by Liz Davies
Dear God, there must be more to life than this.
Sod it, now he’d gone and depressed himself, just when he was enjoying his stolen day, too.
Desultorily, he clambered out of his car, shutting the door with a soft thunk, and dawdled over to the entrance, clutching his newspaper. He deliberately left his phone in the car. Work shouldn’t be bothering him anyway, not when he was ill, and if Kate called him, she’d assume he was in a meeting or something. His mother, if she wanted him, would have to wait. There was no life or death situation he could think of that would require his input. She could decide for herself whether she cooked anything for dinner – she didn’t need his approval. Although, when she’d suggested cooking the lamb (dear lord, that lamb... it had been almost farcical), she’d been lining her ducks in a row, so if Kate had made a fuss, his mother could have legitimately claimed that Brett had agreed for her to cook it. His mother could be a wily old girl at times.
After ordering a hot chocolate (it was Christmas, after all) and a mince pie with a dollop of cream, Brett selected a table and shook open his newspaper, immersing himself in the goings-on in the world. He usually read it from cover to cover when he got home from work, as a kind of escapism, while Kate watched a soap on TV, and it was strange to sit in a café and read it. He felt a little out of sorts, but in a good way. Christmas songs were playing softly in the background and twinkly lights had been strung everywhere. With the enticing smell of coffee, and the alluring scent of spices from the stand of candles and oils just by the café entrance, he was starting to feel a teensy-weensy bit Christmassy. The festive season had failed to touch him at all so far this year, but taking the time to relax and soak in the atmosphere today was doing wonders when it came to ridding himself of the bah humbug frame of mind he’d been in. It was a bit cheesy that he had to sit in a garden centre café to experience it, but he’d grab it anyway he could.
‘Would Father Christmas please come to Santa’s Grotto,’ a nasally voice said over the tannoy.
Oh, he used to love taking the kids to see Santa. Yes, it might be overpriced and rather tatty, but his children hadn’t thought so at the time. He vividly remembered Ellis’s little face one year. She couldn’t have been more than four – old enough to understand that Christmas meant magic, unbearable excitement, and presents, but not too old for doubt and disbelief to have started to creep in. She’d been fully immersed in the experience, telling Santa what she wanted in her high-pitched lisp (which she’d grown out of), her face alight with wonder and joy.
However, by the time Sam was four, Ellis had been ten, going on twenty, and Kate had been forced to bribe her not to tell Sam the truth about Father Christmas.
The magic didn’t last long, and that made him feel incredibly sad.
‘Would Father Christmas please come to Santa’s Grotto!’ The voice over the tannoy was beginning to sound a little desperate.
Brett checked the time. It was nearly midday, to his surprise. He’d been sitting in the café for almost two hours, enjoying his quiet, uninterrupted perusal of the paper and soaking in Christmas spirit, like osmosis, almost against his will.
He’d better fetch himself another drink, if he didn’t want to be kicked out. It was lucky the café wasn’t busy yet, the lunchtime crowd of pensioners only just beginning to trickle in.
He didn’t want or need anything else to eat or drink, but if he wanted to remain here, he’d better had; because there wasn’t anywhere else he could think of to go. If it was summer, he could have driven out to one of the villages by the river and taken a stroll, but a dismal December day didn’t lend itself to gentle strolling, especially along muddy river banks while wearing a pair of brogues.
As he queued for a coffee, he glanced over the low partition, dividing the café area from the Christmas tree and lights area. The whole thing had been quite artfully done, the garden centre using the display of trees, figures, and lights which were for sale, to make a magical forest path leading towards Santa’s Grotto. Already there were a number of small children squirming impatiently, accompanied by their equally impatient parents, as they waited for the big man himself to put in an appearance.
Make the most of it, he wanted to tell those harassed mums and dads (although the few grandparents who were in the queue appeared to be rather more serene) – this magical stage of belief and trust wouldn’t last long. In far too short a time, those same children would be refusing to be seen in the company of their parents, and questioning the commercialism of the whole thing, while happily accepting every present they were given as long as it was something they’d asked for.
