The Mother of All Christmases

by Milly Johnson

  ‘Why has he called his beard Mehmet?’ asked Joe, bringing in a tray of mugs and winking at Iris.

  ‘He’s called Mehmet, not his beard, you pillock. And he’s half her age and a bit extra.’

  ‘People in Yorkshire are pazzo. Crazy.’ Joe was grinning and Gill thought he looked like a film star when his lovely teeth were on display. Even better than Rossano Brazzi.

  ‘She said she’s never had as much sex.’

  Iris made a choked sound.

  ‘It’s true,’ went on Gill. ‘Up against the wall, in the back of the car . . .’

  ‘You sound like Doreen Turbot,’ said Iris, referring to their mutual friend who had eventually married the love of her life forty-plus years after they’d split up. ‘When she first got back with Vernon, she’d have made Christian Grey blush.’

  ‘Mehmet chucks her round the bedroom by all accounts. He’s a bricklayer by trade.’

  ‘Give over, Gill Johnson. Geoff Capes couldn’t chuck Brenda Lee around the bedroom. She must be forty stone.’

  Annie was laughing so much she was almost crying now. Together Iris and Gill were the funniest double act she’d ever come across. The laughs would be thinner on the ground when Gill moved to the Costa del Sol. And she’d badly needed some laughter these past months as the door on her biggest dream was slamming shut in her face.

  ‘Mind you, I like Turkish food,’ said Gill, who would never have moved to a place with unfavourable cuisine. ‘We like a nice kebab. Chilli sauce and salad,’ and her tongue snaked out and licked her lips.

  Iris shuddered. ‘You don’t know what’s in those things. Pigeons, dead dogs . . .’

  ‘Oh, Iris, stop,’ said Annie, revulsion bleeding into her laughter.

  ‘It’s true. Me and our Linda watched a programme. They put all sorts in. Eyeballs, connective tissue, ground-up—’

  Annie’s hand clamped over her mouth as the contents of her stomach rose up inside her like a freak wave. She set off running to the staff toilet at a pace that would have had Flo-Jo trailing in her wake.

  ‘You mark my words, Joe. It’s that bug that’s going around,’ said Gill to Joe.

  Joe nodded. He hadn’t told Gill and Iris that Annie had thrown up quite a lot over the past couple of weeks and had totally lost her appetite. He didn’t tell them that he was very worried about her because that’s how it started with his mother and she too refused to go to a doctor because she was scared of what he would find. And when she eventually did go, it was the worst of news.

  Chapter 5

  Eve and Jacques were stealing some rare time to have a coffee in their office together, and Eve needed all the coffee she could get at the moment. They barely saw each other during the day at work because Jacques liked to be hands-on outside, especially now that the reopening of the park with its swanky new attraction was less than ten weeks away. Everyone was working ridiculously hard and stupidly long hours to get it all ready. It had been madness trying both to build the lagoon and extend Santapark in one single season, but they couldn’t stop now. Eve didn’t even want to think how much they were going to end up paying their staff in overtime.

  Jacques, Eve joked, was seeing far more of Davy MacDuff than he was her. Davy was an old friend whom he’d set on, forcing Effin to accept him into his workforce, which hadn’t gone down too well. Davy had been in Jacques’ military unit but he’d had difficulty adjusting to civilian life and had been through a rough couple of years. He’d needed a job and that’s where Jacques had been able to help. Davy was there with them now, summoned by Jacques, to check that he was settling in.

  ‘Are your digs okay?’ asked Eve, nudging a plate of biscuits over to him.

  ‘The digs are great, Eve, thank you,’ replied Davy, reaching for a Kit Kat. ‘Very comfortable. I’m grateful to you both for this, you know.’

  He said it every time he met with them. Jacques waved his words away. ‘You’d have done it for me if the situation had been reversed.’

  ‘Don’t kid yoursel’, pal. I wouldna have forced Effin on my worst enemy,’ said the big Scot, biting down on his biscuit. ‘He calls me “the haggis” and thinks I don’t know about it.’

  Eve hooted, but then Davy made her laugh a lot. She thought he was quite damaged when he’d arrived here a couple of months ago and he hadn’t smiled much or cracked any jokes back then, but the park had worked its magic on him already.

