The Mother of All Christmases

by Milly Johnson

  *

  Cariad didn’t recognise the mobile number but she answered it anyway. She had lovely manners; even when market research people rang her at unsociable hours, she always declined their services politely. She always thought that it must be a miserable job cold-calling and people wouldn’t take it unless they needed money very much, so she didn’t want to add to their misery.

  ‘All right, Cariad?’ It was Dylan. She wondered how he’d got her number, but she didn’t ask because she presumed her flipping uncle had given it to him.

  ‘Hello, Dylan, how are you?’

  ‘I’m good, I’m good. I thought you might like to go to the pictures on Friday night. There’s loads of new films out.’

  Cariad winced silently. She wasn’t convinced anymore that she and Dylan would be able to go out as friends. He was always staring and smiling at her and, as nice a boy as he was, she didn’t fancy him at all. Plus she’d heard on the grapevine from Myfanwy that it was common knowledge that he’d taken a shine to her.

  ‘Ah, the thing is, I’m flat-hunting this weekend . . .’ she began.

  ‘Oh go on, Cariad. Just as friends. Get your Uncle Effin off my back, will you?’

  Uncle Effin. He was a nightmare. She was busy at the moment trying to find somewhere to move to. Her Uncle Effin had said she could stay at the cottage for as long as she wanted until she found a place but she’d declined his offer. She had the feeling she might strangle him if she had to stay in the same house with him banging on about how she and Dylan would make a good pairing.

  ‘I don’t think so, Dylan. I’m a bit busy.’ She felt rude turning him down but she didn’t want to go.

  ‘It’s only a film, Cariad. I’ll pick you up and take you back home safe.’ The pleading in his voice was making it even more difficult. She felt guilty now as well as rude.

  ‘I don’t . . .’

  ‘You can pick the film and I’ll pay. I’ll even buy you popcorn. Oh, go on, Cariaaaad. Then I’ll be able to tell your uncle that we aren’t suited to each other after all. He won’t take no for an answer.’

  That sounded like her uncle all over. The emotional blackmail worked. Against her own wishes, Cariad found herself saying. ‘Okay, I’ll go, Dylan. Thank you for asking me.’

  *

  In the time it took for Annie to pull some money out of the cashpoint, she’d calmed down considerably. That man. He’d even managed to taint Palma through association, and that was unfair. She knew that Palma came from the rough end of the town but she hated him so much that she did not want to have any connection with him whatsoever, not even through a third party. She got back into the car, shutting the door harder than she meant to, as if she was venting her spleen at her young passenger and felt immediately bad for that.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you, Palma. I had no right.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Palma with a tentative smile. ‘Clint has that effect on people.’

  ‘A friend of yours, is he?’ Annie put the key in the ignition but she needed a couple more minutes before she had cooled down enough to drive.

  ‘God, no. He’s one of the reasons I couldn’t wait to leave Ketherwood.’ She didn’t tell Annie the lengths she’d gone to in order to be able to do it though.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s rotten,’ said Palma. ‘He’s a user. In all senses of the word. I would be quite happy if I never saw him ever again. What did you mean about adopting?’

  Annie let out a long, tired sigh. ‘Six years ago, we had passed through all stages of the adoption process. We were in line for taking in two beautiful little girls, aged one and two. We had the room for them decorated and the week before they were coming to us, we went out for a meal. There were no spaces near the restaurant so Joe dropped me at the door because I had high heels on, and he parked a few streets away. When we came out, he went to get the car and I waited for him on the pavement and . . .’ Annie’s eyes narrowed as if she could see Clint in front of her ‘. . . that thing came from nowhere and ripped my handbag from my shoulder. And I didn’t let it go, like I should have, let him have it. Instead I tried to hang on to it and Joe arrived and jumped out of the car. O’Gowan ran off and Joe ran after him; he used to box so he knows how to land a punch. O’Gowan would have got clean away if he hadn’t tripped.’ Annie sighed heavily once more. ‘Joe tore into him and suddenly people came running out of the restaurant trying to drag Joe away. O’Gowan was covered in blood, insisting on an ambulance, the police. Joe was arrested. There was CCTV footage but only from outside the restaurant and all that showed was O’Gowan running with Joe in pursuit, falling and then Joe full-on battering him. Joe ended up in court. O’Gowan said that he’d only bumped into me and because I was drunk, I’d thought he was trying to steal my bag and that Joe was a maniac and he was terrified. I wasn’t drunk, I’d had half a bottle of wine and I was merry and happy, but I wasn’t drunk, Palma. Joe got a suspended sentence for assault. My Joe, my lovely gentle Joe. And the adoption was stopped.’

  Annie’s face dropped into her hands. Even now, after all these years it still hurt. The sunny back bedroom in their house had been redecorated and was now an office, but Annie could still see the seaside wallpaper with the mermaids and the crabs and fish and the sand-coloured curtains covered with brightly coloured starfish in her mind.

  Palma had been sixteen then. She remembered hearing about Clint being put in hospital by some bloke. He’d knocked out one of his own teeth in the toilet there, apparently, to make himself look worse. He’d had his tooth fixed and it had been knocked out again a few months later by someone else.

  Annie felt the warmth of Palma’s hand on her shoulder.

  ‘It was my idea to go out that night,’ said Annie, wiping away a couple of stray tears with the heel of her hand. ‘Joe wanted to stay in and cook for us but I insisted. I thought it would be a nice treat for us both. If only I’d listened to him.’

  ‘How could you have forecast that?’ asked Palma.

  ‘It almost split us up,’ said Annie. ‘It didn’t, but it nearly did. I’ve asked myself over and over so many times why didn’t I let my handbag go? There was nothing in it but make-up and my purse. I could have stopped my bank cards easily . . .’

  ‘It’s in the past,’ said Palma, searching in her handbag for a tissue for her. ‘You can’t change it and now you’re having your own baby. Let it go, Annie. Don’t let him spoil things for you again. He’s a vile human being and he will get his come-uppance one day.’

  Annie took the tissue and blew her nose, then started up the car.

  ‘I used to be a believer in karma, love, but I’m not anymore. Not since that happened to us.’ She slipped into first gear and they were away.

  Chapter 32

  Palma walked into work and straightaway saw the potted pink miniature rose plant on the table in front of her seat. She’d taken the bus in today because she had a dentist’s appointment first thing. She told Annie she’d make up the time in her lunch hour and Annie told her not to be so daft. She knew that Palma was doing all sorts of things for them at home such as updating the website and setting up social media accounts.

  ‘Happy Birthday, Palma,’ called Annie and Iris in unison and then Joe emerged from the kitchen with a glass of Ribena with a lit sparkler in it. Palma hooted with laughter before gulping back a ball of emotion that rose to her throat.

  ‘Blow it out and make a wish,’ ordered Joe. Palma did as he asked and silently, as a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday to you’ erupted from her workmates, she wished the first thing that came into her head: that Annie and Joe’s baby would be born fine and healthy without any troubles. She didn’t save the wish for herself.

  When she pulled out her chair from under the table, she found the three envelopes sitting on it and smiled. She hadn’t expected anything today from anyone. The sort of people she’d cut loose from weren’t the birthday-card-sending type unless there was an ulterior motive to it. Nicole had bro
ught her a card last year as a pretext for hitting her for a loan she had no intention of paying back. But somehow, she didn’t think that these cards would have that purpose.

  ‘Hurry up and open them,’ said Iris with impatience.

  ‘Give me a minute to get my jacket off, Iris,’ Palma tutted, good-humouredly.

  The first card was from her. A square arty one of a little blonde girl with a black cat on her knee.

  ‘I thought she looked like you might have when you were a kiddy, before the pink hair,’ said Iris.

  ‘She does,’ said Palma, ‘thank you, Iris.’

