‘And so I already have,’ I tell her, busying myself whipping milk out of the fridge and unpacking groceries I stopped off for earlier.
‘You mean hide out here, all alone with nothing but the duvet, the telly and a bottle of Pinot Grigio for company? Same as last year?’
‘Can’t think of any better way to mark the worst day on the entire calendar, can you?’ I ask, face reddening a bit by now.
But Joy’s having absolutely none of it.
‘Sweetheart,’ she says, softening a bit now. ‘I know. Believe me no one knows more than I do how God-awful it is for you. But staying here all alone, yet again? It’s just not good for you, it’s not healthy. I’d be worried about you.’
I shrug lightly and act like I’m tossing the whole thing aside, though I strongly doubt that she really does understand. No one possibly could. And with no offence to Joy who only means well, particularly no one like her could ever understand, with two hale and hearty parents, three sisters and two brothers to eat with and drink with and row with and love. Just like family are supposed to at Christmas.
Family.
‘I’m just saying,’ Joy goes on, eyes not leaving me, not even for a second. ‘You know you’re more than welcome to spend the holidays with my family, that goes without saying. My folks would be thrilled to have you, as would all the gang. And I know it’s always a bit boisterous and rowdy, but at least it’s better than being by yourself, isn’t it?’
But that’s the thing though. And Joy knows it by now as well as I do myself.
‘Like it or not,’ I sigh, ‘I am all alone.’
There’s just the tiniest beat, like she’s weighing up whether or not she should say what’s really on her mind.
‘Not necessarily,’ she offers quietly.
‘Joy, please. Not this. Not again. And certainly not right now.’
‘I’m just saying, you can’t know that for definite.’
‘But I do know.’
‘You know I’d help you, if you ever decided to—’
‘Christmas,’ I interrupt her firmly, ‘is a time for family. If you’re lucky enough to be blessed with one, then good for you.’
‘But you could have … I mean you might still be able to find out exactly …’
‘Look. