She stares at me. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I think you’re lying to Charlie so he’ll invest in the business. In fact, I know you are. You told him we’d won the council contract and we haven’t.’
Her eyes lock onto mine for a long moment but I can’t for the life of me read her expression. Is she weighing up how she can bluff her way out of it?
The microwave pings and she turns to remove what are obviously, from the aroma filling the kitchen, Chinese takeaway left-overs.
Saved by the bell, I think sourly.
‘You don’t have a very good opinion of me, do you?’ she says lightly, tipping the noodles into a dish. ‘And actually, for your information, Charlie already knows we haven’t actually won the contract yet. I told him this morning when he phoned asking if Gerry had the accounts ready yet.’
She glances round to gauge my reaction.
‘He says that as long as the accounts stack up, he’s still happy to invest. Contract or no contract.’
I stare at her cynically. Do I believe her?
She shrugs. ‘It’s true. Ask him.’
And she walks out.
The more I think about it, the more I know this Christmas Fayre is never going to happen.
How can I possibly organise it in four weeks? It’s just plain stupid. I can’t have been in my right mind, letting Charlie talk me into it like that.
I blame Frankie’s Tearoom.
There was definitely something spooky in the air the other night.
Otherwise I’d never have almost agreed to do it.
That’s my let-out.
That ‘almost’.
Because I didn’t actually say for sure that I’d do it, did I?
Of course, I’d love it to happen for Tim’s sake. But then I start thinking about the nuts and bolts of setting up something as big as a Christmas fayre. The dozens of people I will have to make contact with, the zillions of little things that could go wrong, the ton weight of responsibility resting on my little shoulders alone …
What if it’s a total flop and I let everyone down?
Honestly, I go cold and nauseous just thinking about it.
Fez says I should just do it. He says I’m more than capable. He says even if it’s not a rip-roaring success, no one will actually die in the process.
But he’s wrong.
There are many, many ways of quietly dying without actually shuffling off this mortal coil.
Fez won’t have to face Carol’s fierce scorn if it all goes wrong. Or Charlie’s disappointment. Not to mention the hefty potential for self-loathing because I’ve failed Mum and Tim all over again.
When I go over to Mum’s for lunch on Sunday, I decide not to mention the Fayre. There’s no point raising their hopes if I’m not actually going to do it.
And I’m not.
I decided this after a sleepless night spent summoning up courage one moment and writing myself off as a useless, cowardly lump of humanity the next.
When I finally did fall off a cliff into a dead sleep, I had this terrible nightmare in which the mince pies grew legs and evil grins, and chased me out of the hall amid much jeering and a slow hand clap from the festive merry-makers.
I never realised I had so much fear inside me.
That alone is scaring me to death.
Mum’s kitchen smells of roast chicken but, to be truthful, I haven’t got much of an appetite.
She pours me some wine and says apologetically, ‘It’s really cheap. Honestly.’
For once, she’s not lying. I sip at my glass of paint-stripper, trying not to wince, while Mum attempts to hide what’s obviously a brand new tea towel by throwing it into the washing machine.
I flick my eyes to the ceiling. ‘I’m not that scary, am I?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She ducks down to the oven to check her apple crumble.
‘You don’t have to okay it with me before you buy a tea towel,’ I laugh.
There’s a funny silence. Then she turns to me with a weary look.
‘Don’t tell me you bought a full set!’ I joke.
She still doesn’t smile.
‘Mum, what is it? Come and sit down.’
I pull out a chair. She sinks down and draws in a fierce breath.
‘What’s wrong?’ I stare at her in alarm. ‘Tell me.’
‘You work so hard, love.’ She’s gazing down at the table-top. ‘You give us so much help. I don’t deserve it.’
‘Of course you do—’
She shakes her head.
I spring up to give her a hug, twining my arms round her neck and putting my face to the side of her head. Her hair smells of coconut from the ‘mane tamer’ she uses to keep its springiness in check.
