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  "Can't trust anyone, can you? Now, where's that desert menu?"

  "The waiter's just serving the big table. I'm sure he'll bring it in a minute." Tom closed his eyes, and said nothing.

  The silence lasted a rather awkward thirty seconds or so.

  "Yes," she said, skirting around for something to say, "infidelity, it's just the worst thing you can do to someone, isn't it?"

  Still no reaction. Tom didn't look up; he just took his phone from the inside pocket of his jacket and started scrolling through it. She waited; he was still silent. A complete change from the vociferousness of before. He just staring at his phone.

  She tried again. "I mean, it doesn't matter now, about Dave finding a new girlfriend, I mean, but I was a bit shocked when I found out."

  Still Tom didn't look up, but frowned, as if he was reading a text. Rude bastard, she thought. He did ask, after all.

  "It's probably just as well," she went on, "We were really happy together for ages, but I wonder if maybe we'd reached the end of the road anyway - "

  And then it happened. Tom looked at her, picked up a knife, and pointed it at her.

  "Listen," he said, "I don't want to hear anymore about your ex boyfriend. You're out with me, I'm spending good money on you, and I'm not paying to sit here listening to you talking about some other bloke. Got it?"

  Janice sat there with her mouth open for about half a second, and then she grabbed her bag, and ran.

  "And I left my bloody coat in the restaurant!" she moaned to Max. "Oh, my God, it was awful, I can't tell you. He made me on edge almost from the start, but I kept thinking, is it just me? Is it because I haven't been out with anyone for ages? Is it because he's drunk about two bottles of wine? Should I give him a chance?"

  "No, no, no, you did the right thing," said Max. "What a lucky escape! We'll get your coat in the morning - whew! I'm glad you ran when you did! He sounds like a psycho!" He shuddered, visibly. "Not to mention the worst kind of alcoholic. That's the sort of man who'll end up knocking you about within the first few months. Terrifying."

  "He was so horrible, about everyone and everything," Janice said. Then she found herself crying again. "I don't know why it's upset me so much! I mean, it's not like I was involved with him, or anything."

  "Apart from the fact that it must have been an awful experience, it's because your hopes have been dashed," Max said. "You've had a big setback with all the Dave business, and you were pinning your hopes on this Tom chap maybe being your next boyfriend. It's perfectly understandable." He stood up. "Are you sure you don't want a glass of wine? I do keep some for guests, I'm not one of those alcoholics who can't have it in the house."

  "No, no, coffee's fine - I've had enough to drink." She pushed her mug across the table. "I'd love another one of these, though, please!"

  "Sure."

  She watched him moving around the kitchen, nice big kind Max, and she thought what a shame it was that she couldn't fall in love with someone lovely and ordinary and decent, like him. And he with her, too, of course. No more unrequited love. She didn't think her poor little heart could survive another battering.

  Max was right, of course. She was crying because she'd been hoping that Tom might be her reward for all she'd been through with Dave - as if by weathering a bad time you necessarily earned a run of good luck, instead. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Life didn't work like that, unfortunately. Sometimes it just piled disappointment upon disappointment, drudgery upon heartbreak. She wanted to cry again but it wasn't fair on Max; he'd already come straight out to pick her up from the shop doorway in which she'd stood, shivering in her thin, silky top, looking at the bright lights on the Christmas tree outside the church, and dreading Christmas. He'd driven her back to his cosy little cottage in the village of Marsham, just outside Fennington, where he'd introduced her to his dog, a beautiful border collie called Sam.

  Janice felt happy there, in his peaceful, warm, untidy house. When he asked her if she wanted to stay the night she agreed - in the spare room, of course. She wouldn't have minded sharing the bed with him, just to have someone to cuddle up with, but she didn't want him to get any ideas; Max was lovely, but she just didn't fancy him.

  She'd fancied Tom, for about ten minutes. And she still fancied Dave, like crazy. Why, oh why, couldn't she fancy the nice men? There was nothing wrong with Max; he was tall, had thick dark hair, cut a bit like Dave's, though not so long; he had a pleasant face and he smiled all the time. He exuded good, in the same way that Psycho Tom had exuded bad. He was a bit stocky, but she didn't mind that; she'd never liked skinny men. But she just didn't fancy him.

