It was as I was skimming the kids’ books that I noticed something. A series of books that looked familiar and, even though they were kids’ books, they’re not ones people are going out and buying these days, this collection is from the 90s. I know it so well. Goosebumps books. The original ones too, with the bright, bubbly textured, creepy covers. My eyes darted left to right, up and down, instantly looking for the green spine of my favourite. Sure enough, I located a copy of The Barking Ghost so that’s what I’m reading, curled up in this chair with a throw over my legs, sipping my drink and, wow, I am content.
It’s funny, this is definitely a book for kids, but reading about a boy who hears strange noises in the night makes me feel a little creeped out, being here, surrounded by nothing – and that nothing is surrounded by sea.
I need to get a grip. I’m a grown woman. I shouldn’t be scared of…
The library door swings open and I jump out of my skin. Thankfully it’s just Chris – although I kind of wish it was a creepy dog instead. At least I could look that in the eye. Don’t think it isn’t at the back of my mind that I slept with Chris last night. I mean, I don’t remember if it was any good, but I don’t suppose that matters. I’m just annoyed because, usually when people have a one-night stand, they get to do the walk of shame home and try to pretend it never happened. I have to spend another night with Chris, and it doesn’t matter that we’re in separate beds, although it’s definitely preferable. The point is I’m stuck here with him.
‘What?’ I ask, a little annoyed he’s interrupted me as soon as I’ve started enjoying myself.
He tosses some clothes at me.
‘Put these warm clothes on,’ he insists. ‘Then catch me up, I’ll be in the kitchen. We’ve got a problem.’
I sigh. I seriously doubt we’ve got a problem – he’s got a problem – I don’t know why he has to drag me into it.
‘Fine, fine, I’ll be there in a second,’ I say.
He leaves me to get changed into what I’d guess is Richard’s wife’s clothes, which is totally weird.
I drain the last of my drink – never one to waste chocolate of any description – and head for the kitchen. I wonder what he’s going to make me do, that I need to wear Richard’s wife’s clothes for. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I really hope we do have a problem, because otherwise this is some kind of roleplay thing, where he is Richard, and I’m Richard’s wife – well, he did pretend he was my boss when we met, I’m sure of it. Pretty sure of it. Maybe. One thing I’m sure I’m sure about is that, if that is what this is, I’ll take my chances outside with the freezing snow and the creepy dogs. Suddenly they don’t seem so scary.
Chapter Six
It turns out we really do have a problem. A big, freezing cold one.
‘So, how did this happen?’ I ask.
Standing here, staring at it, my teeth chattering and my toes going numb, it seems kind of obvious. I know how it happened but I don’t understand why.
‘I guess we left the garage door open when we got in last night,’ he says.
‘Ah, yes, we left the garage door open,’ I reply. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t think something was up when you lead me in through the garage.’
‘OK, fine, I was drunk and I must not have pushed the button to close the door behind us,’ he says. ‘Happy?’
‘Ecstatic,’ I reply. ‘So, I imagine you’ve called me here to help shift it?’
Chris grabs two shovels that are leaning against the wall next to him.
‘You want the red one of the green one?’ he asks, confirming my suspicions.
I grab the red one and start shovelling snow.
In case it isn’t obvious, the door has been open all night, and all day, and so there’s a fair amount of snow inside. There’s more coming in as we’re shovelling, but thankfully we can shovel faster than the tiny snowflakes can present a problem. But we can’t close the garage door until all the snow is shifted and, even if we could, obviously we can’t leave all this snow in here. When it melts it will turn to water and that’s a problem all of its own.
‘So, what would you be doing tonight, if you weren’t stuck here with me?’ I ask Chris.
This will go a lot faster if we chat while we’re doing it.
‘I’d be spending it with my dad,’ he says. ‘My mum died a few days before Christmas, a few years ago, so this is always a tough time of year for us. We sit up late, we drink, we watch Jools' Annual Hootenanny. It’s really low-key but I think we both know how much it means to the other person. We just don’t say it, because we’re men.’
