Whether Lucy forgot to ask Ben, or whether Ben forgot to mention it to Joe, I’ll never know, but the longer I waited for a reply to come, the more convinced I became that it was the best idea ever. It simply had to happen.
My mind was filled with strange – some would say not particularly healthy – images of Joe and I hosting Christmas like a makeshift replacement family. But though I told myself to stop it, I couldn’t help but think that it would be absolutely lovely.
I had to phone Joe repeatedly to make it happen, but eventually he accepted my invitation. He’d been struggling to think what to cook anyway, he said.
They arrived on Christmas morning, about ten, their arms laden with packages.
Joe was wearing the same blue suit I’d seen at that dinner party way back when, and I was shocked when I calculated that way back when was only, in fact, six months ago. It felt so much longer, a whole lifetime ago, really, and he’d lost so much weight since then that his trousers bunched at the waist where he’d had to cinch them in with a belt.
As the girls had already opened their ‘Father Christmas’ presents, and Ben had done the same before coming to ours, we saved our fresh batch of gifts for after lunch. While the children played in the lounge with their new toys, Joe kept me company in the kitchen.
At first he just chatted shyly to me while I cooked, but after a few gin and tonics he relaxed and started to help.
In deference to Joe’s sensibilities, I’d made, for the first time ever, a River Cottage recipe nut roast. It wasn’t actually vegan, I explained, but at least it was vegetarian. This made Joe laugh because, he revealed, he hadn’t been eating vegan, or even vegetarian, since Amy left.
‘Oh God, you don’t mind, do you?’ I asked, wondering if there was any chicken still in the freezer. ‘You weren’t hoping for turkey or something, were you?’
‘Not at all,’ Joe said. ‘Nut roast is fine. Nut roast is better than fine. I should be vegan. I should totally be vegan. But everything’s hard enough, you know, without trying to source vegan food on top of everything else.’
I glanced over and saw that he was busy digging for ice cubes in my freezer, apparently making yet another round of gin and tonics. ‘Not for me, Joe,’ I told him. ‘I think two’s about my limit.’
‘Two’s not even my minimum,’ he said.
‘You want to watch that,’ I said. ‘Alcohol will destroy you if you let it.’
‘Yeah,’ Joe laughed. ‘Right.’
‘No, seriously, Joe,’ I said. ‘You’re talking to the daughter of an alcoholic, here. It killed my father at fifty-three.’
‘Oh,’ Joe said. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realise. I don’t usually drink that much . . . It’s just things are a bit difficult at the moment.’
‘Sure,’ I said. Then, ‘Are they? Really difficult, I mean?’
‘I’ll get a grip on it in the new year. I promise,’ Joe said.
The gravy was ready, so I pulled the Yorkshire puddings from the oven and began to plate up. As I did so, I thought about the fact that he’d completely ignored my question and felt bad for having asked it. It was hardly a suitable subject for Christmas, after all. ‘Can you get the roast and maybe try to tip it on to that plate?’ I asked him, pointing, and he took a swig from his drink and moved to the oven.
But as, beside me, he did what I’d asked, he surprised me by saying, ‘In answer to your question, though, yes. Yes, things have been difficult. This separation is the most difficult thing I’ve ever lived through.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I told him. ‘I shouldn’t have asked. Especially not today.’
‘No, it’s nice,’ Joe said, smiling at me sadly. ‘It’s really bloody nice that you care.’
The dinner was lovely. My nut roast was excellent, even if I do say so myself, and the Yorkshire puddings were, Joe said, the best he’d ever tasted. With him having lived all those years with master-chef Amy, I kind of doubted that was true, but they were certainly the best I’d ever made.
After a shop-bought pudding, the kids opened another batch of presents, and while they played, Joe and I cleared the dining-room table.
Once this was done, we sat in the kitchen and chatted as we drank our coffee. I’d forgotten how honest and direct he was, and we found ourselves talking quite intimately about our feelings.
Joe admitted once again that things had never been quite right with Amy, but that he loved her all the same, in spite of her faults. He said that he was quite shocked at his own reaction to the separation, at how blindingly sad he felt about it all. He’d downed half a bottle of gin by then, plus at least three-quarters of a bottle of wine, so his eyes glistened as he spoke – his emotions were never far below the surface.
For the first time, I found myself expressing how I felt about things as well. I told Joe that I was fairly happy at the moment, though I was scared about what the future might bring. I admitted to enjoying my little job at the farm shop, and dancing around the kitchen with the girls. I told him about my solitary Sundays too and Joe said that he knew exactly how those felt.
I was surprised to find myself opening up in that way, and I wondered why it was so easy to talk to him. I decided it must be because his own heart was so definitively on his sleeve. Plus, it was a very long time since anyone had asked me to express how I was feeling – since anyone had even seemed genuinely interested, in fact.
Among the second set of presents, the ones that were officially from Ant and me rather than Father Christmas, was a half-sized guitar for Lucy. She’d
