by Freya North
‘Last time I saw you,’ Juliette said, ‘I wasn't engaged.’
‘That's lovely,’ said Penny, thinking that Chippy Chippy Bang Bang was possibly the closest thing to ambrosia she'd ever tasted.
‘You were with the three girls,’ Juliette continued.
Penny stopped mid-mouthful, a glob of ice cream electrifying her sensitive gums.
‘Were they your daughters?’ Juliette asked shyly.
Penny waited, using her tongue energetically to calm the flare from her teeth. She nodded. ‘Yes, they were my girls.’
Juliette beamed. ‘How neat that they came over.’ She touched Penny's forearm. ‘Did you talk it all through? Did you make amends? All that crap about you being a bad mother,’ Juliette chided gently. ‘I knew you were nice. I told you so.’
‘You're very sweet,’ Penny said, feeling very uncomfortable.
‘Bet your phone bill is mighty big, what with all those long-distance calls,’ Juliette laughed.
It occurred to Penny that she didn't have any contact numbers for her daughters. She did have Django's number. But actually, was there any point in phoning him? And if she did find out her daughters' numbers, whom would she phone first? More to the point, what would she say? What would they say? Reluctantly, she had to admit to herself that she'd already said everything, really, that day at Logan airport. And she knew that she'd relinquished any right to contact when she'd left them all those years ago. It was quite possible that she would never see them again.
Moving On
Ben glanced at Cat who was spooning through her cornflakes as if searching for a more tasty one elsewhere in the bowl.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
‘Hmm?’ She looked up. ‘Pardon?’
‘Are you OK?’ Ben repeated. ‘You seem miles away.’
‘Oh, I'm fine,’ said Cat, ‘just thinking about work and Django and Django and work.’
Ben gave Cat a kiss and headed for the door. He paused and returned to her.
‘Pinch, punch,’ he said, doing precisely that. ‘August 1st?’
‘Oh,’ said Cat, rubbing her arm. ‘Ouch.’
‘You're meant to give me a slap and a kick for being so quick,’ Ben told her, ‘or at the very least, a poke in the eye for being so sly.’
‘Ben,’ said Cat, who did usually biff and bash him on the first of each month, ‘do you think someone ought to be with Django when he has his first radiotherapy next week?’
‘Well, what does he say?’ Ben asked though he knew what Django had said, having spoken to him about precisely that the day before.
‘He says no,’ said Cat.
‘Let's go up a couple of days after that, at the weekend,’ Ben said. ‘We'll probably be of more practical use to him then.’
Cat brightened.
‘The sales will be on at Meadowhall,’ Ben told her, with a wink.
Ben thought about it again all that day. And the next. And he thought about it intermittently throughout the following week, even talked to colleagues and superiors, all of whom listened intently. He thought about it as he drove up to Derbyshire, two days after Django's first session of palliative radiotherapy. But it was only when Cat dragged him around Meadowhall that he knew he had thought about it thoroughly and enough.
All angles. Pros and cons. For and against. On the one hand, and on the other. He'd considered everything to arrive at an informed decision about which he was more than content, he was actually fairly excited.
He'd choose his moment.
‘This is where Dovidels' flagship store is going to be,’ Cat told him as she tried to peer through some unremarkable boarding.
This was his moment.
‘I've been thinking,’ said Ben, peering through the gap as well, ‘about leaving St John's.’
Cat looked at him, alarmed. ‘Why?’
‘Because I fancy a change—’ Ben started.
‘A change? But what would you do? You're a doctor – you're a specialist!’ Cat exclaimed, aghast.
‘A change of scene,’ Ben said. ‘Same job – well almost – different hospital.’
‘But why?’ she pressed. ‘You like St John's, don't you? The department? The staff? Your colleagues?’
‘I do,’ Ben said, ‘but an interesting opportunity has been put my way to do something similar elsewhere.’
‘Where?’
‘Sheffield.’
‘Sheffield?’
Ben shrugged. ‘Makes sense,’ he said, ‘in terms of my career. But of course, you have to feel happy with it.’
