I see Michelle, who is wielding a clipboard, and head over with my two boxes. This time I’ve only had to bring cards and the succulent, for luck. As my cards are part of Michelle’s shop, I don’t have a whole stall to dress, only a display. The taxi ride went off without a hitch.
‘Michelle! Hi.’ I hope she recognizes me. ‘I come bearing cards.’ If she hasn’t this should prompt her memory. ‘Where would you like them?’ I ended up bringing more than she asked for, but it turns out that trying to forget about Peter makes me very productive.
‘Bea! Honey, it’s so good to see you. We’re full steam ahead. You’re over there,’ she says, pointing to a couple of cleverly converted easel-like contraptions. ‘You can see your sign above your area. Are you happy to dress it yourself?’
‘Yes, of course, very. I’ll go do that now and get out of your hair.’ Talking of hair, she looks amazing: she is wearing a well-fitted jumpsuit with a bold print. If I were organizing a pop-up, I would not look so fashionable.
‘Thanks, honey. I’ll come find you after I’ve sorted out all the last-minute logistics. Sorry, it’s gone totally crazy.’
I scoot away, hoping I didn’t add to the last-minute fray, and display my cards alongside the filched succulent. I add a mini red and white striped scarf around the pot to make it look more festive.
As I’m packing up the boxes to use again later, Michelle comes over.
‘These look great!’
‘Thanks – I brought a few more than you said, I hope that’s OK.’
‘It’s your space, you can do with it what you like. I’m just happy you were able to come.’
This is the time for me to emphasize how very excited I am for the opportunity, to show her how much I could add to her repertoire.
I get ready with my spiel and take a big breath in.
‘I—’
‘Michelle!’ My speech is interrupted by another clipboard-wielding person. ‘Michelle! We have a problem. The guy we hired to play Rudolph isn’t coming. His train is stuck.’
‘OK, that’s OK.’ Michelle’s face suggests this is not OK. ‘We can find someone else. We have the costume. All we need to do is find someone who can fit into it, and is OK with kids.’
‘They need to be DBS checked.’
I can’t fucking believe it.
This is my moment. I raise my hand.
They both look at me, a hint of annoyance in their eyes. I don’t think they want to be interrupted. Especially by someone who apparently thinks they’re still in school.
‘I, uh, I have a DBS check. I mean, it’s a couple of years old, but I don’t think they have an official expiry date.’
I can see Michelle’s eyes travel up and down my body, taking vague measurements. When they reach my face, they light up.
‘I think you’ve just saved the day.’
When I first put the costume on and looked in the mirror, I really tried to be one with Rudolph. But two hours later, I’m ready to cry.
I thought the present outfit was cumbersome, but this is far worse. I can’t breathe very well as the costume has a full-on reindeer head, I keep tripping up over my enlarged feet, my vision is severely restricted, there is no secret hiding place for snacks, and despite the fact the costume is on the large side, I have a massive wedgie that I can’t undo because my hands are now hooves.
But, on the flipside, I’m proving my worth to Michelle, even if in a slightly different manner to the one I’d envisaged. Still, the hope of acceptance keeps me going. I’ve forced my way on to her team, and now I need to keep these kids entertained and not knock any of them over. This task is trickier said than done, as although moving is hard, talking is impossible, and so the only way I can entertain them is through movement. It’s quite the conundrum.
I check the clock to see how long I have left in this thing. Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes left and then I’ll be free.
The kids currently being distracted by an elf, who can both talk and walk more freely, I take the opportunity to look around and gauge how my cards are doing. Having no peripheral vision means that I keep having to turn my whole body in the direction I want to see. I rotate about ninety degrees and find myself staring straight at Peter. I think an errant antler hits him in the head.
‘Gosh, sorry, it’s quite busy in here, huh?’
I am momentarily stunned, but then realize he has no idea who’s inside the costume. So I nod.
‘Well, I’ll let you get back to it then.’ And he meanders off, totally unaware of all the feelings and questions his presence has caused.
Peter is here. All of a sudden this costume simultaneously feels like a heat prison and a protective cloak.
Why is Peter here?
I rotate back to the horde. The kids are still being entertained by the elf, so I decide to follow Peter.
He takes quite a circuitous route, which due to my size and logistical issues I can’t follow, but he does eventually stop at my card station. Because of where I’m positioned, I can’t see his face. I want to see his face.
I try to manoeuvre myself subtly around a dangerously overloaded display of festive china – cute stacking mugs that together form a happy snowman – and edge closer.
The girl next to him picks up one of my cards and chuckles. Despite my focus being on Peter, my heart can’t help but do a little happy dance at the noise. She likes a card! And she’s a random stranger! This is so exciting!
He looks at the girl, and now I can see his profile. He looks tired and stressed, but he still smiles and she smiles back at him. I instantly want to hit her. ‘They’re funny, right? I know the person who makes them.’
Her smile, if anything, gets even more dazzling.
I’m about ten seconds away from marching over when a group of dawdling fools walk right in front of me, blocking my view and restricting my ability to listen.
