12. Luke

I FIXED IT!!

Christmas with his parents always started the same way, and that was with Luke driving down to their house in Berkshire. Except this year the car had decided that enough was enough and that if Luke wanted to drive her, he could wait the 5 working days the repair shop needed to fix her up properly. Which meant, of course, that between the weekend and Christmas, he wouldn’t get his car back until he was supposed to be back in London.

He took the train down on the 23^rd, a couple of days after his brother had arrived, family in tow.
His father met him at the station wearing a horrible green coat and an enormous smile.

“Mum doesn't know you've rescued that coat, does she?”

His father tugged at the bottom of it, grinning like a loon, “I liberated it from the attic. Isn't it nice? Warmest thing in the world.”

“Yes,” Luke said, holding back from squinting at the atrocious shade of green, “it's... something.”

That comment seemed to please his father well enough, who smiled some more and got in the car. But he did leave the thing in the car instead of taking it inside when they got to the house. No, Luke’s mother was clearly not aware of the continued existence of the coat.

“Darling,” she greeted him with a tight hug, “welcome home.”

When she wouldn't let go, Luke thought he might as well enjoy it, so he squeezed back.

“It’s good to be home, Mum.”
“Of course it is, dear. Your brother and Karen have just taken Dylan for a walk, but they’ll be back soon. Is your Nick going to come down at some point?”

Ah, there it was.

“No, Mum. He’s at home.”
“As well he should be,” said his Dad, “Christmas is a time to be with the people you love.”

His Mum might as well have pouted for all the difference her expression made to her tone, “But that’s what I mean. He loves Luke, doesn’t he? He should be here too.”

“Just because you want to meet him doesn’t mean he’s not with people he loves,” said Luke, finally extracting himself from the crush of motherly love, “He is in Italy, with his own family. His sisters travelled back to their parents’ house from where they live too.”

“Oh, he’s at home,” said his Mum, “Why didn’t you say that’s what you meant?”

“You thought I would just leave him in London if he were in England?”

“No?”

Being the great woman she was, his mother carefully side-stepped the point until she had offered him the ultimate British comfort, “Here, have a seat, I'll just go and make a cup of tea.”

He sat down in the sitting room and felt his shoulders relax. The house smelled like it always had – a little like industrial-strength hospital cleaner, a little like firewood and smoke and everything like home.

The room was decorated with shining gold and silver ornaments, bright green and red baubles hanging on top of picture frames, tinsel wrapped around the banister and a massive tree in the living room, which Dylan had obviously helped decorate, because there were an awful lot of decorations on the bottom third of it.

His father sat down opposite him, wanting to know about where in Italy Nick was from. His mother came back with tea and fruitcake, and cut him a doorstep-sized slice.

They chatted until there was the scraping sound of metal on metal with meant his brother and family had just come back from their walk.

“Uncle Luuuuuuke!”

Dylan was 3 and possessed all the energy of the Energizer bunny on a high from sugar laced with speed.

A knee-high ball of woolly layers hit him and wrapped around his leg. Upon closer inspection, bright red cheeks either side of a toothy grin could be found among the folds of fabric.

“Hello, Dylan.”

“Uncle Luke, Mummy and Daddy took me to the lake and it was frozen and I threw a snowball at it and it exploded and then we walked back and Mummy didn't want me to jump in the puddles, but then Daddy said I could jump in one, so I asked Mummy again and she said yes and I love jumping in puddles!”

Luke grinned, starting to peel the many layers off his nephew, “Are puddles your favourite thing in the whole world?”

Dylan shook his head and said, firmly, “No.”

Karen raised an eyebrow at Luke as she unwound her own scarf, “Go on Dyl, tell uncle Luke what your favourite thing in the world is.”

