by Luke Palmer
‘Will you be seeing him, Mr Walters, over Christmas?’
‘No, love. We’re taking a step back over the holidays.’
‘Oh.’
There are no boxes of presents amongst the carload of clothes and duvets. Any present shopping will have to be done in the next few days, from Nanna and Grandad’s house.
It doesn’t take long before Mum turns off the constant stream of Christmas songs on the radio. It was always Dad who would sing along, Mum hating it at first, visibly cringing at every ‘merry and bright’ and each mention of Santa Claus. But eventually, Dad would win her round with his appalling singing voice and sheer enthusiasm. He’d have carols on in the house all the time for the week leading up to Christmas and he’d go through this big charade of putting presents under the tree one by one, pretending to tip-toe into the lounge to place them there while Mum and I were watching TV, and then making a big show of being surprised to find them, like he expected us to believe that some kind, benevolent force had brought them, or that they’d magically appeared as a result of the festive spirit.
Mum and I shared a kind of cynical conspiracy against him, pretending together to ignore what he was doing: the label on the biggest carrot that read ‘save this for Rudolf’, the way he’d leave pictures around the house that he’d printed from the internet – pictures of watches, suits, expensive road bikes, cars – the words ‘maybe this year?’ were written on all of them.
But we’d loved it, his energy. And when the big day finally arrived, he’d be almost uncontainable. He’d be really keen for us both to try to guess what was in the multi-coloured boxes – always four or five for me and at least twice as many for Mum – and he’d sit there grinning while we shook and squeezed the parcels, bouncing with enthusiasm, jittery with a breakfast of chocolate coins and fizzy wine inside him. He was absolutely terrible at wrapping though, so there was always the corner of a box sticking out, or a strip of black cardboard where he hadn’t cut the paper big enough to go all the way around. Not that it mattered; Dad would always put each present into at least one extra box, making it impossible to tell what was inside. He once gave Mum a pair of diamond earrings in an old washing-machine box, making her climb right down inside to find them taped to the bottom. And when I got my Playstation a few years back, every controller and every cable was wrapped up in a separate package. He’d even taken the power-lead from the plug, putting them both in separate margarine tubs. It took almost an hour to unwrap it all. He didn’t stop smiling once.
And now none of that will happen anymore. We’ve barely bothered with birthdays either these last two years. They remind us of him too much.
The first Christmas was, with a few exceptions, the worst day since Dad had died. Neither of us had left the house for weeks – not since the big funeral – and we didn’t realise what day it was until we turned on the TV that morning. Mum screamed – an animal moan – and pulled the TV off the wall where it lay until halfway through January. She went upstairs then, shut herself in her room and didn’t come out until the evening, her eyes burning and barely open. I’d sat on the sofa, watching loads of old TV series on my laptop and crying occasionally. The closest I’d got to turkey dinner was eating roast chicken flavour crisps all day.
So this year won’t have to do much to improve on that.
We get to Nanna and Grandad’s and are greeted immediately by the smell of baking and cooking. There’s a stack of mince pies fresh from the oven on a cooling rack, and Nanna isn’t happy until I’ve had three of them with my cup of tea.
Mum nibbles at one, then leans over the kitchen table that we’re all sitting at and squeezes my hand, ‘After lunch, shopping. OK? I’m going to lie down for a bit.’ She takes herself upstairs.
‘How’s your mum doing, Josh?’ Grandad asks.
I’m not sure how to answer. How much do they know about my recent confession? I don’t have to wait long to find out.
‘We’d like to add our apologies to your mother’s,’ says Nanna, shuffling in her seat, looking doubly uncomfortable for the fact that she’s normally so relaxed. She finally settles in a very upright pose, her fingers bridged on the table, as if she’s playing the piano. ‘We thought – we all did – that you were coping better than you were. Your mum told us about what’s been going on. How’s your friend’s leg, by the way? Jason, is it?’
‘Jamie. He’s OK.’ But I haven’t spoken to Jamie since Vince bundled me into the back of Carl’s car. Mum’s kept me off for the last few days of school because of my hand.
Grandad’s voice is stern, level. ‘Good. And this silliness with these websites. These ideas about the world. That’s all stopped too has it?’
‘Yes.’ I don’t have to lie about that.
Nanna speaks again. ‘We read in the news last week about someone taking a hammer to a charity shop window not far from you. Can you imagine? A hammer! In all my years I’ve never seen madness like we’re seeing at the moment. Never expected that it could get so close to home. The big towns and cities, yes, maybe. But not here, or where you live.’
‘Did they catch the person who did it?’ My voice almost fails in my throat as I speak.
‘Of course not. They never do.’
I think about my own interview at the police station last month, imagine the tape going into a box in a room lined with boxes, never to be seen or heard again.
Nanna continues, ‘Only last week I was on the bus, going to the shops, and someone started troubling this Asian lady just in front of me. I always see her on there. She seems lovely. Anyway, after he got off, someone went to check if she was OK, and she said it happens all the time. I’d have liked to have given that man a piece of my mind, only…’
Grandad cuts in, ‘But the fact is that it’s happening all over, Josh. There are dangerous people out there, and they’ll tell you anything you want to hear to help them with their toxic, violent aims. They call themselves British; proud patriots. There’s nothing British about what they’re doing.’
