by Claire Sandy
‘Why do you whisper?’ Evka, perfectly at home, flicked on the lights.
‘Blimey,’ said Fern, shocked back to her usual volume by the opulence of the flat.
‘Tree is fake.’ Evka gestured at the giant, dazzling Christmas tree, loaded with colour-coordinated baubles. ‘It arrives fully decorated.’
‘But decorating the tree’s one of the best bits of Christmas.’ Adam had always had plenty of input, fussing and tweaking, finally getting out the ladder to plonk the angel on the top. Home-made from cotton reels and an old pair of Fern’s white tights, the angel had stared down at Carlile Christmases ever since Ollie made her at primary school. Time spent in the attic had given her a jaded, ‘why me?’ look, but Fern preferred her to the blingy tart on the top of this tree. ‘You’re sure they won’t come back?’
‘I see tickets for Albert Hall carol shit. They are out all evening.’ Evka lay on the suede sofa and shooed Fern with her hands. ‘Go! See evidence with own eyes!’
Like a cartoon burglar, Fern tiptoed into the master bedroom. It was softly lit, the muted colour scheme saved from blandness by the quality and sheen of the fittings. The bed was unfeasibly wide, a bed made for footballer orgies rather than the comfortable, giggly love Fern and Adam had made beneath their patchwork duvet cover. She ignored it, heading straight for the wardrobes.
Sliding back a mirrored door, Fern had seen only mannish materials hanging up in the wardrobe and a line of shoes on the floor. Adam’s gone all neat. She was accustomed to tracking him down by following a trail of discarded clothing; once she’d found the pants, her quarry was near.
This escapade was to prove or disprove Penny’s presence in the master suite. It had struck Fern – forcibly – that Evka could be wrong. What if Penny truly is just a guest, not sleeping with Adam?
The other wardrobe door was sticky. Fern pushed, and it gave onto a view of bright colours, sensual fabrics and a chorus line of stilettos.
Unless Adam’s a secret cross-dresser, Penny sleeps in this room. Fern, crushed by the evidence but also strangely energized, looked around her and saw other clues. A chick-lit novel on a bedside table, a pot of hand cream holding it shut. Pushing, as if through deep water, she forced herself to examine the en suite, where her nosiness was rewarded with Crème de la Mer, tampons and what seemed to be an entire Mac counter.
Materializing behind her, Evka had said, ‘Now you believe?’
‘I believe.’
A rattle at the front door made them both jump.
Fern wanted to push her entire fist into her mouth. Adam and Penny chatted as they moved across the living area. She heard the clang of keys hitting a bowl.
‘I’ll probably be fine after a couple of Nurofen,’ Penny said.
‘Migraines are the worst,’ answered Adam.
‘You’re sure you don’t mind? About the concert?’ Penny was coochy-coo; Fern imagined her lower lip stuck out.
‘I just want you to feel better, Pen.’
Pen. The face Fern saw in the en suite’s artfully lit mirror was a peculiar mixture of terror and the desire to smack Adam very hard. She did a small jig as the horror of the situation landed, but Evka was unmoved. Putting her finger to her lips, she guided Fern to the wardrobe.
‘Stay.’ Closing the door, she shut Fern in.
Fern listened hard to the rumble of voices.
‘Evka!’
‘Hi. I come back to finish bathroom. I leave shower streaky.’
‘I didn’t notice.’
‘It is my silly pride. I cannot sleep if your shower is streaky.’
‘The place was immaculate, as usual.’
In the dark, Fern found time to be irritated; Evka actually cleaned Adam’s flat?
Evka’s voice rose for Fern’s benefit. ‘Please come and check spare room, both of you. I must be sure it is up to standard.’
Nipping across the bedroom, Fern crouched, listening hard. As soon as she heard admiring if puzzled noises from the other bedroom, she slipped out and beetled across the apartment. Easing the front door open like a safe-cracker, she was safely in the lift by the time Evka said, ‘Please do not feel you have to pay extra. Oh, OK. If you insist.’
The frigid garden swam back into focus. Fern was back in the schmaltzy embrace of Christmas Day. Something had changed when she opened that second wardrobe door. As a present to herself – to go with the enormous bottle of perfume Adam had given her – she unfolded the letter she’d taken from the box earlier.
