‘You don’t understand.’
‘I can’t tell her not to come.’
‘No. Tell Amanda to tell her not to come. Tell Amanda we have other plans and it’s up to her to sort it. She’s the one who didn’t confirm.’
‘I can’t do that, Lizzy.’ There was panic in Simon’s voice.
‘Why not? It’s exactly how it would work if it was the other way round.’
‘But it’s not. And she’s my mother, not Amanda’s. She only goes to Amanda because of Lexi and Mo. She’s my responsibility.’
‘So my Christmas gets ruined because of what everyone else wants?’
She could hear her voice go up an octave and several decibels. The people in front of her were turning round to look at her. She was surprised, though, by the sympathetic smiles she was getting.
‘Do you know what would be nice?’ Lizzy lowered her voice, but it was a bit wobbly. She was not going to cry. ‘If you stuck up for me for once.’
Simon didn’t reply for a moment. She heard him sigh. ‘Did the tree arrive?’
Lizzy didn’t answer straight away.
‘Yes,’ she said eventually, cross that now she was supposed to sound grateful even though she’d wanted the tree at least a week ago. ‘Thank you,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll see you later.’
She hung up and put her phone back in her bag. A woman nudged her.
‘I feel your pain. Christmas is a nightmare. I wish it could be cancelled. Get yourself a bottle of Baileys and it will all be all right.’
Lizzy smiled as she reached the bottom of the escalator. She held her head high as she walked out through the cosmetics hall, breathing in the mingled scents. She pushed at the double doors and headed out into the street where the icy air hit her. She took in a big gulp of it and told herself she wasn’t alone. There were women everywhere trying to keep a smile on their faces in pursuit of the perfect Christmas. She mustn’t take it personally.
Across the street there was a market stall selling hot chocolate and doughnuts. Vanilla-scented steam floated along on the notes from the Salvation Army band, reminding Lizzy she had had no lunch. Her mouth watered: sugar was just what she needed. She was about to set off across the street when she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned, half expecting a word of reassurance from another sympathetic shopper.
‘Excuse me, madam.’
There was a black-clad security guard standing in front of her. He had INGLEWOOD’S written on his left breast. She smiled.
‘Yes?’
He nodded towards her handbag. ‘Have you paid for this item?’
She looked down to see the velvet dress still slung over her arm, hooked behind her bag.
‘Oh my God!’ She looked back up at him in horror. ‘I didn’t realise. Honestly. I was going to try it on in the dressing room and then I bumped into my husband’s ex and I just forgot I had it.’
The guard looked at her, stony-faced. He had a toad-like expression and bags under his eyes.
She thrust the dress towards him with a smile.
‘Here. Sorry. I was going to hang it back up. I hate people who don’t hang things back up after they’ve tried them on.’
He held out his arm.
‘Perhaps you’d like to come with me so we can discuss it in private?’
‘What?’
‘I need you to come with me.’
He was firm and formal and the meaning was very clear. He was trying to usher her back to the shop.
Lizzy felt her cheeks flush scarlet. Her heart was pounding. People were looking at her as they walked past, disgust and accusation on their faces.
‘Just take it back,’ she said. ‘Please. Honestly. I would have turned round as soon as I realised. I don’t even want it. I don’t even know if it fits!’
He took the dress, shaking it out on its hanger for all to see, and nodded towards the shop entrance.
‘This way, please.’
She looked around in disbelief. She supposed she could do a runner, but what if a member of the public bundled her to the ground like a common criminal? She had no option but to do as he asked.
‘It’s a misunderstanding. But if you insist.’
It didn’t really get more mortifying than being marched through a shop with a security guard. Lizzy tried to put a smile on her face that signified her innocence and his lack of judgement.
The guard led her to a small office in the bowels of the building. Inside, a woman of about her own age was waiting. Her name badge indicated she was Shirley Booth, assistant manager.
‘Mrs …?’
