by Marie Yates
‘Can you remember what it was supposed to be?’
‘Absolutely no idea,’ Mum admitted, pulling out all the decorations I had created over the years.
‘Maybe we should let Reggie destroy these instead of the good ones,’ I suggested, opening the door to let him back in.
‘See, even Reggie thinks they’re rubbish.’ She laughed and Reggie curled up on the sofa, not taking the risk that he might get evicted again. ‘I bet he’ll miss your grandma this year too, she loved to give him some of her food when we weren’t looking.’
‘Mum, she didn’t. She told us she didn’t want him near the table and occasionally threw a bit of meat as far as she could to send him away.’
‘Ah, she loved him really.’
‘Yes, she did and I’m not saying she didn’t, but I don’t get why you’re making such a big deal out of this. You didn’t like it when she visited and she got on your nerves for most of the time she was here.’
Okay, that might have been a bit harsh as Mum looked shocked and upset by my mini-outburst rather than her usual ‘angry’ look.
‘Dani, your grandma and I had a difficult relationship. She said some things that hurt me, that really hurt me, but it doesn’t take away the fact that she also made me who I am today. She taught me to stand up for what I believe in, she taught me to fight for what I want and she stood by me when I was left alone with you and I was absolutely terrified.’
I didn’t have much to say in response to that, but Mum wasn’t done yet.
‘I wish things had been different over the last few years. When you were attacked, I didn’t only feel that I’d let you down. I felt that I’d let them down. It was, and still is, my job to keep you safe. They loved you from before you were born and the first time your grandma held you, she looked at me and said, “You’re going to be brilliant at being this little one’s mum. Keep her safe for us.” I wish I’d had the courage to talk to her before she died. I wish I could tell her that I did my best and I will always do my best, just as she did for me.’
I really didn’t have a clue, did I? While I was doing okay and feeling proud of myself for being more than okay, I forgot that what happened had such a huge impact on everyone else too.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
Twenty-One
Christmas is a time when there isn’t much time to do a lot of work because of all that’s going on. It’s made me panic. Worrying about Mum hasn’t helped.
‘Wow, that got really heavy,’ Frankie said when I told her about Mum’s little outburst. ‘It’s kind of sad though, you know, that she feels she didn’t say all of the things she wanted to say.’
‘It is, but I hope she chills out about it all before Grandpa turns up. He’s having a tough time and the last thing he needs is Mum talking about how Grandma loved the sprouts, or the tinsel or the bloody wrapping paper.’
‘You’re going to have so much fun at your first Christmas weekend, aren’t you?’ she joked. Frankie was jealous that I was going to have two Christmas dinners, but now she could see that it wasn’t going to be as much fun as it might have sounded. ‘So, I’ve been thinking,’ she added.
‘I thought I could smell burning,’ I quipped.
‘Funny. I was thinking that because you were already having two Christmases, you might want to go for a full set and have a third one with me?’
‘I’m not cooking, unless you want pizza.’ I had told Frankie that my cooking skills were non-existent a while ago and then had quickly changed the subject when she’d made a joke about needing to be a better housewife. My brain hadn’t been ready to hear the word ‘housewife’, not even as a joke.
‘Seriously, it would be fun. My folks are going away so we could swap presents, have a Christmas dinner of pizza, if that’s what you want, and then watch Christmas films.’
I think she could sense the mild panic rising as soon as she mentioned that her folks wouldn’t be home.
‘Bring Reggie, there’s no pressure, I just thought it would be a laugh.’
I could definitely cope with pizza, films and a laugh. ‘Sounds perfect, I’ll even splash out on some mince pies, if you’re not sick of them by then.’
‘Never,’ said the mince pie addict. ‘So, that’s settled, we’ll have Christmas our way. We can take Reggie to the pub for lunch if it’s not too cold to sit outside, and then have pizza for dinner.’
