Steve Berry had always
had a distinct dislike for Christmas, in fact he hated everything about it,
despite all the jollity and faux fun because unlike many of his Christmas mad
friends he had no happy Christmas memories to anesthetize him against the
season.
His parents were
chronic alcoholics and each year their Christmas came in a bottle and thanks to
his ill-tempered father, Steve’s came with a slap, so his childhood Christmases
were festive memories he would rather have forgotten.
But adulthood brought
no relief from the season and it always seemed to him that when shit happened
Christmas just magnified the misery.
If someone died at
Christmas the very season makes it more keenly felt and he could testify to
that fact as his own mother died on Christmas Eve when he was 19.
He had no idea where
his father was and quite frankly he didn’t care he never bothered to show up
for the funeral and for all he knew he could have been dead as well.
So as a result he had
never trusted Christmas, because he knew that shit lurks beneath the coloured
lights and paper chains.
That was until Holly Davis
opened his eyes to new possibilities and he realised that Christmas could also
magnify joy.
After an excess of
alcohol and some sneakiness from Holly he found himself working behind the bar
in her Uncle Phil’s pub, the Pig and Whistle in Abbeyvale.
He was still uncertain
quite how she managed to affect that, but affect it she did and during the ten
days he spent working for her, she had turned his life upside down and it
culminated at closing time on Christmas Eve as the church bells at St Mary’s chimed
midnight, with him wishing her a Merry Christmas and kissing her.
Judging by the way
Holly responded Steve hoped that the kiss on Christmas Eve might have been the
start of something between them but alas for him it didn’t lead anywhere.
Holly had indeed responded
to his advance and in fact had been hoping for it, but she knew it was far too
soon to throw caution to the wind.
There were scabs as
yet unpicked regarding Steve Berry that needed to be attended to before she
completely let down her guard.
Holly considered him
to be a work in progress she thought he had potential but he still needed work
but there was certainly hope for him, but he was progressing nonetheless.
The other event that
occurred on Christmas Eve was a prolonged fall of snow which resulted in them
being snowed in.
Holly was due to go to
lunch at her cousin’s house but as she lived 30 miles away it was not possible
to make the journey safely with the amount of snow that was still laying.
Steve was due to spend
the day alone in his flat, not celebrating Christmas at all, but Holly invited
him to spend the day with her instead as he hadn’t risked driving home the
night before.
He would have been
quite happy to have slept on one of the bench seats in the lounge bar as he had
once before, but Holly insisted he use the spare room.
So that was how Steve
Berry came to celebrate his first ever Christmas and why he was sitting at the
bar nursing a cup of coffee in the clothes he had been wearing the night
before.
It was as a result of
them being snowed in at the Pig and Whistle on Christmas Eve which led to Steve
Berry celebrating his first ever Christmas at the age of 30 and why he was
sitting at the bar nursing a cup of coffee in the clothes he had been wearing
the night before.
“Morning” he said as Holly
appeared behind the bar
“Happy Christmas”
Holly said and reached over and kissed his cheek.
Now it was not the
kiss he was hoping for and it was not possessed of the passion that accompanied
the embrace of the night before but that simple peck on the cheek held within
it something very special, and that was hope.
“God its cold in here”
she said
“Yes, there was a
power cut during the night and it knocked the boiler out” he said
“I’ve relit it but
it’ll take a while to warm the place up”
“This was not the
Christmas day I had in mind” Holly said putting the collar of her dressing gown
up
“Nor me” he added
She was supposed to be
dining on a sumptuous feast at her cousin’s house, while he was supposed to be
in self-imposed exile at his flat pretending that Christmas was just a bad
dream.
“Do you want a drink?”
he asked
“Oh yes please” she
replied and Steve got up and went to the kitchen returning a few minutes later
with a steaming mug of tea
“Thanks hon” she said
and winced at her involuntary over familiarization and quickly went on.
“I don’t know what we
are going to eat today” Holly said
“We will need to
ferret in the freezer”
“I didn’t know ferret
was traditional Christmas fare” Steve said “but I’m no expert on Christmas.