Nanna picks up the thread again. ‘It’s lucky you didn’t fall in with any of them, Josh. Lucky you were just on the outside of all of their lies, looking in. Standing on the tip of the iceberg. Very lucky indeed. We’re both so very sorry, your grandad and I, that we weren’t there to help you through it all. But we’re very glad that it’s behind you now, and that you’ve seen sense again.’
There’s a pause before Grandad speaks. ‘If you leave a place empty and uncared for, Josh, something will come in and fill it. In a garden so as inside your heart. And the seeds that blow in on the breeze are most often weeds. They’ll choke that space if you let them. It’s not fair, what happened to you, to your mum, to all of us. But we’re sorry we’ve not helped you care for that empty space that must be inside you. It’s good that you were able to tell your mum. Very mature of you to face up to the problem and to let her in. It can feel like a horrible secret, keeping something like that to yourself. You did well in telling her what was going on. And now we’re all here to help too.’ Another pause, then, ‘I know this is a hard time of the year, but your dad would be proud.’
My eyes are so full of tears I can barely see the table in front of me.
*
Mum and I come back from town that afternoon with several bags from different shops. The only way to manage it was to go through our short Christmas list item by item, single-mindedly tracking down each thing in turn, not minding or caring if we ended up going back to the same shop three or more times. We’d thought about splitting up, but that would have been even harder.
Despite Mum and I both saying that we didn’t want anything from each other, there are a few bags that she won’t let me look in. We were barely apart all afternoon, so I don’t know how she managed to sneak something into a basket without me noticing.
That said, I did manage to find five minutes on my own to buy her some perfume in the department store while she wandered into the women’s underwear section looking for ‘necessaries’. I’ve taken a
risk and got her the one that Dad used to buy her each year. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll put it under the tree. I can’t stand her new one, the one she puts on to meet Mr Walters. She doesn’t smell like Mum.
Because of walking all the way up and down the high street twice, and doubling back again and again, we’re both exhausted, and flop down in front of the TV with more tea and mince pies. There’s a red glow around Mum’s cheeks. She stares at the screen but she’s not really watching.
‘That wasn’t bad, was it?’ I say.
‘Not completely unbearable,’ she replies a few seconds later; she took a while to realise I asked a question and come out of her trance.
‘I think we did quite well there, considering.’
‘Yes. Considering.’ She reaches across and squeezes my hand. ‘Hey, it is what it is.’
‘Yup. It is what it is.’
‘I meant what I said, Josh. About being here for you now. I’m sorry about the last few… This time of year… it’s…’
‘It is what it is, Mum.’ I smile.
So does she.
FIFTY TWO
And so we get Christmas out of the way. We get through it. We get to the other side.
In the end, I do put Mum’s present under the tree. She wells up when she opens it, but that’s not unexpected. She gives me a really big hug that leaves a wet patch on my shoulder from her tears. But I think I left one on her, too.
The bags that I wasn’t allowed to look in contain, amongst other things, a new coat. I’m glad of this, as the sleeve of my old one, where I didn’t get all the blood out from the gashes in my hand, is starting to smell a little bit. My hand itself is healing well. As Nanna used to be a nurse, she offers to change my bandage on Christmas eve; both of the deep cuts have sealed well, she says. They shouldn’t scar too badly. The dissolvable stitches are still there, just about, sticking out of the pink flesh like jagged teeth.
At dinner, I’m watched very carefully as I sip a glass of wine. Mum, Nanna and Grandad talk a bit about having responsible, positive role models for alcohol, and that it shouldn’t just be a blanket ban. I feel a little light-headed by the time the Christmas pudding gets set on fire, and the smell of the brandy doesn’t help. Nanna’s been working on it for months, and she looks a little concerned when Grandad jokes about how much booze is in it. He slaps me on the back, and everyone laughs.
There aren’t many more laughs that day though. Mum is a little absent-minded, drifting in and out of conversations and staring out of windows. She wants to keep me close, and she keeps giving me hugs or brushing my cheek or finding fluff to pick off the arms of my Christmas jumper. Nanna and Grandad do their bit with reassuring hands placed on our shoulders whenever necessary. Apart from the big dinner that Nanna’s made – which is incredible – we spend most of the day watching TV, or old Christmas movies on DVD.
Grandad bustles me out of the house for a quick stroll through the crisp, blue air of early evening. There are a few kids wheeling around on what must be new bikes – not as many as there used to be, says Grandad – and we spend forty minutes or so stomping around, not really talking much before he lets me go back home, my new coat ‘thoroughly road tested’.
As the day darkens quickly and the evening draws in, we settle into our various contemplations in the lounge. I start stripping the tree of any chocolate I can find, Nanna and Mum both start reading their big, hardback novels they gave each other that morning, and Grandad starts flicking through a new version of The Gardener’s Yearbook, drawing circles with a pencil around new varieties of veg he might try. After an hour or so of this, I ask if he’s got any books about growing flowers. He looks confused for a moment, about to ask me – perhaps – why I’d bother with that and not vegetables. Then he gets out of his seat and goes to his study.
