The Mother of All Christmases

by Milly Johnson

  ‘I’ll see you then,’ and she put the envelope in her handbag. ‘I’ll take this as the interim payment.’ She got out of the car in a smooth, calm movement that belied the nerves jangling inside her. She’d disliked him before but she hated him now, trying to dispense with her as though she was rubbish. But what pulled rare tears to her eyes as she set off for the bus home was the feeling that she hated herself a little as well, for having to act like the Palma Collins too many people had thought she would grow into.

  Everyone except Grace Beresford.

  Chapter 13

  Eve was sitting in the office trying to remember the important thing she needed to do but hadn’t written down in her diary because she was sure she’d remember it when there was a timid knock on the door. She called ‘Come in’ and Effin entered. Or at least she thought it was Effin, because he usually strutted in like a stroppy peacock but this Effin wavered in as though he wasn’t quite sure if he had meant to be here or not.

  ‘You all right, Effin?’ asked Eve.

  ‘Er . . . yes, yes,’ he nodded, his tone contradicting his words. ‘Missus, do you know anything about computers?’

  ‘Well, it’s a pretty wide subject, Effin. Can you be more specific?’

  ‘Wages,’ said Effin. ‘I am absolutely sure that I recorded all the wages and saved the document but I can’t find it anywhere. And I wouldn’t know where to find it if it wasn’t in the normal place. Will you come and have a look?’

  As Eve prided herself on being pretty confident with technology she followed him next door to his site office and stood behind him as he sat at his computer and typed in the password slowly, with one finger so Eve saw that he had spelled out ANGHARAD, which wouldn’t have been hard to guess at anyway.

  ‘I saved it to the wages file. But it’s not there. And I don’t know what I’ve done with the sheet of paper with everything written down. It’s a right pain this. The document’s called MAYWAGE.’

  Effin moved out of his chair so Eve could sit. She navigated through all the places where she thought it might be, including the trash bin, which was completely empty.

  ‘Have you dumped it in here and then deleted everything recently?’ Eve asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t know how to empty a trash bin,’ said Effin. ‘I didn’t even know I had one. I thought that when you got rid of documents that they disappeared for good.’

  ‘No, they go into there when you delete them which is a kind of purgatory for them,’ Eve explained. ‘Then when you really want to get rid of them, you empty your trash.’

  ‘I’ve never emptied it,’ Effin insisted. ‘Ever.’

  ‘Well, it looks as if someone has,’ said Eve, checking again, but there was no MAYWAGE on Effin’s computer.

  ‘But I’m the only one who uses this . . . bloody machine,’ said Effin, his voice raising with despair. ‘No one knows my password or anything.’

  ‘Did you save them to a memory stick?’

  ‘What’s one of those?’ replied Effin.

  ‘No other record at all?’

  ‘Only the sheet I writ, but that’s disappeared. It should have been in my drawer. I always keep the sheets there, but it’s not. I’m always so careful with the wages. I’ve never mucked them up in my life before. I can’t understand it at all.’ He rubbed his head as if it were a lamp and a genie might come out of it to rescue him. He looked at Eve and read her pained expression and his whole body sagged as if it were a punctured bag.

  ‘They’ve gone for good, haven’t they?’

  ‘You definitely put them on a spreadsheet?’

  ‘Yes. It’s the only thing I use.’

  Eve looked again. There was a FEBWAGE, MARCHWAGE, APRILWAGE but nothing else in Excel.

  ‘Sorry, Effin, I have no idea where it is, but it isn’t on here.’

  ‘Oh f . . . lipping hell.’ Effin looked gutted. ‘I’ll just have to ask everyone their hours again. If they can remember. The bastards are bound to rip me off.’

  ‘Effin, I can show you how to use a memory stick at least.’

  ‘No, no,’ he shook his head. ‘It sounds complicated. I’ll stick to pen and paper in future. It never went wrong that way. Anyway, thank you, Missus, for trying to help.’

  ‘I wish I could have found it for you,’ said Eve, feeling his pain.

  She was about to shut the door behind her when he called her back.

  ‘That Davy MacDuff is a bit of a computer wizard isn’t he, Missus?’

  ‘He is. Do you want me to ask him to come over and see you?’