Once they’ve cleared, I try to shuffle closer, but it’s really hard to do because I’m about three times larger than my normal body size.
I feel a tug at my arm and turn towards it. It’s the elf.
‘I need you back.’
‘I’ll be there in one minute, but I need to watch this first.’ After I speak I remember that nobody can hear me through the padding.
I try again with my arms.
‘Please, they’re tyrants. I can’t control them any longer.’
Resigned to my fate, I nod, and look back briefly at Peter, who is now walking out of the shop.
CHAPTER 41
Finally, after the day of costume-wearing hell and a morning spent journeying on an overly full train that’s stuffed with presents, we’ve reached the Christmas holidays, the eating and drinking challenge that we’ve all been training for over the last month. And I’ve been eating even more than usual this year. I haven’t told either Mum or Fred about my decision to go down to part-time, and with great anxiety comes great hunger.
Possibly because my mum is alone, it’s tradition for both Fred and me to converge on Mum’s house every year, with Anna and Olivia alternating between her parents and our mum. This year Mum gets all of us.
I can’t tell if she actually likes this situation or not. She says she’s excited, but her actions tell us differently. The fridge is stocked with food, none of which we’re allowed to eat because it’s all allocated to a certain meal and a certain time. I had to bring my own snacks, just to be safe. She gets annoyed at all the extra shoes in her house, she doesn’t like the noise, and I’m pretty sure she takes the dog on extra-long walks to escape us.
The first couple of days are always the worst.
‘Bea, did you open the wraps?’
Oh shit.
She has her hand on her hip. This isn’t good.
I can see Fred looking at me, pretending he isn’t looking at me.
‘Erm, sorry, yes I did. I had one for lunch.’ It was actually a post-lunch snack. ‘I thought it would be OK. We don’t normally have wraps over Christmas, so I had hoped they
’d be safe.’ I really don’t like confrontation. Had I known the wraps were off-limits, I wouldn’t have touched them.
‘Well, I bought them as an alternative to bread so we could have turkey wraps on Boxing Day instead of sandwiches, but you’ve opened them so badly that they’re going to be stale by the time we want them.’
A skill of mine is spotting the peel-and-reseal tags too late to actually use them, thereby ensuring the contents of all open packets need to be consumed within two hours or they’ll become stale.
I have no defence, so I can only try to placate, a tactic which sometimes works, and sometimes only succeeds in making Mum more irritated.
I stand up and go over to inspect the bag, as if being closer will make my vivid discomfort seem even more sincere. The proximity only makes me feel worse; I really did a number on the packaging.
‘I can go out and get more.’ If any shops are still open. ‘Or we could put them in a bag. Or we could heat them up slightly – I do that with mine when they go a bit stale and it perks them right back up! I promise. What do you think?’
She sighs and shakes her head. ‘I knew this would happen. I put a couple of back-up packets in the freezer, so we should be fine.’
There are twelve wraps in each packet. I’m bad at maths, but even I can figure this one out.
‘So even if we have to throw away the open packet, we still have twenty-four wraps to get through? I don’t think we need to buy more.’
Having spent the last six hours trying to avoid the angry puce face, I realize that I’ve just created the perfect conditions for one to appear. And appear it does. Along with the pulsating vein in her forehead.
‘I’m sorry, I’m joking.’ I realize I’m not joking. ‘But I do think we’ll be fine for wraps, and I promise not to eat anything ever again unless I’ve checked with you first. I love you, Mum. Thank you for looking after us so well.’
And she really does look after us well. Even if it occasionally causes more pain than pleasure.
Fred rearranges the newspaper he’s reading, and I take that as a sign that he’s relaxing back to normal, seeing that trouble has passed. At least for now.
‘Can I help you make the stuffing?’
Fred jumps up from where he’s sitting.
‘Bea, I need you actually. The stuffing will have to wait.’
He drags me out of the room and I grab my wine on the way out. I have my priorities.
‘Don’t make me repeat my actions from Christmas five years ago.’
That was a particularly bad year. We never settled into a routine, so Fred had to text me every time I wanted to make a cup of tea to let me know when the kitchen was safe to enter. I spent a lot of time alone that Christmas. Especially after the texting system failed, leading to a particularly bad mix-up regarding the leftover veg. Fred resorted to locking me into the study and only let me out when Mum wasn’t in the house.
‘But I didn’t know! It’s not my fault!’
‘Don’t eat anything unless she gives it to you.’
‘But what if I’m hungry?’
‘It’s not worth it.’
‘So I’m meant to starve?’
‘You are not going to starve.’
‘Are you calling me fat?’
Once upon a time, when we were a lot younger than we are now, Fred called me fat. It really upset me. I went on a very strict diet for about two months, lost a load of weight (that I put back on quite quickly when I realized I loved food) and cried a lot. Since then, I bring it up every now and then to make him feel bad.
‘Come here, you idiot.’
He envelops me in a bear hug. I don’t know what it is about a hug from your brother, but they make you feel so safe. I feel bad for anyone who hasn’t had the opportunity to experience this.
