How to Stuff Up Christmas

by Rosie Blake

  ‘Too pale,’ Mum commented.

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  Harriet put her hand over the receiver again, ‘She looks thin, Mum, good thin.’ Returning to the call, ‘Tell him if he thinks THAT, he can think again.’

  ‘Where’s Scarlet?’

  ‘She’s not allowed home until she takes it out,’ Mum called over her shoulder from the oven.

  Eve frowned. ‘Takes what out?’

  Dad grimaced at Eve. ‘She’d got another piercing. This one’s in her eyebrow. Your mother thinks it makes her look—’

  ‘Like a lesbian. Like an aggressive lesbian.’

  Gavin was looking at his lap, flicking something imaginary off his jeans. Harriet cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Ridiculous.’

  ‘She’s twenty-five, Mum. Can you really ban her from home for that?’

  ‘If she wants to see me again, she’ll take it out,’ Mum huffed.

  Eve nodded, frowning now with a new thought. ‘What does an aggressive lesbian look like compared to a normal lesbian?’

  Dad shrugged.

  ‘And is she a lesbian now?’ Eve asked, curious. Her ethereal sister Scarlet could well be anything, floating around Newcastle in various ill-fitting pieces of cotton and loads of really meaningful tattoos scrawled in foreign languages. She was doing a photography course and most of her Instagram pictures were arty shots of food/her eye/the sky.

  Dad shrugged.

  ‘She was sleeping with some bloke on her course, massive…’ said Harriet leaning across the table and cupping the phone again. ‘… beard. Er… do I have to be any clearer? I said no, he can’t have five per cent, it’s not bloody Christmas.’

  Gavin looked at his wife with a raised eyebrow. ‘Swear jar.’

  ‘Blinkin’ Christmas, blinkin’,’ Harriet muttered, rolling her eyes at Eve who stifled a giggle.

  Poppy seemed oblivious, bashing her beaker on the table of her high-chair, shouting, ‘Nom, nom, nom, nom!’

  Dad poured Eve some water from the blue jug with the big fish on it. Mum was standing at his shoulder.

  ‘Sleeping with who?’ she asked, pointing the gravy spoon at Harriet. ‘Oh, and, Eve,’ she turned to focus on her, ‘Christmas reminds me, you’ll be coming here, won’t you?’

  Eve shifted in her seat, wondering why she was taking time to reply. She wanted to agree immediately; she wanted to say, ‘Of course I will.’ But, as she looked around the crowded room – the mush-spattered floor, Gavin playing peek-a-boo with a tea towel on his head, her dad fiddling with the knot of his purple neck-tie, her mum holding a spoon up to the light, tutting and polishing it on her apron, Harriet still with mobile clamped to her ear – she realised with panic it would be like this, it would be like it was every year. And he wouldn’t be there with her.

  ‘Harriet and Gavin are here for three days, so I was thinking Scarlet and you could share a room rather than put Scarlet back on the sofa…’

  Their voices, the chatter, clutter and noise made Eve’s head swim, made her body heat up, her brain whirring as she tried to filter it all. Christmas. Christmas at home. She wanted to turn to Liam, to grip his hand, lean into his body, know that afterwards they would drive back, giggling over the lunch, her dad’s outfit, Mum’s outrage at Scarlet’s new piercing, to marvel at Harriet’s juggling prowess. But there was no one there to turn to, no one’s hand to grip. Then she thought back to last Christmas and what had happened and she found herself looking back at her mum, hearing her own voice as it came from her mouth. ‘Actually, I think I need to spend this Christmas alone.’

  The room fell silent.

  Harriet dropped the phone.

  Eve wondered what she had done.

  Lunch had been decidedly frosty, her mum refusing to spoon out her seconds until she’d promised to re-consider her Christmas plans, and forcing Eve to come up with more and more outlandish reasons why she might not be around.

  Harriet had tried to placate by soothing Mum with reminders that it was only October after all and maybe Eve would change her mind, and then Scarlet had phoned to announce the eyebrow piercing was still very much intact and Mum had redirected her anger at her. Eve had left as soon as she could, Marmite trailing one of Mum’s freshly planted daffodil bulbs in his mouth.