‘Kingham,’ said Lizzy. ‘There seems to have been a bit of a mistake.’
Shirley nodded, expressionless. ‘Let’s deal with the formalities first.’
The next few minutes passed in a blur as Lizzy was seated and filled out a form, giving her name and address. She found herself going along with it, too shaken to protest, with no idea of her rights or what she was supposed to do.
‘We need to take your photograph,’ said the guard, holding up a camera.
‘What? Why?’ Lizzy put her hands to her hair. Ludicrously. This wasn’t a fashion shoot. It was a mugshot.
‘To put on our database. In case we have to ban you.’
‘Ban me?’ The prospect was both ridiculous and horrifying. She sat up straight. ‘I’ve been shopping here for longer than I can remember. I spend a fortune. I bought a new hoover in here last week!’
She said it as if hoovering and shoplifting were mutually exclusive.
The security guard didn’t crack. ‘We take shoplifting very seriously. And we circulate photographs to the other shops in Leadenbury. With the police cut-backs us shopkeepers have to look out for each other.’
They were going to take her photograph and notify every shop in town that she was a shoplifter? Lizzy felt sick. She turned to Shirley. Surely a woman would understand?
‘I wasn’t shoplifting. It was an honest mistake. I don’t even want the wretched dress. I was going to put it back. I didn’t even try it on!’
‘You came out of the changing room with it over your arm and went straight down the escalator,’ said the guard.
‘I was on the phone to my husband. His ex-wife had just told me we’ve got his mother for Christmas.’
‘Classic diversion tactic. Everyone tries that.’
‘You are joking. Please tell me this is a joke.’
Shirley sighed and pressed a remote control. ‘I’m afraid we’ve got you on CCTV.’
Suddenly there Lizzy was on the television screen, gliding down the escalator talking into her phone, the dress over her arm.
Lizzy sat back in her chair, bewildered. ‘I don’t know what to do. I wasn’t stealing it. Am I supposed to call my lawyer?’
‘We should be calling the police. This is a serious offence.’
Lizzy suddenly grabbed her handbag and rummaged about in it, producing the vouchers.
‘Hang on a minute. I came in here to spend these. Why would I steal a dress when I’ve got the means to pay for it? It doesn’t make sense and you know it doesn’t.’ She thrust the vouchers across the desk.
‘Sometimes it’s the richest people that nick stuff.’ The guard remained unmoved.
Lizzy hated him, with his mean mouth and the way he talked through his nose.
‘I suppose you’ve got a quota? A target number of people you’ve got to catch to keep your job?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You walked out of the shop with a dress over your arm. I didn’t exactly frame you.’
She turned to Shirley, who was frowning at the frozen image on the screen. Lizzy’s face was a rictus of fury and despair as she spoke into her phone.
Lizzy tried appealing to her better nature.
‘You must know what it’s li
ke. Trying to keep everyone happy at Christmas. I took my eye off the ball for one second and made a mistake. Where’s your sisterly solidarity? We’re all in this together. We’re supposed to support each other, not stitch each other up.’
Shirley and the guard exchanged glances. The guard rolled his eyes as if to say we’ve got a right one here.
Lizzy sat back and crossed her arms. ‘Fine. You can do what you like. Arrest me if you want. At least I wouldn’t have to face the mother-in-law-from-hell in prison.’
There was silence for a moment. Then Shirley seemed to make a decision.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘You’re free to go.’
‘What?’ said the guard. ‘You can’t do that. It’s not our policy.’
‘It was obviously a case of seasonal stress.’
‘You haven’t fallen for that old chestnut? You’re going soft.’
‘I know what it’s like,’ said Shirley. ‘Everyone moving the goalposts, expecting the earth, making their little demands without giving a toss how it might affect your plans, not thinking for a moment that you might like to put your feet up for five minutes or stop having to make lists … And in the meantime you have to do everything, even buy and wrap your own bloody presents because everyone else has better things to do …’
She trailed off, suddenly looking embarrassed at her diatribe.