‘It makes perfect sense in my career too!’ Cat enthused artlessly. ‘Lorna Craven from head office as good as offered me this very store as my own.’ And she began to pat the boarding affectionately. ‘Best of all, we could be nearer to Django,’ she declared, ‘nearer home.’
‘You won't hanker after Tufnell Park, then?’ Ben teased her.
‘I tell you something, Dr York, we can multiply our Tufnell Park pounds by three round these parts.’ Cat took a step back, crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, as if envisaging what the Dovidels shop front could look like. ‘What a coincidence,’ she marvelled guilelessly, ‘how very serendipitous.’
Not really, thought Ben, for whom Cat had long been an open book. And his best ever, all-time favourite read at that.
Christmas
‘Bugger the brandy butter,’ Django said as his family gathered around on Christmas Eve. ‘This year we're having good old tomato ketchup with everything.’
Tom wrinkled his nose in delight at the deliciously revolting thought of ketchup and Christmas pud or, better still, ice cream and ketchup.
‘Did you forget the Bisto?’ Pip asked.
‘Bugger the Bisto!’ Django declared. ‘When did you ever, ever, know me not to make my gravy from scratch. Bisto, she says, Bisto!’
‘She has a thing about Bisto,’ Tom said darkly. ‘It's a mad pregnant-woman thing.’
‘She makes it up in a mug and drinks it like tea,’ Zac colluded with his son, ‘by the gallon.’
‘It's just a craving,’ Pip shrugged, ‘it's only natural.’
‘She even drinks it at breakfast,’ Tom said, with a lively repertoire of throwing-up faces for emphasis. ‘That's so not natural.’
‘Anyway, I've brought my own Bisto,’ Pip told them, ‘so what's with the ketchup, Django?’
‘Lycopene!’ Django announced. ‘A wonderful antioxidant to be found in the humble tomato but the potency, the bioavailability increases when cooked. So, it's out with the HP and in with the ketchup – I have it with everything now. Ben, I read that Lycopene is twice as potent as the better-known anti-cancer betacarotenes, and one hundred per cent more bioavailable.’
‘It sounds about right,’ Ben confirmed.
‘Ketchup it is then,’ Django declared.
‘Will ketchup make you better then, Django Gramps?’ asked Tom.
Django gave the boy a smile and ruffled his hair. ‘It makes me feel better,’ he told him, employing the gentle ambiguity which his friends and his family had come to respect as his right over the last few months.
‘Can I help?’ Cat asked. ‘Anything I can do? Squirt the ketchup, or something?’
‘Everything bubbles and simmers,’ Django told her. ‘Everyone relax and enjoy. Christmas is coming and the family is here. Supper will be in an hour or so. Don't chew that, Cosima – it's very old. Django Gramps found it in Alaska. In 1965.’
‘I'm lucky, aren't I?’ Tom announces to Pip who has brought him up a glass of water and a torch, at bedtime.
‘Are you? In what way?’
‘Some people – actually, what I mean is some children – have rubbish families. Like Tom B in my class – he's having a divorce. And Alex doesn't see his dad at all, hardly, now he lives not in London with a new baby.’
Pip tips her head to one side. ‘We are lucky, aren't we?’ she says warmly.
‘But isn't it strange, then, that here's you and your sisters with that m
um who ran away with the cowboy, and here's me with two lots of dads and mums – but we're all the happiest bunch I've ever known in my whole life.’ Pip smiles and Tom welcomes her ruffling of his hair. ‘Because did you know something? Ed's parents have done a divorce too and Ed told me that they try and out-present each other. At first I thought, Wow cool. But then he was really upset and actually told me he hates it. He even hates the stuff they buy him, he says. Can you believe that? Even hates his bike.’ Pip makes sure she looks suitably stunned. ‘Ed says all those gifts are like bribes. He said they're called guilt-trips. He says “Can't buy me love”.’
‘That's a song,’ Pip tells him, ‘do you know it? It's by the Beatles.’
‘The Beatles are cool,’ Tom tells her, ‘everyone knows that.’
‘Did you know Django actually worked with them for a short while?’
‘No way!’ Tom exclaims.
