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Serena jumps as she feels Bernie’s hands slide around her waist. They had each been aware that the other was waking up too, had communicated via a series of snuffles and stretches, but the coolness of Bernie’s fingertips surprises her.
“How are your hands so cold, Bernie?” she asks over her shoulder, not nearly as grumpy about it as she is trying to sound.
“It’s winter,” Bernie says, matter-of-factly.
Serena’s home is older than Bernie’s and it struggles to retain the heat, but she had moved her bedroom to the top of the house once Edward had collected his things and it feels cosy to her, up here in the eaves.
“Still,” Serena says, turning over to face Bernie and rubbing their noses together gently, before applying a kiss squarely to Bernie’s lips.
Once released, Bernie grins. “Well, you know what they say,” she starts.
Serena drops her shoulder and throws her head back into the pillow, scrunching her eyes closed. “No,” she says firmly. She knows very well what they say, is not asking for more information.
Bernie runs her fingers up and down Serena’s arm, still unable to wipe the smile from her face. “Cold hands…”
“No, no, don’t do it, Bernie.” Serena grasps Bernie’s hand to still it as she speaks, and opens her eyes to fix her with a glare. It has become a game between them and neither of them is even sure how it had started, only that Bernie now regularly tortures Serena with the most saccharine greetings-card sentiments she can conjure. She even has Charlotte sending her posts from Pinstagram, or whatever it is, to keep her in healthy supply. Serena is defenceless save for a well-cultivated expertise in eye-rolling, and that rarely, if ever, works.
Bernie props herself up on her left elbow, her right hand still clasped in Serena’s; she looks at the grip that Serena has on her, at the attempted sternness in Serena’s features, and appears to concede defeat with a sigh. Serena relaxes as Bernie draws her into her side, wrapping one long leg across Serena’s own.
“You’re dying to say it, aren’t you?” Serena asks, after they have lain in silence for a while.
Bernie sniffs and looks at the ceiling. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“It’s killing you, I can feel it rattling around inside yo-”
“Cold hands, warm heart,” Bernie reels off triumphantly, lightly tickling Serena’s sides and peppering her shoulder with kisses, an instant apology. Serena giggles and squirms, her cheeks soon aching for smiling, her arms tangled with Bernie’s across her stomach.
*
“You make me giddy,” Serena has said to Bernie, who knows how many times now.
“You say it like it’s a bad thing,” Bernie has always whispered back to her.
It isn’t a bad thing. Serena has made sure that Bernie knows she doesn’t think that. It isn’t a bad thing but it is a level of indecorousness that Serena hasn’t experienced before, or not that she remembers, anyway, and her subconscious has a habit of reprimanding her for each girlish giggle, each squeal and yelp and guffaw, before her conscious brain – which is having the time of its life, since you ask – can tell it to sod off. They can’t remember how Bernie started on this, but they both know why she does it, why she continues this war with the part of Serena that still isn’t sure she should be having so much fun.
*
“You’re a big kid,” Serena says, playfully shoving Bernie’s arm. “Clearly too young for me.”
Bernie renews her hold, both arms around Serena, and noses at Serena’s ear. “I’m older than you,” she whispers, a chuckle on her out-breath. “And don’t pretend you don’t love it. You think I’m ‘totes amaze’,” she says, affecting her best impression of a teenager, “and that we’re –”
She stops, cut off by Serena’s finger being pressed to her lips.
“Now there I draw the line, Bernie.” Serena refuses to turn her face to look at Bernie, who has gone back to tracing the outline of Serena’s ear with the tip of her nose but who is, Serena knows even without looking, grinning again.
“We’re what they call…”
Serena clears her throat, the way she might do if she wanted to let the girls at the back of the classroom know that she could see that they weren’t focused on the task that she had set them, or that she knew they were stealthily eating crisps. Bernie pauses, for a beat.
“We’re hashtag goals.”
The words rush out of Bernie’s mouth and hang in the air for another beat, their abject silliness tugging at the corners of Serena’s mouth, and then comes the sound of Serena’s laughter from low in her belly, made all the deeper for her being flat on her back, closely followed by Bernie’s braying laugh. She will play the clown as much and as often as it takes to keep Serena from being too hard on herself.
“If we’re ‘hashtag goals’,” Serena says after a few moments, and in response Bernie sits up and places her hands over her heart and flutters her eyelids, looking every bit as if Serena has just proposed marriage. Serena smiles and rolls her eyes. “If we’re ‘goals’, does that mean you’re going to bring me a cup of coffee in bed?”
“You keep talking like that, Dr Campbell, and I’ll be giving you more than a coffee,” Bernie jokes, her voice husky as she leans forward for a kiss before climbing off the mattress and pulling Serena’s dressing gown down from the back of the door.