  So where would Eve go? Why hadn’t she just said yes immediately? She knew why. She thought back to last year, to Christmas at her parents’ house, and felt the familiar lump in her throat, her eyes already stinging with the tears she was inevitably about to shed. Gah, Eve, stop being such a cry-baby loser. But it was too late for the pep talk; they were coming, spilling down her cheeks so that she couldn’t be bothered to wipe them away. The image of him leaning down to kiss her, both hands cupping her face like they were the couple on the front cover of a romance novel, his eyes darker, reflecting all her own feelings.

  She hadn’t been expecting it. Sure, she had made the odd exclamation if walking past jewellery shops/churches/bridal shops. Innocent remarks, e.g. imagine when we are married and, ooh I have always fancied rose gold for a wedding band and, look, a wedding dress, are you excited about what I will look like in a wedding dress? So very subtle things really.

  She imagined he might do it when they were on their own. Liam wasn’t one for the big show, got alarmed if she talked too loudly in restaurants, and practically died when she had once knocked over a vase on a side table in the reception of a hotel whilst she’d been re-enacting a dance sequence from Pitch Perfect. She thought he would do it quietly, maybe take her to a dimly lit restaurant, hold her hand over a candle, propose in a low voice. She wondered if he would buy the ring or whether they’d shop for it together.

  As it happened, it really had been a surprise. She had woken on Christmas Day and headed to the shower, leaving Liam lying on his back, mouth open, chest rising and falling. They’d drunk a lot of red wine the night before and she was groggy as she pulled at the bags of her eyes in the mirror; poking a tongue out, she had despaired at her Christmas look. Not very fresh-faced. Emerging from the shower pink and damp and twisting a towel around her hair into a turban, she wrapped herself into another one and stepped back into the bedroom.

  There she found Liam, eyes wide, looking up at her as he bent to pull on his jeans.

  ‘All right?’ she said, laughing at his shocked expression. ‘You look like you’ve just seen Father Christmas.’ Liam, who rarely laughed at her jokes anyway, seemed to look more startled. ‘Are you actually all right?’ Eve asked, worried now that something had happened.

  Then she saw it clutched in his hand, the little box, and, before she could ask, he had stumbled across the bed and thrust it at her.

  ‘Will you marry me, Eve?’

  It had been a shock and Eve had dropped her towel. Her dad, who had been listening at the door and couldn’t contain himself any more, then burst in to be faced with Eve’s bottom and Liam’s increasingly pale face. He’d backed out, muttering, ‘My mistake’ over and over, and Eve had picked up her towel, forgetting that she hadn’t responded yet.

  ‘So?’ Liam said, looking at her.

  Eve had opened the box and felt her whole body go numb as she stared at the diamond ring glistening on its cushion. ‘Yes,’ she croaked. ‘Yes please.’

  And then all she remembered was floating down the stairs into the kitchen to her parents, with everyone chorusing ‘Happy Christmas’ and her just holding up her hand, a sheepish-looking Liam shuffling in behind. Her dad beetroot-red, but glossing over BottomGate, her mum chastising him for not telling her about Liam asking his permission the night before (‘we’re married, we should share EVERYTHING, IMMEDIATELY’), Gavin shaking Liam’s hand, Scarlet with a tinsel crown smiling and clapping, and Harriet, a beat perhaps, a thought, and then her face splitting into a grin, tears springing into her eyes as she squeezed Eve tight to her chest.

  They’d spent the morning drinking Bucks Fizz and asking questions that Eve didn’t have any of the answers to as it slowly dawned on her
that this was really happening. She stared at the ring on her hand, the diamond slipping to the side as the band was a size too big. She couldn’t stop fiddling with it, holding it up to the light when she thought no one was looking.

  There was no way she could go back home on her own this year. It would be torture reliving the moment. The smiles across the table as they’d pulled crackers. His too-small paper crown tilted at an angle, holding a three-week-old Poppy in his arms, looking like he was auditioning for topless guy in a perfume ad. Her womb practically combusting at the sight, making her hold one hand on her stomach as if looks could suddenly get her knocked up. She remembered at the time she’d been floored by the feeling. The Eve who had never really thought about children was now suddenly imagining her own child, gorgeous sandy hair and the same amber eyes like runny honey, nestled into the crook of his arm. They’d take photos of all three of them in bed in the morning, sleepily happy, snuggled on Egyptian cotton under a status that simply said ‘My family’ with a smiley emoticon.

