A Very Lucky Christmas Read online

  Carl took Freddie’s hand in one of his, exposing his not-inconsiderable manhood. He’s a big fella, Daisy noticed absently, in more ways than one, and the old adage regarding the correlation between the size of a man’s feet and the size of his appendage, came to mind. In this instance it was true, she noted.

  Freddie couldn’t look her in the eye. ‘Yes,’ he said finally, as the silence stretched out.

  ‘You and him?’ Daisy asked, seeking clarification.

  She thought she could cope with a woman, but this bloke? How the hell was she supposed to compete with that, she wondered, as Carl flashed his assets at her.

  Please put them away, she pleaded silently. Wasn’t there another dress in there? She’d willingly sacrifice any dress she owned if it meant she didn’t have to look at his dangling manhood for a second longer.

  Actually, she didn’t have to look. She could simply go downstairs and wait for him to leave.

  ‘How long had this been going on?’ she demanded. ‘No, don’t tell me, I really don’t want to know. What am I to you, Freddie? A front, so people don’t know you’re gay?’

  His voice was so low Daisy strained to hear his reply. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Did you ever love me?’ Tears threatened, though whether they were sad tears or angry ones, Daisy couldn’t tell. It was too early to say how badly her heart was broken. At the moment, disbelief was riding her hard. Freddie – gay? There must be some mistake.

  He’d certainly not been gay when they’d had sex, had he? He’d loved her curves, her womanliness. He’d certainly not had any trouble responding to her. In the beginning, during the so-called honeymoon period, he’d been as randy as a butcher’s dog. He hadn’t been able to get enough of her.

  What had changed?

  Had she put him off women? Was it her fault?

  ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ Freddie said, in a subdued voice. ‘I can’t help being attracted to men.’

  ‘Do you love him?’ Daisy demanded.

  Without warning, she burst into tears. Not wanting to give either man the satisfaction of seeing her cry, she fled downstairs and into the kitchen.

  All her dreams, all her plans had fallen down around her ears. A bigger house, a wedding, a family – none of that would happen now, and she had no idea what to do next. Staying in this house wasn’t an option. Staying in a relationship with Freddie was impossible. So where did that leave her?

  She was wiping her eyes on a sheet of kitchen roll when she heard muted voices from the hall, then the front door clicked shut. The sound of a car starting up made her wonder if Freddie had left, along with Carl. A part of her hoped he had, for how was she supposed to face him after what had just happened?

  Freddie sidled into the kitchen, looking apprehensive. He looked so sorrowful and contrite that she wanted to wrap her arms around him and tell him everything would be alright – but it wouldn’t, would it?

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she said, sniffling and reaching for another piece of kitchen roll to blow her nose.

  ‘What question?’

  She knew Freddie was stalling – she could read him like a book. Except, she’d missed out the “I prefer men” chapter, hadn’t she? She obviously didn’t know him as well as she’d thought she did.

  ‘Do you love him?’ she repeated.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Is that a “yes”?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long has it been going on?’

  Freddie sighed and looked away. ‘Is there any point in discussing this?’

  ‘Of course there’s a bloody point! I want to know!’

  ‘It won’t change anything.’

  If Carl had been a woman, Daisy would have undoubtedly have asked questions like “is she younger than me?”, “do you think she’s prettier?”, and “is she better in bed?”. But none of these things applied, and she found she had no basis on which to compare. There was only one comparison which mattered – her absence of the correct chromosome. It was like trying to compare a dog to a cat, and at that moment, Daisy felt like the silliest bitch on earth.

  ‘Just tell me,’ she demanded, her arms folded across her chest, her chin wobbling as she tried not to cry.

  ‘Are you asking how long I’ve been attracted to men, or how long I’ve been seeing Carl.’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘All my life, and a few months.’

  ‘You could have fooled me. Oh yeah, you did fool me, didn’t you? We had sex for goodness sake. Didn’t it mean anything to you?’

  ‘Look, Daisy, I love you, you know that—’

  ‘I don’t know anything anymore,’ she interrupted.