He says this in a gruff voice, to let me know he’s kind of joking about that last part.
Wow, I wasn’t expecting such an honest answer.
‘I’m sorry,’ I tell him sincerely. ‘That must be really hard.’
‘Cheers,’ he replies. ‘It is hard to navigate. Going through the motions of the festive period always serves as a reminder. It anchors the grief. So, it’s all “this time that year we were…” kind of thing.’
‘How long ago was it?’ I ask. I wouldn’t usually pry but I get the feeling he wants to talk about it.
‘Three years,’ he says. ‘I can’t believe it’s been three years. It seems like yesterday. I remember, dad was out buying her a present – I would have to nag him to go out and get something himself, I told him it didn’t mean as much if I did it for him – and while he was out I helped mum put the tree up. She had an old artificial one in the loft – older than me, I think. It had definitely seen better days. I helped her put it up, I must have wrapped hundreds of lights around it. I remember she sassed me, after watching me painstakingly untangle them and wrap them around the 6ft tree, trying so desperately not to tangle them again – she joked that they weren’t right and could I start again.’
Chris laughs. As painful as the memories are for him, you can see the comfort he takes from the good bits.
‘She sounds funny,’ I tell him.
‘She was,’ he replies. ‘She died in her sleep that night. It was such a shock. So sudden. She wasn’t even ill.’
‘That’s horrible,’ I reply. ‘Chris, I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine, losing someone at this time of year.’
‘It’s the worst time to lose someone,’ he says. ‘Not just because it’s Christmas, and everyone is happy, but because you feel their ghost more than you would at another other time. Mum died on the 23rd December and we couldn’t even have her funeral until the second week of January. It was like we couldn’t lay her to rest. Plus, she’d bought and wrapped us all presents, so that was heart-breaking. Even the small ones, like the socks, I can’t bring myself to wear them.’
I feel this tugging feeling in my chest. I hardly know Chris and I feel broken-hearted for him. He might be a bit of a dick, who does very silly things, but I wouldn’t wish what he’s been through on my worst enemy.
‘Sorry, look at your face,’ he says. ‘I’m not trying to get sympathy.’
I didn’t realise I was making a face but, obviously, how could I feel anything but sorry for him right now?
‘It’s not that,’ I lie. ‘I think this might be the most words you’ve said to me at once today. I didn’t think you did chatting. And for the first time, I just feel like I know you’re being honest with me.’
‘I’m almost always honest,’ he says with a cheeky grin. ‘And tactful. I’m not saying a word about your shovelling.’
‘I’ll shovel it where the sun doesn’t shine if you say a word,’ I threaten.
‘Go on then, what were your big plans for tonight?’ he asks.
‘I was going out with my friends,’ I tell him. ‘We had a table booked at a club. I suppose it’s a good job I’m not going. There’s no way I would have felt like boozing again.’
‘You don’t spend New Year’s Eve with your family then?’ he asks curiously.
‘No,’ I reply.
Chris looks at me. How on Earth could he have detected a tone wh
en I tried my hardest to make sure I gave nothing away?
‘I feel like there’s a reason for that,’ he says. ‘Want to talk about it?’
‘This new version of you who talks is very disconcerting,’ I reply.
‘You don’t have to talk about stuff, just because I did,’ he says.
Just hearing him saying that, like he’s just so much better at opening up than I am, is enough to make me want to share.
‘I’m not on the best terms with my sister,’ I tell him. ‘She’s 28, but my parents still treat her like a baby, so when she broke up with yet another boyfriend and wound up homeless, they took her back in.’
‘Wouldn’t any parent do that?’ Chris replies.
‘I’m sure they would,’ I reply. ‘And I’m sure they would do the same for me, if I needed it.’
Like if, for example, I lost my job because my boss found out I’d been sleeping in his bed. I’m sure they would visit me in prison too.