Brett, for all the hard work those early years with his children had meant, wished with all his heart he could turn back the clock to a time when Christmas was filled with happy, shiny faces, and squeals of unadulterated joy.
‘Please, Father Christmas, you are needed at the Grotto.’ The voice sounded desperate, and Brett grimaced.
Poor little kids. Poor parents too, if Santa didn’t show up.
He paused. Without thinking too hard about it, he darted out of the queue and headed for the customer service desk.
‘What’s happened to Santa?’ he asked when he got there.
‘There’s been a slight delay, sir, but if you return to the Grotto, I’m sure it won’t be much longer. Tell your little one, that one of the reindeer is poorly, or something. We’ll get Santa to his Grotto as quickly as we can.’
‘You don’t have a Santa at the moment, do you?’
‘As I said, sir, I’m sure it won’t be much longer.’
‘I’ll be Santa, until the real one shows up,’ Brett offered, in a rush, then realised he sounded a bit deranged. ‘I mean, until the man who is supposed to be Santa arrives. I don’t honestly think Santa is real.’
The young man behind the counter eyed him dubiously. ‘I’m not sure that would be allowed—’ he began.
‘Go and check,’ Brett said.
The two of them locked eyes, and Brett saw suspicion in the other man’s, and abruptly understood why. Oh dear...
‘Never mind,’ Brett said. ‘I can see how this looks, and I’m sorry. It’s just that I remember when I took my kids to see Father Christmas and how their little faces lit up. I just didn’t want those children,’ he waved an arm in the general direction of Santa’s Grotto, ‘to miss out. But I can understand your caution – you can’t just let any old Tom, Dick, or Harry waltz in and play Santa.’
Shoulders slumped, as much from disappointment as embarrassment, Brett turned away.
‘Wait a sec,’ the young man called after him. ‘I’ll have a quick word with my manager.’
Brett wasn’t sure he wanted to play Father Christmas, after all. He clearly hadn’t thought his impulsive offer through, not imagining how it might look to have a total stranger rock up and offer to haul small children onto his knee. These days, one couldn’t be too careful. He just hoped the sales assistant wasn’t on the phone to the police right now, reporting him for—
‘That’s a very kind offer,’ a woman wearing a sweatshirt with the garden centre’s logo on it said, bustling up to him with a sheaf of papers in her hand. ‘Fortunately, Santa has just arrived – his car wouldn’t start, or should I say, sleigh?’ She laughed. ‘If you’d like to be considered for next year, you can fill in an application form.’ She held out the sheaf of papers. ‘Of course, any offer would be subject to the necessary pre-employment checks, and for this role you’d need a valid DBS certificate, too.’
‘DBS?’
‘Disclosure and Barring Service. It’s a criminal records check, as you’d be working with young children.’
‘Oh, I see. Thanks.’ Brett took the form automatically. He wasn’t exactly going to apply for the job (however much he thought he might enjoy it, being Father Christmas was a tad on the seasonal side), but he didn’t want to appear rude. However, it did give him food for thought, and he hurried back to his table and to the newspaper he’d left lying there.
These days not many jobs were advertised in it because most vacancies were placed online, but he had seen one thing that had caught his interest...
Chapter 22
Good-cheer-to-all-men didn’t extend to her children, her mother, her mother-in-law, or the bloody dog, Kate discovered when she stepped through the front door an hour or so later, the peace and contentment of her illicit day fading faster than a layer of cheap fake tan in a swimming pool.
It was the noise that hit her first, somewhat surprisingly considering it was still the morning side of noon and she hadn’t expected any of her offspring to have surfaced yet. Two different songs blared down the stairs, competing with the sound of Sam’s Xbox which sounded as though it was being played at full volume, and two sets of teenage female lungs screeched and bellowed, and they weren’t singing along to the records, either.
