Santa Maybe Read online

‘So you, fatherly, gentle, lovely Father Christmas goes out on drinking binges?’ Amy asked and he shrugged and winked at her.

  ‘Listen, if I wasn’t naughty every once in a while, how would I know the difference?’

  ‘So?’ Amy asked. ‘When is he coming? My husband-to-be. I mean, it happens here, right – the proposal? Although I must admit a dank cold midwinter night isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I dreamt of this moment.’

  ‘It happens here,’ Santa said, ‘but obviously not at this precise moment. I wouldn’t let you marry a man who dragged you out in the middle of the night to propose to you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’ Amy asked intrigued. ‘I didn’t know that deciding who a girl could marry was in your remit, along with the toy making and ho, ho, ho-ing.’

  ‘I don’t make the toys,’ Santa said firmly. ‘The elves make the toys and I never, EVER ho bloody ho ho ho.’

  Amy smiled. It was interesting to see Santa rattled, and she couldn’t be sure, what with it being dark and dank and murky, but she thought he might be blushing. Perhaps he was just a man after all.

  ‘So how do I see into my future if I’m not even in the right time?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Like this.’ He snapped his fingers and, in an instant, Amy found herself standing in the blazing summer sunshine, surrounded by a throng of tourists, the dark, dangerous city transformed into a jewel, sparkling in the sun.

  ‘Oh wow,’ she gasped. ‘Venice is stunning!’

  ‘A beautiful city for a beautiful girl,’ Santa said, adding hurriedly as Amy smiled at him, ‘is what your future boyfriend will say.’

  ‘Does he propose to me in this elf costume?’ Amy asked dismayed, looking down at her pointy shoes. ‘Only I would have thought, what with you being Santa, that you could have stretched to natural fabrics.’

  ‘We’ve got the global economic crisis in Lapland too, you know. But no. You are wearing this.’

  All at once Amy was wearing a red cotton sun dress with spaghetti straps and a full red skirt that she just knew would flare out most pleasingly if she did a twirl. And instead of those awful pixie boots her feet were now shoed into lovely gold leather sandals.

  ‘Oh, Santa,’ she said, ‘you have great taste in clothes.’

  ‘Not me,’ Santa said. ‘You do. You look beautiful. And I have to admit I normally prefer my women in elf costumes.’

  ‘Are you flirting with me?’ Amy asked, forgetting for a moment that she was waiting for her future husband.

  ‘No, Amy, I’m Santa,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘I don’t flirt. It’s very much against the rules.’

  ‘Well.’ Amy took a deep breath. ‘I’m ready, I’m ready to meet the love of my life.’

  ‘And I’m here,’ Santa said with a shrug and dropped to one knee.

  ‘What? What?’ Amy cried. ‘Hold on! Time out!’

  The dark descended in an instant, and they were standing once again in the damp December Venetian night. Or at least Amy was, Santa was kneeling in a puddle.

  ‘You propose to me?’ Amy asked, finding her heart racing at the thought. ‘You!’

  ‘No, not me, not exactly,’ Santa said. ‘But for now I’m going to do the job of stand-in. It would be against at least three, no four, laws of the universe if I let you see the face of the man that proposes to you on this bridge. If you knew who he was now, you might do something stupid, like try to avoid that rebound fling that gets you through February, or decide to track him down before you are destined to meet. And that, my darling, would be a disaster.’

  ‘But if I can’t see his face, if I don’t know who he is or if I love him, how will I know if he’s my Christmas wish? My someone to love?’

  ‘You’ll know,’ Santa said. ‘Remember, listen to your heart. The sensible part, not the part that told you to buy those purple high heels in the sale even though you have nothing to go with them.’

  ‘I’m going to buy a dress to match,’ Amy protested.

  ‘Which is why your credit card bill could pay off the Greek national debt,’ Santa said.

  ‘Anyway, I don’t see how this can work,’ Amy said. ‘How will I know how I feel about him if I’m looking at you.’

  ‘Trust me,’ he said, bringing the sunshine back with a click of a finger. ‘I’m Santa.’

  The sun beat down on the back of her neck once again and Amy bit her lip as Santa, still down on one knee, took her hand in his. She felt a curious thrill at his touch, her heart beating furiously as he looked up into her eyes.

