Page 19 of Last Christmas in London

‘You’ll be glad when it’s over.’

‘When I hand in my notice, you mean.’

Megan rubbed her ankle. ‘You said it, not me.’

I shrugged as I offered her my arm to rest on when she replaced her shoe. ‘I’m not good at looking forward. I never have been. Not since… well, you know.’ Not since my mum got diagnosed. Fear of the unknown was a childhood trait I never truly overcame or even embraced. I kept moving forward but I didn’t stop, you’d think I was rushing towards the future, but I was more afraid I’d get stuck and never push on if I paused for a moment.

‘Sometimes I wish I could stop looking back.’ Megan’s expression softened as she released my arm. She smiled at me briefly; she was never very good at holding a smile even when she meant it.

She pulled her phone from her pocket and began scrolling mindlessly.

I watched her for a moment. There was a weight hanging on her, the kind that wasn’t just about a long day at work.

‘Are you taking care of yourself?’ I asked.

Her doomscrolling paused for a second in surprise. ‘Of course I am. I’m a fricking monk. Did I tell you I was thinking of going palaeo?’ That wasn’t what I meant and she knew it, and I knew she knew.

I nodded politely as she talked to me about palaeo vs keto diets, and eventually she trailed off, her jaw tightening. There was a weariness about her that I hadn’t noticed at the pub with Josh; I couldn’t put my finger on what was different and I didn’t want to pry, so instead I reached out and gave her arm a gentle squeeze. She tensed, then shrugged it off. Megan had never been one for overt displays of emotion, even with me.

‘I know, I know, you don’t care about diets.’

‘Not in the dieting kind of way. I don’t have the time to be that disciplined.’ Or spending time locating Whole Foods and organic takeaway meals. I spent enough of my life locating escabeche and nut-free nut roasts for Pim. I didn’t want to add my tastes into the mix.

I exhaled softly, feeling my energy start to match hers as I rested my chin atop her shoulder and stared at her screen blindly. ‘This coat is really soft,’ I said, burrowing my head into the shoulder pad of her jacket.

‘You can’t have it,’ she was quick to respond. ‘At least not yet.’

‘I always appreciate your hand-me-downs,’ I said but she continued to scroll. I caught seconds of #CleanTok footage and various parenting influencers, the occasional marital therapist, and news reels. It was typical TikTok fodder.

Trying to lighten the mood and spotting a lull in the crowds, I rushed out into the street and struck a pose under Sherlock Holmes’s deerstalker hat. ‘What do you think? Could this outfit one day become an iconic neon sign?’

Megan looked up and laughed at my pose, as I proactively lifted my leg and hugged a door frame. ‘I’ve never felt so sexy.’

She snorted so hard she almost blew her own phone away, nearly dropping it on the damp wintry pavement.

I laughed and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. ‘Right!’ she declared, back into Christmas mode. ‘I need to get to Doc Martens. Are you willing to join me in the mosh pit?’ She referenced the growing crowd again.

‘If I don’t make it, tell Josh I died well.’

‘There would be no better way than this, in his mind anyway.’ Megan agreed, pushing forward.

Once we got past Timberland, we were able to breathe again. The crowds mostly gathered at the entrance to the street and less people walked the whole street, though it was still a relative squeeze.

The smells and sounds of Christmas were more apparent here. I lifted my nose into the air to catch the strong scent of roasted chestnuts, and I gravitated towards the singer playing ‘Stop the Cavalry’ by Jona Lewie, a highly underrated Christmas song.

‘I’m going to pop in here,’ Megan said as we reached the store she wanted. ‘Do you want to come in?’

‘You go ahead; I want to listen to the music.’

She murmured in assent and carried on with her shopping task, as I gravitated towards the singer, a man by the sound of his voice.

A crowd had gathered around him, blocking him from view; people were hovering with Styrofoam cups of mulled wine and hot bags of chestnuts. It was a perfect Christmas gathering.

I joined the throng just as the singer sang the last notes of ‘Stop the Cavalry’ and the crowd began to dissipate. To keep their attention, he struck up his next song quickly: ‘Sweet Caroline’. Not quite a Christmas classic, but a banger nevertheless.

Ducking under the arms of retreating listeners, I found a spot as the inevitable fist-raising dum-dum-der moments began. And that’s when I saw him.

It was the busker from Covent Garden.