It wasn’t even as if Blossom could suddenly bustle in to alleviate the tension, she was still in the garden with Alex and the boys, who’d missed all the excitement, thank God.
‘You shouldn’t be.’ Margot smiled briefly, clumsily. ‘Usually I spend Christmas with friends, which is lovely. But it’s not the same as having a family Christmas and a family Christmas isn’t perfect until there’s been an almighty argument, is it?’
‘That’s very kind of you to say, you’re a very nice girl, but I’m devastated,’ Mary said, and she was crying again.
The three of them, Will, Rowan and Sage, looked at each other in horrified despair. Normally Mary was all sunshine and sass, but when she got like this it could take hours, sometimes even days, before she found her happy place again.
‘This won’t do,’ Margot said, scraping back her chair so she could hurry over to hug Mary who was now scrubbing at her face with the tea towel. ‘I never knew my grandparents,’ Margot continued, ‘but the year that my grandmother got so incensed with my grandfather that she upended the bread sauce over his head went down in family legend, so, compared to that, a no-longer-intact prawn ring and a broken jar of piccalilli is nothing. Now, should we supervise Will with this turkey?’
‘How do you always know the right thing to say?’ Will asked Margot later, when he drove her home.
Margot had had far too many gin and tonics (Ian always made them too strong) to walk home on her own. Not that Will would have let her. She was also now the proud owner of a large, cumbersome, framed print of Blossom in her holly crown. In return she’d given Will a pair of bright blue socks with Blossom’s face on them, which he was never going to wear but it was the thought that counted.
Christmas, rather than being ruined, had turned out all right. Really all right.
Will had expected an awkward atmosphere to hang over the table but it dissipated in the time it took to pull crackers and for Margot to insist that they all wore the paper crowns, though usually the Blooms didn’t bother. Margot fitted in like she was family. Groaning over the jokes in the crackers, forcing down Brussels sprouts even though nobody (not even Mary) liked them, and playing charades.
They only left when Blossom fell asleep on Mary’s lap wearing a baby-sized T-shirt that proudly proclaimed ‘My grandma loves me’, and Margot could slip away without a scene.
Now she yawned as she considered Will’s question. ‘I don’t always say the right thing,’ she decided. ‘But I am a bit of a people pleaser. You kind of have to be when you’re eighteen with no family to fall back on.’
‘I don’t think you’re that much of a people pleaser,’ Will dared to say, because it was the truth and there had been times when Margot had gone out of her way to displease him. The bullet-pointed, micro-managing texts at the beginning of their acquaintance sprang to mind.
‘People pleasing is one thing, but I also don’t let people walk all over me either.’ Margot’s words were more slurred than usual. ‘But it’s never a bad thing to be kind, is it? To put yourself in someone else’s shoes and to think of what you’d like to hear if you were them.’
‘You’re a much better person than I am.’ As usual, not a drop of alcohol had passed Will’s lips, so he couldn’t imagine why he was being so candid with a woman who wasn’t a stranger anymore, yet walked the hinterlands between being an acquaintance and friend.
There was a pause as if Margot was quantifying exactly what sort of a person Will was. ‘You’re not that bad,’ was the faintly damning verdict. ‘In fact, I’d love you to come to my New Year’s Eve open house. Unless you have plans.’
Will didn’t have any plans. Although he’d quit therapy with the promise that he was going to forge emotional connections outside of his family, he hadn’t so much as downloaded a dating app or flirted with the beautiful Sunita who lived in the flat next door and said a breathy hello to Will every time they bumped into each other – though maybe the breathiness was because she had asthma. Either way, his New Year’s Eve was wide open, unless he went round to his mum’s to give her and Ian a hand as they babysat the twins.
‘I might be free,’ he said, as he pulled up in the Square.
‘I’ll be open for callers from eleven a.m. so come round any time from then,’ Margot explained, as she tried to extricate herself from the seat belt. ‘Sorry, I’m all fingers and thumbs.’
‘Let me,’ Will said. Their hands collided in the dark. His fingers cool where hers were warm. They’d touched a hundred times in a hundred prosaic ways. Handing over dog leads, treat packets, both empty and full poo bags, but now Will felt a brushfire shock at the sensation of his skin against Margot’s skin.
He didn’t know if she’d felt it too, but he heard her sigh before she let her hand drop. It was his turn to fumble with the seat belt until finally she was free to go.
Margot wasn’t going anywhere. ‘And we’re handing over on Sunday anyway.’
It was business as usual then. All about Blossom. ‘At least we don’t have to go to training. Even Jim respects the Christmas holidays.’
‘Time off for good behaviour, except Blossom doesn’t know the meaning of good behaviour,’ Margot said. It was so cosy and cocooned in the car that Will wondered if they’d stay there for ever, eking out this camaraderie borne from spending a tumultuous Christmas Day together. ‘Talking of which, I didn’t want to say anything in front of Mary, but I can’t believe the amount of food, human food, Blossom shovelled away.’
Margot managed to get the door open with a lot more skill than she had used with the seat belt and the cold night air rushed into the cosy cocoon, abruptly ending their companionable moment. It was done. Over.
‘She only gives Blossom meat and vegetables,’ Will said, as he climbed out of the car. ‘It’s not so bad.’
‘She had three roast potatoes,’ Margot pointed out. ‘And I did have to say something about how chocolate and raisins are toxic to dogs.’
‘You said it very diplomatically and I’m very grateful for that.’ Will rolled his eyes as he retrieved Blossom’s portrait from the backseat. Then he felt guilty about rolling his eyes. ‘Thank you for today.’
Margot shook her head. ‘I should be thanking you.’
‘About what happened earlier with Mum . . .’ Will tailed off; it was easier than having to explain things that he’d only explained to his therapist.
‘It’s all right,’ Margot said gently. ‘Everything is good. I had a great Christmas. Definitely in my top ten of favourite Christmases.’
Will smiled because she was impossible but oh-so kind and the fairy lights strung between lamp posts were reflected in Margot’s eyes and he was seeing stars. ‘There you go, saying just the right thing again.’
Margot shrugged. ‘It’s my superpower.’
And this time, when she leaned forward to brush her lips against his cheek, it wasn’t awkward at all.
23
Margot
Margot had never given birth, that she knew. But friends who had, more than once, told her that they’d repressed how truly awful giving birth was and so it came as a complete surprise the second, and even the third time round.