It did sound like fun and once I’d got over the initial panic, I was excited at the thought of our own Christmas. I was sure that Mum wouldn’t mind, especially as I was taking Reggie. She complained a lot about walking him in the cold weather so it would be a bonus for her. I didn’t have a clue what to get Frankie. It needed to be a special present without being too full-on. How would I manage that?
Thinking about it now, I’m pretty sure that Frankie would rather I didn’t bring Reggie with me. She knows that he’s like a giant security blanket for me though, so it’s nice of her. The second she said I could, I felt much more relaxed. The fact she was more interested in planning her meals than anything else made me laugh too. That’s definitely the Frankie I know, with her priority always being food. That’s probably why she would prefer it if Reggie stayed at home, I’ll give him my leftovers and not her!
So, the only problem with having all of these Christmases is I have no idea when I’m going to get my work done. We have Grandpa coming, then Jane and Lucy are coming for a long weekend and then I’ll be at Frankie’s before term starts. My plan was going so well over the last couple of weeks and I’ve ditched it in favour of seeing Frankie. I can’t say that’s a bad thing as I’ve been having a really good time, but it’s hardly going to make me a success.
Last week, we got our results back for a test we’d done in PE. Somehow, Frankie managed to get an ‘A’ and I only got a ‘C’.
‘Being happy is working out well for me,’ she joked, until she saw my face and then my grade. ‘Oh, not working out so well for you.’
No, it isn’t working out so well for me at all. I wouldn’t change it and I definitely wouldn’t go back to when it was awkward and horrible, but I would like to go back to getting good grades. The panic of potentially failing is bubbling away again.
Goals
I have to get my head around these again. I seem to spend more time planning that I do actually getting stuff done. If I’d just stuck to the plan, I’d be flying.
It is May and I have my black tag. That’s the last step before I can think about my black belt. It’s in reach; my dream of being a black belt isn’t that far away now. It’s going to take about six months to get to the stage where I can think about the grading, but only if I work hard or it’ll be longer. That’s also around the time I’ll be leaving Sixth Form, so I need to have a focus that isn’t the exams or I’ll lose the plot.
It’s New Year and I have spent time with my friends. I desperately don’t want to be the sort of person that Katie was when she started seeing Cal. She was so annoying, never had time for her friends and talked about him non-stop. I know that I haven’t made much effort to see the girls and I miss them. I want to be a better friend. I know how quickly things can change, so I want to make sure I do whatever I can to be a good friend.
It’s New Year and I have completed everything on my plan. That might be unrealistic now. I might need a new plan.
Success
I think I’m doing okay, other than the small issue of being behind at Sixth Form. I have helped out at home, I didn’t freak out when Mum said that Sammy was coming for Christmas and I am ready to be the model granddaughter at the weekend.
Gratitude
Frankie. She’s amazing. She’s relaxed about me taking my time and not putting any pressure on me at all. Life is good, life is really good.
Twenty-Two
I’m not just avoiding Grandpa, I do have to do some work.
‘Come on, you two, let’s get some fresh air,’ Mum says, adding to my stress. ‘We can take Reggie out and work up an appetite
for lunch.’
‘I’ve got a deadline, Mum,’ I say, hoping that she will be pleased I’m thinking about work and let me stay at home.
‘You’ve always got a deadline,’ she replies, and doesn’t sound impressed as she knows she has been telling me for weeks that I need to make more effort with my assignments. ‘Okay, you stay here but I want a full report of what you’ve done when we get back.’
‘Sure, not that you’ll understand.’
‘Dani, your mother is smarter than she looks.’ As soon as Grandpa says it, he knows it has come out all wrong. ‘I’ll get my shoes,’ he mutters and he shuffles off to the kitchen.
This weekend has been the longest weekend of my life. Grandpa has been quiet and I think he’d rather be at home. He’s started to find his own routine, he’s seeing his friends, and there’s a group of them he meets up with regularly for company. When he comes here, it’s a reminder of everything that he has lost. Mum keeps talking about Christmases she remembers as a kid and I don’t think it’s helping.