  ‘—but I don’t love you, love you. Not like two soul mates should.’

  ‘I thought you were my soul mate,’ Daisy wailed. ‘We’ve been living together for years, we’ve got the same sense of humour, we like the same things. Mostly.’ Yeah, she thought cynically, seems we really do like the same things – MEN!

  Freddie sat down heavily on one of the kitchen chairs and put his head in his hands. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ he said slowly.

  ‘But you did, though,’ she pointed out. She puffed out her cheeks in an effort not to cry and blinked, fluttering her hands in front of her face.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t want you to find out like this.’ Freddie actually did sound sorry. Not that it made the slightest bit of difference.

  ‘How did you want me to find out? When we were walking down the aisle, when I was pregnant with our first baby? When?’

  ‘I know it’s crazy, right? But I love him and there’s nothing I can do about it.’ He looked at Daisy, begging her with his eyes to understand.

  And she did understand, in a way, but it didn’t make the situation any easier to bear. ‘What happens now?’ she asked.

  ‘Clean break?’ His tone was hopeful. ‘Split everything we own jointly straight down the middle?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’ Freddie shrugged and suddenly Daisy noticed how thin he’d become, and how gaunt his face was. The secret must have been eating away at him for a long time. She experienced an abrupt and unwelcome surge of sympathy. She wanted to hate him, to rage at him, to call him every nasty name she could think of, to take a scissors to his stupid sweaters, and pour his expensive aftershave down the sink.

  But all she felt was pity.

  ‘I don’t want half. I don’t want anything, except my clothes, make-up, and laptop. You can keep the rest,’ she said.

  ‘What about the lamp in the living room? You love that lamp.’

  ‘Not anymore. It would remind me of us, of you.’

  ‘Oh. If you don’t want anything then…?’

  ‘Move Carl in, or go live with him I don’t care.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Go back to my mother’s.’

  Chapter 4

  Daisy took one last look around the place she had called home for the past three years, and quietly shut the front door behind her. She kept hold of her keys; she’d not packed everything and she intended to return at some point to pick up the rest of her things, but she wanted to choose a time when she knew Freddie wouldn’t be at home.

  At the moment, she never wanted to set eyes on him again.

  Car loaded, she drove out of the cul-de-sac and headed towards her mother’s house, feeling totally and utterly dejected. She’d envisioned only ever returning to the family home to sleep on one last occasion – the eve of her wedding. Look at her now, thirty-years-old and running back home to her mother with her tail between her legs.

  Not that her mother would be too happy about it, but hopefully she’d not make too much of a fuss, except for giving her the inevitable all-men-are-bastards speech, which Daisy would probably get a double dose of from both her mother and her nan. Though Daisy suspected her nan had been secretly pleased when Daisy had moved out, because it meant she could move right in, which she’d done with all the speed of a greyho
und chasing after a mechanical rabbit, and with the same amount of dogged determination.

  Three adult women in one house, and all related to each other? It was a recipe for disaster, but she had nowhere else to go. She had some savings, admittedly, but not nearly as much as Freddie thought, and she didn’t want to waste any of it on renting somewhere, not if she wanted to buy a place of her own someday. And she realised just how much she did want that – her own home. Hers. No one else’s.

  Throughout their three years of living together, Daisy had always been conscious of the fact the house belonged to Freddie. Not that he had ever rubbed her nose in it, but there were the occasional small remarks, and the odd comment. She didn’t think he knew he was doing it.

  Any other daughter would be going back to her mother for tea and sympathy, and hugs, and “there, there, you’ll get over it”. Any other mother would provide lashings of the above, plus kisses on the forehead, and squeezed shoulders, and ruffled hair.

  But not Sandra. And not Elsie either.

