The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(53)
The lodge is warm and cosy, thanks to the log burner she intends to keep going all Christmas. Unlike the other residents of The Shore, who chipped in for a delivery of kiln-dried logs, sized to fit the grate, Clemmie scoured the forest for free wood, which Caleb chopped and stacked on the deck, beneath a tarpaulin about which the Charltons will undoubtedly complain.
In the fridge is an Aldi turkey, with all the trimmings, and Clemmie has splashed out on a bottle of prosecco for her, and four cans of low-alcohol lager for Caleb. She doesn’t want to think about last Christmas, but it is difficult not to make comparisons. With the court case pending, Caleb had gone out on Christmas Eve and not returned until the early hours of the following morning. Clemmie had spent the day on her own, wondering when to put the dinner on. Caleb had emerged from his pit in the evening, his pupils fathomless pools, barely acknowledging the presents Clemmie had saved for months to buy him.
At ten a.m. she decides she can’t wait any more. She pushes open Caleb’s bedroom door, realising, as she does, that her son even smells different here. She sits on the edge of his bed, watching him sleep. Her beautiful boy. How close she came, to losing him.
The second Clemmie saw the advert for The Shore, she’d felt a physical connection. It called to her. It wasn’t just the location, the view, the gorgeous lodges. At The Shore, Caleb would make friends with a different set of people, a different class. Clemmie hates the idea of class, but you can’t fight it. Background matters, and Clemmie had known that unless she did something radical, Caleb’s was going to drag him further into trouble.
‘Mum, stop staring at me,’ Caleb mumbles.
Clemmie’s brimming over with festive cheer. ‘He’s been!’ she says, with a giggle.
Caleb reluctantly sits up, scrubbing his eyes. ‘You’re such an idiot,’ he says, in that peculiar way boys have of showing affection. He lopes downstairs and Clemmie feels suddenly nervous, worried he’ll laugh, or think her stupid, when he sees what she’s done.
Clemmie stayed up far too late last night, drinking wine and making paperchains to hang around the room. Caleb’s old Christmas stocking – the one he had before he got too old for surprises – is hanging by the log burner, packed with small, silly gifts Clemmie has collected all year. Every one is wrapped. She’s ‘borrowed’ a small tree from the forest, keeping it in a pot and vowing to replant it after Twelfth Night. It’s covered with all the decorations she and Caleb made together, before adolescence hit and he morphed into someone she hardly recognised.
‘It’s silly, I know,’ Clemmie says now. ‘You’re too old—’
She can’t finish, because Caleb throws his arms around her, squashing her face with his shoulder. ‘It’s amazing, Mum. Happy Christmas.’
They have bacon and eggs for breakfast. Clemmie hears voices on one of the decks; the growl of an engine as someone takes a boat up the lake. Late last night, Blythe put a message on The Shore’s WhatsApp group to say there’d be a group swim at noon. Clemmie wonders if the enthusiasm on the group will be as apparent this morning – as far as she knows, she’s the only resident of The Shore who swims on anything except the sunniest of days – but just before eleven there’s laughter outside.
Clemmie steps on to her deck in her wetsuit. ‘Merry Christmas!’
There is a chorus in return, ‘Merry Christmas!’ and as Clemmie crosses to join the gang, she feels that glorious sense of belonging.
The Staffords must have arrived late last night or early this morning. Ashleigh’s in a floor-length fur coat, and, unless she’s hiding a bikini underneath, she’s not planning on joining in. Bobby, on the other hand, is prancing about the deck in a pair of boxers covered with sprigs of holly and drinking a Bloody Mary, celery poking him in the eye every time he takes a sip.
‘Stand there a sec,’ Ashleigh says.
Bobby puts down his glass. ‘Not today, yeah?’
‘With the drink.’ She lifts her phone, flapping her free hand to get him to move across the deck. ‘There. Lean against the railing and—’
‘Can we have one day without thinking about bloody Instagram?’ Bobby snaps, and there’s an awkward silence as Ashleigh stalks back towards their lodge.
‘I thought you were going to film the swim.’
‘What’s the point, if we’re not going to put it online?’ Ashleigh yells over her shoulder.
The Lloyds are all in dressing gowns. Clemmie catches Caleb checking out the twins, and suppresses a smile. Boys, eh? She can’t imagine Caleb is quite what Rhys had in mind for his little princesses, but you never know. Clemmie allows herself a moment to imagine the invitations for the Northcote–Lloyd wedding – or would it be Lloyd–Northcote?
Yasmin is deep in conversation with her husband, and she doesn’t look happy. ‘No, I can’t move on!’ Neither of them has realised Clemmie’s right behind them.
‘This is such an overreaction, Yasmin.’
‘You could have killed her!’ she hisses, then her eyes widen in horror as she notices Clemmie. She breaks into a wide smile. ‘Happy Christmas, Clemmie darling – isn’t this wonderful?’
‘Wonderful.’ Clemmie’s heart is racing. She pulls herself together. Caleb’s brush with the criminal underworld tends to make her leap to worst-case scenarios.