by Tracy Bloom
‘Oh hi,’ she said. ‘Where are your clothes?’ she cried on catching sight of the near-naked Rebecca.
‘I found her like this as George was hitting her over the head with his potty,’ Matthew explained.
‘Oh my goodness,’ gasped Lena, looking flustered. ‘I just popped upstairs to see if Alison was OK and to check if Harry was still napping. I was only a minute, I swear.’
‘No, no, it’s fine, don’t worry,’ said Matthew, allowing Lena to take Rebecca out of his arms. ‘Is Alison OK? Is there something wrong?’
‘She came back from preschool in a terrible state. She was crying, wailing and bawling, but she won’t tell me what’s wrong.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Matthew, seeing that Lena was also upset. ‘I’ll go up and see her – you look after the kids.’
He opened the stair gate and started heading upstairs. He could feel his heart beating a little too fast. Alison was just weeks away from giving birth to their fourth child. He still couldn’t believe it, to be honest. He’d never expected to have such a brood – especially given they’d had such problems conceiving the twins. Several rounds of IVF had finally produced two healthy children, a blessing they didn’t expect to be repeated. After that they could enjoy sex just for the fun of it, following so many years of disappointment when it didn’t result in babies.
But then one day Alison was sick. In the morning. Just like that. She’d blamed the prawns she suspected she’d left out to defrost for too long. Then she was sick again the next morning. She’d come out of the bathroom looking confused and hopeful. The doctors had warned her that women do get pregnant naturally after having had a baby via fertility treatment, but they had dismissed it as something that would never happen to them – they just weren’t that lucky in the baby department. Getting George and Rebecca had been so hard-fought that to expect fate to turn round and hand over another baby, just like that, seemed a ridiculous notion.
They’d gone straight to the doctor, bypassing the chemist and a pregnancy test. There was no way they would trust an overpriced plastic stick with the news that a miracle had happened. They’d both wept when the doctor had confirmed their hopes.
Holding onto each other in bed that night, they’d whispered excitedly, unable to believe the extraordinary gift they had been given. It wasn’t until the first scan that anxiety started to kick in. Seeing their baby up on screen and being talked through all the tests and procedures Alison would need to go through to monitor its health only reinforced how precious it was and how inconceivable it was that anything might go wrong. Matthew had resisted the need for a nanny, initially unwilling to share his home with a stranger, until he saw the sense of having someone to help look after Rebecca and George and take some of the workload away from Alison, who had so far thrived on being a stay-at-home mum.
Lena had been a special find. Originally from Lithuania and in her early thirties, she wasn’t at all like the au pairs they had first considered. One look at the length of Catia from Portugal’s skirt had confirmed to Alison that they needed a trained nanny, not a student on a gap year. Lena had been with her previous family for three years in London and was only seeking new employment as she didn’t want to move with them to Dubai. She had fitted into the family brilliantly. Rebecca and George loved her, and her ever-present calmness soothed Alison. Well, normally it did. The miracle fourth baby had been perhaps even more of a shock than number three, but Alison had seemed to take it in her stride… Until now.
‘What’s wrong?’ gasped Matthew, dashing towards the bed where Alison lay hunched over a box of tissues. He took her in his arms, and she let her head fall on to his shoulder. She started to shudder.
‘Is the baby all right?’ he asked. Pray to God the baby’s all right, he thought.
‘Yes, the baby’s fine. It’s not the baby – it’s Rebecca and George,’ sobbed Alison.
‘What do you mean, Rebecca and George?’ asked Matthew. ‘They looked fine to me. Rebecca may be bruised a little on the head from the potty bashing, but I’m sure no real harm has been done.’
‘Oh it has,’ groaned Alison, pulling away and blowing her nose. ‘We have to do something, Matthew. It’s not just this Christmas that they’ve ruined, it’s their whole future.’
‘Because George hit Rebecca over the head with a potty?’
‘No!’ Alison sniffed again. ‘No, the Nativity, Matthew.’ She was looking cross now at his lack of understanding of this clearly very disturbing situation.
