by Mandy Baggot
‘Have a crumpet,’ Duncan whispered. ‘Just take some fruit and seeds to go with your lunch. I’ll go and check on Mum. Give her the bad news about the cranberries.’ He smiled. ‘Wish me luck.’ He drew the side of his hand across his throat like it was a knife.
Luck. Yes, everyone needed a little bit of luck in their life, didn’t they?
Two
House 2 Home, Kensington, London
‘Well, Brandon, tell me, what can your favourite estate agent do for you today?’
Rach was already at her desk when Keeley arrived at the estate agency only a fifteen-minute stroll from her family home. Feet up on her desk, taking advantage of every tilt the chair had to offer, a Santa hat complete with bell over her wavy blonde hair and a green dress that looked straight out of Father Christmas’s workshop, Rach nestled the phone under her face and held up her coffee mug mouthing the words ‘it’s a two-sugar morning’. Then the mug dropped a little.
‘I beg your pardon!’ Rach exclaimed. Her expression was belying the tone and there was a definite spark in her eyes. ‘I was expecting you to ask me about the three-bedroom mews house, not say something that would put you straight to the top of Santa’s naughty list.’ She gave a smutty giggle as Keeley took the mug from her hands and headed through the office towards the kitchen at the rear.
Rach was an estate agent. Keeley wasn’t. Keeley wasn’t anything really. Since the night the taxi had crashed, everything had fallen away, in slow motion, like a snowy nightmare sequence in a film. One moment she was set to start a new life – leaving her job as an assistant to an interior designer and starting her very own business – the next she was in an operating theatre fighting for her life while her sister tragically lost hers. Everything had changed that night. Bea gone. Her career finished before it had even begun. And now, here she was, living back at home and working as a ‘house doctor’ for House 2 Home. It wasn’t exactly how she thought she would be using her artistic eye. She had envisaged her working day to involve the careful designing of a bespoke wallpaper as opposed to deciding what cactus looked best on what Ikea sideboard. But it was a job and it paid OK and there was that short commute. Plus, to ease her mum’s anxiety further, the business belonged to a friend of the family, Roland Krantz, so you could guarantee if she ran a temperature, had a headache or was in any way not one hundred per cent feeling top notch, Lizzie would know about it by lunchtime…
Keeley put the kettle on and leaned back against the worktop, studying the advent calendar Rach had stuck up at least two weeks ago. Only November and doors open already. Surely that was bad luck. She sighed. What was it with the word ‘luck’ today?
Rach marched into the kitchen. ‘Bloody Randy Brandon is up for it already and it’s not even eight-thirty.’ She looked at her watch as if to clarify her statement. ‘It’s not even eight-thirty. What are you doing here already?’
‘My mum accused me of dicing with death by trying to get a giant crumpet out of the toaster with a fork,’ Keeley answered. ‘And then I ate the crumpet… with some blueberry jam none of us were supposed to be eating and, before I left, she hit my dad over the head with an artisan multigrain baguette because some cranberries got burned.’
‘Shit,’ Rach replied. ‘And here I was complaining about being offered a shag before my second coffee.’
‘Yes, well, I definitely have the best excuse for having two sugars in my coffee,’ Keeley said with a smile.
‘Yeah and hold that thought,’ Rach said. ‘Because you might want to make it three sugars when I tell you what Roland has in store for you today.’ She pulled at the hem of her very short costume.
‘Oh God,’ Keeley said, closing her eyes, taking a deep breath and then opening them again, watching as Rach ripped at another door on the advent calendar. ‘It’s nothing to do with the radio station, is it?’
Last year Roland had sent her down there to record a jingle for the new festive advertising he had planned for House 2 Home. It was the last time she had ever joined in with singing in the office. One chorus of ‘It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas’ and Roland had turned all Louis Walsh and said she was ‘through to the next round’ – of which there was one round, the final, having to sing words that were Christmassy and all rhymed with ‘en suite’. She had felt the furthest from festive last year and had only joined the team a week prior to that appointment with Kensington FM and, back then, even a heavy laugh pained both sides of her abdomen. But Roland always took the angle that what didn’t kill you made you successful. Rach said he had once had that phrase printed on compliments slips and a tote bag…
‘No,’ Rach said, laughing as she stuffed a chocolate in her mouth and opened a second advent door.