‘The problem is how she’s been treating them,’ I continue. ‘She loves to act like the baby and they love to treat her that way, but she’s been taking the piss. My parents don’t have much money and she’s completely sponging off them. She lets my mum run around after her, she uses their cards to shop online – and they let her, because they’re too soft. My mum feels sorry for her. She’ll make her all her favourite foods, and make excuses for her behaviour, because she’s “had her heart broken” but, come on, enough is enough.’
‘Doesn’t she have a job?’ Chris asks curiously.
‘Claire’s ex was her manager, at the pet shop where she works, so no, the job kind of went out of the window with the man and the home.’
‘So, she’s with your parents tonight then?’
‘Well, get this, because this is the straw that broke the camel’s back,’ I rant on. He’s got me started now. ‘To supposedly say thank you for everything they’ve done for her, she bought them a spa trip with an overnight stay in a hotel.’
‘Sounds nice,’ he says.
‘Yeah, except obviously she bought them it with their own money, and she also booked herself a place to go with them, and she booked it for New Year’s Eve. And she didn’t think it was right to use their money on me, so she only booked it for the three of them.’
‘OK, that’s mean,’ Chris says. ‘Couldn’t she have asked your parents if you could go too?’
‘Claire was already mad at me because I called her out,’ I explain. ‘My parents were too nice to tell her to sort her life out. I politely offered to help her find a new job and a place to live and that was it, she fell out with me. She’s my sister and I love her but she can be so stubborn. I only wanted to help her, and my parents, but now we’re hardly speaking. Christmas Day was unbearable, so I’m happy not being with them tonight. Of course, I would rather be with my friends.’
‘But you’re stuck here with me,’ Chris says with a sigh.
Suddenly I feel a bit bad, for implying that Chris isn’t my friend, but he isn’t, is he?
‘I didn’t mean…’
As I step towards him I lose my footing and head straight for the floor. Luckily I narrowly avoid landing on the hard garage floor. Instead, I land on a big fluffy pile of snow and while it isn’t painful, it is absolutely freezing, and I can feel the wetness soaking through my clothes.
‘Shit, are you OK?’ Chris asks.
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I insist, jumping to my feet, dusting myself down. ‘Just cold and wet and kind of embarrassed.’
‘Why don’t you go have a bath and put some dry clothes on,’ Chris insists. ‘I can finish up here.’
‘Are you sure?’ I reply.
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘You’ll soon feel the cold in wet clothes. Go, have a bath, and wait there for further instructions.’
I raise an eyebrow.
‘Well, that sounds interesting,’ I say.
‘It is interesting,’ he replies with a smile. ‘If I were you, I’d get a move on.’
‘OK,’ I say.
There’s an undeniable spring in my step as I head for the bathroom. I can’t believe I’m only just saying this now, after everything that has happened so far, but things just got very interesting…
Chapter Seven
Baths are officially ruined for me, forever, and it’s all because of this bath I am in right now. I will never be able to enjoy another bath again.
So deep it should technically be classed as a pool. So silky smooth – unlike my bath at home, which has this invisible layer of fuzz that no product seems to be able to shift. The water is so warm, the bubbles smell so good, and as if all that wasn’t enough I just found the control panel for the jets. Massage jets! I would have lived a much happier life, never knowing massage jets existed, because now I want them so bad. I’ll just have to make the most of them while I’m here.
I can’t stop thinking about what Chris told me about his mum, and how devastated he must feel at this time of year. I almost feel bad, for telling about my selfish sister woes, because it’s hardly a comparable problem, is it? I know how pushed out I felt, and how it made me feel like I couldn’t spend New Year’s Eve with my parents, but at least I know they’re alive and well, and I can see them any other day. Chris will never see his mum again and, because he’s stuck here, his poor dad is probably all alone.
I feel a tear escape my eye and drop into the bathwater. No. Enough of that. This is strictly a no crying bath. I’m supposed to be warming up and relaxing, making the most of being stuck here.
