by Jenny Oliver
‘You know nothing about me.’ Maddy said, chin jutted out defensively.
‘I can see you’re a little rich kid who gets whatever she wants.’
Maddy shook her head but didn’t reply, just walked past her back out to the bar.
Walter held up his hand for another drink.
He watched as she poured the thick black liquid, the white foam swirling around the glass then rising to settle while she waited to top it up.
‘I think you owe your dad a thank you.’
‘And why is that Walter?’ Maddy sighed.
‘Because fame is just a drug habit and an addiction to your own self-importance.’
Maddy rolled her eyes.
‘Honestly. It doesn’t come to those with the most talent, but those who want it the most. You should just go and find yourself. You’ve watched too much X-Factor on that tiny island of yours and think that’s it.’
‘I do not.’ she sneered.
‘There’s always something else, Maddy.’ he said, leaning forward, his arms crossed on top of the bar. ‘You’re never done. There’s always another door.’
‘Please don’t start.’ Maddy kept her eyes fixed on the Guinness.
‘I’m just saying that most people have such a fixed idea about what their dreams are and spend so long chasing them that when they get them it’s nothing like they hoped. But there’s always another door.’ He took the drink from her and put it down on his beer mat. ‘That’s all I’m saying.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Maddy said, hand on her hip, one eyebrow raised. ‘And what’s your other door? You’re just in here every day. You hate Christmas, you hate your books. What was your dream? I think you’re too afraid to write anything else in case you fail.’
Walter scoffed. ‘Don’t psychoanalyse me.’
‘I’m not, I’m just stating the obvious!’ she said, shaking her head while she went to go and get a cloth to wipe down the spirits at the back of the bar.
‘Tell me about your Christmases.’ he said.
‘No.’ She didn’t turn around.
‘Ok, I’ll tell you about them. I think they were probably lovely. All cosy and warm around the fire, lots of food and crackers and presents.’
Betty walked past with a crate of Cokes and added, ‘You probably got a puppy or a pony.’
Walter sniggered. Maddy’s spine stiffened.
‘And yeah your parents split, but that probably meant you had two Christmases. Two sets of presents, both of them trying to gloss over the fact they weren’t together and make sure you were happy. Maybe they took you to a show or to see the Christmas lights being turned on? Am I close?’
She didn’t reply.
‘Sounds pretty perfect to me. And now you’ve got your dad in here begging for you to talk to him, probably wishing you were coming to his for Christmas.’ Walter took a big gulp of his drink, Maddy could just see him in the mirror behind the vodkas.
‘I grew up in a caravan illegally parked just off the Hanger Lane gyratory. If you don’t know what it is Google it, it’s the most depressing place on earth. I don’t know my mum, my dad was a bastard, my step-mums were often lovely, my brother was a bully, my sister ran away when she was thirteen and–’ he held his hands out, ‘I’ve seen her once since, when I was at a book signing – she was asking me for money. For Christmas I got a satsuma and some crap from a car boot sale up the road.’
Maddy paused, her hand stilling on a whiskey bottle as she listened.
‘And from the window of that caravan I could see a church – and at Christmas a nativity and lights around the door. Every Christmas Eve I would sneak out the window, after my dad would lock me in and go to the pub, and I’d sit in the back of that church and listen to the carols at Midnight Mass. I’d be right at the back in the dark and I’d look at everyone in their coats and wonder what they were going to do when they got home. How many presents they all had waiting and how many turkeys there were in people’s fridges. But right there in that moment I was just like them. We all sang, we all said those prayers that no one knows the words to, we all shook hands, we all smiled, we all took a chocolate from the vicar at the end. For me, that was Christmas. None of this shit.’ He pointed outside with the hand not holding his pint. ‘None of these Christmas lights advertising Disney cartoons and sponsored skating rinks and queues for spoilt brats to get XBoxes or whatever it is they get. It was that magic. That sound. The white lights and the candles. The unity. And that’s what I wrote about. My books were that feeling. They were my escape. But they’re done. I’m old and I can’t cling onto a childhood dream forever.’
