Staring at the lights on the tree was a balm that helped him tell her all of this. ‘It was hell.’
‘You must be clever for your brain to handle the academic side with everything else going on.’
‘Could’ve been a surgeon,’ he added with sadness.
‘Is that the career you missed out on?’
‘I guess it wasn’t meant to be. I was a wild child, got Dawn pregnant, and then I realised I couldn’t do that to her as well. I couldn’t go off and study for years on end, do my residencies, end up elsewhere for long periods of time, add in the shift work along with her own as a nurse. My parents never really knew the extent of my drinking and cavorting around the neighbourhood, and thankfully I never got in trouble with the police, it ended before it could get that far and it saved them the embarrassment and heartbreak to add to what they’d already gone through. I think I made my parents really proud the night I told them I’d changed my plans, I’d be getting a good career and a job to support my family. I wanted to give them stability and show I hadn’t thrown my life away with one mistake. And giving them Scarlett brought a joy that helped ease a small part of the pain of losing Robbie.’
They moved out of the way for a couple who posed for a selfie with the Christmas tree behind them, and they carried on walking through to the other side of the park on the path that would lead them out and towards Amelia’s apartment.
‘We’re similar, you and I,’ she said. ‘I always wanted to make other people happy, as though somehow I needed their approval. I know I don’t really, but with approval comes acceptance and it makes me happy with myself, if that makes sense. I’ve been doing it for so long I don’t know how to switch it off, which is why it’s so hard to tell Connie how I really feel.’
‘I get that. I kept the truth from Mum and Dad, thought it was for the best. But it only made me all the more confused, and resentful even. Maybe if I’d put myself first then it could’ve all turned out very differently.’ He watched her, read the signs of a smile almost there but not quite. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s just that the way you describe your younger self…’ She looked up at him, her eyes twinkling beneath the moonlight. ‘…you sound a lot like Kyle.’
‘I know,’ he admitted and when he started grinning it was her turn to ask why. ‘I’m reluctant to tell you this, but when I got caught up with the wrong crowd, we may have pick-pocketed a few innocent people.’
‘You did not!’
He covered his cold cheeks with gloved hands and shook his head. ‘I’ve never been so ashamed in my life, even at the time. The other lads laughed, counted cash, spent it on fags and booze, but all I kept thinking about was those poor people who’d been the victims of our stupidity. What if we’d taken a woman’s last bit of cash for a safe taxi home? What if the person we took money from didn’t have enough food? What if it was their bus fare to get to the hospital and see a sick relative? I felt so awful that when I came to my senses and steered clear of the gang I’d hung out with, I’d use my pocket money and drop it into charity collection pots every week until I’d covered the fifty quid I’d pilfered and used for myself.’
‘It shows you have a conscience.’
‘Doesn’t make it right, though.’ And what was he doing? He wanted to make a good impression with this woman, not make her want to run for the hills.
They walked on, down a street, past a group of buskers belting out Christmas carols on a saxophone, an accordion, a singer pelting out the tunes with onlookers joining in. They crossed the next street and were soon outside Amelia’s brownstone apartment building.
‘This is me.’ She took off her hat and ran a hand through dark hair that looked silky to the touch. ‘Do you want to come up? I can’t promise to make such a nice hot chocolate as we just had but I’ve got ingredients to make a mulled wine. If you’re interested.’
Oh, he was definitely interested. ‘I can stay a bit longer. I’ll text Scarlett, check she’s OK.’
Amelia put a hand on his before he could take out his phone. ‘Leave them, I’m sure everything is fine. We’d hear if not.’
Inside the apartment she turned up the heater before grabbing a pan to get started with the mulled wine. ‘Kyle turns his nose up at this every time I suggest it.’
‘Not really a seventeen-year-old’s drink.’ He put his gloves on the radiator so they’d be warm for when he left, hung his coat on the hook near the kitchenette. He watched her pour an entire bottle of red into the pan. She added orange, sugar, a bay leaf and spices and stirred as they chatted about spending Christmas in a different country, each with a teenager in tow.
He took over the stirring of the liquid while she put some Michael Bublé on the docking station, guaranteed to put even the biggest grinch in a Christmas mood. He’d bought Scarlett the album last year and she played it over and over for the entire school holidays and while it had irritated him with its repetition, the memory made him smile now.
Amelia opened cupboards until she found a sieve to strain the mulled wine through. She looked in a couple of cupboards up high this time until she found two mugs. ‘Not sure the glasses will be heatproof so don’t want to risk it,’ she told him, and he did the honours, strained the wine and poured out two generous measures.
With a mug each they sat on the sofa stretching along the exposed-brick interior wall.
Amelia took a deep inhale of the steaming liquid. ‘It smells like Christmas.’
He gently tapped her mug with his. ‘Cheers. To a great holiday, a wonderful Christmas, and a very happy new year.’
‘I’ll drink to that.’
Talk moved to some of the highlights of the city, the kids’ favourite things and theirs. They touched on what their lives could’ve been like had he become a surgeon and if she’d stuck with telesales.
‘We’d be very different people,’ she concluded. ‘For what it’s worth, I think Scarlett has a good head on her shoulders, she’ll make the right decisions about her own studies.’
‘You’re trying to coerce me into letting her follow her dreams of art again, aren’t you?’
‘I’m only trying to help.’
