Then, a burly man, pushing a path through the crowd, barged Jack and tripped, landing heavily against him, nearly knocking him to the ground.
“Sorry, laddie,” he said, but Jack was lost. He inhaled for what felt—to Kate—like a hundred years. Then, after hovering on the brink, he unleashed a thin, piercing, scream. It poured out of his tiny body like an unearthly and never-ending siren, rising effortlessly above the noise of the crowd. The jostling around Jack stopped. Despite the crush, a space cleared around him, as if the scream itself had created a force field.
Kate knew all too well the only solution was to physically remove his rigid little body from the circumstances that had caused his distress. She grabbed him around his skinny body and lifted him up. The crowd parted around her as she made her way to the bus, with Jack still screaming, his eyes and fists screwed tight shut. “Oh, bless,” she heard from one woman as she passed. “Special needs . . .” came another phrase, floating into her ear as she passed. “Childen with no manners . . .” said an older woman, with a mean face.
Kate didn’t care.
23 Days ’til Christmas
It was going to be impossible to afford a real tree this year. The quality of the trees from Portman Brothers was great—Malcolm Wilkins wasn’t wrong. The store was selling top-notch blue spruce—six feet tall for sixty quid and eight feet tall for a massive eighty pounds. Even with her measly ten percent staff discount, Kate was not going to be able to do anything about Jack’s desperate longing for a real Christmas tree.
Tears pricked at her eyes. He only wanted a Christmas tree, for goodness’ sake, and he was like his dad in insisting only a real one would do—the smell, the look, a plastic one was a pointless compromise—and Kate agreed . . . but fifty-four pounds represented two weeks of food and dinner money, or a month of electricity if she was careful with the heating and barely used the immersion heater. It just wasn’t a goer. The beautiful wide, blue-green needles were supposed to be extra-long-lasting too, which was a shame as they would be discarded at the local municipal dump within weeks regardless.
Astonishingly enough, despite the high price, Kate had sold three of the taller ones already this morning and five of the shorter ones. She wondered at how much disposable income people seemed to have. One tall, grumpy gray-haired man, whose heavy, dark eyebrows gave him a pronounced scowl, had come along and bought two eight-foot trees.
“The wife can’t decide whether to put it in the dining room or the sitting room. This solves that bloody problem,” he grumbled, peeling off twenty-pound notes from a wad in his pocket. As he handed over the money he gave Kate a piercing look. “This is a bloody awful job they’ve got you doing, standing out here in the cold. I hope they’re paying you enough.”
Kate smiled and said nothing.
“My daughter’s about your age. I’d like to see her working as hard as you. Doesn’t know she’s born.” He looked embarrassed. “Here,” he said, pushing two tenners at her, “a bit extra to help you along, eh?”
She shook her head. “Frowned upon,” she explained, with a smile, wishing that wasn’t the case. An extra bit of cash that week would be a godsend.
“Mmm . . . pity . . . well . . . look after yourself,” he said, pushing the money back into his wallet. He tucked a tree under each arm and, despite the weight, strode off determinedly, turning briefly back to look at her, his expression fierce, but his eyes kind, soft with genuine concern.
Kate blinked back tears. It would be nice to have a father like that, she thought, complaining but caring, nagging . . . looking out for her. It wasn’t that she didn’t have parents, it was just that she might as well not have them. Always formally distant, they had politely brought her up at arms’ length and now suited themselves by traveling the world in a boat they had bought after selling the family home without consulting her, buying rental properties for income to sustain their itinerant lifestyle. It didn’t occur to them that Kate and Jack might need moral or practical support and it certainly didn’t occur to them to give it. Instead, they turned up every ten months or so, for lunch and a catch up, exclaiming over Jack’s extraordinary increase in height, before moving on, restlessly, to their next adventure.