Maddy turned around, her hands behind her back holding onto the counter. ‘Maybe like you say, you need a new dream.’
He shrugged.
She watched him as his fingers toyed with the beer mat and then saw him look up, the wrinkles round his eyes crease as he smiled.
‘There’s always another door.’ he said. Then sat back and crossed his arms. ‘Perhaps we’re both afraid of the same thing.’
Maddy scrunched the cloth in her hand. ‘What’s that?’
‘Letting go of the past,’ he shrugged. ‘Stepping into the unknown.’
‘Or–’ Betty said as she pushed passed Maddy, this time struggling with a crate of Fanta, ‘… growing the fuck up and stop feeling so bloody sorry for yourselves.’
Walter snorted into his Guinness and white froth went all over his face.
‘I mean the two of you.’ Betty shook her head, after slapping down the crate with a bang. ‘Whine, whine, whine. That’s all you do. Maddy, you’re a fantasist. Walter, you’re a procrastinator. Life is what you make of it. Dreams, doors… it’s bullshit.’ She took a cigarette from behind her ear and nodded to Mack who had walked past pointing towards the front doors to say he was going out for a smoke. ‘It’s going to be done and gone by the time you two stop moaning.’ She shook her head at the two of them like a headmistress. And as she strutted out the bar, Walter looked guiltily at Maddy and they both giggled like school kids.
Maddy cycled home in the snow. She found herself looking at the churches – the ornate and the plain. The redbrick spire of St James’s, Piccadilly, and the sound of carols drifting through the still night air, Westminster Abbey lit up in the moonlight, Christmas trees sparkling on the path. St Saviour’s in Pimlico, its stained glass shining like Quality Streets. She thought of Walter seeing hope in those shimmering lights. And it suddenly didn’t matter about her missing suitcase with her presents or her embarrassing dance routine on stage. It was about possibilities.
Hope.
Perhaps the mistakes and choices in her past didn’t have to suffocate her future.
Maybe Maddy, it was time to grow up.
As she clicked her bike into one of the docking stations, the path in front of her seemed suddenly as clear as the fresh white dusting of snow. Maybe her dream had been wrong or maybe she had tried and it simply didn’t fit. Maybe what she thought as a child didn’t have to rule her life as an adult. And if it was like that with her dreams, maybe with her dad there could be similar infinite possibilities.
‘So you’ve done it again!’ She heard a French accented voice snap from the steps of her apartment block.
‘Veronica?’ Maddy pulled off her hat as she climbed the steps, looking up at her step-mum dressed in a big black astrakhan coat and a red cloche hat pulled down over her ears with a curl of hair peeking out the side.
‘Don’t you Veronica me, all innocent. What did I say to you? You decide if you are still nine or not. You’re a little devil, you know that. Why? Why did you come here? Why not New York or Paris? Anywhere. You come here to play your stupid, selfish little games. I’m not having it any more. You don’t come near him. Enough.’ She crossed her hands in front of her. ‘You are the worst kind of person, Madeline. You play games, you are spoiled, you are weak and selfish.’
Maddy swallowed. Veronica looked like there might actually be tears in her eyes.
‘You know, after the breakfast it was like a spell it was broken, there he was, normal again. And then–’ She shrugged a shoulder. ‘Yes he probably makes a mistake but you think the world should circle around you, that you are the only right one? I told you before, but I don’t think you listened. People, Madeline, they learn to forgive. They learn to accept faults. You–’ she started to walk down the steps past Maddy, her boots crunching in the snow. ‘… you see only your way. Your world.’
Veronica gave a slight shake of her head and then, pulling on her leather gloves, was about to cross the road when a van drove up and pulled into a vacant space in front of her with a skid of tyres in the slush. As the driver got out he apologised for startling her and Veronica waved a hand dismissively as if it was nothing. He nodded and went to open the back doors of his van.
Before she went, Veronica turned back to Maddy and said, ‘I will do whatever I can to stop him from seeing you. Do you understand?’
Maddy nodded.
The van driver paused, embarrassed to have overheard the exchange and watched as Veronica stalked away across the road and got into a sleek grey Mercedes parked opposite.
