by Jason Ayres
This was just the beginning. She was only forty-three and this was her big chance to start over. For the first time in years, the future was something to look forward to, rather than fear.
Chapter Sixteen
December 1985
When Kay woke up on Christmas morning, all was well with her world.
Alan and Lucy had departed swiftly the previous day, stuffing what they could into three suitcases. Making sure they both handed over their keys, Kay took great pleasure in escorting them from the premises. They were arguing furiously as they left, blaming each other for the unexpected mishap that had befallen them.
They were both as bad as each other as far as Kay was concerned. If they fell out with each other, that suited her just fine, remembering that old expression, divide and conquer. He would be weaker without her to help fight his battles, that was certain.
Once they were gone, Kay set about removing all trace of them from the house.
She bagged up the remainder of their clothes in black bin liners and took them out to the garage. The same went for all of Lucy’s make-up and most of the toiletries, though she couldn’t resist keeping some of her posh Molton Brown stuff for herself. Alan had never allowed Kay to have expensive toiletries like that, so it was payback time for all his years of penny-pinching.
Once that was done she set to work cleaning the house from top to bottom. The thought of flakes of Lucy’s skin and bits of hair all over the house disgusted her, particularly when she discovered the shower tray clogged up with ginger pubes. She didn’t even want to think what part of her anatomy they had come from, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t her head.
The worst part was changing the bed. It obviously hadn’t been done for a while and Kay recoiled at the crusty yellow stains on the sheets, the source of which was obvious. It was a set of sheets that Kay had bought a couple of years before, but she really couldn’t face sleeping in them again, even after a boil wash. Stripped off the bed, they went straight in the dustbin, leaving Kay to replace them with a fresh set from the cupboard.
Remarkably, little had changed around the house in the nine months Kay had been away. It didn’t look as if Lucy had made the slightest effort to put her own stamp on the place. The vast majority of things, from the curtains to the towels, were just as Kay had left them. It took no time at all for her to settle back in.
At 4pm, just as it was getting dark, she heard a key in the lock and the front door opened. Her daughter was home.
It had been a while since Kay had seen Maddie, and her appearance had changed considerably. She had been going increasingly gothic over the past year or two, but it was still a shock to see her blonde hair dyed jet black, not to mention the tattoos and piercings she was now adorned with.
Things were awkward between them to begin with. Alan had called her daughter, as per Kay’s instructions, but Maddie was still struggling to understand the situation. Over tea and mince pies in the living room, they had a long heart-to-heart about the events of the past year.
Kay was careful not to slag Alan off, even though that was exactly what he had done to her. In her eyes, that was the worst thing any parent could do during an acrimonious divorce. She simply explained the situation as best she could. It transpired that he had done as Kay had asked and admitted to Maddie that the vile stories he had told her were lies. Clearly he was taking Kay’s threat to expose his illegal activities seriously.
Kay decided that it was time she was honest about a few things, too, including the truth about how she had lost her teeth. Yes, she had been foolish and shouldn’t have slept with a married man, but when she explained how crushingly lonely she had been, Maddie seemed to understand.
It seemed Kay hadn’t been the only one having a hard time of late. Maddie had a few tales of woe to tell about her somewhat underwhelming first term at university. These were problems that she had not felt able to discuss with Alan. Grateful to have her mother back in her life, she explained what had gone wrong for her at Durham.
Maddie had suffered a bad experience with another student who sounded remarkably similar to Glen. It seemed that making bad choices of men was something that Kay had passed down to the next generation. Empathising with her daughter’s problems, she shared the story of what had happened in her past, not leaving anything out, including the abortion. Thankfully, in Maddie’s case, she hadn’t fallen pregnant.
The wedge that Alan had driven between Kay and her daughter continued to melt away as they talked. There were more than a few tears and a little laughter, too. Most importantly, there were hugs. Mother and daughter were reunited at last.
In the evening, Maddie went out to catch up with her old school friends, advising her mother not to wait up. Remembering the boozy Christmas Eve pub crawls of her own youth, Kay imagined her daughter wouldn’t roll in until the early hours. This gave her a chance to relax and reflect on all she had achieved so far through her travels and where else she might like to go.
She had no intention of going to the pub tonight. She had only just got the house back, and whilst she didn’t imagine that Alan might try and return, she wasn’t going to risk leaving the place unattended just yet. Besides, she felt tired. The events of recent days had been quite exhausting, and she could really do with a quiet night in.
Now that she was back in the comfort of her own home, a night in would be a pleasure, compared to the confines of the cold, lonely flat. Enjoying the luxury of hot water again, she treated herself to a long, hot bath. Lighting some of her candles that were still on the bathroom windowsill, untouched during her long absence from the house, she sank down into water, relishing the warmth.
Soaking in the bubbles, she closed her eyes, indulging herself in a favourite fantasy or two, as she indulged a little of what she liked to refer to as “me time”.
After her bath, she sat down in front of the TV and cracked open a bottle of Baileys that Lucy had kindly left in the fridge for her. After coping with the tiny portable in the flat for months, the 50-inch screen seemed enormous. There wasn’t anything on it that she particularly wanted to see, it was just the usual festive tripe. Kay was sure that Christmas TV used to be much better when she was younger. She would find out tomorrow.
