Page 59 of A Merry Little Christmas

‘Oh knickers,’ she said, patting her pockets. ‘I’ve left my phone downstairs in my coat.’

‘And it can stay there,’ said Woody. ‘Give yourself a break and relax for a while.’

‘I’ll try,’ she said, kneeling in front of the log burner. ‘But I’m going to have to let Olek know where I am. And then there’s Merry. I need to speak to her.’

Poor Merry. Goodness knows what was going on with her dad, but it hadn’t sounded good.

‘Far be it for me to interfere between you two, but maybe it’s best to give each other some space tonight.’

Nell pondered on that; Woody might be right. They’d both said hurtful things to each other. Nell regretted hers and Merry was probably feeling the same. ‘I will fetch my phone soon, but the thought of turning the world off for a while and giving my brain a rest sounds amazing.’

‘You’re such a tonic, Nell.’ Woody stretched out on the sofa and plumped up a cushion for behind his head. ‘I was feeling very down when I arrived in Wetherley, but spending time with you has done me the power of good.’

‘Me? Bloody hell, you must be desperate.’ Nell built a wigwam of kindling over some scrunched-up newspaper and set a match to it. ‘I’m more miserable than Eeyore at the moment.’

‘Oh, darling, that is sad. Tell your Uncle Woody what’s wrong,’ he said kindly, ‘A problem shared and all that.’

Nell gave him a sideways glance, weighing up whether to confide in him or not. She’d already dropped hints to Merry, and divulged far too much to Yvonna, but she still hadn’t told anyone the whole truth. Could she tell Woody? It would feel good to confess to someone, and then at least she could get another opinion. Plus, the benefit of telling Woody was that not only was he neutral, but he was only here for a short time, so less chance of him having the opportunity to tell anyone. ‘Do you know what,’ she said, feeling a rush of relief already. ‘I think you might be right. So how about I tell you my story if you tell me yours?’

‘My story? I’m not sure what you mean.’ He gave a brittle laugh and poured them both a shot of Irena’s vodka.

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh come on. You’ve taken an impromptu solo break just before Christmas, leaving your husband home alone, but you nip back and make dinner for him while he’s out. You’ve left a job which you apparently enjoyed and by your own admission you were feeling down when you arrived. If that isn’t the basis for a good story, I don’t know what is.’

He laughed. A proper laugh this time. ‘OK, Sherlock, I submit to your powers of detection. I do have a story.’

‘So, deal?’ The fire was burning nicely in the log burner; Nell added a couple more logs for good measure and closed the door.

He nodded. ‘It’ll be like show-and-tell at school, except ours is the depression edition.’

‘Never let it be said that we don’t know how to have fun.’ She let out a snort and crawled on her knees from the fire to the table, where the two shots of vodka were waiting for them both. She held hers up and waited for Woody to do the same. ‘If we each share our problems, does that mean they get halved or doubled?’

‘Maybe it just means that, for tonight, we put them aside altogether and get drunk,’ said Woody.

‘Good plan, Woody, I’m in.’ Nell giggled and tapped her glass against his before knocking it back. ‘Whoah. Gosh, that was good!’

Woody’s eyes watered and he spluttered. ‘Wowzers! No wonder your mother-in-law had a smile on her face if this is what she keeps in her handbag.’

‘Oh God.’ Nell groaned at the thought of Irena and Gienek, and how devastated they’d be if the truth of Max’s parentage ever came out. ‘OK, I’m just going to tell you the whole thing. It’s about babies, so I apologise if this is not your thing.’

‘Oh, darling.’ Woody let out such a big breath that his body visibly slumped. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that, but babies are my thing.’

He understood, thought Nell, and at once she knew she had made the right decision to talk.

‘Come here.’ Woody held out a hand to pull Nell onto the sofa beside him. ‘Do you want to go first or second?’

‘Um.’ Nell’s throat felt so tight with the effort of holding in her sobs that she couldn’t have gone first if she’d wanted to. She sat down, tucked her feet beneath her and held out her glass for Woody to top up. ‘Second please.’

‘OK, so the reason I’m staying in an Airbnb and working for free in your shop is that Spencer and I have had the most traumatic of years and I needed a time-out from him. I thought our relationship was strong enough to withstand anything, but now I know I was wrong.’

Nell nodded. ‘Sounds familiar.’

She’d always thought the same about her and Olek, but like Woody, she was having her doubts.

‘We deliberated for the longest time about starting a family,’ Woody continued. ‘He was mad keen from the get-go, desperate to be a dad; I was more cautious. I love our life as it is, we’re social butterflies, we go away at the drop of a hat and please ourselves. Both of us work long hours, mine being especially unsociable, running events all over the country. Anyway, we decided to go for it. I was primed to go through the adoption route. But Spencer flat refused. He wanted the child to be biologically ours and found someone who was prepared to be our surrogate. I had so many questions, so many reservations, but long story short, for Spencer’s sake I went along to meet Jenny, and credit where it’s due, she was lovely.’

Nell listened intently, completely in awe of how this couple had approached parenthood, determined to overcome any obstacles to have a family. Such a contrast to her own attitude of burying her head in the sand.

‘It seemed too good to be true, especially as only a couple of months after us investigating the legal side of it all, Jenny was pregnant and expecting our baby. A few weeks in and the three of us attended her first scan. And that was it.’ Woody smiled at Nell, his eyes starry with love. ‘From the moment I saw that little chap waving his arms on the screen, and noticed the giant head which Spencer teased was the same shape as mine, I was in love. All my doubts about surrogacy evaporated. There in Jenny’s tummy was the future of our family. Spencer and I had never been so happy. We were in our element, thinking of names, decorating the nursery, immersing ourselves in a brand-new world of buggies and cots and a wardrobe full of adorable clothes. And then—’ Woody’s chin wobbled.