I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Milly Johnson Page 0,106

bit by bit, pound by pound from me. I’ve tried to be strong, for Charlie, but I can’t bear that one day soon he won’t be there any more. What am I going to do without that ridiculous old fart, Bridge? He’s my world, my everything.’

Tears tripped down his cheeks unhindered, he just let them fall, one after another.

Bridge didn’t know what to say. She’d never lost any person who was close to her but she’d been hollowed out by grief when her dog had died. It had been as if something had reached within and scooped her insides out and kept coming back for more until she was completely scraped empty, and then it filled the space with hard jarring rocks that hurt when she breathed.

‘All I can do, Robin, is roll out the platitudes,’ said Bridge. ‘Grief is a tough road to travel and a lonely one. Time is a great healer… like I say, all the usual clichés. I know that’s of absolutely no help. Enjoy the here and now, like Charlie obviously is; don’t think ahead too much and miss it.’

Robin sniffed his unspent tears back, dragged his hands down his face to dry the escapees. ‘I think I can just about get my head around part one: that he’ll die. We’ll have a funeral, I’ll do the paperwork, people will come and visit and we’ll all have a cry and I’ll be strong, because I’ll have to be since despite how much of a wreck I look, I’m prepared… we are prepared for the inevitable. But it’s part two that I’m not ready for, Bridge: that I won’t ever see him again. I’ll have to live out the rest of my life without him in it. He won’t be there when I wake up, I won’t be able to kiss him goodnight. I’ll lose half of myself when he goes.’

‘Cross every bridge when you come to it, Robin. Don’t try and rehearse it in your head, it won’t do you any good.’

‘Robbbiiinnn.’ A yell from below. ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’

‘Go on, squeeze every moment out of this Christmas. Make it count,’ said Bridge.

Mary sprinted up the stairs, met them at the top.

‘Come on, get your coats on, you two. If you can’t beat them, you know what they say.’

* * *

When Robin, Bridge and Mary got outside it was to find Charlie stomping all over the virgin snow just like he used to go mud-sploshing with his mum in his red wellies. Jack and Luke were lying side by side in the snow flapping their limbs also making angels; they were even sharing tips.

‘If you put your arm at ninety degrees and only flap up, then leave a bank of snow, then flap down, your angel will have arms as well as wings,’ said Jack.

‘Okay, let’s do this,’ said Luke.

Mary could not quite equate this Jack with the one who strutted from meeting to meeting, furrows of concentration wrinkling his brow, a constant down-turned cast to his mouth. He should drink mulled cider more often.

They were all dressed in Robin’s and Charlie’s coats and boots, which fitted the men a little more snugly than the women. Bridge was lost inside Charlie’s scarlet fleece, Mary buried alive in Robin’s green hoodie. They looked ridiculous and cared not a jot.

Bridge glanced over at Charlie and felt overcome with emotion. He looked like an old young boy, kicking snow up in sprays. Nevertheless, she picked up a handful of snow, patted it into a ball and threw it at him. It landed squarely on his back.

‘You little minx,’ he shouted, bent, rolled up some snow and retaliated. It fell short onto Jack’s midriff. Mary threw one at Bridge and it exploded in her face.

‘Ow. Mary, where’s your female solidarity?’

‘Every woman for herself,’ Mary returned.

‘Right, miss. You asked for it.’

Jack and Luke scrambled to their feet, began to make snowballs and launch them at any human target. The air was thick with missiles and squeals and groans as the snow burst on shoulders, exploding into eyes and mouths. They all seemed to collapse from exhaustion together, breathless from the cold, the laughter, the effort.

‘I’m absolutely pooped,’ said Robin, checking how Charlie was, and discovering he seemed to be the most alive out of all of them.

‘We can’t go inside without building a snowman,’ said Mary, remembering that Charlie had professed a wish to do this and a thaw was on its way. ‘Come on, folks. Loser makes