‘Yes way,’ Pip laughs, ‘you can ask him all about it tomorrow.’ She kisses him. ‘Night night, Tomtom.’
‘Night, Pippity.’
Pip hovers in the doorway. ‘If I said “I love you” would you squirm and puke?’
Tom takes a moment. ‘Nah. You can say it, if you like.’
‘I love you,’ says Pip.
‘And I “el” you,’ says Tom.
Fen snuggled up to Matt later that night. She knew if he kissed her forehead and then kissed the bridge of her nose immediately after, he was feeling horny. If he kissed her forehead twice in succession, he was tired. If he kissed it once, and kissed nowhere else, there was something on his mind. Two kisses it was: one to her forehead and one to the bridge of her nose.
‘Wait!’ she giggled a whisper and slipped out of bed, tiptoeing from the room which, in an old creaky house like that on Farleymoor, was a pointless exercise really, laughably futile actually. Matt grinned in the dark. What on earth was she up to? He was full – dear God don't let her be raiding the fridge for whipping cream. Or ketchup. Fen returned and padded back to the bed. She ripped back the quilt and straddled Matt, his hands on her hips as he attempted to lever her into position.
‘Oh no you don't!’ she chided, twisting her body away from him. The room was extremely dark, there was no moon, no street lamps, no night lights. ‘Merry Christmas, big boy,’ Fen whispered coyly and Matt could feel something caressing his balls, tickling up and down the shaft of his cock. His pelvis rocked in response to his desire. What was it? A feather? Some as yet unidentifiable foodstuff? Something from under the Christmas tree?
‘Ouch!’ That didn't feel so nice, it felt as though his prick had been pronged, something scratching his balls. ‘What the fuck is that?’ he asked.
‘Mistletoe, silly,’ Fen giggled, ‘it's Christmas.’
‘How do you feel?’ Zac asked Pip, who was sitting bolt upright in bed, staring straight ahead, while he wrapped Tom's presents on the end of the bed.
‘A bit indigestiony,’ Pip admitted.
‘Nothing that a nice mug of Bisto couldn't cure?’ Zac asked. ‘Would you like me to make you a mug? I have to go downstairs to nibble the biscuits Tom left for Father Christmas.’
‘Oh Zac, would you?’ Pip said gratefully. ‘You won't mind it stinking the room out?’
‘How can I mind,’ Zac said, ‘when Santa's bought me a Rolex Oyster?’
‘But Santa hasn't bought you a Rolex Oyster,’ Pip told him sadly.
‘I'm teasing,’ Zac said. ‘I don't believe in Santa. But do you think you could make your next craving camomile tea or something?’
Pip sipped her gravy and Zac wrapped presents. Pip marvelled how someone so precise with figures and percentages could make such a hash of papering a parcel. ‘Zac,’ she said, ‘fold in, fold in, turn up. Here, hold my gravy, I'll do it.’
‘Can you believe this time next year a little person will be celebrating Christmas with us?’ Zac mused.
Pip smiled. And then she felt very sad. ‘I pray that we'll all be here, all of us.’
Zac took her hand. ‘He looks well, I thought. No different to when we were here a month ago.’
‘He seems tired, though, don't you think?’
‘Christmas is a tiring business,’ Zac levelled, ‘when you're making it for a big family. He seems very happy, to me.’
Tom and Cosima were sharing Cat's old bedroom. Cat and Ben weren't staying at the house at Farleymoor. They now had their own little house in Darley Dale, just twenty minutes away. But they would be back in time for breakfast with the family the next morning.
‘Funny isn't it?’ Cat says, jolting Ben from the verge of slumber.
‘Hysterical,’ he murmurs sleepily, hoping if he agrees she'll say no more and let him drift off to sleep.
‘What's hysterical?’ Cat asks and with all the movement on the mattress and rearrangement of the duvet, Ben can sense she's propped herself up and is staring hard at the back of his head.
He rolls onto his back with a sigh. Then he turns towards her. ‘Are you about to put the light on?’
‘Yes,’ says Cat, doing just that. ‘What's hysterical?’
‘What's funny?’ Ben counters.