In among the caterwauling, Kate heard Helen trying to soothe the savages, but from her pitch, tone, and volume (almost as loud as her granddaughters) Helen wasn’t getting anywhere.
Accompanying the cacophony was a small dog’s frantic, high-pitched yapping.
‘What are you doing home so early?’ Beverley yelled in Kate’s ear, and Kate let out a resounding shriek.
‘God, you scared me,’ she cried. ‘What the hell is going on?’
‘From what I can gather, Ellis got up early – well, early for her – to meet some boy called Riley, only to discover that Portia had “borrowed”,’ Beverley made quotation marks in the air with her fingers, ‘Ellis’s new Christmas top and had managed to get something all down it. Ellis is accusing her of ruining her top, her day, and her life. Portia is telling her sister that the top looked awful on Ellis anyway and she was doing her a favour. I think the throwing of hairbrushes and other blunt objects was involved at some point. So, now they’re not talking to each other, and to reinforce the point that they’re not speaking they’ve turned their music on and are playing it at full blast, while still screaming at each other.’ Her mother toddled back into the living room, saying, ‘Oh, and Sam was upset because they woke him up, Pepe seems to like singing along to one of the records, and Helen is sticking her pointy nose in, as usual. There, I think that covers it.’ She sank into a chair and picked up her knitting.
‘Right, er, thanks for the update,’ Kate said faintly.
The noise grew louder as Ellis opened her door (Kate recognised The Wombats blaring out of her eldest daughter’s bedroom) only for her to quickly slam it shut again so hard it made Kate’s teeth rattle.
She sighed, and debated turning on her heel and going into work after all. Anything was better than being roped into this drama.
Shit, too late. Helen had spotted her from the top of the stairs.
‘Oh, Kate dear, thank God you’re here, I’m worried one of them will kill the other,’ Helen cried, dramatically.
Kate had the vague, unmotherly thought that it would certainly be one solution... ‘Shall we take bets?’ she replied flippantly. This was nothing compared to some of the humdingers she’d witnessed over the years.
‘I don’t know how you can take this so lightly,’ her mother-in-law said, raising a wilting hand to her brow and making her eyes roll as if she was about to faint.
‘Easily,’ she said. ‘It’ll calm down in a minute.’
‘I do hope so, because it’s not doing my head or my nerves any good. I think I might have to lie down.’
Good luck with that, Kate thought – the spare room was sandwiched between Portia’s (The Chemical Brothers at ear-splitting volume) and Sam’s (the sound of Fortnite’s gunfire was of epic proportions) bedrooms.
‘Your mother isn’t helping,’ Helen stated when Kate didn’t respond. ‘All she does is sit in that chair and knit. I don’t even know what she’s supposed to be making; it looks a shapeless mess.’
‘Oi! I heard that, and for your information it’s a jumper,’ Beverley yelled above the noise.
‘Not a very good one,’ Helen shouted back.
‘At least I can knit, and I don’t spend my time poking my nose in and interfering,’ Beverley retorted.
‘At least I’m trying to do something.’
‘You wanna try a bit harder, then, because from where I’m sitting you don’t appear to be doing a very good job.’
‘All this is making me ill,’ Helen announced.
‘Never mind what it’s doing to you, look what it’s doing to poor Pepe.’
“Poor Pepe” was bouncing around the hall on stiff little legs, yapping excitedly and seeming to be enjoying every second of it.
‘He’ll not settle for ages after this, my poor baby,’ Beverley cried.
‘Your poor baby has just shredded all the toilet roll in the family bathroom. That’s what I was coming downstairs to tell you. Please clean the mess up – I don’t see why I should have to do it,’ Helen said, all indication that she might faint having now been replaced with indignation and outrage.
‘Mum!’ Kate glared at Beverley. ‘Please can you make sure he stays in the kitchen. If he’s not having little accidents everywhere, he’s being destructive.’
