It Must Have Been the Mistletoe

by Judy Astley

  Crackers were pulled, a lot of cheering went on and nobody was too uptight to wear their paper crowns.

  ‘OK, listen, everybody, joke time,’ Jimi announced, unfurling a piece of paper from his cracker and reading it. ‘Are we ready? Right, here it is. What’s brown and sticky?’

  ‘No idea,’ Anna said. ‘Go on then.’

  ‘A stick. Ta-da!’

  Thea, across the table from Charlotte and Alec, watched as the two of them suddenly burst into the kind of laughter that wasn’t going to stop before tears rolled down faces and the point was reached where everyone else was wondering if they’d heard a different joke from the one that had been read out. They leaned against each other, shrieking and silly, out of breath and near-hysterical.

  ‘What have they been smoking out there?’ Anna murmured to Mike as everyone else carried on eating and the children played with the tiny coloured pencils from Alfie’s cracker and some miniature screwdrivers from Milly’s.

  ‘A Christmas spliff, at a guess,’ Mike told her. ‘I hope Elmo doesn’t know. He’s at that age.’ Elmo looked up, suddenly listening eagerly.

  ‘It was only a bit.’ Charlotte had overheard him. She was still wiping her eyes and trying not to break into fresh hilarity. ‘Lighten up, you two. It’s proper Christmas, not a tinsel tea.’

  ‘What’s a tinsel tea?’ Elmo asked. ‘Is it like, glitter and stuff? Sounds cool.’

  ‘No. Definitely not what you’d call cool. It’s an outing for old people. A coach trip to the seaside and a Christmas dinner with crackers and hats,’ Jimi told him.

  Elmo shrugged. ‘Still sounds OK. Apart from the olds.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure it’s great – but in early October? And going for one almost every week?’ Charlotte went on, ‘I’ve done singing gigs at them in places like Worthing. Playing carols on the piano in some grim hotel on a rainy seafront, trying to get them to enjoy it while they sit there all glum in paper hats and complaining about the sprouts being under-cooked because they haven’t had at least two hours of thorough boiling.’

  ‘Which all goes to show,’ Alec said, starting to laugh again, ‘that a bit of weed should be handed out on the NHS to everyone over sixty to remind them that life’s a laugh.’

  Elmo nodded. ‘Spliff. Right.’ Rosie glared at Charlotte.

  ‘Too right. Who wants to be a miserable geriatric?’ Charlotte agreed, banging her glass on the table and slopping wine over the side.

  There was a brief silence, broken only by the children squabbling over the last of the potatoes, during which everyone else took in how far that ‘over-sixties’ crack had been mis-aimed.

  ‘Mike and I, the resident miserable geriatrics here, will bear it in mind then. Thank you so much for that,’ Anna said, stony-faced.

  ‘Ah. We didn’t mean you, darling,’ Charlotte said, reaching out a hand across the table to Anna’s, which – to add insult to injury – she then patted.

  Anna snatched her hand back. ‘Don’t darling me,’ she almost snarled.

  ‘Fight, fight, fight,’ Elmo started, but was shushed by Jimi.

  ‘Soz,’ Elmo said, grinning as Jimi gave him a sly wink.

  ‘It’s only that you and Mike seem so much younger. It’s easy to forget you’re actually as old as you are,’ Alec said, trying to back-pedal.

  ‘Would you like me to get you a spade, mate?’ Mike asked. ‘Then you can dig a bigger hole.’

  ‘If I do, I’ll make sure I get right in it and cover it up over me. Sorry, honestly. Maybe we should completely shut up now, Charlotte, in case there’s another foot-in-mouth episode.’ He looked at her and they both started sniggering again.

  ‘No feet in my mouth, sweetie. I don’t eat meat.’

  ‘That’s not what you said bef— Oops.’ Alec put his hand over his mouth and looked around the table.

  ‘More turkey, anyone?’ Mike asked tightly. ‘Or are you all leaving room for the pudding?’

