Lucy Gordon - A Mistletoe Proposal

‘I thought so,’ he said quietly.

‘But now it’s time to wake up and return to reality.’

‘And what do you call reality?’

‘We both know what we mean by it.’ She gave another brittle laugh. ‘I’m sure we’ll see each other again, but nobody can live too long in that fantasy world.’

At last Roscoe released her. It was what she’d wanted but the feeling of his hands leaving her was achingly wretched because, deep inside, she knew he would never hold her again.

‘I see,’ he said. And now his voice was ominous. ‘So that’s how it is. We had a good time, now it’s over and it had nothing to do with the real world. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’

Pippa summoned a carefree smile. ‘Why, that’s just it. A good time. And it was great fun, wasn’t it? But now…well, you knew from the start that I was a good time girl. I think you even called me a few worse things in your head.’

‘Before I thought I knew you,’ he corrected harshly.

‘Well, maybe first impressions are the most reliable. Floozie, tart, heartless piece-’

‘Stop it!’ he shouted, seizing her again. ‘I won’t listen to this. I never thought that of you-or if I ever wondered for a moment you showed me how wrong I was-’

‘Did I? Or did I show you what you wanted to see? You were a real challenge, you know. Anyone can lure a man into her bed, but luring his heart-that’s another matter.’

Pippa felt dizzy as she said these terrible words. In her desperation to escape she had gone much further than she’d meant to and for a moment she hesitated on the edge of recalling them, hurling herself into Roscoe’s arms and swearing she meant none of it.

‘Do you mean that?’ he whispered.

She had one last chance to deny her words, reclaim all the joy life could offer her.

‘Do you mean it?’ he repeated. ‘Is that all there’s been between us? You trying to bring me down, to punish me for my attitude in the first few days? Is that the truth?’

One last chance.

‘Now the sun will always shine,

Joy is here for ever.’

Frantically, she switched the radio off.

‘You know the saying,’ she said with a shrug. ‘You win some, you lose some. I like to win them all.’

Now it was too late. The last trace of feeling had gone from him. His eyes were those of a dead man.

‘I suppose I should be glad you came clean so soon,’ he said. ‘You might have taken it much further before you…but it’s always wise to face the truth.’

A sneering look came into his eyes.

‘So all the worst I thought of you was right after all. I should have more faith in my own judgement. Are you pleased? Does it give you a nasty little thrill to have brought me down?’

She managed a cynical laugh. ‘I came to your bed and gave you a good time. That’s hardly bringing you down.’

His eyes as they raked her were brutal.

‘Oh, but you did much more than that,’ he breathed. ‘You put on the sweet, generous mask and it fooled me so thoroughly that I told you things that never before…’ He drew a shuddering breath. ‘Well, I hope it gave you a good laugh.’

She was about to protest wildly that he was terribly wrong, but she controlled the impulse in time and offered him a smile precisely calculated to infuriate him. It would break his heart, but if it drove him away from her it would be better for him in the long run. And for his sake she would hide her own broken heart and endure.

‘I see that it did,’ he grated. ‘Well, don’t let me keep you.’

‘You’re right,’ she said brightly. ‘We’ve said all we have to say, haven’t we?’

He made no attempt to follow her into the bedroom as she gathered her things and when she came out he was waiting by the front door, as though determined to make sure that she left.

‘Good day to you,’ he said politely.

‘Goodbye,’ she told him, and fled.

A robot might have functioned as Pippa did for the rest of the day. Her efficiency was beyond reproach, her smile fixed, her work done to the highest standard.

‘What the devil is the matter with her?’ muttered David, her employer and friend.

‘Why not ask her?’ his secretary suggested.

‘I daren’t. She terrifies the life out of me.’

At last it was time to escape back to the apartment that would now be her cage. As if by a signal, Pippa began to tidy the place, although it was already tidy. From now on order and good management would be her watch words. She would concentrate on her career, be the best lawyer in the business and never again try to break out of the prison created by her nightmares. Life would be safe.

At last, when she’d put everything else away, she came to the box rescued from the attic in Crimea Street. Taking out the gloves and scarves, she discovered some handwritten books at the bottom.

