29
So we get what we want for Christmas after all… the chance to stay in Liverpool. It’s still just a chance, because jobs don’t always work out, of course, but it’s enough to wipe the sad, grey shadows and worry lines clean off Dad’s face.
Mum is so excited she phones Karen and asks if she really meant it, about the cafe job. The answer is yes, and she whirls the three of us round and round the flat, laughing, whooping, crying. We wrap up warm and go out into the swirling snow, to Midnight Mass at St Peter and Paul’s. The church is packed. Everyone sings ‘Silent Night’, and afterwards we see Frankie and her mum in the porch, and Tomasz and Stefan and even Lily Caldwell.
She catches my eye as everyone files out of church, and I remember what Frankie said and can’t find it in me to hate her, not any more. At Christmas, like Dad says, you put old grudges behind you. I smile, because it’s Christmas, and because we’re not going back to Krakow after all, not yet anyway. Lily blinks and drags up a wobbly smile of her own, and wishes me Happy Christmas, which is a miracle in itself.
‘We get to stay after all,’ Kazia says, as we shiver into pyjamas. ‘And Dad will be in charge of Santa’s workshop!’
I open my mouth to correct her, but you know what? The guy does look like Santa, and he even works as Santa now and again, and the workshop makes beautiful wooden toys, so… well, I guess she has it right, pretty much.
When I wake, the room is pitch dark, and I can hear Kazia’s breathing, soft and rhythmic.
I hear a soft, dull thud against the window pane, and I slide out of bed and pull the stringy curtains aside. A snowball slides slowly down the glass, landing in a heap on the outside window sill. The world is bright and clean and perfect, swathed in white, and leaning against the lamp post across the street is a boy with dark braids and slanting cheekbones.
I pull on my boots, wriggle into a jumper and creep out across the living room, past the tree and the glinting szopka castle. I take my coat from the stand, pull on gloves and hat and scarf, run down the stairs and out into the snow.
Dan looks up, his face shining in the lamplight, and suddenly I’m shy, tongue-tied, nervous. The last time I saw Dan I yelled at him, said stuff I really, really wish I hadn’t. And now I can’t help wondering if things will ever be the same between us.
‘Hey,’ Dan says. ‘No pink fluffy slippers tonight?’
‘No angel wings?’ I counter.
‘No. I’m gonna be myself from now on, I guess.’ He walks towards me, making fresh tracks in the glinting snow. His melted chocolate eyes are sad, and I know that’s partly my fault. I want to run into his arms, hold him tight, but I’m scared… scared I’ve spoiled it all.
Then Dan wraps his arms round me, and I can breathe again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says into my hair. ‘I’m so sorry, Anya.’
‘I know,’ I tell him. ‘Oh, Dan, I’m sorry too!’ And that’s it, sorted, as simple as that. I don’t tell him about what’s been happening for my family, how close we came to going back to Krakow… not yet. I’ll explain all that later. Right now, I just want to enjoy being with Dan, properly, without any of that stuff to complicate things.
We walk to the park. Snow has made the world brand new, covering up the dirt and litter with a thick blanket of white. The park is a magical landscape, familiar but other-worldly, a place where anything seems possible.
‘I’m not like my dad,’ Dan says quietly.
‘I know,’ I tell him. ‘I was upset, angry – trying to hurt you.’
‘It really didn’t mean anything,’ Dan goes on. ‘The kiss. Lily jumped me, just about. I thought one friendly dance would be OK, but she had other ideas…’
‘Lily will always have other ideas, when it comes to you,’ I sigh.
‘Maybe,’ Dan huffs. ‘But those are her ideas, Anya, not mine. It lasted about a split second. Then I pulled away, and all I could see was you, running away from me, pushing through the crowd…’
‘I was angry.’
‘I know. I’d have been furious. But, Anya, it’s you I like – you I want to be with. You’re… well, y’know. My girl.’
I know that now. I know it because Dan’s hand is tight around mine, and he’s here with me in the snow, in the dark, on Christmas morning, and that’s the best present I will ever have.
‘What did you do, after we argued?’ I ask.
Dan sighs. ‘I walked for hours, all around town, trying to get things straight in my head. I was hurt and angry – with Lily, for her stupid trick, and with you, for not trusting me. But I felt guilty too, because I knew I kind of deserved it, and I didn’t want to be like Dad, I really, really didn’t.’
We walk right down to the edge of the lake.
‘I got it into my head that I should talk to Dad,’ Dan says. ‘I’d messed up with him, messed up with you – and it all got tangled up in my head. I wanted to put at least one thing right, and Dad seemed the easiest option. I went to Lime Street Station, but the last train to Manchester had gone. I found an all-night cafe and sat up drinking coffee and planning what I’d say to him, how I’d make him come back. I sat in the cafe all night and caught the first train to Manchester in the morning. By the time I got there, I had no money left, so I had to walk. It was miles and miles, and I got lost a few times, but in the end I found him…’
I think of Karen Carney, sitting at our kitchen table, her face grey with worry. I think of Frankie, Kurt and me, working like crazy at the cafe so we wouldn’t have time to think, to let in the fears about what might have happened to Dan.
