by Annie O'Neil
Kai and Rex were decked out in utterly sumptuous king outfits (beautiful silk head-wraps and gorgeous jewel-coloured robes) while she’d been stuck with a tea towel, a fake beard and one of Rex’s old dressing gowns (it was actually quite a lovely dressing gown and she had on three layers of clothes underneath which made her look more Michelin man than wise man, but pragmatics of warmth definitely pipped fashion to the post on this frosty night).
What made the night even better was that everyone loved Rex and Kai’s idea: make a wreath as a gift to pay forward.
They had borrowed Chantal’s trestle tables, and had set them out under the street lights at the end of the cul-de-sac as they didn’t have a drive of their own. There were heaps of folding chairs or, for those who preferred standing, space to stand at the tables. They also had a hotplate with a huge jam pan full of mulled wine and a platter of very swish mince pies (‘We have a trade for goods deal with the local bakery. They get a wreath, we get a bounty of pies.’) Mr Winters had yet to appear, but Jess could see there was light coming from around the curtains in his sitting room.
The tables were a hive of activity. Instructions were given as to how to bend pine fronds round the circular frames, or tie tight, substantial bows if a swag was preferred. There were mountains of ‘individual touches’ to choose from. Cranberries, holly berries, goji berries (no, not really, but there was something else … bay? Juniper!) There were long skeins of ribbon, bowls of dried oranges, platters of pomegranates and a mini-mountain of Brussels sprouts ‘which looked much more seasonal on the star-shaped frame if anyone was up to it’. It was fabulous watching everyone’s brows furrow with intense concentration, their decision to use this bow or that, one piece of fruit or another every bit as important as cookie-decorating day had been when it came to hundreds and thousands or edible silver balls. Speaking of which, Chantal – Jess was completely unsurprised to see – was making the most fabulous wreath she’d ever laid eyes on, apart, of course, from Rex and Kai’s wondrous creations.
‘Jess?’
An elegantly gloved hand beckoned her from the far end of one of the trestle tables. It, and the rest of the fur-coated arm, belonged to Mrs Snodgrass. She was looking incredibly stylish tonight. In place of her usual ensemble of a practical wool pantsuit and sensible all-seasons coat most likely purchased in the 1970s, Martha, along with her slim-fit leather gloves, was wearing the type of fur hat that was generally seen on a Bond girl. A Bond girl wearing a matching coat that went all the way down to her ankles while skiing down Mont Blanc ahead of a pack of machine-gun-wielding baddies. Martha had on the matching coat minus the skis. Ooh la la!
‘Yes, Martha?’
‘It’s Mrs Snodgrass, dear, unless told otherwise.’ She was instantly corrected.
‘Yes, Mrs Snodgrass.’ Jess said contritely.
‘Please, dear, do call me Martha,’ Mrs Snodgrass said with a smile. ‘Now. If I want to get these holly berries to look as if they’ve been Jack Frosted what do I do?’
Jess talked her through how to use the artificial snow can and then, when they’d decided Martha’s arthritic fingers weren’t quite up to the task, she did it for her. As she was handing it back she saw Martha try to cover a yawn with an embroidered handkerchief she had clutched in her hand.
‘Late night?’ Jess asked.
‘They’re all late nights,’ she groused.
‘What do you mean?’
Martha glanced down the table to where Tyler was playing a Jimi Hendrix-style air guitar version of ‘Silent Night’ for some of the children.
‘When he plays something tolerable, he’s actually very talented,’ Martha snipped.
‘I’m guessing he doesn’t choose tolerable all that often?’
‘Try never.’
‘You should give him a warning, Martha,’ piped in a neighbour Jess hadn’t yet met. The nurse maybe? ‘Get someone else in. I’m always happy to ring the police for you. Say he’s a public nuisance or whatever.’
‘Oh, we’ve been through all that,’ Martha swotted away the suggestion then pointed to a thick roll of red ribbon. ‘What do you think to fashioning me a big bow, Jess? Would that be all right?’
‘Course it would,’ Jess said, smiling because she was getting the impression Mrs Snodgrass enjoying complaining about Tyler as much as Tyler enjoyed shredding guitar solos.