It isn’t truly winter, it’s early November; it’s chilly at worst. Bernie feels the cold more than Serena, though, and she shivers as she stands in Serena’s kitchen waiting to plunge the coffee, drawing the gown closer around her neck. It smells of Serena, her perfume, and Bernie’s eyes have closed, her head dropping to one side to feel the fabric against her ear, before she even realises she’s doing it. Giddy, she thinks, huffing as she puts the mugs on a tray with a couple of biscuits. She remembers choosing this pack at the supermarket, thinks about how much she enjoys the simple act of pushing a trolley around with Serena, how happy it had made her when Serena stood so close as they waited at the till, a till only two over from a couple that even Bernie recognised as parents from school, but there Serena had stood, her hands on Bernie’s lapels, their conversation inaudible to others but their body language hollering over the din of the checkouts. Bernie has a penchant for big romantic gestures, since that night at the observatory has been hooked on the look on Serena’s face when she learns about something that Bernie has planned, but she finds that even the simplest moments with Serena make her blood fizz. Giddy. Two-way street, Campbell.
Bernie sits back against the headboard, chomping on a biscuit and washing the last of it down with some coffee. “We’ll have to think about Christmas, soon,” she says, before taking another slurp from her mug.
“How do you mean?” Serena asks, brushing crumbs from her front.
“Well, what are we going to do? I mean, it’s fine if we can’t spend the day together, I know Elinor can be a bit difficult, and there’s always…” Bernie had been going to say Boxing Day, but the memory of last year feels suddenly fresh and painful. “There’s always the rest of the holiday. I don’t mind.”
Serena looks at Bernie for a long moment, watches her messily dunk another biscuit, feels her heart swell. “Elinor will be expecting to have lunch with me,” she says.
“She will.” Bernie nods.
“And the kids’ll be expecting supper at yours,” Serena goes on.
“They will.”
“So that’s what we’ll do,” Serena says. Bernie looks at her, makes sure she’s smiling, makes sure this is a plan that Serena is happy with and not a compromise.
“I hope it isn’t going to turn out like the Vicar of Dibley,” Bernie laughs.
“Ah, well, thanks to Elinor, there won’t be a Brussels sprout in sight in this house.”
Bernie held an index finger aloft. “You know, I knew I liked that girl.”
*
It’s the first time in years that Bernie hasn’t been alone on Christmas morning, the first time in years that Serena has been glad to wake up beside someone else. She lets it all register, commits it to memory: the warmth of their bed, the weight of Bernie next to her, the peace in the house. Even the ludicrous reindeer pyjamas that Bernie had pulled on when she’d got up to go to the loo in the early hours – Serena would swear they were made for children but for the fact that they cover most of Bernie’s endless legs. She pushes back thoughts of recent Christmases, of the dread that had crept even into her dreams each Christmas Eve, but has a tougher time ignoring the sound of snoring from the pillow beside her.
“Bernie,” she says gruffly, digging her gently in the ribs.
“Mmpf.”
Bernie takes a moment to come around, swallows loudly a couple of times, her throat dry and tickly. “Sorry,” she says, croakily, “sorry.” She lifts both of her hands in front of her face, cups them and blows onto them, warming them up, then wraps Serena in a tight hug and whispers: “Merry Christmas, you.”
Serena hasn’t thought to prepare herself for hearing those words, has not anticipated even for a second – fool! – the effect that they have on her; her voice catches in her throat when she tries to respond. She rolls over and presses her face in to Bernie’s neck, presses kisses to her skin, her eyelashes damp against Bernie’s ear.
“I love you too,” Bernie says, pulling Serena closer to her. “Scrambled eggs?”
“I’m dead, aren’t I?” Serena quips, sitting up as Bernie gets out of the bed. “I’m dead, and this is heaven.”
“Oof, and I haven’t even put on my festive deely boppers yet!” Bernie calls from the landing. She can still hear Serena laughing by the time she gets to the bottom of the stairs.
*
It’s as Bernie’s watching Serena and Elinor play ‘Snap!’ to decide who has to wash the pots and pans that she realises she had been a bit worried about how lunch would go. Realises she was wrong. Ellie doesn’t really care that Bernie’s a woman, or even that her parents have separated, except when there’s something in it for her: Edward is predictably easy to separate from his money, and she has made the occasional weekend awkward, has made Bernie feel like she’s intruding, but today Ellie just wants Christmas dinner with her mum, and is wise enough to know that a hissy fit will get her nowhere. (“Urgh my god, you’re still not out of the heart eyes phase,” she had said when they met for coffee to explain the plan for Christmas Day.) Besides, Bernie’s a halfway decent cook and could still string a sentence together by the time they sat down at the table to eat.
“So, what did you two get each other, then?” Elinor asks as they look through the Radio Times for something to digest lunch in front of. “Oh no, I take it back, I don’t want to know,” she adds, spotting the look that her mother and Bernie share in response. “Not if it’s kinky.”
