Right, so, I know a Christmas story is not quite the thing in March, but if it makes you feel better, I wrote it at Christmas time. Indulge me, oh gentle readers, I prithee. Also, I'm splitting this excessively long chapter into two parts.
10. A White Christmas, and Other Tales of Woe: Part One
I.
If I hear this bloody song one more sodding time, I will shoot something, or someone, other than a dog, she thought.
Heathrow's Terminal Four possessed a desperately limited playlist of what someone had no doubt dubbed "holiday favourites," and what Sandra Pullman was now, after five hours of endless repeat, thinking of as purgatory. She wasn't at all convinced there was an afterlife – dealing with her current life was involved enough, thank you – but if there turned out to be, purgatory would no doubt be precisely like this: no decent food, overpriced coffee, heaps of cranky fellow travelers, limited and uncomfortable seating, and the sense of waiting, waiting, waiting for something you were becoming increasingly sure was never going to happen, all while being subjected to every excruciating, seizure-inducing note of "The Carol of the Bells" ad nauseam.
She stretched her legs out in front of her and twisted at the waist, attempting unsuccessfully to find a more comfortable position in the hard plastic chair she'd been occupying for some three hours. She vaguely needed to go to the toilet, but was too savvy to abandon her precious bit of real estate. Uncomfortable as she was, she fancied standing for hours on end even less, and the airport was seething with thwarted holiday travelers.
The song finally changed, and Sandra gritted her teeth. Bing Crosby lovingly crooned "White Christmas." Irony was a nasty bitch.
Overnight Mother Nature or Father Christmas or some other malevolent spirit had deemed it expedient to dump slightly less than a foot of snow on an unprepared London, whose denizens had been blithely assured that the snowfall would be reduced to humdrum rain before it reached the city.
Au contraire.
Sandra had made the rather harrowing journey to the airport for what should have been her 11 a.m. flight to Mumbai, and what might now turn out to be her 6 p.m. flight, if the runways were clear enough.
She took another sip of her long-cold tea and schooled herself to be patient as she listened to Bing. A few planes had actually taken off during the last hour which, she told herself, was encouraging. Patience was not her strongest suit, but her time was no more valuable than anyone else's.
Yes, it bloody well is, interrupted another mental voice, this one petulant rather than long-suffering. You've booked your two weeks off and you haven't had a proper holiday in six sodding years. Right now you are meant to be en route to fabulous temples, golden sand, and bona fide curries, not sitting here at sodding terminal sodding four on the verge of intense carol-induced rage.
She opened her eyes – she hadn't even realised she'd closed them – and looked out the massive window to her right, which gave onto the nearest of Heathrow's runways. It had been eerily, post-apocalyptically quiet all afternoon, but had recently started to stir with more hopeful signs of life.
And now, in the deepening twilight, it was rapidly turning into a post-industrial winter wonderland, as fat, puffy snowflakes fell thick and fast from the darkening sky, nearly obscuring Sandra's view of the 757 marooned on the other side of the glass.
"Snow!" shrieked a delighted toddler. "Mummy, snow!"
"Snow," Sandra repeated dully, squeezing her paper cup until it crumpled in her clenched fingers. "Fuck."
II.
A gentle wind ruffled the snow blanketing the back garden, forming it into graceful hills and valleys that resembled nothing so much as mounds of pure, glistening sugar.
It made him think of the Italian wedding cookies Mary had made every Christmas until the accident. He could still see her delicately veined hands as she measured out butter, pecans, and flour; he could smell the delightful warm, buttery scent that filled the entire house when she removed the freshly baked cookies from the oven. He could hear her voice as she scolded him for nicking the little balls from the cooling racks before she had carefully rolled them in confectioner's sugar. Her eyes had always laughed even as she clucked in consternation.
Mary had hated the cold, had always said that even watching the snow fall from a cozy armchair positioned strategically by the radiator froze her to the bone.
This Christmas Mary was out in the snow, so Jack was too. He readjusted his position on the wooden seat, resolutely ignoring the numbness of his toes and the unpleasant tingling of his fingers, even as they clutched the tumbler into which he had poured a generous measure of scotch. The fresh snow had entirely covered his wife's final resting place, blotting it out. Erasing her, erasing the memory of her.
