'Funnily enough, they're playing my Christmas song right now,' said Toby.
'What?' Sally wrinkled her nose disapprovingly.
Toby felt a lump in his throat as he listened, despite the fact that Elton John's Step into Christmas was a thoroughly upbeat Christmas hit.
'Why this? It's crap!' Sally was an uncompromising music critic.
'Don't you remember?'
Sally shrugged. 'Remember what?'
'The wedding, four years ago?'
'I remember that.' Sally said, smiling at Hilary. 'You looked really pretty.'
'Thank you, dear!'
'And those samosas were the best!'
Toby laughed. Trust Sally to remember the buffet when the events of that evening had eventually changed the course of her life almost as much as it had his. The reception had been drawing to a close. A band were playing dancable, unseasonal songs, the dance floor was still busy, the bride and groom were gazing into each others' eyes and contemplating making their escape. Outside, the worst December snowstorm in decades was burying the South of England under a deceptively beautiful blanket but, inside, Toby and his friends were joking, laughing, putting the world to rights and plundering the food.
Until Toby's phone rang.
'It was my father-in-law, telling me that Jan had collapsed and been rushed into hospital,' Toby explained to those who hadn't been there at the time. 'She was expecting our daughter Danika, but Dani wasn't due until well into the New Year and because things had gone wrong before...' He had feared the worst. After the heartbreak of previous miscarriages, he would have been more than content with his wife and son Marcus as his entire family, but Jan wanted another baby, despite the risks. Feeling unwell but not wanting to keep him from the wedding, Jan had used the risk of a fall on the ice as an excuse to stay at home. Now the sudden winter threatened to keep them apart as she and their unborn daughter fought for their lives.
'I'd stayed off the drink except for a toast or two, but there was no way I could have driven myself safely through that weather in the state I was in - I would have tried to go way too fast and ended up in a ditch. But I couldn't see an alternative; I didn't fancy my chances of getting a cab, I guessed the buses would be off the road too, but somehow I had to get from Winchester to the General Hospital.'
'They didn't tell me anything at the time,' Hilary interrupted. 'We had a taxi booked to take us to the station for our honeymoon; we would gladly have let Toby use that...'
'But they didn't need to, because Sally drove me there, in my car,' Toby said.
'Even though I hadn't passed my test,' Sally said. 'And I didn't have any 'L' plates, so I made some using napkins and Hilary's friend's lipstick, but they'd fallen to bits before we got to the hospital so I was lucky the police didn't stop me.'
'You must have been a very good driver, even though you were still a learner,' Deepak said.
'No way! I was a totally rubbish driver. I used to sort of over-concentrate, if you know what I mean.'
'I wouldn't have thought one could over-concentrate on such a night!'
'You might think that, Vaughan,' said Toby. 'But Sally could; and she was. Even allowing for it being a strange car...'
'And really dark,' Sally reminded him.
'And treacherously icy...' Hilary recalled.
'And the snow was coming down too fast for the wipers to keep the windscreen clear,' Sally added calmly. 'It was so lucky we had that ambulance to follow for the last bit!'
Toby might not have picked the word 'lucky' to describe the final, most alarming stage of the journey, as they had needed to gain speed to keep pace with the blue lights.
'There was all this going on, and Sally and I were too wrapped up in our thoughts to talk to each other...'
'Except to say stuff like "mind that lorry!" - which I had seen, by the way!'
'And the tension was really getting to me,' Toby recalled. 'So I put the radio on, to sort of take our minds off it all. And that's what was playing - Elton John's Step into Christmas.'
'I thought it was Shakin' Stevens?'
'It was definitely Elton.'
'Are you sure, mate?'
'Positive,' Toby insisted. 'I remember it, because I heard it again almost a week later. On Christmas Eve. I called in to Jan's mum and dad's to let them know the hospital had said Jan could come home and I was going to fetch her. They offered to look after Marcus, but I wanted to take him to see his baby sister. Jan and I had talked about it and we thought it would help him understand why Dani needed more looking after than him when she came home, if he saw her in the hospital. Jan's mum didn't want him to go though; she caught me on the hop and I agreed to leave him with them. You see, we weren't sure that Dani would be alright and Granny Irene thought it would upset Marcus if he saw her and then we lost her.'
'I can see her point,' Hilary said. 'And it might have scared him to see a baby in a hospital incubator too.'
'She said that as well. Anyway, I got about half way from Grandma's house to the hospital, and what should come on but old Elton and I'm reminded of Sally doing her Ice Road Truckers routine, how I didn't know what I'd find when I got to the hospital, and how much Jan wanted Marcus to have a little brother or sister to play with. I decided he ought to see her, come what may, and I ended up turning round and going back for the little chap. I was glad I did, too. Apart from anything else, him pointing at the sweet shop on the way over reminded me to buy some treats for all the staff who would be looking after my little girl over Christmas, while we were safely at home with our families. I'd almost forgotten it was Christmas the next day.'
'Just as well your in-laws cooked and looked after you!' Tricia said. 'Don't tell me you forgot the Boxing Day football too?'
'I don't think there was any then; we were still in League One. I didn't get back to St Mary's for weeks.'
'Whatever did young Marcus make of the hospital?' asked Vaughan, keen to change the subject away from football.
'He thought it was great. The nurses all loved him; there was even one on duty who'd been there when he was born and she was over the moon to see him skipping about and talking - he was a bit early too, though not in as much of a hurry to get here as his little sister.'
'Did they let him see her?' Tricia asked.
'They did, while Jan was saying her goodbyes to the nurses, and on condition that I carried him and didn't let him run about.'
'How did he react?' asked Hilary. 'Was he frightened?'
'Not a bit! He wondered why she was so small and he wanted to know what all the flashing lights and machines were for. And there was a doctor there, a West African lady, who explained it all to him - how this one kept Dani warm and that one helped her to breathe, this one checked her heart was working properly and that one fed her through the little tube, to help her grow big and strong like him one day. As I listened to all that, holding Marcus on my shoulder and watching Dani stretching her arms and legs and making her little defiant fists at us, I thought how we take all this amazing science and brilliant care for granted and how rather than celebrate it, the media seem to love it when there are NHS crisis stories. But we're so incredibly lucky.' He smiled across the table to where Sally Archer was draining her apple juice. 'Not that I need to tell you that, Sazza, after your latest construction project.'
'Too right!' She smiled back, but didn't take it as a cue to say more.
'Do you think seeing her in hospital did helped him to understand why Danika needed more time from her mummy when she came home?' Hilary asked.
'In a way,' Toby said. 'Though somehow, despite all the doctor's careful explanations, he got the idea that Dani was in a little spaceship and he's been mad about space and rockets ever since. We're going to watch out for the Space Station going over tonight, all four of us. It'll make Marcus's Christmas if he sees it!'
'Aren't we supposed to be telling the kids it's Santa Claus?' Paula asked.
'Stuff that!' Toby said. 'I want him to grow up believing in humans!'
'Cool!' Sally said. 'And Rocket Man is a much better Elton John song too.'
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