Christmas for One: No Greater Love

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘He’s beautiful, isn’t he?’ Meg beamed. No matter what their history, she, like any other girl, wanted her mum’s approval, wanted to show off her greatest achievement.

  ‘They’re all beautiful until they grow up and start giving you lip.’ Lorna sniffed. It wasn’t quite the response Meg had hoped for.

  ‘Come through, Mum, and I’ll make us a cup of coffee.’ Meg led her mum down the hall.

  ‘Gawd blimey! Look at this! It’s like a mini Downton Abbey, isn’t it?’ Lorna was clearly taken with the grand sitting room. She walking over to peer through the floor-to-ceiling Georgian windows, just visible behind their heavy drapes.

  Meg shrugged. ‘It is lovely to see you, Mum. A bit strange after all this time, but lovely.’

  ‘It is, love,’ Lorna confirmed as she reached into her bag for her cigarettes.

  Meg opened her mouth to protest as Lorna pulled at the French doors that led on to the Juliet balcony. This, Meg knew, would make little difference, but it felt churlish to request that her mum didn’t smoke. After all, she was her mother and instructions and reprimands usually flowed in the other direction. Plus she didn’t want to make her feel any more uncomfortable than she already might be.

  Meg balanced the tray as she walked back into the sitting room. Lorna was still smoking her cigarette by the open balcony door; the smoke blew back in and circulated around the room, filling the space with its toxic fumes. Meg’s nose twitched.

  ‘It’s funny, isn’t it, you think you know a city and then you’re shown a different view, a different postcode and it’s like a whole other world. I think if I lived here, I’d sit and watch the world going by below me, all them people with their fancy handbags and posh haircuts. I bet they’ve never had to struggle. How is it that some of us struggle our whole lives and others don’t? That’s weird, isn’t it?’ Lorna turned to look at her daughter as she took a long, deep drag on her dwindling fag, before turning her head to the window and blowing the smoke out. She flicked the butt from the pad of her thumb with her forefinger. Meg gasped, praying it didn’t land on some unsuspecting passer-by, especially not a Plum Patisserie customer. The seconds of silence told her Lorna had probably got away with it. Her heart skipped a beat nonetheless.

  Placing the tray on the coffee table, Meg twisted her hands together. ‘How long are you here for, Mum?’ She felt oddly nervous around her mum and struggled with what to say next, which made their conversation a little stilted.

  ‘What, you trying to get rid of me already? I’ve only just taken me shoes off!’ Lorna gave a wheezing giggle that turned almost immediately into a cough.

  ‘No!’ The exact opposite. I’m wondering how long I’ve got you for. Who knows when I’ll see you again? If I’ll see you again. ‘I was just thinking about what to get for us to eat tonight and stuff. That is, if you’ve got time. If not, then that’s okay too, but it would be really nice.’ Meg recognised the neediness in her tone.

  Lorna smiled. ‘You was always a good eater. I remember when you were little, you’d eat anything I put in front of you. Not like Jason or Mel.’

  Meg winced at the mention of her older siblings, the ones who got to stay while she had to go. She could only picture them as surly teenagers; ghost-like figures whose names were engraved in her memory but whose substance and characters were missing.

  ‘They were fussy little bastards. I spoilt them.’ Lorna nodded.

  Meg looked at her mum and wondered if she had ever actually indulged any of them. She was not able to remember a single example. She pictured Lucas, who knew only the exact opposite.

  ‘Do you ever see them, or Robbie or Janey?’ Deep down, Meg hoped the answer was no, that she wasn’t the only one who’d been cut out of her mum’s life. But then she felt bad for wishing her same sad situation on her siblings.

  ‘Nah, all grown up, living their own lives. I think Mel’s up north somewhere, Yorkshire or something like that, I don’t know. If I have to go north of the Watford Gap I get a bit jittery.’ Lorna made it sound like this was the norm, as though her children were like chickens that had flown the coop or bears that after the first hibernation were set free to roam and fend for themselves.

  Meg thought of her brothers and sisters scattered across the UK and beyond and wondered how many nieces, nephews, brothers- and sisters-in-law she had never met, how many cousins and family celebrations Lucas would be denied. They were a family fragmented like a broken mirror and just as dysfunctional. It made her sad that even if it were possible to glue all the pieces back together, the whole would still be riven with blemishes, cracked and useless.