  ‘No I do not,’ said Effin firmly. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised—’ He cut off the words and shook his head. ‘No, as I say, I’ll do it the old way. I know where I am then. Thank you again, Missus.’

  Eve went back to her own office and hoped Effin was all right. She had never known him to be anything but on the ball but recently he hadn’t seemed like the same man they all knew. There was the incident with the Santapark lettering falling and that fuel mix-up and now this. And probably more that Jacques wasn’t telling her. She wondered if it was catching, because her own memory was shocking at the moment too.

  Tickets have gone on sale for £5 at Winterworld for the grand opening of the new lagoon attraction in June which will be opened officially by Franco Mozzarella, star of a new Hollywood film of the same name. All proceeds will go to the Yorkshire Fund for Disabled Servicemen. Site Manager F***ing Williams told the Daily Trumpet that the lagoon’s official name would be ‘Lady Evelyn’s Lake’ called after the original owner of the park, Emily Douglas.

  Chapter 14

  ‘Sign here,’ said Christian, handing a pen to Palma with a small movement that managed to convey both hatred and revulsion.

  She reached up to put on the in-car light because she couldn’t read it properly. At the head of the document was the name of a firm of solicitors in loud black letters that stood slightly proud from the page and at the foot was a lot of incredibly small print. Everything in between was deliberately confusing legal jargon. Her brain cut straight through the crap and winkled out the nitty-gritty. Basically it said that he had handed over seven thousand pounds on the understanding that it was a full and final settlement (so that phrase had been spot on then) and she could not seek any child maintenance from him, ever. Palma wasn’t even sure if it would stand up in court but it didn’t matter anyway, because despite what he thought, she wasn’t the type to hold him to prolonged ransom. He hadn’t called her bluff, which she’d expected, so he must have believed her which helped her to claw back some pride, albeit a very tiny amount.

  She signed it. He handed over a bulky envelope and she opened the flap and peered inside.

  ‘Don’t tell me you need to count it,’ he said.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ she replied. Ironically she didn’t think he would go to the trouble of cheating her. Plus she wanted to be out of this car and home as soon as possible. It didn’t sit well with her what she was doing.

  ‘I’m going to live abroad. You won’t be able to find me,’ he said. ‘I don’t want any news about . . .’ he gave a single nod towards her stomach. ‘So don’t bother to tell me.’

  Palma didn’t know if it was true; probably not, but he didn’t have to worry. She didn’t want to see him ever again either.

  ‘I wasn’t going to,’ said Palma. ‘Full and final. I’ll keep my word. As I have done all the way through this process. It wasn’t me who moved the goalposts.’

  ‘My mobile number will be defunct in the next couple of days. Don’t ring me.’

  ‘What would I need to ring you for?’

  ‘Nothing, that’s my point.’

  ‘I won’t. I want this done and dusted as much as you do.’

  He put his seat belt back on, turned the key in the ignition and slipped into first gear.

  ‘Can you drop me off at home instead, please? I don’t want to be walking around with this cash in my bag,’ she asked.

  He gave a small jerk of his head that she
took to be a yes but at the lights he swung a left instead of going straight ahead and pulled up at the exact spot in the Tesco car park from where he had picked her up.

  ‘Now fuck off,’ he said.

  *

  Contrary to what might have been assumed from magazines or films, women did not want a man behind them making soothing noises when they were throwing up. Annie was quite happy to vomit alone and wipe her own face with a cold cloth. Besides, this wasn’t just any sort of vomit, this was wonderful, fabulous morning sickness.

  Joe knocked on the bathroom door.

  ‘Annie, are you okay? Can I get you something to drink?’

  ‘Joe, go away and leave me in peace, darling. I know you care, I know you want to help, but please let me throw up without you listening to me.’

  ‘Okay, I go,’ he said. She knew he hadn’t because there was a creaky floorboard outside the toilet door.

  ‘Joe. Bugger off.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’

  Now he was gone. He was going to be an absolute pain until Christmas, thought Annie fondly. But then that was Joe and she wouldn’t have him any other way. And she couldn’t have been happier that she was giving him the child they had been so desperate for.

  She’d bought a Miriam Stoppard book from eBay and paid for next-day delivery; she hadn’t put it down since it arrived. Annie had worked out that she was nearly nine weeks pregnant now, which meant that she had approximately three weeks of throwing up left, all being well.