  ‘I’ve never met a woman like you before,’ Santa told her. ‘Not one as funny, and clever, and silly and with such a ridiculous collection of shoes. I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you and I know now that I don’t want to go through the rest of time unless you are by my side. Amy Tucker, will you marry me?’

  But before Amy could answer, Santa dropped her hand and sprung to his feet.

  ‘Anyway, that’s what he says,’ he told her grumpily. ‘And then he kisses you.’

  ‘Kisses me, before I answer? Why?’

  ‘I don’t know why,’ he snapped. ‘Maybe he’s worried you’ll say no, and thinks that maybe he can kiss you into submission.’

  ‘Do I say no or yes?’ Amy asked, clearly confused.

  Santa looked at her sideways, clearly very irritated by something. ‘Oh well.’ He sighed. ‘If I must.’

  Before she knew what was happening he had taken her in his arms and was kissing her. And all Amy could think of as he crushed her against his manly chest was that she never expected Santa to have a six-pack. That was until, without realising what she was doing, Amy wound her arms around his neck and found herself kissing him back, insistently, passionately and with the kind of desire that she had never felt with Gavin.

  ‘No,’ Amy whispered, as Santa finally broke the kiss, setting her steady on her feet before releasing her from his arms. ‘I say no.’

  ‘You do?’ Santa asked. ‘I mean yes, you do. You do say no. That is what happens.’

  ‘Which is odd, because that was seriously the best kiss that I have ever had in my life.’

  ‘I am a very good kisser,’ Santa conceded. ‘Maybe a little too good. You didn’t say no because, you know, I’m super hot and you’ve got a crush on me, did you?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh. Well…good.’

  ‘I said no because even though my body wanted it, my heart, the sensible non-shoe-buying bit, said no. It said that this man, whoever he is, isn’t the one that I have always loved. Always loved but not known it until this moment…’

  ‘And who is that?’ Santa asked.

  ‘I haven’t got a flipping clue,’ Amy said. ‘But I do know where we need to go next.’

  ‘Do tell,’ Santa said, with studied disinterest.

  ‘We need to go to New York!’

  Santa grinned and took her hand. ‘Now you’re talking, oh, and before I forget, time to get you back in that sexy little elfish number.’

  5. Where Music and Passion Are Always the Fashion

  ‘NEW YORK, NEW York,’ Santa said as he brought Rudolph, and the other reindeer, to a stop on the flat roof of a low building of about five storeys. ‘The city that never sleeps.’

  ‘Any more song lyrics you want to quote?’ Amy asked happily. They had made the journey across the Atlantic in a matter of minutes, Amy with her arm tucked through Santa’s, her head resting on his shoulder. If this was a dream it was one of the best she had ever had. Even in her sleep she’d managed to get proposed to, thoroughly kissed, finally got Gavin out of her head and, best of all, she felt happier than she had done in ages. It didn’t hurt that her own personal Santa bore a strong resemblance to George Clooney, either.

  Santa offered her his hand to help her out of the carriage and Amy skipped out, bounded over to the edge of the roof and looked out across New York.

  ‘It doesn’t look quite how I imagined it,’ Amy said, gazing at the panoramic view of iconic skyscrapers. ‘Where’s all t
he mirrored glass?’

  ‘A couple of decades away,’ Santa said. ‘This is Christmas Eve, New York 1956, and you and I are going clubbing.’

  ‘Nineteen fifty-six?’ Amy peered down at the street below where yellow taxis streamed back and forth. Her knowledge of cars pretty much ended at what colour they were, but she knew one thing, these were old cars, vintage cars, 1950s yellow taxis.

  ‘But hang on though,’ Amy said turning to find Santa watching her with his arms crossed and a curiously intense look in his eyes that she found rather disconcerting. ‘I wasn’t even nearly born in 1956. What can I learn about myself, my Christmas wish, here?’

  ‘How to have fun,’ Santa said, taking a step towards her. ‘I’ll admit, this isn’t strictly the way I should be doing it. We should probably be peering in a window, watching some other murky and depressing episode of your life so that you can see where you went wrong, but when I think about it, your main problem is you just don’t know how to have a laugh.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Amy exclaimed. ‘I was out until eleven last night. And I got fairly drunk!’

