"And what exactly did you have to promise conniving Catherine in order to secure this turkey?" Since Jane's departure and sending Flora off with Greg for the night, they'd orbited each other in well-practiced trajectories, scouring the house and preparing enough food to feed the armies about to descend. Caroline peered under the dishtowel at the massive pale-pink carcass still defrosting on the kitchen counter.
"I know the capon was a little lean, but what in the world are we going to do with twenty-five pounds?"
Eleanor shrugged and didn't look up from rolling out pie dough across the kitchen island. "Listen. It was either eight pounds of scraps, or twenty-five pounds of the main event. And Lawrence will finish five pounds all by himself."
"And you chose main event." Christmas carols floated through the house, but without Flora it still felt quiet. Greg had promised her back no later than ten the next morning. He'd invited Caroline to join them in Manchester for dinner, but she'd turned it down believing she'd want to be home tonight to pick up Eleanor from the train station. Last year they'd had Flora Christmas morning. Caroline preferred it that way.
"I always choose main event."
"Mmmmmmm." Whatever deal Eleanor had made with her frenemy and boss Catherine, Caroline assumed she was much better off not knowing. The two of them traded favors and power in a timeless game that went back to their years together at Oxford.
"The house looks nice." Caroline scooped peeled potatoes out of the sink and started chopping and piling them into a pot of salty water. It did look better for Eleanor's attention, and it felt better for it. When it was just her and Flora it didn't feel like the dream house it had taken them so long to find, and in such a short amount of time, to turn into a home. It reminded her of Conway Drive then, actually, and not in a way that made her smile.
"Thank you. And you can thank your daughter too." This time Eleanor did look up.
Despite a mood that had somehow turned hostile again, when Caroline met her eyes she met her smile as well – but not for long. "She's really something."
"She is, and more like you every day - as practical as she is insufferable. And twice as good looking."
"She could be more like you, Eleanor, if you were home enough to give her the chance."
Eleanor stopped mid-stoke on the pie crust. She wiped her hands at the apron on her waist and with black eyes turned and pointed the rolling pin right at her wife. "Low blow, Caroline. Low. Even for you."
"Don't blame me for not polishing the truth. I know you like to, but it's not my style."
"Christmas Eve? We're going to do this on Christmas Eve?"
"We can wait until tomorrow. Or we can wait until next week, when Catherine calls and you slink across the bedroom with giant sad eyes and sigh and bat your lashes at me and say you have to leave earlier than you thought, and you'll be gone longer than you thought, and throw your hands on your hips and demand, 'don't be mad, Caroline,' when I do get mad, as I have every right to."
Eleanor's hands slid down from where they'd come to rest on her hips, and her mouth drew into a tight line. "I don't want to fight about this. I won't fight about my job. I gave up one career to make this work –" she gestured around the kitchen, rolling pin still in hand "- to stay her in Harrogate with you, and it's the best decision I ever made. But I'm sticking with Catherine and consulting. I love it. I love you too."
"We're finding out which you love more, aren't we?"
"Stop it. Let's don't do this. Please. Not tonight."
"Fine. Refuse to address it. Ignore it and charm me and wheel and deal with me and distract me until you leave again." Caroline tossed her knife across the cutting board. "With all the time we'll saved on not fighting, you can finish the pie and the potatoes."
She stalked out of the kitchen, up the stairs and into the bedroom, where she stopped for no reason other than she had nowhere left to go. Eleanor's suitcase still cowering on the window bench didn't improve her mood and deepened the scowl on her face.
She crossed her arms and stared out at the vast, twinkling, growing panorama of Pannal. The wind whipped the trees and the effect made the vista of holiday lights flutter and dance. The view from the master had locked it years ago for Caroline, when they'd first seen the house. That and the obvious fact that Eleanor was completely in love with it. 'If she still loves it so much she ought to spend more time here.'
Caroline stood in the dim and tried to distract herself searching for familiar holiday displays on the houses in the valley below, waiting to hear Eleanor's footsteps on the hardwood of the stairs. They didn't come, and they didn't come, and they didn't come.
'Ah.' Her mouth twitched in approval. The lights of Gillian and Robbie's car lit the room as they turned into the driveway. Alan's night sight was long done for, Celia wasn't up for driving any longer, and it made her nervous when they were gone too late. They'd been up in Halifax with Gillian and Robbie, but with Alan's heart and Celia's knees, overnights there were years in the past.
The square patch on the carpet from the light pouring through from the hallway stayed frustratingly unchanged. Where was Eleanor?
