25 Days 'Til Christmas

by Poppy Alexander

  She summoned an Uber, but remembered little about the ride home, except the sense of relief she felt when the door of the car slammed shut, and as it pulled away, turning to look behind her, still petrified that Mr. Wilkins would come running out. She swallowed deliberately, breathing deeply to calm herself. The last thing she needed was the cost of the cab—so much more than the night bus she intended to take—but never mind that.

  The sound of her pounding up the stairs to the flat must have roused Mrs. Akintola who was right on the other side of the door, when Kate opened it, her hand shaking as she put the key in the lock.

  “Whatever is the matter, chil’?” she exclaimed.

  “I need to get to Jack,” said Kate, desperately.

  “No, you don’t,” said Mrs. Akintola. “Not in the state you’re in . . . he fast asleep and dreamin’ sweet dreams about Christmas. Don’t you go in there disturbin’ him.”

  Kate calmed herself and quickly dispatched Mrs. Akintola into the night, thanking her profusely but shutting down her questions with an averted gaze. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m fine, I’m fine . . .”

  She stared at herself in the hall mirror. “I’m fine,” she repeated, tracing the moving mouth of her reflection with her finger. This pale, hollow-eyed creature wasn’t her.

  Risking waking Jack, she ran a hot bath, damn the cost, and sat, hunched and shuddering in the steaming water, trying and failing to get warm. Eventually she couldn’t stay still any longer. She got out, dried herself and quickly climbed into as many layers of clothes as she could find—pajamas, socks, a fleece, even a woolly scarf of Jack’s that was hanging on the peg in the hallway. Nothing she did seemed able to transfer any warmth into her body. She was too cold to sleep. She tried it but gave up after minutes. Her body felt heavy, her eyes pinned open and sandpapery, her head pounding so hard she found herself with a hand on the side of her head, almost as if she was trying to keep it attached to her body.

  5 Days ’til Christmas

  She huddled on the sofa and must have eventually slept, because Jack woke her.

  “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!” he cried. “Why are you here? Can I have breakfast? Can it be pancakes? Can I watch telly? It is still the weekend, isn’t it? There’s cartoons . . .”

  Kate got him some breakfast, but her brain was fogged, her movements slow . . . to save her life she couldn’t seem to function normally.

  “Mummy,” said Jack, in a tiny voice. “Why are you crying?”

  She realized she was standing, staring at nothing, slow tears coursing down her face.

  “Nothing, darling,” she said, but it felt like it came out slowly and heavily, like a record on the wrong speed.

  She tried again. “I’m fine. I’ve just got a sore head from too much wine. That silly thing grown-ups do . . .”

  “Silly grown-ups,” echoed Jack, slightly reassured.

  It was another raw, rainy day, the skies heavy and the cold viciously reaching into the little flat, making Kate shiver.

  “Christmas telly,” she said brightly. “With popcorn.”

  “Yay!”

  “But first . . .” she said, inviting Jack to fill in the gaps.

  “Yeah, I know, cleaning,” he said, pulling a face. “Boooring . . .”

  “But then . . . we put our Christmas decorations up.”

  “Yay! Have we got a tree?”

  Kate sighed. “Does it look like we’ve got a tree?” she snapped, and then instantly felt ashamed.

  “Sorry, monkey boy. I’m like a bear with a sore head today. We don’t really have room, do we? But I’ve got a cool set of lights we could put around the windows, and . . .” She paused for effect. “I’ve got some glue and old wrapping paper, and I thought we’d make some paper chains while we watch Christmas telly. How about that?”

  The day wore on, and Kate found herself frequently zoning out. Memories of last night kept crowding into her consciousness, so vividly that she was being assaulted by bouts of nausea, her heart racing, her head totally back in the storeroom, in the dark, Malcolm staggering toward her . . .

  In the end she called Seema.

  “Look at the state of you,” Seema whispered fiercely, glancing at the two boys, who were happily charging around the tiny sitting room chasing one another. Kate was wandering around the kitchen with the empty kettle in her hand. Seema took it off her and filled it from the tap.

