Chapter 1
10th December
This is it. My heart pounds against my ribcage as I insert the key in the lock and push open the front door of my new home, sweeping aside a small pile of post that has gathered on the doormat. If only it was that easy to sweep aside my nerves. There’s a faint musty smell, but I guess it’s to be expected, the house has been empty for almost a year. I shiver, not sure if it’s the cold or the enormity of what I’ve done finally dawning on me. The door to the lounge is open and I stick my head around it, checking that all the old furniture has been removed as I requested. It’s empty, as is the kitchen, apart from the fitted cupboards, currently painted an insipid pale primrose, and the ancient gas cooker, which I asked them to leave if it passed a safety test. There’s a piece of paper that looks like a certificate lying on top of the rings, so I’m presuming it did.
Upstairs, the front bedroom now has a dove-grey carpet, fitted yesterday while I was at work, and new curtains which my mum put up once the carpet was down, giving it a homely feel. The same cannot be said of the back bedroom. I’ve had to leave the threadbare carpet in there and there is a dirty smudge on the painted wall where the old bed had been pushed up against it without a headboard. I’m about to close the door on this room, when I notice a tatty cardboard box in the corner. What part of ‘please remove everything except the cooker’ did the estate agent not understand? Irritation starts to bubble in my stomach. Leaving the door ajar so that I will be able to hear when the delivery van arrives with my bed and a few other bits from home, I cross to the box and lift one of the flaps. A riot of sparkly coloured tinsel escapes, spilling out on to the grubby carpet. Someone with a kind heart must have left the box of Christmas decorations thinking I could make use of them rather than buying new. I smile, all trace of annoyance gone. I’m going to have to be quite careful with my spending now that I have a mortgage to pay and besides, sorting through the box will give me something to do later when the delivery men have gone. Right on cue, there is a sharp knock on the front door.
It took less than two hours to unload the van, underlining how few possessions I have particularly as this includes three suitcases of clothes, a bag full of toiletries and a black bin liner containing boots and shoes, all of which were dumped unceremoniously in the spare bedroom while the removal men organised the furniture in my room. It was only when I went in search of my pyjamas to get changed for bed that I remembered the box of decorations. Shattered, after a day of unpacking carefully wrapped crockery, cutlery and pans, and finding places for them in my compact kitchen – the estate agent’s description, not mine – I’m tempted to leave rummaging through it until tomorrow morning but, as I will be going to the DIY store to buy paint and it is also the ideal place to buy any extra decorations, I decide to have a quick look. Carefully, I pull out the strands of tinsel in all the colours of the rainbow and a strand of silver beads and place them on the floor. Under them, there is a box containing a string of fairy lights which I plug in to make sure they are working. Success; although it may only be temporary. I’ve witnessed my dad doing the exact same thing in the past. When checked in the box, the lights work fine but once on the tree it’s a different story. Beneath the lights is a layer of what looks like baubles, each individually wrapped in kitchen roll for protection lying on a bed of yet more tinsel. My sister, Noella, is very sniffy about decorating her tree with tinsel. She always does a themed tree, choosing just one or two colours for trimming, and, on the first of January, she deposits the whole lot, along with the seven-foot Nordic Pine ‘real’ tree she buys each year, in and next to her wheelie bin. Dreadful waste if you ask me, but she never does. I take a peek at a few of the baubles. They’re a really pretty eclectic mix: some are round, some oval and others have pointy bits at the bottom. Just like the tinsel and the lights, they are multi-coloured and I’m already starting to imagine how beautiful my tree will look once bedecked with these second-hand ornaments. Right at the bottom, there is a clear plastic box with a red backing that houses a silver star. I’ve always preferred a star to an angel sitting on top of the tree.
I’m just about to pile everything back into the box to keep it safe, happy that there is no need for me to spend any money on extra decorations, when I notice that the red I can see beneath the star has handwriting on it. It isn’t the back of the container holding the star, it’s an envelope which, when I pull it free, releases a Christmas card with a picture of two chubby bears framed by a heart. I know I shouldn’t look inside, this card doesn’t belong to me, but I can’t stop myself. The words are heart-breaking:
I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Please answer my calls and let me explain what happened. My life is empty without you in it. Please, I beg of you, let me make things right. I love you, Annie. You are my world. Without you, I have no reason to go on living. Just give me a chance to show you how much I love you.
Your Jake xxx
My eyes fill with tears. I’m sad for Annie and Jake and whatever happened to cause their break-up and his outpouring of love. I close the card, slip it into the envelope and slide it back to its hiding place under the Christmas star. I feel guilty for intruding on something so personal but worse as I realise only some of the tears rolling down my cheeks are for them. The rest are for myself; no man has ever felt about me the way Jake clearly felt about Annie.