‘The Nativity?’ he asked tentatively.
‘Donkeys, Matthew! The stupid woman has only cast them both as donkeys. What on earth was she thinking? I specifically told her that she must give them contrasting parts because they’re twins, and it’s imperative that their individual personalities are recognised and developed. How does casting them both as donkeys give them individual self-esteem?’
Matthew felt himself relax slightly. A Nativity casting crisis he could cope with. Probably.
‘I was a donkey in the Nativity, I punched the second shepherd apparently. I got taken off the stage and sent home.’
‘You’d think she’d have taken the hint, wouldn’t you?’ said Alison, totally ignoring him.
‘Who?’
‘Mrs Withers. When I said they needed contrasting parts you’d think she’d take the hint that of course they should be Mary and Joseph. Instead she’s made Leah Mary. She has a lisp and her mother actually told me she was named after Princess Leah. I mean, how ridiculous. Brandon Eckington is Joseph. He headbutts my bump every day and his mum thinks that’s funny.’
‘Well I’m sure that Mrs Withers had very good reasons for casting them in the main parts. Maybe they have self-esteem issues as well and she wanted to give them a little limelight?’ Matthew couldn’t believe what he was saying. He really couldn’t give a monkey’s who played what in the preschool Nativity, but he did know that sometimes it was better to go with the general flow of Alison’s thought processes, as this could lead to a conclusion far quicker. ‘And besides, would you really want to see George and Rebecca cast as Mary and Joseph? Bit weird maybe, casting a brother and a sister. I know it was an immaculate conception but even so.’
‘You see, this is the very problem I’m talking about, which only a mother of twins understands,’ said Alison. ‘So who do you choose? Does Rebecca get the part of Mary or does George get the part of Joseph? Go on – try it. Which twin gets a lead part and which gets to be a donkey? Go on, Matthew, if you’re so clever, you choose!’
‘Well,’ said Matthew, getting up and loosening his tie to give himself a little time to think. ‘Isn’t the answer not to cast either of them in a lead part then?’
‘No!’ said Alison, thumping the top of the beautiful patchwork blanket that adorned their enormous bed. ‘That sums up twins discrimination, doesn’t it? So they both miss out just because they’re twins. Neither of them gets to shine. That can’t be right.’
Matthew walked over to the wardrobe to hang up his jacket and tie. Now he was confused. Alison made the Nativity sound so complicated. He wished he were back in the car pretending to be Chris Rea. He could feel himself start to panic. This was the type of conversation that could escalate into something big with Alison. Her pride and defensiveness over being a mother of twins was legendary. She quite rightly projected the notion that it made her special, but this often manifested itself in the idea that normal parenting rules did not apply; that she needed to rewrite the rule book, and as her husband that could make life quite difficult. He took a deep breath and said what he would say to a normal person if he were asked about this situation.
‘I’m sure the teacher knows what she’s doing. She can’t cast everyone in the lead parts. I bet the kids don’t care which part they get, and in any case it’s part of life, isn’t it? Learning to deal with disappointment and not letting it get you down. And after all it’s only the Nativity play.’
As soon as he said the last line he knew he’d made a mi
stake. Up until then Alison had been looking at him in a weird kind of way, as though he really didn’t understand what he was talking about but she was willing to forgive him, however the last line made her angry, he could tell. She swung her legs down on to the soft carpet and looked at the floor then took a deep breath before she let him have it.
‘It is not only the Nativity,’ she declared. ‘It’s our children’s Nativity and the only one they’ll ever be in. Do you seriously want your treasured memory of your firstborns’ Nativity to be seeing them hidden under some ugly donkey head, barely able to tell them apart from the other children?’
‘They’ll get another chance surely? They’re only three years old.’
‘Well, you see that’s where you’re wrong. Next year they’ll be in school, and the school doesn’t do a proper Nativity, more a Christmas play with a moral. Because heaven forbid they might upset someone talking about Jesus at Christmas. God knows what horror lies before us then. They could both be dressing up as turkey twizzlers at this rate.’