Jack worried that he was starting to forget. Sometimes he had to close his eyes in order to recall her face, the smooth fall of her dark blonde hair, usually tucked neatly back behind her ears. The exact timbre of her voice. In the last year or two he had talked to her less, had been less conscious of her presence. For so long she had been there, almost as physically as when she had been alive, but that visceral sense-memory was ebbing away. Perhaps it was simply age; perhaps he, too, was beginning to ebb away.
Sometimes it felt more like peace. The haunting, hungry need to know who had killed his wife had finally been taken away. Mary was dead. Jack was still alive. As his lungs automatically filled with cold, clear air, he was forcibly reminded that the living had to live.
More often, though, the void where the need to know had so long lived was filled with guilt. Guilt that he had indirectly caused the death of the person he loved most. Guilt that he was still alive, becoming an old man, when her life had been so suddenly truncated. Guilt that he somehow managed to live with that reality.
As the snow shifted over Mary's monument, erasing her name, her presence from Jack's life, it was like losing her all over again, watching her slip slowly but inexorably away.
The scotch burned his throat when he took a generous swallow, but it did nothing to warm him.
III.
Esther firmly closed the bedroom door, creating a draft that made Brian shiver. His grey wool jumper had a hole in the elbow, but he refused to let Esther throw it on the rubbish heap, and he'd turned his considerable nose up at the kelly green zip-up number he'd unwrapped this morning.
"I'd look like a ponce," he'd said decidedly, and Esther had planted her hands on her hips.
"You've been spending too much time around Gerry."
"Gerry would wear it," Brian had retaliated as if that pronouncement closed the subject. "Why not give it to him?"
Compared to how she was looking now, Esther had looked positively thrilled when he'd suggested she re-gift his Christmas present.
"Brian," she said in a low, clipped tone, "I. Have. Had. Enough. If you're not going to make the slightest effort to participate and enjoy yourself, you can be off home."
"I don't happen to feel like playing charades," her husband responded sullenly, glowering down at the colourful rag rug that partially covered the wooden floor.
"I don't give a toss about the charades," she hissed, and his comeback – "And you've been spending too much time around Sandra" – earned him a sharp glare.
"You've been nothing but rude to my family all day. You've barely uttered a word that was longer than a single syllable, and you scarcely touched your lunch –"
"You're meant to have goose at Christmas," he interjected. "Who ever heard of having bloody roast beef and Yorkshire pudding?"
"You love Yorkshire pudding." She stepped forward, aiming the full thrust of her displeasure at him. "What you can't stand is the fact that we're not having Christmas at home, just the two of us and Mark."
"It's been good enough for the last 33 years," Brian sulked. "I don't know why this one had to be any different."
"Because now Mark is married, and occasionally Theresa likes to visit her family as well," Esther replied with exaggerated patience, as if he were a small, naughty child. "And they happen to live in Cornwall, in case you've forgotten, Memory Lane."
Brian flopped down on the edge of the bed and folded his arms. "I don't like change."
She actually laughed aloud before smothering her mirth with her palm. "Oh, Brian. That is the understatement of the century. But if you don't want a whole lot of other things to change at home, like whether or not you have clean laundry and hot dinners, you'd be wise to reconsider your behaviour, and not come back until you're fit for human company."
With that she left her husband alone in her sister's guest bedroom. Brian looked around the room, wondering (a) how long he could hide in here and (b) whether or not he could climb out the window.
An extremely annoying song filtered in from the next room, and Brian grimaced. "The Carol of the Bells." If his sister-in-law played this bloody song one more time, he was going to chuck the remains of the roast beef straight out into the snow, along with the undercooked Christmas pudding.
Sandra had the right idea after all, he thought glumly, looking out into the snowy night. Christmas is for getting as far away from your family as possible.
IV.
"This is my favourite Christmas song," Amelia gushed from her position in the cramped kitchen, peeling parsnips at her father's elbow.