“Oh Elinor, it’s nothing kinky, don’t be ridiculous,” Serena assures her. She looks at Bernie again before continuing. “We haven’t really done presents, that’s all.”
Elinor doesn’t look as though she believes this for a second, but she has no interest in probing any further. Her current hypothesis is that her mother has had more sex in the past six months than she had in the previous 15 years, and that’s fine as long as they don’t have to talk about it. And as long as Serena makes sure she’s got her breath back before she ever again answers the phone after they’ve been at it.
Serena is not lying, though: they haven’t bought each other anything. Bernie had insisted that she didn’t want or need anything, when the subject had come up as they left work one day. “You say that, Bernie,” Serena had said, shaking her head. “But you are an excellent giver of gifts – that’s what started all of this.” Bernie didn’t look at all sorry. “You’ll say ‘let’s not do presents’ and then you’ll go and lasso the moon, or something, for me.” Bernie could not protest.
It had been a few days before Serena broached the topic again, frowning, hesitating, before getting the words out. “I know we’re not doing presents – no, no, we’re not, Bernie.” Bernie closed her mouth in defeat, and waited. “But there is something I’ve been thinking about.”
Bernie had been surprised by how nervous Serena seemed – she thought they were well past that. She had put her arms around Serena’s waist and kissed her furrowed brow. “Tell me. Anything.” Serena brushed an invisible thread from Bernie’s shoulder.
“I was thi-, what if…” Serena had cleared her throat and tried again. “What do you think to the idea of moving in together? I mean I know it’s fast but-” She caught sight of Bernie’s grin and stopped. They hadn’t spent a night apart in months, spending most of this term at Serena’s after having passed most of the summer at Bernie’s. Serena sitting at one end of Bernie’s dining table as Bernie sat at the other, both planning for September, only the sounds of pieces of paper being turned over and the scratch of fountain pen nibs over notebooks to accompany them; it had been bliss. Sometimes Bernie had caught Serena smiling, had looked up through her fringe and quirked her lips, and Serena could only smile shyly back, shake her head apologetically, and turn back to her notes. After a few minutes Bernie would get up and bring through a cold drink, or some fruit, touching Serena’s shoulder as she placed it in on the table, and Serena has been thinking about them moving in together ever since.
“I think you’ve just lassoed the moon,” Bernie had said, basking in the sunshine of Serena’s responding smile. They haven’t decided where they want to live yet, whether they’ll make a home in one of the houses they already share or whether they’ll start somewhere new, and they have agreed that Christmas is not the time to raise the idea with the kids.
*
“It’s not how it looks,” Bernie says, her voice squeaking slightly, as she sees the smiles on Charlotte and Cameron’s faces falter. They are stood on the front doorstep, bobble hats on their heads and presents under their arms; in front of them, Bernie’s hair is damp and mussed up, she has no trousers on, and is wearing one sock – the other is in her hand. She’s breathing heavily. “We were making snow angels.”
Her children share a sideways glance.
“She’s telling the truth,” Serena calls out, coming to the door wearing a pair of Bernie’s jogging bottoms as well as one of her hoodies. It’s been snowing heavily for a couple of hours – the covering in the back garden is only just deep enough to make snow angels, but Cam and Charlie know their mother well enough to know that deep enough is deep enough.
Cam shakes his head and looks at Serena. “I’d have thought you’d know better,” he jibes, stepping inside the hallway as Bernie runs upstairs, yanking her jumper down as she goes.
“Have you tried telling your mother ‘no’ on Christmas Day?” Serena asks, taking Charlotte’s coat.
The children look at each other and pull faces. “Oh but it’s Christmas!” they whine in unison.
“I can hear you, you know,” Bernie calls out, before appearing on the landing.
“The pout!” Charlotte exclaims. “We forgot the pout!”
Bernie gets to the bottom of the stairs and pulls her hair up into a ponytail, then looks at Serena. “They’re picking on me,” she says, linking her hands behind Serena’s neck. Serena’s hands instinctively find Bernie’s hips. “Tell them off.”
Serena looks from Charlotte to Cam, an exaggerated frown on her face that breaks into a wide smile. It can’t have been easy, all that went on in their teens, but they have their mother’s light about them, nonetheless. “Go and get warmed up in the lounge, you two,” she says. “There’s brandy and port out, and glasses on the side.” She turns back to Bernie once they’ve gone, and they stand nose to nose. This morning Serena had taken a moment to bookmark the day, and now it's Bernie who closes her eyes. It’s Christmas, it’s snowing; her children are in the sitting room, pulling out the board games, by the sounds of it; the woman she loves, and who loves her, is warm in her arms. And through the house coils the scent of…
“Shit!” Bernie cries, her eyes going wide. That definitely smells like burning.
Serena’s face is a mirror image. “The mince pies!”