Matthew could see that Alison was starting to get upset again. She had longed for her children so hard that she was determined that everything would be perfect for them. Matthew tried to keep her expectations realistic. Tried to stop her punishing herself when it all went tits up, as it inevitably did with three very young kids in the house, but it wasn’t easy. Truth be told, to his mortification he often thought of Ben in these situations. What would he say? How mad was that? Ben, who he’d never thought much of – particularly when they’d come to blows over Katy. He looked away in shame, scared the guilt was written all over his face. They had somehow managed to keep from Alison the stupid one-night stand that he and Katy had had, despite the chaos that had ensued when Ben found out. But he had to admit that the bizarre bonding of Ben and Alison following the birth of their children had had a very positive effect on his wife. Ben’s willingness to see the funny side of everything had somehow calmed Alison down, making her so much easier to live with. It was a pity that Matthew and Katy’s fraught history meant that there was no way Ben and Alison could stay friends. Still, sometimes he couldn’t help wondering exactly what wisecrack Ben might be able to come out with to defuse a high-stress situation with Alison.
‘Look, it’s not the end of the world, is it?’ said Matthew, praying the right words would come out of his mouth this time. ‘They’re happy, healthy kids, that’s what matters. They’ll get over being donkeys.’
‘But what about George’s anxiety issues? This won’t help him at all.’
Matthew pictured George bashing Rebecca very unanxiously with the potty. But Alison had a point. Despite his rambunctiousness at home, once in the company of strangers George could be reduced to a quivering wreck. It had taken several weeks of delicate cajoling to get him used to his current preschool to the point where he didn’t have to be prised away from his mother’s or Lena’s skirts every morning. Matthew, however, suspected that George would be delighted to be hidden behind a donkey mask, as there was no way he could picture him standing up in front of a room full of strangers to take centre stage as Joseph. In fact he suspected it could do him way more harm than good.
‘Perhaps he’d prefer to be in the background?’ suggested Matthew.
Alison looked at him in shock. ‘In the background’ was not part of her vocabulary.
‘Well, I wouldn’t,’ announced Alison, sliding herself off the bed before closing her eyes in silent acknowledgement of her aching back. ‘I’m off to see another preschool tomorrow.’
‘What? You can’t be serious. In your condition?’
‘I’m not an invalid, Matthew. I think that’s what Mrs Withers thinks, you know – just because I’m pregnant I won’t stick up for my children. Well, we’ll see about that. Nobody puts my babies in donkey costumes.’
‘But you’re about to give birth. You don’t need this now.’
‘My condition is irrelevant to this situation. Me having a fourth child shouldn’t mean that my two eldest miss out on their rightful place in the Nativity.’
Oh God, I need to squash this, thought Matthew. She’s going to drive herself completely mad. Christmas is coming. There’s a new baby on the way; there are three kids already in the house. Another plate to spin was just bound to tip them over the edge.
‘Maybe we should consider moving as well,’ said Alison, walking over to the en suite.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Maybe we should think about moving house?’
Matthew glanced around the master bedroom that Alison had had redecorated maybe four months ago. The master bedroom in their five-bedroom executive home on one of the most exclusive estates in Leeds.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Of course I’m serious. We need to rethink our entire schooling plan, Matthew, and moving house might be the only option.’ She turned and walked into the en suite, closing the door behind her.
Matthew sat down on the end of the bed and put his head in his hands. Alison had been fairly irrational in her last two pregnancies – but this? This was taking it to an epic scale. Moving house? Four kids, a nanny, house hunting, house selling… what the hell was she playing at? All he wanted was a nice calm family Christmas before they added another child to the fray. Was that too much to ask? He wished they’d never even invented the Nativity. Christmas would be a whole lot easier without it.
Chapter Six
‘You want me to do the Nativity?’ asked Ben, thinking he had misheard. He was glad he was sitting on a very low seat (actually a child’s seat) at Millie’s preschool or else he thought he might have fallen over. As it was his knees were somewhere up around his ears, and he was grateful that Mrs Allcock had a longish skirt on as child-sized chairs were not the most flattering to ladies in their fifties wearing short skirts.
