It was very quiet on the ward, Steve noticed. Annie’s husband was looking at him. In ordinary times he would have a relaxed, humorous expression, and his eyes would be friendly. A nice man. Almost certainly a good man.
Quickly, Steve said, ‘What about your children? Benjy, and Tom? They must be … missing her.’
‘Yes,’ Martin said. ‘They are.’
Steve said quietly, ‘We talked, you know. For a long time, before the wall collapsed. We talked about all kinds of things. She told me about you, and the children, and your house. About how she didn’t want to die, and leave you all.’
Martin put his hand up to his eyes and then rubbed them, digging into them with his fingers. He was stupid with exhaustion and relief, wasn’t he? ‘I know she would say that. Annie wouldn’t give up. She wouldn’t give up up there, either. In that room with all the machines.’
‘I’m glad.’ Lame words, again.
Martin stood up. ‘The boys are all right. It’s harder for Tom, because he knows she’s ill, and he can’t see her. They won’t let anyone go up there, except me.’
Steve felt the movement of jealousy again. He wanted Martin to go now, but he still hovered at the bedside.
‘What about you?’
Steve shrugged. ‘Broken leg and cuts and bruises. Nothing much.’
Martin was looking at the dimly-lit ward. ‘It isn’t much of a Christmas for you, either, is it? What about your family?’
‘I’m not married. It isn’t exactly my favourite time of year, in any case.’
Martin nodded. ‘Annie loves Christmas,’ he said. He did hold out his hand then. Steve took it and they shook hands.
Martin smiled. ‘I’d better go. The kids will be awake at five a.m.’
‘Go and get some sleep.’
‘Yes,’ Martin said. ‘I’ll be able to do that now.’
After he had gone Steve lay awake for a long time. He took the fact that Annie would recover and held it close to him like a talisman. He didn’t think beyond that.
The house was quiet when Martin reached it. His parents had already gone to bed, so he sat in the kitchen and drank another whisky. He thought about the other Christmases he had shared with Annie, and her pleasure in the rituals that must be observed every year. It was Annie who had sewn the big red felt stockings for the boys to hang up, and Martin knew that when he went upstairs he would find them draped expectantly over the ends of their beds.
If she had died …
The terror of it struck him all over again and he clenched his fist around the whisky glass.
But Annie wasn’t going to die. He was still afraid of her injuries, but he was sure that she was going to live.
He felt a moment of simple happiness. It was Christmas, and their children were asleep upstairs, and Annie was going to live.
He put his empty glass down and went to the boys’ rooms. He collected the red stockings, turning the covers back for an instant to look at the sleeping faces. Then he went into their own bedroom where Annie had stacked the presents neatly at the back of their big wardrobe. He took them out one by one and filled the stockings. He was touched and impressed by the care she had given to choosing even the smallest toys. It was so obvious which of the boys each of the things was intended for. He recognized how smoothly and lovingly Annie had orchestrated their simple, domestic affairs. Why had he never told her, or even really noticed it?
When he had finished he laid the bulging red shapes back on the beds. Then he carried their big presents downstairs and put them with the others under the tree.
The fairy lights made a glowing coloured pyramid in the dim room. Martin saw that on the hearth the boys had left a glass of whisky and a mince pie for Father Christmas, and a carrot, neatly peeled, for the reindeer.
That was always at Annie’s insistence. ‘Why shouldn’t the poor old reindeer get something?’ he heard her demanding.
It must have been Thomas who had reminded his grandmother to arrange the little offering tonight.
Martin was smiling as he poured the whisky back into the bottle. He ate the carrot and the mince pie, suddenly ravenous. He realized that he had eaten almost nothing since the bombing.
‘Come on, Father Christmas,’ Annie would have said now. ‘Let’s go to bed.’ He missed the warmth of her hand taking his, and the sweetness and familiarity of lying down beside her.
Martin turned off the tree lights and went upstairs. He would make this Christmas a happy one for the boys, however little he felt like it himself. For Annie’s sake.
The boys woke up very early in the morning, as Martin had known they would. First Benjy and then Thomas came creeping into his bed, the stockings bumping behind them.
‘Look!’ cried Benjy. ‘He’s been.’
‘Is it all right?’ Thomas whispered.
Martin lifted the covers and the two of them scrambled in beside him, a wriggling mass of sharp elbows.
‘Shh. Don’t wake your grandparents. Yes, Tom, it’s all right. Everything’s all right.’
‘Hey, Dad. Happy Christmas.’
He held them for the minute that they allowed him, and they listened breathlessly to the crackle and rustle inside the stockings.
‘Well, then,’ Martin said. ‘Aren’t you going to look and see what he’s brought you?’
They dived in in unison.
Martin watched, and then, even though he had done the filling what felt like less than an hour ago, their delight drew him into the excitement of unwrapping. For Benjy, who loved to draw and paint and make things, there were fat round fibre pens in fluorescent colours that fitted into his awkward fist, and scribbling pads with orange and black and purple pages, and colouring books. There were building bricks that snapped together with a satisfying click, and puzzles to colour and cut out himself.
For Thomas, quick-witted and pugnacious, there were pocket quiz games and a miniature robot. There were toys that could be changed into other toys by turning and flipping the right parts, and there was a model aeroplane to slot together that twisted unerringly back to the sender’s hand. For both of the boys there were the space-age death weapons that they coveted, and Martin heartily disapproved of. But he was too absorbed in the burrowing discoveries even to smile at the evidence of Annie’s principles succumbing to her soft heart.
At last the three of them sat back in a drift of discarded paper and packaging, glowing with pleasure.
‘How brilliant,’ Thomas observed, sitting back with a sigh of satisfaction. Then he remembered, and a shadow crossed his face. ‘I wish Mum was here.’
Martin put his arm around him. ‘She will be,’ he promised him, ‘before long. She was much better last night. I’ll be able to take you to see her soon.’
The shadow lifted.
‘And then I’ll be able to zap her with my new gamma gun.’
‘And I will,’ Benjy chipped in.
‘Go on,’ Martin said. ‘Zap into your own rooms. I’m going to make a cup of tea for Granny and Grandpa, and tell them about Mummy.’
He waded through the debris with the boys hopping and firing around him.
It’s all right, he reminded himself. It’s going to be all right.
He opened the curtains, and saw that the light was just breaking on Christmas morning.
Christmas