Coming Home from Christmas - 1. Coming Home from Christmas

Coming Home from Christmas

Bill simply couldn’t be bothered with the hassle involved in putting the car into the garage – not tonight, so he simply parked it on the drive before getting out and going round to the boot to extract his suitcase. He walked to the front door, put the case down on the step and inserted his key in the front door. There was a definite sense of relief as he did so, but it was tinged with other thoughts.

It had certainly been a trying day. The first trial had been his flight back from Barcelona being delayed by more than an hour. Then after joining a long queue to get through passport control he had endured what seemed to him an inordinate wait before the cases from his flight appeared on the carousel. His being one of the last to appear had not improved his mood either.

He’d already been alerted on the flight to the fact that the drive home might be difficult by the captain announcing that the temperature at Stansted was zero degrees and that snow was forecast within the next couple of hours. He’d thought though that shouldn’t be a major problem as he lived only just over an hour away, so was fairly confident he could get home before it became a problem.

What he hadn’t allowed for was on locating his car in the long stay car park to find that it had a flat tyre! It had been a few years since he’d last changed one and although he had a spare he encountered a few problems in getting a couple of the wheel nuts off. That had led to bruised and cut fingers as well as a worsening of his mood.

However, the time it took for him to change the tyre had been sufficient to allow the snow to start falling. Because it was the period between Christmas and New Year when virtually everyone except shop assistants seemed to be on holiday, the roads had not been gritted and proved to be quite icy and slippery as the snow started to settle. It was also coming down quite fast and that reduced visibility considerably making driving difficult. Fortunately, once he’d got away from the airport there wasn’t too much traffic around, but even so it took him twice as long as usual to get home.

So, in that respect he was relieved, but knowing the house would be empty brought on another bout of sadness as he closed the front door behind him and stood his case down in the hall. Fortunately the house wasn’t cold as he’d decided to leave the heating on when he left the day prior to Christmas Eve, so he took off his anorak which had got pretty dirty while changing the tire and hung it on one of the hooks by the door. His sweater, although not very thick, would serve to keep him warm for a while as he suspected a hot bath and then bed would come in fairly short order. The thought of bed though only added to his gloom as he knew he’d be sleeping alone.

He’d met Jeff while at university. There had been an immediate mutual attraction and some careful planning had ensured that after graduation they had both acquired jobs in the same city. Initially they had lived in rented accommodation, but after a few years they had taken the plunge and bought this house in their joint names. That had been about eight years ago and roughly five years after they left uni, so both were now in their early thirties. In all that time they had got on well together. They had slightly different interests as Jeff was more sporty than him while his interests were largely musical – in which respect Jeff was literally tone deaf. Thus as they held different jobs – he had become a solicitor while Jeff was in banking – it wasn’t as if they were together all of the time. The sex had always been great, ever since their first forays together. Neither had been a total virgin, but it hadn’t taken more than a couple of dates before that was no longer the case for either of them.

But the relationship had hit a tricky patch over the last few months. Jeff had started coming home late with increasing frequency. While that had been an occasional occurrence in the past, during the autumn it had been happening two or three times a week. Bill had begun to suspect that Jeff was seeing someone else partly because his interest in sex had declined and also because sometimes when he came in late he not only appeared to Bill to look guilty, but there was also a smell which Bill knew wasn’t his usual aftershave.

The crunch had come in the week before Christmas. Jeff had left for work early – an important meeting he’d claimed – leaving clothes strewn around the bedroom. Bill had started tidying them up and putting them in either the laundry basket or the wardrobe when a condom fell out of a trouser pocket. Admittedly it was unused, but they didn’t use condoms – being always faithful to each other there was no need.

Bill had all day to seethe about his discovery and when Jeff came home that evening he hardly had time to get through the door and take his coat off before Bill had started his questions. Those quickly turned into accusations and when, as far as Bill was concerned, no acceptable answers were forthcoming, a furious row had broken out. In all their years together they’d never had more than a minor disagreement so this was totally new territory, but within less than half an hour the relationship that had been built up over so many years had been torn apart. Bill had accused Jeff of having an affair; Jeff had admitted having been out on a few occasions with another man but said it was purely social and was a guy with whom he had played squash regularly over the last couple of years. He denied the relationship was sexual at which point Bill had produced the condom asking why he needed that if it was a non-sexual relationship. In response Jeff had accused Bill of going through his pockets and violating his privacy after which he had stormed upstairs, packed a bag and walked out of the house.

When Bill had returned from work the next day he found that Jeff had been in the house during the day as most of his clothes had gone. Bill wanted to speak to him to see if the damage could be repaired, but had no idea of how to contact him. His calls to Jeff’s workplace were answered with the information that he was on leave and would not be back until the New Year and this was prior to the arrival of mobile phones. That was when Bill had decided to go away himself, not wanting to face the prospect of spending Christmas on his own being an only child whose parents had been killed in a car crash some years earlier.

Being so close to Christmas when he made that decision, he’d not had much choice as most flights and hotels were already full. However, he managed to find a room in what seemed to be a fairly decent hotel in Barcelona which was somewhere he’d always wanted to visit. He’d found though that walking round looking at places and sights on his own was rather depressing and only served to remind him of how much more enjoyable it had been when he could discuss what they were seeing with Jeff. Add to that the hotel being mainly populated by families all of whom were enjoying their Christmas, and it perhaps wasn’t too surprising that the holiday had done very little to lift his gloom.

As he had hung his anorak on the hook he’d noticed that the red light on the answerphone that stood on the table in the hall, was flashing to indicate there was at least one message. It was probably someone trying to sell double glazing he decided, but whoever it was could wait until tomorrow as right now he wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. So he ignored it and walked on into the lounge putting on the light as he did so. Facing him was the Christmas tree they had bought and decorated on their last weekend together. It was now dead – a large pile of brown needles underneath where it stood – not having survived the combination of the heating being on and a lack of water. The sight dispirited him still further. He and Jeff had always enjoyed their Christmases, buying presents for each other both expensive and silly, going to the Midnight Service, and watching old movies cuddled together on the settee once Christmas dinner had been eaten. That itself had always been a special feast for which they’d also bought their frozen 20lb turkey that last weekend. He wondered what would happen to it now – perhaps there was a homeless shelter nearby that would welcome it. He made a mental note to look into that tomorrow as he walked into the kitchen. His eye was immediately drawn to the bowl on the table that always held fruit. It still did, if you counted a wrinkled apple and two satsumas that had gone mouldy! Bill picked the bowl up and threw its contents into the rubbish bin.

He didn’t have the enthusiasm to make a meal so he found a couple of packets of crisps in the cupboard and a can of coke in the fridge, deciding they would suffice for tonight. He walked back into the lounge, sat down in an armchair – steering clear of the settee – and switched on the TV. It was New Year’s Eve and the programmes were what might be expected. He caught the end of some excerpts of various comedy programme highlights which was followed by an episode of ‘Bergerac’ during which he must have fallen asleep because he came to hearing the doorbell ring. The TV now appeared to be showing people celebrating the arrival of 1984, so he must have nodded off for some time. He got up rather stiffly from the armchair, walked over to the TV, switched it off and then made his way to the front door.

He was amazed to see standing there, a bottle of champagne in one hand and a lump of coal in the other, none other than Jeff, his hair and his coat liberally covered by flakes of the snow that was now falling heavily.

“Will you forgive me?” Jeff asked contritely.

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