Emily stopped humming along, slightly off-key, to "The Carol of the Bells" as the strains emanated from the wireless speakers connected to the new satellite radio the ex-wives had purchased Gerry for Christmas, long enough to say, "Mine too."
"Must be genetic," Paula teased from her post at the cooktop, where she was sautéing onions. "Dad, without Jayne and Caitlin, you realise you're going to have mounds of left-overs, don't you?"
Gerry, currently up to his elbows in dishwater, shrugged. "So the three of you will eat well for the next week. That is, if you can wrestle a morsel away from your mum."
"I can hear you," Alison called from the next room. "I'm glad Caitlin and Jacob didn't try to make it back for the holiday. They'd be stuck in all this snowy mess."
Amelia laughed. "Somehow I doubt they're pining away for us, or for Christmas cheer, in Antigua."
"Be that as it may, I'm glad you lot are all here," Gerry replied, turning with a colander in his hand and edging toward the refrigerator. "I don't, however, need all of you in here simultaneously. I'm tryin' to cook."
Amelia, who was not exactly domestic, dropped her vegetable peeler instantly. "No problem," she said happily. "I'll go entertain Gerry."
"Let him entertain you, you mean!" Paula called. She stirred the onions and looked surreptitiously at her older sister. "So Em, is Felicity going to be able to come?"
Emily looked up from the French beans she was snapping, suddenly no longer a confident detective, but a deer caught in the headlights of a Land Rover. "Ah, she isn't sure yet."
"I'll watch the onions, Paula," Gerry offered. "You go on out and join the others. Have a nice glass of wine – But don't open the Barolo, it's meant to go with the meal."
"How should I slice the courgettes?" Emily asked hastily, turning toward the counter.
"Lengthwise." Gerry stopped what he was doing and leaned against the counter beside the dark-haired woman. "You didn't invite her," he surmised in an unusually low, discreet voice.
She swallowed, focused on creating symmetrical courgette wedges. "No."
Gerry slung a dish towel over his shoulder as he asked, rather too casually, "Everything going all right?"
Emily blew out a breath and rested her knife on the cutting board. "Everything's fine, Dad. But don't you think this would be just the slightest bit intimidating? Dinner with all of us?"
"We didn't traumatise her at the party or the wedding," he reasoned.
"But this is all family," she pointed out.
"Fair point." He began to tenderly rub earth from the delicate mushrooms he'd schlepped all the way to Borough Market to find. "What if I invited some other people round to join us?"
"Some 'other people'?" she echoed skeptically. "Not women?"
"Jack, for starters. As far as I know, his holiday tradition is sitting home and drinking himself to sleep by half nine." As he spoke, Gerry wondered why he hadn't insisted his friend join him and the girls before today. "And Brian and Esther were going over to her sister's, but he was all depressed because his son's not home this year, so I'll give him a bell."
"And Sandra?"
"Sandra's meant to be en route to India." He cocked an eyebrow. "What do you think the chances are?"
Emily winced. "Today? Not good."
"Right, Sandra too, then." Gerry whipped his mobile out of his trouser pocket. "Excuse me. I'm off to recruit the troops."
He jogged up the stairs to his bedroom for a modicum of privacy, scrolling through his contacts as he went. Jack came first alphabetically, but his first call wasn't to Jack. Halford… Lane…
"Ah, Sandra?"
V.
"What, Gerry?" she snapped dismally, watching all the delayed flights on the departure monitor flip over to "canceled." Shit.
"Not at 30,000 feet, then."
"Your razor-sharp mind: that's why you're a valuable asset to UCOS," she practically growled.
"Since you're stranded, why don't you come round for dinner? I'm cooking for Carole and Alison and the girls, and I've got enough food to feed the entire Chelsea side."
She hesitated.
"Look, gov, I think it would be good for Jack to come," he resumed in a lower voice. "But I doubt he will, unless he knows you'll be here too. You know how he is; otherwise he'll say it's all family," he wheedled.
He heard her sigh. "Yeah, all right. Shall I phone Jack?"
"Yeah, and I'll ring Brian. 7:30?"
Gerry hung up and immediately made another call, but not to Brian. Jack's mobile went straight to voicemail. Gerry swore and dialed his home number. "Jack? It's Gerry. Pick up if you're there, mate."