‘Well, quite,’ said Lizzy. ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head.’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ said the guard.
‘Exactly!’ chorused the two women.
As Lizzy picked up her bag and made to leave, the manager gave her a complicit grin.
‘Have a merry Christmas,’ she said with a wink.
‘Thank you,’ said Lizzy. ‘I’m going to make sure I do.’
7
Lizzy drove home feeling stunned. Had that really happened? She replayed it in her head, every excruciating moment. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
All she’d wanted was a Christmas dress. Instead she’d been humiliated. First by Amanda, looking like a goddess and pulling rank. Then by being arrested in full view of everyone in front of Inglewood’s. Anyone could have seen her. Amanda could have seen her, being frog-marched through the shop. There was every chance she had. Lizzy cringed at the thought.
It doesn’t matter, she told herself. You’re doing the tree tonight. It will all look lovely, and you’ll have your family, and they will love you and keep you safe and make you laugh.
She might even tell them what had happened that afternoon. Maybe after a glass of wine she would be able to see the funny side. She was so sensitive at the moment she never knew how she was going to feel about anything.
She told herself to forget about Amanda. And she would just have to be gracious and welcome Cynthia. She couldn’t ban her mother-in-law from the house without betraying her confidence. It was their secret. Lizzy had made a promise, perhaps against her better judgement, but mostly to protect the husband she loved. It was ironic that she was being punished for that loyalty, but she wasn’t going to let the cat out of the bag.
It was hard work being a good person sometimes.
Back at home, the house was quiet. She walked through the living room and saw with a flicker of irritation that the boxes hadn’t been brought down from the attic yet. Surely Luke wasn’t still in bed? She didn’t mind a reasonable lie-in, but she had a rule that everyone should be up by lunch. She trotted to the top of the house, tapped on his bedroom door and opened it.
His bed was empty. The curtains were still shut, and the plates and cups she’d asked him to move were still there. She swallowed down her disappointment. His clothes weren’t on the floor any more, though. He’d obviously gone out in a rush, not bothering to do any of the things she’d asked. She sighed.
She loved her children, but they could be spectacularly selfish. She knew that wasn’t unique to them, not by any means, but it was very wearing. Yet again she was backed into a corner and given a choice she didn’t want to make: get cross and be a nag, or do what she’d asked to be done herself.
She chose the latter. She didn’t want to spoil tonight by phoning Luke and moaning. No doubt by not chastising him she wasn’t teaching him a lesson, but she didn’t have the heart for another confrontation today. Instead she pulled a chair out of his room and put it on the landing, pushing at the hatch to get into the attic. She hated the loft ladder with a vengeance. Pulling it down until the bolt snapped into place made her jump every time: she was terrified of getting her fingers caught.
She finally got all the boxes of decorations down, puffing and sweaty from the exertion of scurrying up and down a ladder she still didn’t trust, then carried them down to the living room.
Every year she pulled everything off the tree in a desperate panic, because she would always forget it was Twelfth Night and was terrified it would bring bad luck even though she wasn’t really superstitious. So now here she was, faced with a tangle of tinsel and glitter and shards of shiny broken glass. Her heart sank at the sight: it was going to take ages to sort through it all and put it into order. She just wasn’t the sort of person who wound the fairy lights neatly around empty Pringles tubes – although she would be this year. This year she was going to be on it.
The tree was standing proudly in a red pot in the corner next to the fireplace. Six feet high, plump and triangular, with evenly spaced branches – Simon had done her proud, she had to admit, and it had been worth waiting for. It was so perfect it almost looked fake, but the scent of fresh pine filling the room proved it wasn’t. Though you could probably get fake trees that smelled these days, thought Lizzy. You could get fake anything. Fake reindeer, fake polar bears, fake snow …
She’d looked up a Winter Wonderland ‘Treetorial’ Workshop on the internet. This year she was determined to take things up a level and throw herself into a Nigella/Kirstie world of magical indulgence. Without, of course, sacrificing any family traditions, as that would be far too traumatic – not least for Lizzy. She knew there would be an outcry if she threw any of their old decorations away and she wasn’t that much of a control freak.