  It was when Thea saw Sam reach across the table and take Emily’s hand, blowing her a kiss at the same time, that she had a massive tweak of loneliness. One way or another, all the adults here had someone – and in some cases two people. She’d pulled her cracker with Milly, which was fine – and who doesn’t love a child’s delight and squeal at the flash and bang – but not with a lifetime partner. It was probably the champagne getting to her and giving her a sneaky dose of the morose, but it did bring to mind how she, this time last year, had been half of a couple, on holiday with friends in a French Alpine chalet, confidently expecting to spend a contented lifetime with Rich and not even letting the idea that it could all fall to pieces have a centimetre of space in her head. And today, the date the baby that didn’t make it had been due to be born, was passing with no one knowing about it, apart from her and Emily, who was looking as if she had something of her own on her mind.

  Maudlin thoughts like these were not to be allowed any more time, Thea resolved. And besides, Anna was switching off the kitchen lights, pouring brandy over the pudding and bringing it to the table. Milly and Alfie gasped and squealed at the flames – even the adults went silent for a few moments before the flames died down and the clatter of dishes broke the spell. Jimi had insisted on custard, Emily favoured brandy butter and Anna had bought Cornish clotted cream. They were all pretty damn lucky, Thea considered. What did being fiancé-less matter? Especially one with whom you’d expected to be ‘content’. It was hardly a term that anticipated a long partnership of great love and passion, was it? But somebody else some day would be good. Thea decided it would not be her New Year resolution to look for somebody new. She would rely, at least for a while, on going out a lot, being sociable, and on luck. And that way, who knew what would creep up and bite her when she was definitely not looking. She only hoped, as she took a first spoonful of her pudding, that it would be someone just as lovely as Sean but an awful lot more available, damn it.

  *

  They were all afflicted by post-lunch idleness. It was after six by the time the dishes were done and everyone was flopping around in front of the fire, tired and – in Emily’s case – a bit tetchy.

  ‘There’s more to life than television,’ she told the children, who wanted to watch a DVD, taking the lead from Elmo who was again absorbed in something on his iPad.

  ‘It might calm them down a bit,’ Sam said, still picking up bits of paper and the endless multi-coloured circles of elastic from Milly’s Rainbow Loom that had gone all over the floor. ‘Why don’t you make another loom band, Mills?’ he said as she rolled about on the rug and glared at everyone.

  ‘Don’t want to,’ she whined. ‘Wanna watch something. I’m bored.’

  ‘Bored isn’t allowed,’ Charlotte said sharply. ‘How can you be bored with all these lovely presents you’ve got?’

  ‘Thank you, Charlotte, but I’ll deal with her,’ Emily said.

  ‘Sorry – I just can’t bear to hear children say they’re bored like that,’ Charlotte went on. ‘It sounds so spoiled.’

  ‘They’re not spoiled,’ Emily said tersely.

  ‘I didn’t say they were; I just said “bored” sounds spoiled. I was never allowed to say it when I was little. I was always told to go and read something.’

  ‘We always read to them when they go to bed.’ Emily wasn’t going to let it go. ‘We don’t need to be told.’

  ‘Em, I’m sure Charlotte was only trying to be helpful,’ Sam said. ‘And frankly, she’s not wrong about Milly sounding spoiled. I mean, God knows the child’s got enough to occupy her. Too much.’

  ‘She’s full of food and could do with a walk. If we were back home in London and had had lunch at a proper time, we’d be out in the park by now, on the swings,’ Emily said. ‘Instead, we’re stuck behind a snow wall in the dark. We’re trapped.’

  She went to the window and peered out into the darkness. The snow seemed to rise up at her from the ground, the pale, rounded monster-shapes of trees, the garden furniture and the shrubs all looking as if th
ey weren’t just innocent items but all kinds of evil scariness, hiding under thick, freezing blankets. Beyond the end of the garden was the hillside edge, leading down to the sea, another of nature’s terrors, sitting there looking beautiful but all the time waiting to murder you. She turned away from the window and closed the curtain firmly over the view, wishing she could stop wasting her time – and she knew perfectly well it was a waste – on such morbid thoughts. Maybe it was because of this tiny, vulnerable seed of a baby growing inside her. The potential for so much to go wrong, including the end of her and Sam. Hell, what was he going to say?

