Lucy Gordon - The Millionaire’s Christmas Wish

‘That’s your advice?’

‘It’s what’s best for you.’

‘Would it be best for him?’

Santa shook his head. ‘It would finish him. He couldn’t cope. He told you about going home to an empty place, but he didn’t say how bad it is without you-how he makes excuses to work extra late so that he doesn’t have to go back and face the emptiness, or how he jumps whenever the phone rings in case it’s you, and curses when it isn’t.

‘I know he’s a difficult man, but he understands things now that he didn’t understand before. Doesn’t he deserve a chance to show you? I’m not saying it’ll be easy. He’s still going to get it wrong a lot of the time, maybe most of the time. But he loves you and he needs you, and without you he’s going to turn into a mean, miserable old man. Are you simply going to abandon him to that fate?’

‘But you just told me that I ought to marry Jimmy.’

‘He’s steady and reliable, and he’ll give you no trouble.’ Santa couldn’t resist adding, with a marked lack of Christmas spirit, ‘He’ll also bore the socks off you.’

‘That’s true. And maybe I feel I could cope with a little trouble.’

He looked at her uncertainly, as though not sure that he’d heard correctly.

‘So-what are you going to tell him?’ he asked cautiously.

‘Nothing.’ She gave Santa the smile of a conspirator. ‘You’re such a great ambassador. Why don’t you tell him?’

‘Tell him what?’

‘Whatever you think he most wants to hear.’

She kissed him on the cheek. Then she was gone.

Jimmy was up early the next morning, packing his suitcase with one inexpert hand.

‘Will you be all right for the journey?’ Corinne asked, coming to help him. ‘You surely don’t have to go yet?’

‘Yes, I do,’ he said sadly. ‘I’m a soldier, remember? I know when I’m beaten.’

She didn’t ask what that meant.

Alex drove him to the station, and they parted on reasonably cordial terms, considering. Alex was feeling cordial to the whole world this morning, although there was still a touch of anxiety in his manner when he returned and went to find Corinne. He found her upstairs in her bedroom, pushing clothes aside in the wardrobe.

‘It’s still a bit cramped,’ she said. ‘But your things can overflow into the guest room now Jimmy’s gone.’

‘Are you sure?’ he asked quietly. ‘There’s still time to send me away.’

She smiled. ‘Is there? Would you go if I told you to?’

‘Nope.’ He took her into his arms. ‘This is home now.’

‘You don’t mind moving in here?’

‘I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is the home where we became a family, and where we’ll stay a family.’

‘Suddenly you’re very wise,’ she said.

‘I’ve been taking advice from a mysterious friend. He’s a very old man who knows a lot because people tell him things. He says the problems won’t simply vanish, but if the love is there we should never give up on it.’

‘And the love is there,’ she said.

‘Yes. Always.’ He took her face between his hands. ‘I love you, Corinne, with everything in me. Promise me that you’ll remember that when I act like a jerk.’

‘Are you likely to do that?’

He nodded wryly. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘Me, too.’

‘We’ve just taken the first step,’ he said seriously. ‘I don’t know where the other steps will lead, but if you’re with me I’ll follow the path in any direction.’

‘It may lead to some strange places,’ she reminded him.

‘Just keep tight hold of my hand.’

He drew her close and kissed her. If their last kiss had been one of farewell, this was one of greeting, neither quite knowing who the other was any more, but glad to be introduced.

They didn’t see the door open and two heads look in, then withdraw silently.

‘Told you,’ Bobby said triumphantly. ‘I said Dad would come back for good.’

‘You were just guessing,’ Mitzi accused.

‘I wasn’t.’

‘Was.’

‘Wasn’t.’

‘Was.’

‘I knew he was coming back. I had-’ Bobby looked around significantly ‘-inside information.’

‘Go on! Who?’

‘Santa Claus.’

Mitzi looked at him with six-year-old sisterly scorn. ‘You’re batty, you are!’ she announced. ‘There is no Santa Claus.’

‘There is.’

‘Isn’t.’

‘Is.’

‘Isn’t.

‘Is. What’s more, I talked to him.’

‘Batty!’ she said again. ‘Batty, batty, batty!’

She ran off down the stairs, yodelling the word happily.

Bobby was not upset by this reaction. At six, Mitzi still had a lot to learn about life, and people, and Santa.

‘Santa Claus,’ he said. ‘Santa Claus-Father Christmas.’

He took the little wooden medallion from his pocket and turned it over in his fingers, still murmuring softly. ‘Father Christmas, Father Christmas-’

He smiled to himself with secret contentment.

‘Father.’

One year later

‘YOU see, I kept my word,’ Santa said.

Bobby nodded, slipping into the room and regarding his friend with shining eyes.

A year had made him two inches taller, and the shape of his face was a little different. His eyes were, perhaps, a little too wise for his age, but that was his nature. The tension and sadness were gone.

‘I knew you’d come because you said you would,’ he said.

Santa looked around him at the room. ‘I hardly recognise this place.’

Bobby nodded. ‘We’ve been redecorating. Dad tried to do this room himself, only he’s rotten at it, and Mum said he should chuck the paintbrush away and she’d get a firm in to do it, and anyway they had better things to do, now that I’m going to have a baby brother or sister.’

He turned to look at a small figure who had appeared in the doorway.

‘Come in. I told you he’d be here.’

Mitzi came further into the room, eyeing Santa with a touch of suspicion, then coming close and poking him in the stomach.

‘Ow!’ he remembered to say.

‘You see, I’m not batty,’ Bobby told her.

‘Yes, you are,’ she said firmly.

‘Aren’t!’

‘Are!’

‘Aren’t!’

‘Are!’

‘That’s enough, the pair of you,’ Corinne said, coming in. ‘Go to bed, now. Santa still has a full night’s work to do.’

He leaned down to them. ‘That’s right. I’ll say goodbye now. I won’t be back tomorrow, like I was last time.’

‘And next year?’ Bobby asked.

‘We’ll see.’ Santa added thoughtfully, ‘Most boys of your age don’t believe in Santa Claus.’

Bobby regarded him with a faint quizzical smile. ‘I believe in you,’ he said.

Mitzi nodded. Then she put her arms around his huge girth as far as they would go, which wasn’t far. Santa leaned down and she vanished into his white hair.

‘Goodnight, both of you,’ he said huskily.

When the children were gone Corinne looked at Santa’s belly, then at her own, which was about the same size.

‘I wouldn’t have much luck cuddling you, either,’ she said, chuckling. ‘Cross fingers that we’ll make it through Christmas.’

‘Well, if not, that husband of yours is here.’ Beneath his beard Santa paled slightly. ‘He may not be much use, but he’s here.’

‘Don’t you say a word against my husband. The clinic said he was doing the breathing exercises very well. Better than me.’

He grinned, but then the grin faded. ‘Are you going to be all right?’ he asked seriously.

She smiled. ‘We’re going to be all right. All of us.’

‘Sure?’

‘I’m like Bobby. I believe in you. Happy Christmas, Santa. Now and always.’

Lucy Gordon cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Sir Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness, and Sir John Gielgud. She also camped out with lions in Africa and had many other unusual experiences which have often provided the background for her books. She is married to a Venetian, whom she met while on holiday in Venice. They got engaged within two days.