In Time for Christmas

"Um, yes, that would be really nice... Winifred." I manage.

"It's Winnie," Mum corrects me.

"Yes, it is. Although, I did like being called Freddie when I was younger," she smiles and turns away. "I shall put the pie in the oven. Dinner in forty minutes; if you could give me a helping hand, Jane?" Mum opens her mouth to speak. "Now, Jane, if you would." To my surprise, and relief, Mum obeys.

I finish removing the boots and then the hat, coat and scarf. I'm left alone, surprisingly, as I climb the stairs to the bathroom to undress and shower; I really expected Mum to be back to 'have a word' with me. I glance into the mirror above the washbasin to see just what a state I'm in and notice the little pendant Freddie gave me. Whatever this afternoon was, it wasn't a dream. I remove the little coin and chain. The coin is a little worn with the head of, according to the name, a very young-looking Victoria while, on the other side, the words 'SIX PENCE' confirm that this really is, well, a sixpence. I place it carefully beside the sink.

Under the shower, I luxuriate in the play of warm water on my skin, easing the aches and tensions of my muscles. The memory of being naked with Freddie replays in my mind, the touch of her lips on mine, the feel of my fingers inside her and her inside me, the taste of her, the desire and passion I felt... Freddie who was Winifred... who might be Great Aunt Winnie?

"Amy, dinner in ten minutes," Mum's voice follows her knock on the door.

"Okay, Mum," I call back and shut the shower off.

"Are you okay, Amy love?"

"Yes, I am, really. I'm sorry I worried you," I reply as I begin to towel myself dry. "I'll be down in a minute."

"Okay."

I hear Mum walk away and I'm reminded of Mrs B after she walked in on Freddie and me. I shake my head and finish drying.

As promised, I walk into the dining room a few minutes later, dressed for comfort in soft, fleecy jogging pants and sweatshirt with thick socks. Mum and Winnie are already seated, there is a bottle of wine on the table, candles, plates of food.

I'm offered wine and food, both of which I accept gratefully, but I know the questions are coming.

"Amy, what happened to you today?" Mum finally asks. "You were gone for over seven hours."

"Okay, well, I had a bit of an accident. Winnie was right when she said I looked like I'd fallen in a river: I did, I fell into Halford Brook. There was this sort of bridge over the Brook and, like, a bit of the edge broke off as I was crossing and I landed up in the water."

"What, really?" Mum asks, horrified.

"Yeah, for real. I sort of drowned my phone too when it happened, which was why I couldn't call you."

"But... that doesn't explain why you were gone for so long," Mum points out.

"Uh yes, well..." Oh, shit; what do I say.

"It would have been extremely difficult to extricate oneself from the water, I'm sure. How did you get out?" Winnie asks.

"Um, well this woman was passing, fortunately, and she helped me. She lived not too far away, so she offered to take me to her house so I could get dry and warm up."

"Couldn't you have phoned from her house or borrowed her mobile? I'm sure she'd have understood."

"Oh, come now, Jane. Amy said that her mobile phone wasn't working so she did not have your number. Telephone numbers these days are so long that it is a wonder anyone even remembers their own," she smiles.

"Much easier when it was just four digits?" I suggest quietly, looking intently at Winnie.

"Oh, most definitely," she nods.

"Well, you're safe, which is all that matters in the end I suppose," Mum concedes.

I desperately want to talk to Winnie -- alone -- but as soon as the meal is done she says that she's tired and needs to go to bed. She kisses Mum goodnight and then me. "I'm glad you are back in time for Christmas," she whispers.

I watch as she walks slowly from the room. "Come on, you can help me with clearing up," Mum tells me. "And you can help with getting Christmas Dinner ready; Winnie knows what she wants but always seems to need someone else to actually do it, so you can be her sous-chef tomorrow."

My sleep is surprisingly deep and dreamless. There is no snow to be seen from my window this morning, just cold, leaden-grey skies and thin rain pattering the glass. Nevertheless, there is a feeling of peace in the house this morning.

Mum stuck to her word and I was consigned to the kitchen to help with Christmas dinner. Winnie is not quite as helpless as Mum suggested, or perhaps Winnie has less confidence in my abilities to follow her directions. I suppose learning to stuff a turkey might be useful in future but the real reason I don't mind being here is that I can ask Winnie questions.

