There’s another silence, and then I hear Daphne say, very quietly, ‘That’s really sweet.’
‘And this is probably reading far too much into it,’ Mum adds, ‘but years later, I started to wonder if those presents were Ben’s way of telling me that we could get along fine without his father. Almost as if he was saying: “We’ve already got everything we need here. We just have to remind each other of that from time to time.”’ The pans begin clattering again. ‘Anyway. Gosh. Sorry, Daphne, listen to me: one glass of cava and I start boring you with all this old nonsense.’
‘No, it’s not nonsense at all,’ Daff says softly. ‘And I take it back now, by the way. My bells were a much, much worse present.’
They both start laughing again. And as I step away from the door, I realise I need another spell under the cold tap before I can go back in and join them.
Chapter Seventeen
The rest of the afternoon passes in a warm, pleasant, vaguely unreal blur.
Mum is delighted to learn that Daphne is not in the least bit vegetarian, and once we’ve all made a serious dent in the beef, and the bottle of cava, and then a bottle of red wine, we stumble woozily through to the living room and slump onto the sofas in front of the fire.
For the first time in a long time, I actually feel good about myself, even if it’s for something I did when I was in primary school, and which – let’s face it – essentially amounted to stealing some stationery and then giving it back again.
Daphne nuzzles into my shoulder on the sofa, and at this moment, everything between us feels so good – so right – that it’s hard to believe it will ever go wrong.
The watch-seller’s comment about questioning why I’ve come back to these particular moments keeps swirling around my brain. I missed that conversation between Mum and Daphne originally. Daff never even told me about it. Is that why the old man was so adamant that I went straight back home; so that I’d overhear them, and remember that I wasn’t always a screw-up of a son? Mum shoots me an affectionate glance from her armchair, and I decide that now is not the time to analyse it. I’d rather just bask in the way it made me feel.
Unfortunately, though, I don’t get long: within a few minutes of us sitting down, the doorbells rings.
Daff stirs and sits up. ‘That’ll be my dad.’
My stomach clenches tightly, because I suddenly can’t bear the thought of her leaving. I want to stay like this, just for a little longer. I want to pause everything and remain in this weird, perfect bubble, before the future happens and everything between us warps and fractures and turns rotten.
But of course, I can’t.
Mum leaps up to answer the door, and we follow her, and there’s lots more wild flapping of jazz hands as she pulls Daphne’s bewildered-but-pleased-looking father in for a hug.
While the two of them swap animated pleasantries across the doormat, Daff sneaks a kiss onto my lips and smiles. ‘Today was great,’ she whispers. ‘Really great.’
‘Yeah, it was brilliant.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’ She squeezes my hand. ‘Merry Christmas.’
She kisses me again, and then she’s gone – down the path and into the car. And I’ve got no choice but to watch her go, not knowing where – or when – I’ll be the next time I see her.
Mum shuts the door, and turns to me with a grin. ‘Right then, young man,’ she says. ‘I think it’s high time I thrashed you at Monopoly.’
The ultra-competitive Christmas Eve Monopoly marathon was always a tradition in this house. I can’t even remember when it started, but it dated back a long way – to when Dad was still around. I was always the dog, Mum was always the ship and he was always the top hat. Those were the unwritten rules. No idea why, but we stuck to them rigidly. And as a result, the top hat in our Monopoly set hasn’t left the box since Christmas 1995.
Mum fetches another bottle of wine and stokes the fire while I get the game out of the cupboard behind the sofa. And as I do, I spot something else nestled there – something I’d completely forgotten about.
‘Oh my God,’ I laugh. ‘Is this the full collection?’
I pull out a little wooden rack stacked with cassettes, each one wrapped in its own carefully hand-written track list.
‘Of course,’ Mum says proudly. ‘Now That’s What I Call Long-Distance Car Trips. I’ve still got every one we ever made.’
I stare down at them, feeling a lump start to work its way into my throat. These tapes were another family tradition, although this one began after Dad left, when I was about twelve. Before every long car journey – whether it was a summer holiday or a weekend visit to see Nan in Sheffield – Mum and I would compile a tape for the trip. The track list would alternate back and forth: one song for her, one song for me. As a result, they are perhaps the only compilation albums on earth in which gentle folk rock weaves consistently in and out of hardcore gangsta rap.
We’d spend hours making these tapes, sitting cross-legged in front of the hi-fi together, scribbling the lists, doodling designs on the covers, taking the mick out of each other’s song choices. It’s weird: sometimes I almost enjoyed those afternoons more than the holidays themselves.
I spot the one from August 2000 – the trip to Whitley Bay where that photo in the hall was taken. The lump in my throat doubles in size, but I manage to swallow it. ‘Can I put this on?’ I ask.
Mum’s sitting on the carpet, dealing out Monopoly money like a Vegas card shark. ‘Well, we’re not technically on a long-distance car