‘The school? Because, last time I went there, one girl attacked me with an ancient, heavy Bible and three glue sticks.’
‘Shall I put you out of your misery?’
‘Please. I won’t tell my mother it was you.’ Keeley held her breath.
‘Mr Peterson’s put his house on the market again. Roland wants you to get back in there and do your re-styling stuff.’
Keeley carried on holding her breath. She could feel just about everything getting tighter. The waistband of her skirt. Her long socks inside her boots that had definitely shrunk in the tumble drier. Her heart…
‘No,’ Keeley finally said through shaky lips. ‘No, you’re winding me up. Roland said, six months ago, that even if Mr Peterson bought him all the scotch in Scotland he would never ever take him on as a client again.’
‘We-e-e-ell,’ Rach said, drawing the word out, her eyebrows going up under the rim of her Santa hat. ‘Let’s just say it could be a very dry Christmas in the Highlands.’
‘No!’ Keeley said, putting her hands into her hair and squeezing. ‘No, no, no! I can’t do it! I cannot do it!’
She really couldn’t do it. It had been too short a time to even think about stepping over the threshold of Mr Peterson’s house again. Mr Peterson’s two-bedroomed terrace, albeit on an illustrious street in the heart of Chelsea, was crammed with taxidermy animals that had all been hand-stuffed by Mr Peterson in a very dark, windowless basement room that looked more ‘torture chamber’ than it did the ‘family-room with annexe potential’ that Roland had described it as in the particulars. Six months ago, when Keeley had had to restyle it ready for viewings, she had said all the animals had to go, as did some of his rather dated (and blood-spattered) furniture. The house was professionally cleaned, contemporary furnishings were hired, but on the second viewing – a family with three-year-old twins – two beady-eyed pheasants and a mole had fallen out of the wardrobe in the master bedroom and scared everyone half to death. It seemed Mr Peterson’s commitment to selling his property didn’t stretch to giving up his dead creatures even for a few weeks. And the client was the kind of stubborn Keeley knew couldn’t be changed.
‘I’m not sure it’s up for debate if you want to get your Christmas bonus,’ Rach said, patting her shoulder.
‘I’ll forego the bonus.’ It couldn’t be that much. Roland was more frugal than Martin Lewis.
‘He’s promised no animal surprises,’ Rach added.
‘I don’t believe him.’
‘Keeley, that isn’t like you.’
‘What isn’t like me?’
‘You’re usually peace and goodwill to all men – and women – and non-binary – all year round.’
‘I’m fine,’ Keeley answered. She took her hands out of her hair and picked up the now-boiled kettle, pouring water into the mugs. She wasn’t quite fine. Her mum making such a stance about a crumpet had got to her. And the last thing she wanted over the festive period was Mr Peterson’s stinky abattoir of an abode to fix again…
‘Well, thinking of positives, your hair looks awesome,’ Rach remarked. ‘You haven’t got it wet yet though, have you?’
‘No,’ Keeley said, mixing in the coffee granules. ‘I do listen to you.’
‘So, it’s just your mum
and her thinking you’re the poster girl for the Final Destination film franchise?’
Keeley couldn’t help the smile at her friend’s joke. Rach was about the only person who didn’t treat her any differently to how she had before. When she’d got out of hospital everyone else seemed to tiptoe around her as if one wrong word or a too-tight cuddle might alter her sinus rhythm.
‘She’s got more Christmas drinks and nibbles events lined up than Michael Bublé has records played on Kensington FM this time of year,’ Keeley admitted with a sigh. ‘My dad says she’s burying her head in tinsel-wrapped festivities and hobbies so she doesn’t have to think. You know, about Bea and everything. Well, mainly about Bea.’
‘And what do you think?’ Rach asked.
‘I think if I don’t move out of home soon I’m probably going to go mad… or set fire to something… or go mad… or eat something really really bad but really really delicious in front of her… like a Walls Viennetta… with my fingers.’
