Every Day in December Read online

  Every Day in December

  Kitty Wilson

  One More Chapter

  a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

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  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

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  Copyright © Kitty Wilson 2021

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  Cover design by Lucy Bennett © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

  Cover illustration © Sophie Melissa / Meiklejohn

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  Kitty Wilson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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  A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

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  Source ISBN: 9780008405427

  Ebook Edition © August 2021 ISBN: 9780008405410

  Version: 2021-07-07

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you for reading…

  You will also love…

  About the Author

  One More Chapter...

  About the Publisher

  Dedication. For Netty. ♥

  So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

  * * *

  New Year’s Eve. Five years ago.

  Belle.

  I roll my eyes but stay silent as Luisa rants about how I need to grow up and look for a person who will respect me – instead of constantly sleeping with Lost Boys, who contribute nothing and make my car smell bad.

  But truth is, she may have a point. The car smells heinous and I do deliberately pick the most god-awful men that I have no intention of committing to. I know my experience of relationships is not to be relied upon – she is definitely the one winning at life – and today she can say anything she wants and I’ll happily suck it up, but ouch.

  ‘Oh Jesus!’ She bends over, reaching out with her hands, and grabs the dashboard as she does so. That’s definitely four minutes since the last contraction. She nods her head up and down as she breathes in and out, swear words falling over themselves in a hurry to get out of her mouth, in between the panting and the life advice.

  My best friend is the picture of the perfect wife – she asked for (and received) pearls on her birthday and Boden is very much on her bookmarks tab but my God, she can curse. She is turning the air blue around us. I expect we’ll be flagged down by Environmental Health any minute now. And whilst I am dressed head-to-toe in the hospice shop’s finest, she is currently wearing a pale pink cardigan, and a grey and pink frou-frou maternity skirt that is pushed out with the merest hint of netting. We know who will be blamed for disturbing the peace.

  ‘Let’s breathe together. In … out … in … out … in … out, you’ve got this,’ I say.

  ‘I was looking forward to the gas and air. If I breathe in here I’ll be too stoned to find the maternity ward,’ she spits. Pregnancy has not made her meeker.

  Her breathing regulates and she relaxes her hands before bowling straight back in to the personal attack. ‘Maybe try celibacy, work out who you are. Because the you I know shouldn’t be doing this, sleeping with men like Sam. The you I love gave that sort of behaviour up years ago.’

  ‘Aren’t all relationships just trying to find someone to sleep with regularly who you don’t want to murder? I’m simply— Out of the way!’ I beep hard on the horn as some bloke misses us by not much more than a millimetre.

  Luisa winds down the window and hollers abuse.

  ‘You won’t be able to swear like that when you’re a mum.’

  ‘Which is why I had better fit it all in today.’ She grins as she rolls the window back up before turning back to me and starting again. ‘I get that you have issues – dear God, if I had your parents, I’d be institutionalised by now – but you need to take charge. Stop letting their view of you shape who you are, start to believe you are worthy of more. You’re about to be a godmother, any minute now, and Belle, I need my best friend to be a grown-up.’ She grabs hold of the dashboard and starts breathing manically again.

  We career into the car park of the hospital and I screech to a stop in the parking bay outside the main entrance. Today I am going to be the best friend on earth. I can let her say what she wants to, coach her through her breathing, and make sure everything goes as smoothly and as stress-free as possible.

  I race around to the passenger door and help her out.

  ‘I’m not convinced you’re listening.’

  ‘I am, I am. I should definitely get rid of Sam. You’re right. But honestly, Lu, I spent my whole childhood waiting to be an adult and now I am, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s bills and chores and complicated personal relationships. More adulting at this point doesn’t really appeal.’ We shuffle towards the main doors and she gives me a look that would scare killer wasps. ‘But obviously, for you and your baby I am willing to be the best grown-up possible. I’ll just let the desk staff know Remi isn’t too far behind us.’

  She stops walking; her hand grips mine suddenly, so tightly I think she may well pop the fingers out of their joints. She starts to swear at the top of her voice again, drawing disapproving looks from the elderly smokers clustered outside the main door, who have no issues smoking next to their portable oxygen tanks but who presumably have never seen or heard a pregnant woman say fuck before. I fix them with a stern glare and join in her chorus as we walk past.

