A Christmas Gift. Sue Moorcroft

her out of the Bankside estate where Great Hill Road joined Main Road. A few strides from the village pub, her footsteps slowed. Last time she’d spoken to Rich Garrit she’d been struggling to hold back hurt tears and he and his scruffy mates had been hooting with laughter at her. OK, they’d been fourteen, but it had felt like a betrayal because Georgine had stuck up for Rich when others had poked fun at him and said unkind things. They hadn’t been ‘seeing each other’, but they’d done art, drama and music together and their friendship had seemed enough for them both. Once away from his braying mates he’d dropped his naughty-boy persona and shown his intelligence, discussing unexpected subjects like karma and whether good people really did return to more enjoyable lives, as a TV programme about Buddhism had said.

      Though the intervening years had been enough for her to shuck off a schoolyard gripe, Rich Garrit had once proved himself to be unreliable.

      His reappearance with a completely different name didn’t encourage her to trust him now.

      She crossed the road towards The Three Fishes. Built of the local russet-coloured stone and presently festooned with a blinding cat’s cradle of Christmas lights, it was at the heart of Middledip both literally and figuratively. M.A.R. Motors, Booze & News and the Angel Community Café were all a short walk away down Main Road. Nearby stood the playing fields and the village hall. The latter was currently closed and rather than its own Christmas decorations sparkling from its windows, a car park full of building machinery and skips indicated that work had begun on replacing the roof.

      The wind more or less blew Georgine in through the door of The Three Fishes, bringing her to the attention of the landlord behind the polished wooden bar. Known in Middledip as ‘Tubb from the pub’, opinion was divided as to whether or not his sometimes-uncertain temper hid a heart of gold, but you certainly didn’t get through the door to his pub – in either direction – without him noticing. ‘Evening,’ he said, his eyes flitting over his bar as if wondering what Georgine would buy.

      When the France family had lived in The Gatehouse, a three-storey stone property near The Cross, they hadn’t frequented The Three Fishes much. Randall had been a member of Bettsbrough Golf Club and their mum, Barbara, of Port Manor Hotel’s country club, and one of those polished establishments had usually won the France family’s custom. Tubb never seemed to hold that against Georgine.

      She was the only member of her family remaining in the village – not counting Blair, who was really just using Middledip as a safe harbour while she recovered from her most recent emotional storm. Randall’s assisted living flat was in Bettsbrough and Barbara flitted between a big house on a beach in Northumberland and a big house in the hills of central France.

      Not put off by Tubb’s boot-face, Georgine shoved back her hood and offered him a friendly grin. ‘Phew, blowing a hooley out there.’ Unwinding her long aubergine scarf she swapped greetings with a few villagers she knew then, unzipping her coat, glanced about the busy bar for Joe.

      Rich.

      Whoever the hell he was.

      Then she glimpsed him. He’d bagged a table by the fire and was lounging in a chair and watching the goings on of the pub through his specs with a half smile. His dark grey jeans and leather cowboy boots looked expensive, as did the thick black jacket lying over a nearby chair.

      She weaved her way towards him, the boots making her think roadies must be ‘music biz’ enough to dress a bit alternatively. When he noticed her, he rose, giving her the smile that now she recognised perfectly clearly from the days it had flashed from the face of the boy who’d been the class joker. ‘Well, howdy, Mizz Jaw-Jean.’

      The delivery of the well-worn joke was deadpan, but his eyes laughed. Despite having spent the afternoon brooding on why he hadn’t mentioned their old connection as soon as he recognised her, Georgine felt the corners of her mouth twitch. It was reassuring to be reminded of his clowning, the days when Rich would try to make her giggle in class. Once he’d pretended to take out his eyeballs to polish them. Next time he’d opened his eyelids he’d been cross-eyed, as if he’d replaced them in the wrong sockets. She’d had to look away to prevent herself from laughing out loud. Pretending had been OK then.

      But now?

      ‘Hello …’ She hesitated.

      ‘Joe,’ he finished for her. ‘What can I get you?’

      ‘A glass of chardonnay, please.’

      While he went to the bar she took a seat, noticing a couple of the younger Acting Instrumental students in a coterie of teenagers in the corner. All had soft drinks on their table. Tubb knew better than to serve the underage youth with alcohol. Apart from the threat to his licence, their parents, aunts and uncles could well be knocking back a merlot somewhere in the pub.

      On the bar, tiny white lights sparkled on a small Christmas tree – Tubb wouldn’t waste space he could fill with customers by putting up a larger, floor-standing tree – and a colourful range of notices about Christmas raffles and hampers was tacked to the wooden posts around the bar.

      Georgine combed her hair with her fingers before flicking it back over her shoulders.

      When she looked up, Joe was watching her. Then Janice the barmaid arrived to serve him. ‘Yes, duck, what can I get you?’ she said, and he turned to give his order.

      When he rejoined Georgine, he placed the drinks on the table as he took his seat. She became uncomfortably aware of her heartbeat. The time had come to hear what he had to say, and there was a part of her that didn’t want to. It was unsettling that he’d had the opportunity to observe her and absorb the memories of twenty years ago, while she hadn’t recognised him at all.

      She took a sip of wine, unwilling to be the one to start the conversation.

      Joe’s own drink was fruit juice and he took a long draught of it, then rubbed his palms down his jeans. ‘I’ve been obsessing over where to start. Or even how much you want to know. I’m sorry I wasn’t transparent with you.’

      Georgine nodded.

      He glanced around. ‘I’m not sure this is the right venue for this conversation. I suppose I thought a village pub on a weeknight would have a quiet corner.’

      She said nothing. The only quieter venue within easy reach was her home, and she was not going to invite him there. Blair might be in by now, and anyway, home was her safe place.

      Joe cleared his throat as her silence continued. ‘OK. I’ll approach this as chronologically as I can. There are still things I don’t know and probably never will.’ He took another gulp from his drink. ‘I was born John Joseph Blackthorn.’

      Georgine felt her eyebrows flip up. She’d presumed the name she’d known him under to be his birth name and that Joe Blackthorn was an identity he’d assumed, the reasons behind which had been at the heart of her unease today.

      He gave a small, wry smile. ‘Yes, it’s my real name. My mother called me Johnjoe and sometimes it got shortened to Joe. I don’t remember my father, Tim Blackthorn. He died when I was two. They’d taken me to a beach on the east coast and he’d had a few beers. He went for a swim, got caught in a current and drowned.’

      Georgine felt a shiver run through her, not just of compassion for such a tiny tot losing his dad but because he’d never told her such significant things about his life. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

      He gave a low laugh. ‘I didn’t know about my dad myself for ages. For the few years before he died, he didn’t speak to his upper middle-class parents. They’d made their feelings known when Dad, a student at Cambridge, took up with Mum, an under-educated local girl with the wrong accent, who, in their opinion, encouraged him to drink too much and work too little.’

      ‘Were they harsh?’ Despite her earlier reservations, Georgine was beginning to get caught up in the story.

      Joe sipped his fruit juice and shrugged. ‘I think my parents were as bad as each other. They moved in together and Dad flunked out of uni in his second year. I came