  She flushed the toilet and stood sideways on in front of the cheval mirror in the bathroom, lifting up her sweatshirt to check if she had acquired any trace of a baby bump since the last time she’d looked – three hours ago. Not yet, but it would come soon enough. She had her first antenatal appointment tomorrow in thirteen hours and forty-five minutes’ time; a sample bottle stood on top of the loo in readiness for the morning.

  It still didn’t seem real. She’d already had a dream that there had been a faulty batch of pregnancy tests released to the public and she wasn’t pregnant at all, but the aching boobs, the tiredness and this never-ending nausea gloriously said otherwise.

  Chapter 15

  ‘Well this is nice,’ said Angharad Williams, pouring out tea for her husband, her niece and their guest. Young Dylan Evans handed the plate of roast potatoes to Cariad on his left, who accepted them with a smile, even if she was feeling less like smiling and more like spitting. She thought she was up here to have tea with her auntie, who had come up for a few days from Wales, and her uncle only and hadn’t expected Dylan to be here. Her uncle was matchmaking when she had expressly told him not to on a number of occasions. They were speaking English because Dylan struggled with Welsh. His dad hadn’t spoken much of it in the house, he told them, which surprised Effin. ‘A Welsh oasis on the outskirts of the Pennines,’ Angharad went on. ‘Lovely.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it,’ Cariad replied, with more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice. ‘Thank you for inviting me, Auntie Angharad.’

  ‘It was your Uncle Effin’s idea,’ came the reply.

  ‘Oh, I’ll bet it was.’ Cariad glared at her uncle, who coughed and lowered his eyes because he’d been caught bang to rights.

  ‘He said, why don’t we have Cariad and Dylan over and you cook your famous Cig Oen a Mel, and so here we are,’ smiled Angharad, who had obviously no idea of the machinations behind a simple supper.

  Angharad loved to come up to Yorkshire when Effin was working here and couldn’t get home at weekends. He’d bought a cottage to stay in just outside Penistone. At work he shouted a lot; at home he preferred peace and quiet. He and Angharad liked nothing better than a walk and a pub lunch or sometimes they sat quietly on their terrace, which overlooked the moors and whilst Angharad read books at the side of the fire pit, Effin indulged in a spot of ornithology through his binoculars as this spot was a haven for kestrels and buzzards, tawny and barn owls. Bird-watching was balm for his soul and it had been since he was a small boy.

  ‘How’s your dad then, Dylan?’ asked Effin, passing around the bowl of buttered carrots.

  ‘As right as he can be,’ said Dylan, with a little sigh. ‘He doesn’t complain.’

  ‘Has he not found himself a nice woman then?’

  ‘Well, there’s not a lot of choice in the village and he’ll never move,’ replied Dylan.

  ‘You should get Uncle Effin to match him up with someone. He reckons he’s quite good at it,’ said Cariad, narrowing her eyes at her uncle.

  ‘Haven’t you got any single friends for Brynn, Angharad?’ asked Effin.

  Angharad didn’t answer but picked up the gravy boat and handed it to her guest. ‘Tuck in, Dylan, there’s plenty of food.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Williams.’ Dylan speared a piece of the honeyed lamb and lifted it to his lips, declaring it divine. ‘You don’t get food like this in the digs we’re staying in.’

  Angharad beamed. ‘Effin and my boys have always enjoyed their food so I put plenty on the table. Mind you, young Cariad there could put away two potatoes more than a pig even when she was little.’

  ‘You can’t tell,’ said Dylan, turning to her. ‘What with your lovely figure.’

  ‘I used to burn it all off dancing,’ said Cariad. ‘Not anymore though. I’ll be twenty stone in a couple of years.’ There, that should put him off.

  There was a lull in the conversation whilst they ate, the only sound being cutlery on plate with the occasional ‘mmm’ of approval, then Angharad asked, ‘So, are you all ready in the park for Mr Mezzaluna’s visit?’

  ‘Please, not whilst I’m eating,’ said Effin, wrinkling up his nose with disdain. ‘I don’t want to talk about that coc oen.’

  Dylan spluttered. That expression he did understand.

