t w o
*
When it comes to wrapping presents, I'm a firm believer that what's on the inside matters a lot more than what's on the outside. Whether the paper is neatly creased along every corner or haphazardly taped to hold it together makes no difference to its contents, which serves me well considering I seem to have some kind of wrapping-paper-specific incapacity. My measurements never quite work, and you can forget it if what I'm wrapping isn't a box: I just can't do neat.
There are five piles at the other end of the table, one each for my parents and my three sisters, who were luckier than me when it came to being named by the eternally odd – but lovably so – Debbie and Dustin King. Contrary to the popular belief held by everyone who finds out that my name is Bethlehem and I was born on Christmas Day, there is actually no relation between the two: my parents may be as big on Christmas as I am, but they based their naming convention on the age-old brilliant idea that is ... name your child after the place in which they're conceived.
It's a very risky plan, and I could've had it worse seeing as they were only in Bethlehem for three days, having come from Jerusalem, before they got a bus to Jericho. My oldest sister, India, narrowly avoided being named Agra, after my parents' expedition to see the Taj Mahal; between us is Juneau, who spends her life correcting people who assume she's named after the Greek Goddess of love and marriage, rather than a city in Alaska that happened to be a stop on our parents' glacier cruise.
The baby of the King family fared the best of us all: she's only sixteen, born after our parents put their globetrotting ways on pause, and luckily for her, they didn't choose the Cotswolds or Plymouth for their romantic weekend away, but Paisley. If we were Glaswegian, she'd probably have spent her whole life being teased for it, but it seems being four hours north makes all the difference.
I'm running out of tape and this roll of paper is coming to an end. It probably could have serviced my entire to-wrap list, if I'd been more economical with it, but there's no teaching an old dog new tricks and almost-twenty-four, it seems, is too old to break bad habits. I manage to parcel up one last present for Paisley with the final scrap and set myself a reminder to buy more of everything related to present-wrapping tomorrow.
This evening hasn't gone exactly as I told Casper it would: I'm not watching Miracle on 34th Street as I wrap, because I underestimated how much space I would need and a mammoth task such as this required the entire kitchen table. Instead, I've had a Christmas playlist going for the past couple of hours while I painstakingly taped and folded and tagged, and now it's time to settle in with a film.
It's pitch black outside, hardly a light to be seen other than when the occasional car trundles past and its headlights illuminate my postage stamp-sized front garden, Xenon beams cutting through the gap where I've failed to adequately shut my curtains. The rain is unrelenting, slashing down and filling potholes, heavy droplets bouncing off puddles, and it's only a hint of what's to come. It's due to snow in the next couple of days, according to every forecast I've checked, and I can't wait. Saint Wendelin's may be a strange town, but sunk into a valley in the north, surrounded by forests and mountains, its location means snow is guaranteed every year. More often than not, I've woken up on my birthday to a white Christmas.
But for now, rain. Lots of it. Even inside the house, I can smell it in the air, that fresh, dewy scent. When I turn off my music, letting The Eagles finish their slightly maudlin festive tune, the rain is almost loud enough to drown out my thoughts as it pelts my window and pummels the roof. The window in the sitting room, which faces out over the garden and the road beyond, is slightly loose in its frame and it rattles with the force of the wind and the downpour, a whispering breeze crawling through the gaps that the curtains can't quite keep out.
But it doesn't matter, because I'm wrapped up in a reindeer onesie and I have a fire roaring in the hearth, bone-dry wood from my lumberjack of a neighbour crackling with flames that send heat pulsing through the room. It's moments like these that I realise my dad had a good point when he forced my sisters and me to learn a bunch of basic survival skills: how to build a fire; how to fish; how to change a tyre.
I've never done either of the latter, but living alone in a drafty house in the north of Scotland means that I've built far more than my fair share of fires. This one's a particularly good one, and I have a hefty store of wood stacked up beside the fireplace, more the enough to keep me warm until I go to bed.
Casper's on my mind. I pull the curtains shut and force them to stay together with a strip of velcro, and I sit down to check out what Netflix has to offer – using my own new account, unfortunately, since my ex finally changed his password more than a year after he dumped me – but all I can think about is the look on Casper's face when I left him. It lingers at the back of my mind as I load up Christmas with the Kranks, because Netflix doesn't want me to witness any miracles tonight and that's the first Christmassy suggestion that pops up.