VI.
Brian was still hiding in Penelope's spare bedroom, picking at the hole in his jumper, when he heard a familiar electronic ring. Esther's mobile. He realised it must be in the pocket of her coat, which was amongst the pile tossed across the foot of the bed. Without a second thought, he began burrowing, and didn't stop until his fingers touched cold, hard plastic. He blinked at the name scrolling across the display.
"Gerry," he said by way of greeting. "Save me, mate."
Approximately two minutes later Brian appeared in the midst of Esther's family, appropriately clad to do battle with the sort of cold that descended upon the Siberian steppes, but which had historically left London well alone. In his ankle-length down coat, red flannel scarf, and wooly hat, complete with protective ear flaps, he looked so comical that Penelope and David's seven-year-old granddaughter emitted a peal of giggles.
But Brian was on fire. Nothing could wound his dignity.
"Esther, love, I must be off out. New case." He turned the full force of his best company smile on his sister-in-law. "Penelope, thank you for a lovely afternoon. Must dash. Don't wait up, Esther."
VII.
If I hear this bloody song one more time, Jack thought as the strains of "The Carol of the Bells" reached him even where he sat frozen nearly solid in the garden, I am going to lift every one of those carolers for disturbing the bloody peace. Carolers, in London, in 2010. Ridiculous. This isn't some Dickens novel.
Instinctively he looked over toward Mary, but saw only fluffy mounds of snow. "Happy Christmas, love," he said in her direction, toasting her with his nearly-empty glass. "Maybe I'll join you under there before I have to celebrate another one."
"Sandra would not be best pleased to hear you talking like that, Jack Halford."
Mary's voice penetrated his consciousness so distinctly that Jack actually jumped – or would have done, had he not been frozen in place like the Tin Man in need of oil.
Aural hallucinations, he thought, looking around furtively. Better than the carolers, at any rate.
Although he should probably go back inside. Mary wouldn't be happy if he were found frozen to death out here, a Jack-cicle. Neither would Sandra.
Mary had liked Sandra, had encouraged Jack to invite her for dinner even when he insisted it wasn't appropriate for him to single out a member of his team, especially a young woman.
His wife had laughed. "She could be your daughter, Jack."
He could still see those two blonde heads, one light and one dark, bent together over the dining table as Mary shared some secret with the young policewoman and their laughter filled the room. If he and Mary had had a daughter, she might have had golden hair like Sandra's.
Jack knew he had, in a professional sense, assumed the role of a father where Sandra was concerned. He'd done it consciously, mindful of his indirect involvement in her real father's decision to end his life. ("Perhaps you should tell her," Mary had suggested once, long ago, and Jack had flatly refused. "She thinks he had a heart attack," he'd reasoned. "It would be cruel." Mary had not looked convinced, but had never returned to the subject.)
That was part of the reason he'd mentored her, but only, as it turned out, a small part. Sandra herself was the rest of the reason. She had the inherent abilities of an exceptional officer, no fear of hard graft, and was almost too tenacious for her own good.
And now she was his governor. Some might have called it ironic; Jack knew it was only fitting.
"Jack?"
Bollocks, enough with the hallucinations!
But no. There, standing just inside the garden gate as if his thoughts had conjured her, was Detective Superintendent Pullman in the flesh. He watched her eyes narrow slightly as she immediately took in his empty glass and frigid state, but she only said, "I rang you, and I rang the bell."
"I didn't hear." I was talking to Mary, he appended mentally. "Not halfway to Bombay, I see."
"It's Mumbai now, you know." Sandra took a few steps forward, her boots crunching in the snow. "BA said I might get out tomorrow night, but more likely Monday."
"At least you'll get there."
"Presumably." She took another step forward and sank slightly. "Come on, I'm here to take you to Gerry's for dinner, so get your skates on."
"But I don't –"
"It's that or we stay here and I make us a meal, so you decide."
"Right." Jack stood with alacrity despite his creaking joints. "What are you waiting for, then?"
That's more like it, submitted a third voice. Happy Christmas, love. Give my regards to Sandra and the others.