‘Erm–’ the driver glanced at his clipboard and then up at Maddy. ‘I’ve got a delivery. Flat Three. Madeline Davenport.’
‘That’s me.’ she said, still shaking from Veronica’s tirade. Cold, embarrassed, shocked, she tried to compose herself to talk to the driver.
‘Right, great. One suitcase.’ he said, dragging it out the boot and up the stairs, plonking it down where she stood. ‘Sign here please.’ He held out a tablet for her to sign. ‘That all sounded a bit fierce.’ he said, eyebrows raised.
‘Yeah.’ Maddy tried to keep her voice light. ‘Families, you know, Christmas.’
‘Say no more, darling. Totally understand. Well, hope there’s something in there that’ll make you feel better.’ He grinned and then jogged away down the steps, jumped into his van and drove away.
CHAPTER 37
ELLA
The roof fixed, they all huddled round the fire, fingers wrapped around hot chocolate and towels round their shoulders. When she’d seen the ladder wobble, Ella’s mum had run out into the rain to help Dimitri hold it steady and got completely soaked in the process. She was upstairs getting changed.
The yellow-eyed cat wound his way around Ella’s legs, his damp fur against her ankles.
‘You’re growing on him.’ said Dimitri, nodding towards the cat.
‘Should I be honoured?’ Ella asked.
‘He only usually likes Maddy.’
Ella refused to align any symbolism to the choices of a cat, but all the same, couldn’t deny a feeling of triumph that he was getting ready to sleep on her toes.
‘So I thought the moment called for this.’ They all turned to see her mum holding up a bottle of Krug champagne. ‘It’s just been gathering dust since I was given it and it’s time it was drunk.’
‘What a marvellous plan.’ her grandmother said, going over to the cupboard to get down as many champagne flutes as they had and a couple of wine glasses when she realised there weren’t enough.
‘Ella–’ her mum said, handing her a glass, the tiny bubbles popping on the surface.
‘Thank you.’ she said, taking it from her, realising that her mum didn’t need anyone to bring her champagne any longer, she could give it out herself.
‘I think it’s more like, thank you!’ Sophie smiled. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been a pain today. I erm– no, there’s no excuse. Please come back tomorrow and help me and I promise I’ll be better.’
Dimitri laughed. ‘If there’s more of this–’ he held up his glass of Krug, ‘you can be however you like.’
Once all the champagne had been drunk, Dimitri ventured back out into the rain to ride home but came back claiming it was too wet and windy even for him to try it. Her grandparents didn’t think they could make the walk either so Ella told them to stay in her room. Dimitri would have the sofa in the living room, and Ella would share with her mum.
As she went upstairs to get her toothbrush and pyjamas, Ella found herself being purposely slow. Deliberating about what she might need. It was nerves she realised, the idea of being so close to her mum, the politeness when it came to getting washed and changed, the silence when they turned off the light, the sound of her breathing. Like all the time there would be a feeling that she should say something. That their thoughts were so obvious and huge that they would fill the room to bursting. Pressure mounting on her chest.
When she finally stuffed what she needed into a carrier bag and went down the corridor to her mum’s room, she was so nervous, so awkward that she could barely reply when her mum showed her where everything was and went out to use the bathroom down the hall.
There was a blow-up airbed on the floor with a sleeping bag and a blanket that her mum said she would sleep in but Ella got changed quickly and zipped herself into it before her mum came back in.
‘What are you doing? You take the bed?’ her mum said, dressed in the same nightshirt that Ella remembered from when she was a kid. Threadbare now in places and so worn the blue cotton was soft.
‘No it’s fine. I’ll sleep here.’ As she said it, she realised how different her conversation with Maddy had been about who would take what bed. How spoilt she had sounded when she almost demanded the double.
‘But you’ve been up a ladder in the cold.’
‘Honestly, it’s fine.’ Ella said, almost snapping because she wanted her mum to keep the bed.
Her mum nodded, and climbed under her duvet without saying anything else, turning off the main light and flicking on a side light.
