by Kitty Wilson
‘Oh yes, those would be perfect. And what about these here…’ The woman points to more inside a little gift box.
‘Yep, you can’t go wrong with pinecones,’ I say trying not to blanch at the price tag. I usually nip to Greenbank cemetery to collect my cones and then add a bit of ribbon saved from the beautifully wrapped presents Luisa gives me for my birthday and Christmas each year. But as much as I long to tell her this, I’m fairly convinced that will probably count against me landing the job. And this is clearly one of the best jobs ever. I’ve had enough self-sabotage for the day; this one I’m going to try and keep.
I like this place,
And could willingly waste my time in it
* * *
December Ninth.
Belle.
I thought I saw you selling Christmas last night in Bath. You must have a twin. As frightening as that is.
I was so whacked last night that I didn’t hear my phone beep with Rory’s message. I had arrived home and fallen into bed, pleased with my efforts because before I had left, the manager had taken me to one side, said I was a natural and definitely had the job. Huzzah!
However, now I jump up and get dressed – still seven layers, but not necessary as a safety precaution anymore. It looks mild outside. A stark contrast to yesterday when I nearly lost my ears to the freezing winds.
No twin. The world couldn’t get that lucky I start to type and then delete the last bit because what if he thinks I mean it? I’m well aware that one evening being the Queen of Christmas-decoration-selling did not really make up for my many, many flaws. The world definitely does not need two Belle Wildes.
No twin. If you mean you saw me in the decoration shop – I got a new job! Two actually AND a school booking. Some elf magic must have rubbed off because yesterday was a great day.
* * *
Two jobs. No way. Well done.
Shot straight back. Why is he up this early? Does he have a secret cleaning job too?
The phone beeps again.
This doesn’t mean you’ll be too busy to do the Shakespeare project does it?
* * *
Nope. That is still my number one reason for life. Do not fret. One job is a couple of hours a day, cleaning just around the corner from me, the other is in the shop two/three shifts a week so plenty of time left over.
* * *
Congratulations! Do you fancy meeting up for a celebratory drink later?
Ooh, I could. I’m not due in the shop until tomorrow. And now I have two jobs one drink isn’t going to break the bank. Ah, but actually. How about…
I am free. But I have a better idea. As part of your Christmas project, I’m going to set you homework. I took you to a Christmas themed treat on Monday, you have to think of a reasonably priced, preferably free, Christmas activity we can do tonight.
My phone starts beeping so frantically I wonder if it’s having a stroke.
Oh
* * *
My
* * *
God
* * *
We
* * *
Are
* * *
No
* * *
Longer
* * *
Friends.
* * *
See you at seven?
A huge grin crosses my face. He punctuates.
Damn straight. I’ll bring you a hat.
Sure enough, as I peek out the window at two minutes to seven, I see Rory’s car pull up. That man is nothing if not prompt. It occurs to me that I have seen Rory more than anyone else this week, and each time has been kinda nice, bizarre considering how dull I thought he was at uni.
I grab my hat, scarf and gloves and run down to meet him, to save him coming out into the cold, and as he opens the car door, there I am jack-in-a-boxing my way around the pavement.
‘You’re keen.’
‘We’re going on a Christmas adventure.’
‘So you tell me. Are you imagining reindeer rides, penguins and icicles, that sort of thing?’
‘Yes!’ I bob my head up and down, aware that my answer is more of a squeak than a word.
‘You may want to manage your expectations.’
‘Never.’
‘You’ve been warned. Do you wanna hop in then? And please, tell me you were joking about the hat.’ I boing my way around to the passenger door. It’s been a fab few days, I’ve zoomed from having no job, mad financial worries and being concerned that I wouldn’t know what to do with myself now I no longer have my project to work on in the evenings, to having lots of jobs, a whole Christmas mission and what is appearing to be a social life, albeit only with one other person. Life is good.
‘This is a nice car.’ I slide my legs in. This car is what you’re meant to drive when you’re in your thirties. Luisa and Remi have one each. Whereas if my exhaust isn’t hanging on by a bit of emergency wire and there isn’t moss growing by my car’s windows then it wouldn’t feel like mine.
‘It’s a rental. I’m only here for a month but I wanted to be able to get between here and Bath easily and reliably.’
‘What did you come back for?’ Ouch, as soon as it’s out of my mouth I realise that sounds bad. Blunt old Belle. Either not thinking before I speak and pissing everyone off or overthinking and then never speaking. At what age are you mature enough to find a happy medium or am I going to be stuck doing this for ever?
Rory slides me a smile and starts the car. We coast through the Bristol traffic, out of Easton, across the city centre, up Whiteladies Road and over The Downs. All the way from my Bristol to posh Bristol.
Slightly embarrassed about my verbal faux pas, and aware of his lack of response, we put the radio on and I fa-la-la and how-still-we-seeeee-theeeee-lie until the Suspension Bridge comes into view.
It doesn’t matter how long I live here, it always makes my heart happy. I love this city at night, all lit up and glittering. I point to it, wondering if Rory shares my awe.