Keeley stirred a spoon in the coffee mugs and handed Rach’s over to her. ‘Christmas isn’t the right time to think about moving though, is it?’ she breathed. But when would be the right time? Currently, she knew deep down, she was staying at home because her parents needed her to… or Lizzie did, at least. Their whole lives had been turned upside down after Bea’s death and, as well as managing the loss of a child, they had put everything on hold to nurse Keeley back to health. Lizzie had even taken early retirement. Hence the need for all those hobbies…
‘Are there two sugars in here?’ Rach queried, holding her mug aloft.
‘Yes, to go with those chocolates you’ve eaten from the advent calendar.’ Keeley took a sip of her drink. ‘You do know it isn’t even December yet.’
‘You do know it’s not my advent calendar,’ Rach replied, grinning. ‘It’s Oz’s. I told him the cleaner’s daughter is nicking them.’
‘Rach!’
‘Oh God,’ Rach said, leaping forward and putting her coffee down on the worktop. ‘Have we got any kitchen roll?’
‘I… don’t know.’
‘Don’t panic,’ Rach said. ‘It’ll be fine.’ She removed Keeley’s mug from her hands and set that down too. ‘I’m sure it won’t stain.’
‘What?’ Keeley looked down at her hands to discover they were both coated in dark brown. ‘Rach! Is this hair colour?’
‘Well, you went all hair-grabby when I told you about Mr Peterson. You probably had palm-sweat and I said don’t get it moist. Come on, we’ll go to the loo and I’ll sort it out. Just don’t touch anything on the way.’ She took Keeley’s arm.
‘What do you mean you’re sure it won’t stain? It’s stained my hair! It has all the capabilities of staining! Staining is its sole USP!’
‘Take a deep breath,’ Rach ordered. ‘Think of that Viennetta. I might even buy it for you.’
Three
The Resting Hospice, Kensington, London
‘You’ve changed your hair. Man, it looks terrible.’
Keeley watched twenty-two-year-old Erica devouring Celebration chocolates by the handful. It seemed she had already removed all the wrappers to make the scoffing easier. Some of them were now covered in fluff from the hospice blanket wrapped over her shrinking frame. Erica didn’t seem to care. And, frankly, why should she? It wasn’t the polyester that was going to kill her. It was the Stage IV cancer.
‘Thank you,’ Keeley answered with a smile.
‘I know my hair looks shit too, by the way. But I’m dying. I’m allowed to look shit. What’s your excuse?’
‘Rach dyed it last night with some substandard product we’ve since found out is illegal in the Ukraine. Apparently I’m lucky I haven’t been blinded by the fumes or made sterile by the chemicals contained in it. I guess time will tell on that last one.’
Erica’s face exploded into a whole feast of expressions. Her deep, dark brown eyes crinkled up, her cheeks briefly turning from hollowed out to fattened and her mouth opened wide, chocolate pieces spraying all over the bed covers. ‘Shit, man, you’ve made me waste all that chocolate!’
Keeley grabbed the box of tissues on Erica’s bedside unit and began to mop up the damage. ‘I’ll get you another blanket.’
‘Don’t bother,’ Erica insisted. ‘It’s only chocolate and I can lick the crumbs up when they starve me later.’ She lowered her voice. ‘That’s what they do when they want to get rid of you here. If you’re not dead within a couple of weeks, they do anything they can to get you out of here and back into a care home, including bringing down the quality of the nosh.’
‘Oh, well, I’m not sure that’s true.’
Keeley was just a volunteer here. After the accident, she had wanted to do something to give back. In the weeks after her operation, when she had stopped feeling like she had been pummelled wrestling style by The Rock, as soon as she had learned to walk again without wanting to vomit, she had started volunteering at the hospital. And it had somehow turned out to be as much for her as it was for the patients. It was surprising how much you could get out of a few games of Monopoly, Sudoku and the latest real-life stories from That’s Life! when you had nothing better to do than mope and miss your sister.
