25 Days 'Til Christmas

by Poppy Alexander

  And now here he was, scanning the tiny space anxiously, waiting . . .

  “Hellooo?” Kate called, as she stood uncertainly on the jetty. This had to be the one. A blue painted narrow boat, Daniel had described it as, with a green roof and the name Wonderland painted on the side. There were cobalt-glazed pots on the small deck, nothing growing in them as far as she could see. In fact, they looked neglected and forlorn, with the remains of flowers now just gray-brown twiggy growth. Whoever the keen gardener was hadn’t been there recently. And then she remembered. It had probably been Zoe.

  “Well done. You found it,” said Daniel, climbing up out of the cabin and holding out his hand to help her onto the boat.

  “It’s fine,” he said, “you won’t fall. I’m liking your hat, by the way.”

  “Great, isn’t it? Designer, you know,” she joked, patting the green woolly pom-pom hat he had given her. She pretty much wore it all the time. “How did you and Zoe manage? With the wheelchair and everything?”

  “Oh, she didn’t need it all the time. It was just for when she might have to stand up for a long time or walk a long way. She couldn’t do that. Not in the end. I just kept the wheelchair in the car and then carried her down here.”

  He showed Kate down the steep wooden steps into the cabin, hovering anxiously behind.

  “You’ll need to duck your head,” he warned.

  “Wow, it’s amazing,” she said, taking it all in. “You’d have to be awfully tidy to live in such a small space. I couldn’t do it,” she admitted.

  “It’s a discipline. You get used to it.”

  “Go on then, let’s give the matcha thingie a go,” she said gamely, when he had run her through the extensive beverage choices.

  “I thought you’d be into that sort of stuff,” he admitted, attempting to read the label on the packet but then just chucking a good few teaspoons of the frankly vile-looking green stuff into the two cups and pouring water on.

  “It’s interesting,” she said, looking into her cup when they had sat themselves down on the narrow sofa, thighs nearly touching. She stirred her mug cautiously, but the effect was just to make the large clumps of green into smaller clumps of green. “Is it supposed to be like this?” she asked with a grin.

  “Oh God, I’ve no idea,” admitted Daniel, poking one of the lumps with his spoon. “Here goes though . . .” he took a large gulp and his face convulsed in disgust, making Kate burst into peals of laughter.

  “You’re not selling it to me,” she said, taking a sip of her own and immediately having to try not to gag.

  “Yikes, that’s bad,” she admitted, putting the mug carefully down on the little table and regarding it as if it might bite. “I’m sure it’s amazingly good for you—or something . . .”

  “Sorry,” he said, picking up both mugs and pouring them down the plughole. The lumps resisted, forming a claggy layer in the bottom of the sink, and floating on the water Daniel ran in an attempt to wash them away. To top it all, the water slowed to a trickle and then stopped.

  “Damn. Water tank’s empty,” he said. It was a morning job and he had been so distracted by Kate’s visit he had clean forgotten.

  “I’m beginning to see it’s not as cool living on a boat as most people think.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Builders’ tea?” He was lucky there was still recently boiled water in the kettle.

  “Yes, please,” said Kate, with relief.

  “So, when did you lose Zoe?” she asked, when they were settled again, this time with chipped, mismatched mugs. They were filled with reassuringly familiar orangey brown tea, strong, milky, and—in Daniel’s case—sweet.

  “It was January she died, so not long into the new year. You saw her just before Christmas, of course. She was incredibly unwell by then. We were just hanging on, really . . . There was no hope.”

  “What was it? Cancer?”

  “Heart,” said Daniel, succinctly. “She had a congenital heart defect. It led to unsurvivable complications. She had everything—pulmonary hypertension, heart failure, she was on oxygen, the tiniest thing exhausted her . . .”

  Kate put her hand on Daniel’s, which was resting on the table.

  “I’m so sorry. She was young. And she was lovely.”

  “She was,” he smiled.

  “Could they not operate?”