  ‘Nobody’s trapped,’ Anna said gently, trying to calm down her daughter who was looking way too nervy for someone who was having a highly luxurious and supposedly near-effort-free Christmas. She addressed the room in general. ‘We can still go out for some exercise, work off that Christmas dinner feeling. Anyone else up for going out to the garden and making a big, fat snowman who can look out at the sea?’

  ‘Meee!’ shouted Alfie. Milly stopped rolling her body around on the rug and started to sit up. She seemed to be giving the matter some deep thought.

  ‘Do I have to?’ Elmo said. ‘I’m at level six.’

  ‘You know you want to really,’ Jimi teased. ‘So yes.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘And me,’ joined in Thea. ‘Come on, Milly, we can give the snowman one of the paper hats from the crackers. He’ll like that.’

  ‘Okaay.’ Milly allowed herself to be persuaded and Sam sent them off to find boots and coats and gloves.

  ‘Looks like it’s all of us then?’ Anna said, prodding at Mike with her foot. He was lying back on the purple sofa, going through the TV listings in a four-day-old newspaper. If the children weren’t to be allowed to watch television, she thought it would be tactless for him suddenly to switch on yet another viewing of the Christmas edition of Porridge.

  ‘I’m there, I’m there,’ he said, allowing Charlotte to take his hand and pull him up from the cushions.

  It was as Thea crossed the hall on the way to get her coat that she noticed a piece of the mistletoe was missing. The shadows cast by the huge bunch had changed shape. For a moment she put it down to the heat – the foliage and berries were certain to shrink as they became dehydrated. But the shape the bunch had cast until this evening had been something almost perfectly round; now it was like an orange with a segment or two missing. She went over and put her hand up to it; the mistletoe had been snipped close to its centre and a couple of medium-sized twigs of it had gone. Thea felt almost like stroking it, fondly remembering that crazy escapade with Sean to collect it. Was it only a few days ago? It was probably because they were now unable to drive beyond the hill to the village that made her feel as if they’d been in the house for ever. The thought of leaving it in a couple of days’ time was also quite odd: was there still an actual functioning world beyond the snow – or had the whole world stopped?

  It felt a bit warmer outside in the garden than it had that morning on the beach, maybe because the breeze had dropped and they were in the shelter of the house. All the same, the snow wasn’t in any hurry to melt and Thea was glad of her furry hat and sheepskin boots. The children were racing around now on the lawn, rolling up a big fat ball of snow with Sam, illuminated by the lights on the outside of the house that shone on the terrace area. She stood back for a moment and watched them, loving the contrast between Milly’s earlier languid ennui in the warm sitting room and the way she now bounced around in the chill air, completely involved in her task. Thea found this with the children in her class at school: give them a project that involved being out in the fresh air – collecting leaves to identify, learning about birds and their habitats – and they livened up enormously.

  ‘Someone’s been chopping chunks off the mistletoe,’ she said, when most of the grown-ups were within hearing range, curious as to who would own up, and why.

  ‘Good. That thing is obscenely big,’ Emily said. ‘It’s an inducement to far more than a bit of innocent kissing.’ She was staring hard at Charlotte, who was laughing with Sam as they added devil horns to the head of the snowman. They seemed to be play-fighting over who got to do what and Thea watched Emily go tense as Charlotte shoved Sam aside using her hip in a way that made it look as if she was somehow rubbing her bottom against him.

  ‘You think?’ Anna said. ‘It’s only a bit of greenery, Emily. And I wouldn’t worry about her. After a couple of days you won’t have to see her again. And it’s not your husband she’s been – er, close to.’

  ‘So are you still saying Dad’s your husband, Mum?’ Emily asked. ‘You’re not really going to get divorced, are you?’

  ‘Oh, I expect so,’ Anna said. ‘It was what we decided.’

  ‘You can always change your minds,’ Thea said. ‘People do, one way or another.’

  ‘Let’s leave it, Tee,’ Anna said. ‘I don’t want to think about it right now. Here, give this hat to Milly and tell her to put it on the snowman.’

  Thea got hold of the terrace’s balustrade to go down the steps to the lawn and suddenly, all was dark. ‘Power cut,’ Mike said. ‘Bloody hell, now what?’