“You know what I mean”
she said smiling “Can you cook?”
“A bit” he replied
“Good because I’m
rubbish” Holly admitted
Steve actually
undersold himself when he said he could cook a bit
He could in fact cook
very well, exceptionally well.
Steve not being a
traditionalist or a fan of the season could certainly make something out of
what was on hand in the kitchen.
Holly however wanted
to have a roast lunch, with all the trimmings, but after they checked the
freezer they had to rule out a roast dinner as the joints would never have
defrosted in time, and they were too big for the microwave and as they were
frozen hard, impossible to cut down to size, but there were alternatives.
The fresh vegetable
stores were limited but more than sufficient for two people.
Although she couldn’t
cook herself, Holly was determined to help, firstly by peeling the potatoes and
carrots and then by getting out of his way so he could get on by taking herself
off upstairs to get ready for the day.
While Holly was gone Steve
finished preparing the food and when he was done he was very pleased that he
had achieved something to suit Holly’s traditional wishes, at least in part.
Steve Berry had just reached
the point where he could safely leave the kitchen and get showered and shaved
when Holly reappeared and he was stopped in his tracks.
She looked stunning,
her mousy hair, washed and styled was adorned with Christmas slides and she was
wearing a white wool dress decorated with poinsettias.
And her shapely legs
were covered by black tights with motifs of bows and parcels and as he looked
at her from head to toe he thought to himself that he’d like them to be stockings
rather than tights, but nice legs were nice legs regardless of what they were
sheathed in.
“Wow” Steve exclaimed
“Wow” he said again
and Holly blushed
“It’s a Christmas
dress you know” she said
“I don’t care” he said
“wow”
“But you don’t like
Christmas” she pointed out
“It’s growing on me”
he said unable to take his eyes off her
“Good” she said “you
won’t mind wearing this then”
When would he ever
learn, he now had to wear another blessed Christmas sweater.
“Where do you keep
getting them from?” he asked
“They’re Uncle Phil’s”
she replied “I buy him one every year”
“But I’ve never seen
Phil in a Christmas jumper, not ever” Steve said
“No nor of I” Holly agreed
Steve went upstairs,
showered and shaved and returned to find Holly had laid a table in the lounge
bar, complete with festive serviettes, candles, party poppers and crackers.
On the CD player the
Puppini Sisters were in full voice and his natural aversion to Christmas music
was tempered by the fact that he caught Holly singing and dancing along with the
music.
He stayed out of sight
in the doorway so he could enjoy the spectacle as long as possible.
When she eventually
became aware of him she blushed redder than the poinsettias on her dress.
“How long have you
been standing there?” she said suddenly flustered and began fussing with the
table.
“Long enough” Steve
replied
“You should have said
something” Holly said as she headed towards the kitchen still flushed red
“What and spoil the
show” he replied as he followed close behind her and chuckled.
Holly carried on with
the table while Steve checked the oven and ten minutes later he was
transferring everything to serving dishes which Holly took to the table.
All he had left to do
was make the gravy and get the Yorkshire puddings out of the oven.
Christmas dinner was
as traditional as he could manage given the limits of the provisions available
but it was Holly’s turn to say “Wow” as he served Chicken breast wrapped in
bacon, served with Roast potatoes, roast parsnips, carrots, peas, stuffing and
Yorkshire pudding.
“What no starters” she
said tongue in cheek
Holly lit the candles
and Steve opened the wine, then they pulled the crackers and she made him wear
a paper hat.
For desert he served
apple pie and ice cream after which they watched the Queens speech.
As soon as the Queens
speech was over Holly switched off the TV
“What now?” he asked
“Now we sit and talk”
She replied
“You mean “talk”” Steve
said
“Yes”
“Do we have to” He said
“It’s been such a lovely day”
“How are we supposed
to learn about each other if we don’t talk?”