She was so preoccupied with the older man she didn’t see who was approaching her until he was just a couple of yards away. He wore the same overcoat as last year, but it was hanging differently now. He had lost weight and looked older—gaunt, even. With a sinking feeling she registered he didn’t have the woman with him. Kate dreaded the worst, but then she remembered it was a weekday. The girl was only ever with him on the weekends, of course. Here he was, on his way to work; a clever, professional job, she imagined, based in one of the plush, modern office buildings off Cabot Circus, toward the docks. He might be an architect, or a lawyer.
She realized she was staring and she looked away. When she glanced back, she met his eyes and then she saw . . . what was it? He looked so different this year, his eyes blank with suppressed pain. She looked away again, frowning, feeling her gaze was an intrusion when all he was doing was casually catching her eye, as anyone might who suddenly encountered a small, blond woman dressed as a Christmas elf as they strolled by on their way to work. Why was she even assuming he remembered her from previous years, just because she remembered him? He was handsome. It must happen to him all the time.
Just then, a woman in an extraordinarily awful multicolored coat pulled at her arm.
“Are you serving?” she demanded. “I’ve been standing here . . .”
“Sorry,” said Kate quickly. “How can I help?”
She answered a string of imperiously posed questions and then the woman went away without buying a tree, announcing to no one in particular, “I may as well go to the garden center. At least one can park the car.”
Free at last, Kate looked around her but the man had gone. If it was like last year, he would have gone past and turned right, and would not pass her again until at least six o’clock that evening. She looked at her watch. It was past ten o’clock in the morning. He had been late—perhaps a breakfast meeting before the office; he looked as if he was the kind of man who had breakfast meetings. She sighed and noticed she was smiling. It was an alien feeling to be finding a smile on her face rather than deliberately putting it there—a good feeling.
Daniel groaned aloud as he hung up his coat. What a plank, he thought as he replayed their encounter in his head. First, she catches him out staring fixedly at her as she serves that old man, then she sees him looking at her as if he knows her—which must throw her a bit, as there is not the slightest reason for her to remember they’ve ever met before. That said, he told himself, sighing as he sank into his chair, there’s a chance she would remember Zoe: his sister had a way of making an impression on people.
Out of sheer masochism, he replayed in his mind the bit that morning when their eyes locked. Time seemed to stand still, for him at least; for her it must have felt like an eternity being glared at by this random bloke. No wonder she had looked away with that puzzled expression. He had almost been glad of that woman in the mad coat, distracting her so he could slip away before he did anything else to make a fool of himself.
He sighed and swigged the coffee his friend Paul had left on his desk. Thankfully it contained a triple shot. He needed it.
“Tough night?”
“Just a bit,” Daniel admitted.
“What was it this time?”
“A few calls,” he said, staring out of the window, “just your normal stuff—loneliness, bereavement, existential angst . . .” He paused, taking another gulp. Thank God for caffeine.
“Anything in particular?” Paul knew his friend and he knew that look. He was relentless.
“A young lad,” Daniel admitted. “Only sixteen it turns out . . . but he’s lived through more than your average teenager, and not in a good way . . .”
Paul nodded. The people whom Daniel ended up supporting in the middle of the night, all night, usually, had ge
nerally had a lot of “life” thrown at them and rarely “in a good way.”
“So . . . ?”
“Yeah, so . . . turns out he’s in foster care because his single mum’s too busy taking drugs to bring him up, and he’s had this girlfriend for the last couple of years only she’s in care too, and the social workers in their wisdom have decided to move her to a new placement in Leeds. So . . . he’s alone again, hates the children’s home, he’s being chucked out soon anyway . . .”
“What? At sixteen?”
“Yep. And it took me five hours on the phone with him, persuading him not to check out completely but to send a text to this key worker he apparently gets on with, but who’s been told to hand his case file to someone else because of some ridiculous restructuring nonsense.”
“Check out? You mean he was going to kill himself ?”
Daniel nodded. “Razor blade at the ready.”
“Mate,” said Paul. “I seriously don’t know how you do it.”