When he comes back, he drops a huge book into my lap that must weigh a couple of kilograms. I leaf through it, idly. Remembering what Dana said about the first flowers to come up in her garden, I flip to the index and look up the word ‘crocuses’. One of the pages that’s listed shows a small clump of leafless trees with tiny white and purple flowers growing out of the grass at their base. The caption reads stand of sycamores with snowdrops and crocuses: an early display for a woodland garden. The shapes of the small trees look familiar, but I’m not sure why.
Grandad’s still standing, looking over at me. He nods. ‘He’d like that, I’d say.’
But it’s the first time all day when I haven’t been thinking about Dad.
FIFTY THREE
The day after Boxing Day, we load the car up again with twice as much stuff as we came with. The thing I’ve been trying not to say or think about has wound itself around the bottom of my stomach, twisting it into strange shapes. Christmas distracted it, but now it’s back with force and not happy that it’s been ignored.
Back home again, Mum opens the front door and I stagger in with arms laden. The blue skies of the last few days had been giving way to cloud while we drove, and now it’s a race to unpack the car before the rain starts, bitter and cold.
A few trips each and we manage it, the first pellets of sleety drizzle landing against the kitchen window as Mum puts the kettle on. I take a few bags of my things upstairs, then take a seat at the kitchen table.
‘Something there. Your name on it.’
I pick up the care-worn envelope, see my name on the front, and open it. A Christmas card – sparkly, laughably ugly – falls out. It looks like something that’s been kept under a mattress for a decade or two.
‘Tasteful,’ says Mum. ‘Who’s it from?’
I open it. A simple message. Communicate on this from now on. A SIM card is sellotaped to the inside.
‘Dana. You know, that girl who came over to revise a while ago.’ I’m almost shocked at how easily the lie comes.
‘Yes, I remember. She seemed nice. Did you send her one?’
‘No.’
‘Well, maybe you should send her a New Year’s one.’
‘They don’t do New Year’s cards.’
‘No, I suppose not. Just kisses at midnight.’ Mum gives me a wink and takes her tea through to the living room.
*
In my room, I struggle against the panic taking hold. The face of the old woman in the charity shop looms up again; the feel of Vince’s boots against the side of my face; Carl. If I don’t plug this SIM into my phone and show I’m listening, ready, then something will happen like last time.
My hands are quivering as I unplug the battery, place the small plastic card in the slot. They’re shaking so much I drop my own SIM, and then hit my head on the edge of my desk trying to retrieve it.
It gets no better as I wait for the phone to turn on again.
Almost as soon as it does so, a new message alert pops up. It’s an invitation to join a closed group. I agree, and a wall of messages fills the screen. Everyone is identified only by phone number, and I guess that – like me – they’re all using SIMs that they’ve been sent.
I scroll through, but it’s just people greeting each other, just pictures and slogans.
I say ‘just’. I have forgotten why I ever found any of this funny. Cartoons of Nazis and concentration camps crudely drawn; short, looped videos of people crying in a way that’s supposed to sound weird and therefore funny. I’ve heard and seen enough people cry in the past few years to know that it’s never funny, that complete loss of control, the descent into such all-encompassing sadness that you lose any kind of grip on yourself and how you ‘should’ be acting.
After realising there’s nothing I need to do to keep up appearances, I write ‘Happy New Year’ and turn the phone off again, then swap the SIMs over. I place the new one – the secret one – carefully in the drawer of my bedside cabinet. Thinking of a better idea, I get some Blu-Tac from a poster on my wall and stick it to the side of the drawer, right in the back corner so you have to put your whole arm inside up to the elbow to get to it.
I tell myself th
at I’ll check it’s there every three days.
FIFTY FOUR
The problem of how to spend the next week and a half until school starts again is solved, in part, by a ring at the door the next day.
It’s Jamie.
Mum invites him in and he swings along the hallway on his crutches, giving me a quick and unfixable look as I come down the stairs. He’s telling Mum that the cast will be off in a few weeks, and he’s had a lovely Christmas thanks, and that he wanted to talk to me about something if that’s OK.
‘Of course, I’ll leave you to it.’ Mum disappears upstairs.
‘Hi,’ I say, weakly.
‘My mum said I needed to get out of the house. I thought about not coming here, but then there I was, hobbling up to your door.’
‘Are you alright?’
‘Not bad. This thing comes off soon.’ He taps his cast.
‘I heard. Two weeks.’
‘Two weeks.’
We sit in silence for a while.
‘Did you have a good Christmas?’
‘I didn’t drop in for a polite but meaningless chat, Josh.’
‘No. Of course.’
‘That thing that happened a few weeks ago. That was really weird.’
‘I know.’
‘I can’t force you to tell me what’s going on. I don’t want another broken leg.’ There’s the faintest glimmer of a smile. ‘But I don’t know what to do. You weren’t exactly complaining about being dragged off, and—’
‘It wasn’t the best thing that’s happened to me either,’ I hiss, aware that Mum might hear us. ‘I didn’t know that was going to happen.’