‘Are you sure, Mrs Allcock?’ he asked his boss. She’d told him to call her Dorothy when the children were not around but one of his favourite things about working at the preschool was that he got to say ‘Allcock’ legitimately, many times a day. It made him smile every time. He knew it was extremely juvenile, but he couldn’t help it. He’d shared this once with Katy, who’d given him such a disappointed look he’d never mentioned it again.
The kids had all just been let outside after a good fifteen-minute wrangle with coats and hats and scarves and the evil challenge of trying to get twenty-five pairs of uncooperative hands into twenty-five pairs of uncooperative mittens. There was just ten minutes of outdoor playtime left after this chaotic dance had been performed and then they would have to do it all in reverse. Ben had been looking forward to a swift cup of tea, but Mrs Allcock asked if they could have a quick chat. He should have known something was up. She never normally spoke to him like an adult, preferring to lump him in with the kids, and could often be heard yelling, ‘Mr King, would you please put that child down!’
‘There’s nothing to be scared of, doing the Nativity,’ she continued after her shock announcement. ‘Especially given your previous experience.’ She was smiling at him like someone who had just worked out a foolproof way to finally crack the code of how to enjoy Christmas: give some other poor idiot all the work to do. ‘I think you’d do a great job,’ she added.
Ben knew she didn’t mean that. What she actually meant was, ‘I’ve being doing the Nativity at this preschool for the past twenty years, and if I do another one I will quite frankly want to throw baby Jesus through the window, along with all the crying angels, the stupid wise men who won’t do as they’re told and the shepherds who throw up because of a bug they’ve all decided to pass round two days before the performance so half the cast have dropped like flies and the teachers are left to fill in the gaps.’ Mrs Allcock clearly no longer wanted to pretend to be the angel Gabriel in a sea of three-year-olds.
‘But I’ve not been here long,’ protested Ben. ‘I’m not sure I have the experience?’ He had taken the post partly because he was bored sitting at home and needed something to do but also be
cause he thought it would be an easy ride. Given his previous role as a PE teacher in a secondary school, gluing and painting with Millie and a bunch of her mates seemed like a doddle. But organising the Nativity? Now that was on another level entirely. That required thought and preparation. That hadn’t been part of the plan.
‘Nonsense! For someone as organised as you it will be a piece of Christmas cake.’
Now she’s just taking the piss, thought Ben. She’s laughing at me all the way round the Christmas tree.
‘I’m really not sure it’s me,’ he said, frantically trying to think of a sure-fire way of saying no.
‘You can make it you,’ said Mrs Allcock. ‘As long as the parents see the obvious bases covered. Mary, Joseph, the kings, some shepherds and an angel, that’s the main thing.’
‘What about Jesus?’
‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about him. Just make sure a baby doll wrapped in a cloth makes an appearance at some point. That’s all you need to worry about. None of the parents are the slightest bit interested in Jesus. All they want is to see their child on stage under a bright star, dressed in something vaguely old and Middle Eastern. Ironic really, in this day and age. A tea towel on their head works wonders. Oh, and keep the animals to a minimum if you can. You can totally avoid any complaints if no-one’s little treasure is hidden underneath the face of a camel.’ She laughed to herself.
Ben scrutinised Mrs Allcock. He had seen this type of behaviour before. It was classic teacher-about-to-leave-their-school behaviour. All the hang-ups and worry about rules, and in particular worries about pleasing the dreaded parents, seem to go out the window.
‘Look,’ said Mrs Allcock, placing her hand on his arm. ‘I’ve got scripts – well, I call them scripts but really it’s just stage directions – and I’ve got songs. Just follow those. Or do it your way. Please yourself. I think you’ll enjoy it. And here, I’ve got you something.’ She reached behind her back and pulled out something made from green and red felt. ‘I’ve worn this for over ten years during the Nativity – I thought it might suit you.’ She handed it over and nodded to indicate he should try it on.