Lucy Gordon - The Millionaire’s Christmas Wish

Suddenly, as though a spotlight had come on inside him, he saw his son’s face, staring at the front door with painful intensity, not daring to believe.

He didn’t know where that light had come from, except that it had something to do with his talk with Bobby. It lit all the world from a new angle, showing what had always been there, but which he’d never noticed.

He turned the key.

‘Daddy!’

The ear-splitting shriek came from Mitzi. Corinne was standing by the kitchen door, watching his arrival with pleasure. Only Bobby did not react. He stood completely still, his face a mask of total and utter disbelief.

Alex wanted to cry out, But I promised you. You knew I was coming. Instead, he concentrated on hugging his daughter, who was almost strangling him with the exuberance of her embrace.

‘Hello, darling,’ he said.

‘Daddy, Daddy,’ she carolled.

‘Hey, don’t choke me,’ he said, laughing. ‘How’s my girl?’

She gave him a smacking kiss, which he returned. Then it was time to face his son.

Bobby was strangely pale. ‘Hello, Daddy,’ he said.

‘Hello, son.’

To his dismay, Bobby held out his hand politely, almost as though meeting a stranger. Or a ghost.

‘Hello, Daddy.’

Then he broke suddenly, as belief came rushing through, and flung himself against his father, burying his face against him.

Alex’s arms closed protectively about his son as he felt the storm of emotion go through the child. He didn’t know what to do except stay as he was, trying to understand but feeling helpless.

Looking up, he found Corinne’s eyes on him. Her expression was gentle but he had the feeling that she was conveying a warning.

Bobby drew back to look at his father. His face bore the marks of tears, which he rubbed aside hastily. Alex brushed some of them away with his own fingertips.

‘It’s all right, son,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m home.’

Bobby sniffed. ‘Hello, Daddy.’

‘Hey, is that any way to greet your old man? Crying? Shall I go away again?’

It was a feeble joke and a badly misjudged one. Bobby clung to him, his eyes full of sudden dread, and Alex drew in his breath. He was floundering badly.

‘You’re not getting rid of me that easily,’ he backtracked, saying anything that came into his head. ‘I’m here now and I’m staying. You’ve got me for Christmas, whether you like it or not.’

Mitzi began hopping about, yelling, ‘Yippee, Yippee!’ Bobby, the thoughtful one, smiled.

‘Come on, kids,’ said Corinne. ‘Let Daddy come in and get his breath back.’

Alex straightened up and kissed her cheek. Corinne did the same, smiling to present a show of cordiality for the children.

‘You said you weren’t coming until tomorrow,’ Mitzi reminded him.

‘Well, I got away early and thought it would be nice to see a bit more of you.’ He tweaked her hair. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

She shook her head ecstatically and pointed to the centre of her mouth. ‘I lost a tooth,’ she informed him proudly.

He studied the gap with great interest. ‘That’s very impressive. When did that happen?’

‘Last week,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry I missed that.’

‘I saved it for you,’ she reassured him.

‘Then I’ll look forward to seeing it,’ he said gamely.

Mitzi promptly pulled it out of her pocket. Alex heard Corinne give a soft choke of laughter.

‘How about selling it to me?’ he said. ‘I’ll bid you a pound.’

Mitzi made a face.

‘One pound fifty?’

She finally got him up to two pounds and the deal was struck. Mitzi pocketed her profit and went off to explain to Bobby how to do business.

‘A chip off the old block,’ Corinne said when Alex joined her in the kitchen.

‘Better,’ he agreed. ‘At her age I’d have settled for fifty pence.’

‘Ah, but don’t forget inflation,’ she said, teasing. ‘I’ll say this for you-you coped very well with that tooth. I thought it was going to faze you.’

‘Nothing fazes me,’ he insisted. Then he looked at the tooth in his hand. ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’

‘Treasure it.’ She laughed. ‘You just paid a high price for it. I expect you’re ready for something to eat.’

‘I don’t know when I last ate,’ he admitted.

‘I do,’ she said, giving him a friendly smile. ‘Breakfast was a cup of black coffee. You meant to catch up at lunchtime, but you were caught between meetings so you made do with a sandwich.’

‘Am I that predictable?’

‘Yes.’

‘I had a roll in the car on my way here.’

‘Oh, well, then. You don’t need the steak I got for you.’

Suddenly he was ravenous. ‘Just try me.’