  “They wouldn’t,” he said, his face becoming grim. “Not when she was younger. And then, they couldn’t. It was too late.” He stared intensely at the little table between them. “She had an AVSD,” he went on. “That’s an atrio-ventricular septum defect. A hole in the heart, basically.”

  Kate nodded, giving his hand a squeeze.

  “Why wouldn’t they? Operate, I mean . . .”

  Daniel looked at her. “Because she had Down’s.”

  “No! Surely not . . . that’s . . . it can’t be right?” She looked appalled, tears springing to her eyes.

  He sighed. “Yep, I know, it’s not what’s supposed to happen. You won’t get anyone admitting to it out loud. We didn’t understand at the time. If we . . . well, if my parents had known, there was a window, when she was a baby, when they could have tried a surgical repair. My parents were talked out of it, but it seems pretty clear now, she would have been offered the surgery if she hadn’t had Down’s. By the time we realized she had been discriminated against, it was a case of accepting she would die young. She had a longer life than any of us expected.” He stared out of the window at the brown river, the gray sky, hinting at snow. “She had an amazing life, really.”

  “She was lucky to have you.”

  “I was lucky to have her.”

  “The first Christmas is hard.” It was a statement not a question.

  “It will be. God, December . . . It’s so depressing anyhow, no wonder the pagans decided to have a bit of a party to keep their spirits up in midwinter. I just don’t want to have anything to do with Christmas this year.”

  “I’ve got Jack,” she said. “I’ve got to ‘do’ Christmas. For his sake.”

  “And your husband?”

  Kate looked at him in surprise. “My husband?” she echoed, stupidly.

  “Uh-oh, he died, didn’t he?” said Daniel, suddenly realizing and feeling a fool. He smacked his forehead. “I’m such an insensitive idiot. First, I somehow assumed you had lost him because—well—you just look like you’ve lost someone. Then I realized I didn’t actually know and I was jumping to conclusions. Then, when you said you were visiting your mother-in-law, I thought I must have been mistaken. And then I thought well, maybe you’re just divorced or something. I mean that can be awful enough, apparently . . .”

  Kate straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. “You should trust your instincts,” she told him. “My husband, Tom, has been gone for four years now. Dead, not just divorced. I’d like to tell you it gets easier, but in truth . . .” She spread her palms and tilted her head sympathetically.

  “How?”

  “He was a soldier—killed in Afghanistan. The usual crap—dodgy equipment, inadequate leadership, exhaustion . . . He was blown up by an IED. I don’t even know why they sent a person-shaped coffin. A box would have done. A small one at that . . .” Kate’s face was hard. She had learned to be angry. To say unspeakable things that upset people, to express her rage at the horrible, senseless, violent loss.

  He nodded calmly. He didn’t try to touch her. Not now. He knew from his work with the Crisisline, from his own grief, that she just wanted—in that moment—to be angry. He was quietly touched that she allowed him to see it.

  They both sat, beside each other, looking out at the heavy sky, the river, whipped into small frothy crests by the bitter wind.

  “How old was Jack when it happened?” he said quietly at last. “He would only have been—what?—two?”

  “Yes, just two. He has memories of his dad. Sort of. We go over them quite often to—I dunno—reinforce them. I want him to have that.”

  “So now
he’s six?”

  Kate nodded.

  “Four years is a long time to be alone.”

  “I’m not alone,” said Kate, stoutly. “I have Jack. You’re alone,” she added, with unintended bluntness.

  “Zoe was always trying to fix me up with people. She didn’t want me to not have anyone when she . . .” He paused and then gave a snort of laughter at a memory recalled. “Yeah, she was quite the matchmaker . . .”

  “So, have you ever had anyone? Sorry, not ‘had,’ although, yes, I do mean that actually. Have you ever had a relationship with a woman? Or a man, of course,” she added.

