I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Milly Johnson Page 0,89

off to a registry office and do the deed without any fuss. Party afterwards for close friends and family. Why isn’t this coffee machine working?’

Bridge leaned across, pressed a button and the machine burred into life.

‘Ah, cheers. Remember our wedding, Bridge?’ said Luke.

‘How could I ever forget it?’ she said.

He in a suit he’d bought from a supermarket, she in a dress she’d bought from a charity shop. Luke’s foster mum had taken in the waist for her, Luke’s foster dad had put a ribbon on his ancient Volvo estate and driven them to the town hall. Her mother hadn’t been there even though Bridge had decided to invite her. She forgot, she said. Bridge was glad really, because she’d have only spoiled it.

Bridge remembered fizzing with excitement as she recited her vows, feeling as if she were on the brink of something special with this man. Luke got his words mixed up, stumbled over parts where she was word perfect because she’d been rehearsing them for weeks.

Until death do us part.

They thought they’d be together forever. She’d loved him so much and she’d felt his love for her, like an energy that was almost tangible.

‘How are your foster parents?’ she asked him, knowing that Luke would always stay in touch with them because he’d loved them like his own. More than his own, in fact.

‘Good. I say good although Phil’s riddled with arthritis, but living in Portugal in the sun helps. Sandra loves it out there. Ducks to water.’

She knew he’d bought them a villa in the Algarve. She’d seen his financial records, pored over them with her accountant.

‘Have you seen anything of your mother at all?’ Luke asked.

‘You are joking.’

‘I’m really sorry, Bridge.’

‘Don’t be. I’ve not had any relationship with her for—’

‘I didn’t mean about her. I meant I’m really sorry. About us.’ He had turned fully towards her. He had taken both of her hands in his.

She hadn’t expected this, didn’t know what to say. For once, Bridge was dumbstruck. This short but massive word could have changed their history, but he’d never said it before. Not ever. She felt the warmth of his skin pressing against her own as he carried on speaking.

‘I think back often to how hard you worked and what you wanted for us both. I should have been a better husband to you. I let you down on so many fronts. I let you think you were wrong when you were right.’

It wasn’t all you, she wanted to say. And it wasn’t all bad, it really wasn’t. But she couldn’t; the words lodged in her throat.

The coffee machine picked that moment to buzz to say it had done its duty and delivered coffee from bean to jug. It couldn’t have timed its intervention better.

‘Yeah well, it’s all in the past.’ Bridge pulled her hands from his in one smooth movement. ‘And we both have a bright, shiny new future to look forward to, don’t we?’

* * *

‘Mary was just saying that Boxing Day breakfast is the best meal of the whole season,’ said Robin to Bridge and Luke as they walked over to the table with the mince pies, mints and coffee.

‘Oh, I totally agree,’ said Luke.

‘I’ve never heard of a Boxing Day breakfast,’ said Jack.

‘What?’ exclaimed Luke. ‘Where have you been living, under a rock?’

Jack sometimes wondered if he had been. Life in Figgy Hollow was like a life in a different solar system. He couldn’t remember the last time that he didn’t have any inclination to check his emails or care about where his phone was. His hand usually twitched towards it every few seconds, when he wasn’t seated at his Mac or laptop. It was the first thing he looked at every morning, the last thing every evening.

Bridge sat down and picked up a mince pie. Whoever had made the pastry had been heavy-handed with the butter because it crumbled delightfully against her teeth. She wasn’t drunk but there was definitely a fair amount of wines, both fortified and not, sloshing around inside her. Funny thing about alcohol sometimes, she mused, it split the brain, made one half see things through a distorted lens and the other see them with hyperlucidity. She looked across at Charlie who was smiling serenely, listening to the table conversation. He didn’t look ill in the slightest. Maybe Mary had got it wrong. She hoped so. Someone at the end of their life wouldn’t have had the strength to sing so beautifully about a