  ‘Don’t you dare call him a lamb’s cock, Effin Williams,’ said Angharad. Her look of reproach melted into a broad smile. ‘He’s absolutely gorgeous.’ She turned to her niece. ‘You might even get to meet him, Cariad.’

  Cariad dismissed that with a shake of her head.

  ‘He’ll be far too busy. They’ll have him on a tight schedule.’

  ‘He won’t be able to fart without a corresponding entry in his diary, with any luck,’ sniffed Effin before Angharad smacked his hand with a serving spoon and glared at him before addressing Dylan.

  ‘I think you could give Franco Mezzaluna a run for his money, Dylan. I bet you’ve got all the girls after you. What are you? You must be six foot two.’

  ‘Six four,’ Dylan answered.

  ‘Big strapping lad,’ said Effin, giving his niece a wink.

  Right, thought Cariad, if he wants to play dirty, she’d wipe that smile off his face.

  ‘Seen the Daily Trumpet today, Uncle Effin?’

  As expected, his cheerful face morphed instantly to a glower.

  ‘Yes, I bloody did, the stupid—’

  Angharad clapped her hands together. ‘Oh, I love to read the Trumpet when I come up here. They get everything wrong, don’t they?’

  ‘Today’s entry is a cracker,’ said Cariad; her turn to wink at her uncle now. ‘They didn’t get his name quite right. Thought Effin was a euphemism.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll have to look at that,’ chuckled Angharad.

  ‘And you should see what they called your perfect Mr Film Star,’ Effin grunted. ‘They called him after a cheese. He was on the telly last night. He’s got a horrible twangy New York American accent. I’d soon get fed up of listening to that.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Effin,’ said Angharad, jumping to Franco Mezzaluna’s defence. ‘I’ve been thinking of sending you for elocution lessons so you can talk like him. It would be like someone pouring a melted Galaxy in your ear.’

  ‘Give me a good deep Welsh voice any time,’ huffed Effin.

  ‘I must admit though, I do like to hear a Scottish lilt too,’ mused Angharad, which was definitely not the right thing to say.

  ‘Oh, so do I,’ put in Cariad with gusto. ‘We’ve got a man at
work with the loveliest accent, Auntie. Guttural and manly.’

  ‘You talking about Davy?’ asked Dylan.

  ‘Yes, old Davy. Sai’n trysto fe, sai’n licio’i lyged e.’ Effin slipped unconsciously into Welsh.

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t trust him and you don’t like his eyes? He’s got lovely eyes,’ Cariad returned.

  ‘He’s too old for you,’ said Effin, quickly.

  ‘Auntie Angharad would leave you for old Tom Jones,’ Cariad grinned. She was enjoying herself now, seeing her uncle squirm.

  ‘I most definitely would.’ Angharad nodded with a sigh. ‘Those snakey hips. Those dulcet tones.’

  Not to be outdone, Effin took that as a cue to wend the conversation back to Dylan’s attributes. ‘You’ve got a beautiful voice, Dylan. Deep and crisp and—’

  ‘Even?’ volunteered Cariad. ‘Like Good King Wenceslas’s pizza?’

  Effin ignored her, determined to execute his mission. ‘Talking of actors and films, there’s a lovely little cinema in Penistone, if you fancied going to watch something. Have you been, Dylan, Cariad?’

  If looks could have killed, Uncle Effin would have been slaughtered in his chair.

  ‘I love the cinema,’ said Dylan. ‘Maybe we could go, Cariad, if you fancied it one night?’

  ‘Oh go on,’ encouraged Effin. ‘You’d have a great time. Two gorgeous young things like you.’ He smiled triumphantly at his niece.

  ‘That . . . that would be really nice,’ Cariad said, stretching her lips into the sort of smile that looked genuine to anyone who didn’t know her too well; but those who did – they’d see more of an intent to murder.

  Job done. Now Effin could relax and enjoy his lamb. He was absolutely certain that Dylan Evans, son of his one-time best friend, and his beloved niece were a match made in heaven, just as he and his Angharad were.

  After the meal Dylan offered to give Cariad a lift, something that delighted her uncle even more.

  ‘Isn’t that nice of Dylan to see you home safely,’ said a euphoric Effin, talking to her as if she were six.

  ‘Fantastic,’ said Cariad with a bite in her voice, making herself a promise that the next time he came in for an ice-cream, she’d cover it in salt.