  He laughed again, longer this time. “What do you think?” he teased gently. “I’m thirty-two and I’m not a monk. I’m afraid I was a bit of a tart before Mum and Dad died—I prefer women by the way—but they went suddenly, just six months apart, and then obviously it was just me and Zoe . . . Yeah,” he went on at last. “I grew up then, all right, and no, I haven’t ‘had’ anyone since.”

  “We’re a right pair, aren’t we? Staring down Christmas like we’re looking down the barrel of a gun,” admitted Kate. “What are you going to do for it? Do you have any family left at all? There must be someone . . .”

  “Not really. Elderly aunts who live miles away. I’ve got a volunteer job I do. I’ll probably be tied up doing that. Lots of the others do have families, so they won’t want to work over the holidays. I’m happy to fill in.”

  “Talking about work, what do you do, and why aren’t you doing it as we speak?”

  “In my proper work I’m a chartered surveyor specializing in commercial property, which is exactly as dull as it sounds. And I’m not doing it today because I am on enforced holiday. I haven’t . . . well, I haven’t wanted to . . . take my annual leave this year and I’m supposed to use it before the end of December so . . . now I have a week off. They made me.” He held out his hands and let them drop.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Put my record collection in alphabetical order.”

  “You haven’t got one,” said Kate, looking around the tiny space.

  “Haven’t I? Damn, can’t do that then.” He put his finger on his mouth, pretending to think, but came up with nothing.

  “Me and Jack, we’re doing Christmas things every day,” ventured Kate. “We’ve got this advent calendar . . . I decided we would do it. Celebrate the run-up to Christmas properly; change the way we’ve been living for the last four years. It’s hard to explain . . . I made a decision I would find my way back this year, make Christmas special again and use it as a springboard for the rest of our lives. Get happy. That’s the plan, anyhow,” she said uncertainly, remembering Seema’s list of things she had to do—a list she had made little impact on so far. “Does that sound ridiculous? It is ridiculous, I know.”

  “No, it sounds very sensible. Well, maybe not sensible, but definitely a good idea. What’s the plan for tomorrow then?”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” she admitted. “I’ve got this list of things we have to do but none appeal for tomorrow, to be honest. I was hoping it would snow.”

  “You don’t want much, do you? I can’t remember the last time we had proper snow in Bristol. Well, I can, but crikey, I was a teenager,” he said, thinking back. Zoe had been really small then. It was her first experience of snow and she had been utterly transfixed. Funny how so many of his life experiences were all the more intense and fantastic because he had seen them through his sister’s eyes . . .

  “It might snow,” said Kate, peering out at the leaden sky hopefully. “It’s definitely chilly enough.” She gave a shudder.

  “Are you cold?” he said, jumping up. “I’ll put another log on.” He reached for the little basket by the stove and selected another chunk of wood to put into the little wood-burning stove that glowed cozily in the corner.

  “I wish we had one of those,” she said, longingly.

  “Where do you live?”

  “We’re in a flat off St. Peter’s Road. It’s warmer than it might be because it’s above a launderette, but it still gets cold. Poorly maintained sixties architecture isn’t known for its insulation.”

  “You sound like a chartered surveyor,” he joked. “You know, there’s grants for improving substandard properties, to help landlords improve the quality of their buildings. I should take a look for you.”

  “We’re not going to be there forever. I want us to get something better. I want Jack to have a garden. Or something like this. Jack would love it!”

  “You should bring him.”

  “Yeah, maybe . . .” Kate’s smile didn’t slip but she shifted a millimeter away.

  He noticed. She was wary and that was fine. He was too.

  When she had gone, the boat suddenly felt oppressive and claustrophobic rather than cozy. Kate had left her hat behind and she would be missing it now. The cruel wind was swirling tiny flakes of sleet across the water. Not snow, but close to it. Kate might get her white Christmas after all, he thought. The yawning loneliness of the week he had on vacation stretched before him. “Me time” wasn’t good. He was lousy company.

  “You don’t have to do all the shifts, you know,” said Barbara.