Dylan looked Luke straight in the eye and said, clearly and articulating carefully, “Amphicoelias fragillimus.”
“What?”
Karen grinned, “Biggest known dinosaur to ever exist.”
Luke gaped, “That’s your favourite dinosaur?”
But Dylan had already moved on to hugging Gran around her middle, but she was holding cake and couldn’t hug back.
“You made cake! Is it chocolate? Can we have chocolate cake, please?”
“Yes, it is. Now, take your coat and shoes off, wash your hands, and we’ll have a slice with some tea.”
Dylan quickly toed his shoes off before rushing to the closest sink to wash his hands.
Matt grinned from the entryway, “Well done, Mum, you’re training him very well indeed!”
“Hush, you. You were a terror when you were you son’s age – compared to you, Matthew, the child is practically an angel!”
She put the cake down onto the coffee table and went back to the kitchen to bring out the tea.
Luke laughed as Matt stuck his tongue out at her retreating back before their mother called out, without turning around, “None of that! Now come through and help me bring enough mugs through. I don’t know what you did with them, but if you’ll recall I did raise you with manners!”
Christmas Day chez Mum and Dad was always the same, the soothing routine of it older than Luke could remember.
The day before Luke would spend the morning with his mother, peeling potatoes while Matt did the carrots and parsnips and helping with the hundreds of mince pies – though Dylan had taken over the task of cutting out stars for the tops, something he took very seriously.
His little tongue peeked out of his mouth in concentration as he carefully lifted the stars off the counter and onto the pies – before everyone bundled into the cars and they went to visit Dad’s sister, their aunt Catherine, and her truly enormous tribe for lunch, which was inevitably some form of curry, because she had served it one year after a holiday to Delhi and it had become tradition, and the one time she had tried changing the menu there had been bitter complaints, followed by Mum’s mince pies and uncle Tom’s brandy butter, of which the percentage of brandy to butter seemed to increase every year.
They got home in time to have a nice quiet sit down in the living room and a light supper, for those who felt up to it, then bed.
Luke wrapped up all the presents and read until he fell asleep, partway through a chapter, like he used to when he was a child.
The minute he woke up he was overcome with the urge to go and jump on Matt’s bed – never mind the fact that he had left that chubby, excitable 8 year old firmly in the past.
He didn’t, of course, go and jump on his brother’s bed with the war cry of, “It’s Christmas!”
Matt was in his 30s and sharing his old room with his wife, while his 2 year old son slept in Luke’s old room next to it.
Luke himself was in the guest bedroom, which was bigger than his had ever been. He didn’t bother to shrug into a dressing gown as he padded to the bathroom, just pulled on a t-shirt.
His father’s joints gave him trouble and cold seemed to exacerbate the problem, so his mother kept the heating on from September to May. For what was a little money compared to the comfort of the love of her life?
Luke stopped on his way back to his room, now awake enough to notice the ivy that had appeared everywhere overnight.
He collected his thoughts (come on brain, it’s morning but it’s not that early!), the presents for everyone and his phone before making his way downstairs, itching for a mug of something warm and caffeinated.
There was mistletoe hanging over his brother’s doorway and from the lights in the living room, only adding to the collection of other plants he had stopped remembering the names to years ago, all foliage leftover from his childhood and hanging on thanks only to his father’s green fingers.
He snuck the presents under the tree, taking a moment to make sure all the tags were legible, then headed to the kitchen in search of breakfast.
His mother greeted him with a cheerful ”Merry Christmas!” from in front of the stove as his father handed him a mug of tea.
“Irish breakfast,” he said, “which is non-alcoholic, but feel free to add some Baileys instead of milk.” Luke could only sit down and watch his parents work.
Just as his mother reached the end of her pancake batter, there came the tell-tale thump of an excited child coming down the stairs, seconds before Dylan exclaimed really loudly from the living room, “Santa came! He left us lots of presents. Daddy, Santa came, just like you said!”
He ran into the kitchen looking adorable in reindeer-patterned pyjamas.
 Luke took a picture before he started moving again.
 Behind him emerged Karen, immaculate as always in a sequinned cream jumper and white jeans, and Matt, looking like he had been run over by a truck, dressing gown barely tied over his pyjamas. Luke took a picture of them too, before Matt could notice.
“Merry Christmas, Dylan darling!” Mum said, swooping him into a hug, “Did you check to see if Santa drank his milk and ate his mince pie?”
Dylan squirmed out of her grasp, “Or if Rudolph ate the carrot!”
Soon his cries were being telegraphed from the living room, “But we only left one carrot! What if the other reindeers got jealous?”
Their Dad had handed Matt and Karen their own mugs of tea with an apologetic lift of a shoulder before turning to man the stove, “She’s been waiting a long time to be able to relive the magic of Christmas.”
Dylan came rushing back in once they were all sitting around the kitchen table, clutching their mugs of tea like a lifeline. Karen held hers like it was an accessory.
“Gran said I can open one present before breakfast. Can I?”
“May I,” said Karen with that worn tone mothers used, making Dylan repeat after her, “And yes, you may.”
Matt pulled him onto the chair next to his so he could help him read the tag.
“From Santa.”
Dylan squealed with delight, “Santa!”
It was a model racing car.
Dylan zoomed around the kitchen with it in between bites of pancake, until Karen made him sit down at the table because he was a big boy now, so he had to eat with everyone else. His zooming noises quietened down for the most part, and the model seemed to be stuck in traffic.
“Like Daddy”.
“Alright,” muttered Matt, “Let’s do this thing.”
Dylan practically vibrated in his seat, “Presents?”
Karen nodded, “Presents.”
Dylan launched himself out of his seat, new toy clasped in a pudgy hand, and raced towards the tree.
When the adults, after calmly gathering themselves and their second mugs of tea or coffee, reached the living room, Dylan was sitting under the tree, putting the presents into piles.
“He can’t read yet,” Luke muttered to Karen, “What is he doing?”
She shook her head, “Sorting them by Dylan-titude, I suppose.”
His parents sat in their seats, while Luke sat on his armchair – the fact that he no longer lived with his parents didn’t stop it from being his seat, thanks – and Matt and Karen took the sofa closest to the Christmas tree, where their son was still sorting the presents.
“This one.” Dylan said firmly, picking one up and giving it to Matt, who read the tag and presented it to Karen.
“From Mum and Dad.”
It was a sparkly deep green scarf, which Karen immediately wrapped around her neck.
“Thank you, it’s lovely.”
She got up and gave each parent a quick hug.
One down, thought Luke, eyeing the piles of brightly-wrapped gifts under the tree, where Dylan was busy picking another one, seventy billion to go.