  Palma had never had a pet, apart from a goldfish that she’d won at a fair once. By the time she’d found something to keep it in, her mother had flushed it down the toilet, telling her it had died. It had stuck in her mind as the first time she felt a deep, resentful wave of hatred for her mother which scared and upset her for both its disloyalty and ferocity. One day she’d have a cat; a black one would have been her first choice too. The old lady next door to them in Hanson Street had one that used to sleep contentedly in her front window and Palma used to think that it had a more comfortable life than she did. The second card was from Annie and Joe and featured a woman in a deckchair, hat over her face as she relaxed in the sunshine.

  ‘That’s lovely, thank you,’ said Palma. She’d found an old stripy deckchair in the small shed in her back garden. If the sun carried on shining, she would get it out this weekend and emulate that picture, minus the hat. She opened up the third envelope, wondering who this one was from, and her eyes lit up when she pulled out the card inside.

  ‘A pamper voucher? Wow.’

  ‘From us all. There’s a list of all the treatments. They do a lovely Indian head massage there. And you can have a hairdo and a manicure. Or something else if you prefer,’ said Annie.

  ‘Hot stones,’ said Iris. ‘That’s my favourite. Doreen Turbot got me into those. They dip stones into warm oil and run them over your body. It’s better than sex with Sasha Distel.’

  ‘I’m speechless,’ said Palma, grinning, though she had no clue who Sasha Distel was. ‘This is lovely. Really, thank you so much.’ She wasn’t sure that she’d have a massage. She wasn’t sure about having a stranger’s hands on her, but she’d think about it.

  ‘Right, now get to work,’ said Joe, cracking a pretend whip.

  ‘How were your teeth?’ asked Iris.

  ‘Fine, I only need a scale and polish,’ said Palma, getting straight into making up the flat pile of waiting crackers.

  ‘Typical,’ huffed Iris. ‘Just when you’re entitled to get it free, you don’t need anything doing.’

  ‘You’ve got lovely teeth, Palma,’ said Annie.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Palma. She’d always looked after them. She wasn’t sure she could ever go out with anyone with horrible teeth. Tommy had nice ones. Tommy Tommy Tommy. Why was her brain insistent on trying to bring his name up all the time.

  ‘Some of them people on Jeremy Kyle,’ said Iris with a shudder. ‘They wouldn’t know one end of a toothbrush from the other.’

  And they stuffed crackers and talked about Jeremy Kyle contestants until they broke for lunch: sandwiches from Bren’s Butties and a chocolate birthday cake from the kitchen of Joe and Annie Pandoro.

  *

  Effin was grinning like a village idiot as he walked into the ice-cream shop and Cariad didn’t need to ask why. Dylan must have told him that they were going to the cinema together that night.

  The park was quiet and there were no customers so Cariad was cleaning the insides of the windows. She didn’t like to stand idle.

  ‘Fancy serving your old uncle some of his favourite, then and telling him all about what’s happening?’ He squished himself up into an excited little ball, making Cariad want to throw the bottle of Windolene at him. Instead, she washed her hands and picked up her scoop and plunged it into the chocolate and cherry without saying a word.

  ‘What’s up with you, Cariad? You’ve a face on you like thunder. I told your Auntie Angharad and she said—’

  ‘She said, keep your nose out of it, Effin Williams. That’s what my auntie would have said,’ cut in Cariad. The look on Effin’s face said that she’d hit the nail on the head and the lie he’d been going to tell died on his lips.

  ‘I said I’d go out with Dylan once, to see a film. Don’t start buying a suit for the wedding, Uncle Effin, because it’s not going to happen.’ She slammed the glass sundae dish down in front of him and he jumped a little in his seat.

  ‘Dylan’s dad Brynn was my best friend for years, did I ever tell you?’ said Effin, loading ice-cream onto his spoon.

  Cariad sighed. ‘Only a few million times.’

  ‘Oh, I had a lovely childhood.’ His eyes took on a dreamy cast as his imagination whisked him back to the day when his one true love – Angharad Hughes – had reached for his hand at St Clydwyn’s Sunday School during an Easter Lord’s Prayer.

  Cariad rinsed the scoop and picked up her cloth again. Her uncle was clearly deep in the warm pool of his idyllic past. She might as well not have been there.