He nods and I can see his eyes light up at this great big architectural wonder. Surely this mark of our city makes every Bristolian proud when they see it, conjuring up feelings of home, of comfort.
‘I wondered if I could fly off that once when I had done too much acid.’ I break the awe and wonder.
‘Of course you did. Luisa is a saint among women. I assume she was the one who stopped you.’
‘Uh-huh.’ I nod my assent and look across at him again. He really does have quite a nice nose. ‘I’m not going to do it tonight though. I’m more grown-up now. I’ll never take that again. Last time, Dementors chased me up the stairs.’
‘Glad to hear it. Not about the Dementors obviously, that’s terrifying.’ He pulls up by one of those old kerbs by the bridge, the ones that are super narrow and have two steps to them and also make my heart happy.
‘Right? Proper scary. I had to choose between giving up reading or giving up LSD…’ I pause and flick him a look under my eyelashes and see him grin quickly before composing his face into serious again.
‘Mmm, I’ve heard reading can be like that. Makes you delusional and all sorts. Dangerous stuff.’
‘Right.’ We exchange a grin as we both unclick our seat belts at the same time and get out of the car.
‘I think I’m going to like my Christmas surprise.’ I’m genuinely enthusiastic as I glance over the roof at him, silvery in the glow of the streetlamp. He locks eyes with me and again I’m struck by the greenness of his. Even in the dark of a December evening.
‘Good,’ he says, the brilliance of his eyes not matched by his vocabulary.
He starts to walk away from the bridge. ‘Hang on, aren’t we going across it?’ I squeak.
‘Based on what you just told me, no. It’s freezing cold, let’s get somewhere warm.’
‘Freezing. This is nothing. You should have been out at 5.45 yesterday morning. That was cold. I thought my nipples were going to freeze off.’ What is wrong with my idiot mouth? Why, why would I sa
y the word nipple to Rory Walters? God, just gobble me up now, free me from my stupidity. I raise my eyes heavenward, just in case he’s listening and prepared to beam me up.
‘You had your nipples out in this weather?’ Rory doesn’t seem anywhere near as mortified as I am; that’s good. ‘What on earth were you… No, don’t tell me.’ He holds up his hands. ‘I don’t think I want to know.’
Non-judgemental but with firm boundaries. I wonder if he gives lessons.
‘So where are we going?’ Changing the subject is a good move. He must be rubbing off on me.
‘I thought we could have my work’s night out. That’s Christmassy, there’s really only me so you’re doing me a favour by keeping me company, and as my treat, it’s free. You could go the whole hog and have a Christmas Dinner.’
I can’t help myself, my eyebrow raises at a 45-degree angle. My body parts have always been disobedient. ‘This is your work’s night out?’
‘Uh-huh. Although if you could keep the pity from your voice that would be great.’
‘Sorry. Kinda slipped in there.’
‘Said the bishop to the actress.’
‘Oh my God, you make dad jokes.’
‘But only the best ones. Will try not to do it again.’
‘Right, come back into the 2020s.’
‘Hmm, they’ve not been great so far.’ That is certainly the truth.
‘But tonight will be, come on let’s get you to the food.’
‘I do like food.’
The food is good, the view of the bridge is outstanding but the atmosphere a little stuffy. I itch to jump on the table and do a dance of the seven veils with the heavy linen napkins, but I practise self-restraint and Rory and I chat about what a nightmare Dad is – a subject I can blather on about for hours.
‘I’ve never talked like this about a client before and it’s so unprofessional of me, especially as he is your father, but he is driving me up the wall. He doesn’t listen to anything…’ I nod archly. That’s the absolute truth. ‘He’s happy to pay for my advice but then refuses to take it, and I would love it if I could roll up my sleeves and just take the cash but it’ll impact my professional reputation too. He tweets drunk…’
‘Yeah, I’m not surprised. Drink is a real thing in my family. Drinking is fun and they despise anything they see as dull, like Shakespeare. They veer from telling me that I’m irresponsible one minute and too dull the next when I don’t join in. I gave up trying to work it out years ago. But when they drink, they’re not nice.’
‘Uh-huh, I think I’m beginning to realise that. Your father has started an online war with a reporter by threatening to punch out his “millennial snowflake arse” the next time he sees him … and have you seen the article he wrote for today’s Express? I wrote a statement for him, accepting the blame for his behaviour and outlining the steps he was going to take to change, and then boom, I open up the article this morning and it’s unrecognisable. He has blamed everything on today’s society. No personal responsibility… Sorry. It is your dad I’m ranting about.’ Rory calms his tone.
‘Ah, trust me, you ranting about him is by far the least of my worries and you’re not saying anything that’s not true. I’m sorry you took him on, but at the same time not sorry because now we’re friends.’ I don’t pause there but speed up, so he doesn’t have time to argue that last point. He feels like a friend and as I’ve never been someone with a wide social circle, I don’t think I’d like it if he corrected me, told me or implied that I was merely an acquaintance. ‘But I haven’t seen today’s piece. After the news that broke last month I adapted my news feed so I see nothing about Dad. I was so saturated, so ashamed, I couldn’t bear another story.’