She pulled out a long stretch of ribbon and got to work. She was enjoying the hands-on work more than she’d thought. It was a lot like being back at St Benny’s but without the rules and regulations, or the compulsion to keep glitter off the children’s eye-wateringly expensive uniforms (a snip, really, when put up against the school fees). It was, in fact, a bit how she’d imagined life would be when she’d bought the house on Christmas Street to teach at a normal school in a normal town with normal children. In other words, it was fun. When Kai and Rex had first asked her to help, she’d felt herself put on the brakes just as she had when her parents had suggested easing back into teaching via online tutorials. But, as with her parents suggestion, the reality was proving exactly the medicine she needed to remind herself just how much she enjoyed teaching. And, of course, messing about with loads of free art supplies.
She handed the completed bow back to Martha for inspection. ‘I love your outfit.’
‘Oh, this?’ Martha pressed her gloved hands to the fluffy collar framing her delicate jawline. ‘I hadn’t even remembered having it and the other day when I was clearing out, I unearthed it and thought … why not?’
‘Why not indeed?’ Rex came up to join them, a big box of silver and gold pine cones resting on his hip. ‘It’s fabulous. And you look fabulous in it. Whose is it?’
‘Mine,’ Martha pressed her fingers a bit possessively into the fluffy fur. ‘It was a gift.’
‘I meant the designer, Martha. That’s not an off-the-rack jobbie.’
Martha brightened then softened as if remembering the moment she’d first seen it. ‘Dior, darling,’ she said in a husky, late-night radio voice none of them had heard from her.
Rex whistled. ‘Nice gift.’
Martha shrugged. ‘The Seventies were a different era. Especially in Soho.’
‘Oh, it was from a Londoner, then, was it?’
‘No …’ her voice trailed off then, in a whisper added, ‘A Parisian.’
‘Ooo err, missus. Look at you and your Parisian lover.’
‘He wasn’t a lover,’ Martha arched an imperious eyebrow, then shaded her eyes against the streetlight as she intoned, ‘He was a fan.’
‘Of …?’ Rex put down the box and squatted down so Martha didn’t have to strain to look up at him.
She squidged her features as if deciding whether or not to say, then rather primly admitted, ‘My singing.’
‘Martha, you dark horse, you.’ Rex scanned the crowd. ‘Tyler, have you heard this!’ He stood back up and beckoned for Tyler to come over.
Martha’s features quickly turned sour. ‘Stop that. It’s my business and I’d like to keep it that way, thank you very much.’
Jess gave her arm a squeeze but Martha shook her off and stood, wavering a bit to get her balance as she did.
‘That’s enough, Rex. Thank you for a lovely evening. Now goodnight.’
She walked off without a backwards glance, leaving them all a bit flabbergasted.
‘I didn’t mean to—’ Rex began.
‘Course you didn’t,’ Jess assured him. No one knew why Martha had had the abrupt about-face. She looked down at the table. ‘Oh! She left her wreath, should I go after her?’
‘We were making them for others, weren’t we?’
‘Do you know who she was making it for?’
‘Josh,’ said a couple of people, as if they’d timed it.
‘She usually does stuff for Josh,’ said another as a someone else announced, ‘But I was doing min
e for Josh.’
‘Really? No. I was, too.’
‘Sugar,’ said another.
There was giggling and some huffs of disappointment. It appeared the whole of Christmas Street had been making their wreaths for Josh.
‘Josh?’ Rex called down to the far end of the table where Josh, his children and their Bernese mountain dog were trying to wrangle a couple of tangerines onto a wire wreath frame. ‘Do you need a wreath?’
He barked a laugh. ‘God, no. We’ve got one on the front door, the back door, the gate. The mums at school have been ever so generous.’
A few discomfited glances were exchanged.
Jess threw a look at the house behind her. ‘What if we gave it to Mr Winters?’
The table fell silent. Then:
‘Oh, I don’t know if he’d like that.’
‘He never really does anything for the holidays.’
‘He does flowers in the spring,’ she pointed out.
‘Spring isn’t exactly a holiday is it, Jess?’
