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Henry watches as the snowflakes softly flutter down outside the mullioned windows of his manor house. The crystalline structures glittering in the silvery light cast by the full moon. He can’t help but shiver slightly at the cold creeping in and settling into his bones. The age and Grade II listing of the property means that double glazing isn’t an option. Henry thinks ruefully that his bank balance is testament to the money he has spent in the last few years trying to make the Jacobean property more energy efficient. However there’s only so much that can be achieved even with the best will in the world. So Henry resorts to his father’s oft quoted maxim, ‘you can always wear another jumper, Henry', so he does. He looks down at his green jumper that has a gingerbread man on it brandishing a take out coffee cup emblazoned with, ‘out here lookin' like a snack'. In his haste earlier this evening it was the first jumper he’d pulled from his chest of drawers and Henry hadn’t realised which jumper it was. It was the jumper he’d been wearing a year ago.
Has it already been a year?
It seems impossible to Henry that it has. The rawness of his pain still so visceral, undiminished by the passage of time. He stares wistfully once more out at the snow still falling past the windows, before giving himself a shake, meandering over to the inglenook fireplace and stoking the flames with the brass poker.
He sits in the adjacent leather wingback chair and watches the flames leaping in the grate as the wood spits and fizzles. The air alive with the cackling and hissing of the logs as the flames lick around them. David is stretching out lazily on the hearth rug without a care in the world, toasting himself in the comforting warmth of the fire. He picks his head up, casually casting a glance over at Henry and then lies it back down again. Henry, not for the first time, wishes that he has David’s life, unencumbered by anything other than thoughts of where his next meal is coming from. As long as he has his toys, walks and enough cuddles and scratches to get through the day he’s content. Although David had seemed to grieve for the first six months too, in apparent empathy with Henry. Henry had had to consult with a dog psychologist in order to try and get his dog some help.
Like father like dog he thinks ironically.
It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow but Henry has seldom felt less imbued with the festive spirit. He looks around the room taking in the garlands of holly and mistletoe that adorn the beams in the ceiling. The red berries of the holly and the white berries of the mistletoe in stark contrast to the oak beams, the dark green foliage bringing light and life into the room. The Christmas tree so lovingly decorated by his sister Bea and best friend Pez, trying to cajole him into a better mood. It hasn’t worked but then Henry never expected it to. Not in his heart of hearts. The scent of pine permeates the room, wafting over from the corner where the tree stands, where it has always stood. The Christmas cards on the mantelpiece with their myriad festive tidings seem to mock Henry as there is one card notable by its absence.
His card.
But then again Henry really hadn’t expected him to send one. There has been no contact from him for a year and Henry knows there never will be again. Knowing it though and accepting it are two separate matters.
He picks his lead crystal tumbler up from the occasional table and takes a swig of his cognac. The amber, honeyed liquid trickling down his throat leaving a fiery trail upon its descent, the warmth suffusing his chest and belly as the tendrils of alcohol spread their way throughout his abdomen. He runs his finger around the glass in silent contemplation of the events of last year, settling back into his chair as his eyes drift shut. The screech of a barn owl sounds outside and its plaintive timbre seems to echo Henry’s mood and pierces his soul. The roar of the fire the only noise in the room until he hears the church clock of All Hallows striking midnight somewhere in the distance.
It’s a fanciful notion but he wonders if he can hear the same chime at midnight too. Henry knows that he can’t. Alex is thousands of miles away, across the Atlantic Ocean, on another continent for goodness sake. This whimsical nonsense is why he’s an author where he can indulge his romantic fantasies and ensure angst is kept to a minimum and his characters get their Happily Ever Afters. Where Loves True Kiss holds sway and the boy gets the boy in spite of any obstacles strewn in their way. The irony of the situation doesn’t fail to pass him by.
He stands up, conscious of the time, knowing in spite of his insomnia that he has to make the effort to go to bed, to sleep, perchance to dream. A dream or a nightmare to torture him in his slumber of riotous mahogany curls and smiling chocolate brown eyes with the dancing flames of firelight reflecting in them. Of lazy yawns, sleep mussed hair, chin dimples and strong arms holding him as they sleep. Henry rubs his hand over his face as if to erase the images that apparently haunt his daylight hours now as much as they do the nocturnal ones and he has only himself to blame.
Mutton-headed mugwump that he is.
Tomorrow is going to be a busy day with carol concerts and midnight church services to attend as well as a family dinner. Henry doesn’t want to participate in any of it but Bea had begged and pleaded of him so he has capitulated like the good brother that he is. Or tries to be. For the sister who has tried so valiantly to buck him up this past year despite her misgivings at his actions last year. Henry truly does not think he would have got through his annus horribilis without Bea and Pez's unwavering support.
"Come on lazy bones, time for you to shake a leg.” Henry says to David and watches as his dog dozily staggers to his feet with a look of disgruntlement and petulance upon his face. Henry walks out to the studded, heavy wooden front door and lets David out to do his business.