Holly replied
“So what do you want
to know?” he said resignedly
“You’re childhood”
Holly said with great interest
“What about it?” he
replied
“Well, it’s not just
Christmas that was unhappy was it”
“No it wasn’t” he
replied and Holly settled back to let him unburden himself
“It wasn’t just
Christmas, it was New Year’s, Easter, Halloween and birthdays”
He paused and took a
drink
“You see my parents
were alcoholics, when I was young they managed to somehow keep it under control
and were functioning alcoholics, they held down jobs and to the outside world
they seemed normal.
But once I got to
school age I pretty much raised myself, which is how I came to learn to cook,
because if I didn’t cook I didn’t eat”
They had spent a very
pleasant Christmas day together, snowed in at the pub, the last thing he wanted
to do was regurgitate the unpleasant moments of his life, particularly as he
had been doing his best to forget them.
But once he started he
couldn’t stop and by the end of it he was exhausted as they sat in the
gathering darkness.
Holly was largely
quiet throughout and just added the odd word of encouragement and support.
Holly broke the short
period of silence.
“How do you feel?”
“Surprisingly good” he
responded
However, despite his
feeling unburdened by the lengthy afternoon revelations there was an awkward
silence in the aftermath, so Steve disappeared down to the kitchen to make them
both a snack.
He wondered if he
should have held back and if he had unnerved Holly with his total honesty.
“I should have drip
fed her” he said as he walked around the kitchen “Let her absorb it and then I
could have said more, but no, you had to blurt out every sordid detail of your
pathetic life and now she probably thinks you’re a nut job”
When he had finished
with the rant and the snack he put it on a tray and carried it upstairs to the
lounge where Holly greeted his arrival with a smile, but not a nervous smile,
it was a kindly open smile, from someone happy to see him return.
“God that was good”
Holly said after consuming the snack he had prepared with relish.
“Every cloud has a
silver lining” he said referring to the reason that he had learned to cook in
the first place.
“There is always a
positive in life” Holly said sagely “you just have to look for it”
“Well that’s what I
plan to do” he said and cleared the plates away
“I’ll pour us another
drink” He added
When Steve returned to
the lounge Holly was sitting on the sofa with a Christmas present on her lap
and she was smiling broadly.
“Happy Christmas” she
said as she handed him the gift
“What’s this?” he asked
“Well open it and find
out” Holly answered
“I wasn’t expecting a
present” Steve said and sat down beside her on the sofa and squeezed the
package
“Oh no not another
Christmas sweater” he said and Holly giggled as he tore the paper open.
But when he had removed
all the paper and unfolded its contents he saw that although it was indeed a
sweater, it was not a novelty Christmas one like those she had made him wear
for the previous ten days but a plain blue one in cashmere.
“That’s fantastic” he
said enthusiastically “I love it
“Try it on then” Holly
insisted and stood up
Holly took hold of the
new one while Steve removed the one he was wearing and then they swapped.
As Steve pulled the
cashmere over his head Holly held the novelty one he had just removed up to her
nose and inhaled his scent.
“That looks great” she
said when he had put it on
“It feels it” he said
“can I keep it on?”
“Yes” she said and
held the other one to her breast and he walked over to the Christmas tree and
plunged his hand in between the branches.
It was perhaps
testament to the progress that he had made over such a short period of time
that he had actually bought her a present, which he removed from its hiding
place and said
“Happy Christmas”
“When did you put that
there?” she asked in amazement
“This morning” Steve
replied
“That was sneaky”
Holly said and ripped the paper off like a mad woman until she was left with a
little blue presentation box embossed with gold relief.
She looked at it in
wide eyed wonder, it was jewelry, he had bought her jewelry and from a quality jeweler’s.
Holly took a deep
breath and then opened the box and then she gasped.
“It’s lovely” she said
as she took it out the box and held the gold pendant in her hand.
It was in the shape of
a holly leaf and it had her name engraved on it.
“I love it, I absolutely
love it” she said “put it on for me”
Steve took the pendant
from her and when Holly turned her back to him, she reached back and scooped
her hair out of the way while he fastened it.
Then she went to the mirror,
stood on her tiptoes and looked at herself and admired the pendant.
“I really love it”
Holly said and then she let out a squeal as she rushed towards him and then for
the second day running they ended the day with a passionate kiss.