  Mind you, she thought, he probably felt the same way about her. No doubt he looked at her and just saw a reasonably pretty girl who could do with losing a few pounds but scrubbed up quite nicely; this was one of the few times he'd seen her in anything other than the t-shirts, leggings and trainers she wore underneath her big red Sunrise Café apron, though she always wore make-up and earrings for work. No, she was sure he didn't see her in 'that' way either.

  Later on, she curled quite happily into the most comfortable single bed in the world, and slept peacefully for eight hours.

  Two days later there appeared on her MySpace page a series of abusive messages from Tom, written late at night; drunk in charge of his laptop, no doubt. She was a selfish bitch, a gold-digging cow, a neurotic single mum who was just after a free meal, and various other choice things, including fat. That was by far the worst thing he'd said, of course. Even though she knew she wasn't, it was the only thing that really stung. She deleted him from her friends list, and, on Carolyn's advice, blocked him, too, and reported him to the site administrators. Thank goodness she'd never given him her address or phone number, Carolyn said; it was certainly a lesson learned, though, and she found herself becoming less open with all these 'friends' she'd made on the computer.

  "You could write a blog about it," suggested Carolyn, "on MySpace. As a warning to others."

  Janice supposed that might be a good thing to do, but she didn't want to.

  She just wanted to forget it had ever happened.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Christmas

  Christmas Day dawned bright, crisp and clear that year, in Fennington St Mary.

  Dave Bentley woke up alone in his bed in Ritchie's spare room, feeling depressed. He'd never woken up in an empty house on Christmas morning before; Ritchie had gone with Our Pete to stay with his parents in their retirement bungalow in Stratton Strawless, Norfolk, the day before. Boz, who was between rabbit hutches (his words) and had been kipping on the sofa for the last two weeks, had gone back up north until December the twenty-eighth.

  This time last year Dave had been woken by Harley bouncing on the bed, chattering excitedly about his presents from Father Christmas, and demanding Daddy get up, now, because Mummy was downstairs cooking a special Christmas morning breakfast - and then they were going to church to sing carols! Thinking about it now made tears prick at his eyelids, though he smiled when he thought of being dragged to church by the two of them; Harley loved to light a candle by the little nativity scene on the way out, and he loved to sing carols best of all; perhaps he was going to be a rock star one day, too. Dave wasn't sure whether he believed in God or not, or indeed if Janice did, but he thought it was good that she took Harley to church, anyway.

  He wouldn't see his son until later. He and Janice had stayed over at Linda's on Christmas Eve night, so they could have a proper family Christmas altogether. The family, even Linda's new boyfriend, but not him. After lunch, they would all go to Fenland Lodge to see Evelyn. He was invited for tea, at five o'clock; that was all.

  Ariel had been working in The Bandstand the night before, which, it being Christmas Eve, had been so busy that he'd hardly managed to speak to her. Then, when he finally managed five minutes with her while she was having a quick cigarette outside at about ten o'clock, she'd told him that she wouldn't be accompanying him home because she had an early start; she
was going with her dad and his girlfriend, Pam, to spend Christmas Day at Pam's daughter's in Chatteris, near Cambridge. Dave and Shane always called it Clitoris, but he wasn't sure whether or not Ariel would find that funny.

  He'd spent the rest of the evening having drunken conversations with anyone in the pub he vaguely knew who happened to lurch his way, and watching Shane making a last ditch attempt at getting off with Melodie, who'd continued to spurn his advances and was later to be seen snogging local radio DJ Brendan Shanks outside the kebab shop. Undaunted, Shane had turned his attention to two girls called Kerry and Sharon, or Sherry and Karen, or something, who had tinsel round their necks, bra straps on display, and reindeer antlers on their heads. The last time Dave saw him he was walking out of the door, one hand stroking the ample bottom of Kerry/Sharon/Sherry/Karen, pausing only to give his mate a cheery 'thumbs up'.