A programme counting down the greatest Christmas hits of all time provided mild amusement and provoked more than a little nostalgia. Long before midnight, she fell asleep on the sofa. Waking up around 1am, she took herself up to bed, noticing Maddie was not yet home. She quickly fell back into a deep sleep.
Now it was Christmas morning and a low sun was shining into her bedroom window. Getting up, she cast a look outside into the back garden. There was not even a touch of frost to be seen, let alone any snow. So that was another Christmas that had come round without so much as a sniff of the white stuff.
It was almost 9am. She had slept naked the previous night, realising when she got to bed that she had no nightwear. Unlike in the flat, where she had frequently slept in her clothes just to keep warm, it was lovely and warm in the house so she had no problem with sleeping au naturel.
Kay remembered bagging up some nighties when she had done her big clear-out, but they were in the garage. She wouldn’t have worn them, anyway. She might have been drinking Lucy’s Baileys, and washing her hair with Molton Brown shampoo, but there was no way she was wearing any of the bitch’s clothes.
Kay had only the clothes she had arrived in the previous day which meant she was going to have to brave a trip back to the flat. Most of the clothes she had at the flat were old and worn out, but they would have to do for now. She would go out get herself some new stuff as soon as the shops reopened after Christmas, but for this morning, perhaps she could borrow some clothes from her daughter.
Leaving the bedroom, she walked along the landing, enjoying the luxurious feel of the soft, cream carpet beneath her feet. Opening her daughter’s bedroom door, she peeked inside to see that Maddie was dead to the world, still half-dressed and snoring softly on top of her quil
t. She had clearly crashed out from a skinful the night before and probably wouldn’t wake up for hours yet.
Kay crept into the room and managed to find a baggy, black T-shirt, some socks and some underwear. These would do. She took them back to her own room and put them on, along with the pair of jeans she had worn the previous day. She knew there was no way she would have squeezed into a pair of Maddie’s, so they would have to do.
Fully dressed, she looked into the full-length mirror on the front of one of the wardrobe doors to see the angel looking back at her. Kay noticed that her reflection was wearing a truly horrible Christmas jumper with reindeers and red lights on it.
“Merry Christmas,” said the angel. “Like the outfit?”
“It’s hideous,” replied Kay.
“Well, you should know,” replied the angel. “You wore this on Christmas Day in 1996.”
“Don’t remind me,” said Kay. “Alan bought it for me and insisted I wore it all day. That’s one Christmas I’d rather forget.”
“Well, I think it’s fair to say you’re going to have a better one this year,” replied the angel. “I imagine it’s going to be a lot better than you were expecting before I came along.”
“I certainly am,” replied Kay. “I’m going to be having double the fun this year. With your help, I’m going to have two Christmas Days.”
“I thought as much,” replied the angel. “So, where are we off to? I’m guessing it won’t be 1996.”
“Definitely not,” replied Kay. “I was hoping you might help me pick a year, actually. I want to go back to a Christmas Day when I was a child. I can’t really distinguish one from another, so it’s hard to pick a particular year. I would ask for one when there was a proper white Christmas, but I’m pretty sure there has never been one, not one I can remember, anyway.”
“It depends what you mean by a proper one,” said the angel.
“I mean one when there are several inches falling on Christmas morning and you can go out and build a snowman,” replied Kay.
“Believe it or not, around here, you would have to go back to 1938 for that. There have been years more recently with the odd sleety shower, or some snow lying on the ground from earlier in the week, but nothing that fits your definition.”
“Forget the snow, then,” said Kay. “I just want to go back and spend the day with my mum and dad, and maybe my grandparents, too. They all died when I was a teenager, so it needs to be before then, but not too young. I’ve no desire to find myself wearing nappies. You can see into the depths of my memories, so can you reach inside and pick me out a good year?”
“I think I can,” said the angel, browsing through Kay’s past Christmas Days, including long-buried memories that Kay would struggle to recall by herself. “How does 1985 sound?”
“I would have been ten,” replied Kay. “That sounds perfect. Now, before you go, can I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead,” replied the angel.
“It’s about the future,” said Kay.
“You know the rules. I can’t tell you about the future.”
“It’s only a little thing, to do with what I said earlier about snow at Christmas,” replied Kay. “It’s just that I am so fed up with year after year watching TV ads and Christmas specials with everything covered in snow, not to mention all the decorations and cards. Then, when Christmas Day comes, there’s not a hint of snow this side of the Arctic Circle. I just want to know one thing. In my lifetime, will I ever see a proper white Christmas?”
“Wait until 2029,” replied the angel. “You’ll have more snow then than you know what to do with.”
“Well, that’s alright, then,” said Kay. “It’s something to look forward to.”
“You might not say that when the time comes,” replied the angel. “Have you ever seen that film The Day After Tomorrow?”
“That bad?” asked Kay.
“Yes, that bad,” replied the angel. “Still, don’t worry about that for now. It’s a long way off, just be prepared when the time comes. As for today, a return trip to 1985, wasn’t it?”
