The Yuletide Child

He couldn’t bear to share the same bed and she couldn’t blame him; she took up so much of it and she wasn’t sleeping too well, moving restlessly all night, kicking out in spasm of cramp all the time.

‘Aren’t you going to say goodbye?’ he asked, half teasing now, trying to get a smile out of her. ‘What do you want me to bring you from York? You can have three wishes.’

Her head swirled with the muddle of emotions she felt so often lately—anger and resentment, fear and misery. She turned her head at last, her tangled mop of curly brown hair tossing on the pillow, and looked at him bitterly, blue eyes wide and wet in her flushed face.

‘Three wishes? That’s easy. I wish I’d never met you; I wish I’d never married you; I wish I wasn’t pregnant!’

Stiffening, Ross stared back at her, face hard, eyes leaping with rage, making her shrink away from him. Without another word he turned on his heel, picked up the case he had packed last night and walked out, banging the door of the bedroom shut behind him.

Sobbing, the pent-up tears now streaming down her face, Dylan heard him thudding down the stairs, two at a time. A moment later the front door opened and slammed shut.

Anguish burst out of her. ‘Ross!” she called. ‘Please, wait...Ross, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it!’ She slid her legs out of the bed and stood up shakily, her body clumsy in the crumpled white cotton nightdress. It was impossible for her to move quickly. By the time she managed to get to the window the engine of his four-wheel drive was starting up.

Dylan struggled to push down the catch but it was stiff; it seemed to take her an age to get the window open. She could see the dark green vehicle right outside, with Ross inside it, although all she could see of him was his profile: a tough outline, hard-edged cheekbones and jawline, framed in windblown black hair.

‘Look up, Ross! Look up!’ she pleaded as she finally flung the window wide open. Icy wind rushed into the room but she was unaware of it at that instant. She was intent on leaning out, waving. ‘I’m sorry, Ross!’

He didn’t hear or see her, he did not look up. She heard a roar of acceleration, then the sound of the tyres as he took off along the rough, unmade road. She clung on to the sill, listening to the fading note of his engine somewhere in the distance.

Seconds later he was gone, and she was alone, high on the roof of the world, it seemed to her, surrounded by hills and swirling sky.

The red-roofed, white-walled four-bedroomed house was strong enough to keep out the wind from the hills and distant sea which blew so fiercely much of the time. She rarely went out into the garden now, except to cut some of the vegetables Ross grew—mostly winter cabbage and potatoes at the moment, although in spring and summer she’d had an enormous choice to cook with. She had been amazed by how much better things tasted when you had just picked them in your own garden.

She was shivering violently now, her nightie blowing around her. Closing the window with another struggle, she shut the wind out, put her hot, tear-strained face on the cold glass and stared at the bitterly familiar view.

If only she could see another house, a roof, chimneys, a wisp of white smoke curling up somewhere—any sign of other human presence! She ached to see streets, shops and people, theatres and cafés, buses and noise, not this emptiness, however beautiful, where all she could see was trees.

Trees, trees, nothing but trees under the grey, sagging bolster of a sky.

‘I hate you!’ she yelled at the tall Norwegian spruce with its green needle-like leaves, the mountain ash planted at the forest edge which could be very pretty in spring, when it bore creamy white sprays of flowers, and still had some of those red berries the birds had mostly eaten, and a little belt of cypress whose silvery blue pyramid shape was pleasing to the eye. Ross said they’d planted other trees at the edge of the pines to soften the impact of all those conifers, but nothing could disguise the darkness and lack of life beneath their towering presence.

This was not a natural wood of deciduous trees. No oak, no ash, no hazel. No, here you saw a commercially planted, regimented forest laid out in straight lines on what had once been high, open moorland, rich with heather and gorse, where the wind blew free and every inch was alive with birds and small animals. They had all gone, driven out by the smothering trees. They could not live in that dense shadow and neither could she. She hated living here.

The small of her back was aching; she pressed her hand into it, groaning. She couldn’t bear to stay in bed any more; it made her back worse. She might as well get up.

Looking at the clock on the bedside table, she was surprised to see it was already seven forty-five. She had all day to waste, but she might as well get dressed and start on the housework. It took her twice as long as it used to; she never seemed to catch up. At least work would take her mind off her problems, and she would have even more to do tomorrow. This would be their first Christmas together.

Last Christmas Eve she had been staying with Jenny and her husband Phil and their two children, as she had done every year since Jenny had married. This year Dylan wanted to make Christmas very special for Ross, whose parents were also dead and who had not had a family Christmas for years. She had bought lots of decorations. Their tree was already set up and glittering with fairy lights; the rooms downstairs were swagged in tinsel. She had made a Christmas cake and several puddings; tomorrow she would make mince pies, jelly, trifle, all the traditional food of the season.

She walked into the bathroom, her hand still supporting her back, took off her nightie and dropped it into the woven linen basket, then, avoiding the sight of herself in the mirror, showered, closing her eyes with pleasure under the warm water. Stepping out a few moments later, she towelled herself and put on a robe before going back into the bedroom to get dressed.

Gloomily she surveyed the rack of maternity clothes—she hadn’t been able to afford a large range of them, and she hated the sight of them all by now, couldn’t wait to wear pretty clothes again, in her proper size. The warm cherry-red of a sweater looked cheerful, though. She took that out, and a thin floaty white shirt to wear under it, plus a pair of maternity jeans with an infinitely expandable waist.

Her feet were freezing; she put on two pairs of socks, and then comfortable slippers.

Housework was not her favourite occupation. Especially now that she found it almost impossible to bend down without discomfort, and couldn’t lean across tables to polish them.

Once, she had danced her way through the work, made it part of her daily exercise routine, using the backs of chairs as a barre. Not any more. Just getting through the necessary tasks was exhausting. The idea of ballet was something she simply pushed to the back of her mind.

As she brushed her hair she thought of herself two years ago, light as a feather... what had she been then, a size eight? She was only five foot one and had had a diminutive figure, her breasts small and high, her waist tiny, although her legs were quite long for her height. She had been slender and supple in her tights and black body as she’d rehearsed the new ballets Michael had choreographed for them. ‘Exercises for Lovers’ he had called it, and the title described it perfectly. Two people meeting, falling in love, parting in tears, coming together again. She had loved dancing it.

The intensity of concentration, the physical difficulty of some of the moves, had used up all her energy, but it had been the most rewarding time of her life. The discipline of that work had occupied every waking moment, obsessed her.

If only she-felt that way now! She had thought being pregnant would be as exciting and wonderful as rehearsing a new ballet. Nobody had warned her what it would really feel like.

How ironic that it had been that ballet which had brought Ross into her life and ended her career for ever, changed her body, her life, in ways she had never anticipated.

Stop thinking about it! she scolded herself, dropping the brush on the dressing table. Only another month and it will all be over. Just hold on to that thought.