‘’Spose not, but—’
‘But nothing. It’s not like he’s out here making one for you, is it?’
‘He’s going to be doing something on December the twenty-fourth,’ an Australian voice cut through the chatter.
An awkward silence hummed along the table.
‘Go on, Jess. You give it to him if you like,’ Drea said. ‘I’m sure Martha wouldn’t mind.’
In one weighted move, Jess felt everyone’s eyes land on her. It made her skin crawl. Exactly the way it had after she’d shouted at Crispin, ‘Don’t. You. Dare!’
She’d made a call.
It had gone wrong.
More so than any other gut reaction she’d had in her life.
She glanced at Rex to try and gauge what he thought.
‘It’s up to you, love. None of us has developed a rapport with him.’
‘He almost ran over my child,’ gritted one of the Gem’n’Emms.
‘That was an accident,’ someone said, not sounding entirely convinced.
‘Was it? Was it really?’ she replied.
Kai bounded up and pointedly put a portable speaker on the middle of the table. He cupped his hands to his mouth and called out a bright woo hoo! for everyone’s attention. ‘How about we top up our mulled wines and have a go at our own version of “Do They Know It’s Christmas”?’
Shoulders lowered, tensions eased and soon everyone was singing with gusto. Tyler climbed up onto the middle of one of the tables and added a passionate air-guitar performance to the mix. Laughter and music filled the street again.
A loud, reverberant door slam silenced everything bar the tinny sound of Boy George.
‘Turn that bloody racket off!’
It was Mr Winters.
Jess’s heart sank.
The song came to an end.
Without waiting for a response, he turned round and stomped back into his house.
12 December
Jess knew she was walking on thin ice. And she wasn’t just talking figuratively. Overnight, as if the chilly atmosphere between the residents of Christmas Street and Mr Winters had transferred across to Mother Nature, the street had been covered in a sheen of slippery hoar frost. Pretty, but potentially harmful.
Though the thin wintry light of day had only just appeared, Jess had been up for hours. Her gut was telling her one thing, but her need to steer clear of trouble was saying another. After lots of soul-searching and two enormous mugs of hot chocolate, she’d finished off Mrs Snodgrass’s wreath, hooked it round her arm and headed off with her heart on her sleeve to ask Martha if she could give it to Mr Winters.
Mr Winters was unhappy for a reason. Martha had become very cross, very quickly for a reason. The same way Jess went silent with internal despair every time someone asked her how excited she was to try and fill Mrs Jameson’s shoes come the start of the winter term.
Carefully making her way down the street, she headed towards number 21.
A car began to crawl past her then stopped. The darkened window of the family-style SUV came down. It was a Gem’n’Emm. ‘All right, Jess? On your way to the cut through to church?’
Jess froze, desperately wishing she could hide behind the wreath slung on her arm. She was hardly going to say she was on a UN peace mission to get a wreath on Mr Winters’ door given last night’s debacle. She’d heard a clutch of Gem’n’Emms vow to boycott Mr Winters’ evening even if he did shock the street by doing an event on Christmas Eve. Poisoned mince pies, most likely, one of them had not so quietly whispered.
She shook her head. ‘No, just out for a stroll.’
The Gem’n’ Emm’s eyes dipped down to the wreath then back up again.
‘Oh, shame. We were going to offer you a ride. Have a proper chat.’
‘Sorry.’ Jess was pretty sure the proper chat was going to include persuasive arguments to join the party line in How To Feel About Mr Winters. If there was one thing she definitely didn’t like, it was being told how to feel about people when her gut was guiding her elsewhere. Although … her gut had led her up the Swanee before. No. It hadn’t. She had to believe she was right. That this was right. Otherwise, the entire foundation of who she was might as well crumble up and disappear.
‘They’ve got a lovely children’s mass next weekend,’ the Gem’n’Emm said. Pointedly. ‘Mrs Jameson used to help out. A real inspiration she was.’
