Page 20 of A Merry Little Christmas

Merry focused on the traffic as they whizzed through the dark streets back towards Wetherley. She hated feeling out of sorts like this. She was ashamed of herself for her outburst, particularly in front of the kids. She hated being helpless and breathless and being blamed for her waters breaking early. She hated feeling like she should apologise for everything. And, worst of all, having these thoughts was confirming her darkest fears about herself. She knew nothing about motherhood, why would she? While other girls had watched and learned from their mums from an early age, she’d been shunted from house to house, children’s home to children’s home, after her own mother hadn’t loved her enough to stay alive.

Merry was going to make a terrible mother; she just knew it. How could she be anything else?

Chapter 7

Nell

Nell was in the flat above the shop, putting milk and butter in the fridge and arranging mince pies, cinnamon cookies, tea, coffee and a bottle of wine in the wicker welcome hamper for the imminent arrival of their Airbnb guest.

Merry and Bright was usually quiet on Mondays. But while customers might have been few and far between, the online weekend orders had kept Nell working non-stop all day.

The brand had developed quite a following online thanks to Merry’s slot on a popular TV shopping channel for over a year. The show had gone off air now, but demand for Merry’s hand-poured candles continued to burn brightly.

And this morning not only had she had the usual backlog of orders to deal with, but a particularly time-consuming one of twenty gift-wrapped candle bundles for a corporate Christmas order. Now it was two o’clock and she’d only just finished stocking the log basket, stringing twinkly lights along the banister and decorating the Christmas tree Merry had had delivered from the Christmas tree man on the market.

Even Merry couldn’t find fault with the festiveness of the flat, Nell thought, standing on a chair to tie a bunch of mistletoe to the light fitting in the hall.

She raced back downstairs, unlocking the shop door again to let in customers while she prepared her lunch of soup left over from yesterday’s supper with two slices of her mother-in-law’s rye bread.

She was blowing on her soup when Merry called.

‘Nell. I’m really sorry,’ said Merry in a small voice. ‘You and Olek had your appointment at the fertility clinic last week, and I completely forgot to ask you about it. I’m a terrible friend.’

Nell painted on her biggest smile before replying. ‘No! Darling girl, you’re not at all; you’ve had far bigger things to deal with.’

This was her new skill, to sound happy even though her heart was still aching. She’d done as she’d promised; the day after getting the results, she’d tried to be positive. She’d spent Saturday practically gurning at customers in the shop. On Sunday, she and Olek had visited her parents, where she’d given an Oscar-worthy performance, smiling broadly at her father’s in-depth story about missing funds at the golf club and nodding happily while her mother tried on dress after dress in readiness for their Christmas Caribbean cruise.

‘So how did it go?’ Merry asked.

Nell hesitated. Merry knew her inside out; in some ways, better than Olek did. She yearned to tell her best friend the truth, confide how complicated everything had become and ask for her advice. But could she risk it getting back to Olek? All it would take would be one slip of the tongue and her carefully constructed lie would crash around her ears. No, the safest, if not her preferred, thing to do was to tell Merry exactly what she’d told Olek.

‘To misquote Taylor Swift, it’s me, I’m the problem.’ She managed to muster up a half-laugh, even though it wasn’t in the least bit funny. Thank goodness they were having this conversation over the phone; at least Merry only had Nell’s voice to go on and not her body language.

For a moment, Merry was silent and Nell could only imagine the anguish on her best friend’s face.

‘Ah, Nellie,’ Merry said finally, her voice thick with emotion. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Yeah. Me too.’ Your results show that there’s absolutely nothing wrong … Nell blinked away her dangerous thoughts.

‘And I’m even more sorry that we’re only having this conversation now,’ Merry continued. ‘I want to give you a big hug.’

‘I need one,’ she replied. ‘Although I’m a bit scared of touching you at the moment in case the baby pops out.’

‘Don’t you start,’ Merry grumbled. ‘Cole offered to go and sleep in the kids’ bedroom for that reason.’

‘He’s just looking after you,’ Nell reminded her. ‘You’d like it even less if he didn’t show how much he cared.’

‘Don’t change the subject,’ her friend chided. ‘This is important. I know you’ve always suspected you’d be the one who couldn’t conceive. Did you get any details? What is the actual issue? Is it fixable?’

‘Um …’ Nell hadn’t worked out what she was going to tell people yet. Not that Merry was ‘people’, she was her best friend and would naturally expect all the details. ‘Actually, it’s hard to talk at the moment, do you mind? I’m still cut up about it.’

‘Of course, of course. Gosh.’ Merry tutted as the news sank in. ‘So not fair, is it? I mean, me getting pregnant in the first month of trying and you …’

‘Yes, thanks for pointing that out.’ Nell gritted her teeth before remembering she was supposed to hold on to that smile.

‘Oh God, sorry, I’m saying all the wrong things.’ Merry groaned. ‘It’s just that I’m feeling … Nothing. Forget I said anything.’

Happily, thought Nell. It had been hard enough watching Merry’s bump grow over the last few months without being envious, while she still had hope that she’d be pregnant herself soon. How she was going to cope when she met Merry’s baby for the first time, she had no idea. She was looking forward to it, of course, but there would be a bittersweet twinge there too.