‘Hey, blow the tea towel,’ I murmur. ‘What’s a few quid when we’ve got thousands saved already?’
She sniffs.
‘Tim’s going to be fine.’ I squeeze her shoulders. ‘Just think, next year we might even be able to—’
‘No! We can’t!’
Her vehemence makes me start.
‘You don’t understand.’
‘What?’
She scrapes back her chair, shakes me off and goes into the living room and I hear her reassuring Tim that everything’s fine. Then she returns with her handbag, places it on the table and draws out a long envelope.
Without a word, she hands it over.
I remove the letter inside, scanning it briefly, not understanding at first.
Then I see the company name at the top and swallow hard.
It’s from one of those ‘payday loan’ companies.
My heart lurches. I don’t want to read the letter but I have to.
From what I can gather, Mum took out a modest loan in May but has been unable to meet the payments. The amount she now owes the company is highlighted in bold black numerals in the body of the letter.
The figure is so staggering, my first reaction – bizarrely – is to laugh.
I listen to Mum saying over and over how stupid she was, falling for the promises in the advert. Declaring she’s going to sell her jewellery and get a part-time job to pay it all off.
I squeeze her hand and tell her it will be fine. She’s not to worry. We’ll sort it out. We’ve got each other and that’s the most important thing.
But we both know they’re only words.
I feel sick.
We have to pay this loan off now, before the mind-boggling interest rates hike the balance still higher. And there’s only way to do that.
I will have to withdraw the thousands we need from the Tim Fund.
All my careful saving over the past few years will be wiped out in one go.
We are right back to square one.
Later, after making sure Mum’s okay and isn’t going to do anything stupid (like going out shopping to cheer herself up), I go home and flop exhausted onto the sofa.
I don’t even take off my coat.
Two hours later, I’m still there, staring at the exact same space on the wall, when a car alarm goes off in the street and rouses me from my stupor.
The room has grown dark. I heave myself up to switch on the lamps and close the curtains. Then I take off my coat, kick the central heating into action and find a pen and a blank sheet of paper.
Sitting back down, I rub my freezing fingers together then write two words at the top of the page and underline them.
Christmas Fayre.
Chapter Twenty
Right, here goes. What sort of stalls and activities will encourage Christmas revellers to part with their cash?
Oh God, I need a glass of wine and much longer than a month.
I’m doing this for Tim, which is the biggest incentive there is, but it’s so wildly out of my comfort zone.
With the central heating clanking away, however, and the wine warming me from the inside, I slowly start to relax. As Fez says, no one will die if it’s not a success. I lie back and let my mind wander over the
Christmas Fayres of my past, thinking about what made them special. And slowly but surely a list of ideas begins to grow.
By the time Carol calls me in to chat about it the following afternoon, I’m feeling much better – even fairly confident I can do a good job. I’ll need help, of course, especially Shona’s practical, no-nonsense advice and Ella’s support with all the necessary phone calls. But if Charlie has faith in me, perhaps I can pull it off after all.
Carol greets me with extra ice in her tone. She’s miffed, I can tell, that Charlie thinks I’m the best person for the job.
She skims my list. Then she lays it on the desk and snorts.
‘Well, it’s all a bit predictable, really. Let’s face it, lucky dip bran tubs were hot when we were toddlers.’
‘They’re fun, though.’
She frowns. ‘We need something more original. Something – I don’t know – sort of edgier. The sort of event that people are still talking about next Christmas.’
She picks up the list. ‘Coffee and mince pie stall. Christmas raffle.’ She reads it out in a monotone. ‘Pantomime fancy dress competition. Local crafts. I mean, come on! We don’t want to bore them to death.’
I swallow down my irritation.
‘What do you mean by ‘edgy’?’ I ask calmly, entertaining vague thoughts of Santa bursting through the door, ripping off his beard and performing a festive strip-o-gram to a raunchy version of ‘Santa Claus is Coming (All Over) Town’.