  ‘Yeah, I’ll stay for tea if ya like, that’d be lovely.’ Lorna took up a seat on the sofa and picked up her mug of coffee. ‘Is this free or are you going to charge me an arm and a leg? Just that I’m skint, might only be able to afford half a cup.’ She winked. ‘I’m not stopping you working, am I, love?’

  ‘No. I pretty much work every day, through choice, not because I have to. It’s easy to catch up on emails when Lucas is playing and I go down into the café when he’s at nursery. So when I take a few hours or a day to myself, no one minds.’

  ‘That mincey gay bloke said you was Miss Plum’s assistant, is that right?’

  Lorna’s summary of Guy hit Meg in the face as surely as any sting from a raised hand. ‘Guy’s one of my best friends,’ she retorted. ‘And Lucas’s.’

  Lorna seemed indifferent. ‘Yeah, him. Is that right then? You’re her assistant?’

  Meg nodded. ‘Yes. I’m still learning the business, but I’m like the eyes and ears of Pru and Milly.’

  ‘What, like a grass?’ Lorna gulped her coffee.

  Meg snorted her laughter. ‘Yes, Mum, I’m a grass.’ She giggled again, thinking of all the patisserie training, the hours spent watching, reading and learning everything she needed in order to try and step into Pru’s shoes.

  ‘Do you earn a lot of money?’ What might be a taboo subject in other families was to them quite ordinary. They both recalled counting coins into palms to cover the cost of a pint of milk, and searching down the back of the sofa to try and gather enough for a bus fare.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I do. It feels good to know that I can provide Lucas with a great future. If he wants to go to university or travel, then he can. To give him that freedom… That’s all I want really.’

  Lorna yawned. ‘University, eh? Blimey. Well, it’s good to know all them afternoons with Uncle Frank paid off – he was your dad’s brother, he was a grass too.’ Lorna tucked her leg underneath her bottom, making herself comfortable.

  ‘I don’t really remember him,’ Meg confessed.

  ‘No, you wouldn’t. He went inside when you were quite young, been in and out ever since, so I hear.’

  Meg smiled as she imagined how Isabel would take this news.

  With each hour that passed, the two relaxed into each other’s company. Having polished off a large bowl of shepherd’s pie, peas and carrots, washed down with a bottle of plonk, they were slumped on the sofa. The Christmas lights of Curzon Street sparkled beyond the window and a small lamp lit the room from inside. The soft half-glow made it easier to talk with honesty. Meg, like her mum, had kicked off her shoes and they now sat facing each other.

  ‘… So that was that.’ Meg let her palm fall into her lap. ‘I came back to London and have been ignoring his texts and missed calls. I can’t believe I fell for it, but I did, hook line and sinker. He was lovely, nice-looking, kind, successful. The full package. Or so I thought.’

  ‘You’re probably better off. I don’t trust Americans.’ Lorna pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes.

  ‘Do you know any?’ Meg was curious.

  ‘Yes, loads, of course I do! There’s that OJ Simpson – didn’t he bump off his wife and then get away with it? And what about Breaking Bad? That’s how they actually live; making drugs and living in a trailer.’

  Meg smiled. It wasn’t quite what she had meant by ‘know’.

&nbs
p; ‘Nah, America’s no good. You’re better off, love. They’re all either God-botherers like Tom Cruise or they’ve got guns, shooting each other every five minutes and eating nothing but doughnuts. And don’t get me started on Jersey Shore. I’ve seen it, whole place looks like shite.’ Lorna shook her head in distaste.

  Meg didn’t bother to try and put her right. Her mum was correct about one thing: she was better off without Edd, no matter how much it hurt to admit that. A liar in her life was one complication she didn’t need. Her tummy tightened as she recalled Flavia’s voice on the intercom: ‘Edd’s girlfriend. And you are…?’

  Meg glanced at her watch. It was nearly seven o’clock. ‘Do you have to head off soon, Mum? Or shall I open another bottle?’

  ‘I don’t have to be anywhere, love. You open another bottle,’ she said graciously.

  Meg jumped from the sofa and bounded into the kitchen, feeling a rush of love for this woman who had given birth to her and was in no hurry to disappear, not this time.

  The wine loosened Meg’s tongue and gave her confidence. ‘I’m happy you are here.’