  Dave thought about Shane, now, and laughed. He'd rather be on his own than waking up in the flat of some strange girl who would, inevitably, look significantly less appealing than she had the night before, and would probably hound him for a fortnight, until she got the message that the night of passion had been nothing but a drunken one-off.

  He got out of bed, stepped into the shower, thought about Ariel, dealt with the erection he always got when he thought about Ariel, dried himself off and padded into the kitchen to make coffee and find some hangover easing breakfast. Eggs. Had to be eggs. He unearthed the frying pan from the heap of crockery and pans on the draining board, and set to work. Three fried eggs, grilled tomatoes, two slices of fried bread and three cups of coffee later, Dave felt like a Viking again. He sent quick 'happy Christmas' texts to Ariel and Janice, then settled down to play his guitar for half an hour before going out.

  He'd decided to walk round to his mother's house so he could drink when he was there; on the way, though, he began to wish he hadn't. It wasn't so much the vast bunch of flowers he'd bought for his mum that were sticking out of his present filled backpack and kept flopping in an annoying fashion against his head - and making him look pretty silly, he feared; from the front, he must look as if he was wearing some sort of mad head-dress made from carnations and gypsophila. No, it was more the twinge in his back from bending over to wheel the bicycle he'd bought for Harley, to take round to Linda's later. Fuck, why hadn't he been more organised and taken it round in the week, like she'd suggested? Because he hadn't bought it until three o'clock on Christmas Eve afternoon, that was why. He'd meant to be so organised this year, to stop being a typical bloke and buy presents people would really want instead of just going into the garage and snapping up random boxes of chocolates at the last minute, but it hadn't happened. Phil Wiseman Construction had ceased work for the Christmas break the week before, but all Dave had done was practice his songs for Raw Talent and have sex with Ariel when she bestowed her presence upon him, or think about having sex with Ariel when she didn't.

  Christ, but he was besotted with her.

  There existed within him this rampaging passion, worse than when they'd been together in their youth; he just wanted to hold her to him, weld their bodies together all the time; he couldn't get enough of her. Before, when he was younger, the love he felt for her had been more of a dewy eyed romantic thing (he thought; it was hard to remember), but now it was like a rage inside him that he couldn't quell, not even when he'd just fucked her three times in one afternoon.

  Perhaps it was his inner Viking breaking through.

  Thor had definitely awoken something.

  That night back in the summer, when he'd had the lightning bolt idea, something had told him, Dave, this is what you're meant to be. Who you truly are.

  He couldn't express any of this to the guys, of course, or even to Ariel, but Thor wasn't just a band, a vehicle for the songs he wrote. The more he became Lars Erikson (for that was who he was, even if no-one else knew it), the more sure he was of his ancestry. His father was tall, big and flaxen haired, too, and hadn't he run off, unable to be tied by the constraints of small town domestic life? Okay, he hadn't gone off to discover new lands, or anything - actually, he'd gone to live with a woman called Eunice who he'd met while he was on a shop fitting contract in Macclesfield - but Dave was sure that if he spoke to him about it (during one of their biennial meetings) he would understand what he meant.

  He hoped Harley would, too, in time.

  Janice wouldn't.

  Ah, Janice. That was where everything became so confusing. He still loved Janice with - no, he couldn't say 'with all his heart', because he didn't, did he? Ariel was the one who consumed his thoughts, his dreams, his lust. But his feelings for Janice ran so deep, deeper than he could make her believe. He couldn't blame her, of course; how could you expect a woman to believe you really loved her when you were screwing someone else every possible chance you got?

  He could see her point, where that was concerned.

  "You know what happens, of course, don't you?" said his mother, wiping cranberry sauce from her mouth with a paper napkin.

  "What happens with what?"

  "What happens to people who muck around. Men who keep two women on the go, or women who do the same with two men. They end up with no-one. You mark my words."

  "Bit of a cliché, mum," said Dave.

  "Clichés are born of truth," she said, and dusted her hands together. "There, that's another one. Now, d'you want some mince pies and cream? Only I've got to be at work in forty-five minutes."

  "No, thanks, Ma, I'm stuffed," Dave said. "Are you getting a cab?"

  "Joe's coming to pick me up. What time are you going round to Linda's?"