‘We were so worried, Dan,’ I tell him. ‘So scared.’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight. It was only when I saw the police at Dad’s that I realized just what I’d done, how worried sick everyone must be.’
He leans down to scoop up a handful of snow, packing it into a snowball. ‘Make a snowman with me?’ he asks.
The two of us roll the little snowball along the ground, gathering snow, laughing, watching it get bigger and bigger.
‘We talked, anyway,’ Dan says. ‘Dad and me. We talked all afternoon, once the police had gone. About why things went wrong, how he fell for somebody new… I understand it better now. He was never going to come back. I was just kidding myself I could fix everything up, turn us back into a happy family again.’
‘It’s not so simple,’ I say.
The snowball is waist high now, and we push it to a halt beside the lake, building it higher and higher.
‘Not simple at all,’ Dan says. ‘I see that now. Dad didn’t plan to let us down, didn’t plan to fall out of love with Mum. You can’t choose who you fall for, can you?’
I bite my lip. ‘Suppose not.’
I make a smaller snowball, fixing it on to the body of the snowman while Dan hunts for pebbles and stones for eyes.
‘The snow’s too thick,’ he frowns. ‘I can’t find anything. Oh, hang on…’ He finds a half-eaten packet of Rolos in his pocket and presses them into the white snow to make eyes, a smiling mouth, coat buttons.
‘I’m still angry at Dad,’ Dan sighs. ‘It doesn’t just go away overnight, but… well, he still loves me and Ben and Nate.’ Dan takes off his scarf and winds it round the snowman’s neck.
‘Running away wasn’t the answer,’ he says. ‘You can’t run from the truth, can you? Staying put and making the best of what you have is better, right?’
‘Right,’ I say, thinking of our chance to stay in Liverpool, and how it means settling for something that wasn’t quite our dream. It still seems like the right thing to do, though.
‘I caused Mum almost as much trouble as Dad did,’ Dan reflects. ‘Skiving school, getting into trouble. I’m going to change, Anya. Grow up, make a go of things, like you said.’
‘I’ll help you,’ I tell him. ‘Promise.’
‘It’s a deal!’
We give the snowman some branches for arms and stand back, admiring our creation. ‘He’s cool,’ Dan pronounces, forming another snowball, packing it tight.
‘Cool, yes,’ I agree. ‘What’s the snowball for?’
Dan’s eyes twinkle. ‘Can’t you guess?’
I run then, floundering through the thick snow, the eerie darkness, skidding and slipping and laughing, but the snowball hits me on the shoulder and I stop, gathering up ammunition of my own. I have more experience of snowball fights than Dan, experience gained from a long childhood of white winters back in Krakow, of snowballs thrown in the school playground, snow wars that could divide a class. I pelt Dan until he’s begging for mercy, until he catches me, whirling me round and round in the snow, and kisses me. His caramel skin is icy cold against my cheek, but his lips are warm. The kiss is the way I remember, soft and sweet and lingering, but this time it means a whole lot more. It’s a kiss that says we know each other, need each other, believe in each other.
‘I don’t want to lose you,’ he whispers into my hair. ‘You’re the best thing in my life, Anya, you know that?’
I’ve never been anybody’s best thing before, except maybe Mum and Dad’s, and that’s a position I have to share with Kazia, of course.
‘In my life, you’re the best thing too,’ I whisper, and I know that it’s true.
‘Have you ever made a snow angel?’ Dan asks.
‘Snow… angel?’
He lets himself fall backwards into the snow, laughing, lying flat out, his arms windmilling up and down. ‘Come on! Try it!’
I flop down beside him, the jolt of cold making me squeal. ‘Dan!’ I yelp. ‘We could freeze to death!’ Snow sticks to my pyjama legs, creeps in like an icy finger between my scarf and my collar.
‘Fun, though,’ Dan tells me. ‘No cheating. Now, move your arms up and down… push at the snow…’
I look up at the sky, streaked now with violet and gold, and I take a deep breath in and reach for Dan’s fingers. They wrap around mine, holding tight.
When we stand up, brushing off the snow, shivering, there in the snow is an impression of two bodies with wings. Snow angels.
Dan looks down at them. ‘I’m not an angel,’ he says. ‘I’m just me, OK?’
‘I know.’
‘Happy Christmas, Anya…’
Snowflakes drift down around us as we walk back towards the flat, hand in hand, our faces turned up to the lightening sky.