Page 1 of Meet Me In Central Park

1

‘Sit down, Libby, I’ve got something to tell you.’ Nan was already pouring brandy into two glasses, which couldn’t be a good sign. I’d been about to say we shouldn’t be drinking while we were working, but looking around the pub, there weren’t any customers to worry about. Our takings for the day would barely have covered the cost of a pickled gherkin each, let alone the huge brandies she was pouring. Maybe the pub takings were what she wanted to talk about? My stomach dropped at the thought. My grandparents couldn’t shut the place, though. I’d have nowhere left to go.

‘Can you just tell me what it is, please?’ Why couldn’t she just come out with it? All the preamble did was prolong the agony, and I’d been there before. The fact that Nan felt the need to pour such strong drinks was worrying, but I’d already had the worst news in the world. So, whatever it was, it couldn’t be that bad.

‘We’re closing the pub.’ Nan shoved one of the glasses towards me.

Finally doing as I was told, and plonking myself down onto a rickety barstool, I picked up the glass and took a big swig. It was like inhaling a tube of Deep Heat. No wonder they gave people brandy for shock – the pain in my oesophagus made it impossible to think about anything else. ‘I can’t believe you’re actually selling up. When did you make that decision?’

‘Oh no, we’re not closing it, closing it.’ Nan laughed, and I wondered if she’d started on the brandy before me. She wasn’t making any sense and I wasn’t finding any of this funny. ‘We’re just closing up for Christmas.’

She’d said it, the C word. The word we’d made a pact not to mention until the first of December every year – longer, if we could avoid it. But it was only September, and I’d barely got over the Christmas before. I know everyone complains about Christmas decorations appearing in the supermarket aisles in September, but I actually had to hold my breath and run past the seasonal aisle in Sainsbury’s. The world seemed to be obsessed with Christmas the moment the school summer holidays were over and, try as I did to hide away from all that – in the world’s least-successful micro-pub – it always proved impossible in the end.

It would have been easier to move to a country where they didn’t celebrate Christmas at all, but then I’d never exactly been skilled at learning new languages. Five years of schoolgirl French had left me able to repeat ‘je ne comprends pas’ in a fairly convincing accent. But it was hardly a basis for believing I’d be fluent in Japanese, given enough time.

I could cope with Christmas Day, because it meant a long shift in the pub – when for once there were more customers than staff – and all I had to do was exchange polite good wishes. There was no way I could sit down to a proper Christmas dinner, though. Not when there were two empty spaces at the table. I never thought I’d miss Mum’s dried-out turkey dinners, but I missed everything about them. Even Dad’s jokes. The last time we’d had Christmas dinner, he’d joked that Noah should’ve used Mum’s recipe to cook the turkeys on the ark, because it would have soaked up the flood in ten minutes flat. She’d laughed, like she always did, and Dad had asked for second helpings of turkey, just as he always did, too.

‘I don’t understand. Why are you closing for Christmas? It’s the only time we ever make a profit.’ They couldn’t do this to me. No one else but them understood why I could never face a real Christmas again.

‘Your granddad’s been promising for years that he’ll take me to see the Northern Lights. And now that he’s had his cataracts done, he’s finally got a chance of telling the difference between them and the smears on the car windscreen, which he tried to convince me were a rare glimpse of the lights when we were up in Scotland doing that whisky tasting.’

‘And you’ll be away for Christmas?’ Call me a cynic, but I wasn’t convinced Granddad even knew about the trip. He loved the micro-pub he’d set up when he retired, which was barely bigger than a good-sized front room. It had always been more of a hobby to them than a business, though. Most of the customers were friends of my grandparents, and had their own tankards over the bar, only paying cost price for their drinks. It was usually almost impossible to get Granddad to leave the place, unless he was on a road trip with Nan, testing out a new line for the pub, like the Scottish honey whisky he’d brought back the last time. So the idea that he’d willingly suggested going away for Christmas didn’t ring true.

‘Yes, we’re going on a cruise!’ Nan whipped a brochure out of her handbag, which more or less had its own seat at the bar. ‘We’ll be away from the nineteenth to the twenty-ninth; doesn’t it look great?’

