Page 26 of The Cut

On Christmas morning, Mark Cherry wakes and wiggles his toes, searching for the stocking propped at the foot of his bed.

It sags, completely empty, and his heart sinks.

The Cherrys aren’t poor, there is always food on the table, but every penny of housekeeping is accounted for.

Green Shield Stamps were saved year-round for the Christmas bills and all year, Mark would flick through the Argos catalogue, turning down the corners, dropping hints to his mum.

Mark is downstairs at the crack of dawn.

Standing in the lounge doorway, he looks over to the Christmas tree.

A suspiciously shaped present is leaning in the corner, half obscured by tinsel and baubles.

He stares at it, his heart close to bursting.

He sits patiently waiting until his parents finally come downstairs.

He sits through breakfast, through Tops of the Pops and Carols from King’s , eyes flicking between the screen and the plastic Christmas tree.

When lunch is over, everyone sits round as Mark gently removes the wrapping paper, revealing the varnished auburn woodgrain, the elegant Baroque curve of the neck and the pale carved wooden bridge of the German Stentor cello. He can hardly breathe.

She knows him better than he knows himself, but they can never talk about it, they both have to pretend everything is OK, that everything is normal. That he is ‘normal’. So, when she touches Mark’s heart, like she has this Christmas morning, it is almost too much to bear.

After it happened, Mark Cherry had spent some time in Hayes Hospital. ‘Rehabilitation’, they had called it. Then he was packed off to boarding school. He had always attributed his complicated, almost reclusive nature to that time when he had left home at the age of fourteen, never to return.

But that child had been the father of the man.

Max Crow stood alone in his vast open-plan living room.

The twelve-foot Christmas tree, tastefully decorated with plain lights and tartan ribbons, left him feeling empty.

It was Brandon’s year to have Charlie to himself.

Last year, Max had taken him to the Hollywood Methodist on Franklin for the family evening concert, and they’d spent Christmas Eve cuddled up under a blanket watching Home Alone and munching on Celebrations decanted into an old tin from his childhood home.

He wished he’d taken up Brandon’s offer, jumped into the back of the Mustang and stowed away with them both to Italy, but their lives had become far too complicated for that.

The Sinatra Christmas Spotify playlist had looped its way back to ‘The First Noel’.

Max tapped his iPhone to turn it off and stood in the silence, feeling the emptiness in his stomach.

Cocoa, asleep 149 on his bed, didn’t stir.

The multiple WhatsApp pictures of Charlie and Brandon having a ball pelting down the Mottolino Valley at Teola faded up and out on the digital picture frame propped up against the grand piano.

Max poured himself another drink, a Hendrick’s and tonic, and slid open the huge glass door.

The night air was cool and the fairy lights slung across the garden fence reflected in the still water of the swimming pool.

Every now and then waves of loneliness would swarm out of the dark, like tentacles reaching from the past to grab hold of his heart and twist hard.

He loved solitude but hated being alone.

Max breathed in deep, holding back a wave of sadness.

He knew the remedy; his solace was hidden in the darkest recess of the room.

A velvet blackout drape was obscuring the thing he was seeking.

He walked over to the piano and drew back the curtain to reveal the instrument that was propped in the corner, facing the wall.

He gently clasped the neck of the old German Stentor cello and spun it gently on its pin.

He caressed his thumb across the four strings.

It was out of tune. He sat on the piano stool and lifted the lid to the keyboard and softly played the A, then the D, the G and finally the C notes, tuning his beloved instrument.

He lifted the bow, remembering how to spread his fingers and place his thumb.

He paused for a second, awash with the memory of tearing away the wrapping paper to reveal the varnished walnut.

He rested the horsehair on the string and, as if his best friend Catherine Maddock was right there by his side, he began to play.

Out in the garden, the sultry sound of Mark Cherry’s cello drifted up and out into the LA night. 150