I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Milly Johnson Page 0,105

sophisticated drinking that.’

He looked across at Bridge, and just for a moment, she saw the Luke she had married, the young, gawky kid with the cheeky grin and wonky front teeth – now fixed and whitened. The boy who had made her heart thump and her body sigh for more.

‘We had all the key ingredients there to make a wedding happy,’ said Bridge, with feeling. Us. In love. Two against the world. Planning a future together. She felt a swell of emotion rise in her like a tidal wave and she braced herself against it washing her away, taking her to shores where old broken memories lay like driftwood.

‘Sounds perfect,’ said Charlie, smiling benignly at them.

‘But that was then and this is now,’ Bridge said, breezily, like a schoolmistress telling her pupils to chop-chop. ‘It was a long, long time ago.’

‘In a galaxy far, far away,’ added Luke. Because their past was that far away. And in another galaxy.

Chapter 31

Robin realised he’d drunk too much of that damned cider when he walked up the stairs to get Charlie’s tablet. He hadn’t got full control of his limbs, that was for sure. He sat down on the bed for a few moments to steady himself. He could have quite happily lain on it and taken a nap, but he didn’t want to miss a moment of this lovely day. He was glad they’d found this place, these people. Aviemore wouldn’t have been a patch on Figgy Hollow. Charlie wouldn’t have revelled, laughed, relaxed as much there as he had here, despite the best champagnes, the caviar, the seven-course Christmas lunch and entertainment, spa, sauna.

He caught sight of his own reflection in the dressing-table mirror and saw that he was smiling. No wonder, he was a lucky man. Who would have thought when he’d been thrown out of his home with a couple of changes of clothing that he – Robin Raymond – would have the life he had. He and Charlie had summered in Monte Carlo, had dinner with Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas, posed artfully by the Taj Mahal like Princess Diana. One lifetime wasn’t enough with Charlie, though. There were still so many things they hadn’t done: gone down a Siberian salt mine, spent a night in the Four Seasons Hotel in Moscow, met Celine Dion. But they had re-enacted that iconic ‘I’m flying’ scene from Titanic aboard an American billionaire friend’s private yacht in the Maldives, featuring Charlie as Kate Winslet and Robin as Leonardo DiCaprio.

‘Robin, I’m flying.’ Charlie’s arms held out like a crucifix, Robin behind him holding on to his waist, warning him to stop leaning forwards or he’d end up falling overboard and straight into the jaws of a great white. Robin closed his eyes, picturing the scene. He could hear Charlie’s excited voice so clearly. ‘Robin, look at me.’

Robin opened his eyes. Charlie’s voice was not in his head.

‘Robin, look at me. ROBIN.’

Robin pulled himself off the bed and rushed onto the landing. Bridge was standing by the window at the top of the stairs looking outside.

‘Robbbiiinnn.’

She beckoned Robin quickly to her side. He had to do a double-take at what he was seeing.

‘Look at him, the bloody idiot.’ Charlie was lying in the snow, arms and legs moving outwards and inwards. Robin opened the window and yelled through it. ‘What the fucking hell are you doing, Charles Glaser?’

‘I’m making angels,’ said Charlie. He struggled to his feet, chuckling at himself before lying down again next to his imprint and repeating the action. He got up then to show Robin his pair of perfect angels pressed into the snow before falling backwards once more.

‘I’m going for a holy trinity.’

‘Don’t come crying to me when you get hypothermia and I’m supposed to thaw you out with hot water bottles,’ Robin shouted down.

‘I don’t care, I’m enjoying myself. Come on, Annie,’ Charlie shouted up, his voice brimming with glee.

‘I’m on my way,’ Robin said, shutting the window, but he carried on standing there, watching Charlie flapping his limbs, his brain recording this precious memory in the making.

Bridge sensed this, put her arm around him, felt a great sigh leave his body.

‘You know, Bridge, he used to be twice the size he is now,’ said Robin. ‘He was a huge man when I met him, solid as the rock of Gibraltar, a bon vivant. He didn’t age for twenty-five years, I thought he was an immortal, a god among men, but that bloody disease has taken him