‘Thanks for always looking out for me.’ My words are muffled. The hug is lovely, but he’s also restricting the amount of air I can get into my lungs.
‘You OK, sis?’ He releases me a bit, but apart from the fact I can now breathe slightly better, I don’t like the distance. I smoosh back in and make him hug me for a while longer.
‘I’m fine.’ And I am fine. Finally my work is going in a good direction, my cards are working, things are back on track with Mia. It’s ungrateful to want more. To want Peter.
I subtly dry my eyes, hoping no tear patch is visible when I do eventually pull away.
I inhale and step back. There’s a small wet patch on Fred’s top, but I don’t think anyone will be able to tell whether it’s from tears or a smidge of drool.
Fred is first to talk. He knows I’m not totally fine, but he also knows a hug is the perfect medicine. ‘Well, we might as well use this time. Tell me, what have you got Mum for Christmas?’
Every year we say we will compare presents so we don’t overlap. Every year we forget. And so every year, we overlap.
‘Well, I suppose nobody can ever be too moisturized.’
CHAPTER 42
Christmas morning comes and goes with the usual bustle of activity. Olivia sneaks into my room to wake me up. Quite how and why children breathe so heavily I will never know, but I dutifully play my part and pretend to be asleep until she jumps on my bed, closely followed by Hugo, who licks every part of skin I’ve left exposed.
Now that Christmas Day has actually arrived, Mum’s mood has visibly shifted. It’s as if she can finally relax now that the event is here.
Or she might have taken some kind of herbal remedy. I don’t know which it is. Either way, the morning was full of laughter. And now, post-lunch, Olivia is napping in front of a Christmas movie, and the adults (a category I’m frequently surprised to find myself in) are all too full of food and unable to move from the table.
Which means talking.
And talking at Christmas means that people often feel the freedom, or even the requirement, to get extra personal. It’s the most stressful conversation I take part in every year, but I’m particularly anxious about it this year – for the first time I have lots of things to share. And lots of things to withhold. And I can’t possibly eat any more. My anxiety will have to do whatever it does without me nervous eating.
It starts off light. Anna is finally admitting that she needs to find something else to do other than looking after Olivia. Fred is talking about a possible extension on the house. Mum even admits that she’s joining a local murder mystery book group.
‘So how are the cards, Bea? Do you want me to look over the plan that you and Peter came up with? I could give it a once-over. I don’t know anything about cards, but I’m good with numbers.’ Fred offers.
I look at their faces and assess the mood in the room. I can never tell if it’s better to ruin a nice moment, or make a bad moment even worse.
Here goes.
‘Well, yes. That would be great, thanks.’ I take a fortifying sip of wine. As it’s liquid I hope it can seep into the spaces between the food. ‘And on that note, an … interesting development actually. My boss, Mansi, you remember her?’ Get to the point, Bea. ‘She’s put me in charge of staff development at work—’
‘Well, that’s wonderful, darling, it sounds like a big step up—’
‘And she’s decreased my hours to three days a week.’
There is a tumbleweed moment.
‘But I asked her to. Or, I agreed to it.’ They look at each other. The air in the room is very heavy. ‘It’s a good thing – it means I can spend more time developing my card business, and the job itself is much more interesting.’
I go on, rambling as I get more nervous, filling the void with words.
‘I realize this is a big decision, and it isn’t one I took lightly.’
There is still silence.
‘So, what do you guys think?’
They all look at each other, probably trying to decide who will talk first. It won’t be Anna. As vocal as she is, she’s still careful in proper family discussions. The real choice is between Mum and Fred.
Fred wins.
‘Well, I would like to see the business plan, but I think that if this is what you want to try and do, you’re very brave. I wouldn’t have the balls to do it.’
My mouth actually drops open.
‘Mum? What do you think?’
She actually smiles. ‘Honey. All I ever want is for you to be happy. And I don’t think you’ve been happy for a while. If this will make you happy, I’m happy.’
Uncomfortable with any kind of sincerity or positivity, I do what I do best. Distract. ‘Anyone for some chocolate?’
I get up, using the table for extra leverage, and squeeze past the chairs. I swear they’ve moved closer to the wall since I sat down.
‘So how is Peter? He’s such a good boy to help you with your business plan.’ Luckily my face isn’t visible to anyone.
I steel myself and turn around with the chocolates in hand, and head back to the table.
‘Uh-huh. He was very helpful.’
‘I always thought the two of you would end up together.’ My mum never usually offers an opinion on my romantic life.
‘Me too,’ Fred casually adds. He’s never offered up any relationship advice either.
‘Me three.’ Was that Anna?
What is with everyone?
‘What? When? How? Why?’
‘He has a wonderful smile.’
‘Why haven’t you two ever gone out?’
‘You would have very cute babies.’
I have no idea who said what.
‘I always thought Peter harboured a bit of a soft spot for you. The first time you brought him here, he followed you everywhere like a little puppy.’ Mum looks like butter wouldn’t melt.
‘Stop! Please.’ How did everyone see this but me?
I’m getting very warm.
‘I am not going to talk about this with you guys.’
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