  ‘My mam and dad always felt a bit sorry for Brynn. His mam had buggered off and his dad was a coc and my mam bought more clothes for him than his own family did. He never seemed to have a lot of luck and then he met Dylan’s mam Lin and it was like all his Christmases come together at once. Oh, she was a beauty was Lin. Tall and dark, just like Dylan.’ Then his smile faded and he said, without meaning to, ‘Poor Brynn.’

  Cariad knew, because Uncle Effin had told her quite a few times, that Lin had run off with someone else and left Brynn to bring up Dylan. But he must have done a pretty good job of it because everyone liked Dylan. And Cariad couldn’t understand why he was single because he was a hell of a looker. She could appreciate that, even if he didn’t float her own particular love boat. She almost wished she did fancy him, but she didn’t and you couldn’t force affections to go where they didn’t want to.

  Then Davy MacDuff opened the door and barged into both the café and Effin’s reverie. His voice carried urgency.

  ‘Effin, can you come quick, there’s a problem with the train. Thomas has been ringing and ringing you.’

  ‘You watch your tone with me, boy,’ said Effin, patting around himself for his phone. ‘Where’ve I put my bloody mobile?’ His frustration told in his grumbling tone. It wasn’t like him to have mislaid it and Cariad knew that.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt you, Cariad,’ said Davy, sweetening his tone, which infuriated Effin even more than he was already, being shown up as off the ball by the haggis.

  ‘That f . . . bloody train. It’ll be the death of me,’ said Effin, giving Davy a murderous look as he swept out of the door past him.

  ‘Have a good time tonight, Cariad,’ said Davy to her and it was her turn to look murderous then. Was there anyone who didn’t know she was going out with Dylan Evans that evening?

  Chapter 33

  Palma treated herself to a Chinese takeaway that night. There was a lovely one around the corner – The Great Wall of China – where they served up your food in cartons, like in American TV shows; and somehow it tasted extra delicious that way, especially if you ate it with chopsticks. She devoured the lot and realised that was the first time in ages she’d finished a full meal. She was twelve weeks pregnant now and had enjoyed two full days without any queasiness. Her orange chicken and egg fried rice had pressed all the buttons, and for dessert she’d had half a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had anything orange-flavoured before she was pregnant as it wasn’t high up on her favourite tastes list, but pregnancy had sent her daft for it.

  She was giving the cardboard cartons a swill with water before putting them in her recycling bag when there was a knock at the door. A knock she thought she recognised. A jaunty postman’s knock: der-dum-der. It couldn’t be. She went cold and hot at the same time. She wished she had the advantage of her bedsit window where she c
ould spy on, unseen, whoever was standing on her doorstep.

  She slid the chain on before opening the door a sliver, just in case it wasn’t who she thought it was. She saw the flowers first: pink and yellow wrapped up in yellow tissue. Then her eyes flicked upwards and met with Tommy Tanner’s.

  *

  Dylan picked up Cariad at six. He looked smart in a half-zipped black top and jeans and handsome with his soulful brown eyes and his thick dark hair which was the sort that women might want to rake their hands through. Other women – not Cariad. He opened the door for her like a gentleman both when she got in the car and when she got out at the other end. There was a bar in the cinema and Dylan bought them both a drink and two tubs of caramel popcorn. Cariad picked a Tom Cruise film because she didn’t think it was fair to make Dylan sit through the musical she really fancied watching. He insisted on paying for the tickets and Cariad had to concede, though she didn’t like it, because it made it feel as if she was on a date rather than a mates’ outing where they’d have gone Dutch. Halfway through the film he reached for her hand and captured it and held it and she wanted to pull it away but felt mean. Her mind fell away from the film, she just wanted to go home. She felt annoyed with him that he’d persuaded her to come out under false pretences, but she was more annoyed with herself that she hadn’t stood firm and said she didn’t want to go to the flipping cinema, because she’d suspected all along that this was what would happen.

  *

  ‘Come in,’ said Palma, after Tommy had pushed the flowers into her hand without saying anything more than, ‘These are for you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Had he remembered her birthday? How could he have known? The answer to that came after he walked in and saw the two cards on the mantelpiece, either side of the pink rose plant.