‘Hmm.’ Even though I wanted to grab hold of her by the ankles and beg her not to go, I had to think about what was best for them. Nan had always wanted to do this, and Christmas was hard for them too. After all, they’d lost their daughter – their only child – almost two years before. Now they were stuck with me: a fun sponge, if ever there was one. ‘I’m sure you’ll have a great time, but there’s no need to shut the pub. I can manage. It’s not like we’re ever really rushed off our feet, even at Christmas, and I’m sure Billy would help out if I needed him to.’ Billy was at least twice my age, with gout that made it difficult for him to walk, but it didn’t seem to affect his ability to stand up and look down my top when he got the chance. Every so often, he’d ask me out on a date, too, and I’d wonder how my life had come to this.

I’d had a boyfriend when my parents died and we’d been talking about moving in together, but after the accident he told me I’d changed. He didn’t seem to have any idea why losing both my parents so tragically made such a difference to how I felt about life. At first, he’d tried relentless cheerfulness and, when that hadn’t worked, he told me he couldn’t waste some of the best years of his life waiting for me to realise that life was too short to spend mourning. I’d expected Ryan ending our relationship to hurt, but I’d felt nothing. Not even anger. Since then, despite Nan’s attempts to set me up with almost every unattached male she knew under the age of fifty, I’d had absolutely no desire to even think about another relationship. So, it would be wrong to string Billy along and let him think he might stand a chance – just to convince him to help me out at the pub – but anything was better than not working on Christmas Day.

‘Oh no, we’re definitely shutting the pub,’ Nan said firmly. ‘We’ve told all the regulars already and we’re going to have a big party on New Year’s Eve to make up for it, with all the drinks on the house.’

‘You’ll be bankrupt by the second of January at the rate you’re going.’ I took another sip of brandy. God knows where Granddad had got it from, but it was burning the back of my throat. If I’d been describing it at a tasting, I’ve had said it had notes of battery acid that had been drained through an old sock.

‘It’s only money and closing for Christmas is more important. You can’t go on like this, Libby; it’s been almost two years and that’s long enough. Your mum and dad wouldn’t have wanted this for you.’

‘What do you mean, I can’t go on like this?’

‘Your counsellor said you’ve got to face your fears head-on. That means you’ve got to stop pretending that Christmas doesn’t exist. Otherwise this might be it for you: serving Granddad’s cronies and cooking just enough steak and ale pies to pay your way, but not making enough money to actually have a life. I can’t let it happen, Lib. Not on my watch.’

‘I wish I’d never told you what the counsellor said.’ I couldn’t quite keep my voice from sounding whiney. She was right, though; my counsellor was convinced I’d never get on with my life until I’d learned to celebrate Christmas again. But what no one seemed to understand – not even my lovely grandparents – was that I didn’t want to get on with my life. I didn’t deserve to. My parents were gone and I hadn’t done enough to make sure that the person responsible had been punished for it. I didn’t deserve to celebrate anything, least of all Christmas.

‘Well, you did,’ Nan said sternly. ‘And one way or another, you’re going to have to face up to Christmas this year.’

‘What do you suggest I do? Cook myself a turkey dinner and invite Billy round to pull a cracker with me?’ I shuddered at the thought. That was actually one of Billy’s chat-up lines. Except, in his scenario, I was the cracker.

‘No, I’ve already sorted Christmas for you, too.’ Nan’s eyelid was twitching, but then she had every right to look nervous.

‘What have you done?’

‘I’ve had a phone call from Dottie. She’s had to have her hip done, and you know it’s her busiest time of year…’

A coldness crept up my spine. ‘Oh no. Please tell me you haven’t?’ My great aunt had a Christmas shop, on Seventh Avenue in New York. But not even Nan could think that was a good idea.

Nan looked resolute. ‘She needs someone to help her and you need to be fully immersed in Christmas, according to your counsellor. It’s like a match made in heaven.’

‘Hell, more like.’ I shook my head. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Nan, it’s a shame about Auntie Dottie, but there’s no way I’m going to New York of all places. If it makes you happy, I’ll book to have Christmas dinner at the Abode hotel in town, but I can’t face Christmas and New York. It’s just too much.’

‘I’ve already promised Auntie Dottie.’

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