The past was gone, but relics remained to remind her that the man sitting close to Penny in the next room had once written her a list that made her cry and laugh in equal measure.
THE BITS OF YOUR BODY I MISS THE MOST.
1. This’ll make you tut but you know I have to start with your BOOBS. I mean come on. They’re the best boobs in the UK.
2. In second place is your NOSE. It’s small and kind of squashed. I’ve looked and looked and I’m in a position to confirm that there’s no other nose like it.
3. In at number three is your BUM. It’s big and it’s difficult to ignore. That’s why I like it so much. I really like having my hand on your bottom when we walk down the street.
4. There’s something about your SHOULDERS. Maybe it’s the freckles. Or the way they bunch up around your ears when I make you laugh. They go shiny and gold if you’ve been wearing strappy tops in the sun. So they’re excellent in every way.
5. Maybe your EYES should be number one. They’re just brown and a bit round and you put too much gunge on them but when I look into them I don’t want to look away.
I can’t write how I feel, not really. Some things have to be said in person. When I see you again, if you let me, I’ll say everything.
Where does love go when it runs out? When Adam wrote those silly, sweet words he’d been crazy about her. They’d gone on to build a cathedral of love. When Adam looked at that cathedral he now saw a bungalow.
Fern didn’t know how to describe the feelings she had for Adam. Once so straightforward, they were now complex, impossible to untangle. There was so much disappointment, and even something related to dislike, as she watched him blunder through his new life. She’d seen Tallulah’s eyebrows lower when Penny had perched on Adam’s knee; the old Adam, her Adam, would have been too sensitive to allow it, but rock-star Adam only saw as far as the end of his nose.
And how long before he remodelled that too?
Adam offered to drive Walter home.
‘Will you be back?’ Fern wondered if that sounded needy, then didn’t care if it did. Adam’s place was here, with his children, on Christmas Day.
‘Um,’ said Adam, a small word that chipped another fissure in Fern’s heart. He looked at Penny, who shrugged.
‘Of course Daddy’s coming back.’ Tallulah was wrapping Walter up warm, until only his eyes were visible between his scarf and his hat.
‘I guess that answers that,’ smiled Adam.
‘Who is that woman?’ asked Nora as soon as the door shut on Adam, Walter and Penny, who’d gone along for the ride. ‘What’s she doing here?’
It was rare for Fern to clamber up alongside Nora on her aunt’s high horse, but tonight she needed the solidarity. Checking that Tallulah had moved out of earshot, she said, ‘That’s Adam’s girlfriend, Auntie.’
She was glad of the support when Nora pulled an eloquently disgusted face.
‘Adam should be ashamed of himself, Fern. Yes, she’s younger and prettier than you, but that’s no excuse.’
Nora’s support was always a mixed blessing.
Sandwiches eaten, a comatose Tallulah carried to bed, a burping Nora helped up to the loft, Fern put the sitting room to rights. Punching a cushion here, tweaking tinsel there, she switched the television back on just to have some noise in a room that was suddenly intolerably quiet.
An independent woman, Fern had half expected flying solo to be easy. The dynamic with Adam had been ramshackle; she – more or less – made the decisions
and he – more or less – went along with them. It followed, surely, that she was equipped to survive without him.
Only now did Fern realize how vital Adam had been to her decision-making process. His bulk, his humour, the way she could rely on him to disagree with her, all helped.
Even on days that went smoothly, when Fern juggled everything without letting anything clatter to the floor, Fern’s new life was a challenge. Christmas evening, that languid, satisfied night, should have been cosy, but all Fern had to look forward to was the embrace of her electric blanket.
Will I ever have sex again? Surely too young to zip up her frou-frou for good, Fern couldn’t imagine making love to anybody other than Adam.
Her eyes moved to the cards on the mantelpiece above the fire. Fern had been surprised when Pongo, back from her cruise with a mahogany face, had pressed an envelope into her hand. The card featured, inevitably, a canine nativity scene, and was signed, equally inevitably, with a paw print.
Next to Pongo’s card was a drawing on stiff cartridge paper of Boudicca and Tinkerbell in elf costumes. Fern took it down and re-read the looping handwriting on the back. This time around it gave her a jolt.