  ‘Tonight,’ Santa said, ‘I’m going to show you what fun is really about. Down there is East 60th Street and we’re going to the world’s most swingingest club, the Copacabana. My old buddies Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis are on tonight, and there’s a rumour Frank might do a guest spot if we’re lucky.’

  ‘Don’t you know? This is the past after all?’

  ‘See? You don’t know how to have fun. Anticipation, Amy, is always half the fun. Now, what to wear…’

  Santa spun around in a red blur and when he came to a stand-still he was wearing a sharp grey suit, cut with precision to show off his broad shoulders and narrow waist. His outfit came complete with a trilby which tilted jauntily on his head.

  ‘Wow,’ Amy said a little breathless. ‘You are gorgeous. That’s how I know this is a dream. Only a woman who hasn’t had sex in three years would dream about a gorgeous Santa.’

  ‘Three and half years. And now for you.’ Santa clicked his fingers.

  Amy looked down and found herself wearing a figure-hugging emerald green strapless pencil-skirted dress, with a split that ran to her mid-thigh and a corset that was constructed in such a way that it boosted her assets quite considerably. Her feet were shoed in black satin high heels and her legs in fishnet stockings that had a seam that went all the way up the back.

  ‘Hmmm,’ Santa said. ‘I’m going to have to work quite hard to keep Dean off you. You look very… very…nice. Green brings out your eyes.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Amy asked out of the blue, confused and excited by the way he looked at her. ‘Who are you, really? I mean, let’s just say this isn’t a dream and I am actually on a time-travelling trip around the world with you. You can’t be Santa. Santa doesn’t wear sharp suits or dress girls in tight green dresses so they can go clubbing, like some sort of magical Gok Wan. And he certainly doesn’t call them babe or kiss them. So who are you really, what do you want?’

  Santa dropped his head, taking a couple of steps forward so that he was standing very close to Amy. He took her fingers in one hand and with the other, tilted her face up so that she was looking into his eyes.

  ‘What I want,’ Santa said softly, ‘isn’t important. It never is. Santa doesn’t get a Christmas list, he doesn’t get presents under the tree or wishes that come true. It’s his job to make those things happen for everybody else, year after year, century after century, even after they’ve stopped believing in him and insist on harping on about how he can’t possibly be real, which frankly is a little bit hurtful considering that we’ve actually travelled through time and I’ve just dressed you in a Christian Dior gown. Think about it, Amy, if this isn’t a dream. If this is real, then who else in the world can I be but Santa?’

  She gazed into those quicksilver eyes, resisting the urge to run the palm of her hand along his stubbly cheek.

  ‘Are you going to kiss me again?’ she asked.

  Santa shook his head and took a brief step away. ‘No, I shouldn’t have last time really, it’s against the rules.’

  ‘But you’re Santa, don’t you make the rules?’ Amy asked. ‘I mean, isn’t it sort of against the rules that we’re in 1956, about to go dancing? And anyway who would know? You haven’t even got your suit on.’

  Santa grinned at her. ‘Why, Amy Tucker, it turns out that you are really rather minxy when you want to be.’

  ‘You bring it out in me.’ Amy smiled. ‘It’s quite good fun, actually.’

  ‘Good, then that means my plan is working and you are one step closer to realising how to find that someone to love. And that’s why I can’t kiss you again, Amy, because whoever that someone is, it won’t be me. It can’t be. You’ve spent three years pining over Gavin, I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life pining over me.’

  ‘Jeez, get you. I was talking about a quick snog, not a meeting of souls.’ Amy giggled. ‘And anyway, the way you’re looking at me right now, I don’t think I’d be the one doing the pining.’

  ‘A little less conversation, a little more action,’ Santa said, smiling ruefully. ‘You and I need a distraction from all the sexual tension round here. Come on, babe, I’m taking you dancing.’

  6. So Good They Named it Twice

  WHAT SURPRISED AMY most about dancing with Santa at the Copacabana on Christmas Eve 1956 was not her opulent and glamorous surroundings, nor the excess of beautifully dressed and really quite drunk people, many of whom she’d only ever seen on the silver screen before, or indeed the fact that everyone smoked with joyous abandon. No, it was that Santa turned out to be an excellent dancer, and as long as he was holding her hand, so was she.