  ‘This will all be over soon and you are going to have the most precious, the most amazing little bundle of gorgeousness. You’re doing so well.’

  ‘Pfft.’

  ‘We’re nearly there and they’ll pump you full of Entonox and all will be good,’ I say, hoping I have developed the skills of an oracle during the short car journey. Childbirth terrifies me but letting on how scared I am to the woman I love more than anybody else in the world won’t be helpful. My own anxieties don’t have a place right now. Right now it’s her day.

  We’re inside, the m
aternity desk is in sight, our pace is slow and my fingers no longer have any feeling left in them.

  My attention is distracted, just for a second, by a man on some chairs by the A&E reception. He has his head in his hands and is sobbing and sobbing, while a couple – I assume his parents – sit on the ground beside him, trying to offer comfort. My heart goes out to him. That is what truly broken must look like. I have never really seen it before. I thought I had seen a lot, but this man, the keening noises that are coming from his covered face sear into the very core of you. It blocks out Luisa’s cursing as I can’t help but look at him and feel utterly forlorn that humans on this earth ever have to endure such agony. His mother leans forward and sweeps a lock of his hair out of his eyes and he briefly lowers his hands to look at her, eyes hollow with pain, revealing himself to be a man I know from a long, long time ago.

  That is my home of love. If I have ranged

  Like him that travels I return again.

  * * *

  December First.

  Belle.

  I love my goddaughter but she’s like that baby in The Incredibles, just older, quicker, and more cunning. I have been looking after her for the week while Luisa and Remi are away and it’s safe to say I am exhausted, on first-name terms with the Poison Unit in Birmingham, and I’m not sure how to tell Luisa that her downstairs bathroom is now covered in permanent marker, or, as Marsha would call it, Dalmatian spots. Let no one ever tell you Disney is harmless.

  ‘And I’m not scared of the Gruffalo because I can roar this loud … Roooooaaaarrrrr! He’d be scared of me,’ she confidently declares. I suspect she is right. The elderly gentleman crossing the road at the same time as we are certainly jumps into the air in shock. I smile apologetically, hoping he is an indulgent grandfather, and grip her hand tighter.

  We are walking from the car park into Bristol Airport Arrivals, with Luisa and Remi due to land any minute. Marsha is holding my hand but is so excited that she’s jumping up and down with an energy that should really be bottled and sold.

  She may be exhausting but she’s also next-level adorable. I mean it. There is nothing, no one in the world, that makes my heart beat as fast as this child does. She makes me feel all Mother Lioness – proud, maternal, and ready to rip any possible danger into shreds before I allow it within an inch of her.

  However, I am more than ready to hand her back to her mother, get home and spend some time lost in The Winter’s Tale, the last of Shakespeare’s plays that I am working on and my absolute favourite. I have loved – no, been obsessed with – Shakespeare ever since I was a very small child. He represents all that is good in the world to me and all that is real as well. And whilst I could witter on in praise of his works for weeks at a time, I know my adoration stems from something far more simple than his skill in iambic pentameter. It stems from love.

  I grew up in a house full of extroverts; drama was crammed into our house, flounces, sighs, screeching, all bouncing off the walls, the windows and the floorboards. It used to make me want to scrunch my shoulders up and fold my whole being into a teeny tiny scrap. I wished for a shell I could escape into, a small one in which I could hide and take up all the space, maybe with a fairy door attached to pull shut and keep the noise away.

  Nana understood, she would swoop in with gentle grace and poise, a hint of lily of the valley in the air, and an unruffled tranquillity that made me wonder how my own mother could be related to her. She would spirit me to the garden or my bedroom, wrap me in a cloak of calm and ask what I was reading.

  When I was about seven she bought a copy of Midsummers Night’s Dream and suggested we start to read a part each, telling me it was a tale of fairies and donkeys, kings and queens and teenagers. I think most seven-year-olds are split between wanting to be a fairy and a teenager.

  She’d been a wardrobe mistress for a theatre company for years, and was used to glamour and shrieking, but also recognised the value of quiet. Over the next few years she would bring over all sorts of props every time she visited, which we would wield as we each took a part. She died when I was eleven and we moved into her house soon after. Her loss impacted me greatly – she had been my touchstone, the one I belonged with and the one that made me feel I belonged somewhere. From that point on, I worked through every single play, every single sonnet and then went back and did it all again.

