Another Way to Fall (17 page)

‘We had our order written down somewhere,’ Jean said, riffling through discarded pieces of wrapping paper.

‘You look like you’ve been having a great time so far,’ Emma said as she took another look at the Christmas debris strewn across the table.

‘Santa has been very generous this year. Look,’ Jean told her, pulling an envelope from the bottom of her pile of gifts, which threatened to topple over. She handed Emma an envelope containing a voucher for an experience day.

‘Hot-air ballooning?’ stammered Emma, wondering how Jean would manage to clamber into the basket without breaking a hip. ‘That’s, that’s unbelievable.’

‘Hmm,’ added Iris. ‘I don’t think Santa would have been so generous had he realized that some of us weren’t going to be spoiled so much this year.’ From her pile of gifts, Iris lifted up a gaudy printed headscarf and a pair of pink fluffy dice with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. ‘I don’t even have a car to hang these from, not unless Santa’s got a new car parked outside.’ She looked expectantly towards Jean.

Jean giggled. ‘Now I don’t think my pension would stretch quite that far, but …’ she said, rummaging between the folds of her cardigan before pulling out a similar-looking envelope to the one Emma held in her hand. She proffered it towards Iris with a flourish.

Iris tore at the envelope and her growing excitement spread to the rest of the group. They all peered over to get a better look at the voucher she was staring at open-mouthed. ‘A rally-driving experience?’

Emma looked on in disbelief but Iris was bubbling with excitement.

‘Isn’t that a bit …’ began Emma, still stumbling over her words. ‘Isn’t that a bit too extreme?’

The four ladies gave their new waitress an imperious look. ‘And why would that be?’ Jean asked.

Emma suppressed a smile as she recovered from the shock and started to feel sheer admiration for the ladies. ‘I thought maybe something like a spa day might have been a bit more, I don’t know, relaxing, maybe?’

Jean tried to maintain her offence but couldn’t contain her giggles for too long. ‘It was tank driving last year,’ she confessed. ‘But she’s seventy-five now, so I thought I’d calm it down a bit.’

‘Have you ever thought of giving more practical gifts?’ asked Emma with a wicked smile. ‘Cookery books, bath salts, that kind of thing. Or hand-knitted scarves, even?’

As the table erupted into a counterattack, Emma tried to get back to the business at hand. ‘Jean, have you got that order for me or would you prefer Christmas dinner served on Boxing Day?’

Jean obliged by handing over their order, which was scribbled on a scrap of wrapping paper, and from that moment on, Emma didn’t stop. She barely had time to say more than a brief and chaste hello to Ben but the rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. It was no surprise that Iris, Jean and their friends were the last to go home and when they did leave, they left the staff, even the temporary ones, exhausted but smiling.

‘Right, who’s ready for a party?’ Louise said.

As leftovers go, Christmas dinner was fit for a king. Ben and Steven weren’t allowed, at Louise’s insistence, to lift another finger. The day had been a resounding success and with so many of their customers promising to visit again in the very near future, there was finally something to look forward to.

After toasting their triumph, it took forever to get through the entire meal simply because there was so much chatter but no-one seemed to care. Emma, Louise and Meg were trying to outdo each other with family anecdotes, the more embarrassing the better.

‘Just look at the way she’s nibbling at the corners of that chocolate cake,’ Louise said with a critical eye on Emma’s plate. ‘Now you may think it’s all innocence but you mark my words, she’ll make sure she’s the last one with something on her plate so that she can taunt us with it.’

‘She’s welcome to my share. I’m stuffed,’ Ben said, rubbing his belly, with a painful sigh.

‘OK, maybe not taunt everyone, but taunt me.’

‘Louise,’ replied Emma, ‘I can’t believe you’d think I’d be that devious.’ In truth, Emma’s appetite had fallen away as a result of the reduction in her steroid dosage but she was happy to play along.

‘You don’t fool me. Every year without fail, you made sure you had at least one Easter egg left after I’d eaten all of mine.’

‘I’m sorry, Emma, but she’s right,’ added Meg. ‘You did. It used to drive me crazy the way you tormented her with that last egg.’

‘But I always gave her some. Eventually.’ Emma had been suppressing a grin but now she couldn’t hold back the laughter and it felt good. She barely noticed how exhausted she felt.