  So what could she do instead?

  She fetched her dinner, baked beans on toast, and spooned it into her mouth as she thought. Clicking on the Safari icon on her iPad, she typed in ‘Best Christmas Breaks’. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? There were plenty of places to go that wouldn’t remind her of Liam. Lapland, for instance; now that didn’t hold any danger. There were lots of pictures of snow-covered trees, huskies pulling sledges, frozen sunsets, reindeers, men with massive furry hoods their faces peeking out, the sky striped with the rippling greens and purples of the Northern Lights. Then Eve noticed all the photos of laughing children, of families snuggled together in wooden chalets, websites promising reindeer rides and visits to Santa. It would be worse than going home. All those happy, excitable families having snowball fights and making angels in the deep trenches of snow.

  She clicked on the next idea. That was better. That was instantly calming. She would get away from it all. It was a picture of an island in the middle of nowhere. A green blob surrounded by white sand, fringed by turquoise water and then the deep navy-blue of the ocean surrounding it all. There was one particular photo that made her take a breath. A long wooden pier leading to four huts on stilts, double bedrooms that looked out over the beautiful stretch of nothingness. The air still and calm and completely silent. No families, just her in a hammock, supping from a fruity cocktail dressed in a bikini. She could feel her body unfurl at the thought, her muscles start to relax in anticipation of the massages she would request on the beach, the gentle sound of steel drumming or some such as she wafted away into another daydream, the sun round and hot in the endless blue sky above.

  It would be perfect, the absolute best alternative to her family Christmas, nowhere to be at a certain time, no one there but her. At home, everything ran to a strict timetable, laid down years before.

  Step One: wake.

  Step Two: wake the other sisters who aren’t already awake (Harriet was always awake first so really this should read ‘Harriet wake up Eve and Scarlet’).

  Step Three: open stockings.

  Step Four: eat miniscule breakfast, complain of dreadful hunger, judge anyone who eats more than muesli as not getting into the spirit of things.

  Step Five: attend morning church service for obligatory carolling.

  Step Six: allowed one present if went to church (good motivator, church numbers always swelled by this promise).

  Step Seven: return and ‘help Mum lay table.*’

  Step Eight: eat Christmas lunch.

  Step Nine: eat more Christmas lunch.

  Step Ten: hand round Quality Street tin and force-feed people chocolate despite the fact they have just eaten their body weight in turkey and potatoes and are loudly protesting they are in danger of throwing up.

  Step Eleven: stand and greet the Queen with a salute and half-heartedly listen to her speech but really just wait to comment on all of Kate Middleton’s clothes in each clip.

  Step Twelve: open all the presents as if you have never seen a present before.

  Step Thirteen: snuggle up to watch a Christmas movie.

  Step Fourteen: throw something at the person who suggests dinner.

  Step Fifteen: throw something at the person who suggests Monopoly.

  Step Sixteen: drink.

  Repeat Step Sixteen until Step Seventeen: bed.

  Christmas is Complete.

  *start drinking.

  She scrolled quickly down to the room choices, searching for the double room in the hut with the sea view. She looked again at the price. She must have typed in ‘10’ not ‘1’ person. She scrolled up. Okay, she didn’t need the hut overlooking the ocean. It wasn’t an essential. It would have been nice, lovely really, to feel the water lapping beneath it in gentle waves, the warm wood under her feet as she stepped onto the pier in the morning. She could live without it, though. She looked for another room, in a hotel near the huts; the prices were still enormous, making her eyes water. She would have to sell something to pay for it. Something massive.

  Then she saw a photo. A smiling couple in white linen running along the sand, her brown hair flying out behind her, dazzling teeth, the man chasing her. In the next shot they were in the shallows kissing. In the next image they were lying on the hammock Eve had conjured in her mind, all limbs and smiles and sand. It was the perfect honeymoon destination, the website promised. The perfect place to spend your first Christmas together. Fine, there would be no children, no sound of their laughter, but that was because there would just be the sounds of snogging and sex noises from all the huts around her. Eve imagined it now, her peaceful ocean calm shattered by someone else’s ecstatic orgasm. Oh no, no, no, she wouldn’t be selling something for that. Not that she had anything to sell.

