Christmas at the Beach Cafe(27)
My heart thumped in anticipation as he ripped open the paper, and I suddenly panicked again that he wouldn’t want a home-made present – but I needn’t have worried. He exclaimed over every single photo in the calendar, spending long moments gazing at each one and reminiscing about the time when it had been taken. And then he reached the December page . . . and burst out laughing.
‘You might have seen this look before,’ I said, self-consciously. ‘Like in a Lesbian Strip Drama photo shoot on page 7 of the Daily Star?’
‘I knew it was familiar,’ he said, hugging me. ‘And it’s great. I love it. Especially now I understand what you were up to that day.’ He laughed again. ‘Brilliant.’
‘I thought it might remind you of . . .’ I began.
‘Oh, it does,’ he said. ‘You bet it does.’ He turned and kissed me, a laugh still rumbling in his throat. ‘Thank you, Evie. Fantastic present. Perfect. And now . . .’ He rummaged in his coat pocket. ‘Yours.’
He pulled out an envelope but didn’t give it to me immediately. ‘I should tell you, I’ve got some good news and some bad news about this present,’ he said. ‘The bad news is that I tried and tried but couldn’t get my hands on a glass angel just like the one Jo bought you back in the day. I spent hours online on Ebay and all sorts of other sites searching for an exact match. No joy.’
‘Oh, Ed,’ I said, touched that he’d gone to so much trouble. ‘Thanks for trying anyway.’
‘No joy in the UK anyway,’ he said meaningfully. ‘But the good news is that I’ve tracked down an antiques dealer who . . .’ He passed me the envelope. ‘Well, open it and you’ll see.’
I opened the envelope . . . and a colour photograph fell out of two glass angels very similar to the ones Jo had given us all those years before. ‘You found some!’ I cried, delighted – then realized there was something else in the envelope. Return plane tickets to Marseille?!
‘That’s the thing,’ he said, with a grin. ‘The antiques dealer is in Provence. She said the angels are so delicate they might not survive being posted, but that she’d hold them for a few weeks if we wanted to pick them up. She also said to apologize for hanging up on you a couple of times when you answered the phone – I’d told her not to speak to you, and it sounds as if she took that literally. I should have given her my mobile number from the start.’
I was still trying to process all of this. So the mystery silent phone calls weren’t from Melissa after all. And – wait. Had he just said what I thought he’d said? ‘If we wanted . . . We’re going to Provence?’ I cried.
‘We’re going to Provence,’ he repeated. ‘On New Year’s Eve, for five days. We’ve had such a busy few weeks, I thought we could see in the new year just the two of us, have a proper break, explore the south of France . . . and collect a couple of angels, ready to put on the tree next Christmas. What do you think?’
‘I think – ’ I couldn’t speak for a moment because my breath caught in my throat. ‘I think that sounds absolutely perfect,’ I managed to say. ‘And I think you’re the loveliest person I’ve ever met. Thank you. Oh, thank you, Ed.’
‘Happy Christmas,’ he said, smiling.
And as I threw my arms around him and kissed him again, I couldn’t stop smiling either. My beach café Christmas may not have been the one I’d expected but despite everything, it had turned out to be pretty magical after all. ‘Happy Christmas,’ I replied. ‘Here’s to many, many more.’