But the very best thing Keeley had got from her afternoons at the hospital was her friendship with Erica. They’d first met on the cancer ward when Erica had started going through treatment. On suggesting that Erica might like to play Scrabble, Keeley had been subjected to all the sass until Erica had decided it ‘might be cool, man’ if they turned it into a drinking game. Thankfully, as Erica was having radiotherapy and chemotherapy, it hadn’t involved shots of alcohol. But the forfeit had been that the loser was made to shell out on the expensive hot chocolates from the canteen. Their friendship had – surprisingly in some respects, when neither of them were in the most ordinary of situations – blossomed. There was something about Erica’s gung-ho spirit that reminded Keeley of Bea. There Erica had been, with the worst prognosis being levelled at her with every new check-up, still believing in recovery, still full of fight and endless determination.
Week after week, Erica was back in for more treatment – sometimes too sick to even sit up in bed let alone play board games – but in between times, Keeley continued their relationship outside the hospital walls, making sure Erica had everything she needed for home and a professional support package at hand if she needed it. But now, only months down the line, here they were. The hospice. Keeley was now volunteering at the place that had cared for her Grandma Joan and it was now going to be the place where her life-loving friend Erica, at just twenty-two was going to spend the last of her days. But, despite that truth, Erica still had that streak of badass. Keeley felt it was the mark of true bravery – not the winning of the battle, but the knowing how hard you fought.
‘Trust me, man. I’m holding out. But if they serve me another meal of liquidised cat food, I might have to give in. At least at the care home you can nick a meal from the person next to you if you don’t like the smell of yours. In a room on your own here it’s a bit like solitary in jail or, you know, self-isolating.’
‘Have you been in solitary in jail?’ Keeley asked with a wry grin. ‘Because if you have you’ve neglected to tell me a thing about it.’
‘I’ve got a TV, man! I watch all the shows about all the things that aren’t this place!’ Erica began to cough, her breaths raspy and mucus-filled. Keeley put a hand on her back and gently rubbed until the coughing subsided and Erica’s frail body eased back onto the pillows.
‘That wasn’t the fucking cancer,’ Erica insisted. ‘That was the fucking caramel.’
Keeley smiled. ‘How are you feeling today? Apart from being short-changed on meals?’
‘Dying, aren’t I?’ Erica shrugged. ‘The church came in today. They all looked at me like they were sizing me up for my coffin.’
‘Erica, I’m sure they didn’t.’
‘They didn’t look at me like I was Erica,’ she answered. ‘They looked at me
like I was just a worn-out body waiting to fade out the exit door. They looked at me like the “me” was gone already.’
Keeley reached for her hand, but Erica drew hers away. In some ways she knew exactly how Erica felt. Some days it felt like some of the original Keeley had disappeared along with Bea. Like the broken parts of her that had been supposed to heal, mend or be replaced, hadn’t quite grown new skin, or weren’t working properly.
‘Don’t give me none of that sympathy handholding bollocks, man. You know I hate that. Don’t be as bad as them.’
‘Sorry,’ Keeley replied.
‘You’re the only one that doesn’t treat me like a corpse round here. Even back when we first met, you would come in with your stories about your shitty life and, I still don’t know if you’re making them up for my benefit or not, but they made me laugh and they made me feel… and when you’re stuck in a bed all day every day that’s about the best you can hope for.’
‘Who bought you the chocolates?’
‘Someone called Mary bought them for Miss Phipps, but she died last night so…’
The circle of life. It carried on. One person’s gift benefitting another. And didn’t Keeley know all about that.
‘Want one?’ Erica asked, holding out something that looked like a mini-Milky Way. It was hard to tell without a wrapper.
Keeley shook her head. She shouldn’t. She had eaten three advent chocolates when Rach eventually managed to get most of the dye off her palms. She had already decided to opt for something with spring greens for dinner later and go home via the gym.
‘No offence, but you look like you’re the one who’s dying,’ Erica told her. ‘I thought you were meant to come in here and cheer people up.’
‘You’re right,’ Keeley agreed.
‘Well, tell your face,’ Erica replied. ‘You’re living! You might have made a bad hair decision, but you have time to change it. Me, I’m stuck with me until the Grim Reaper turns up.’