Page 110 of The Day After Christmas
James just moaned in response.
They were propped up against the squishy cushions watchingDie Hardbecause they’d missed the opportunity to watch it the day before and with cats named Holly and Gennie (Gennaro) after the character in the film, it was now a yearly ritual.
‘Remember when you dressed up as John McClane?’ said Felicity.
‘How could I forget?’ said James in that low, sexy voice of his.
‘Do you, um, still have the outfit?’
James looked horrified. ‘I mean, I do, but you’re not suggesting…?’
Felicity grinned. ‘God, no. Not now. I can barely move to a sitting position let alone anything… else.’
‘Thank God. Me too. Christmas Day is officially the least sexy day of the year. Also, I didn’t bring it.’
Felicity traced an idle circle on his stomach with one finger. ‘So that means you do still have it.’
‘I might.’
‘The vest and the gun and all that?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Then that’s happening when we get home, right?’
‘Right you are. Or should I say, yippee-ki-yay?’
Felicity laughed and snuggled against him. ‘Yes. You should. Perfect.’
The following morning Felicity woke early. The light seeping through the gap in the thick curtains was still grey and soft and she lay for a time staring at the ornate ceiling rose, listening to James’s steady breathing beside her.
When it was clear all hope of going back to sleep was lost, she threw back the pillowy duvet and pottered around the room as quietly as she could manage. Realising there was no hope of actually getting the noisiest wardrobe in the world open without waking James, she eventually settled for pulling one of his woollen jumpers over her fancy new cat pyjamas and strapping on her walking boots.
The cold air hit her as she crept out of the hotel’s heavy front door and padded down towards Moulin Huet Bay in the semi-dark, and she shivered as she walked down the quiet lane,exchanging a wry smile and a whispered “Happy Christmas” with a pink-cheeked woman clad in pyjamas and welly boots who had clearly had the same idea a little earlier.
The walkway down to the water was steep and slick with frost but something was pulling Felicity to the sea and she walked with purpose, not really clear what that purpose was but certain it would reveal itself at some point.
Reaching the bay, the sun just barely peeping over the horizon, she closed her eyes for but a moment and breathed the salty tang on the air, listening to the waves softly lapping at the beach below. A bench had been set up to the side of the path just a few metres from the sand, and she sat gratefully, wrapping her arms around herself and wishing she’d been brave enough to open the creaky wardrobe and grab a coat.
This was the view that inspired Renoir, she thought. Perhaps not on such a misty cold morning, but still, even now it had a bleak kind of beauty. There was something about the sea that always seemed to speak to her soul. Perhaps everyone felt like that. There were practical reasons too, of course, but perhaps humanity always populated the coastlines first because they had a spiritual need to, somehow.
Boxing Day. She had survived another Christmas with James and he hadn’t walked out and left her. More to the point, she hadn’t ruined it by being grumpy and sad and Eeyore-ish. In fact, this time she had positively relished their Christmas Day, and she wondered vaguely whether they could get away with sneaking off to Guernsey every year. Would anyone notice, or mind?
The bench was cold through her pyjamas and seeping into her bones and she knew she should probably head back to the hotel but something… something was nagging at her. But what was it? Nothing bad, that was for sure. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this happy in fact. So what?
And then it hit her. That’s what it was. She was happy. She was actually happy for the first time in ages. Perhaps – and Felicity cringed at her own dramatic flair – for the first time ever. She was in love. Properly, completely, fully in love and more than that, she was happy in her own skin. In her life. In where she was. She had people who loved her back and not just because they had to or in a surface way but fully, completely, loved her.
James loves me.
I love him.
More than that,she thought,I trust him.
I’m not constantly expecting him to leave.
I’m not expecting him to leave at all.
That last thought hit her like a thunderbolt.I trust him.For Felicity, who had never been able to rely on a single person for her whole life, except perhaps Andrea, to fully and completely trust someone felt like an almost impossible achievement.