  ‘Effin’s bark is worse than his bite, trust me,’ said Eve. ‘He’s an absolute softie really.’

  ‘I’m not quite sure that he’s my greatest fan, but I’ll win him round with my Scottish charm in time,’ replied Davy, with an accompanying expression that implied he doubted his own words.

  ‘Maybe it’s a rugby thing,’ Eve suggested.

  Jacques added to that. ‘Effin is rather passionate about his rugby. One of his sons used to play for Llanelli.’ He’d picked up on the tension between the two men from day one, admittedly more from Effin towards Davy than the other way; but they were both good people and he figured they’d come to realise that from working together.

  ‘His niece is a striking-looking girl,’ said Davy after a slurp on his coffee.

  Jacques raised his eyebrows. ‘Now you are treading on thin ice. You might think you’ve been in a war zone, my friend, but that’d be nothing compared to what would happen if you made a move on one of Effin’s own.’

  Cariad ran the ice-cream parlour. She was twenty-two with long black hair, big brown eyes, a figure to die for and the sweetest nature. Effin guarded her like a giant Rottweiler.

  Davy threw back his head and laughed. ‘I might ask her out. I wouldn’t have to do anything to kill Effin if I did. I could stand back and watch his head grow purple and blow clean off his shoulders.’

  Eve was only half-joking when she wagged her finger and warned Davy to steer clear. She liked Davy but he’d eat Cariad alive. He was as worldly as she was innocent.

  ‘I think I’ve got under Uncle Effin’s skin a wee bit. I’m putting him off his game,’ said Davy. ‘I did hear that he seems to have been making quite a few mistakes since I turned up. I think he’s noticed the timing too and blames me for all the mishaps.’

  ‘Never. Effin Williams does not make mistakes,’ Eve argued. She wouldn’t have believed that.

  Davy held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. ‘Only what I heard on the Welsh-Polish grapevine. Don’t shoot the messenger, Missus.’

  ‘Oh, not you as well,’ groaned Eve. She’d been saddled with that nickname since the very early days of working with Effin’s men. They called Jacques ‘The Captain’ and she got ‘The Missus’. It was grossly unfair. ‘Anyway, what mistakes?’ She flashed a look at Jacques who was doing a terrible job of feigning innocence. ‘Jacques?’

  ‘Er . . . the S fell off the Santapark sign after Effin was supposed to have secured it.’

  Eve’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. ‘You don’t mean the massive S on the Santapark sign? The enormous heavy one that could have killed someone if it dropped from that height?’

  ‘Yes . . . that’s the one.’

  Eve made a strangled noise of horror. ‘Jacques, why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because I’m trying to save you from worrying about something that I’ve dealt with,’ Jacques answered her. ‘It fell, it didn’t hit anyone—’

  ‘Thankfully,’ Eve exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, thankfully, but all is calm, all is bright now,’ he carolled.

  ‘So what else has Effin been doing?’

  ‘Nothing really.’

  Eve wasn’t taken in. ‘The word “really” totally cancels out that “nothing”, Jacques.’

  Davy jumped in. ‘It wasn’t anything much, Eve. He’d filled up his spare fuel can with petrol instead of diesel. Nearly poured it in his car. Silly mistake. Happens to lots of people.’

  ‘Not to Effin it doesn’t,’ said Eve.

  She needed another coffee and they were out of milk. For the past few days she had been
so tired she wondered if she’d been bitten in the night by some strange bug that had delivered a dose of sleeping sickness and taken away all her energy. She’d drunk coffee after coffee in an effort to prop herself up but it hadn’t worked. Their quietly efficient assistant Myfanwy, in the office next door to the left, would have some spare. Effin had the office next door to the right but she wasn’t sure she wanted to see him at the moment.

  ‘Going to get some milk, I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ Eve announced.

  After Eve had closed the door behind her, Davy continued to stare at it as if he could still see her through it.

  ‘Sorry about the Effin thing. I shouldn’t have brought it up and caused that slight domestic.’

  Jacques shook his head. ‘Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have kept it from her.’

  ‘Eve looks tired,’ Davy went on.

  ‘I’ve told her, though I didn’t quite use those exact words because I’d like to keep my genitals intact,’ Jacques said to that. ‘But she won’t take any time off. I tell you, Davy, I’ll be glad when the lagoon is finished. It would have been easier to build a pyramid. The more natural you want something to look, the harder work it is.’

