by Beth Moran
Well, there was another one in the eye for my mother. Santa had been after all. The sack was a proper brown, Santary one, with a red ribbon tied around the top. Somebody had tried to hang it on my door handle, but the weight had caused it to slip off and thud onto the top step. Still cautious, I slowly took hold of the ribbon with two fingers and dragged it inside, slamming the door shut after it. I faffed about for a few minutes, poking the bag, nudging it with my foot, even sniffing it (to see if it smelt like a bomb?). I finally decided that, quite possibly, I had received a nice message for once.
I cut the ribbon to save having to unpick it with freezing fingers, and tipped the contents of the sack out onto my sofa. A large rectangular present tumbled out. Did I leave it under my two-foot tree like a good girl, ready to open in the morning? Of course not.
It was a cookery book, published in 1979: How to Survive in the Kitchen by someone called Katherine Whitehorn. Hmmm. I remembered the conversation I’d had with my imaginary Santa before we took the grotto down. It wasn’t hard to guess who was masquerading behind this Santa’s beard. I could have killed him for scaring the pyjamas off me in the middle of the night. Except that as he took one final look at the murderous rage on my face I wouldn’t have been able to hide how embarrassed I felt that he had overheard me having a pretend conversation with Father Christmas.
I hugged the book to my chest for a few minutes. Who was I kidding? He had snuck across sub-zero fields in the middle of the night to leave a cookery book in a sack on my doorstep. I loved it.
Stop being nice to me, Reuben Hatherstone!
I took an almond and clementine cake to the Hall on Boxing Day. Homemade. I was so eager to arrive with the cake in one piece, I drove the quarter of a mile up to the house instead of walking.
Parking my car in between an Audi and Erica’s Alfa Romeo induced a brief reality check. I wondered, between mute busters, how many other guests found themselves glued to the seat of their swanky cars by an overwhelming cascade of inadequacy. I restarted the engine. My drug, the promise of solitary silence, pulled at me with its invisible cord. But I knew that leaving now represented a fall off the wagon no less injurious than a shot of vodka to an alcoholic. I closed my eyes. Fought. Breathed. Nearly had a heart attack when the car door flew open.
Reuben. He reached over and switched the engine off before standing back, holding the door like a chauffeur. I scrabbled to undo my seat belt and clambered out, lifting the cake from its protective nest of blankets in the passenger footwell. As I took a step toward the house, Reuben moved in front of me, barring my way.
“You need a minute.”
“What?” I was still dizzy with the scent of isolation.
“Take a minute.” He held out one hand, in a gesture of greeting. “Hi, I’m Reuben. Nice to meet you.”
I shook his hand, which was dry and rough with calluses. “Hello?”
Reuben smiled. “There you go. That’s all you have to do.” He led the way as we moved across to the front entrance. “Oh, and you might want to do up the button on your trousers.”
The Hall looked like a set from a film. Pots displaying Christmas rose bushes stood on every step leading up to the front door. Half the garden shrubbery appeared to have been brought inside. Each room overflowed with winter greenery – lining mantelpieces and banisters, framing the vast mirrors, nestling on every surface. Tiny ornaments tucked among the foliage gleamed in splashes of silver and blue, and in the centre of the grand hallway the tree took pride of place. I nearly laughed when I saw it. A fat, lopsided, scrubby fir tree, barely higher than my head, scrappy, dog-eared decorations too tacky even for Jimbo’s souvenir stall covered it entirely.
“I love your tree!” I moved past Ginger, who had welcomed us in, and took a closer look.
Ginger stroked one of the decorations, a clay star with a point chipped, painted with messy gold brushstrokes. “Our boys made these.” She smiled at me. “They might be less than perfect, and showing the odd signs of wear and tear, but aren’t we all, Marion?”
About twenty others gathered in the main reception room, drinking mulled wine, sherry or fruit punch, chatting in small clusters as Sunny and Katarina weaved in and out bearing plates of nibbles and fancy looking canapés. I took a deep breath. I tried to recall Scarlett’s lesson on party mingling (something about fat bankers?) and wafted the throat-girl away with a sturdy exhalation. She still hung around, but I was winning the battle. No invisibility tricks today.
