The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(41)

I shake my head when he offers the tin to me.

‘Go on,’ he cajoles. ‘You know you can’t say no to a strawberry delight.’

‘Maybe later,’ I say, and he rattles the open tin in front of me.

‘Hey, Lydia!’ he says in a silly voice. ‘Down here! Eat me! You know you want to!’

‘That’s a terrible impression of a strawberry delight,’ I say, amused despite myself.

‘It was orange, and you’ve hurt its feelings,’ Freddie says, solemn.

I roll my eyes. ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘Give it here.’

He shakes the tin again for me to help myself, and when I look down I finally understand why he’s being so pushy.

‘Freddie,’ I sigh, plucking the gift out from amongst the jewel-bright sweets. ‘What’s this?’

He shrugs. ‘Santa must have left it for you.’

We agreed not to spend very much on each other this year; the wedding bills are racking up like mad and then there’s the house and the car … It all feels a bit never-ending at the moment. Still, I think Freddie loved the cufflinks I found for him in the vintage shop on the high street. He likes to be best-dressed man in any meeting – he always says it gives him the edge before anyone even starts talking. He likes to arrive first too, a tip he picked up from a Barack Obama documentary. He makes no secret of the fact that he’s ambitious, but unlike many of his colleagues, he isn’t ruthless with it – which actually just makes him more of a threat.

The gift is beautifully wrapped in paper printed with tiny sketches of the Eiffel Tower and tied with navy ribbon.

‘Open it then,’ he says, watching me, clearly desperate for me to get inside the paper.

‘Did you wrap this yourself?’

‘Of course,’ he says, but he’s smirking because we both know he charmed someone else into doing it for him. Someone at work, probably, knowing Freddie.

I can’t lie, I’m excited. ‘You shouldn’t have,’ I say, pulling the ribbon open.

‘Yes, I should,’ he says.

‘But I haven’t got an extra gift for you.’

‘You can make it up to me in another way,’ he grins, but I can tell he’s impatient for me to see what’s inside.

I’m one of those people who likes to open presents slowly, picking off the sellotape and smoothing out the crinkled edges of the paper, no peeping to see if I can guess what it is. Freddie is the opposite: he has a quick feel, declares it a book or a T-shirt or chocolate, then rips the paper off like a five-year-old. I drive him nuts. I’m driving him nuts right now, but I enjoy this bit too much to rush it.

‘Want to guess what it is?’ he says, keen to move things on.

The oblong box is slender and shallow, about the size of a big bar of chocolate. ‘A camera? A dinner service? It better not be a dinner service.’

‘Try again.’

I peel off the tape carefully. ‘A puppy?’

Easing the pretty paper back, I find a plain grey box and I pause, my fingers extra slow now as I shake the lid loose. I’m teasing him, even though I’m actually desperate to get a look.

‘Just open the bloody thing,’ he half shouts, leaning forward as if he doesn’t already know what’s in the box.

So I do, and then I look up at him quizzically.

‘Freddie,’ I whisper. He’s actually taken my breath away. ‘We can’t afford to go to Paris.’

He shrugs. ‘I sold my guitar.’

‘You didn’t!’ The words jump from me. His Fender has been with him even longer than I have.

‘When did I last play it?’ he says. ‘It was going to waste in the loft.’

‘But you loved it,’ I say, still shocked.

‘I love you more.’

And there he goes again, shining his spotlight on me. It makes my heart clench to know that he’ll never play his Fender again, but it makes my heart swell too, knowing that he’d sell it to surprise me. I must have mentioned Paris a million times, but I never expected this.

I look into his eyes and all I see there is star-bright love.

‘You’ve really surprised me, Freddie.’

‘Just doing my job.’ He catches hold of my fingertips and kisses them.

I turn my hand over and hold his jaw. ‘Your job, huh?’

He kisses my palm. ‘Making you happy.’

‘You don’t need fancy trips to do that.’

‘You know me, I’m a fancy kinda guy.’ He grins, then looks at me, serious. ‘I wanted to give you something special, that’s all.’

‘Well, you did,’ I say. ‘You always make me feel pretty damn special, Freddie.’

‘Good.’ He taps me on the nose. ‘Can I watch Doctor Who now?’

We watch the Doctor and then the movie that follows it, a plate of turkey sandwiches balanced on the sofa between us.

‘Did you make these pickled onions?’ he asks, almost crying at the cheek-clenching strength of them.

‘Yes,’ I lie. In actual fact, Susan made them; Phil brought a box full of jars into work and begged us to take them off his hands.

‘With battery acid?’

‘So rude,’ I murmur, trying not to shudder as I bite one. They’re really, really sharp.