“I love you.”
And she did. She had made it. She was home.
4
2014
Adam was a Christmas Eve baby. The first year they were together for his birthday, he was so unexpectedly short with her at Bistrotheque, so passive and enervated and so unlike himself that Coralie asked for the bill early and escaped alone up Mare Street. She was still upset the next day when Adam, dressed only in a Santa hat, brought her up coffee in bed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I hate my birthday,” he said. “I never realized how much.” As the next one approached, his thirty-ninth, she cautiously raised the issue of their plans. “Just time with you, and with Zora,” he said. “Nothing special. I mean, thatisspecial. Themostspecial, and exactly what I want, and only that.”
When Zora’s term finished, Adam and Coralie picked her up straight from school. Her small rucksack was loaded with important items: five pens, two notebooks, a little skateboard from a set of LEGO Friends, a fawn soft toy dog with enormous eyes, some shriveled conkers, and a slim work of Usborne nonfiction calledAnimals at War. Coralie took a week off work, and none of Boris Johnson’s inner circle had time to meet Adam on background for his book, sothe three of them chose the tree, made mince pies, and baked little FIMO ornaments with a weird chemical smell. They took Zora to the frigid “big slide park” in Victoria Park, to ice-skate at Somerset House, and to John Lewis on Oxford Street for a dress to wear toThe Snowman. All these things only took up a few hours a day. The rest of the time Zora watchedPAW PatrolorBen & Holly, or was eating, or sometimes even did all three at once, eating while watchingBen & Hollyon the iPad withPAW Patrolon TV.
The dress was a big success, but the musical, a matinee on Christmas Eve eve, was not. Zora sat bolt upright in her seat as soon as Jack Frost crept onstage, sizable codpiece jutting problematically, icicle fingers creepily extended. She asked Adam to take her to the toilet, leaving Coralie in the theater eating Maltesers on her own, mildly gripped by the spectacle. By the time she got the text saying they’d pulled the rip cord, father and daughter were in Pizza Express. Coralie had to catch up, freezing, breathless, stomping along the gray wind tunnels of Holborn, dark already at four in the afternoon. They should have gone toThe Nutcracker. Whenever an outing with Zora went less than entirely according to plan, she felt tears rise to her eyes—but why? She couldn’t exactly say.
Because Zora wasn’t just clever and special; she was also loving and sweet: She slipped her hand into Coralie’s while waiting to cross the road and avidly consumed classic books from Coralie’s Australian childhood, likeMagic BeachandWhere the Forest Meets the Sea. When asked to make a family tree for school, she happily and proactively included Coralie (as well as Marina’s new husband, Tory Tom). If she cried, it was because she was tired or injured. When she was clingy or moany, it meant she was getting ill. She could be comforted easily with a cuddle from Adam, an unnecessary Band-Aid (“sticking plaster”), or a snack. Still, there were times, only afew, and she wasn’t proud of them, when Coralie felt a creeping exhaustion at the thought of another early dinner, of trying discreetly to communicate adult things to her adult boyfriend over the shiny-haired head of a six-year-old.
In the packed Pizza Express, after the abortive trip toThe Snowman, she found herself wondering what Stefan from the office and Marcus were doing at that moment. Not a “Spot the Difference” with crayons on a child’s menu, that was for sure. At least (she knew it was bad to look forward to this) Marina was picking Zora up the next day. They’d have a child-friendly birthday lunch together for Adam beforehand—pasta, probably, or sausages. Then they, the grown-ups, the Happy Couple, alone at last, could have a proper adult dinner together. That reminded her, she had to pick up the oysters from Fin and Flounder.
“Look, his bow tie’s missing half the bow.” Zora circled it. “Eight differences.”
“Oh no,” Adam said.
Coralie’s heart, already racing, started to pound. “What?”
“Just something on my phone.”
“Text it to me. Zora, do you want the bathroom? I’m going before the food comes.”
“I went to the bathroom atThe Snowman.”
“I wasn’t sure if you really did, or if that was your escape plan.”
“It was both. I needed the toilet, and I was too scared of Jack Frost.”
“Okay.” Coralie waved her phone. “Back in a tick.”
She read his text in the cubicle:The GGs arrive tomorrow.It ended with a sad face. She sent a sad face back. When she looked in the mirror afterward, she found she was doing one for real.
At the table, the pizza had arrived. A bit of basil or somethinggreen had been left on Zora’s by mistake. Coralie whisked it off before she saw.
“Guess what, sweetheart,” Adam said brightly.
“What?”
“Move the glass closer; don’t crane your neck for the straw. Lovely news. Granny’s coming tomorrow!”
“The GGs? Or Irish granny?”
“The gay grannies!”
“Can I wear this furry dress to show Sally?”
“Sit a bit closer to the table. If there’s no pizza on it, of course you can.”
“But are they coming for your birthday, or Christmas, or both?” Coralie was thinking of her menus. The birthday dinner was oysters followed by a fish stew with more than thirty (30) Great British Pounds’ worth of preordered monkfish. It was a recipe from the Moro restaurant cookbook, with peppers, almonds, and saffron. She could double the sauce, divide it into fish and non-fish. Anne and Sally’s bit could have chickpeas. (They were vegetarians.) Would that work? But Christmas? It wouldn’t be an option to simply make the chicken stretch. She’d have to make all new dishes, unless she just went overboard on the sides. God, Pizza Express was so loud. “Why didn’t they say yes when we invited them in November? Do they know we won’t have Zora on Christmas morning?”
“What’s it like being so famous?” Adam asked his daughter. “Everyone wants Zora.” He mimed fighting over her, pulling her one way and then the other. “My Zora…No,myZora! The GGs would steal you away to Lewes in a heartbeat.”
“Only Sally.” For a moment, Zora’s look was pure Marina, penetrating and totally assured. “Not Granny. May I have my pudding now?”