She poured him some tea, very strong and heavily sugared, as he liked it, and he wandered into the next room. Like the rest of the house, it was decorated with paper chains and tinsel.

It was an old house, full of a kind of shambling charm. The original fireplace was still there, although only a vase of artificial flowers adorned it now, and, out of sight, the chimney was blocked to keep out draughts.

Beside it stood the tree. It was smaller and less impressive than the one in his office, and the fairy on the top looked wonky, as though she were clinging on for dear life. But the parcels around the base were all addressed to people and, when picked up, rattled reassuringly.

Alex stood looking at it and suddenly the inner light shone again, showing him that this was a real tree, with real presents, for real people.

He looked at some of the labels. There were gifts from Corinne to the children and from them to her, gifts from Jimmy to all of them, and from them to him. It occurred to him how often Jimmy’s name appeared.

‘Time for bed, kids,’ Corinne called. ‘There’s lots to do tomorrow.’

‘I want Daddy to put me to bed,’ Mitzi said at once.

‘All right,’ Alex said. To Bobby he added, ‘What do you want?’

‘I put myself to bed,’ the child said gruffly. ‘But you can look in, if you want.’

‘Fine.’

His daughter bounded all over him and rode on his back down the hall to her bedroom, which turned out to be a shrine to horses. Horse pictures adorned the walls; horses leapt all over her duvet cover. Her slippers were shaped like horses and picture books about horses filled her shelves.

Alex spoke without thinking. ‘Now I understand.’

He meant the Marianne doll in the riding habit that she had mentioned to Santa earlier. With his little girl’s eyes on him he remembered, too late, that he was supposed to know nothing.

‘Now I understand what you’ve been doing recently,’ he improvised. ‘We’ll have lots to talk about tomorrow. Goodnight, pet.’

He kissed her and departed hastily before he could make any more slips.

Bobby’s bedroom was curiously unrevealing. There were no pictures on the wall, or books, beyond a few school books. Alex flicked through one of these.

‘Good marks,’ he observed. ‘You’re working hard, then?’

Bobby nodded.

‘That’s good. Good.’ He was floundering. ‘Are you all right, son? All right here, I mean?’

‘Yes, it’s nice.’

‘Don’t you miss your old home?’

Bobby hunted for the right words. ‘Places don’t really matter.’

‘No. People matter. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘Well, I’m here now.’

‘Yes.’

Alex searched his face. ‘You are glad, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, of course I am.’

He would have doubted it if it hadn’t been for their memory of the earlier conversation. How could all that have gone?

Because now he knows it’s me.

‘Tomorrow’s a big day,’ he said cheerfully.

‘Yes.’

It was becoming a disaster. He had resolved to act on what he’d learned from Bobby that evening, and use it to make this visit a triumph. That was the secret of success-good intelligence and knowing how to use it. But all his gains were slipping away.

‘Daddy-’

‘What is it?’ His voice betrayed his eagerness.

‘Tomorrow, will you ask Mitzi about the school play? She was ever so good in it.’

The school play? The school play? His mind frantically tried to grapple with this. When had it been? Why hadn’t he known?

‘It was a pantomime-’ Bobby said, reading his face without trouble ‘-and Mitzi was an elf. She had two lines.’

‘Er-?’

‘It was last week. You were abroad.’

‘Of course-yes-otherwise I’d have-’

‘Yeah, sure. You will remember to ask her, won’t you?’

‘Of course I will. Goodnight, son.’

Corinne said her goodnights after him. As they passed in the corridor she said, ‘I’ve put you in that room at the end. Your things are in there.’

He looked in before going downstairs. It was a small, neat room with a narrow bed.

Alex thought about the other rooms. Presumably Corinne had the big room on the corner of the house, but where, he wondered, had she put Jimmy?

HE CAME down the stairs so quietly that Corinne didn’t hear him, and he had a moment to stand watching her as she worked in the kitchen.

The steak smelled good, and suddenly he was transported back to the early days of their marriage, when steak had been a luxury. But somehow she had managed to wring the price out of the meagre housekeeping money they had.

They had been partners-laughing at poverty, competing with each other in loving generosity, squabbling to give each other the last titbit. But that was long ago.

The years had barely touched her, he thought. The slim, graceful figure that had once enchanted him was the same, two children later.

She had been gorgeous at eighteen-beautiful, sexy, witty, knowing her own power over young men and enjoying it. They had all competed for her, but Alex had made sure that he was the one who won her.