‘He’s bored,’ Beverley said.
‘Why don’t you get up off your backside and take him for a walk?’ Helen suggested. ‘It might wear the little blighter out.’
‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’ Beverley retorted.
‘My son’s house is my business. I can’t believe you let Brett spend the last couple of nights on the floor when he’s got work the next day. How you can be so inconsiderate astounds me.’
‘You’re just cheesed off because I’m sleeping in Kate and Brett’s room. I don’t see you giving up your bed.’
‘Why should I?’ Helen was starting to lose her composure, her voice rising an octave or two. ‘I was here first.’
Kate put a hand to her head and massaged her temple. She didn’t think she could take another four days of this. Maybe she’d be better off in work after all. It was peaceful there; the only music would be the soft playing of Christmas carols, and no one shouted unless it was from out the back asking if anyone wanted a cuppa.
Yes, that’s what she’d do – she’d go into work and let this lot bloody well get on with it. She might be abdicating responsibility and she did feel rather guilty about it, but she honestly didn’t think she could take any more argy-bargy.
‘You’re only here first because you were told I was coming to my daughter’s for Christmas,’ Beverley was saying. ‘You made sure you turned up early just to get the spare room. Ha! Backfired on you, didn’t it?’
Kate looked at her mother’s smug expression, then looked at Helen’s furious one.
Then she looked longingly at the front door and uttered another deep sigh. She supposed she’d better begin sorting everyone out and she’d start with the easiest – the loo roll situation.
‘You’re nothing but a selfish old woman,’ she heard Helen cry as she marched up the stairs and into the bathroom.
She stopped. Dear God, there were tiny shreds of tissue paper everywhere. The poodle hadn’t just pulled all the paper off the roll, he’d annihilated every sheet. The bathroom looked like there’d been an explosion in a confetti factory.
She needed the vacuum cleaner for this, but before she had a chance to fetch it from the cupboard under the stairs, the wall of noise from Ellis’s room ceased and her daughter flung the door open.
‘Mum! Tell her,’ her eldest yelled, pointing a rigid finger at Portia’s bedroom. ‘I only bought that top last week, and she’s gone and ruined it. I can’t wait until I’m eighteen and can leave home!’
‘Where were you thinking of living?’ Kate asked, probably not the best response under the circumstances, but she was curious.
‘Anywhere! I don’t care!’
‘You’ve given this a lot of thought then?’
‘You’re no help, you always take her side. She’s always been your favourite.’
‘Ellis, I don’t hav
e a favourite child. Now, let me have a look at that top and see what I can do.’
‘Don’t bother – it’s ruined – and I wouldn’t wear it now anyway because it stinks of that awful perfume she wears. She smells like bubble gum. It’s hideous.’
‘I can pop it in the washing machine—’
‘I’m wearing this now,’ Ellis interrupted. ‘I haven’t got time to mess about, I’m meeting Riley in town.’ She pulled at the jumper she was wearing. ‘He’s seen this before – he’s going to think I’ve got nothing else to wear.’
‘Don’t be silly, he’s not going to think anything of the sort. He’s a boy. Boys don’t notice stuff like that.’
‘Riley does!’ Ellis wailed. ‘He’s different from other boys, he’s so sensitive and observant and lovely. If he breaks up with me because of this, I’m going to kill her.’
Okaaay, that was a bit extreme. ‘I’m sure he isn’t going to break up with you because you’re wearing a jumper he’s already seen you wearing,’ Kate began.
‘What do you know? You and Dad have been together since the dawn of time. It’s different these days. Boys care about personal grooming and stuff. Not like Dad.’ Ellis’s glance swept over her, and she heard her daughter’s unspoken, “not like you, either.”
Yeah, you wait until you’ve got three kids, a house and a job to sort out. You won’t care how many bloody times your husband has seen you in the same outfit, Kate thought. Some days she was lucky if she managed to drag a brush through her hair and find a matching pair of shoes.