Читать книгу Make A Christmas Wish: A heartwarming, witty and magical festive treat - Julia Williams - Страница 10

I start to remember. It was two weeks until Christmas Day and I was on my way to Lidl to get some Christmas shopping, still staggering from the news I’d just heard. Adam, my lovely husband Adam, had been unfaithful to me. I mean, I knew we had our problems, and I’d felt for a while that he’d been quite distant, but Adam, having an affair? I was reeling with shock, and mad as hell. There I’d been, sorting out a lovely Christmas for us, and he’d been playing away.

As I got out of the car, a part of my brain was still calmly planning our Christmas dinner, while the other part was concentrating on angrily texting Adam: You bastard, how could you? Talk about multitasking. I knew how and why he could of course – I’d given him enough cause over the years.

I was so angry I wasn’t paying attention, so I foolishly stepped into the road in front of a car driven by a 17-year-old learner driver whose dad had taken him to Lidl’s car park to practise safely. The poor lad panicked when he saw me, and accelerated instead of braking. I could see his terrified face staring frantically from the dashboard, as to my horror I realized the car was speeding towards me, and I could do nothing to stop it.

I didn’t feel any pain on impact, but the car hit me side on, spun out of control and crashed into the recycling bins. I flew through the air and landed head first into the trolley man who was collecting stray trolleys abandoned by lazy shoppers. I’d have got away with a few breaks and nothing more if it hadn’t been for the damned trolleys. Unfortunately for me, I received a glancing blow to the head, which resulted in a haematoma.

Just my luck.

I felt a moment of excruciating pain, and then people gathered excitedly around me, and the boy driving the car was wailing loudly, ‘What have I done?’

I could just make out the sounds of sirens in the background before everything faded to darkness. The last sound I heard was the music blaring from the store: ‘Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time’. Just peachy.

The next thing I knew I was lying on a stretcher and the lights were hurting my eyes. I seemed to be in a vehicle of some kind and we were going at a hell of a lick. I heard a voice saying, ‘Livvy, stay with me,’ before everything faded again.

When I came to I felt as though I was floating in a dreamlike state. I couldn’t quite work out where I was, until I looked down and saw lots of people dressed in blue overalls, wearing face masks and looking grave. They were standing over a body. I was beyond spooked: what the hell was going on?

‘And clear!’ someone said, and a charge went through the body, but nothing happened.

The man holding the defibrillator shook his head and someone said, ‘Time of death: two fifteen p.m.’

Gradually they moved away from the body, unclipping monitors and drips, and suddenly I realized I was looking down at myself.

What just happened? I was thinking. I can’t be … can I? I must be having some kind of strange dream. In a moment Adam and Joe are going to be by my side and I will wake up and everything will be OK.