She shrugs and casts around the room, as if the cheese plant in the corner might have some good ideas.
‘I don’t know … what about a trampoline?’
‘A trampoline?’
‘Yeah, the kids will love it.’ She hands back the list. ‘Anyway, have another think, will you? Charlie’s got a flight to catch later but he’s popping in first so we can chat about it.’
I mean, how is a trampoline even remotely festive?
I’m at the door when she calls me back. ‘I notice you didn’t make it back to the office the other day.’
‘Oh yes, the van broke down and Steph had to wait for the rescue services and by the time I managed to get a lift back, it was getting late,’ I tell her truthfully.
‘Who gave you a lift?’
‘Er – Charlie?’ Heat creeps into my cheeks.
‘That was nice of him,’ she says, ultra-casually.
She turns away to her laptop screen and waits until I’m almost out of the door. ‘You’re not developing a ‘thing’ for Charlie, are you?’
I spin round and she’s smirking openly.
‘No, of course I’m not.’
She gives me an arch look and I feel suddenly hot with panic.
The last thing I need is Carol gleefully telling Charlie how sweet it is that I’m harbouring a crush on him.
I take a deep breath. ‘Charlie’s a nice enough guy but I’ve never, ever thought of him in that way.’
This really must be nipped in the bud.
But meanwhile, I’ve got to come up with more ideas for the Fayre. I wander back to my desk feeling less than enthusiastic.
A Christmassy event should be all sparkle and magic.
But I have a gut-clenching feeling that if Carol keeps on putting a spanner in the works, the end result could be less White Christmas and rather more Bad Santa.
I spend a dispiriting hour racking my brains but the end result is barely long enough to be called a list:
Pin the Tail on the Christmas Donkey Competition
A snowman piñata
Trampoline (with tinsel)
When Charlie appears, he suggests we nip out to a café for a quick bite before he leaves for London.
‘That place we were at the other night would do,’ he says to me on the way downstairs. ‘Great doughnuts.’
I can feel Carol’s eyes boring into my back.
‘What place?’ she asks oh-so-casually.
‘Frankie’s Tearoom.’ I turn with a quick smile. ‘We bumped into each other purely by accident and we were standing right next to it and Charlie wanted to talk about the Christmas Fayre.’
This isn’t strictly true but I could do without her on my case. Not that there’s anything to be suspicious about.
Then Charlie goes and ruins my best efforts by saying, ‘It’s just as well we met in the street like that. I’d forgotten the number of your flat so I’d probably have pitched up at your neighbour’s house.’
We start heading along the High Street, doing that awkward ‘three abreast’ thing where you try to keep together but one of you has to keep darting ahead or behind to dodge oncoming pedestrians.
That person is, of course, me.
‘Oh, this is the place Shona told me about,’ Carol says, when we arrive.
We settle at a table near the counter and order tea and sultana scones with strawberry jam. Then Carol turns to me with a big smile and says, ‘Right, Bobbie. Fire away. I expect you’ve come up with some marvellous ideas.’
‘Well, I’m not sure—’ I start to protest.
She stops me with a fake laugh. ‘Honestly, Charlie, this girl is so modest. To hear her talk, you’d never think I regard her as my right-hand man.’
Charlie smiles at me with an affection that makes my insides turn over. ‘No, you wouldn’t.’
‘So come on, Bobbie.’ Carol’s staring at me expectantly. ‘I can’t wait to hear these pearls of wisdom!’
I grit my teeth and fumble in my bag for my list.
She’s laying it on as thick as cement. The incredibly supportive boss giving her employee’s self-esteem a grand old boost.
Perfect boss.
Perfect business.
Ripe for investment.
It’s all as clear as day to me.
The conniving cow.
If only Charlie could see her for what she really is.
Right on cue he comments, without the tiniest trace of irony, ‘It’s quite rare for two such good mates to work so well together.’
They’re both looking at me, awaiting pearls to issue forth.