Now she felt like an idiot. She clicked on a bedside lamp and sat in the yellow pool of light. She slid off her loafers and rubbed at the balls of her feet. They ached more often, and not even on work days.
Around and around this they went, had since day one. Since the London debacle. Eleanor stubbornly refused to be wholly Caroline's. At least that's how she saw it. There was always an opportunity here or a contract there that kept her away.
The garage door rumbled up and down. Between the carols playing below she heard merry greetings. Mum and Alan and company had come into the kitchen. Eleanor's untroubled, merry laughter. Alan's in response.
She sighed, clapped her hands on her thighs and stood. She hustled out the door and down the stairs to manage a hello and a happy Christmas hug before the bulk of her family shuffled back out to the carriage house.
"You're right, Caroline, I don't want to address it. Because I don't know how to fix it, and I'm not going to change. Not at this point. I've never known how to fix it. We do this on holidays or birthdays or occasions when you're feeling tight. You stomp your feet and steam at the ears and get it out of your system, and on we go. Round and round through the years." Eleanor's voice drifted in, scolding from the en-suite.
Caroline flounced back against her pillows and skimmed her hands across the grey cotton duvet. "Well you ignoring it won't fix it. In fact, it's making it worse."
"No. It's not. It's in your head. So we'll do this again, and as often as you'd like. Fighting's your favorite sport. My job, my travel, they're your favorite plays to run. Someday we'll get to the bottom of that."
Eleanor poked her head out and pointed at Caroline. "But it's Christmas Eve. My second favorite night of the year. I want to focus on that, and I want to focus on you, and I want to focus on what's going right. Because you know we're going right. Incredibly right."
Caroline turned off her lamp and huffed and pounded at her pillows before laying down. "At least I'm mad because you're gone, not because you're here."
"Well that's nice to know. You still want me here." Eleanor scowled as she crossed the shining dark hardwood and plush rug toward the bed. She did up the buttons on her pajamas one by one with slow, deliberate fingers. "And I still very much want to be here."
"It is what I want. Us here. Of course it us. Until we're batty as mum, and old and grey and eating soft foods." Caroline sighed. Celia was nutty, but she'd maintained a shocking amount of autonomy. On the downside, her demeanor was worse for the wear. Caroline didn't have the stomach for this particular dust-up anymore. Eleanor's constant refusal to take her bait always sucked the wind from her self-righteous sails. "It's just that Jane gave me a hard time this morning. About us being perfect. We're not. At all."
"Are you sure about that?" Eleanor tossed back the covers and propped herself up on pillows next to Caroline. She crossed her legs and her arms, and tapped at her mobile before placing it and her now-full-time glasses on the bedside table. She'd caved under pressure from Caroline two years ago and then promptly become thrilled at the prospect of shopping for a new accessory. "Are you sure you have to be angry at your friend Jane for poking you where it hurts, and then come home and take it out on me?"
"No."
"And you know Jane didn't do it on purpose, right? That she looks up to you?"
"What's to look up to?"
"Honestly. Caroline. You call me dramatic, but sometimes you're too much. Get over yourself. Now." Eleanor glanced at the clock and smacked Caroline on the stomach. "I'm proud of you. And it's eleven twenty. I'd hate for Santa to catch you out and swipe you over to the naughty list. You don't want to miss what he's brought you this year."
Caroline let out an 'ooof' and swatted back. She turned to Eleanor and added a poke for good measure. It wasn't playful and it wasn't hostile. She kept her face planted in Eleanor's soft midriff and flopped an arm across her side. "We are very right."
Eleanor turned off her own light and wiggled down. "There's our good girl. Just under the wire. I think I hear reindeer hooves."
"No, you hear the furnace coming on. It's outlasted itself by more than a year. We need to replace it."
"I'll arrange for it during my endless travel furlough coming up next month."
"Mmmmmmmm." 'We'll see.' Caroline gave in to the holiday, fatigue, and Eleanor's monolithic unflappable façade. She closed her eyes and drifted off to the sound of her wife's steady, deep breathing and a nose-full of her faint perfume. So much better than the ghost of it that lived on the sheets in her absence.
A/N
Finished for now but not complete. This is a piece of something I wrote during the holidays, a time I like to visit with the ladies. It's all come together for me what Caroline's problem has been. Even back to her issue with Eleanor in London - and how all that propels their separation after Celia's death. This fight they keep having, it all ties back to it. Once it's addressed it's a real turning of the page for Caroline and for her marriage. Can't say when it will ever be written, but I'm enjoying writing it when I can. :-)
As with Nothing More, only signed-in reviews published. I don't always get the notification emails in a timely manner, but I will take down anonymous reviews.
