed.
‘So…when did you decide to get married, then?’ Dad stammered.
‘Well…’ Rosalie and Mike looked at each other and giggled.
‘Well, John,’ said Rosalie, ‘you’re not