"Winnie, did you ever rescue a girl from Halford Brook?" I ask; she stops laying the bacon on the breast of the turkey and looks at me, a soft smile on her aged lips.

"Yes, just before Christmas, back in 1938: I had gone for a walk in the snow and I heard a shout and when I reached the bridge there, waist-deep in the cold water, was a girl in a strange-looking blue coat, clearly terrified and struggling to get out."

"So, we..." I don't know how you are supposed to ask a ninety-six-year-old maiden great-aunt if you had sex with her seventy-plus years ago.

"The girl was so pretty," she continues, ignoring my non-question, "and so... different. Oh, she could swear like a sailor, but she had such spirit and was very sensual and uninhibited... And who seduced me into bed with her."

"It was me..." I manage.

"I know, at least I do now. I had always wondered who she was, that strange girl called Amy, who was so confused about what year it was, in her strange clothes and with her little piece of black glass that she thought was a telephone," Winnie smiles. "After you were born, when I heard your parents had called you Amy, I thought, 'what a coincidence.' When I met you for the first time at your sister Rosie's wedding, when you were her bridesmaid, I noticed your pale hair and grey-blue eyes, like the Amy I had met, but I dismissed the notion that it could be you. However, when I saw you at Iris's funeral, I knew..." she reaches out and cups my cheek as Freddie did at our first kiss, "knew that it had been you, my mysterious, first lesbian lover, the girl that I should have stood up for against old Brownlow and her threats."

"Winnie... Freddie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you into trouble with the housekeeper or..." Freddie places a thin, cool finger on my lips.

"Hush, Amy, you have nothing to be sorry for," she tells me softly. "Now, we should put this bird in the oven and then I think it is time for presents."

Shit, I never bought her a present. What can I do? Yes, perhaps there is something. I hurry upstairs briefly and return a few minutes later as Winnie is pouring glasses of sherry for herself and Mum. She offers me one but I say no thanks.

Presents are exchanged one at a time.

Mum has bought Winnie a large book of cryptic crosswords and a fancy pen and pencil set, which Winnie seems pleased with. I give Mum the DVD set of historical dramas that she wants while she gives me vouchers to buy clothes, which is cool.

Winnie's gift to Mum is a three-day watercolour painting course. I'm not sure what Mum thinks of this. "You were always so talented when you were young. Iris and I didn't talk often but she was always proud of how talented you were," Winnie tells her. "I thought this might be a chance to take up painting again."

"Thank you, Winnie, that's very thoughtful," Mum replies and she too seems happy enough.

"This is for you, Amy," Winnie says, handing me a smallish, beautifully wrapped box. It is unexpectedly heavy. As I start to unwrap it, the glimpse of the bitten-apple logo within makes me gasp.

"It's a brand new iPhone! Shit, um, sorry, but an iPhone 8! Winnie, you can't, this is way too expensive..."

"Who says I cannot? I had a feeling that this would be the right present for you and, after your accident yesterday, it seems I was right."

"Winnie, that's a hugely generous gift," Mum tells her, possibly a little jealous.

"Yes, but only in terms of money. There are some things given that are worth far more." She pauses and I see her bottom lip curl in as she bites it gently and there, in that little movement, I see the years fall away and she is Freddie once again. "Jane, I'm very glad you agreed to come, more grateful than I think you will ever understand. I do not know what Iris -- your mother -- said about me," Winnie raises a hand to forestall Mum's reply. "I have no wish to complain or criticise and may Iris rest in peace. However, I would like to tell you -- and you too, Amy -- my story.

"I was always a little odd, I suppose, a little different. A tomboy, Mama sometimes called me, or a hoyden, wild and uncontrollable, when she was angered by yet another of my unladylike antics." Winnie gives a wry smile at the memory. "I mentioned gifts worth more than money. Well, you see, I was given such a gift once, on the Christmas Eve just before the War. I met a girl -- a young woman, really, of my own age. She was everything I wanted to be: determined, beautiful, uninhibited by all the hateful rules that so constrained me: what to say, what not to say, how to behave, who to have feelings for... What she gave me, that wonderful gift, was an understanding of myself and that there was nothing wrong in my being attracted to other women. I think you knew that I was a lesbian, didn't you, Jane?"

"Well, I suppose I'd worked it out. Mum said things about you sometimes... and about your friend, er, Audrey and you not being 'respectable', and, er..."