  As the music swung, the big band giving it all they’d got, the house singer drove the crowd to a frenzy and for the first time in her life, Amy felt like she was really where it was at. That she was, at that precise moment in the whole of the space-time continuum, in one spot where it, whatever ‘it’ was, was really happening.

  ‘Oh, I need to sit down,’ she told Santa, her eyes glittering with laughter, after their fourth dance in a row. ‘Please? Unlike you, I am only human, after all.’

  ‘Come on then, lightweight,’ Santa said. ‘Let’s go and have a drink with Dean. Just don’t look him directly in the eye, otherwise he will seduce you.’

  Amy laughed as Santa led her over to a table where a very handsome Italian-looking man surrounded by a bevy of beauties was sitting. He was accompanied by a less striking but equally popular smaller man with a squeaky voice. Seating herself on the periphery of the group, Amy watched fascinated as Santa made small talk with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, neatly deflecting the barrage of false eyelashes that were frantically batting at him from the admiring ladies all around him.

  ‘So who’s the dame?’ Dean Martin asked, nodding at Amy. ‘You normally come stag.’

  ‘This year’s Christmas Wish Project,’ Santa said, winking at Amy. ‘I’m trying to teach her how to have a little fun, lighten up, let love in.’

  ‘She can let my love in any time,’ Jerry said, drawing a dark look from Santa.

  ‘Let’s get another round of drinks in,’ Dean said, clicking his fingers to summon over a waitress.

  Amy reached over and tugged Santa’s sleeve. He leaned close to her as she whispered in his ear. ‘I need the loo. It turns out that even on magical mystery tours through space and time you still need to pee.’

  Santa smiled, and rolled his eyes. ‘For your next lesson I’m going to take you to the court of Queen Victoria where you can learn to be a lady. It’s over there.’

  *

  As Amy looked into the gilt-edged mirror in the restroom, it was the first time she’d had a second alone to reflect on everything that had happened so far. It didn’t seem real, it couldn’t be real, and yet nothing in her life had ever felt as real as this before. Being with Santa was like really being alive, which was crazy because as much as she was loving the wh
ole experience, she wasn’t really living life on the edge, larging it up with Hollywood legends in 1956. She was fast asleep, alone in her bed in Peckham, and probably snoring. Gavin always said she was a terrible snorer.

  ‘Hey, do you have a lipstick I could borrow?’ A platinum blonde appeared by her side, dressed in a plunging silver sequined cocktail dress. ‘The shade you’re wearing is much more me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t, I—’ Amy turned to look at the woman and faltered to a stop. ‘Marilyn!’

  ‘Shhh!’ Marilyn’s eyes widened as she pressed a finger to her lips. ‘I’m not supposed to be here, but there’s this guy…the wrong guy, but I never could resist the wrong guy. You won’t tell, will you? It would be awfully scandalous, I’m only just divorced. The studio will fire me all over again.’

  ‘No I won’t,’ Amy promised. ‘Wow, you are so beautiful.’

  ‘It’s all illusion.’ Marilyn smiled sweetly. ‘Just warpaint and lashes. Are you here with a guy?’

  ‘Yes, a really hot one,’ Amy said, thinking that as this was a dream there was no point in being coy. ‘The trouble is he’s completely off limits. I mean totally. It would definitely end in tears – that sort of guy.’

  ‘That’s the sort of guy I always fall for,’ Marilyn said, a little wistfully. ‘But you got to follow your heart, don’t you? Otherwise how will you ever be happy?’

  ‘Hey, Amy?’ Santa’s head appeared around the door.

  ‘Santa!’ Marilyn exclaimed as if greeting an old friend. She ran to him, dragged him into the restroom and planted a kiss on his forehead, leaving an imprint of her lips behind. ‘Santa Baby – I’ve missed you.’

  ‘You two know each other…?’ Amy asked, feeling jealous and intimidated all at once.

  ‘This is the guy?’ Marilyn raised a brow. ‘Good luck resisting this hunk. I know I couldn’t.’

  Santa smiled. ‘We’ve got to go. We’re running dangerously behind schedule and I’ve still got all the toys to do before dawn. Do you know where you want to go next?’