Four Christmases and a Secret. Zara Stoneley

Spoke too soon. Mum peers around me, as though I might actually have brought him and forgotten.

      ‘He had to cancel, I told you, things came up!’

      ‘Oh no. Such a disappointment.’ For a moment her face falls, then she chirps up. ‘Never mind, we’ll find you another nice young man. Sadie at Number 17 has a lovely son, he’s a dentist, always handy to know a good dentist! Don’t you think so, Terence?’

      ‘Far too boring for a bright young thing like our Daisy.’ Terence winks at me. ‘No hurry is there my dear? Get your career up and running before you go for all that nonsense, eh?’

      ‘Oh, my goodness, yes, we forgot to tell you.’ He’s now set Mum’s mind off in a new direction, which I’m not sure is a good thing. ‘Daisy has got another job!’ Terence raises an eyebrow. ‘She works for the Hunslip and Over Widgley Local Guardian, she’s in charge of promotions and marketing you know. They headhunted her, a proper job!’

      ‘Really?’ Uncle T whispers in my ear.

      ‘Small ads, not exactly proper.’ I whisper back, as my mother carries on regardless.

      ‘No?’ Uncle T studies me for a moment, then smiles. ‘Well, what is proper, my dear? What would you really like to do?’

      ‘I’m not quite sure yet.’ I scan the room and am quite relieved that Ollie seems to have disappeared from view. With any luck he’s gone home. It’s just so bloody embarrassing, the way my mother still keeps trying to throw us together when our lives have gone in totally opposite directions. Why on earth would the hugely successful Ollie, with his glamorous girlfriends and on-track life even want to talk to me, let alone father my babies?

      ‘Oh, she’ll soon be editor, won’t you Daisy!’ My mother has high expectations. Terence merely raises an eyebrow.

      ‘You can do whatever you want my dear, you know. You’re awfully clever, you always were such a bright girl.’ He pats my hand, then hands me the end of Stanley’s lead back. ‘And who needs a date, when you’ve got a dog?’

      ‘Exactly!’ I told you Uncle Terence was nice. Very nice.

      ‘Back in a jiffy, just going to stir the mulled wine dear girl, then I’ve got a gorgeous original edition to show you. Quite a find, a real gem, and I know you of all people will appreciate it!’ He winks.

      ‘Fab!’ I grin back at Uncle T.

      ‘Ollie has a proper date, you know!’ Mum nudges me in my ribs.

      ‘What a surprise.’ I mutter. Ollie has a date for every occasion apparently. How does he do it? Every year, according to my mother and Vera, Ollie flaming Cartwright has a different woman in tow.

      ‘Vera thinks he might even marry this one!’

      I frown. This raises the stakes as far as my mother is concerned.

      ‘Such a shame you two couldn’t get together, we were so sure you’d get on well when you were little, your first kiss!’ She’s gone a bit swoony. ‘I hope you haven’t missed your chance!’

      I admit it. Ollie and I have snogged more than once, it wasn’t just that drunken fumble under the mistletoe thirteen years ago.

      He kissed me when we were six years old, when he was Joseph to my Mary in the Nativity at the village hall – egged on I think by our mothers. Honestly, what kind of parents encourage that kind of behaviour in innocent children? So, I battered him with the baby Jesus. A plastic version, obviously. I hit him pretty hard, though to give him his due he didn’t cry or hit me back, but he shouldn’t have kissed me.

      He didn’t try again for another 12 years.

      He was a pain in the backside when we were kids. He once pulled my bathing suit down and tried to drown me when we were semi-naked in his paddling pool (‘Just playing, how sweet,’ said Mum), then progressed to blowing out my birthday cake candles before I could (‘Hilarious,’ said his mum).

      These days he is even more of a pain, though at least I haven’t actually had to see him in person. Well, until now. When Frankie spotted him across the crowded room and pointed out that not only is he successful, rich and has his life in order – he is also a tiny bit dishy. How did that happen?

      Ollie passed all his exams, attended the medical school at Oxford University and is hugely successful and well thought of (according to my mother). He is very serious and always has an attractive, clever girlfriend with him whenever he comes home (according to his own mother – who then passes the information on to my mother).

      I, on the other hand, buggered up my exams, did a rubbish degree at a university I’d only heard of through Clearing, still live within the same postcode we were brought up in, lost my job at the local vets after behaving irresponsibly with a scalpel when they tried to euthanise an incontinent cat (I think threatening to report me for GBH if I didn’t leave the building immediately was a bit OTT though), and so foster rescue dogs and have just managed to get a pretty naff job on the local rag.

      How can my mother possibly still think we’re compatible when he’s everything I’m not? Have it all Ollie pleases his parents, is smart, has a life plan, a partner, but absolutely no sense of humour (from what I have observed), whereas I have no idea what I’ll be doing tomorrow, let alone in five years’ time.

      ‘You were such happy, chubby, little things.’

      ‘We were toddlers, Mum. Toddlers are always fat and happy.’

      ‘Well, you’re not now, are you! You need to do an egg timer test.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘I was reading all about them when I was having my car serviced, they have a wonderful set of magazines in there you know! Not just about cars, although there were car ones as well for your father, and a golf one.’

      ‘Why do I need to do an egg timer test?’

      ‘To see how much longer you’ve got before they go off dear! Then you can decide if it’s worth freezing a pack for future use.’ She pats my hand. ‘I mean, now Ollie is off the market.’

      ‘Mum,’ I sigh. ‘Ollie was your fantasy, not mine.’ Well, he was my fantasy for one brief night after that snog. Well, maybe several nights if I’m honest. But that was all. I mean, at eighteen it doesn’t always take much does it? ‘There are other men, and anyway, I might not want one.’

      ‘Not want a man?’ She frowns. ‘Oh my! That explains everything! You’re a lesbian! Oh, darling, why didn’t you say?’ She hugs me. ‘Everybody loves a lesbian these days.’

      ‘No, I’m not.’ I struggle free.

      ‘How exciting! Is it that Frankie girl?’ She frowns. ‘Is she bi? She’s still bothering Ollie, you know!’

      ‘No, Mum, she’s not, she’s straight, she’s got a boyfriend and I—’

      ‘And you can get a sperm donor these days, you can be Mummy and Mum, or Ma, or Mom!’

      ‘Mum, stop!’ I lower my voice to a hiss, as everybody else has stopped talking – just not her. ‘I am not a lesbian, but I still might not want to get married, and I might not want a baby!’

      ‘Oh rubbish.’ She shakes her head. ‘Of course, you want a baby. And you need one while I’m still young enough to push a pram, and your dad can still play football with him!’

      We seem to have made a massive jump here, from egg testing to kids hurtling round the garden kicking a ball. There also seems to be an assumption on sex. ‘What if it’s a girl?’ I say, which I shouldn’t have done because it suggests there might be a child in my not so distant future.

      ‘They play, too! Honestly, I thought you youngsters understood all about equal opportunities, you kicked a ball around at school, you know! I mean, you weren’t exactly George Best, but …’

      I’m