And I’m still fumbling about in my bag, growing hotter and more flustered by the second.
There’s a pot plant on the table, taking up room, so to stall for time, I move it onto a nearby shelf.
Perhaps I could say I left the list on my desk by mistake.
But Carol’s beady eye spots it and she whisks it out of my bag before I can even start to formulate the words.
I hold the paper upright so they can’t see how pitifully short the list actually is. ‘Right, well, I’ve got other ideas, of course. Loads of them, actually,’ I bluster. ‘But I thought I’d just jot down the principal ones here.’
I clear my throat and read them out, word for word, hoping that by some small miracle they might, after all, turn out to be genius.
This miracle fails to materialise.
Carol is frowning. And Charlie just looks plain baffled.
‘Well.’ The Boss launches in after a surprised silence. ‘I’m not sure Health and Safety would be terribly impressed. Sharp implement to pin on the donkey’s tail? Sweets and chocolate bars raining down on the kids’ heads? And a trampoline?’ She shoots Charlie a bewildered look. ‘It’s all a bit – um – random, don’t you think?’
I cannot believe what I’m hearing.
She was the one who suggested the bloody trampoline in the first place! But it’s me Charlie is looking at as if to say my odd idea does indeed fall a little short of brilliant.
He shrugs. ‘Not sure about the trampoline.’
‘But neither am I!’ It comes out as a squeak. ‘Having a trampoline is a ridiculous idea. It’s not in the least bit Christmassy.’
Carol’s eyes are all wide and innocent. ‘So why put it on your list?’
My heart is thumping. ‘You know why.’
She laughs. ‘I don’t think I do, actually. Please enlighten me.’
I stare at her, hot with confusion.
She’s got me – and she knows
it. There’s no point me saying, ‘Well, it was your idea in the first place,’ because she’d laugh and deny it and make me look even more of a fool than I already feel.
Charlie glances at his watch and drains his cup. ‘I think we’d be better going down the more traditional route. Craft stalls, local Christmas produce, a raffle, that sort of thing.’
‘A lucky dip bran tub?’ suggests Carol, casting a sly glance my way.
‘Great idea,’ says Charlie. ‘I used to love those when I was a kid.’
‘And what about a pantomime fancy dress competition for the kids?’ she says, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt.
Charlie nods approvingly. ‘That’s the sort of thing.’ He stands up. ‘Listen, we’d better shoot if I’m going to catch my flight.’
He goes to the counter to settle up, leaving me alone with Carol and a perfect opportunity to demand to know what the hell she thinks she’s playing at.
It’s almost bursting out of me to tell her what a two-faced, lying cow she is.
But in the end, I say nothing.
I’ve become a master at biting my tongue over the past few years. I will not show her I’m rattled.
‘I don’t think Charlie was too impressed with your ideas,’ she smirks, opening her handbag and bringing out a pair of scissors and some cling film.
She leans over to the pot plant and clips off a cutting. ‘I’m afraid he may have overestimated your amazing ‘talents’,’ she says smoothly, wrapping up the cutting and popping it in her bag with the scissors.
Wordlessly, I stare at her, before muttering an excuse and fleeing to the Ladies. I stand there, holding onto the basin, staring at my flushed face in the mirror.
Fez is right. I should just tell her to stuff her job.
But I can’t. Not yet. Not until I find an alternative.
After the Christmas Fayre has stopped taking up all my spare time, I will renew my efforts to find another job.
But for now, I think, splashing water on my face and drying it with a paper towel, Carol has me exactly where she wants me.
I pull the grip from my hair and brush it vigorously so that it lies in a smooth and shiny curtain past my shoulders. I’m going to have to toughen up, I decide, popping the pin in my pocket, because I have a feeling that with Charlie in the picture, the simmering resentment between Carol and me is only going to get worse. The delighted scorn on her face just then when she knew she’d triumphed over me will taunt me for ages like a bad smell.
Humbugs and Heartstrings Page 14