  “What the hell happened last night? Tell me,” she said as she flipped it on and reached for the tea bags.

  Kate looked at her friend desperately and haltingly put it into words.

  “It’s just so ridiculous . . .” Kate said, when she finished. “He’s just a nasty, slimy little man, I can’t believe I’m letting it knock me like this . . .”

  “It was assault. You should call the police.”

  “God no, I’d get nowhere with that. What would it achieve? And he didn’t actually touch me.”

  “It’s still assault. It would protect other women from the same thing.”

  Kate bristled. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said. “Don’t lay that one on me, on top of everything else, this idea I’ve got to single-handedly stop other women being abused.”

  “I didn’t mean that. But—look—how do you feel about going back into work and being around this man?”

  Tears sprang to Kate’s eyes.

  “There you go,” said Seema. “You’ve got to do something . . . at least report it to your HR department. You’ve got one, I presume?”

  Kate thought of Sarah, and how she had encouraged her to take time off for childcare when it snowed.

  “I’ll go in first thing tomorrow,” she said, sitting straighter. “That’s what I’ll do.”

  “Why don’t you let me take Jack for you,” Seema went on. “You’re exhausted. He can pack his school uniform; I’ll take him in tomorrow. You collect on a Monday afternoon, don’t you?”

  “I’ll miss him . . .”

  “Relax. You need to look after yourself.” Seema suddenly had a thought. “Why don’t you come too? I can only offer a sofa to sleep on tonight.”

  “It’s fine,” Kate gave her a watery smile. “You’re right. Jack’s better off with you . . .”

  “That’s not what I said,” Seema corrected her. “What I said was you need to rest, eat something, get some sleep . . . just take a bit of time for yourself.”

  Once they had all gone, the flat echoed with silence and loneliness. The launderette was closed on Sundays so there wasn’t even the hum of the machines and the smell of the soap—humanity, close by, within touching distance. Kate could have been on the moon, she was so isolated.

  Eventually she took herself to bed where she remained, staring, wide-eyed into the darkness until dawn.

  4 Days ’til Christmas

  By the time she dragged herself into work the next morning, she had a sense of unreality. Her feet seemed barely to register touching the ground. People’s voices were coming from far, far away.

  “Good grief,” said Pat when she saw her. “What on earth has happened to you, pet? Why did you rush off on Saturday night?”

  “I need to go to HR,” Kate muttered. It felt like such an effort to speak. “Something happened . . .”

  “I’ll come with you?”

  “No. It’s fine. It’s nothing, I can handle it.”

  Sarah was in her office. When she saw Kate, her expression was unreadable.

  “Come in,” she said, putting a hand on Kate’s shoulder and leading her to a chair. She put a glass of water in front of her without being asked.

  “He’s already been in,” she went on, sitting beside Kate, her chair angled toward her. “It’s not looking good . . . you have to appreciate, I’m in a difficult position and it’s so blindingly obvious it’s not true, but . . .”

  Kate was perplexed. She had barely had time to wonder what on earth was going on, when Malcolm Wilkins entered, looking smug and belligerent. Behind him was a narrow, mean-looking man wh
om Kate vaguely recognized.

  “So,” said the man, “here we all are.” He looked at Sarah for permission to continue. Sarah nodded, curtly, without meeting the man’s eye.

  “It would appear there was an incident of the gravest nature at the staff party this weekend which needs to be looked at carefully in light of this and other, ahem, ‘issues’”—he all but put up the air quotes—“concerning the same employee. I gather you are Kate Thompson?” he added, looking at Kate for the first time.

  Kate nodded, dumbly. If this was a judge and jury examination of Malcolm’s appalling behavior this weekend, he was looking mighty pleased with himself. Then the reason for his confidence became clear.

  “Mr. Wilkins tells me you acted in the most extraordinarily inappropriate way toward him,” he accused Kate, with a note of utter disgust in his voice.

  Her heart quickened.

  “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” she said, coolly, holding out her hand. “And you are?”

