He smiles at me again, blue eyes twinkling under his unruly coppery-grey hair. There’s something familiar about him that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s possibly the vaguely Bill Nighy vibe he gives off – all wiry and crumpled and mischievous. His age is impossible to place, though: he could be anywhere from fifty to about seventy-five.
Still, I’ve been cornered by enough pub bores in my life to know exactly how this conversation will pan out if I keep engaging. After a couple more pleasantries, this bloke will undoubtedly whip his chair round to our table and spend the rest of the night regaling us with long-winded anecdotes, while occasionally attempting to flog us a watch.
‘OK. Well, fair enough,’ I say. ‘Have a good night, then.’
I start to turn back round, but the guy speaks again.
‘Christmas is a time for reflection, isn’t it? Getting things off your chest.’
I sigh. I’m not in the mood for a heart-to-heart with a total stranger – particularly not when I’ve just failed to initiate one with my best mate. But I also feel bad about leaving an obviously lonely old man hanging on Christmas Eve. So I turn back to face him.
‘How d’you mean?’
The watch-seller is now wearing a thoughtful smile and drumming his fingers on the box in front of him. ‘You start to wonder about the bad decisions you’ve made in life, don’t you?’ he says. ‘Or the wrong turnings you might have taken.’ He stops drumming and looks me straight in the eye. ‘You start to wonder how things might have worked out differently for you. And whether – if you could go back and change things – you really would.’
I nod, now feeling slightly concerned that this bloke is some sort of mind-reader. I’m certain I’ve never seen him before, but for a split second I’m convinced that he knows me. That somehow he has access to my deepest thoughts and fears and secrets …
But then reality comes crashing back, and I remember that mind-reading watch salesmen don’t exist.
I try to catch Harv’s eye at the bar so that he hurries back quickly and gives me an excuse to end this conversation. ‘Yeah, anyway, listen, mate,’ I say. ‘I’d better—’
‘Is there anything you’d do?’ the old man interrupts. ‘If you could go back. Is there anything you wish you’d done differently?’
He’s staring at me with a weird intensity now, those blue eyes almost fizzing in their sockets. Out of nowhere, all that confusion and guilt and regret I’ve just managed to push down comes rushing straight back up. I think of the things I said to Mum before she died – the things I’d do anything to unsay. I think of what happened in Paris. I think about that night in the maze at uni – the night I met Daphne. My throat is parched suddenly, and my face feels boiling hot. ‘I guess … maybe there are things I’d do differently,’ I find myself saying.
The old man blinks and nods, still watching me with that odd, unreadable expression. And then suddenly his face brightens, and he raps the box with his knuckles. ‘So. Can I interest you in a watch, my friend?’
And there it is.
‘No, honestly, I’m fine, thanks.’
‘I notice you’re not wearing one. I reckon this little number would suit you perfectly …’ He opens the box and takes out a totally unremarkable wristwatch. No chunky silver frame or famous logo or complex features – just a plain white clock face with a black leather strap.
‘Really,’ I say. ‘I’m fine.’
Harv finally catches my eye, and fails to suppress a smile as he watches me trying to fend off this aggressive entrepreneurial advance.
‘Oh, come on,’ the watch-seller says. ‘How else will you know when the clock strikes midnight and it’s finally Christmas Day?’
‘Well, I could just look at my phone.’
He bats this suggestion away with his hand. ‘Phone, schmone. Tell you what, I’ll give it to you. An early Christmas present.’
I laugh. ‘No, seriously, that’s very kind, but you don’t have to—’
He reaches across and slaps the watch onto the table in front of me. ‘I just have,’ he grins. ‘Merry Christmas. Go on, try it on. It’ll change your life, I guarantee it.’
There is clearly no way I’m getting out of this situation watchless, so I just decide to give the bloke whatever I can. ‘OK, look …’ I take out my wallet and peer inside to see what I can offer. But when I look back up, he’s already disappearing out of the door.
The watch is still on the table in front of me. I stare at it for a second and then fix it around my wrist. When I look closely, I spot straight away why he wanted to palm this one off: it’s not even working. The hands are frozen at one minute to twelve. I fiddle with the winding mechanism, but they don’t budge. His line about ‘when the clock strikes midnight’ suddenly makes sense: a little dig before he fobbed me off with a dud.
Harv returns bearing fresh drinks. ‘So. Who was your mate?’
I blink up at him, feeling slightly dazed now, as if I’ve just imagined the whole conversation. I consider telling him about my weird gut feeling that the old man somehow knew me. But I don’t want Harv to think I’ve totally lost the plot, so instead I just hold up my wrist. ‘Not sure who he was, but he gave me the greatest Christmas gift I’ve ever received. A broken watch.’
Harv laughs. ‘You get some proper weirdos in this pub.’ He takes a sip of his vodka and claps his hands together. ‘Anyway, let’s do this. Every World Cup winner since 1930 … and no checking our phones.’
‘All right, let’s go.’
With that, I push every thought of Daphne or Alice or Mum to the back of my mind, and focus all my mental energy on meaningless football trivia.
And when we say goodbye two drinks later, having successfully managed to name every World Cup-winning team in history (with the exception of Uruguay in 1950), I definitely don’t feel better. But I don’t feel worse either.
And that’s something, surely.
Chapter Four
I get home about half ten, and Daphne’s still not back.
She hasn’t texted, and my Guinness-addled brain immediately conjures an image of her and Rich stroking each other tenderly beside a roaring log fire, which has to be the least imaginative hypothetical adultery fantasy ever. Still, it does the trick: the thought of them at that party right now, drunk and flirting, makes me feel hot with anxiety.
I walk straight past the undecorated Christmas tree and into the kitchen, where I sit down and crack open the very expensive bottle of red Daphne bought specifically for tomorrow’s lunch.
I pour myself a large glass and check Facebook. There’s a new message. It’s from Alice.
Hey! Found out that my conference thingy is DEFINITELY on for next week so I will be down in London! They’re putting me up in the Hilton in Canary Wharf (fancyyyyy) so maybe we could meet for a drink there? Say, Tuesday 29th? Would be SO good to see you and catch up … ;-) xxx
I take a big gulp of wine and think: is this how it starts, then?
Is this how easy it is?
When I was a kid, the idea of Having An Affair seemed like an incredibly elaborate, complex, almost Machiavellian thing to do. In my head, I built Dad up to be some sort of evil genius who’d spent months planning this dark, terrible scheme that would rip all our lives in two. But maybe I was giving him too much credit. Maybe he stumbled into it without thinking. Maybe he was just frightened and lonely and confused. If so, then I guess I’ve inherited those traits from him. None of his talent, none of his charm; just the cowardly, rotten, arsehole bits.