  There were several moments of utter stillness as everyone’s eyes tried to get used to the lack of light.

  ‘I knew it. I knew something like this would happen. No way out of this sodding place and now no lights.’

  Thea stepped closer to Emily, whose voice had suggested she was close to tears.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I bet it’s all back on in a couple of hours. Don’t worry. I’ll go in and get a torch – there’s one in the room where the wellie boots are. You stay right there.’

  The moon was hidden by clouds but the snow’s brightness helped light her way. Thea stepped carefully, fearful of dropping down into unseen gulleys and dips, and as soon as she could, she felt her way along the side of the house to the back door. Just as she opened it, something furry brushed across her ankles and she almost squealed. Then there was a soft miaow. Woody. She reached down and picked him up, hoping she wouldn’t get her hand scratched again, but he settled against her and purred. It was darker in the house than outside and she didn’t want him to plait himself round her feet as she walked and trip her up.

  The boot-room door was open just ahead. She concentrated on picturing where exactly she’d seen the torch.

  ‘Boo!’

  Thea nearly hit the ceiling with fright. ‘Alec! What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Looking for the torch that was in here. I didn’t know someone else would be doing the same thing.’

  ‘But you were there when I said I was going to come inside.’

  ‘I wasn’t – I didn’t go outside. I was having a sneaky look on my iPad at Facebook. On the other hand, now you’re here …’

  ‘Now I’m here, let’s get the torch and then we can find the candles and get some light going in here.’

  ‘Yes, but seeing as it’s Christmas …’ Her sight was getting used to the darkness in the boot room and she saw Alec’s eyes gleaming at her, looking eager. He held up in front of him a piece of the mistletoe and leaned in towards her.

  ‘OK then,’ she said, grinning at him as she watched him close his eyes in keen anticipation only to flash them open again in shock as he found himself kissing the furry, whiskery nose of Woody.

  ‘Whoa! What the fuck?’ Alec stepped back, fast, recoiling from the cat, and fell against the bench, sending wellington boots tumbling to the floor.

  ‘Cats like Christmas kisses too,’ Thea told him. ‘Now – where’s that torch?’

  Milly was crying when Thea returned with the torch and with Alec trailing behind her. Emily was cuddling both her children and a brief pass of the torchlight over her face showed a look of terror and panic.

  ‘’S’great. Liking the darkness,’ Elmo said, still patting a snow nose onto the big figure they’d all made.

  ‘It’s not great,’ Emily snapped at h
im. ‘This could go on for weeks. Isn’t there someone we could phone? There must be an emergency number. Can we go into the house now, please? All of us?’

  The snowman moment seemed to have passed so they all trooped in, following Thea with the torch, Elmo lobbing a final snowball from the rear and making Emily jump as it landed beside her.

  In the sitting room, Thea and Anna lit candles and Mike poured more drinks.

  ‘Takes me back,’ he said. ‘All those three-day weeks back in seventy-four. Then later on, the miners’ strike.’

  ‘I don’t remember either of those,’ Charlotte said morosely. She curled up on a chair and sighed, sounding close to sleep. ‘What now? A sing-song? Shall I give you my “Delilah”?’

  ‘Oh please don’t,’ Anna muttered.

  ‘Save it till tomorrow at the pub,’ Mike suggested. ‘I’m not sure we could cope with it in a domestic setting.’

  ‘I was only offering.’

  ‘We appreciate it,’ Jimi said. ‘In fact, I wouldn’t mind—’

  ‘Yes, you would,’ Rosie said. ‘And besides, we’re enjoying the peace and quiet.’

  ‘Cake. We need cake,’ Thea said. ‘Also cheese. I fancy cheese. I’ll go and get it.’

  She took the torch and went into the kitchen but felt conscious of someone behind her. Bloody Alec again. ‘Alec, what are you doing?’ He made her nervous, creeping about.

  ‘I wanted to apologize. About earlier.’

  ‘And to make sure I’m not going to say anything?’ She shone the torch into the larder and found the cake tin, pulling it out and holding it against her front in case he made another move. She did not want to snog her mother’s … friend.