“Marion!” Archie welcomed me into his huddle, which also contained Erica’s father, Mr Fisher, with his wife Olivia, and a younger woman I hadn’t seen before. “Is it too late to say Merry Christmas? Was it a merry Christmas? Out there in the forest all alone? Marvellous!”
“Yes, it was lovely, thanks, Archie. Very relaxing.”
This was true. I had opened my other presents: a scarf and gloves covered in pom-poms from Valerie, an elegant journal from Scarlett with a quote inscribed on the inside cover – “Fill your paper with the breathings of your own heart – William Wordsworth” –, an indoor grow-your-own-herbs kit from Jake, and my new shoes.
They were Sherwood Forest shoes: deep brown walking boots with a chunky heel and thick tread. Grace had embroidered them with leaves in three different shades of green: oak, chestnut and birch. Around the thick rim of the sole she had painted a tiny row of mushrooms. Among the leaves I found a ladybird, a spider’s web and a silver arrow. The laces had deer running up and down them, and inside woolly white fleece lined my beautiful boots. I was to walk for miles through the forest in my Sherwood Forest shoes. They returned mud encrusted, but I knew that was how they were meant to be.
Erica sought me out through the groups of guests. Cucumber cool in an ice-blue shift dress, she fondled the sapphire pendant dangling between her collarbones.
“Marion! I’m so glad you came. Not that I would have blamed you for staying away after what happened.” She widened her eyes at me. “I don’t know what came over me. I was so tired and stressed that for a moment I actually thought that something was going on between you and Reuben. You! And Reuben!”
I sipped my drink.
“Anyway, all’s well that ends well. I heard you spent Christmas in your caravan. You’re so brave, Marion. I really admire how you don’t care what anyone thinks and aren’t afraid to show it. Although…” Erica eyed me up and down – “you do look really nice today. And you’ve had your hair styled. It suits you.” She smiled. “Perhaps I’ll have to keep my eye on you and my boyfriend after all.”
Katarina rescued me with a tray of mini salmon tarts.
“Lovely, Katarina!” Erica helped herself to the decorative sprig of salad. “Are we still all right for punch?”
Katarina swung around, leaving Erica face-first in the mound of her impressive back. “Huh! Some guests need to be remembering that they are still holding the status of guest and not anything more than this yet.”
As always, Katarina’s disgruntled mutter reached every ear in the room. “And some young men should be realizing they have plenty enough attractiveness to locate a woman who will not try to control their lives with their bossy and patronizing manner.”
Erica’s neck flushed purple. She blinked several times, her eyes darting around the room.
“Um…” I said, dumping my drink on a mahogany side-table. “I’m going to the loo.”
We were in a part of the house quite new to me and, having retraced my steps back to the main hallway, I opened up the two nearest doors, leading into a study and a dining room respectively, before moving down a corridor deeper into the building. A white door with an iron latch opened onto a bathroom, and I nipped inside. This did not look like guest facilities. Towels had been left strewn across the floor. A pair of lacy pink knickers hung over a wicker chair next to an overflowing laundry basket. A tube of Anusol perched on the edge of the sink.
I was quickly washing my hands when a second door, one carefully designed and wallpapered to blend in w
ith the stately decor, so that unsuspecting bathroom users wouldn’t notice it, crashed open. The door swung toward me, momentarily blocking me from view. I instinctively ducked further behind it, as if that could make any difference. Panic overrode my rationalization that nobody would really mind me being here.
Hiding didn’t make any difference, because even if I had stuck the pink knickers on my head and performed a tap-dance on the terracotta floor, the writhing, steamy, conjoined couplet of Archie and Ginger wouldn’t have noticed me.
They groped their way along the wall toward the other side of the room, murmuring frantic endearments into each other’s mouths. Archie stumbled on a discarded towel and they tumbled to the floor in a burst of giggles. I took the opportunity to make myself scarce.