  Then she looked at her finger, thinking about the ring she should be wearing. Remembering the twinkling stone reminded her how everything had been so different just over two months before. She stared back at the screen. The man’s face morphing into Liam’s. The laughing woman on the sand Eve. They could have gone there on holiday on their honeymoon. She closed down the website. No hut overlooking the ocean. So where would she end up?

  She needed to keep busy, couldn’t linger over her memories. Maybe lounging around in a hammock all day would be deadly anyway, nothing but her thoughts which mostly went: Liam, gah, vagina, hate, Liam.

  She typed in ‘Activity Christmas holidays’, hoping for some inspiration. Up popped a grinning woman in goggles, surrounded by snowcapped mountains. Of course. Eve smiled to herself, clicking on the site, already tasting the fondue, already imagining herself whooshing down a slope. She would go skiing. Skiing was a brilliant idea.

  ‘Can you ski?’

  ‘Well, no, but it can’t be that hard to learn.’

  ‘It will be cold.’

  ‘Well I know, but…’

  ‘You’ve never really liked snow. There will be snow there,’ Daisy pointed out.

  ‘Well, I think that’s sort of the point and I don’t HATE snow, it just has to be in the right context.’

  ‘Like in a ski resort.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Eve said, flinging her arms out wide and dropping her Biro in the process. ‘Oh hi, Ed,’ Eve said in a too-loud voice. Daisy froze at her desk, mouth half-open, about to say more on the subject of snow.

  Ed had walked round and was standing at their table, a hand on his hip, his wedding ring hidden under a fold of flesh. ‘Are you both working?’

  ‘Yes, Ed,’ Daisy chirruped.

  ‘Oh yes, Ed,’ Eve said, hitting her keyboard a little too hard.

  ‘Eve, I need you to go out to a viewing later. It’s the flat above the florist’s, you remember.’

  ‘I do,’ Eve said, knowing she couldn’t keep avoiding viewing forever, but somehow still wanting to make someone else go instead.

  ‘And, Daisy, can I have those particulars for the house on Goldman Street?’

  ‘Yes, Ed.’

  ‘And, Eve,’ he sai
d, turning to her, ‘after the viewing you can… Carry on.’ He blustered, clearly not able to think up a job in time.

  ‘Yes, Ed.’

  ‘So,’ Eve said the moment Ed had returned to his desk, ‘what do you think?’

  Daisy relaxed again. ‘Do you really want to go skiing? If you have the whole month to play with, is that the best thing you can think of doing?’

  Eve opened her mouth and shut it. Daisy could be so quietly unnerving at times. ‘Well, I suppose the idea appeals in some ways, but in other ways, like the fact that I normally hate sports and the fact that I am not a huge fan of the cold, puts me off a bit.’

  ‘So we need to think of something else,’ Daisy pointed out, tapping her pen on her freckled nose. ‘How about snowboarding?’

  ‘Well, that’s sort of the same as skiing, Dais’.’

  ‘Good point. A month-long cruise?’ she suggested.

  ‘I’m not eighty-five.’

  ‘A safari?’

  ‘Too many lions.’ Eve shivered.

  ‘Well, how about something in this country?’

  ‘Bit dull, isn’t it?’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be,’ Daisy said, straightening and staring at her. ‘What about an extension of something you really do enjoy?’ she suggested in her matter-of-fact way.

  ‘Like what?’ Eve asked, adding another doodle to the paper in front of her.

  ‘Something that would really fit in with your interests.’

  ‘What interests?’ Eve said, realising she was starting to sound sulky and drawing a pouting face onto the sheet in front of her.

  ‘Well, you like dancing.’

  ‘I’m not sure clubbing in Ibiza could hold my interest for a month.’

  ‘Not clubbing, obviously, but you could learn to dance properly, like Baby in Dirty Dancing?’

  ‘I do love Dirty Dancing.’ Eve nodded. ‘But I’m not sure dancing is really me.’

  ‘Well,’ Daisy said pointedly, looking at the pictures Eve was drawing, ‘you’ve always loved art. Why don’t you do something related to that?’