I wish I’d remembered to bring my phone with me. I left it downstairs. I do like a soak in the bath but I don’t like being alone with my thoughts for too long. Between my tendency to dwell on things, and my overactive imagination, the conversations I have with myself can get pretty out of hand pretty fast. I’ll think about things that have happened in the past – and that covers everything from things I did five minutes ago, to times I embarrassed myself when I was a kid and everything in between. I’ll think about things. I’ll have hypothetical arguments with people – and I won’t always win them, which is insane, you’d think my own imagination would let me win.
I just feel like I have so much on my mind at the moment. More so than usual. We all carry stress around with us but there’s only so much that can be carried around before it starts to feel heavy. On top of the usual life stresses, I’ve got the drama with my sister and now being stuck here in my boss’s house. I yoyo between almost having a lovely time and being terrified of getting caught here, and I’m not even sure they’re different feelings sometimes because, for a girl like me who has never really put a foot wrong, something about being kind of bad for the first time in my life feels weirdly good.
I have always been a good girl. The naughtiest thing I did as a teen was sip my mum’s drinks while she wasn’t looking (interestingly, my sister and I would only ever take sips – it’s like we wanted to be “bad” but we didn’t want to actually get drunk) and occasionally staying up late to watch movies after bedtime. That’s it though. I was good as gold throughout uni – I wound up with a job in the legal profession, for crying out loud, you don’t really get more straight-laced than that, do you?
This might be the only time, in my entire life, that I ever do anything wrong. As things go it’s pretty spectacular – although I can’t take credit for the wildest part of it. Still, I’ll be able to look back at this and feel like I did something out of line, for once in my life, and hopefully it will be a happy memory – something my grandkids can laugh at. Wait, no, I can’t exactly tell my hypothetical grandkids about granny’s one one-night stand, can I? My grown grandkids, perhaps. If I’m lucky enough to get that far in life.
I’d love to have grandkids – kids first, obviously – but a family, that’s the goal. Well, a family and one of these big baths with the jets. Then I’ll know I’ve made it.
Chapter Eight
As I reach the bottom of the stairs two things hit me. First of all, it’s the gen
tle sound of music, drifting into the hallway from another room, loud enough for me to hear, but quiet enough that I can’t quite identify it from here. Next, the delicious smell of something cooking hits me. I couldn’t possibly tell you what but I get a sort of warming winter meal vibe from it. It reminds me of Sunday dinners at my parents’ house in the winter months. The delicious smell of a roast dinner, the cosy room, the steamed-up windows. It’s a real nostalgia kick, a throwback all the way to my childhood, and it makes me miss my family – even my infuriating sister.
I find Chris in the kitchen, busying himself around the hob, a tea towel over his shoulder to show that he means business.
‘Ah, perfect timing,’ Chris says.
He has two plates in front of him which he is loading up with mashed potatoes. He turns around to pull something out of the oven.
‘Go through to the dining room, I’ll bring this through in a second,’ he says.
Chris turns around to face me, oven dish in hand, takes one look at my face and freezes on the spot.
‘Don’t worry, I only used foods they had lots of, that no one would miss – we have to eat,’ he says.
I don’t know what the look on my face is like right now but I think that’s what Chris is reacting to.
‘Oh, I’m not worried about that,’ I insist.
Chris stabs a sausage with a fork and places it on one of the plates. He’s about to do it again when he freezes on the spot, the stabbed sausage hovering above the plate.
‘Oh no,’ he says. I can see his jaw tightening as panic takes hold of him. This is the first time I’ve seen him lose his cool since we got here. ‘You’re not a vegetarian, are you? Or worse, a vegan? Not that being a vegan is bad, but not one bit of this meal is suitable for a vegan. Maybe the gravy – I’d have to check, but you’re not going to have just gravy, are you? Are you? I don’t know any vegans.’
Two Night Stand: A fun, festive read - perfect for the holidays! Page 3