With a steaming cup of Earl Grey in my hand and a blanket over my legs, sprawled out on the sofa by the fireplace with a perfect view of the TV, I try to push him out of my head, but I can't. Not without checking in with him, just in case.
ME: hey, just checking that you're ok. you seemed a bit iffy earlier, so i wanted to make sure you're alright.
The message sends and then delivers, but he doesn't read it. With that done, I turn my phone face down on the arm of the sofa and start the film. It's not one of the best, probably not even in my top ten for seasonal films, but I'll watch anything starring Jamie Lee Curtis, and it's fun, if anything. Not as fun as Home Alone – one and two only, of course, except in times of utter desperation when the third may suffice – and not as touching as Miracle, but it'll do for a night of escapism.
It isn't, apparently, enough to keep me awake, because I drop off around the halfway mark, lulled to sleep by the heat and the comfort. I probably could've slept there all night if it wasn't for the buzz of my phone vibrating the entire sofa, which I mistake for part of my dream for long enough for it to stop. My weary brain doesn't think to check the screen, instead deciding to snooze again.
The next interruption to drag me from my cocoon is more urgent. The banging from my dream continues as I drift back into consciousness and realise that there's someone at the door, and it sounds like they're about to break it down.
Somewhere inside my skull is a rational brain, one that would think to be wary, to look out of the window first. But when I've just been woken up and I can't find my glasses, my head foggy and my vision soft around the edges, rationality escapes me. With a grunt, I untangle myself from the blanket and stumble to the door, no peephole to look through before I open it.
Standing on the doorstep, fist raised to knock again, is a drenched Casper. His hair is plastered to his head, rain dripping off the end of his nose and soaking his clothes through to his skin. For a moment, I wonder if I'm actually in a dream inside a dream, because Casper's never been to my house before, but this feels too real to be in my head, and when I snap out of my haziness, I step back to let him up.
"What's up?" I ask, rubbing my eyes as though that will clear the blurriness that only my glasses can fix.
"Were you sleeping?"
"Not properly. Fell asleep on the sofa," I say, the hoarseness of his voice waking me up a little more. I'm suddenly aware of the fact that I'm wearing a onesie, a sight that should be inflicted upon nobody. The fluffiness goes some way to hide that it's a bit small, the zip straining across my stomach and chest. But Casper doesn't seem to notice.
"Sorry. I texted you, and I tried calling a couple of times," he says, running a hand through his hair. He pushes the door behind him, shutting out the rain. It hasn't let up yet. If it drops below zero again overnight, the roads will be a nightmare.
"Did something happen? Are you all right?" My senses slowly come back as I lead him to the warmth of the fire and hold out a dressing gown that lives on the back of the door. He takes it with a small smile and strips out of his sodden jumper and t-shirt, the fire casting a warm glow over his brown skin before he pulls on the grey robe.
"Eric left me," he mumbles. "Or, I guess, he forced me to leave him, seeing as it's his flat." He coughs, choking on his words, and I suspect it's not just rain wetting his cheeks. "We had a fight. A big fight. A really shitty fight." He scrubs his face with his damp hands. I don't know what to do other than duck into the kitchen and grab a tea towel. He uses it to dry his cheeks. "I thought we could just, I don't know, hash it out. Sleep on it. I don't know. But he said he's done, for good."
A sob lurches out of him. I don't know what to do. I've never met this Casper. In four years, I've only ever known Casper the banterer, Casper the grinch, Casper the slightly-annoyed-but-he'll-get-over-it. I've never seen him cry. And this is more than just crying. His shoulders are shaking and the noises he's making are inhuman, and I'm frozen.
"Cas, I..." My words trail into nothingness.
"He told me to leave and I didn't know where else to go." He looks up at me for the first time, his eyes red and shining. "My parents live too far away and I don't have many friends around here and remembered your address so I got a taxi and ... god, Beth, I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do."
That pushes me into action, at long last. "Hey, hey, no, it's fine. You're more than welcome here. Whatever you need. However long you need. Don't worry about it; don't be sorry," I say, my words tumbling out as though I've unstoppered a cork. "I've got a spare room; it's all made up. And I have leftovers in the fridge. And wine. Do you want something to eat? To drink?"
I may not know how to deal with people's emotions, but I do know how to be a good hostess. My parents instilled that in me, stressing the importance of being someone that people can come to, someone with open arms and a spare bed and food and a shoulder to cry on.