Besides, the workshop had taught her how to revamp her tree decor by ‘gonging up’: giving your old decorations a new lease of life by stringing them up with sumptuous bows. She’d splurged out on several spools of burnt orange velvet ribbon that made her mouth water.
But first she had to go through the boxes and throw away anything broken, then sort everything into size order. Apparently, you put your big balls in the middle of the tree, for depth, and the smaller ones on the outside.
How had she survived Christmas until now, without professional tree-decorating tips?
Painstakingly, she began to go through the boxes – nearly twenty years of accumulated Christmas bling. Every single bauble brought a memory with it, from the half a dozen wooden elves she had bought for their first Christmas at Pepperpot Cottage – they’d had the tiniest tree imaginable – to the feathery flamingos she’d bought the year before. Then there were the glue-encrusted offerings made by Hattie and Luke at nursery. She found two little clay plaques with their handprints, painted gold, and felt the prickle of tears. Their lives were in that box of decorations, marking the years.
Most poignant of all was the battered satin angel with the white feather halo she had bought for the twins’ first Christmas. As soon as they were big enough they took turns to put it on top of the tree when they’d all finished decorating. Whose turn was it this year? She couldn’t remember, but she would find out later. The twins would know. The poor old angel was battered and grubby and had seen better days, but she was irreplaceable. Anything else on top of their tree was unthinkable. Lizzy gave her a scrub with a damp dishcloth and fluffed up the feathers and put her to one side, ready for the finale.
She felt quite drained when she’d finished, but eventually she
had everything laid out in order. Planning and preparation were her new watch words. Farewell to chance and chaos, she thought.
She decided she would give ‘gonging up’ a trial run. She cut off a length of velvet ribbon and threaded it through the metal hook on a particularly lurid Santa caked in neon glitter. Try as she might, she couldn’t get the ribbon to do what she wanted. She was aiming for a big fat bow with a nice plump knot in the middle, so she could then cut a v into the ends of the ribbon to give it a florist’s flourish. But her bow just looked limp and creased and mean. There was nothing sumptuous about it.
Frustrated, she flung the decoration back into the box. She was useless. Utterly useless. She wasn’t Kirstie bloody Allsop. She was ham-fisted, unimaginative Lizzy who couldn’t create magazine perfection to save her life.
She told herself to calm down. Decorating the tree was supposed to be fun. It wasn’t a competitive sport. It wasn’t something to be judged on. It was their lovely Christmas tradition. Surely the tree was supposed to be a reflection of how your family had evolved, not a benchmark of good taste?
She sighed. It was just that she had wanted it to be different this year. She’d wanted to spend time making everything look – well, not perfect, but stylish and interesting enough for people to take note and remark.
She’d pictured the tree as six foot of luxe sophistication at first glance, but on closer inspection the delighted guest would spot the kitsch and retro baubles of yesteryear, the home-made offerings lugged home by the toddler twins, and exclaim at Lizzy’s genius, her artistic eye, her cleverness in mixing the nostalgic with the ‘now’.
‘Oh, you are clever! I wish I had your knack,’ she imagined someone like Meg saying.
She looked at the bare branches doubtfully then decided to give it one last try. She cut a fresh piece of ribbon and threaded it through the loop, then twisted it into a bow – and suddenly there it was, absolutely perfect. She stood back and stared at it in delight, pleased she hadn’t given in. She held it up to the tree, admiring the effect, feeling a ripple of satisfaction at her achievement. Maybe she needed to do more of this kind of thing? The feeling of achievement was lovely …
Christmas at the Beach Hut Page 4