  “I might as well. No one else wants them and I’ve got nothing else to do this week. I’ve been practically laid off work, as in they won’t let me go in. And I’ve got plenty I could be getting on with too,” he said, remembering the Olde Sweet Shoppe, which he had made no progress with. At least he had the local retailer meeting to go to tomorrow evening. Something on the otherwise empty calendar.

  “Christmas shopping?” said Barbara. “Who for?”

  “Fair enough; I don’t have a very long list,” said Daniel. Then he added, “Listen, my experience is relevant to helpline users. I’m alone at Christmas. Half our callers are now telling us they feel more crap because of Christmas—loneliness, alienation, poverty . . . it’s a ‘thing.’”

  “Fine. It’s a ‘thing,’” admitted Barbara. “But it’s not your thing. Not as in solving the problems of the world on your own, lovie. I gather you had another bad ending on your shift last night.”

  Daniel nodded his admission. “Thirty-year-old man, girlfriend problems, fallen out with his family, no job, no prospects, no hope. Same old.”

  “Could you not intervene?”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t get him to tell me where he was before he lost consciousness. He knew the drill. He wouldn’t say, and he knew what that meant. He just didn’t want to die alone.” And he hadn’t. Daniel had stayed with him, on the phone, long after the last signs and sounds of life. It had been an overdose. About thirty codeine and paracetamol capsules, prescribed for the man’s back pain. Thirty tablets were all it took to be convincingly over the lethal dose. Daniel had only hoped the codeine would be enough to kill him. There were too many incidents of the opiate wearing off and the poor souls waking up, but then the paracetamol getting them anyway after several days of liver failure. Then it was a hospital death, long, drawn out, and painful. The worst thing of all was when second thoughts had kicked in and the person wanted to live but it was too late for the extended suicide process to be stopped. Yep, Daniel hoped the codeine had done its work.

  “Such a waste,” sighed Barbara. It was a credit to her humanity that—with all her experience—her sense of outrage at lives lost to suicide was undimmed.

  “It’s the business we’re in. Young men in particular. You know that. Some you win, some you lose,” said Daniel, wearily, rubbing his face with his hands. He would never subject his family to the shock of suicide. It was an act of violence, not just against yourself, but against everyone who knows you. People left behind described it as being like a bomb going off. He spent time talking to those people too.

  “Do you ever ask yourself why we do this?” he said, turning to Barbara with a frank look of despair.

  “I certainly ask myself why you do this. A young, handsome man, who should be out living his life, not p
icking up the pieces of other people’s mess.”

  “Ah, but I do it so well.”

  “You do, unfortunately. And how are you?”

  “Bored this week, hence the shift volunteering.”

  “Hmm,” said Barbara, looking out of the window. “What you need to do is take some time to yourself,” she said. “And if it snows like they are saying it will, none of us will be going anywhere, so I suspect you’ll get it whether you like it or not.”

  10 Days ’til Christmas

  The following morning, Jack came excitedly into Kate’s bedroom, jumping right into the center of the bed, which was—unfortunately—where Kate’s legs were.

  “Ouch,” she said, blearily rubbing her eyes. “Watch out, monkey boy! Where’s the fire?”

  “Not fire, Mummy, snow . . . look! It’s really snowing. See?”

  Kate sat up. She didn’t even need to get up. From the bed she could see the air was a thick flurry of large snowflakes, dark against the heavily clouded sky but pure white as they drifted across the buildings of the street opposite, blurring the ugly shop signs and dressing the gray pavements with a thick coating of pure, fondant icing. She joined Jack at the window, wrapping around his slight shoulders the shawl she kept at the end of the bed. “It’s settling,” she said. “I’ll have to see whether school’s open.”

  “Might it be shut?” said Jack, delighted.

  Kate’s heart sank at the thought it might. When it came to snow she was as excited as the next grown-up—in other words, not very. Snow wasn’t nearly as fun as it had been when she was a child. She doubted Portman Brothers gave a stuff about schools closing and the resulting childcare problems.