The snow is coming down thick and fast now and it appears it’s going to settle. Henry looks down the drive towards the cast iron gates that stand at the end of the drive. He remembers the last time he had seen Alex trudging down the drive last year in similar weather. His forest green beanie pulled down hard on his head allowing only a glimpse of those curls that Henry held so dear. His broad shoulders and frame encased in his coat and his stout boots leaving footprints in the snow as he walked away from Henry.
Out of his life.
And Henry had allowed him to go, to leave his life for good. Or rather, Henry had given Alex no other choice but to go. Had forced him to leave despite the other mans protestations and avowals of love. Henry had been a bloody obstinate arse, a fool of the highest order but he had paid for it this year.
Oh, how he has paid.
David comes back to the front door and shakes vigorously to rid himself of the snowflakes clinging onto his fur and darts past Henry’s legs into the warmth the house affords. Henry continues to look down the drive remembering in vivid clarity the sight of Alex’s footsteps being filled in by the snow the previous year, until the virgin snow was once more undisturbed, as though Alex had never existed at all, which had felt akin to Alex being erased from Henry’s life.
Henry closes the door firmly on both the snow flurries and his memories of last year. The vivid and visceral remembrance of his pain at watching Alex depart his life still an open festering wound. A permanent ulcer in his life and heart. A suppurating, morbific mass that constantly discharges its poison into every corner of his life. It is a misnomer that time heals all wounds for some wounds are never meant to be healed, particularly self-inflicted ones. He has grown accustomed to being alone but somehow the yuletide seems to make the loneliness sharper, cut deeper. It’s icy tendrils clutching at his heart, or the void where his heart should be, more viciously, remorselessly strengthening their hold. Henry can feel alone in a crowd or whilst amongst friends. Forever missing the man he had sent away. The man he had rejected.
Alex.
Just even the name can bring the sting of fresh tears and that pain in his chest. The ache that refuses to lessen and that Henry perversely feels the need to constantly prod. To remind him of the hurt that he has caused to them both. Henry’s memories are warm and clear and God knows they’re hard enough to live with throughout the year but as everybody knows it's hard to be alone at this time of year. There’s something about the yuletide season that brings out the melancholia even more, that makes it hit harder and deeper somehow. All those ghosts of Christmas past coming back to haunt you as the year draws to a close Henry muses. The whole year has felt stultified to Henry. Three hundred and sixty five days of going through the motions of living but not living. Like an apteral insect pinned to a card under glass in a museum, carefully curated to be exhibited to the curious multitudes. And it had all been his own doing, there’s the rub of it.
And after all his was only a winter's tale. Just another winter's tale and why should the world sit up and take notice of one more love that had failed? A love that could never be, was never meant to be even though it had meant a lot to them both. On a worldwide scale they had just been another winter's tale. Henry’s bought out of his reverie by a loud, insistent knocking on his front door and David rushing towards it barking frenziedly.
"Hush, David, you’re enough to wake the dead, you little miscreant. It’s probably only Bea." Although why Bea would choose to turn up in the dead of night in a blizzard Henry cannot for the life of him fathom. There’s further loud knocks on the door and Henry almost trips over David in his haste to answer it. Definitely too loud a knock for Bea so Henry shouts out, “Bloody hell, Pez! Hold your horses and don’t get your knickers in a twist! I’m coming, I’m coming...” Henry can’t help the grin that’s stretching across his face. An unexpected visit from Pez is just what the doctor ordered to pull Henry’s thumb from up his arse and chase his blues away. Especially if he's bought some mother’s ruin or even vodka.
The smile is still upon Henry’s face as he slides the metal bolt back and turns the key in the door, “And just what time of night do you call this to be disturbing the sleep of the innocent, Percival?” Henry wisecracks as he fully expects to see his best friend standing there. Instead he does a double take and his heart plummets to the stone flagstones under his feet as he instead spies, “Alex?”
“You expecting anyone else, H?” And Henry can only stand there, flapping with mouth agape, like a fish floundering on land. Alex standing there wearing an absurd red Santa’s hat with bells, snowflakes settling on it too. The hat proudly proclaiming “I'm on the naughty list!” Alex who produces a Scrooge nightcap but in black and with ‘Bah! Humbug!” written on it. Alex who plonks it atop Henry’s head before pulling it down with a twinkle in his eye and a wide smile on his face. Alex who pushes past him with an impish wink, “You inviting me in or what? It’s cold as balls out here and my balls are blue enough after this year!” Alex who bends and makes a huge fuss of David. Alex who is straightening back up with a nervous look overtaking his features as he produces a sprig of mistletoe and raises it above both of their heads before looking at it and then back to Henry with a timorous and hesitant, “A kiss for Santa?”
Alex who holds Henry so tightly as Henry rushes into his arms and they share a soft kiss before Henry whispers, “We need to talk.”
"Later,” Alex affirms as he kisses him softly again under the sprig of mistletoe as Henry kicks the door shut with his foot. Shutting out the snow and memories of last year as he thinks it’s high time for a new winter’s tale of a love that’s meant to be, of a love that can never fail.