‘That’s Gran’s handwriting,’ she breathed. ‘But surely she didn’t keep a diary? She wouldn’t have had time.’

Yet the diaries went back to Dee’s early life, when she had been a nurse, and had still sometimes found the time to jot down her thoughts about the life around her. Sometimes amusing, sometimes caustic, sometimes full of emotion, always revealing an ebullient personality that Pippa recognised.

There were the long, anguished months when she’d loved Mark Sellon hopelessly, becoming engaged to him, then breaking it off because she couldn’t believe he loved her. But he’d been returned to her in the hospital, shot down by enemy planes, and she’d sat by his unconscious form, speaking more freely than she could have done if he’d been awake. Dee had written:

I told him that I must believe that somewhere, deep in his heart, he could hear me. Wherever he was, he must surely feel my love reaching out to him, and know that it was always his.

Pippa read far into the night, until she came to the passage that, in her heart, she had always known she’d find, written just after her grandfather’s death.

I saw you laid in the ground today and had to come away, leaving you there. And yet I haven’t really left you behind because you’re still with me, and you always will be; just as I’ll always be with you in your heart, until we really are together again. It doesn’t matter how long that is. Time doesn’t really exist. It’s just an illusion.

Pippa dropped her head into her hands. That was how love should be, how it never would be for her. She knew that now.

She laid everything away tidily, turned out all the lights and went to bed. A faint gleam from the window showed her the toy bear on her dressing table. In this poor light his shabbiness was concealed and his glass eyes seemed to glimmer softly.

‘No,’ she told him. ‘I’m not listening to you. You want me to believe one thing, and I know it’s different. I believed you once. I believed Gran. She used to talk to me about her and Grandpa, saying that one day it would happen to me. And I thought it had when I met Jack. He made me feel so safe and loved, and sure of the future. And now I don’t want to feel safe and loved. Ever. Do you understand?’

But he had no reply for her.

CHARLIE called the next day, his voice full of excitement over the line.

‘Bless you for what you’ve done for me,’ he said. ‘And I’m not talking about the trial.’

‘You’ve seen Lee?’

‘Yes, I’ve just had a long talk and it’s looking good for a couple of weeks’ time. Oh, boy, wait until Roscoe hears about this!’

‘Don’t be in a rush to tell him, Charlie, and don’t do anything rash. Wait until you’re a little more certain.’

‘All right, Miss Wise and Wonderful. I’ll do it your way. And thank you again.’

She wondered if she would hear from Roscoe but days passed in silence. Just as well, she told herself. If she saw him she might weaken, and that must not happen. Much better this way.

But the ache persisted.

Days passed, nights passed. She told herself that it was getting easier, except that every knock at the door was him. Until it wasn’t.

But then, one evening, it was.

One look was enough to tell her that if anything had changed it wasn’t for the better. Now his face wasn’t just cold but furious.

‘We need to talk,’ he said.

She stood back and he walked in, turning on her as soon as the door closed.

‘My God, I never thought you’d stoop to this,’ he raged.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Oh, please, you wreck his life and then you don’t know what I mean?’

‘If you’re talking about what I think you are-’

‘I’m talking about Charlie walking out of the firm, blowing his life chances to chase a chimera. I’m talking about you persuading him to do it. How could you sink so low? Were you really that desperate for revenge?’

‘Revenge?’ she echoed, astounded. ‘I didn’t want revenge. Why should I? You did me no harm. If anything, it was me who… What did you mean about Charlie leaving the firm? That wasn’t in the plan.’

‘But there was a plan? You admit that?’

‘Yes,’ she said, her temper flaring, ‘there was a plan-an innocent plan to help Charlie follow his own path in life. He’s a natural entertainer and I have a friend, Lee Renton, who’s in the business. He sets up those television programmes where amateurs perform and viewers vote. I recommended Charlie to him after that evening we spent at The Diamond. He did an impromptu performance for me at the table and he was so good that I thought he should take it further.

‘Lee has auditioned him and because he’s the big boss he’s been able to pull strings and include Charlie in a show in two weeks’ time. If he’s no good, OK, but the top two performers go through to the next round, and I’d back Charlie to be one of them.’

‘And then what?’ Roscoe demanded scathingly. ‘An existence spent on the grubby fringes of show business?’