‘Sorry.’ Ella muttered. ‘I didn’t mean for that to come out the way it did.’
‘That’s fine, don’t worry.’
‘Ok.’
‘Ok. Night Ella.’
‘Night.’
Her mum turned the light off and the room was so dark Ella couldn’t see her hand if she held it in front of her face. She could hear the waves though, crashing against the shore. Could hear the wind in the chimney and the rain on the roof.
‘Maddy used to be so afraid of this kind of weather.’ her mum said into the darkness. ‘Do you remember? She’d climb into our bed and we’d have to convince her how great the rain was.’ She laughed. ‘Like The Sound of Music. And then you’d appear at the door, not wanting to be left out and clamber in as well.’
Ella smiled at the memory of being all curled up and cosy, snuggled up between her parents in their big bed.
‘I am sorry you lost that, Ella. I’m sorry you lost that security.’
Ella stared up at the ceiling, seeing the pattern on the wallpaper come into focus as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
‘I was thinking–’ her mum went on, ‘that maybe, perhaps, I could become your friend? I know it sounds a bit stupid and sitcom-y, but I thought it might take the pressure off a bit. Off both of us. You’re a grown-up now, and I don’t think you need me as a mum.’ She paused. ‘I’m not explaining this very well. I know you need a mum, but I would really like to get to know you. As a person, not necessarily as a daughter. And I would like you to get to know me. I understand it all. Everything you said, and I’m sorry I wasn’t who you wanted me to be, I’m sorry I didn’t see you – but I see you now and I think I’d be a good friend.’ She stopped, Ella heard her roll over in her bed and face where she was lying on the airbed on the floor. ‘I would look out for you, Ella, unconditionally.’
Ella was still staring at the ceiling. Her eyes pooling with water, her chest tight. The anger in her like the wind, sweeping away over the ocean.
‘I would look out for you, too,’ she said in the end. ‘I would like to do that.’
She thought she heard her mum laugh, but it could have been the echo of the wind in the chimney breast. When her mum spoke again her voice was lighter. ‘Good. I’m glad. Thank you.’ She heard her take a sip of water and then put the glass back down on the old chair
she used as a bedside table. ‘Good night, Ella.’
‘Night, Mum.’
CHAPTER 38
MADDY
Maddy’s suitcase seemed like an odd reminder of a distant time. She’d survived adequately without it and now as she hauled it up onto the bed and unzipped it, everything inside seemed weighted down with jovial expectation. The travel-sized shampoo and conditioner bottles. A pressed black shirt for her defunct first day at Manhattans. A rain coat because it supposedly always poured in England. A present from her mum and one from her gran wrapped up and stuffed into one of the inside pockets, tied with a bow and a plastic holly leaf. She shook the box, it sounded like jewellery, then she rummaged to the bottom of the case and pulled out her mum’s recipe book that she held up to her face so she could breathe in the smell of the pages.
It was as she was searching for her red wooly jumper and realised she must have forgotten to pack it, that she found something else. A pink and white striped paper bag laid between her pyjama bottoms. She presumed it was something from her gran, or maybe Dimitri, although the latter she doubted. Unfolding the edge she looked inside to see a thin beige notebook, the edges of the pages the same silver as the flowers that were embossed on the front. It looked expensive, like it would have been at home in the stationery department she’d fallen in love with at Liberty.
Opening it up she saw immediately that it wasn’t her grandmother’s, and it certainly wasn’t Dimitri’s.
Instead it was Ella’s.
The first pages were clipped together with a paperclip – on them were random workings out, to-do lists, phone numbers – but then on a fresh page there was a note written to Maddy:
It’s daunting sometimes being in a city on your own. (I’m always a bit lonely on business trips so please don’t see this as me being patronisingly big-sisterish). So I’ve made you a list of all the places I like in London. Especially near the flat where there are lovely little cafes and shops, there’s a car boot at the school on a Sunday and some weird outdoor aerobics class (if you go, good luck!). Then over the bridge, I’ve drawn you a really bad map of Vauxhall and the gems that sit amongst some of the rougher places (don’t go there on your own at night!)