Page 23 of Five Gold Rings

SIX

Eve

‘YES! See how good we look?’ I joke as I walk into Joe’s living room, looking at him as we wear our matching pyjamas.

He lunges into the tighter, tapered bottoms and laughs. ‘Well, they’re at least warmer than what I was wearing before,’ he tells me, looking over at the coffee table to see I’ve grabbed some items from the kitchen and laid out all the food from our supermarket haul.

We did excellent work there. I found a selection of clothes to make me look presentable for the next couple of days, and Joe was gracious enough to walk me around as I grabbed toiletries, make up and all the assorted things that I have plenty of at home but couldn’t bring myself to go back and collect. We then hit the party food and wine hard. Happy birthday, baby Jesus, because your birth means we can buy charcuterie platters, ready-made trifles and chocolate treats as a put-together festive supper.

I sit down beside Joe on the sofa and pour myself another glass of wine as he helps himself to a wedge of cheese. Joe is surprising me in many ways tonight. For a start, I’d never have got Chris in matching pyjamas, but there are little things I’m learning about him today. Like, the man knows how to shop. If this sounds ridiculous, I mean he knows how to check a bag of clementines for rogue mouldy ones before he puts them in the trolley, load a conveyor belt on the tills (heavies first; chilled in the middle; produce to the back) and he spoke to the checkout lady, using her name, asking her about her Christmas plans. Turns out Cindy isn’t keen on turkey, she’s having chicken. Fair play, Cindy.

I watch him now as he flicks through the TV channels. I’m quite into his front room. There’s a heavy bachelor vibe with the computer games and earthy man colours but they’ve made an effort with a tree in the corner, with multicoloured lights sparkling to a melody I can’t hear.

I look up at the top of the tree and frown. ‘Why is there a picture of a man on your tree?’

‘My landlord and housemate is called Gabriel. Like the angel. It’s funny… To us, maybe…’

It is funny and somewhat adorable. I like how someone in the house made the effort to cut out Gabriel’s face, attach him to a toilet roll and make him wings and a tiny tinsel halo.

‘Well, this is lovely. Thanks for getting it all ready,’ he tells me.

‘Least I could do,’ I tell him, as he looks down at my notes on the table mapping out our route for the next couple of days. ‘You sounded busy upstairs?’ I ask him.

‘Oh… Well, I wanted you to have the bed, so I just had a tidy and…’

‘You don’t have to do that.’

‘It’s cool, I’ll take the sofa.’

‘Is it a double or a single bed?’ I say. ‘We could always top and tail?’ He freezes for a moment, and I realise how that sounds. Oh, I’ve been dumped in the most horrific of ways. Let’s share a bed in our matching pyjamas like it’s some awful revenge sex set-up. ‘I mean… That sounds dodgy. I just don’t want you to be put out.’

‘I’m not. I’ll take the sofa,’ he says, slight panic in his eyes. He shoves some pretzels in his mouth to have to avoid talking about that in any more detail. ‘You were good before… With those kids,’ he says, changing the subject.

‘The ones who called you a bell-end?’ I reply, laughing. To be fair, he was called much worse in that supermarket. I thought that people might like the novelty of the costume, but one tutting woman covered her child’s eyes, and an older gentleman called him a pervert.

‘The very ones,’ he says, helping himself to titbits on the table. ‘Some stellar gift giving advice there.’

‘Oh, I learned from the best… My mum was the best gift giver I know.’ He notices how I speak in the past tense, and he hesitates to know how to reply. ‘She was obsessed with Christmas. I mean, twins called Eve and Noel…’

‘I thought your birthday was in September?’ he remarks.

‘Conceived at Christmas.’

He stifles a smile. ‘How long has she been gone?’

‘Three years.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he says quietly, turning towards me.

‘That’s kind. Christmas always hits a bit harder. So, you can imagine the events of this morning haven’t really helped…’ As my words tail off, I still can’t believe that all happened this morning. My mild booze buzz has worn off and a sad sobering reality is back in view. I think back to when I first met Chris. It was just after Mum died and I longed to find joy again, to enjoy Christmas again, to love again. But I guess that’s now gone. Waves of sadness overcome me thinking how Chris has stamped all over this time of year for me. Tears form in the corners of my eyes that start to roll down the curves of my cheeks.

‘Oh, Eve…’ Joe tells me, handing me a napkin.

I take a deep breath. ‘But then we’re changing the narrative, right? We’re jumping out of ice sculptures, helping kids in supermarkets. And the next two days will be just that. Weddings, proposals… helping generate some real joy at the best time of year. So I can remember this Christmas for different reasons.’

He nods, still not really knowing what to say but I am reassured that he’s still here and not run away in abject horror. The fact is there is so much to say, so much emotion pent up in me and I don’t know how to express any of it so instead, I reach over to hug Joe. Given we’ve been work colleagues up until this point, it feels good to drip feed him details of my backstory, but I feel I have over-hugged this evening. I hope I’m not scaring the poor fella.

‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I feel we’re really bonding, you know?’ I joke, trying to change the mood of the moment.

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