  Davy laughed softly. ‘She’s a great girl and you are so good together. I need a good woman, Jacques. I want some of what you’ve got. I’ll pass on managing the theme park but I’d like a place to call home and it’s braw around here. I’d quite happily settle and put some roots down, make a few children and hope the boys inherit my stunningly handsome looks.’

  Jacques smiled. ‘That’s the news I was hoping for. And its warmer than Glasgow.’

  They chinked their mugs together in a celebratory toast.

  ‘So when are you and your good lady going to start producing little copies?’ asked Davy.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Jacques. ‘One day. When Eve’s ready. I’d have them tomorrow but it’s not me that will have to carry them, is it?’

  ‘I might start sooner rather than later,’ said Davy, stretching the cracks out of his back. ‘Cariad MacDuff. Rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?’ and he narrowed his eyes mischievously.

  Chapter 6

  Déjà vu. That’s what they called it when you felt you’d been here before but hadn’t really, Palma mused as she stood on the doorstep of Stephen’s Hall, finger on the doorbell and about to depress. Except she had been here before, listening to the heated interlude between the Stephensons escaping through the front top window that didn’t close flush. The only difference was that the names were getting nastier. Tabitha and Christian were trading ‘c’ words this month, as well as ‘f’ ones. She could have rung the bell and cut it off but it amused her to listen for a while, to aurally witness the dynamics of their relationship. Then she wished she hadn’t, because this didn’t sound like a loving couple ready to accept a baby into their lives. Then again it could be argued that not having a baby was putting an undue strain on their marriage and as soon as she put one into their waiting arms, all their troubles would disappear. Her first thought had a louder voice though and she didn’t like that one bit.

  She pressed down on the button and the doorbell sounded, instantly freezing the battle within. Tabitha appeared at the door seconds later with her perfect swishy honey-blonde hair and trim fatless figure, welcoming smile pinned in place on her face but there were bags under her eyes that her thick layer of Clarins foundation and her Touche Éclat couldn’t disguise.

  ‘Ah, Pal-ma. Do come in. Fourth time lucky, I hope.’

  Same routine. No ‘would you like a coffee’, only shoes off, up the stairs and into the end bedroom, knickers off and wait whilst trying not to think about Christian jacking off to a dirty mag in the master bedroom with the ornately carved four-poster. She wondered what sort of publication would best work for him: one full of boobs, she guessed. Not hers, which were a respectable B cup, but huge ones like Tabitha’s. They were false, Palma knew, because she’d seen Tabitha in a vest top with no bra underneath and her knockers stuck out like twin zeppelins. They were far too big for her tiny frame, hard and unnatural-looking. Palma wondered how she’d convince people she could breastfeed with them, then stopped wondering because – again – not her problem.

  The familiar knock at the door. And in walked Christian with his baster.

  ‘Here you go,’ he said. ‘All nice and warm for you.’ He closed the door slightly to give them privacy. ‘I saved it up this time so there’d be plenty.’

  Palma tried not to retch.

  ‘Tabitha bought a kit from a witch on the internet,’ he whispered. ‘I reckon this is the batch that will do it.’ He pointed the baster at her like a magic wand distributing a spell. Which it would be, if it worked.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Palma, reaching out for it but he withdrew his hand.

  ‘If this doesn’t do it, we really will have to rethink the situation,’ he said, his voice low, faux-concern weighing down his groomed eyebrows. ‘Maybe if you want your money you should consider what I said. We can meet in private. Or your place. I’m only telling you this because she said that she might ask your man to find us another surrogate.’

  Palma’s heart kicked in her chest. She needed that money. She needed the baby in order to get that money. And she needed his sperm inside her to get that baby.

  Christian sighed in an almost apologetic way. ‘Look, would it be so bad if we gave her what she wanted so that you could get what you wanted?’ He waited for her response and when one was not forthcoming, his tone tightened slightly. ‘She’s already told me she doesn’t mind how it happens. Clichéd as it might sound, I really am thinking about you two more than I am myself in all this.’

  Did he really believe himself, thought Palma, trying not to react. He was so full of shit it had given him a false tan.

