Alice gestures up to the old clock on the kitchen wall. ‘7.10. Almost, but not quite, the crack of dawn. This feels like it’s becoming a habit, you and me in the kitchen first thing.’
Harry smiles to himself, remembering Brianden. He yawns and stretches his tracksuit-clad legs out in front of him. ‘Do you want me to take Snoop out for a walk?’
Alice smiles and shakes her head, sprinkling a liberal amount of salt and pepper on the turkey then walking over to the fridge for rashers of bacon to lay in strips on the turkey’s breast.
‘Snoop’s already been out. But thanks.’
‘And you’re calling me the early bird?’ Harry laughs. ‘What time did you get up?’
‘Around six.’
‘Six o’clock? That’s the middle of the night!’
‘That’s what I used to think when we were in London, but here there’s so much more to do. I just seem to be so much busier that there are never enough hours in the day. If I didn’t get up early I wouldn’t get anything done.’
‘Speaking of which, what can I do to help?’
Alice pauses, about to say what she always says which is nothing, I’m fine, but she could do with the help, and there’s no harm in admitting she’s not Superwoman after all.
‘Tell you what,’ she says. ‘There’s fresh coffee in the pot so help yourself, then you can peel potatoes.’
‘Sounds great. There’s nothing like man’s work to really make me feel useful.’
Alice shrugs. ‘Well, you did ask. You could peel the parsnips if you prefer. Or help make the stuffing.’
‘Ah, stuffing.’ Harry raises an eyebrow. ‘That does sound like man’s work.’
‘Oh, ha ha. We’ll have none of that talk in this house, thank you.’
Harry walks over to pour himself a coffee, grabbing Alice’s cup on the way and refilling hers. As he pours he peers out of the window into the darkness. ‘Bummer. I see there’s no snow. I don’t even remember the last time I had a white Christmas.’
‘I know.’ Alice smiles. ‘You’d think that out here in Connecticut you’d at least have more of a chance. I suppose you have to go further north, Vermont probably, to get the snow.’
Harry laughs. ‘I suppose it would have been too good to be true to wake up on Christmas Day and find a blanket of snow. Already it feels like I’m waking up in someone’s fantasy.’
Alice turns to him. ‘What do you mean?’
Harry starts to peel the potatoes. ‘I mean this house, being in this part of the world. It’s just the most perfect romantic life, so perfect it’s almost ridiculous.’
‘Harry, do you know I’m so glad you said that. That’s how I feel every single day when I wake up here but no one else seems to understand it.’
‘Listen, I’m a real country boy at heart. I completely understand it. But that’s what I meant about the snow, it would be so corny it would be laughable.’
Alice laughs. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I do see what you mean.’
‘Alice? What should I do with the peelings?’
‘Just chuck them in the bin.’
‘What about using them for compost?’
‘I don’t have a compost heap, unfortunately.’
‘I could start one for you if you want.’
Alice stops laying on the bacon and looks at him with a smile of disbelief. ‘Harry, I would love that. God, is there anything you can’t do?’
‘Nope.’ Harry picks up another potato. ‘I’m completely perfect in every way.’
Alice doesn’t smile. She looks quickly down at the turkey, a hot flush rising in her cheeks. She remembers how she and Emily once joked about ending up with the wrong men. Why does it suddenly not seem quite so funny any more?
By the time Emily and Joe make it down to the kitchen the oranges and lemons have been zested, and the zest, the cranberries, the sugar and a liberal amount of port are reducing their way down to a delicious cranberry sauce.
The breadcrumbs have been mixed with the onions, sage and chestnuts, and half is stuffed carefully between the breast of the bird and the skin, the rest waiting to enter the oven in a pan.
The parsnips and potatoes have been peeled, a butternut squash soup has been made, and the Christmas pudding – courtesy of Marks & Spencer and smuggled in Emily’s suitcase – is merrily steaming away.
Harry has built a roaring fire, and he and Alice, after arguing about the music (Nat King Cole, they both agreed, would be far too cheesy), have finally settled on Enya. Not very Christmassy, but very relaxing.
‘Morning,’ Emily yawns. ‘Have I just stepped into “It’s a Wonderful Life”, or is this for real?’