  "Five-ish."

  "Well, don't forget my presents for Janice and Harley. They're on the coffee table."

  "Right."

  Dave felt flat. It didn't feel like Christmas Day; his mum was off to work at the hospital (time and two thirds, she couldn't afford not to), and Christmas dinner had been cooked by Marks and Spencer. Jingo Joe was spending the day with his own family, thank God - Dave decided to be in the loo when he arrived to take his mum to work. Soon, Mrs Bentley would be gone, and he'd be all on his own in his childhood home, on Christmas Day.

  Ah, maybe it wasn't so bad. He could hit the whisky and watch a bit of telly. Text Ariel over in Chatteris (Clitoris) and see if she was up for nipping into the bathroom with her phone so they could have a bit of text sex. Yeah! The mere thought caused him to emit a mild groan.

  "Are you all right, dear?" Mrs Bentley asked. "Touch of indigestion? Marks and Sparks were a bit over zealous with the brandy this year, I thought; too much stuffing, that's what it'll be."

  ***

  Janice knew Dave was quite drunk when he turned up at her mother's, but, hey, it was Christmas Day, and he'd bought the bike that Harley wanted so much; Harley was whizzing up and down the close on it right now, in the dark, under the careful guidance of her mum's boyfriend, Graham.

  "Another drink, Dave, love?" said Linda.

  "Don't mind if I do," said Dave, reaching up to accept the tumbler of whisky and dry ginger. Janice winced at the size of it; people who didn't usually drink, like her mother, never had any idea how to pour them. She remembered her grandmother, Evelyn, once giving them each a glass of Bacardi and blackcurrant squash. That was before she had Alzheimer's, too. Still, Dave hadn't complained then and he wasn't complaining now.

  "Have you spent the day with Ariel?" she asked, aware of the stupidly bright tone of her voice.

  "No," said Dave, "the morning on my own, and then I had lunch with Mum."

  A wave of relief washed over her. Silly. "And Jingo Joe?" she asked, grinning.

  Dave laughed. "No, thank God; I was spared that!" He looked at Janice. "You look really pretty today. Your hair's growing. Looks nice."

  He'd noticed.

  "Yeah. Thanks. I thought I'd grow it back, you know, to how it used to be. In a bob."

  "I loved it like that," Dave said. "Mind you, it doesn't matter what I love, now, does it?"

  "
What do you mean?"

  "I mean, you'll be doing all that hair and make-up stuff for some other bloke, soon, won't you?"

  Janice thought of Psycho Tom, and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Her thoughts paused for a moment on Max, and then drifted past him and back to Dave.

  "Perhaps I'm just doing it for me."

  Dave laughed. "Yeah. I reckon women do it all to impress other women, really. Us blokes couldn't give a monkey's what you wear. Little as possible, preferably."

  Janice laughed, now. "Dave! Don't! You sound like Shane!"

  "Yes - that was a bit crass, wasn't it?"

  She felt so happy, sitting there in the warm, cosy room, snuggled up on the sofa with Dave; the ghost of Christmases past. Her mum was in the kitchen getting the tea ready - not that anyone had any room for mini sausage rolls and Tuc biscuits with hummus (Linda had only recently discovered this delicacy, and pronounced it 'humus', to rhyme with 'human'). She could hear Harley laughing outside with Grandpa Graham, as he called him; the lights on the Christmas tree were twinkling, a Harry Potter film was on the telly, and all was well with the world.

  She wanted to freeze the moment and stay in it, forever.

  ~~~ Christmas night ~~~

  In South Tyneside, Chris 'Boz' Boswell sat in his dad's flat in a high rise tower block and wondered how it was possible for anyone to drink that much whisky without keeling over and dying. Fella was still lucid, too.

  ***

  In Stratton Strawless, Norfolk, Ritchie and Our Pete were playing Monopoly for real money; Ritchie had just landed on Park Lane and lost the Christmas bonus from his last job.

  ***

  Back home, Shane Cowley had escaped from his parents' house after the tea time cold spread, and was now snoring gently in the arms of Christmas Eve Kerry; she was wide awake and gazing at him in adoration.