Some things you have to say in person, so I’ll leave New Year greetings until we meet in the park. Hal x
Christmas was doing its magical thing after all. The wording echoed Adam’s letter, chosen at random earlier. It felt eerily like a second chance, as if fate had thrown a young Adam into her path and offered her another crack at getting things right with him.
‘Mum?’
‘Ollie! You frightened the life out of me.’
‘Sorry,’ laughed Ollie. ‘You look guilty, old woman. What are you up to?’
‘Me? Nothing.’ Fern threw the card into the fire. ‘What could I possibly be up to?’
‘I dunno. Dad’s gone mad, so maybe you have too.’ Ollie flopped onto the sofa as if landing from the high jump. ‘What’s with that stuck-up Penny?’
‘If Dad likes her, we should give her a chance.’
‘Nice try, Mum. You wanted to strangle her all through lunch.’
‘Did it show?’ Fern sat beside Ollie, relishing how he let her. Softer, sweeter, today Ollie was more like the boy she’d brought up. The boy she missed, but could never tell him so.
‘Just a bit. When she said the roasties were eight out of ten I thought you might push her face into the goose fat.’ Ollie budged a little closer. ‘Don’t know what he sees in her. She’s nothing like you.’
‘Maybe that’s the point.’
They sat, enjoying the fire’s light show. The door opened a crack.
‘Room for one more on that sofa?’ Donna’s bump tested the seams of her onesie. ‘I can’t sleep. This little beastie is partying on my bladder.’ She burrowed into Ollie’s other side, making a sandwich of her bloke.
‘Only four weeks to go,’ said Fern. Christmas had loomed so large, blocking out all the light, that this fact felt new.
‘That’s another reason I can’t sleep.’ said Donna. ‘Childbirth hurts. I thought I’d be cool but now it’s four weeks away, I’m not so sure.’
‘I did it twice and I’m still here, love.’ Fern remembered both births in perfect technicolour detail. How she reached the limits of her endurance and was then asked for more. Somehow she’d found it, and now two strange, wonderful people shared her life as a result. ‘Every birth is different, but I can guarantee this. It’s worth it.’
‘I’d have it for you if I could,’ said Ollie, earning an immediate awww from both women. ‘It’s not fair. Guys get the fun part.’
‘True,’ said Fern, who’d rather not dwell on this aspect of her son’s life.
‘One thing I can promise. I’ll never do to this baby what Dad’s doing to me and Tallie.’
‘He’s not doing it to you, sweetheart.’ Defending Adam’s thoughtlessness was a knee-jerk reaction. Protecting Adam’s good name would help her son in the long run; she knew the importance of a healthy relationship with your father. ‘Dad’s just living his life. You’ll always be his number one. When you become a parent your head’s wired that way.’
Donna elbowed him. ‘I didn’t see you turning down that gear he bought you.’
‘No, but, well, yeah.’ Ollie always capitulated to Donna. ‘You got me there, but money’s easy, isn’t it, when you’re as rich as Dad.’ He turned to Fern as if something had struck him. ‘Does he still give you money, Mum?’
A healthy amount landed – splat! – in their joint account every month, an account that only Fern now used. She nodded. Ollie was right. Money – magically, suddenly – wasn’t their problem. ‘How’s the saving going?’
‘Well,’ said Donna, her dark eyes liquid in the firelight. ‘We’re up to almost three grand.’
The girl looked chuffed. This wasn’t the moment to point out that three thousand pounds, although a meaningful amount of money, wasn’t anywhere near enough for a deposit on a flat in their postcode. Fern had four weeks to sit them down for a lesson in cold, hard economics.
‘The sooner we get Donna out of her folks’ place,’ said Adam with feeling, ‘the better.’ He sounded grim, as if he could say a whole lot more if he chose to.
‘I’m staying until the baby comes.’ It sounded like this was an old bone, much fought over. ‘I want to give Mum and Dad a chance. They love me, Ollie. They’ll come round. I’ll live with them until you and I have a proper home to offer the baby.’ She relented a little. ‘It’s not so bad there.’
‘They barely talk to you,’ fumed Ollie. ‘When I come to the door they look at me as if I’m an axe murderer. They keep saying the baby’s born out of wedlock, as if we’re living in Victorian times. That doesn’t matter any more.’