Casper nods, shivering in the dressing gown. I put a hand on his shoulder and ease him over to the seat by the fire, planting him on the sofa while I rescue a half-full bottle of wine from the fridge and a couple of glasses. Except all of my wine glasses are either broken or waiting to be washed, so I serve him up a Pinot Grigio in a Santa-shaped mug, and he doesn't even make a crack at it.
"Do you want to talk?" I ask, watching as he warms himself in front of the fire and finishes the wine alarmingly fast. A break-up will do that, though, so I top him up. He takes another sip before he nods, then shakes his head.
"Yes. No. Not yet. I can't really process," he mumbles, flexing his free hand in front of the flames. When his fingertips get too hot, he pulls away and wraps both hands around the cool mug, and he sits there slowly shaking his head to himself. "Two years. Two years. I ... I don't know what to do with myself."
"You stay with me," I say, trying to inject my voice with as much warmth as possible. "I don't have work so if you want me to go and get your stuff from Eric's, I can absolutely do that. Or we can just hang out here. You can stay as long as you need to, I promise. Might make my spare room feel a little less dejected, to have you staying in it."
He lets out a huff of polite laughter, but it turns into a sniffle and his face crumples again. I sit next to him on the sofa and gingerly touch his shoulder – he's not big on contact and neither am I; we've maybe hugged once since we met – and to my surprise, he leans against me, so that his head's on my shoulder and my arm has no choice but to go around him. The move feels foreign to me, but in this moment my slight discomfort matters a whole lot less than his. In the past seven years, I've had three serious relationships and three nasty break-ups, but I've never lived with a partner; they've never kicked me out.
"You're going to be okay," I say, awkwardly patting his arm. He sniffs a few times, shakily, like he's struggling to control his breath, and he holds the mug of wine in front of his face as though he needs to hide his damp despair. Honestly, I've got no idea if he's going to be okay. We may not have shared much of the deep stuff, but I know he was in love with Eric. Like, the kind of love where they might as well have been married.
"I won't be," he says. "I feel like my floor just vanished. I'm falling. I don't know how to land. Where the hell am I going to land now?"
"Here. You're not falling. You're in shock, and you're freezing. How long were you knocking?"
"A few minutes?" He shrugs. "I don't know. I was freaked out and going crazy and I thought I'd just knock until you answered, or one of your neighbours told me to piss off."
"Two of these houses are empty and the guy next door is deaf," I say. "If I hadn't answered, you might've been waiting a while."
That gets a laugh out of him, albeit a weak one.
"It's getting la- shit, it's nearly midnight. Wow. Look, how about you have a bath to warm up, and go to bed? I still have some of my ex's pyjamas that you can borrow, and I'll throw your clothes in the wash in the morning. You don't have work tomorrow, right?"
"No. God, Beth, thank you."
"It's okay. It's my pleasure." I leave him with his wine while I dig through my drawers for the pair of pyjamas that James left – the same ex whose Netflix I 'borrowed' for the past year, whose pyjamas are somehow still in my drawer even though they're about ten sizes too small for me – and I find a fresh towel from the airing cupboard, and I hold them out for Casper when I return to him.
"You're a literal lifesaver," he says, handing me the mug in exchange. "You're a star, Bethlehem."
"Do you have any idea that you almost named a Christmas song?"
"Further proof that I'm not myself right now," he says, dragging himself to his feet.
"Bathroom's the white door upstairs; the slightly less white door is the spare room. Leave your clothes in the bathroom hamper. Don't drown in the bath, or suffocate yourself with my pillows."
"Noted."
"Get some rest. I'll see you in the morning." I touch his elbow, now that the boundaries have already been so tested, and resist the urge to rush upstairs to quickly clean the bathroom. I doubt that he's in any state to care about the lack of a lid on my toothpaste or the box of tampons that I knocked over on the shelf and didn't get round to tidying up.
"I owe you a lot," he says as he heads upstairs. I leave his mug in the sink and follow him up.
"You can repay me in Christmas spirit."
He laughs a tired laugh
"I'm not joking," I say when we reach the upstairs landing.
"That's what I'm afraid of."
*
i left home at 8am this morning and eight hours later, i arrived at my hotel in idyllic scotland, right on the edge of a beautiful loch! i'm so excited to spend a few days here, especially as i'm writing a scottish christmas story!