"Audrey was not just my friend she was my girlfriend, my lover," as Winnie says this, I sneak a glance at Mum, who looks a little uncomfortable, "my partner and my soul mate. Had we been born sixty or seventy years later, I'm sure we would have married."

"How did you meet her?" I ask, intrigued. My own experience had shown the risks of finding a girlfriend in the world today; god knows what it must have been like in the 1940s or 50s or whenever. Winnie's little nod suggests she understands my interest.

"It was during the war. I was at Bletchley Park..."

"Wow," I say, impressed.

"I think I've heard of it," Mum says, uncertainly.

"You have, Mum," I tell her, "that film we saw, 'The Imitation Game' with Benedict Whatshisname in it. Bletchley Park was where they cracked the supposedly unbreakable Enigma Code, right?" I look at Winnie, who nods. "So were you, like, a code breaker?"

"Oh, no; nothing nearly so glamorous or intelligent. Because I spoke German, well, read more than spoke really, my job was... you know, this still feels a little wrong telling you this, even after all these years; how silly that is." She takes a deep breath. "My job was to go through the decoded messages -- or at least the attempts at decoding the messages -- and to try and spot German words that would confirm they had found the correct settings for Enigma. It was actually terrifically dull but also very tiring and the huts were extremely uncomfortable: too hot in the summer and freezing in the winter. It did give me an excuse to wear trousers, though," she chuckles.

"So did Audrey work there too?" I ask.

"Yes, but she had a much more exciting job than me: she was a motorcycle dispatch rider. I remember the first time I saw her; she was just getting ready to go with that morning's messages, taking them to London or Portsmouth or somewhere and I thought she was the most beautiful, wonderful woman I'd ever seen." Winnie has such a happy smile on her face, her eyes focused on some unseen vision of, what, seventy-five years ago? "It took me a fortnight to summon up the courage to talk to her; I finally spoke to her at one of the dances they held locally. I asked her some silly question about whether she became cold riding her motorbike, but it was enough. We chatted for two hours or more and I knew then I wanted her as a friend -- and more than a friend."

"How did you..?" I want to ask how she found out that Audrey was gay but wish I'd kept my mouth shut because Mum is bound to wonder why I might be interested.

"How did we become a couple?" Winnie asks and I nod, unable to think of an alternative, plausible question; I'll deal with Mum later, if necessary. "Gradually, I think is the answer, at first, anyway," she says. "I suppose things changed when Audry returned one evening, very cold and wet, and I took her back to my digs to warm her up." She glances at me, the corners of her mouth curling up into a smile. Please don't wink at me, I plead silently, or Mum really will have questions.

"Warm her up... oh," Mum gasps, her cheeks colouring.

"That was when we became a couple, I think, but it was a long time before we admitted it to ourselves and each other. We did manage to get billeted together, however, when Audrey persuaded the woman who had been sharing with her to swap with me; some excuse about me being an old family friend or something. I think the woman guessed the real reason but it was wartime and lots of the normal rules seemed to be in abeyance," she says.

"After the war was hard. We wanted to live together, of course, but that meant questions from our families. This was harder for me because of Papa -- your Grandfather, Jane, and Great Grandfather, Amy," her voice has grown sad, "who was in Singapore when the Japanese invaded and never came home. Mama was devastated, naturally and became very depressed. The last thing she needed was her eldest daughter in an 'unnatural relationship.' Issy -- Iris -- also took Papa's death very hard; she was only eleven, of course. I suppose it was easier to blame Audry and me -- Audrey especially..."

"That wasn't fair of her," I interject.

"No, perhaps not, but as I said, she was young and it is easier to blame someone than to accept what was happening." Winnie sighs. "Forgive me, this is hardly the tone one wants on Christmas Day. Come, Amy, open the box and try your new phone."

"I need to give you my present first, Winnie," I protest, reaching into the pocket of my jogging pants, pulling the little, badly wrapped bundle from my pocket. "Um, sorry, but I didn't have any wrapping paper."

Winnie gives me an intrigued look while Mum seems amazed as she obviously expected me to have forgotten. The package is basically a bundle of tissue paper tied up with a shoelace though, to be fair, it is at least a red shoelace from one of my trainers.

Winnie takes the present and tugs the lace, untying it. With stiff fingers, she opens the tissue paper and gives a gasp. She stares at what she's found and I can see tears fill her eyes before dripping into the unfurled paper. "Oh, Amy..." she says.