  “Bruce Holden,” he admitted reluctantly, twitching his hand but then deciding against offering it to be shaken. “Legal.”

  “Nice to meet you, Bruce Holden-Legal. Unusual name. Do tell me what I’m supposed to have done.”

  “Well, I’m not surprised you don’t remember, Kate,” interrupted Malcolm waspishly. “You seemed awfully drunk, not that it’s any excuse . . .”

  “Detail please,” interrupted Kate. “Graphic detail, why not, eh? I like a bit of imagination. Storytelling.”

  “Well,” he said, blushing, “as I was explaining to Bruce and to Sarah earlier . . .”

  Aha, thought Kate. You had to hand it to him. The early bird catches the worm, and all that. No wonder Sarah was looking so grim.

  “. . . So, I was forced to explain how you got me to go with you to the storeroom on a false pretense. I felt I had to accompany you as you were so insistent. I was worried about your welfare because you were so drunk . . .”

  “Get to the point, Malcolm. Dish the dirt. Personally, I’m dying to hear what I did next.”

  “So”—he threw her a triumphant look—“then I was compelled to share with the team how you physically abused me, in a—well, in a sexual manner, if I must—and then, when I did my best to restrain you, for your own welfare, you struck me, in the face, with your hand.”

  There was a peculiar sound. Kate was pretty sure it wasn’t her. She looked at Sarah who met her gaze before looking away, wiping away all emotion and replacing it with a blank, professional demeanor.

  “You. Are. Kidding,” Kate said to the room in general.

  “And it might have been possible to overlook this one occasion if it weren’t for your general attitude recently,” said Malcolm, gaining impetus from the nod of approval and shared distaste he got from Mr. Holden-Legal, who sat, with his notebook and pen, impassively by his side. He had written no more than a couple of words on the page. Kate craned to see.

  Sexual, it said. And then, Attitude, with an underline.

  “Yes,” said Malcolm, bossily, “I mean, I wouldn’t mind—well, I did mind, obviously, I’m a happily married man—but in light of the poor sales of Christmas trees this year, your tardiness, time taken off for supposed illness . . . all in all, this is not the behavior we want to see when we are considering the bigger picture.”

  “Just one small thing,” Kate interjected, holding a finger in the air to stop him.

  He looked amazed and stopped talking, his mouth hanging open.

  “What?” he said, irritably.

  “This whole thing about me sexually abusing you?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well,” she said, using both hands to gesture toward him, then looking at Bruce and Sarah in turn. “It’s just not very likely is it?”

  There was another sound—this time very obviously a snort, from Sarah, before she regained her composure with visible effort.

  “Not very likely?” Malcolm repeated, looking confused. Clearly in his universe it was entirely understandable that women like Kate should be unable to keep their hands to themselves in his presence.

  “Look at him,” Kate appealed to Bruce Holden-Legal, who had developed a twitch. “I may be single, and I may be desperate to hang on to my job, but I’m not that bleeding desperate . . .” Kate made as if to go on, but Sarah waggled her eyebrows fiercely at her in some secret signal she struggled to interpret. Luckily the diverting sight of the other woman’s vigorous communication was enough in itself to silence her.

  Sarah cleared her throat vigorously, shuffled some papers together and stood up.

  “I think we’ve heard enough,” she said throwing Malcolm a filthy look. “Absolutely,” said Kate, sitting back in her chair and throwing up her hands. “I’ve sure as hell heard enough.”

  Bruce Holden-Legal looked disappointed. He was clearly dying to see what happened next.

  “I have been instructed to inform you,” Sarah told Kate apologetically, “that the board will be considering the evidence with a view to terminating your contract on grounds of alleged gross misconduct, but that you might prefer to consider your position prior to them making their decision, which will be by the end of this week.”

  “The end of this week? So, Christmas Eve, presumably,” said Kate. “They want me to resign or I’ll be sacked. On Christmas Eve. Nice one.”

  Sarah said nothing, but once she had ushered Malcolm and Bruce out of the room, checking to make sure they had gone, she turned back to Kate and shut the meeting room door.