  Lorna raised her glass. ‘Yep, me too.’ Her head lolled a little against her chest.

  ‘It’s especially lovely because it’s Christmas!’

  ‘It is. It is.’

  ‘It was never the best time of year for me when I was growing up,’ Meg admitted. Then swiftly she added, ‘But not because we didn’t have any presents.’

  ‘Didn’t have any money for bloody presents!’ Lorna’s interruption was sharp.

  ‘No, I know, and as I said, it wasn’t about that, not for me. It was more the expectation of what Christmas should be and the fact that it was always a bit disappointing.’

  ‘Welcome to my life. That about sums it up – a bit disappointing.’ Lorna laughed once.

  Meg looked at her mum, checking it was okay to proceed. Lorna was listening calmly. ‘I think I had an idea of what it should be like, the family all together.’ Meg paused, this was hard to talk about. ‘I guess being away from you at that time of year was harder than any other. Every advert and picture I saw told me I should be at home with you, waiting for a cake that you’d popped in the oven, or decorating the tree—’

  ‘You’d have had a bloody long wait! Don’t think we ever had a tree and me and cake baking don’t exactly go together. Any rate, you’ve more than filled that gap – you live in a sodding bakery!’ Lorna wheezed her laughter.

  Meg nodded. This was true. ‘What are your plans for the next week or so?’

  ‘Plans?’ Lorna laughed. ‘Blimey, girl, who makes plans? Not me.’ She sniffed. ‘Truth is, I’m going through a bit of a rough patch, Meggy. I wasn’t going to mention, not with us having such a lovely time, but as I said, me and Don have split up. My fault, but what can you do? You can’t turn the clock back, can you?’

  ‘No, you can’t.’ Although I often wish I could. Back to before I agreed to go to New York, back to before Bill died and back to before you put me into care.

  ‘He’s chucked me out, bastard.’ She reached for another cigarette. ‘Takes the word of some bloke in the pub over me!’ Lorna jabbed at her chest. ‘Mind you, the bloke wasn’t lying. But even so.’ She gave a wry laugh.

  Meg leant forward and placed her hand on Lorna’s arm. ‘You can stay for as long as you need to, Mum. We can have Christmas together, just the two of us. Would you like that?’

  There was a pause before she responded and Meg held her breath. Would she like that?

  ‘I’d like that more than anything, love.’

  ‘We can just stay at home. I’ll cook a lovely turkey and we can eat it on our laps and watch rubbish on the telly.’ Meg couldn’t help thinking that her Christmas had been salvaged.

  ‘That sounds perfect, just what the doctor ordered.’ Lorna smiled.

  Meg beamed back. It did sound perfect.

  Lorna wasn’t done. Her words, when they came, though a little slurred were not unconsidered. ‘I do sometimes think of all them Christmas days with you lot spread to the four winds. Didn’t know where you all were. I used to just go back to bed and sleep till it was all over. I struggled back then, Meggy. I had a lot of demons.’

  Meg nodded, she understood. And the wonderful thing was that it wasn’t too late to forgive and forget.

  ‘I get it, Mum. And I think about it a lot, especially at this time of the year. It can’t have been easy for you.’

  ‘It wasn’t,’ Lorna confirmed, reaching into her bag for her lighter.

  Meg wriggled on the sofa to get comfy. ‘I remember me and Liam going through the catalogue one year. I don’t know how old we were, but we were little. We sat in our pyjamas and went through every section, picking out all the toys and things we wanted Santa to bring us. We made a list with little descriptions. Pages and pages of it.’ She smiled at the memory of the two of them meticulously copying the reference numbers and chosen colours with a stubby pencil gripped between their fingers. ‘We both knew we weren’t going to get any of it, but it was brilliant to pretend. I kept that list under my pillow for a long while and every night I read it before I fell asleep.’ She recalled packing the list into her carrier bag along with her clean pyjamas. ‘By the time Christmas came, I didn’t need any of the stuff on that list because I’d played with it all in my head for hours and hours. It’s funny, isn’t it, the things you remember?’

  Lorna nodded as she sipped her wine.

  Meg looked at her own glass and swilled the contents from side to side. ‘I used to wait for you to come and get me and take me to the seaside.’ She felt her cheeks flush at this very private confession.

