Page 30 of A Miracle on Hope Street
‘Yes, now,’ I say, getting up from my chair. ‘There’s no time like the present. Finish your tea, of course, but we’ve have a lot to be getting on with and we’ll start with a new tree. It’s only six days before Christmas so there’s no point hanging around.’
I get my coat and bring Michael’s to him and when I return to the drawing room, he is already on his feet.
As we both stand in my old, empty family home, putting on our coats and getting ready to do something as simple as go together to buy a new Christmas tree, I feel a warm rush of excitement inside again at the thought of planning this dinner.
Michael is right. I need to do this my way. It was my idea, my attempt at action speaking louder than words and it will be nice to have him cheering me on, even if it is in the background.
‘Let’s do this,’ says Michael to me, no longer afraid to look me in the eye. ‘Let’s go and get you a mighty fine Christmas tree. And then it’s over to you to find your guests and make it all happen.’
Chapter Thirteen
We arrive back at 41 Beech Row less than an hour later, having quickly chosen a brand- new, all-singing, all-dancing full-featheredrealChristmas tree and the smell of fresh pine as we drag it through the door hits my senses and gives me the most wonderful feeling of Christmas New. I’d bought silver and purple baubles to decorate its branches, two sets of fairy lights and a huge glittering silver angel that I thought might be tacky but which Michael totally insisted would be perfect.
But the tree was my favourite.
As a child, I always wanted a real Christmas tree but my mother would never allow it, insisting that it was way too much hassle to vacuum up the needles from the floor and even when I lived in different cities and flat-shared with different people in my early working life as a journalist, I never had the opportunity to get a totally authentic, out-from-the-ground tree that was so awkward in shape yet so gracious at the same time.
I love it. I love it so much.
‘You’ll have to give it a name,’ Michael had said to me on the way home from the store where we’d also picked up a few sets of new lights and a dancing Santa Claus which we both agreed was perfectly essential, especially when we heard him singing as part of his repertoire, ‘Lonely This Christmas’. It was a case ofsoldimmediately.
‘How on earth do younamea Christmas tree?’ I laughed as I drove through the evening traffic. ‘Do you have something in mind?’
Michael turned up the tunes on the radio that filled the car with Christmas spirit.
‘Well, I’d like to leave it up to you as it’s your party and it’s your house,’ Michael told me, ‘but to be honest, she looks like a Bertha to me. Bushy Bertha.’
I almost crashed the car from laughing and by the time we got back to the house with the dancing Santa and Bushy Bertha in tow, my sides were sore. I felt so full up inside that I wanted to phone my sister and tell her all about the most wonderful two hours with the most enlightening stranger who’d convinced me to do something that she never could for so many years – to go and get a bloody new Christmas tree.
We talked about stuff as we drove and as we shopped. We talked about music: I learned more about his rock anthem days and later love of Britpop, while I told of how I was born and bred on classical music but will always have a soft spot for boybands like Take That. We talked about food – his favourite eateries are noodle bars and Thai restaurants and he can cook a mean red curry, apparently, and I told him he ain’t seen nothing yet until he tries the lasagne I made earlier. We talked about funny or disappointing Christmas presents of years gone by from Santa; he always wanted an electric guitar as a teenage boy and never got one, I wanted roller boots but they went out of fashion before they came my way.
We talked about everything except what we probably were meant to talk about – the Christmas dinner we are hosting in less than a week and the fateful night on Hope Street when our paths crossed and inevitably brought us together on this mission in the first place.
We avoided all of that and just talked about fun stuff. Yes, for the first time in so, so long, I’ve actually laughed and had fun.
Now, back in this grand, musty drawing room as I stoke the fire and top it up with logs and coal, Michael unravels the Christmas tree lights from their boxes with a lot more patience than I ever could, and before long the fire is roaring and the lights and baubles are all in place.
‘Okay, let’s countdown and have our grand switch-on,’ he says to me, his brown eyes dancing with excitement. ‘I always wanted to have a lights switch-on when I was a kid and never had the chance to.’
‘What a lovely idea,’ I say to him. ‘I don’t think I ever had a lights switch-on countdown either before. Okay, you kick off and I’ll follow.’
‘Wait, wait!’ he says, rummaging in the huge plastic bags from the department store. ‘How on earth could we forget about this?’
He takes out the angel from her packaging and hands it to me. I can’t help but smile. She actually isn’t so bad, now that I look at her properly.
‘She’s a very pretty angel,’ Michael says to me and puts her in her position as there is no way I could ever reach.
I hold the switch in my hand and off we go – five, four, three, two one! The tree lights up so spectacularly, so full of sparkle and newness and cheer that tears fill my tired eyes. I put down the leads and Michael tucks them under the tree.
‘Wow!’ I say, covering my face with my hands. ‘It’s so beautiful. Not bad for a Grinch like you! I’d almost say you enjoyed that!’
He laughs, and when he looks at me, maybe I’m imagining it but I think his eyes look a bit on the glassy side too.
‘Are you hungry?’ I ask him.
‘Starving,’ he says with a smile. ‘Did you say you’d cooked lasagne?’
My eyes brighten.