After Jess gave a non-committal, high-pitched Ooh, that sounds nice, the Gem’n’Emm sniffed and added, ‘If you’re interested, that is. I know the school’s C of E, so I just assumed—’ She stopped abruptly, as if Jesus had whispered a reminder to her that he welcomed everyone into his fold, even the ones who didn’t go to church every Sunday, then stuck her palms by her face and wiggled them jazz-hands style. ‘Nativity. Carols. The lot. Easy enough to cram you in back with the kiddies!’ Her expression accordioned into one of deep concern. ‘Drea says you’re on your own for the holidays. We’re happy to take you under our wing. Unless, of course, you have other plans?’
This last question came out as more of an accusation than an invitation.
Jess forced herself to smile. Gem’n’Emm was trying to be nice in the best way she knew how. It wasn’t her fault Jess had absolutely nothing to do on her favourite holiday ever.
Two years ago today she would’ve known exactly how the holidays would play out. The actual break would be at her parents. Martin would be invited and decline. Her parents would tell her she looked too thin and too tired, ply her with food and tiptoe round while she napped. After supper there’d be a round robin with the remote as to who got to pick the evening Christmas film. (Jess, Netflix Holiday Princess movies; her dad, one of the Die Hard films, didn’t matter which one; and her mum, It’s a Wonderful Life, no substitutes. They all adored Elf, Miracle on 34th Street and Love Actually in equal measure.) There would be long country walks with her family and their friends, drinks at her Uncle Colin’s for punch, even though every year they vowed never to go back because of the evil hangovers the day after, but they always did. In between all of this Jess did a lot of googling, trying to decide what she should spend her Christmas money from the parents at St Benny’s on. The year before had been a doozy. Three hundred quid in John Lewis vouchers, four Jo Malone candles, a bouquet-a-month subscription and the inevitable invitation to ‘tutor’ one family’s children at their chalet. She’d said no because those kind of invitations gave her the willies. As if one day, rather than ask for a false set of marks, the parents would ask her to murder a nanny who’d been shagging an errant husband, or give her passport to an illegal maid they’d been holding hostage for several years because no one ironed a shirt collar like she did. Yet another skew on her world view that had landed her here, very solidly, in the centre of reality, which was precisely where she wanted to be. None of w
hich was helping her find a tactful way to dodge the invitation.
‘Jess?’ Gem’n’Emm’s children had rolled down their window and were peering at her as if they, too, needed to know what her holiday plans were. ‘We can throw in dinner with the kids if you’re interested. We always have tacos before the service, don’t we kids?’
‘Tacos!’ They echoed and clapped. ‘Yum!’
Jess did love a good taco. She wasn’t so sure about being counted as one of the children seeing as she was an adult woman, but she had also absolutely adored this time of year. Especially the bits that involved children. Right up until she was fired then forced to sit through the nativity, the carols, the thanks to the parents for all of their contributions with special helpings of gratitude to the Anand-Haight family for being so generous … all things considered. (They’d paid for a trained donkey to walk in and out of the school’s chapel with a rather thrilled-looking ‘Mary’ riding side-saddle – with a helmet on beneath her white shawl because Crispin’s parents, above anything, knew health and safety was paramount when it came to children.)
‘Shall we leave you to mull it over?’ The Gem’n’Emm asked.
‘Yes, thanks,’ Jess smiled apologetically, waving mechanically as they slid up their windows and rolled off down the road towards the church, where Jess could hear a peel of bells beginning.
It was a nice invitation. A lovely one, in fact. Exactly the sort of invitation she would’ve offered to someone new and alone on her street if she had a happy family all primed for the holidays. In fact, Jess found herself spoilt for choice. There was Drea’s invitation to join her (if her son didn’t show), Kev’s invitation to join him and his family for their annual deep-fried turkey and Mrs Snodgrass’s invitation to join her for a small tipple during the Queen’s speech. Each of the offers had made her heart pound with gratitude that the street she’d chosen to live on was filled with people who were so kind.
She would say no, of course. To all of them. Accepting the invitations would involve actual talking, unlike the advent-calendar events which involved little more than chit-chat. There would also be wine. And questions. Talking, wine and questions would inevitably lead to pouring her guts out. The whole gory story. And she wasn’t about to fall into that particular rabbit hole again. Not unless … And there she went, straight back down to the what if tug and pull of what would’ve happened if only she’d minded her own business.