Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterson

Author:Jeanette Winterson
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2016-12-16T16:00:00+00:00

THE SECOND-BEST BED

re there things that cannot be explained?

And if there are, how do we explain them?

My closest friend, Amy, left the city this summer to live three hours out of town in a rambling old house that had no heating.

She and her husband, Ross, want to have children. Ross is ten years older than Amy; he had his own place and a good IT business when they married, and his dream has always been to bring up his kids in the country – the way he was brought up.

Amy’s a midwife, and the local hospital is glad to have her. Ross can mostly work from home as long as he has a satellite connection and, while Amy has been fixing up the house, the summer for him has been about installing the mast.

By Christmas-time, they were ready for guests and parties, and so I packed up my car and set off. I was glad to go. My own relationship hasn’t worked out so well. I know Amy hopes something will happen between me and Ross’s younger brother, Tom. I’ve met Tom and I think he’s gay.

I was the last to arrive. Directions aren’t my USP, and my car is too old and too cheap to have a navigation system. The twisty, frosty roads didn’t leave any scope for speed, and I had to slow down at every junction to follow the printed-out route on the passenger seat.

When I finally reached the house, Amy was pulling dinner out of the oven, so Ross showed me upstairs to dump my bags and freshen up.

‘We’ve put you in this room. We call it the Second-Best Bed. Ours is the master bedroom, just down the hall. I’ve put the boys on the next landing, out of our way.’

The room was big and square with a bay window overlooking the rear of the house. It was warm and well-lit, with a fluffy rug on the polished wood floor and a desk under the window. The bed was a four-poster.

‘The bed came with the house,’ said Ross. ‘Been here since 1840, so I’m told. We bought a new mattress, don’t worry.’

A gong sounded downstairs. ‘That came with the house too,’ said Ross. ‘She loves it.’

He left me while I washed my face, brushed my hair and put on a lighter shirt. It was almost hot in here. Not what I expected from a country house. I looked round the room and smiled. I was being looked after. I started to relax after the drive.

At dinner Tom and Sean hugged me and wanted all the news. Tom works in TV, and Sean is Amy’s college brother studying to be a doctor. Their whole family is medical. Amy didn’t go down the doctoring route – not because she isn’t smart, but because she loves so much of life. She’s a potter and a cook and she wants to be a mum, and she knows, because she’s seen both her parents do it, how much of you it takes to be a good doctor.

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