Page 36 of The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

Tuesday 25 December

‘Your mum is officially the queen of Christmas dinner. I don’t need to eat again until next year.’ Freddie groans next to me on the sofa.

‘I think we both know you’ll be gagging for a turkey sandwich by eight o’clock,’ I say. I presume, like all our other years, we’ll have come home armed with enough leftovers to make sandwiches, soup, curries and turkey burgers until at least the middle of February. I try to put thoughts of the Christmas lunch I forced down firmly out of my mind.

‘I can’t believe Elle’s having a baby,’ Freddie says.

So it’s happening in this world too, then.

‘I know,’ I sigh.

‘Which means we’re going to have a pregnant bridesmaid.’ He mimes the shape of a huge baby belly. It’s closer to Mr Greedy than a pregnant woman, but I grin all the same.

‘It does.’ In fact, I quite like the idea of Elle being all pregnant and glowy in our wedding photographs. A wedding, and now a baby. It feels as if someone in the ether sounded a whistle: all change, girls, all change. Some things don’t change, thankfully – at Christmas we will always gather around my mum’s table. Next year, we’ll all just squeeze up to make room for a high chair at the table too. I do, of course, realize that he or she probably won’t be in a high chair by that stage. I’m thinking fancifully, in the deep and meaningful way a slightly sozzled aunt-to-be is fully entitled to.

‘Do you think we’ll have babies one day?’ I say, champagne-wistful as I put my feet up in Freddie’s lap. It’s such an unbearably bittersweet thought, really.

He flicks on the TV, clicking through the channels. ‘Doctor Who?’

I don’t answer. Is he avoiding my question? I don’t think he is; we’ve talked generally about children lots of times and it’s kind of a given that we’ll go down that road. Isn’t it? Or am I jumping to conclusions? I tell myself I’m being daft. Turkey paranoia setting in.

Oblivious to my disgruntlement, he leans over and grabs the tin of Quality Street from the coffee table.

‘I thought you were stuffed?’ I say.

‘I’m never too stuffed for a toffee penny,’ he says. It’s one of the many millions of reasons we’re compatible: he eats the toffees, I eat the soft centres. I don’t think I could live with someone who made me fight for the orange cremes, I’d spend the Yuletide period low-level furious.

I shake my head when he offers the tin to me.

‘Go on,’ he cajoles. ‘You know you can’t say no to a strawberry delight.’

‘Maybe later,’ I say, and he rattles the open tin in front of me.

‘Hey, Lydia!’ he says in a silly voice. ‘Down here! Eat me! You know you want to!’

‘That’s a terrible impression of a strawberry delight,’ I say, amused despite myself.

‘It was orange, and you’ve hurt its feelings,’ Freddie says, solemn.

I roll my eyes. ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Give it here.’

He shakes the tin again for me to help myself, and when I look down I finally understand why he’s being so pushy.

‘Freddie,’ I sigh, plucking the gift out from amongst the jewel-bright sweets. ‘What’s this?’

He shrugs. ‘Santa must have left it for you.’

We agreed not to spend very much on each other this year; the wedding bills are racking up like mad and then there’s the house and the car … It all feels a bit never-ending at the moment. Still, I think Freddie loved the cufflinks I found for him in the vintage shop on the high street. He likes to be best-dressed man in any meeting – he always says it gives him the edge before anyone even starts talking. He likes to arrive first too, a tip he picked up from a Barack Obama documentary. He makes no secret of the fact that he’s ambitious, but unlike many of his colleagues, he isn’t ruthless with it – which actually just makes him more of a threat.

The gift is beautifully wrapped in paper printed with tiny sketches of the Eiffel Tower and tied with navy ribbon.

‘Open it then,’ he says, watching me, clearly desperate for me to get inside the paper.

‘Did you wrap this yourself?’

‘Of course,’ he says, but he’s smirking because we both know he charmed someone else into doing it for him. Someone at work, probably, knowing Freddie.

I can’t lie, I’m excited. ‘You shouldn’t have,’ I say, pulling the ribbon open.

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