Daniel shrugged and chucked the empty coffee cup in the recycling. “Thanks for that. I needed it.”
“And I don’t know why you do it either,” Paul added quietly as Daniel walked away, rubbing his face. But he did know why. His friend had been taking every shift offered, working through the night for two, three, even four nights a week, listening to other people’s misery . . . Basically, he was doing anything to avoid being home alone and having to think about his own sadness. Something was going to have to change. And soon.
Kate and Jack thought their Christmas cookies were brilliant. The whole flat was filled with a delicious fug of hot butter and cinnamon. The reindeer-shaped ones were fiddly, and the legs tended to break off when they prized them off the baking tray, but the bell-shaped ones and the stars turned out pretty well.
“We have to ice them too,” explained Kate, “and then thread string through the holes so we can hang them up.”
“On the tree,” said Jack doggedly, shooting his mother a look. “We’ve got to get it soon,” he pressed. “It’s been December for aaages . . .”
Kate laughed and ruffled his hair. “It’s been December for precisely three days,” she said. “When I was a little girl, we would always put the tree up on Christmas Eve, not before. We’ve got a long time to see what we can do in between. There’s the list. We’ve got your nativity play, haven’t we? And mince pies, and the Christmas market . . . Now listen, stop eating them all,” she warned. “We need some left over to ice and put on strings tomorrow. Also, I’m not sure you’re going to have room for tea at this rate.”
Luckily Seema had given her the heads-up at the school gate that the class’s Secret Santa names were going to be handed out the following day. As Jack was finishing his tea, Kate slipped a bit of paper into the advent calendar promising this as his “Christmas” activity for the following day.
“Yay!” he said, once he had haltingly read it aloud. “I wonder who’s going to get me.”
“Never mind you,” laughed Kate. “The important thing is to see who you have to do a present for, and get them something really good that they’ll like.”
There was a five-pound limit on the present value, thankfully, but she had been racking her brains to think of something that Jack would approve of which wouldn’t need any money to be spent at all. Maybe seeing who it was would inspire them both when she collected him from school tomorrow.
First, though, she had a worrying meeting to get through. Pat’s comments on the possible redundancies, along with this ridiculous “rolling contract” thing that Malcolm Wilkins had announced she was on, had made her decide to find out her exact position at Portman Brothers. Tom had always said that you should “know your enemy.” He didn’t shy away from finding out the truth, even when it was unwelcome, and he had always encouraged her to fight her corner too, although it had been a damned sight easier to do that knowing there was a pair of strong arms to hold her and warm her when life got challenging.
Just then, Jack threw his arms around her thighs and gave her a hug. “I love Christmas,” he said, dreamily. “It’s just like real life . . . only more exciting.”
22 Days ’til Christmas
“I can see you are an exemplary employee,” said Sarah, the Human Resources manager, across a large desk. Kate had been put in a disconcertingly low chair, making her feel like a naughty child pulled into the principal’s office.
“You’ve met all your targets,” Sarah mused, tip-tapping the immaculate red nails of her left hand on the desk as she shuffled through the papers in the file with her right. “It appears your appraisal last January was excellent, and that you are a valuable contributor within your team.”
“Good-o,” said Kate, sourly. “The thing I didn’t know at my appraisal last January was that I was a hairsbreadth away from losing my job. No one mentioned that.”
“But you didn’t lose your job,” said Sarah, leaning forward slightly and giving Kate a reassuring smile. “You were retained on payroll for another year and—from what I can see—you have continued to be an asset to Portman Brothers. The lingerie department has met all its sales targets throughout the year.”
“But what’s going to happen at my appraisal this New Year,” pressed Kate. “I’ve heard they’ll be letting people go.” What a ridiculous phrase, she thought, as soon as she had said it—like people were pining to be released from slavery, rather than hanging onto their paychecks for grim death.
“I can’t comment on that,” said Sarah, the warmth immediately dissipating and the shutters coming down.