‘It matters to them,’ said Donna. ‘They really believe it’s a sin. They’re not saying it to be mean.’
‘Nora prefers the term “illegitimate”,’ said Fern, and they all laughed.
‘Nora’s all right,’ said Ollie.
‘But she’s always telling you to wipe your feet and comb your hair and she says you dress like a tinker.’ Fern didn’t like disparaging an old lady, but this universal lurve for her aunt made her feel as if she’d missed something important, some saving grace in the old bat’s make-up.
‘She’s old,’ said Ollie, with all the nonchalance of somebody whose skin is as taut as a yacht sail.
A wail sounded from upstairs. Tallie had woken up and was calling out, in a befuddled way, for Fern.
‘I’ll go.’ Ollie jumped up, and Fern smothered her surprise. ‘Sounds like she needs a cuddle.’
‘He’s in a good mood,’ said Fern as Ollie’s footsteps receded.
‘We’ve been so worried for so long,’ said Donna, her hands on her tum. ‘Today is a day off from all that shit.’ She looked guiltily at Fern.
‘I’m aware that you swear,’ she smiled. ‘I’m sorry, Donna, if I added to the stress at first. I was a bit freaked out back then.’ Fern held out her hand, palm up, on the sofa, and was grateful when Donna snatched it.
‘God, no, you’ve been brilliant!’ Donna kissed Fern’s hand, a gesture that made the older woman teary. ‘You’ve been great, even though we let you down. Ollie knows that.’
‘Is that what he thinks? I don’t feel let down. It was always about your potential. About your lives, not mine.’ Fern squeezed Donna’s hand. ‘You’ll be a mum soon, and you’ll realize how keenly you feel everything that happens to your child.’
‘He’s the one, you know. Your Ollie. He’s the one for me.’
‘That’s lovely.’
‘I wanted to say that, because you know . . .’ Donna exhaled loudly. ‘My head was turned by Maz. But it didn’t mean anything.’
‘You don’t have to explain yourself to me.’ Most of the time Fern forgot about the true father of Donna’s baby. Conspicuous by his absence, Maz was a blank.
The baby, when it introduced itself to the world, would have nothing genetically in comm
on with Fern and Adam. Sometimes this small, important truth bit Fern in the bum, making her feel as if she was only pretending to be a grandmother. ‘You’re a formidable young woman, Donna. I’m just glad you came back. Ollie was a wet weekend the whole time you were apart.’
‘I still feel guilty. Ollie would never leave me, not in a million years, but I swanned off with a big idiot.’
‘Is this Maz character a big idiot?’
‘God, yeah. At least he proved to me how I feel about Ollie. I promise, Fern. We’re going to be OK. Your son’s the love of my life.’
The door flew open and Tallulah careered in. ‘Couldn’t sleep!’
‘Nor me.’ Nora hobbled to an armchair, and looked around the room. ‘I suppose you finished the After Eights, Fern?’
‘Yes. Every last one.’ Fern confessed to a crime she knew was Donna’s, and gave her a wink. Despite the challenges awaiting Donna, Fern envied her. The girl believed in ‘The One’; she’d even found him. From the vantage point of a twenty-year head start, Fern felt cheated. She’d found her own One at about the same age. And look at us now. Like Santa, The One was a beautiful myth that experience disproved.
Stoking the fire, Ollie said, ‘Let’s tell ghost stories.’
‘Let’s not,’ said Fern, with a jerk of her head towards Tallulah.
‘Once upon a time,’ started Ollie.
‘Babes,’ said Donna. ‘What accent is that? Welsh?’
‘Transylvanian.’ Looking hurt, Ollie started again. ‘Once upon a time there was a blood-sucking demon named Penny.’
Nora stifled a laugh, as Tallie insisted, ‘Penny’s nice!’
‘The vampire Penny,’ said Ollie, his accent wavering, ‘stole husbands and drained the life out of them.’
‘What does he mean “stole”?’ Tallie swivelled her head from Ollie to Fern. ‘Does Daddy love Penny now?’ Her face was primed to howl.
‘No, nothing like that,’ said Fern, in the voice she used to put out fires.
‘I thought she was his personal subsistent.’
‘That’s exactly what she is.’
Nora lifted her nose. ‘The child should know the truth.’