Page 79 of When London Snow Falls

How can I compete with the limelight of thousands of fans when he goes on tour? Will I be replaced by the next best thing?

Snow’s given way to gray drizzle, and in a couple of days he’ll be gone on tour. And I’ll be left behind, alone again.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Michael’s engagement party turns out to be a formal family dinner party, because that’s how my family kicks back and has a good time. As tradition has it, for every family occasion, we celebrate these milestones in my parents’ aubergine-but-truly-beige dining room as our default option.

This afternoon, classical music plays over the house speakers. Everyone else is gathered out in the main reception room at the front of the house, and every so often, laughter spills out so I can hear them. My parents stopped short of hiring a quartet to play, given this long-awaited day for them, to mark Michael’s full passage into legitimate adult responsibility, as if the legal life and home ownership wasn’t enough already.

Sleet pelts sideways outside. It’s a bitterly cold day with none of the charm of snow. Ben’s delayed due to rail replacements, which are par for the course on a Sunday ride out to Richmond. He leaves tomorrow on tour, which has left my stomach in knots this weekend.

I’ve escaped the family festivities to set out fourteen place settings, with the generous table at full expanse for twelve along the sides and my parents at either end of the table. I’ve tried to set out the brightest option, which is a deep purple-blue color, and coordinating cloth napkins. I’ve put out all of the beige trivets to take hot platters on the table, despite the woven runner. I move decadent vases of flowers, given that it’s January, to the sideboard. Poor forced hyacinths, antagonized to bloom against their nature, the sorry arseholes who just want to sleep till spring.

I continue with setting the table, laying out an abundance of china and cutlery more than plenty for thirty guests instead of the fourteen that are here. But my mother was very specific in her instructions with cutlery for the various courses, and I’m following orders to keep the peace, with only the slightest subversion on my part with place setting color choices.

Nobody mentions Christmas.

It’s like it didn’t happen, deleted like so many of my other indiscretions and blow-ups. Redacted from the family history. As for today, everyone knows that for once I have a plus one, and I swear I can hear them all collectively holding their breath.

Fuck that.

The doorbell rings, and I jump, checking my watch. That’s got to be Ben. And I better get the door before my parents do.

Despite hurrying, my mother’s closer. When I arrive in the entry, the door is open, and she’s stepped back to let Ben inside quickly after cursory introductions on the front step. The door slams hard behind him due to a gust of wind, rattling the inset stained glass. I cringe. What a way to punctuate the requisitehow do you dos.

“Sorry, Mrs. Renfrew.” Ben looks suitably contrite. His explosion of color thrills me and makes me nervous at the same time, because I’ve brought him to a place where color doesn’t ordinarily dare to exist. He’s wearing a Kelly-green wool hat with a large pompom and his multicolored scarf wrapped twice around his neck over a long wool coat.

My mother nods acknowledgment, reaching out a hand for his wool coat, damp with the sleet and rain. He bends to untie his combat boots and slips out of them to reveal rainbow hand-knit socks. It looks like the wool that I gave him at Christmas. Because of fucking course he’s wearing rainbows here, just as my mother has gone full-on Mrs. Renfrew to him, rather than Delores.

I turn my head slightly to hide a smile behind my hand, my mother’s back to me as she hangs Ben’s coat. Making myself sober immediately, I dive straight in, already knowing the answer but keen to draw the attention away from Ben.

“I take it you’ve already made introductions?” I ask them, my voice overbright atop a violin concerto in the background.

“Yes.” My mother looks at me to Ben and back again. He’s in a slightly rumpled western button-down shirt, light blue with black piping, a hand-knit burnt orange cardigan that he must have made, and black jeans, with blue and black streaks in his bleached hair to match. By comparison, I’m in a crisp white shirt, tie, and charcoal gray wool trousers. Her gaze lingers over him for a split second longer than strictly necessary, and I know she’s already passed judgment, a slight downturn to the neutral line of her thin lips. “We have.”

“Sorry again for being late,” Ben offers. “I had problems with the train. I ended up taking a taxi the rest of the way.”

“Charles should have mentioned about the train.” Her gaze flickers to me. I’m already—permanently—in the doghouse. “Not a problem. We’ve had the caterers hold lunch by half an hour to wait for you to join us.”

I hide a wince. Yep, confirmation of judgment, loud and clear. Mum doesn’t ordinarily hold meals for late-arriving guests. A glance in the kitchen showed all of the warming ovens in use, and the trays that the caterers had brought.

“Let me get you a drink,” I say to Ben. “And make some more introductions.”

“Ten minutes till lunch,” my mother says before she retreats for the kitchen.

We have a private moment together, and I kiss him, his lips frozen. Even so, it feels scandalous kissing him in this house.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I murmur. “And sorry about Mum.”

Ben’s undaunted. “I’m glad to be here. I missed you.”

It’s been a couple of days since we’ve seen each other, between my work and his getting ready for his tour. Posh Van went in for servicing, Halfpenny Rise had a rehearsal and band meeting, and I’ve been juggling a more-than-full week between uni courses that I’m permanently behind on, and café shifts to also cover for Lars, who has a cold. I need the extra cash anyway, so I don’t mind. Though I’m sorry that there’s no rehearsal today for my band, it means a rare Sunday off and the chance to spend time with Ben before he goes away. The unfortunate part is spending that time together out here at my parents’, even with his insistence that he wanted to come to the engagement party. He doesn’t know what they’re like, and I have a lifetime of knowing.

“What would you like to drink?” I ask Ben as we join everyone gathered in the reception room with its tall ceilings and smoke gray walls. Tasteful, benign art hangs in this room: oil paintings of subdued still life arrangements and pastoral scenes.

“Whatever you’re having, lovely.”

“I hear the Talisker’s popular here. I was going to have one before you came.”

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