‘I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to have your family’s business beamed onto everyone’s phone, all the time.’
‘Right? People think I’m lucky and I am. But Dad does have his downsides.’
‘Yeah.’ He places his hands on mine, I can feel that he means it, that he’s trying his best to comfort me. This is good, it’s kind. It doesn’t feel like it comes with an agenda or that I need to whip my knickers down to keep his attention. Maybe I genuinely have a new friend.
‘He’s an arse, and I don’t think he’s capable of change as I genuinely don’t think he thinks he’s ever in the wrong. He’s a shocking narcissist and he can’t cope if people don’t share his viewpoint or see him as anything less than perfect. I think that’s why he lashes out at me, because I struggle to pretend I think anyone is wholly perfect. It’s Mum I feel for; Rose and I, we’re out. I used to wish she’d go too. She did once before, when we were kids, but she came back really quickly. And I can’t see her ever leaving now, although she has openly cheated a couple of times. They’re both as bad as each other, to be honest, and I think, despite how dysfunctional they are, they’re kind of co-dependent. Each needs the other and dearly loves them in their own messed-up way.’
‘She left without you?’
‘Yeah.’ He keeps his face straight but I wonder if he is thinking, what kind of mother leaves her kids? Truth is, when I was a child I thought that too but now I realise things are more complex than that. Women are their own people, not a homogenous mass of adoring motherhood. Some feel bound, restricted by their children; it doesn’t make them less of a woman, any more than it does those who choose not to have children at all. I think it’s unfair the way society condemns them just because they find their children a pressure or don’t want to be defined by motherhood.
‘I understand,’ I say. ‘Their relationship is bizarre; it veers from toxic to sort of sweet. She probably decided she couldn’t be a great mother until she got herself strong, away from him, straighter in her head. When she learnt to love herself, only then could she love her children the way she wanted to. My concern, ‘ I say, rationalising it, ‘is that rather than the fiery woman I remember from my childhood, these days she seems frozen and I wonder if she’ll ever be able to find the fire to stand up to him again.’
It’s funny how you can see all the reason, all the theory, laid out bare on the table, see why they are the way they are. You can see how much they are hurting as individuals and not want that for them but the impact still feels pretty personal and hurts badly. It’s hard at times; adult me – public me – may manage to be rational about it all but there is still a part of me, child me, that wants to scream and shout about the lack of fairness. I know it’s the way that my parents have treated me – compounded by the fact that when Rose came along she slotted in perfectly, their behaviour making her a competitor rather than a team mate – that has shaped the way I view myself. That has made it difficult – no, impossible – for me to commit, for me to be attracted to anyone that I may want to commit to. I am forever haunted with the feeling of not being good enough, of knowing I consistently fail to please, and for all my adult perspective I don’t know how to change that. I don’t know how to dig inside deep and recognise that I am okay, I’m not that bad. That there are positives in who I am. I often wonder if I ever will.
‘That’s very reasonable of you.’ Rory smiles a half smile and then changes it quickly as if he knows I do not want to be pitied, that being pitied is something I have no control over, rather like Mum leaving, and makes me feel small and by its very nature – despite the good intentions – pitiable. ‘So, tell me, how did you get consumed by this overwhelming love for Christmas?’
God bless him.
‘Well that’s easy…’ I start to tell of how Christmas had exploded for me since I was a teen and had been sent away to boarding school and met Luisa. One year she took me back to Germany for Christmas and showed me that her Christmas was fun, sparkles, argument-free, everything the adverts promise it is and that I had never seen.
As the waiter brings us our second course, I tease Rory about how ordering seabass is selling out the whole Christmas theme and I realise that I have never been taken to dinner in a place like this by any boy I have ever dat
ed. Sam had regularly dragged me to Kings Kebabs, which, if you could weave your way through the crowds of fighting Neanderthals, had been quite tasty, but linen napkins, crumbers and heart-pounding views have never been on the menu before. And it isn’t the money spent, it’s the sentiment, the implication that to Rory, as his friend, I am worth it. And as I look at those green eyes, that face as it roars with laughter as I recount one of my Christmas pasts, I realise there is a lot more to Rory Walters than I remember.
But come what may, I do adore thee so
That danger shall seem sport, and I will go.
* * *
December Tenth.
Rory.
‘This is so dull,’ Mum says as she lifts the corner of what I think is a perfectly acceptable nightgown in Marks and Spencer. ‘Is this really all there is to life? Is this what it is all about? Shopping for nightgowns?’ She sighs and rolls her eyes, giving both Kevin and Perry a run for their money.
Woah, I thought this was her idea of heaven. ‘Mum, you’ve always loved Marks and Sparks.’ When I was small, she would’ve shrieked with excitement at the thought of being able to afford to shop here. A cup of coffee and a slice of cake that we would share in the café on the top floor were a monthly treat for years, well before she could actually buy anything in here. Riding up in the lifts as a child with her would be the pinnacle of the month for the both of us. ‘What about these?’ I hold out something cotton and lemon yellow. I know nothing about nightwear for the post-menopausal woman but it looks okay. To be fair, I know nothing about nightwear for the pre-menopausal woman either.