Cat is diverted. ‘Oh. I just meant it's funny how everyone is up at the house, and you and I are snuggled up here. Yet this – more than any place I've ever known – this is home. This is my home.’
Ben wonders why this is funny. But he swiftly decides not to ask.
‘It's also funny how I thought I had everything meticulously planned – and this time last year Darley Dale was way off my map,’ Cat says, beguilingly incredulous. ‘Isn't it funny how a year of chaos can actually organize itself into the life that's right? Totally be beyond one's control.’ She pauses and then smiles, her eyes closing with the surge of emotion. ‘I love this place,’ Cat enthuses. ‘I love this place, Ben. I know it's higgledy-piggledy and the water is sometimes brown and there's that damp problem in the sitting-room and you clonk your head on the beam in the hallway and this bedroom is barely big enough to take our bed – but I love this place passionately. I can't believe anyone other than us has ever lived here. It's our home.’
‘I don't mind that beam,’ Ben says, ‘and we do have a preposterously large bed.’
‘It's about full circles, I suppose,’ Cat muses, hovering the palm of her hand lightly over the surface of his cropped, silver-flecked hair to get that velvety feel. ‘Because you see it's only now that I know I could never have settled here – less than five miles from my childhood home – unless I'd done the London thing as a single girl and then had a stint out in Colorado as a newly-wed and then returned to the UK all blasé about what was best for us. And the whole time I was destined to be here. It's here that I feel my most centred.’
Ben smiles at her. ‘Welcome home,’ he says lovingly.
‘I suppose it's a similar thing with Django,’ Cat muses, to herself as much as to her husband. ‘I couldn't love him as unconditionally as I do now – had I not had that dreadful period of absolutely loathing him.’
Ben is pleased finally to have the opportunity to elaborate. He's waited for this opening since the day after Django's party. ‘And perhaps you couldn't have come this far in accepting the woman on your birth certificate had you not gone out to find her, stood right there in her territory and felt OK about her and, most importantly, felt good about yourself,’ Ben says. ‘Our parents do define us. And if we like ourselves, then it means that they're not so bad after all.’
Cat is thoughtful. ‘You're so wise,’ she says and she gazes at him with dreamy affection.
‘And hunky,’ Ben adds with a frown.
Cat biffs him with a pillow. She wriggles back down and settles her head into her pillow with a tired, happy sigh. ‘Merry Christmas, Dr York,’ she says and she touches his cheek.
‘Merry Christmas, babe,’ he says.
‘Boys,’ Django said late morning after the mountain of ripped wrapping paper and redundant packaging had been cleared away, the presents stacked into individual piles at w
ell-spaced positions around the room, ‘why don't you go for a blow-through. The girls are going to help me with the lunch. Cosima, you can be an honorary boy.’
‘Turtle,’ Cosima cooed, which had been her first word and remained her favourite.
‘You can be an honorary turtle then, poppet,’ Django said. ‘Tom, you can lead the expedition. You can take my gnarled old cane – no, not that one. That one is from Selfridges. The other one – it was given to me when I was trekking in Tibet. If anyone can unearth its mystical powers, it's you.’
They stood on the flagstone doorstep, Django and his girls, and waved the party on their way; Tom stomping off at a good pace, the men following behind, Cosima sitting proud on her Uncle Zac's shoulders while Ben picked up one pink welly and Matt the other.
‘Shall I lay the table?’ Pip said.
‘I usually do that,’ said Fen.
‘We'll do the table later, I need you three in the kitchen with me.’
They are in the kitchen, humming to a CD of Christmas carols that Fen bought from the motorway services. There is food on every available surface, including the window sill and the top of the fridge, and the Times Atlas of the World is lain across an opened drawer to provide another surface still.
‘Now I want you to know, that the thing to remember about parsnips is they're plain. They even look plain. If you enliven something plain, you forget it was plain in the first place. Like Plain Jane at school – pop a lovely hair band on her et voilà.’ The girls give each other their secret he's-nuts look that they've honed over the years to being all but imperceptible to anyone else. ‘And so it is with parsnips,’ Django continues. ‘Ginger is the key. I always add a little ginger to parsnips. Ginger root, mind you, not that powdered excuse.’