‘Yes,’ cried Louise, waggling an accusing finger at her sister. ‘After I was literally crawling on the floor, begging you.’

‘Mmm, this cake is so delicious,’ teased Emma, wafting a heaped spoonful of chocolate cake towards Louise’s now empty plate.

As the laughter continued, Meg produced a gift bag from under the table. ‘I think it’s present time,’ she suggested. They had already swapped gifts but this was a little family tradition. They were small tokens, mostly consisting of yet more luxury foodstuffs and novelty socks thrown in for good measure.

‘Louise warned me you’d be sharing gifts, so we’ve come prepared,’ offered Steven, pulling three brightly coloured packages from a gift bag he had brought with him from the kitchen. ‘Although I hold my hands up and confess that my contribution was wrapping them up. Ben deserves all the credit.’

Emma looked at the gift that Steven had placed in front of her, identical in shape to the ones handed to her mum and her sister. As Emma explored its contours she felt a twinge of disappointment when she realized it was a picture frame. She would have preferred an envelope worthy of Iris or Jean but she was aware that Ben’s eyes were on her, so she practised the look of delight in her mind as she tore at the wrapping.

When she turned the frame over her heart quickened as she came face to face with her own image in black and white. She had never liked looking at pictures of herself but this one took her breath away. In the photo, she was peering into a display cabinet at the museum, clearly unaware that she was being photographed. It had been taken at such an angle that the photo captured not only her face but its reflection on the glass-fronted cabinet.

‘Do you like it?’ asked Ben.

The picture provoked a surge of emotion that surprised Emma. It captured a moment where she had been deep in thought and there was a sense of hopelessness in her eyes. Incredibly, whether it was a distortion of the light or the skill of the photographer, the reflected face had an altogether different expression, with eyes that searched towards some unseen point in space and time. That face had a look of determination and anticipation. The photograph had captured not only her image but her soul too. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispered as she met Ben’s gaze. ‘Thank you.’

Ben smiled. ‘I’m just relieved you like it. From what Louise kept telling me about how you don’t like having your photograph taken, I thought you’d take one look at it and throw it in the bin.’

‘That was why we made sure to give Meg and Louise a photograph too,’ added Steven who, unlike Ben, had been watching the others. They had each been given a different photo of Emma, all taken with equal skill but not quite matching the dramatic impact of the one Emma was holding.

Emma shook her head. ‘You could have picked a better model,’ she said modestly, ‘but this is amazing.’ The more she looked at it the more she felt moved by it.

‘They all are,’ Meg added. Tears were threatening so she painted on a smile and lifted up her own camera. ‘You have an amazing talent, Ben, and one I can put to good use. Right everyone, photograph time.’

Emma didn’t have a chance to reply as everyone jumped up and gathered around her, ready to pose for their photographs. She smiled at Ben as he pointed Meg’s camera at her and in her mind she was making her own mental record of the moment when she had been reminded of what hope looked like.

Emma didn’t want the night to end and there was a sense of panic deeply rooted within that desire, a belief that it really could be her last. Although she refused to allow that fear to sully the moment, she couldn’t ignore how tired she was. It hadn’t only been her appetite that had been affected by the tapering of her steroids; fatigue had replaced the restlessness and a headache that had begun as a dull ache that morning became searing pain by nine o’clock and forced Emma to accept that it was time to take a rest.

Ignoring Meg’s insistence that they go home, Emma opted instead to take painkillers and lie down in one of the booths for a short nap. She made herself comfortable on one of the long upholstered seats as best she could and let the gentle sound of chatter lull her to sleep.

She had used a cardigan as a makeshift pillow and was dozing when she felt someone drape a blanket over her. When she opened her eyes, she could make out the silhouette of a man in the flickering candlelight.

‘Sorry, did I wake you?’ Ben whispered.

‘No, it’s alright. How long have I been asleep?’ Emma croaked. She felt like she had only just closed her eyes but her seized-up joints were telling a different story. To her relief, the vice that she had felt tightening around her skull had relaxed its grip.

‘About an hour. I fetched a blanket from the apartment in case you were cold,’ Ben explained. ‘Go back to sleep, I’ll go.’