"What is it?" Mum asks, craning her neck to look. "A necklace?"

"It is a sixpence," Winnie says, "a lucky silver sixpence pendant... thank you, Amy, it is perfect; just as I remember... erm, I mean that it is just like the one I had when I was young." I move to her and give her a firm hug that she reciprocates. "Go on, open that telephone box," she says as the hug ends, wiping her eyes with her hand.

"Well, it looks like you managed the perfect gift, Amy," Mum tells me. There is a bell ringing from the kitchen.

"Oh, that means the oven needs to be turned down," Winnie says, still drying her eyes, "and the potatoes need to be parboiled."

"Okay." I start to stand.

"No, I'll go," Mum offers. "Winnie wants to see you using the phone she gave you... and talk to you too, I think."

With Mum gone, Winnie takes my hands. "I'd almost forgotten about the pendant. That day, when I gave it to you, I was watching you cross the bridge. I looked away for a moment and you had gone. I was afraid that you had fallen in the water... but, no, you had not and when I stepped onto the bridge I found that your footprints only went two-thirds of the way across and then just... vanished."

"You can't have done, the bridge collapsed and I only just made it across..." I try to make sense of what happened. "Of course! The bridge today -- or yesterday -- collapsed but your one, the one in 1938, was intact. So, I guess I really was there then, back in 1938, with you?"

"Yes, I think so."

"But how is that possible?" I ask plaintively.

"I have no idea, not the foggiest. Perhaps it was the snow, maybe it was the magical spirit of Christmas... I don't know," she shrugs, "but what I do know -- and you know too, in your heart -- is that we met that day."

"Winnie, that means we... we made love..." I say bashfully.

"Amy, you don't sound much like the expletive-wielding, uninhibited and wonderful girl who wanted us to get warm together!" she smiles at my increasing discomfort. "Or the one who helped me to accept the feelings I'd had for other girls and to show me how wonderful that physical love between women could be."

"Really?"

"Yes, really, you silly thing. Amy, without you I doubt that I would have had the courage to talk to Audrey, to seek to become her girlfriend and her lover. Perhaps I would have ended up following my Mother's wishes and found myself married to some man of her approving. Perhaps many things, but whatever, I would not have found my soulmate, Amy, and despite the sadness, problems and prejudice we had to face over the years, I would not have changed it." I feel hot tears filling my eyes, a bitter-sweet swirl of emotions inside. "My life with Audrey, that was your Christmas gift to me back then, though neither of us knew it, and a gift worth far more than money could ever buy."

"Thank you... Freddie," I reply, not knowing what else to say.

"Amy, I know what passed between us was fleeting, just a few hours, but they changed me. I know also that I am no longer physically attractive, no longer the girl you seduced and loved -- there is no need to protest otherwise," she insists with a slight smile, "while I see you here like some beautiful, real-life, female version of Dorian Grey, unchanged in seventy-seven years. Fear not, my lusting days are over," she reassures me with a soft pat on the back of my hand. "However, I would like very much if we might become friends."

"I think I would like that too, Freddie," I tell her and it's true; I do want to get to know her and friendship, after the shared experience of that one, intense afternoon, seems inevitable.

"Come on, open that box before your Mum returns and wonders what we've been up to." I nod, quickly drying my eyes with my sleeve before pulling the box open. There is a small, folded piece of paper lying on top of the pristine glass of the phone's screen. I take it out and unfold it.

To the mysterious girl in the Brook with the funny piece of black glass. Though the loss of your 'phone was worth it, try not to drown this one.

With all my love, Freddie xxx

I feel tears sting my eyes again and blink furiously to clear them. "Thank you, Freddie," I say as I give her another hug.

"You're very welcome, Amy. Go on, start it up."

"I need to get the SIM card from my funny piece of black glass," I tell her with a smile.

As we finish Christmas dinner it seems that Mum and Winnie are both happy and content but I feel unsettled. Perhaps it's that, wonderful as the new phone is, there is no message, no missed call from Ciara. I knew she wouldn't call so why do I feel like this? I see Mum smile at Winnie.

"I'm sorry that Mum never accepted you and Audrey," she says to Winnie, "or that Amy and I never got to meet her."

"After dinner, I can show you some photos of her and me," Winnie replies and suddenly I know what it is that's making me uneasy -- and what I need to do about it.