Maybe I should go with them to change the subject and give Grandpa a break from her constant wittering. I have work to do though. I could give him Reggie’s favourite ball instead so he has something to entertain him while he’s out. I quickly find it and hand it to Grandpa.
‘I need to make sure I don’t throw it at your mother,’ he whispers, putting it in his pocket before Reggie spots it.
She’s getting on his nerves. I’m glad it’s not just me.
When Grandpa arrived yesterday, he had bags of wrapping paper, cards and gifts. I had a sneaky look in one of the bags and hoped the book about the visual history of trains wasn’t for me.
‘You’ll help me, won’t you, love?’ he asked, sounding deflated.
‘Sure, what with?’
‘Your grandma used to do all of this. I don’t know where to start.’ At that moment, I thought he was going to cry. He looked lost. He’d never had to think about presents or cards. Grandma had done everything. ‘I had no idea that she did so much.’
‘She loved doing all of this, so I don’t think she would have let you get involved even if you’d tried to,’ I said, wanting to kick myself. I sounded like Mum. I had no idea if Grandma enjoyed doing all of this. Maybe she hated shopping, doing all the wrapping up and writing all of the cards. Maybe she resented every Christmas and that Grandpa took her for granted and didn’t help at all. I supposed Mum’s rose-tinted-glasses approach made things a bit easier even if it was complete bollocks.
‘Right, let’s take it all to the living room and you can tell me who these presents are for. I’ll wrap them up and you can write the tags.’ I was almost glad of something to do so we weren’t just drinking tea and trying to find things to talk about.
‘Will you write the cards and tags too, please?’
‘Jeez, what did your last slave die of.’ Shit. ‘I’m so sorry, Grandpa. I didn’t mean that how it sounded. Sorry.’ I dared to look up and saw that Grandpa was laughing at me.
‘You’ve gone red,’ he said.
‘I’m really sorry. Of course, I’ll write the tags and cards.’ I kept apologising as I carried the bags and was grateful that Reggie joined us so we quickly had something else to focus on. That was keeping Reggie’s nose out of the bags of presents, trying to get him to lie somewhere in the room that meant his tail was as far away as possible from the mugs of tea, and convincing him that none of the presents could be eaten.
Grandpa couldn’t remember who he had bought half of the presents for. ‘I just wanted to get out of town as soon as I could,’ he said. ‘Now, who still wears ties?’
With a selection of random presents back in their carrier bags, we started on the cards. Handing me Grandma’s address book Grandpa said, ‘A lot of these folk are dead now, that’s what happens when you get to my age.’
‘Shall we start a new address book?’ I offered, not expecting the reply I got.
‘Nah, I need to double-check who I’ve crossed out sometimes so I know they’re definitely dead.’
I had to laugh. What was I supposed to say to that? I couldn’t imagine going through my phone and checking who was still alive. Would that be me when I was Grandpa’s age? I’d have to delete people from my contacts as there wouldn’t be a ‘crossing out’ option. Maybe there should be.
With the cards written and Grandpa sharing a story about each person I wished a Merry Christmas to, I was pleased there were so many names crossed out in that little book. There were only so many stories I could take about people I didn’t know. It took us all afternoon as I was knackered. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used a pen for that long. My wrist hurt!
Mum came in as I was rubbing it. ‘It just shows you need to be writing more and getting more of your work done,’ she joked, seeing all our hard work.
That was my cue to escape! I hadn’t done any work, but was glad of the excuse to have some time out.
Now, I do need to get on the case or I’ll be panicking again. Focus, Dani, Focus.
Twenty-Three
Finally it’s over. I had been looking forward to Christmas but what had started out as a fun couple of days quickly turned into a ‘let’s gang up on Dani’ day. The only person who was sticking up for me was Sammy. What a difference a year makes! Last year, I was kicking off about him being with us for Christmas at all. This year, I don’t know what I would have done without him.