“But,” Kate swallowed and pressed her hands together, “it would be last in, first out, wouldn’t it? And, technically—from what you’re saying—I’ve only been employed for a year, haven’t I? Not that I had a lot of choice at the time, of course. It was take it or leave it and Mr. Wilkins knew I was desperate for work. I just never thought it would be used to crap on me from a great height. I should have known it would, of course.” She also hadn’t imagined, at that point, Kate remembered, that she would be doing a rubbish job for so long. The jewelry making had been her original and best idea, but making it come to fruition was harder than she thought. And there she was, more than three years later. Sarah pursed her lips, sitting back in her chair and crossing her arms. She looked embarrassed, thought Kate in mitigation.
She remembered being told the whole “last in, first out” principle wasn’t based on morality, but on cost-effectiveness. The shorter time an employee had been there—at least technically—the cheaper they were to sack.
“So, what would I get?”
Sarah raised a questioning eyebrow. “In what sense?”
“Redundancy. Payoff. What would I get. If it was me?”
“There is no statutory redundancy pay for employees with less than two years’ employment. But as I said, I couldn’t possibly comment on whether there will be redundancies in the new year.”
“But I’ve been here for four, nearly.”
“Mmm, but technically . . .” Sarah said, waving her hand at Kate’s contract.
“That’s not fair.”
“You may very well say that. I couldn’t possibly comment.”
“Sure, I know—but, basically, my best outcome would be another one-year contract?” pressed Kate.
“A zero hours contract is more likely, at best,” admitted Sarah.
“What’s that?”
“A contract which allows Portman Brothers to rota you for as few or as many hours as they require on a weekly basis. These are the terms I have been asked to set up as standard for newer employees.”
Kate felt the blood drain from her face. “But that would be a disaster,” she whispered. “Not knowing how much I was going to make each week, not knowing what childcare I need to book . . .”
“It’s the gig economy. That’s what the world has become. A job for life with a yearly bonus and a gold clock on retirement is just not a thing nowadays,” explained Sarah. “I’m sorry. It’s hard, I know.�
�
“I bet you don’t know,” said Kate, angrily, getting to her feet. “I bet you’ve got a gold-plated deal yourself. They need you, don’t they? They need you to do their sacking for them, and to offer these contracts that ruin people’s lives. I don’t know how you sleep at night.”
As soon as she left, she kicked herself for the outburst. Her head was pounding. It was expanding with rage, concern, a feeling of desperate powerlessness . . . but the only thing she had achieved with her temper was to make things worse. Great.
Daniel was also concerned about how he came across. “Be cool, be cool, be cool,” he was muttering to himself, as he walked down the street toward the store. Then it occurred to him that being caught talking to himself was not going to persuade her he wasn’t a weirdo. He clamped his mouth shut and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. Catching sight of his reflection in a shop window, he realized that looking grim-faced and tense wouldn’t help either. The woman—what was her name; he couldn’t call her “Christmas Tree Girl” forever—was hardly going to want to acknowledge a bloke who looked like he was just off to murder someone.
He consciously relaxed, dropping his shoulders and taking a deep breath. She was just a girl. A woman. And he was just going to give her a smile, maybe say hello—actually not “hello,” maybe “hi” or something. If it went well, he might comment on the weather too . . . but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, he told himself sternly. He could see her from a hundred yards away, but this time he didn’t stare fixedly—that was something he was keen to avoid doing again—so instead he found himself looking at anything but her, swiveling his head like a loon, checking out the shop windows and even staring at the sky, as if that held the answer . . .
Suddenly, there she was, just six feet away. His eyes locked onto hers. She had a bemused smile on her face as she looked at him.
“Good day,” he said, and brought his hand to his forehead, as if he was going to remove a hat he wasn’t wearing. He hesitated briefly, breaking his stride, then he accelerated away, leaving Kate smiling after him.
25 Days 'Til Christmas Page 4