Alice laughs. ‘It’s for real all right. Coffee’s in the kitchen. Are you hungry?’
‘Please don’t tell me there are home-made blueberry muffins or I may throw up,’ Emily grimaces.
‘Does that mean you don’t want them?’
‘You have to be kidding. Of course I want them. I just can’t believe what a regular Martha Stewart you are.’
‘Oh.’ Alice’s face falls. ‘I was rather hoping I’d give Nigella a run for her money.’
‘Darling, unfortunately you have neither the sultry dark locks nor the requisite curves.’ Joe laughs.
‘But surely a few more home-made blueberry muffins could solve that.’
Emily shakes her head. ‘Nope. You either got it or you ain’t. I, on the other hand, could definitely fill Nigella’s shoes. Hell, I could fill her dresses.’
‘And thank God for that.’ Harry stands up and puts his arms around Emily, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. ‘Nothing’s more of a turn-off than a skinny woman.’
‘And you wonder why I’m still with him,’ Emily laughs, turning her head to kiss Harry as Alice looks away.
‘Oh, thanks,’ Harry says, with mock hurt.
‘Oh, don’t be such a baby,’ Emily laughs. ‘Now. About those blueberry muffins…’
‘Actually there aren’t blueberry muffins. But there are bagels in the drawer and probably some cinnamon raisin bread too. But Em, we’ve got a huge lunch. Don’t eat too much or you’ll lose your appetite.’
‘And since when have you ever known me to lose my appetite?’
‘Good point.’ Alice laughs. ‘Eat as much as you like.’
‘I feel sick.’ Emily groans as she stumbles to the sofa and collapses, holding her stomach.
‘Oh, thanks a lot!’ Alice laughs. ‘After all the trouble I went to and all you can say is, “I feel sick”?’
‘You know I don’t mean it like that,’ Emily says. ‘It was the most delicious meal I’ve ever eaten, but I’m so stuffed. I can’t believe I ate that much.’
‘I can’t believe you ate that much.’ Joe joins her on the sofa and looks at her with respect. ‘You should win an award.’
‘Oh don’t. You’re making me feel like a pig.’
‘Well, I didn’t want to say anything but…’
‘Pig!’ Emily picks up a cushion and bashes Joe over the head with it.
‘Ow! I didn’t mean it!’
‘Children, children,’ Alice cautions from the doorway, where she stands with a pile of stacked dishes.
‘Shall I put these in the dishwasher?’ Harry calls from the kitchen.
‘Yup, that would be great,’ she calls back. ‘Just stick everything in the dishwasher.’
‘Alice, leave everything,’ Emily commands from her sunken position on the sofa. ‘Let me clear up. Just give me a few minutes to recover and I’ll do it.’
‘Em, it’s fine. Everything’s going in the dishwasher. I can manage.’
‘No.’ Emily stands up. ‘I won’t hear of it. You went to all that trouble, there’s no way I’m going to let you clear up as well. Come and sit down on the sofa. I’ll go in and clean up with Harry.’
Alice is about to protest, but Emily comes over and takes the dishes out of her hands, and she acquiesces, walking over to the sofa to join Joe.
‘It’s
nice having them here, isn’t it?’ she says, snuggling into Joe, who gives her an absent-minded kiss before picking up the remote control and turning on the television, flicking from channel to channel in a quest to find something that will hold his interest for longer than ten seconds.
‘Yup.’
‘Did you like lunch?’
‘It was delicious, darling.’
‘Was the soup okay? Not too spicy?’
‘The soup? No, darling. It was all delicious. Well done.’ He pauses on a shot of a big-breasted blonde in a bikini, splashing in the water.
‘Joe!’ Alice admonishes, laughing.
‘What?’ His face is the picture of innocence.
‘You know what. We’re not watching this. Actually, why do we have the television on at all? It’s Christmas Day. We shouldn’t be watching TV. We’ve got presents to open.’
‘I’ll turn it off when the others come back in, okay? Deal?’
‘Okay,’ Alice says reluctantly. ‘Deal.’