  “This is shit,” she said.

  “Yeah, I was thinking that,” said Kate. She and Sarah could have been friends in another life, she thought.

  “I didn’t say this, and don’t quote me on it, but this is absolutely bollocks. My advice to you would be to totally walk out of this building right now and consult an employment lawyer. Explain what’s just happened, and show them this,” she went on, pressing a slim sheaf of A4 paper into Kate’s hand.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s a photocopy of your employment contract. I thought I’d better get one done for you, in case you couldn’t find your own. It’s pretty standard stuff. There’s our bullying and harassment policy in there too. The bottom line is—they shouldn’t be able to do what they’re trying to do.”

  “And yet they plan to,” said Kate, sadly. “And—let’s face it—they probably will, won’t they?”

  Sarah sighed. “I can’t say any more. It’s more than my job’s worth.”

  “You might want to keep away from Malcolm on a dark night, then,” advised Kate. “If you’re planning to stay and you value your job, that is . . . to say nothing of your sanity.”

  Kate would have liked to have seen Pat but equally she was keen to get out of the building and away before anything else happened. Sarah informed her, walking her to the back door, that the day would count as sick leave paid only at the statutory minimum rate. Of course. She would not be expected back into work that side of Christmas.

  “But that’ll cause problems for everyone,” said Kate.

  “Not for you, it won’t,” said Sarah. “For you there’s nothing to lose, and who gives a shit who else you put out, under the circumstances.”

  She had a point.

  “Were you told to ‘escort me from the building’?” said Kate, as it occurred to her. “I’ve been thrown out of better places than this, you know,” she joked, weakly.

  Sarah ignored her attempt at humor. “Get legal advice,” she said, her hand on Kate’s shoulder. “Promise?”

  It was weird being back at the flat on a Monday afternoon. She felt she was intruding on a life she should not be seeing: a dull, monotonous life, with the machines churning downstairs. Mrs. Akintola did her laundry service on Mondays: the napkins for restaurants, sheets for hotels, and towels for the hairdresser down the road. Kate could hear her below and felt a yearning just to sit with the woman and take comfort from her presence, the orderly routine, the hum of the tumble dryer. But
if she went downstairs looking the way she did, she knew Mrs. Akintola would fuss.

  Instead, she picked up the small pile of mail on the doormat and sat on the sofa, holding the letters and flyers in her hand. After an age—she didn’t know how long—she flipped through it. Junk, junk, junk, and then an official letter with a Yeovil postmark. It was from the funding authority for Somerset, which was the county council responsible for Maureen’s nursing home.

  She skimmed the letter inside: . . . following assessment of needs . . . found to be of social rather than healthcare . . . funding withdrawn . . . government guidelines . . . And then there was something about appealing the decision, but she knew there was no point. She really must stop opening her mail.

  She phoned Carol.

  “I know,” she said. “I was copied in. I got mine yesterday actually; I was going to give you a call. It’s not just you. Several of my residents’ families are facing the same thing, if that’s any consolation.”

  “Not really, no.”

  “So, I’m afraid we are in dire straits, Mrs. Thompson,” she went on. “The funding is to be withdrawn immediately and that means there is a considerable liability to be covered for the January bill.”

  “How much?”

  “Five thousand, four hundred and forty-three pounds.”

  Kate gave a gasping laugh. “That’s everything we have left in her account. A bit more, actually. It was supposed to last another six months, but it won’t without the council funding. What about her pension?”

  “Assuming we are able to use all of that, it’s nearer five thousand that’s owed. I’ll get you the exact figure if you like.”

  “I wouldn’t bother,” said Kate. “And what happens if . . .”

  “Mrs. Thompson, we care deeply for Maureen, and the last thing we want to do is cause extra stress for you, but we are running a business here.”

  “But she’s so unwell,” gasped Kate, struggling for the breath to even make a noise. “She just needs to be looked after until the end. You said yourself, it’s not long. Within six months, you said.”