  ‘Let me get on with it,’ said Palma, wondering how he couldn’t hear her heartbeat because it sounded like a set of Def Leppard’s drums in her ears. He smiled, just out of one corner of his mouth, a smug, I-know-I’m-going-to-have-my-own-way-on-this smile that made her feel even more nauseous than the contents of the baster did. He knew that there was only one person stinking of desperation in this three-way agreement and it wasn’t him or his wife.

  *

  Palma felt different on the way home. She couldn’t put her finger on why; she even considered that it was mere wishful thinking, but she dismissed that because she did feel different. Sitting with her hips tilted and her feet resting on the Stephensons’ expensively textured wallpaper, she willed those little tadpoles to search out her patiently waiting egg and start the ball rolling. She needed this pregnancy to happen now. She needed her periods to stop, for her to start getting fat, for her to wait out the nine months and then puff, scream and expel the cargo so she could get on with her life and not look backwards. There would be no tears or sentiment when she gave up the baby. Kids didn’t feature in Palma’s plans.

  They shouldn’t have featured in her mother’s either. She didn’t see Emma Collins: they had no relationship, they’d never had one really. Palma had been born showing signs of drug withdrawal, that’s how much her mother had cared. Premature, jaundiced, needing a blood transfusion, Palma’s first days had been dramatic; she had to fight and at times it felt as if she’d been fighting ever since. Emma had two more children, both of whom were immediately given up for adoption – they’d been the lucky ones. It had taken social services until she was fourteen to remove Palma and place her into care and that was the last time she and her mother had seen each other. Neither of them had protested about it, and if that had taught Palma anything, it was that she wouldn’t have kids unless she were married to a kind man and living in a big house and able to afford nice things, which was unlikely but not impossible. The odds were weighted towards girls like Palma being trapped in a shit life; but those odds could be beaten. Nowhere was it set in stone that she had to end up as one of those who wore pyjamas 24/7 and existed between benefit payments. Taking advantage of a
dodgy opportunity like this would at least allow her to leave the sink estate where she’d been raised before it was too late. The end would more than justify the means: she’d repeated that like a mantra to herself over the past few months.

  It was peeing down with rain. Christian had offered to give her a lift and she’d refused it because she felt that being trapped in a car with him was a recipe for trouble; but it was falling like stair-rods now and she was soaked by the time the bus arrived. Once in the town centre, she had to catch the bus that dropped her off at the top of Edgefoot Hill because there was over half an hour wait for the Ketherwood Circular. She’d have to cut through the park, dark as it was, but she just wanted to get home the quickest way possible. If she stuck to the path where it was lit, she reckoned she’d be okay because it wasn’t exactly the weather for muggers.

  To be on the safe side, she positioned the keys in her hand so that the short one was sticking out from between her knuckles and would make a mess of an eyeball if someone decided to have a go at her. Not that there was anything worth nicking in her handbag, which was a secondhand leather one from the charity shop. Some bags cost as much as mansions; she’d read about it in a magazine in the dentist’s waiting room. Hers cost a fiver but was attractively fat from its contents: a purse containing a cash card and about twenty quid in it, a lipstick, plasters, comb, tissues, ibuprofen, a few sachets of salt and pepper, a carrier bag, notebook and pen, sewing kit and a metal nail file. She liked to be organised and prepared for all eventualities.

  As soon as she was home, she’d shut the curtains and watch the TV with the light off and pretend not to be in if Clint came round. He was getting impatient for his slice of the cake. He had suggested that he have sex with her to make it happen, in case Christian was a jaffa. God forbid that she’d bring an offspring of his into the world. Then again, six stupid bints already had.

  There was a couple ahead of her hurriedly walking a tall, slim dog with long legs and at the sight of them her defences could take a rest from their high alert status. The dog was wearing a smart belted raincoat – it was better dressed than she’d been as a kid. One of her earliest memories was arriving at school in a sopping wet cardigan and one of the teachers going home at lunchtime to fetch her an old coat belonging to her own daughter. Yes, it was possible to feel shame at primary school. The couple took the right fork in the path that led up to the back gates whereas she needed to keep to the left. The path was well lit but there were a lot of thick bushes flanking it; her hand tightened around her key, her pace quickened.