Emily squeals with delight. ‘I love it! I love it!’ She hooks the beaded bag over her arms and swoops down on Alice to give her a huge hug and kiss. ‘Oh Alice, thank you so much! I love it! Thank you, thank you, thank you!’
‘You’re very welcome,’ Alice says, beaming with pleasure. ‘Now Harry’s turn.’
‘Nope.’ Harry shakes his head. ‘Your turn, Alice. Emily and I both bought separate presents for you, I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Yes. Not being married and everything we decided not to do a single unit present. Anyway, we couldn’t agree on what to get you.’
‘Oh, you’re both ridiculous,’ Alice says, feeling a childlike thrill of delight at having so many presents to open. ‘Which one first?’
‘Mine first, mine first!’ Emily says, thrusting a small box into Alice’s hand. Alice carefully unwraps the paper, opens the box to find layers of tissue paper, and finally manages to pull them apart to discover a bed of cotton wool on which nestles a delicate rose quartz crystal on a fine silver chain.
Alice gasps. ‘It’s beautiful!’ and Emily grins.
‘Isn’t it? I saw it and thought you’d love it, and rose quartz is supposed to bring love into your life.’
Joe raises an eyebrow.
‘Sorry, Joe. I didn’t mean a new love, it’s just meant to make everything more loving, I think. Not you, just, oh God,’ Emily stumbles. ‘I think it’s just meant to make your life nice. Okay?’
‘Oh Emily, stop being so silly. Whatever it’s supposed to do, it’s lovely. Help me put it on.’ She bends her head forward for Emily to do up the clasp.
‘Oh, and the woman in the shop said you have to programme it first,’ Emily adds as an afterthought. ‘You have to clean it by dropping it into water and vinegar, then leave it in direct sunlight for a day, then stare at it while you clear your mind and envision a pure white light going through it. Then it’s yours, and clean, but you mustn’t let anyone else touch it or it will become impure.’
‘Emily?’ Joe says quietly.
‘Yes?’
‘When exactly did you lose your mind?’
‘Oh fuck off, Joe.’ Emily blushes. ‘Apparently it really works.’
Alice runs out of the room to look at herself in the mirror. She takes the stairs two at a time then walks into the bathroom, fingering the crystal as she looks at her reflection. ‘Bring love into my life,’ she whispers, thinking of Joe sitting downstairs. Not that he’s cold or distant particularly, and God knows he hasn’t done any of the disappearing acts he used to do in London, and he still tells her he loves her, but somehow Alice feels they have less of a partnership than they had before, their interests seem to be moving further and further apart, and Alice wishes they could find some common ground that would keep both of them happy.
Time has given her a different perspective on her marriage. Time, and the space she has when she is on her own in Connecticut while Joe is working in the city. She realizes now how much she suppressed her own wants and desires when they were in London, where she always tried to mould herself into the wife that Joe expected her to be.
She’s still happy to dress the part occasionally, knows that when she goes into the city she still has a role to play, and she is willing to make that compromise because after all, what is marriage if not compromise? But she is not willing to put Joe’s needs before hers any more. At least, not all the time.
And in turn she is hoping that Joe will make some compromises of his own. Yes, he comes out to the country every weekend, but she can’t help but feel tense when he is there, because she knows he doesn’t enjoy it, feels like a fish out of water. He seems happier now that he is playing tennis on a regular basis, and is presumably starting to find friends of his own, but given the choice she knows he would gladly sell up here and never set foot north of 90th Street again.
The fact that he comes to the country at all is, she realizes, Joe’s way of compromising. She just wishes he wouldn’t be so obviously unhappy about it.
‘Let us be more loving,’ she whispers, looking at the rose quartz crystal in the mirror. ‘Let us find our love for one another again. Help us be happy.’ And tearing herself away, she goes back downstairs.
*
‘Your turn now,’ Alice says to Harry, picking up the biggest box and handing it to him.
‘Oh Christ!’ Harry says. ‘This one’s for me? I’ve been looking at this all day assuming it was for Joe. It’s huge. What is it?’
Joe smiles. ‘Open it and see.’ But of course he is as much in the dark as Harry, Alice being the one assigned to buying presents.
Harry opens the card. ‘To Harry, Merry Christmas, love Joe and Alice xx’, then tears open the paper, revealing the tool box. He starts to grin.