  ‘It’s Wednesday,’ her mother said, when Daisy rang the doorbell and walked into a bizarre version of a Christmas grotto. A low-hanging, foil decoration hung in the kitchen doorway, at exactly the right height for slapping her in the face, and the rest of the room was scattered with fairy lights, like Nigella Lawson’s kitchen in her cookery show. Except Nigella had hers strung tastefully on a dresser, not wrapped around the back of the cooker, where it was a fire hazard, or dangling from the cupboards so you couldn’t open the doors properly. Then there was the half-dead poinsettia on the windowsill, and masses of Christmas cards taped to the fridge with hardly a room for a pin between them.

  ‘I know it’s Wednesday,’ Daisy said.

  ‘You never visit on Wednesdays. We’re just about to have egg, beans, and chips for tea. There’s not enough for three.’

  ‘It’s okay, I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Not hungry? Are you coming down with something?’ Then Sandra’s hand shot to her mouth and she gasped in horror. ‘You’re not pregnant?’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’

  Yeah, wasn’t it just, considering. Then she bristled, and said, ‘Would it be so bad if I was?’

  Her mother gave her a look, the one she always used when she thought the other person was being particularly stupid. Then she spotted what Daisy had left in the hall. ‘What’s with the cases?’ she demanded, eyeing them suspiciously.

  Daisy had packed two, and wasn’t really sure what she’d shoved in them. For all she knew, she might have brought her bikini and flip flop collection with her; very useful in December. She’d flung random stuff in, not thinking about what she was doing, just desperate to get out of that house and away from Freddie.

  In a tiny voice, Daisy whispered, ‘Can I stay with you for a bit?’

  She was greeted with silence. Sandra froze, the oven door half open as she bent to check on the progress of the chips. Her nan paused, butter knife in the air, and both women turned to stare at her, as if in slow motion, their eyes wide and their mouths open.

  Was it really so surprising? Relationships broke down every day.

  ‘I knew it wouldn’t last,’ Sandra declared eventually, turning her attention back to the chips, which were nicely cooking in the oven. The smell of them made Daisy feel slightly nauseous.

  ‘Did you?’ Daisy said. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘I told you all men were bastards,’ her mother declared.

  Elsie nodded her agreement, then narrowed her eyes, as a thought occurred to her. ‘You can’t have your room back,’ her nan said, defensively. ‘It’s mine, now.’

  Daisy sank wearily onto a kitchen chair. ‘I’ll sleep in the box room,’ she said. ‘If that’s okay?’ she added, to her mother.

  ‘It’ll have to be, won’t it?’ was the reply. ‘And what do you mean “for a bit”? How long is a bit?’

  Daisy shrugged, and her mother let out a long huffy sigh, and exchanged glances with her nan. No sympathy from either of them. At least Daisy hadn’t expected any, so she wasn’t disappointed.

  Elsie offered her a slice of bread and butter, and Daisy took it, stuffing it unthinkingly into her mouth, and chewing without tasting, hoping it would relieve the sick feeling.

  ‘I’ll make us a nice cup of tea after we’ve eaten,’ her nan said. ‘That’ll make everything better.’

  No, it won’t, Daisy wanted to say, but her nan’s faith in the power of a “nice cup of tea” was unshakeable, so she let it go.

  ‘Go on then, what did he do?’ Sandra asked.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Daisy said. She wasn’t in an emotional place where discussing Freddie’s sexuality was an option. How was she going to break the news that her boyfriend of four years, the man who she’d shared a house with for three of them, was sleeping with another man. It wasn’t a conversation she was looking forward to. Apart from the pity, Daisy suspected people would look at her with speculation, wondering what was so wrong with her that it had driven her boyfriend into a man’s arms. ‘Let’s just say, we like different things,’ she said.

  ‘Rubbish! Liking different things is hardly a reason to come running back home to your mother, is it?’ Sandra said.

  ‘I thought you didn’t expect it to last,’ Daisy pointed out. ‘What’s with the relationship advice?’

  ‘If it was something more serious, like he beat you, or he ran off with another woman, that would be a valid reason, not just “liking different things”. We all like different things, especially men. Who likes watching sport for hours on end? Men, that’s who. Who spends hours in the pub after work? Men. You won’t catch many women doing that.’