Emma pulled herself up to a sitting position but she moved too quickly and began to feel woozy. She started leaning to one side but Ben slipped next to her on the bench and let her rest her head on his shoulder. ‘I’ll be alright in a minute,’ she said.

‘There’s a drink of juice there and your mum’s put your next set of pills out ready.’

‘Of course,’ replied Emma solemnly, reaching out for the tiny little reminders of the cancer that refused to give her a day off, not even for Christmas. ‘What’s everyone else up to?’

‘Playing poker,’ Ben told her. ‘It would seem I don’t have a poker face. I think I must wear my heart on my sleeve.’

Emma tentatively lifted her head and looked behind her. The others were gathered around a small table on the far side of the restaurant, absorbed in their game. She dropped her head back down on Ben’s shoulder, less self-conscious now she knew they weren’t being overlooked. Her aches had eased and a sense of homely comfort settled around her.

‘How’s the book going?’ Ben asked innocently.

‘Where shall I begin?’ Emma asked, already wondering how she would skirt over the current dilemma in her story.

‘How about everything you’ve done and everywhere you’ve been,’ Ben asked, before adding more pointedly, ‘so far.’

‘Let me see. I jetted off to New York for my dream job and since then I’ve been handed one amazing assignment after another. Egypt was only the start of my adventures. I’ve seen sights you wouldn’t believe.’

‘And next?’ urged Ben, his curiosity piqued.

‘Next, I’m off to the Amazon.’

‘Ah, I see. There seems to be a lot of work involved in your story so far.’

‘But I am seeing the world.’

Ben went quiet for a moment so Emma lifted her head to look at him. There was a sadness in his eyes that she didn’t like.

‘So why do I get the feeling that you’re looking at the world instead of stepping into it?’ he asked.

‘I have stepped into it,’ replied Emma indignantly but the next look he gave her cut through her defences like a knife through butter. ‘You were in my story for a while.’

‘Only for a while?’

‘I sent you away.’ Emma put her head back on his shoulder and felt him rest his cheek on her forehead. ‘You’re probably setting up your cheese-making business as we speak.’

‘So is there anyone else to share your life with in this book of yours?’ he asked. Emma shrugged, which Ben took to mean no. ‘I think I understand why you’re scared of getting involved in real life but does that have to mean you carry those barriers through to your story too?’

‘My two worlds are more difficult to separate than you would imagine. I know I have to take a leap of faith.’

‘So take it,’ Ben said, his voice deepening as if it was a command from on high.

‘I’m nearly there,’ she promised with a smile.

‘And I’m still here to help. And if it doesn’t offend your sensibilities, I wanted to invite you on a New Year’s Day trek.’

‘Really?’ It was Emma’s turn to have her curiosity piqued but she wouldn’t look up at him again, she didn’t want to break away from the touch of his skin on hers.

‘I was planning a walk up Moel Famau with Steven but he’d rather spend time in the kitchen experimenting while the bistro’s closed. I could go on my own, I suppose, but if you fancied doing something?’

‘Really?’ she said again.

‘It wouldn’t have to be Moel Famau. We could try something a little less challenging.’

‘I’ll have you know I’ve been building up my stamina,’ Emma told him. ‘I could manage a mountain.’

‘Really?’ Ben said in a poor impression of Emma.

‘But if we go, it will be just as friends.’

‘I’ll be anything you want me to be, Emma.’

Emma drew herself upright, pulling herself away from his touch. Contact was broken and reality settled around her. She knew he wanted more. He had a determination that would see his heart broken; she only had to say the word. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she lied.

The blind spot in Emma’s vision meant that she didn’t notice her mum until she had slipped into the seat opposite. ‘Steven has managed to clean me out of all the winnings I took from Ben,’ she said. ‘So, what have you two been up to?’

‘I was suggesting that Emma come with me on a New Year’s Day walk,’ Ben told her.

Emma pulled the blanket that had been draped over her knees and began to fold it, the manoeuvre carefully choreographed to create more space between her body and Ben’s. ‘We’re going to walk up Moel Famau,’ she told her mum, lighting the touch paper.

Meg’s eyes widened in shock. ‘What? Emma, you can’t!’

And so it began. Emma played her part like a professional and by the time Meg had finished her lecture, even Ben was agreeing that it had been a bad idea.