Lucy

The first of two stories for Christmas

After Lucy died, he drove himself home. The nurse offered to call him a taxi, but what was the point? He would have to collect the car tomorrow, and Lucy always said, if anything happened to her, he should wear his big boy pants and carry on. Not that they were expecting anything to happen. She was only forty-four and as fit as a thirty-year-old. If she hadn’t been, she would still be alive. She wouldn’t have been running along the road when the car came speeding around the bend. He always thought he would go first, what with his high blood pressure and cholesterol. Thought and hoped, because life without her was inconceivable.

When he got home, he had to stop himself from shouting his usual greeting at the door and the following morning, still half asleep, he reached out to her side of the bed, but instead of the soft warmth of her body, his hand brushed the cold, slippery surface of the sheet.

At the funeral, when Lucy’s sister read Lucy’s favourite poem, he couldn’t concentrate because he kept expecting Lucy to appear. It wasn’t a case of denial; he knew she was dead. He’d sat by her bed for two terrible days and watched as her breathing slowed and the colour leached from her skin, but they’d had an agreement. Whoever went first would return and haunt the other. In a non-creepy way, obviously. When Lucy first broached the idea, he was doubtful, but she was adamant she would find a way back. Perhaps, he thought in one particularly melancholic moment, he should buy a potter’s wheel, like in that film.

He sleepwalked through his days, doing just enough at work not to get fired and eating the same thing for supper every evening. It didn’t matter because he couldn’t taste it anyway. Summer passed and then autumn, a blur of identical days cloaked in grey. Eventually, December rolled around and, with it, the prospect of Christmas. Lucy loved everything about that time of year, the decorations, the presents, the parties. She even liked Brussels sprouts, which was, frankly, weird. Christmas or not, sprouts were the devil’s work. Everyone was kind. Lucy’s sister invited him to spend Christmas with her family. His mother offered to pay his air-fare so he could join her and her new partner in Portugal. Even his father suggested he come to Scotland.

‘The weather’s shite, but it’s better than spending the day on your own.’

He politely declined their offers. It was now or never. If Lucy didn’t return at Christmas, she never would. He bought the biggest tree he could find at the Christmas tree farm and smothered it with the decorations she’d accumulated. Then he took the presents he’d bought for her and placed them underneath the sagging boughs. The fairy lights blinked on and off as he hung her stocking above the fireplace next to his, a childish tradition that always made them laugh.

For the first time since her death, he slept through the night and woke feeling refreshed. It was still dark, and the only sound was the faint hum of the boiler. He swung his feet out of bed and pulled on his dressing gown.

‘Lucy?’

He crept down the stairs. The tree was still blinking, but the living room was empty, the presents untouched. It was a fantasy, a stupid, idiotic fantasy. Death was the end and Lucy was never coming back. He slumped in a chair and sobbed, deep, wracking sobs he had been holding in for far too long. He was so consumed with misery that at first he didn’t notice the hand on his shoulder.

‘Lucy?’

And there she was, looking as lovely as the first time he saw her. She was holding the clementine he’d stuffed into the toe of her stocking, and a mischievous smile played on her lips as she spoke.

‘Hello sweetheart. I told you I’d come.’