Page 34 of The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

We’ve reached the end of the aisle now, the place where countless other couples have stood and made their for-ever vows to each other.

‘Jonah won’t forget the rings, I won’t let him,’ he says. ‘And Elle will chill if she has a couple of glasses of champagne in the morning. She’ll be glad to be off-duty.’

He’s right, of course, they’re such minor worries in the grand scale of things. It’s so typical of him to not let all the small stuff worry him. He always insisted he’d take care of the honeymoon, but everything else was going to be my domain right from day one. And I never minded, as such, though it would have been nice for him to have at least faked an interest in wedding favours and table decorations. Dawn and I used to send each other links to things we spotted online, wedding readings and the like. There’s something about wedding planning that is just so pleasurably consuming; it’s joyful and full of hope, a state of delicious limbo. I wish I’d been able to experience it here – there’s so much about our upcoming wedding that I’ve no clue about. It’s strange thinking about Dawn’s wedding now, remembering that poignant last dance with Jonah as I stand here like this with Freddie.

He reels me in against him. ‘You’re going to be the most beautiful girl in the world in your wedding dress. I’d marry you right here, right now, in jeans, Lydia Bird. Except I’m not wearing my lucky pants.’

‘You’re an idiot,’ I laugh, not least because he doesn’t have any lucky pants.

‘Your idiot,’ he says.

‘Too right,’ I say, standing on my tiptoes to kiss him. My nose is cold, but every other piece of me is warm. Freddie’s hands slide down my jean-clad backside and he lifts me clean off the floor.

‘I think you should kiss me like this on the actual day,’ he says.

‘Be a bit impractical in my dress,’ I say, locking my legs around his waist. He holds me there and looks me in the eye, laughing.

‘You should be ashamed of yourself, getting me going in a place like this.’

I hug him, really, really tight. He hugs me back, and for that one golden minute, I’m one hundred per cent happy.

Tuesday 25 December

‘Gin and tonic.’ Elle hands me a drink. ‘Heavy on the gin.’

She touches the rim of her glass against mine, in solidarity rather than celebration. We all knew that today would be hard; for a couple of days last week I wasn’t even planning on coming to Mum’s at all. Freddie and I never had that awkward tussle of alternating whose family we went to for Christmas Day, because his mum has spent the festive season in Spain for at least the last decade. Which made the thought of today even worse. I had a bit of a meltdown, truth be told. Christmas is just so in your face, isn’t it? On the radio, in the shops, on everyone’s lips. The worst of it is that I love Christmas. I’m a total sucker for the movies, the glitter, the food. I start celebrating in October, planning which movies to watch, writing endlessly changing lists of gifts to buy and meals to attempt.

Perhaps because Freddie was such a big kid, he really threw himself into the whole season, whipping everyone else up with him. Jonah texted me a photo this morning, one from their teenage years when Freddie bought them both ridiculous Christmas hats with flashing red bobbles. It’s silly and joyful, their fraternal bond brighter even than their hats. They were both only children, but in each other they’d found a brother. I called him quickly and it was good to hear his voice and feel able to tell each other how much we miss Freddie today. I cried my first tears of the day when he said he missed me too; he always used to come over to ours for Christmas morning bacon sandwiches. Jonah’s in Wales for Christmas this year, Dee has family there. I expect there’s an element of running away too, but I can’t blame him. I sent him back a photo of the bike Freddie bought me a couple of Christmases ago, because I’d once told him I always had Elle’s hand-me-downs as a kid. He hid it outside in the garden with a huge red bow on it. I felt about eight years old. I looked it too, delightedly trying out my new ride up and down the street along with two other shiny new bike owners, both of them under ten. I’m pretty sure my whoops were the loudest.

There’s none of that easy joy today; we’re all subdued, brittle, smiling because we need to rather than because we want to. I feel bad that my whole family have had their Christmas overshadowed too. It’s as if a huge raven has landed on the roof and folded his wings down over the windows, dulling the lights on the tree and underscoring the day with melancholy. At least it’s just us, though. My Auntie June tried her best to get us to go to them for a change, which was lovely of her, but we decided to stay put in the end. Going somewhere else wouldn’t have lessened the impact of Freddie’s absence, and at least here I can sob into my turkey if I need to. I feel a bit bad for Auntie June though, I know she’d have loved to have us all over, if only to water down the acerbic effects of my cousin Lucy.

‘Your mum’s in a panic, she’s forgotten to put the roast potatoes in,’ David says, coming through from the kitchen wearing his customary Christmas jumper. He and Freddie used to try to out-jumper each other, every year more garish than the last. David wasn’t going to wear one at all today; Elle told me so a week or two ago, sending me instantly online to remedy it. I went for one bearing a huge reindeer in sunglasses with flashing antlers – I think it would have been Freddie’s choice had he been here. I gave it to David just now and he made a bad job of hiding his emotions as he slipped it over his head. His serious expression makes a strange contrast with Rudolph’s crazy grin; I sigh and smile at the same time at the sight of it now.

It’s like a stone has been dropped into the middle of a pond; ripple after ripple, concentric circles, hurt spreading outwards. Freddie was the stone. I am the tightest circle around him, then his mum and Jonah, and then outwards to everyone else who loved him: my family and his, Deckers and co at the pub, his colleagues and friends. All those ripples, all those people who might think of him today.

Anyway. I try to pull myself up out of my thoughts and concentrate on the task at hand, navigating through Christmas lunch with my family. Afterwards I can go home and spend my real Christmas with Freddie.

‘No roast potatoes?’ I frown. My mum brags insufferably about her roasties and, to be fair, she has good grounds. ‘That can’t be right.’

In the kitchen, I find Mum face down in the freezer with her backside in the air.

‘What’s this I hear about roast potatoes?’

She straightens and turns to me, her deely boppers flashing red and tears coursing down her face.

‘Don’t even look at me, Lydia, I’m being a stupid old woman who sobs into the frozen peas. It’s the bloody menopause, I’ve got the memory of a goldfish. No, worse, a guppy. I just wanted to make it perfect and I’ve gone and forgotten the bloody roast potatoes and now it’s all ruined,’ she says. ‘I thought I might have a bag of those horrible frozen ones hanging around, but I haven’t even got any of those sodding rotten things.’

I feel a smile start to twitch my lips despite myself. ‘Shall we call the emergency services?’ I say, putting my hands on her shoulders. ‘Declare a potato-related disaster?’

She sniffs. ‘Don’t joke. It’s not funny.’

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I could put some roast chicken crisps in a bowl and we can have those instead? No one will notice once they’ve gone soggy with the gravy.’

She rolls her eyes, and I rip off some kitchen roll and hand it to her.

‘It doesn’t matter, Mum,’ I say, not joking any more. ‘Honestly, it doesn’t.’

She looks unconvinced, but nods. ‘No crisps though,’ she says. ‘This isn’t a student squat.’

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