That second door led to a magnificent master bedroom. Yet everything about that room faded into a monochrome haze compared to the high-definition, technicolor photograph sitting on a chest of drawers, as splendidly alone as it was distinctive.
Little John. The Little John captured in the first annual Robin Hood Festival programme. The Little John with one arm around my father, the other one reaching over to grab his pointy green hat. He grinned at me from somewhere in the early nineteen-eighties and I saw, with the advantage of foreknowledge, Ginger’s warm smile in the curve of his cheek and the arch of his lips.
With the sound of the lord and lady’s tryst jarring in my ears, I wrenched my phone out of my bag and took a picture of the photograph. I had to unlock the bedroom door to get out, only hoping the couple wouldn’t notice, or if they did, would blame it on absent-mindedness or other preoccupations.
I rejoined the partygoers now clustered around the grand piano. Fisher banged out some seasonal tunes, while those comfortable enough sang along. I sidled along the group until I reached Reuben and tapped him on the arm.
He broke off mid-line when he saw my face.
“What’s happened?”
“Nothing. Can I talk to you for a second?”
He nodded, and we moved down to the other end of the room. My hands betrayed my agitation as I fumbled with the buttons on my phone.
“Do you know him?” Please, please, know him.
Reuben blanched. “Where did you get this?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Have you been snooping around?” The muscle in his cheek twitched.
“No. I was looking for the toilet, and then your parents came in – you know, occupied – and I snuck out through a different door. I wasn’t looking. It hadn’t crossed my mind to look here. But then, I couldn’t believe it when – ”
Reuben took hold of my wrist and pulled me out into the corridor.
“Slow down.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to know how you ended up in my parents’ bedroom. I would like to know why you’re asking about my brother, and why you have his picture on your phone.”
“Your brother? Little John is your brother?”
“His name was Henry.” Reuben’s eyes were steel. My throat set like brittle toffee.
“I need to explain.”
He nodded, Yes, you do.
“Can I have some water?”
Reuben marched me through the maze of corridors to the kitchen. I poured myself a cup of warm water, and drank it slowly, facing the kettle, before taking my usual seat at the table.
“I’m trying to find out about my da.”
“I heard. Henry isn’t him.”
“No, I know. But he knew him. I found a different photograph, of Da at the Robin Hood Festival, the first one, with another boy. Your brother.” I took another drink. “There was no name. The caption called them Robin Hood and Little John, but they had their arms around each other. They were friends.”
“So, they knew each other. What does that tell you? Henry’s dead. You can’t ask him anything.”
“There’s more to it than that. When Da left England, he changed his name from Daniel Miller. To Henry. That has to mean something.”
Reuben said nothing for a long time. He ran his hands through his hair, took a gulp of my water.
“Henry died in 1981, in a horrific accident. He was eighteen. Mum and Dad still don’t talk about it. Or him. I know they were broken, completely devastated, until I was born.” His eyes found mine. The pain there was startling. “I’m asking you, Marion. Please don’t mention this to them. There’s nothing you can learn from their faded memory of one of Henry’s friends that is worth opening that wound.”
I didn’t want to say that I wouldn’t ask. I knew there was something here. Reuben knew this too. He sighed.
“All right. But will you wait? See what we can find without bringing them into it? Then decide?”
This I could do. We stood up to leave, just as Erica entered the kitchen, carrying a tray of dirty glasses.
“Oh!” She drew up short. I stood there for a brief eternity, knowing that the guiltier I felt about looking guilty, the worse it became; wondering why, even though I had no reason to feel guilty – and this was, quite possibly, the worst time ever to look it – I was growing hotter and hotter, despite the blast of Erica’s icy glare.
“What are you two doing hanging around in here?” Her smile got so tight that her face looked close to snapping in half.
“Marion needed a glass of water.” Reuben kissed his girlfriend on the mouth, taking hold of the tray at the same time. “Leave these; come back to the party with me.”