“It certainly was,” replied Kay. “Let’s get going.”
She swiftly found herself back in her childhood room, the same one she had recently woken up in aged eighteen. It had been summer then, but this time the room was dark, only the ladybird nightlight that had comforted her as a small child casting any light into the gloom.
Getting out of bed, she opened the curtains to see that it was still semi-dark outside. Her bedroom at the back of the house looked out across the playing fields where she had spent so many happy hours as a kid. The skies were clear and there was an orange glow on the horizon illuminating the branches of the trees which stood starkly, devoid of leaves, on the far side of the park. Sunrise was still several minutes away.
A single bright star, or maybe a planet, was still visible glowing brightly just above the trees in the semi-dark skies. It brought to mind the Star of Bethlehem.
She crossed to the switch by the door and flicked it on, lighting up her room which was quite different to the last time she had seen it. Now at an earlier stage of its evolution, the posters on the wall were pin-ups from Smash Hits of Duran Duran and Wham! The centrepiece was of A-ha, triggering memories from Kay of her first crush on Morten Harket.
The room was full of toys and books, which she couldn’t resist browsing through. Enid Blyton featured heavily on her bookshelves and she remembered how eagerly she had devoured The Famous Five and Malory Towers series at around this age. She picked one of the books now and began to flick through it.
Distracted by the unmistakable clink of coffee cups from the kitchen, she rushed downstairs, eager to see her parents. An hour later, after a family breakfast of bacon and eggs, the three of them were sitting under the Christmas tree opening their presents.
Despite the fact she had been here before, Kay’s presents were still a surprise to her. She couldn’t remember exactly what presents she had got in which year, and was able to guess very few from the shapes.
From My Little Pony to Spirograph, each one she opened brought back a special memory of its own. The delight on her face was possibly greater than it had been the first time around. It was the sheer nostalgic joy of it all that was filling her with happiness. The look was not lost on her parents, just as happy as she was as they watched their little girl’s face light up.
While Mum cooked the dinner, she and Dad played Mouse Trap, another new present. It seemed a lot more solid than the modern version she had bought more recently for her daughter. A lot of things had been redesigned over the years, thought Kay, and not always for the better. You couldn’t beat the classic designs.
When Dad headed off to the pub at midday for a Christmas drink, Kay flicked on the TV to find the bearded face of a youthful-looking Noel Edmonds grinning back at her from on top of the BT Tower. She wasn’t Edmonds’ biggest fan, but the nostalgia factor was compensation on this occasion, particularly when The Krankies appeared.
At 12.30pm her maternal grandparents arrived, two people very dear to her. She had loved visiting their big, old house in Yorkshire as a kid, with its roaring, open fireplace and outside toilet which froze over in the winter. They brought more presents, including Monopoly, which her grandfather claimed to be world champion at.
Dinner was meant to be at 1pm, but her dad’s tardy return from the pub meant that it was another half an hour before they were all sitting down around the table. The food was delicious, as her mother’s cooking always had been. She had a special way of making the roast potatoes extra crispy that no one else had ever bettered, including Kay herself. She must ask her the secret while she had the chance.
Throughout the meal everyone was joking and laughing, even at the awful cracker jokes which were one of those things, like air travel, which seemed unchanged by the passing of time. Kay made sure she savoured every mouthful of food and every moment of conversation while she was at the table, appreciating how lucky she was to be s
eeing these special people again this one last time.
By a quarter to three, they had all repaired to the living room in preparation for The Queen’s Speech. When her father switched the TV back on, she was able to catch the last few minutes of the annual Christmas edition of Top of the Pops, where Wham! were performing “I’m Your Man”.
“Ooh, I like him,” said her grandmother about George Michael. “Hasn’t he got lovely teeth?”
Kay had liked him, too; more than that, she had adored him. He had been her first crush, at the age of nine. It made no difference when his true sexuality was revealed many years later – her adoration never faded.
Now she was reminded of another Christmas Day, only a couple of years ago, when she had learnt of George’s death. It had been at the end of a year when The Grim Reaper had taken more than his fair share of the pop icons Kay had grown up with. The loss of George had hit her more than any of the others. It was as if part of her childhood had been taken away forever. Alan hadn’t cared, but then he never did, scoffing at her grief, saying she had never met him so why should she care? He never understood anything.
After The Queen’s Speech, her grandfather asked to turn over to ITV to watch the Bond film, then promptly fell asleep during the opening credits. While he snored away, Kay played gin rummy for pennies with her grandmother, who according to her had been a bit of a legend at the card tables in her younger days. She couldn’t have been that great because Kay always won, though she suspected that her grandmother let her.
At teatime, her mother put on a fabulous spread of cold cuts, pastries and other nibbles. It was way more food than five people could eat, but people always overcatered at Christmas. With no shops open again until the 27th, she had ensured that there would be plenty of food to keep the family going.
Kay took full advantage. This was one of the only occasions in her life when she could feast to her heart’s content and not have to worry about the consequences for her waistline. This didn’t go unnoticed by the family.
