the dude.’
‘And he loves you.’
‘I believe that to be the truth.’
‘So just ask him. People don’t meet in the rain trying to jump in the same cab these days, they meet online, they get engaged on reality TV. They hook up with their friends and they get knocked up. They get married because they need a visa. When and where he puts a ring on your finger isn’t important, as long as he loves you.’
‘That is the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard,’ I said, slapping her hand off my leg. ‘You will never have bedtime story privileges with my kids.’
‘Be real hard to tell a bedtime story to kids in England.’ She raised an eyebrow then looked away. ‘No one’s arguing with the fact that you could get a visa another way, but there’s no need to make it harder for yourself. You don’t have anything to prove. Just ask Alex.’
‘Just ask Alex what?’
Two glasses of champagne appeared in front of me. Since he didn’t seem to be carrying anything else, I only took one. Begrudgingly.
‘Your beloved Angela Clark and I were just talking.’ Jenny beamed up at my boyfriend as she spoke.
‘About Christmas dinner,’ I squeaked. ‘I was saying Jenny and Sigge should come over to our place for Christmas dinner.’
‘Sure.’ Alex aimed his champagne glass in the giant Swede’s direction. ‘I will totally get into an eating contest with that guy.’
‘Dude, your waist is skinnier than one of his thighs,’ Jenny scoffed. ‘Are you kidding me?’
‘Oh, Jenny, Jenny, Jenny, you have no idea,’ I said, proudly wrapping an arm around Alex’s waist. ‘He’s got hollow legs. Honestly, it’s disgusting the amount he can eat and stay this thin.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll get real fat when I’m old,’ he replied, kissing me on the top of the head. ‘Good and fat.’
‘Awesome.’ I leaned into him and tried to envisage a porky Alex on a porch swing playing a banjo.
Totally hot.
Some hours and several glasses of champagne later, I wandered out of the front room, leaving Alex to protect my lovely friend Vanessa from the advances of his disgusting friend Craig, who had somehow found his way into the party. Facebook had so much to answer for. After a liberal application of lip balm and a tipsy spritz of Jenny’s Gucci perfume, I checked my phone. It was admittedly a slim possibility that anyone would have called to offer me a job at half-past eleven on a Saturday night, but you never knew. Shit. Three missed calls. All from my mum. I did a quick calculation on the time difference: the last call was an hour ago, making it three-thirty in the UK. I sobered up in a heartbeat and pressed redial. Cooling my warm forehead against the window, I stared out at the Chrysler Building, all lit up, well, like Christmas, and wished on every star I could see that everything was OK.
‘Hello? Angela?’
‘It’s me, Mum. What’s wrong?’ I closed my eyes and wished harder.
‘It’s your dad,’ she replied. ‘He’s been taken poorly.’
I closed my eyes as I tried to strike a deal to change my Christmas miracle.
‘What’s wrong?’ A million different scenarios were running through my head. Heart attack? Stroke? Had he fallen downstairs? Dad was fit and active for a man in his sixties, but you could never be certain. What if it was some horrible illness? I’d give him a kidney. A kidney for Christmas. Anything for my dad.
‘I don’t want you to panic – the doctor says he’s probably going to be all right,’ she went on, her voice pale and grey. ‘But basically he had a bit of a funny turn at Auntie Sheila’s Christmas do, so we had to take him into hospital.’
‘A bit of a funny turn? Are they the words the doctor used?’
‘Not exactly,’ she hedged. ‘But I thought you’d want to know. So you could come home.’
Home.
Before I could reply, I heard Dad’s voice in the background demanding to be given the phone. After what sounded like a relatively non-violent altercation, my dad’s voice came on the line.
‘Angela, I told her not to call you, I’m fine.’ Aside from sounding a bit tired and rough around the edges, he did sound like himself. I relaxed by one-eighteenth of a degree. ‘I’m just in overnight for observation. There’s nothing wrong.’
‘But what happened? What sort of funny turn? Do I need to come home?’ I wiped the tears away before they could ruin my mascara and tried to work out how I could manage to squeeze a flight back to the UK out of my meagre bank account. Flight prices in December were obscene. I had a better chance of someone lending me a private jet. Actually, Erin’s husband had a private jet. Maybe if I got really drunk, I could forget I was English and ask for a quick borrow.
‘You don’t need to come back for this – I’ll see you when I see you,’ he replied. ‘Really, I had something I shouldn’t have and, like your mum said, I had a funny turn. I’m fine.’
‘You’re allergic to something? Might I be allergic to something?’ Obviously, I was very concerned for his well-being. And a little bit about mine. ‘What was it?’
‘I don’t think you need to worry, really. You’re fine, love. Now, when are you coming to see us? Your mother is still insisting on buying the world’s biggest bloody turkey in case you decide to grace us with your presence for Christmas dinner.’
Hmm. Was it me or was he being weird?
‘Dad?’
‘Angela?’
‘What did you eat at Auntie Sheila’s that put you in hospital?’
‘We were just having a nice night in with Sheila and George and your Uncle John and Aunt Maureen came over,’ he explained slowly. ‘And, well, your Aunt Maureen had made some special cakes. For a laugh.’
‘Special cakes?’
‘Yes.’
‘For a laugh?’
‘Yes.’
‘Dad …’ It took a very long time for me to understand what he was saying. And then just as long again for me to accept it. ‘Were you and Mum doing space cakes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh dear God.’
The desire to go home and nurse my poor old dad to health transformed into a desire to go home and slap my stupid old dad around the head whilst tutting at my mother and shaking my head in disappointment.
When I was seventeen, my mum marched into Gareth Altman’s eighteenth birthday party, saw me standing next to Briony Jones, who was holding an unlit hand-rolled cigarette, and shrieked, ‘Angela Clark, I will not have a drug user in my house!’, then dragged me out by my borrowed Radiohead T-shirt. Which was subsequently
