The Little Christmas Kitchen. Jenny Oliver
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He was nervous. Ran his hands through his hair as he almost bounded forward and propped up the tree. ‘We’ve never had a real one and I know you really like them so I wanted to surprise you. What do you think?’
‘Max?’ Ella said, nervously, watching as he moved quickly, edgily, holding the tree up then laying it down again and ripping at the netting to set the branches free.
‘I really love you.’ he said without looking up. ‘I really really love you.’
She realised then how many times before she’d asked him if he was cheating on her – usually when she was a bit pissed, unable to squash her insecurity and the carousel in her head that whispered, what does he see in me? – because she knew that he usually sighed and rolled his eyes, told her she meant everything to him, then got a bit cross. He never told her he loved her, or pleaded with her with big watery eyes that reminded her of one of his parents’ labradors. He was almost desperate.
Max was never desperate.
Maybe she could live with it. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe she could turn a blind eye. Maybe this was the price you paid for having the perfect man. And then she could have her perfect kids and her perfect life.
As he pulled at the netting on the tree, it wouldn’t tear.
‘Let me just get some scissors.’ he said, and went through to the kitchen where she heard him rifling frantically through some drawers.
For a moment Ella thought about putting her suitcase back in the cupboard, forgetting the whole thing and getting changed ready for dinner, as she stood looking at him from the doorway. At the triathlete’s body and the skier’s tan. At the hands that sat in the small of her back when they walked into a room full of all his terrifying friends. At the boyish smile and the dimples as he jogged back with the scissors and started slicing through the mesh, needles flying off the branches. She thought how their cleaner would have a terrible time getting them out the carpet. She’d talked in the past about wanting a real tree because that was what they had had when she was little, but in this apartment it was completely impractical.
At the thought of her childhood Christmases an image suddenly popped into her head. Completely unexpectedly and entirely unwanted. Of sitting at the top of the stairs with her sister, both in their matching red dressing gowns and hearing her dad say, in a whisper so they wouldn’t hear, ‘I can’t do it. Not any longer. Not even just for the kids.’ She’d thought he meant dressing up as Santa. She’d realised how wrong she was the next day when he left and the world fell down.
She remembered her mum saying to the neighbour in a daze, ‘I’m not ready to be alone.’ Her phone vibrated with a message to tell her the taxi was outside at the same time as a horn beeped. God this was all happening without her really thinking about it. It was all suddenly real. ‘That’s my taxi. I er– I’m going to Greece.’
Max paused in his shaking out of the Christmas tree branches. ‘What do you mean, you’re going to Greece? You can’t. You hate Greece. And it’s Christmas. What will I tell everyone?’ He was holding his hair back from his face with his hand, looking like a teenager, his eyebrows pulled into a frown. Max who wasn’t used to not getting his own way.
She rolled her lips together, swallowed, then said quietly, ‘You can tell them you went to Prague with another man’s wife.’
She could tell it hit him by the expression on his face.
Oh god, it was all suddenly real.
She turned away to go back to the bedroom and get her case, presuming that he would follow her, but Max was struggling to prop the tree up against the bookshelf. So instead she dragged her suitcase from the bedroom and into the hall but the wheels caught in the thick carpet and made her stumble. This wasn’t going at all as she’d hoped. She had wanted some weeping melodrama but then a huge hug, reassurance and a swanky anniversary dinner. Not some farcical double act – her tripping in her heels, him balancing a ten foot tree on his shoulder. And certainly not her going to Greece.
‘At least let’s talk about this,’ he pleaded as he fumbled with the giant fir. ‘It’s not what it seems.’
‘Really?’ She raised her brows, disbelieving but inside her mind was still chanting quietly, He’s going to have a good reason. I’m going to be wrong. It’s going to be ok.
But then the tree slipped and crashed to the ground, the trunk smashing up against his precious smoked glass coffee table and shattering the right-hand corner. Max swore at the sound, then walked over and ran his hand along the crack. ‘Shit look was it’s done. Bollocks!’
Ever since he’d bought it at auction for a huge sum of money without consulting with her, Ella had hated that table and he knew it. It was a monstrosity that wasn’t at all in keeping with their interior designer’s scheme. Now, the way he sat down on the arm of the grey velvet sofa it was as if it was the table and him against the world. As if she had started this in order to ruin the table. As if suddenly Max was the wronged party.
She heard him sigh, saw his shoulders slump, the tree lay sprawled across the carpet like a whale. Max kicked the trunk with his foot and it flopped off the smoked glass to the floor with a thump. ‘You’ve never trusted me.’
No. She didn’t want to hear this.
‘I suppose I just…’
She wanted to quickly rewind to him cutting the netting and trying to impress her.
‘It was only once.’
Why had she even asked him? Why had she started this?
It was too late to realise she could have turned a blind eye.
What was she with no Max?
‘I don’t know, maybe I just did what was expected of me.’
No. No. No.
The taxi beeped again.
‘That’s your cab.’ he said, looking up at her through thick, blond lashes. The ball was suddenly back in her court without her realising quite how.
Walking out the front door seemed the only possible option. Like she had to trust that in this game they were playing he was going to come after her.
Outside it was still raining – tipping it down, and the grey sky almost melted into the grey pavements. She paused on the step, waiting for him to come running outside to stop her. To grab her arm again and pull her inside, drop to his knees and tell her that he’d made a mistake and she was the only one for him.
But as the seconds ticked by and the heavy door to the apartment block slammed shut behind her there was no sign of him.
Her hair was getting wet in the rain. Come on Max. Come on. We’re Maxella. We’re us.
‘Can I take that for you?’ A man in a suit had got out of the taxi and was holding an umbrella over her and leaning forward to take her bag.
‘Yep, just one minute.’ She held up a hand, he looked a little confused but waited next to her with the umbrella.
The door still didn’t open.
‘Shall we er–’ The taxi driver nodded his head towards the car hesitantly.
Ella turned back to look into the communal hallway of the block. And for a moment her heart raced when she thought she saw someone but then realised it was just the Christmas tree that the caretaker had put up that morning.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Ok. Yes.’ She nodded. ‘Yes. Let’s go.’
The driver held the door for her and she sank into the plush leather of the Mercedes. This was the company her work used, executive cars, no shabby old taxi with a tree air-freshener and a string of tinsel. The airport madam? Shit, yes, hang on, let me ring them. Shall I go? Yes, yes go. Googling Dial a Flight while hoping Max might be texting – I’d like