It started well and we had the best Christmas lunch ever. Jane did most of the cooking with Lucy taking on the official role of ‘supervisor’ while Mum drank wine and Sammy was in charge of the music.
While texts were coming in from my friends about their parents arguing, their siblings fighting and being gutted that they hadn’t got the latest phone upgrade, or in Katie’s case, that she hadn’t got a car, I was having a laugh, was excited to have awesome presents, and felt like everything was good in the world. That might have also been because Lucy kept topping up my glass with wine when Mum wasn’t looking. Later I went upstairs to do some work. But was soon back down.
‘It’s gone blue. I don’t know what to do.’ I wailed as I stumbled into the living room clutching my laptop. Everyone looked at me as if I had announced I was about to die.
‘What’s gone blue,’ asked Jane. ‘You know I’m not a real doctor, don’t you?’ She must have been pissed. She hated it when anyone else said that. She was a ‘doctor’ because she had a PhD, not because she could help in a medical emergency!
‘My laptop, it’s gone blue. The screen just went blue.’ I was about to cry. It was the worst thing that could happen. ‘I’ve got my essays on there, I haven’t saved them anywhere else. I’m not doing them all again, I can’t do them all again.’
‘You’re not seriously telling us that you were writing essays.’
‘Mum, this isn’t a joke. It’s blue.’
Sammy took the laptop from me and started pressing some of the keys. ‘Do you even know what you’re doing?’ I said, pretty sure that he was just pressing things in the same way that I had.
‘Leave it with me, remember, I’m the only one drinking orange juice, and fixing this means I can go and have some time out from all of these drunken women.’
‘You think you can fix it?’ I pleaded.
‘We’re not drunk, yet,’ came the embarrassing shrieks from Mum and Jane. Reggie followed Sammy out of the room, no doubt grateful that someone would now be in the kitchen with the leftovers.
‘It’ll be okay, he’ll fix it,’ Lucy assured me. ‘What are the essays about?’
Before I could even try to answer, Jane piped up. I was waiting for her to start, but thought she’d at least wait until Boxing Day. ‘Is your Uni application on the laptop?’
There it was, the question that I was dreading. I had started the application, but I still didn’t know what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, or if I wanted to go to Uni at all.
‘Yes, it’s on there. Can we talk about it another time?’
‘It’s important, Dani. This is an exciting time, a chance to focus on what you want to do and take the next step towards being independent.’ I knew there’d be no stopping her now. ‘We’ve only got a couple of days together so let’s make the most of it and figure out what your options are.’
Jane loved nothing more than talking about all of this. She was only trying to help, but it was so overwhelming that I just wanted her to shut up.
‘Are you still sure about Sports Psychology being the course you want to do?’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been “sure”, have I?’ I replied. ‘I haven’t really thought about it.’
‘Would you like me to rearrange the placement for you?’ she asked. I was supposed to have spent some time with her friend over the summer. She was a Sports Psychologist who Jane said could open a lot of doors for me in the future. I had been looking forward to going and learning more about what she did, but I hadn’t been able to go. It had been the week of Grandma’s funeral.
‘Sure, that would be good.’ I meant it. I still wanted to go to see what it was all about.
‘If you came to a Uni near me, you could stay at mine and work with her in your spare time.’ The look that Lucy gave Jane as she offered me her spare room didn’t go unnoticed by any of us.
‘Could I bring Reggie?’ I asked, knowing that would ensure Jane never offered again.
‘No,’ said Mum and Jane in unison.
‘Reggie is staying with me,’ Mum said. Jane nodded forcefully.
‘I’m staying here too then,’ I said, watching Lucy breathe a sigh of relief.
‘I will get that placement set up as soon as I’m home’ Jane said, reaching for her diary as she knew she’d forget if she didn’t write it down. She was always forgetting dates.
‘Can’t you leave the poor girl alone just for today,’ Sammy said as he walked back in with my laptop.
‘Is it fixed, please tell me it’s fixed, have you fixed it?’