‘Ah ha!’ he laughs. ‘You did say there was no such thing as a free lunch.’
‘I did, didn’t I?’ laughs Alice. ‘And you thought you’d get away with it because you hadn’t brought any tools with you.’
‘But this is fantastic!’ Harry says, opening the tool box and carefully examining everything inside. ‘What a fantastic tool kit. Look how cool it is. Look, look at these.’ He brings everything out, one by one, to show the others as Alice smiles to herself, delighted at Harry’s delight.
‘But I’ve got you something ridiculous,’ he says, mortified at how much Alice and Joe have spent. ‘Not to mention cheap and nasty. Oh God, I’m not going to give it to you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Alice says. ‘You didn’t have to get me anything at all. Meanwhile,’ she extends her hand as Harry tries to hide the present, ‘hand it over.’
‘Okay.’ Harry reluctantly hands Alice a small box, and Joe what is quite obviously a book.
Joe rips the paper off. ‘The History of Porsche,’ he says delightedly. ‘Thanks, Harry. What a great book.’
‘My pleasure,’ Harry smiles. ‘Go on, Alice. Open yours.’
Alice opens the paper, then the box, and finds an alarm clock shaped like a dog, a dog that looks exactly like Snoop.
She laughs delightedly. ‘I love it!’ she says.
‘Wait,’ Harry smiles. ‘You have to hear the alarm.’ He takes the clock and turns the dials on the face until the alarm goes off, a person barking in a thick, almost indecipherable, Japanese accent.
‘What the…?’ Joe starts laughing.
‘What is that?’ Emily giggles.
‘I know. It’s made in Japan. Isn’t that bizarre?’ Harry grins. ‘It just made me laugh, and of course I couldn’t miss the resemblance to Snoop.’
Alice laughs. ‘It will have pride of place on my bedside table. Thank you,’ and she leans over to give Harry a kiss.
‘Come on guys,’ Emily says. ‘What about your presents to each other? Your turn now.’
Alice and Joe exchange gifts and open them at the same time. Joe is thrilled with his watch, and Alice is embarrassed to open a large orange Hermès box, to find a beautiful russet Kelly bag within. It’s a classic, it’s sm
art as hell, and it’s just about the very last thing Alice wants right now.
What did she want? A KitchenAid mixer would have been fantastic, not to mention a fraction of the cost of the Kelly bag. Or a new pair of gardening clogs and gloves. Or perhaps a set of thermal underwear to keep her warm.
‘Wow!’ Emily says, well aware of the beauty, and cost, of a Kelly bag.
‘Nice bag,’ says Harry, who has no idea.
‘Do you like it?’ Joe says, used to Alice gushing with joy in the past over presents such as these, somewhat mystified by her silence.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Alice smiles, getting up to kiss him and making a pretence of admiring the bag. ‘I love it,’ and as she sits down again she reaches up and fingers the quartz crystal. Help him know who I am and love me for it anyway, she thinks. Help us understand one another. Help us. Please.
The rest of their days pass all too quickly. They bundle up in gloves and hats, go for long walks along nature trails or take Snoop to the beach – bleak and deserted in the middle of winter.
They drive up to Mystic and wander through the Seaport, stopping at the touristy shops, laughing at how gullible they are but buying fishy mementoes nevertheless.
They have antiqued in New Canaan, all four of them horrified by the extravagant prices for reproduction furniture, the originals of which are available at a fraction of the price at any number of shops along the Kings Road. ‘Are they mad?’ Joe kept repeating. ‘Three thousand dollars for that repro bit of shit?’
They have been on holiday house tours – days when handfuls of people in various towns open their houses to whoever would like to poke around in them – and have oohed and aahed at magnificent modern houses on the water, at charming converted barns in the middle of the woods. ‘Isn’t this extraordinary?’ Alice had nudged Emily. ‘That people just open their houses to strangers?’
‘No, not at all. I’m thinking of doing it at home actually. I thought I might stick a sign up in Camden High Street and open my flat up one Sunday. What do you think?’
Alice bursts out laughing. ‘I think you’d have all the local winos moving in.’