Erica took Reuben’s offered hand, melting under his genuine affection. I followed behind them back to the drawing room, pretending to ignore the look Erica levelled at me over his shoulder as she stopped in the hallway and kissed him again. Message received, loud and clear.
I was proud of myself for going to the party. See, I told myself, look what happens when you take a risk and do something you’re scared of, instead of wriggling back into the depths of your duvet. You stomp on your self-pity, giving yourself a chance to become a nicer person to be around, liking yourself a bit more and reducing your self-pity levels, completing the cycle to go around again until you actually enjoy being a fun, fabulous, pity-free you. And not only that, but you might even have discovered some vital information unlocking the mystery of Da’s past, securing hope and a fellow detective in one fell swoop.
Slightly carried away on the crest of my post-party high, I made a New Year’s resolution for once aimed at neither losing weight nor resisting strangling my mother. I wrote it in the front page of my new journal: “I will take more risks and do things I’m scared of, instead of wriggling back into the depths of my duvet.”
I read it back, and deciding that it wasn’t specific enough I added an extra clause: “Never avoid a party just because I am scared.” Then one last line: “Never avoid anything just because I am scared. Fear will not control my life.”
So when Jake asked me to go to the Hatherstone New Year’s Eve party, I said yes. Later on, changing into my new jeans and silky top, I racked my brains for other reasons to say no, as fear didn’t cut it any more. I could safely assume I was now single. I found Jake attractive. The heating wasn’t working properly in my caravan. I had run out of books and had nothing else to do.
How about not wanting to give the wrong impression? I was not ready, or willing, for any sort of relationship. But then everything I knew about Jake strongly suggested that he had no interest in commitment either. I had come to the conclusion that I offered a reasonably interesting distraction for Jake. We got on okay, and my refusal to succumb to his charms intrigued him. Over the past couple of months he had played it cool, restricting himself to the occasional flirty comment, but for the most part accepting that his advances only pushed me further away.
Jake and I had become friends now. It never crossed my mind he would take my saying yes to the party as agreeing to more than that.
A reason not to go? Eight pints of beer, countless shots and a simmering rage of seasonal rejection.
Sometimes we do well to listen to our fear.
The party took place in the village hall. Most of the usual faces were there. Jake bought us each a drink, and we found seats. His Christmas had been tough, without his mum. The fragmented remains of his family had spent the holiday eating, drinking and ripping one another to shreds.
The conversation widened during the evening as a few others came to join us, including Jake’s band mates and their girlfriends. Reuben came over to say hello.
“Where’s Erica, then?” Jake craned his neck at the crowd.
“She’s gone into Nottingham with her flatmates.”
“What? You’ve let her out on her own on New Year’s Eve? Man! You’re brave. Or stupid.”
Reuben’s jaw clenched. “I’d be a lot stupider to spend the evening following Erica and her friends about on their tour of overcrowded, overloud, vomit-soaked nightclubs from hell just because you thought I shouldn’t trust her. I’d actually rather be here. Even if it means having to talk to you.” This last sentence he said under his breath. Jake didn’t quite catch it, but his expression soured as he watched Reuben walk away.
As Jake continued drinking, he touched me more and more often, his arm draping around my shoulders, or his hand stroking up and down my leg. He shuffled his chair until he was almost facing me, side-on to the table, and started whispering into my neck, drunken ramblings that sent bugs squirming down my ear holes and sweat prickling the back of my knees.
Jo invited me to dance with her and a few others. I gratefully accepted, feeling the weight of Jake’s stare with every step.
After a couple of songs, he crept up behind me and snaked his arms around my waist. Spinning me around, he pulled me up against his chest. I tried to ease back, but his embrace clamped tight.
“Come on, dance with me, Marion. Loosen up, have some fun. It’s New Year’s Eve.”
“You’re the one who needs to loosen up. You’re crushing me.” I laughed, but it was shrill and hollow.
“Sorry.” He switched to a ballroom hold, swaying us across the dance floor, knocking into people and never quite in time with the music. I clamped my teeth together and waited for the song to end.