Luke was brought back into the world of those who weren’t suffering from food comas when his phone vibrated in his pocket.
After opening all the presents, slowly, one at a time, all admiring what they and Santa had all got each other, with Dylan being the go-between, they had all gone upstairs to shower and get dressed, while Luke’s Mum started in on putting things in the oven while Dad cleared away the sea of wrapping paper threatening to flood the rest of the house.
The Christmas roast was delicious, if filling. The roast potatoes were basically all crispy outside with a little bit of fluffy inside, since their mother didn’t believe in dieting on Christmas and they were basically boiled in delicious, delicious fat.
I’m dead. No more food ever. 
The text came with a picture of what was probably Nick’s family’s kitchen table, heaving with food.
Luke grinned, texting back.
I know what you mean! Skype? 
So, at about 5pm on Christmas Day, after spending the morning with his family, Luke sat himself in a corner of the living room with his laptop and Skyped his boyfriend.
“I am in agony,” Nick greeted him with a groan, “There was so much food.”
Luke patted his belly, “Food babies all around. Hey, will you still love me if I get fat?”
It was just a joke, but the affection in Nick’s smile was real.
“We can grow old and large together, dear.”
“Uncle Luke, who are you talking to?”
Dylan’s head popped up from behind his laptop.
Luke grinned at him, “Hey, Dylan. I thought you were playing.”
“Who are you calling?” Dylan climbed into the armchair and settled himself on Luke’s lap before waving at the screen and an amused-looking Nick.
“Hi,” he said, waving back, “I’m Nick.”
“Nice to meet you,” said the boy, politely, “Are you Luke’s boyfriend?”
Right to the point then.
Luke gave Dylan a squeeze, “Yes, that’s him.”
Dylan grinned at Nick, “Good. Are you happy like Uncle Luke?”
“I am.”
“Good. I’m going to have cake,” he looked up at Luke, “Gran wants to know if you want tea.”
“No thanks, Dyl.”
He nodded, turning back to the screen, “Ok. Do you want tea?”
Nick’s faintly amused smile hadn’t faded, “No, thank you. Very kind, though.”
“Ok. I’m going back to Gran now.”
And he climbed back down before rushing off to the kitchen, stopping only to pick up his model car on the way.
“My nephew,” Luke explained.
Nick nodded, “Yeah. I don’t have any yet, but I’m sure we’ll get there at some point. You’re good with him.”
“He’s adorable,” he shrugged, “It’s easy to be good when they’re like him. Now, onto something different.  Got your present?”
Nick held up the bulky gold-wrapped package, “Yep. Was interesting to take through security at the airport, I’ll tell you that. You?”
Luke lifted up his own present, the wrapping with laughing Christmas trees making him smile, “Got it. You first?”
Nick shook his head and brushed his hair out of his eyes with a distracted hand, “Nope, you first!”
So Luke unwrapped his gift with abandon, ripping the paper and turning the – book? Yes, book – around until he could read the title.
“Ha! Astronomy for Dummies!”
Nick’s grin went pixellated, but Luke could hear him clearly.
“Well, you’re always saying you would like to know more about what I do, so I got you something that doesn’t involve any of the mathematics! Open it.”
On the first page was written ‘To Luke, Merry Christmas 2012. With supernova heat, Nick’.
Luke smiled, “If I remember right, supernovas produce an awful lot of heat.”
Nick winked at him. “Ok, your turn.”
Nick was a lot more careful in the unwrapping of his present. He peeled the sticky tape off slowly and folded the paper when he was done.
“Oh, wow.”
It was a dome ceiling projector that shines stars onto the ceiling of children’s rooms. Along with it was a small kit to make your own template to put in the projector.
“So that you can track the stars you’re following – and maybe discover a few more.”
The warm feeling that snuck across his skin and into his chest after Nick smiled through the screen lingered there until he went to sleep.


He woke up with the just-faded imprint making him feel generous towards the world.
“Wow,” said Karen, shaking her head as she buttered more bread for Dylan, “This guy must be really something.”
“Yeah,” Luke smiled into his mug, “He kind of is.”