  ‘The seaside? Why the bloody hell the seaside?’ Lorna laughed.

  Meg shrugged. ‘Don’t know, really. I thought we’d have a lovely day out, just the two of us.’ She twisted the stem between her fingers.

  ‘As you said, Meggy, it’s never too late. We could go to the seaside if ya like?’ Lorna sat forward and sparked the flint, then puffed blue-tinged smoke into the atmosphere.

  ‘Could we?’ Meg was conscious of how eager she was, her eyes wide and her muscles tense.

  ‘Yeah!’ Lorna waved her cigarette in the air. ‘We can do anything we want, we’re free spirits, right? No bloody Don or bloody Yank telling us what we can or can’t do.’

  Meg nodded. Maybe things did happen for a reason, maybe this was why she was here alone on December the nineteenth; it was fate’s way of placing her at home, ready to receive her mum, ready to make things good. ‘When shall we go?’ She was as excited as her six-year-old self, but without the flip-flops under the bed.

  Lorna considered this. ‘How about Boxing Day or the day after? Depends on the trains.’ She drew on her cigarette. ‘We can go to Southend, walk along the pier, go and have a nice fry-up in a café. A proper café, mind, where a bacon sarnie costs less than one of your fancy cups of coffee!’

  ‘We could go to the cinema and get popcorn!’ Meg gushed. This was another activity on her wish list of things to do with her mum.

  ‘The cinema it is. The cinema in Southend, we’ll make a right old day of it.’ Lorna nodded, drowsily.

  Meg laughed, loudly and without restraint. She was happy. She was finally going to the seaside with her mum.

  ‘I love you, Mum.’ It took every ounce of her courage to say the words out loud. Looking up, Meg smiled at Lorna, who, with her head tilted back against the cushions and mouth open, slumbered like a baby. She removed the smouldering cigarette from between her mum’s fingers and stubbed it out in the water glass, along with the others.

  16

  Meg woke the next morning with a headache throbbing behind her temples. She wandered into the kitchen and ran a long glass of water. Lorna was already on the sofa, scrolling through the channels and enjoying her second or third cigarette of the day, if the additional stubs in her empty glass were anything to go by. The smell of lingering tobacco smoke made Meg retch. Despite the chill of the December morning, she walked o
ver to the balcony doors and opened them a crack, mindful today more than ever that this was Milly and Pru’s flat. Although she knew the flat was hers for her lifetime – yet more proof of just how loved she was by the Plum cousins – she still didn’t want anyone, including her own mother, not appreciating it.

  ‘Blimey, what are we, bloody penguins? It’s freezing with that door open!’ Lorna balanced the cigarette on her bottom lip and squinted to avoid the smoke as she thrust her arms into a cardigan she’d found in the spare-room wardrobe.

  ‘I just thought some fresh air in here might be nice.’ Meg bent to retrieve the glasses and empty wine bottles that littered the table from the previous evening. Her headache intensified a notch as she handled the bottles; the sharp crack of glass against glass a reminder of how much they had drunk.

  ‘Fresh air is what you want in the summer, not in the bloody middle of winter.’ Lorna feigned a shiver.

  ‘Did you sleep all right?’ Meg was already mentally locating extra blankets in case her mum had been too cold in the night.

  ‘Who wouldn’t in a room like that?’ Lorna laughed. ‘It’s the flashiest place I’ve ever slept, Meggy. I opened a cupboard door and walked into a bloody marble bathroom! How the other half live, eh?’ She drew on her cigarette. ‘I felt like Kim Kardashian.’

  Meg laughed, thinking how Pru would wince at her interiors being compared to theirs.

  ‘So, I was thinking, if we’re going to have our little Christmas here, just the two of us, why don’t we jazz the place up a bit? It needs a bit of Christmasifying, don’t you think?’

  Meg looked at the luxurious furnishings and heavy drapes. Lorna was right; it could be any time of the year, there was certainly nothing to suggest it was Christmas. She thought of Elene and Salvatore, who had made the effort with their rather gaudy tree in the reception of the Inn on 11th. Her heart twisted at the memory of Edd; how she had arrived at her rented room with him in tow and the night they had spent, a blissful night, skin to skin under the counterpane. She never had found out what his most treasured thing was after his baseball shirt and his dad’s badge. Not that it mattered, not now.