  Okay, now her mother was referring to Daisy’s long-absconded father. Trust Sandra to bring everything back to her. Freddie did watch sport, but only now and again, and he never went to the pub after work. He took clients out to dinner instead.

  Or did he? All those times when he said he’d be late, Daisy now suspected was nothing to do with work at all. All those times when she’d heard male voices and laughter on the other end of the phone, and all those times when he’d said he was playing golf with his mates, Daisy now realised it probably hadn’t been golf he’d been playing, though it might well have involved balls of a different kind.

  What a cliché. She was the girlfriend sitting obliviously at home, whilst her man was out screwing around. And to think she’d been reassured by all those men she could hear in the background. Freddie had even put one or two of those so-called “mates” on the phone to speak to her.

  She’d never felt so stupid.

  ‘Get back there and kiss and make up,’ Sandra insisted.

  ‘I can’t.’ Daisy shuddered at the thought of where Freddie’s lips had so recently been. ‘Why are you so keen anyway? I thought you hated men.’

  ‘Your mother thinks Freddie is one of the better ones,’ her nan interjected. ‘If you’ve gotta have a man (and I can’t see any reason why you would, but that’s just my opinion and no one listens to me), then Freddie is probably as good as it gets. Are you sure he hasn’t hit you, has he, because if he has…’ Elsie waved a meaty fist in the air.

  ‘No, Nan, he hasn’t hit me.’

  ‘And he’s not kicked you out because you’ve gotten yourself pregnant?’

  ‘No, I’ve already said, I’m not pregnant.’

  ‘It’s gotta be another woman!’ Sandra declared with relish.

  ‘I can honestly say, there is no other woman involved,’ Daisy replied stoutly.

  ‘Is it your fault then? Have you been with another man and Freddie found out? Poor bloke, no wonder he threw you out,’ Nan said.

  ‘I’ve not been with another man,’ Daisy growled through gritted teeth.

  Thanks for jumping to conclusions, Nan, Daisy thought, marvelling at how quickly her grandmother could change her tune. The pair of them were like a dire double-tag team. Daisy hoped they’d settle down a bit, once they got used
to her being in the house.

  ‘So you’ve fallen out over nothing,’ Sandra concluded. ‘No doubt you’ll run back to him in a couple of days, but don’t expect to come back here every time you have a tiff.’

  Daisy narrowed her eyes. Run to her mother, run back to Freddie… her mother seemed to think Daisy was an Olympic sprinter. She was hardly running; slinking back with her tail between her legs would be a more accurate description.

  ‘I’ll take my cases upstairs,’ she said, desperate for a couple of hours on her own to wallow in her misery, and to give herself time to try to come to terms with the mess her life had suddenly become.

  She had a feeling it was going to take much longer than a couple of hours, as she humped her heavy cases up the stairs, and hesitated outside what had once been her bedroom. Although she knew it was childish and her mother hadn’t had much of an option when Nan had suggested she move herself in (what was her mum supposed to do, say no?) a nasty little part of her wished her mum had refused. This had been Daisy’s home. Once. But now she felt like an unwelcome guest.

  It wasn’t her mother’s fault. Daisy realised that Sandra had assumed both her children were settled, with their own homes, and their own partners, and their own lives to lead. She’d not expected either one of them to return to the nest, especially with Daisy being thirty and safely settled with Freddie, and David having his own home (though it came via a hefty mortgage), a good job (if you enjoyed peering into people’s mouths for a living), and a pretty, new wife.

  What did Daisy have?

  The house she’d lived in with Freddie had belonged solely to Freddie, and Daisy was just beginning to feel the first stirrings of resentment as she considered exactly how much money she had paid towards his mortgage, disguised as “contributing to the finances”, and clearly her partner had never been hers to begin with. The only thing she had going for her, was her job, and Caring Cards wasn’t exactly doing well, according to her colleague, Melissa, who knew everything (how did she do that?).