  I still am. For the last few years I have been working on my Shakespeare project, gathering in one place all the knowledge I have sought out over the last twenty years. I have very little left to do but I am excited about wallowing in some last-minute additions to The Winter’s Tale package that I thought of whilst on godmother duty.

  Marsha is feisty like Paulina in that play, feisty, determined and focused. She’s going to be a cracking adult, it just means she’s a slightly terrifying child. The number of household incidents that have occurred whilst I’ve been looking after her are high – but Luisa (whom I’ve informed of each one over the phone) always laughs and reiterates that looking after Marsha is like driving abroad: with everything flying at you at speed from all angles.

  As we enter the airport, Marsha spots the shop by the arrivals gate, wriggles out of my grip and races towards it, hair streaming behind her as she screams ‘Percy Pigs!’ at the top of her voice.

  For all Luisa’s laid-backness about most things Marsha-related – which I suspect is born out of necessity as much as experience – she is a nutrition diva. Nothing but the highest quality of food is to pass Marsha’s lips; if it isn’t organic, free-range and farmed by nuns then she isn’t allowed it. But the worst sin by far – as I discovered when she found me giving Marsha a Milky Bar last year – is sugar. You would have thought I was teaching her to freebase on the way to nursery school. The language Luisa used – that hasn’t changed over the years – meant I learnt that sugar was the devil and was only allowed near Marsha’s lips at Christmas.

  I start to run after her, spying a display of wind-up musical boxes as I do so and I grab one on the way past. Persuading Marsha against the pink rubbery deliciousness of pig-shaped sweets will take next-level negotiation skills.

  ‘Marsha! Wait!’

  This is not going to be an easy sell.

  Rory.

  The flight from Australia was long, but I’m finally here, back in the UK for the first time in five years. I pull my phone out the second I’m through immigration and call my step-dad, Dave. For the preceding few days, my mind has been unable to focus on anything other than getting home. I am here now though, realising that I should have come before, that by hiding away and avoiding reminders of my grief I have neglected my responsibilities and become the sort of man I never wanted to be. I can’t turn the clock back and undo that, but I can make good now. I’m keen to see Mum, to get all of this sorted.

  ‘Hey, Rory, good to hear you.’ Dave answers immediately and reassures me that everything is in hand. I love Dave for many things, his calm manner being at the top of that list. He manages to soothe every situation, possessing powers only known to Jedi Masters. Still, it’s going to take more than a reassuring tone to put me at ease. From the minute I heard Mum’s words last week, the word, my heart has been in my throat. I had immediately booked a plane and rented a winter let for a month in Bath.

  Bristol is still a bit too raw.

  I may not be the most self-aware man in the world but I know waking up every morning and seeing the skyline of a city I once loved is a step I’m not able to deal with just yet. But with Bath as my base I can sideline my own baggage, support Mum, talk to her consultant and make sure she’s getting the best care possible.

  ‘Your mum is so excited to see you. We can’t move for quiches and cakes, biscuits and sausage rolls. She’s made you a cheesecake in the shape of a heart!’

  ‘Don’t tell him about that, that’s a surprise!’ I hear Mum shout at him in the background before she wrestles the phone from his hand.

  I laugh. I can picture it, both the wrestling (she’ll sta
mp on his foot to take him by surprise and then grapple the phone from his hand as his indignation kicks in) and the mountains of food. Mum is a feeder, not in a lock-’em-in-a-basement-and-pipe-them-full-of-cream kinda way, obviously, but in a I-love-you-so-much-words-can’t-express-it-so-I’m-going-to-feed-you-and-feed-you-and-feed-you way.

  ‘It’s a silly fuss you flying back like this…’ She pauses before adding more quietly, ‘But I’m pleased that you’ve come.’ Her voice returns to its usual strength. ‘And don’t listen to him. I haven’t made anything special.’ Him, I imagine, is jumping around on one foot and looking pained. Whereas she will be half overjoyed at the thought of me flying back, and half terrified – not just of the diagnosis but of being burdensome.

  ‘It’s important to me. You’re important to me, so of course I was going to come home. I’ll be here for a month, I’ve a few business contacts I want to chase up as well, see in person whilst I’m here. Let me get involved, tell me how I can help.’ I knew if I pitched work opportunities, she’d feel better.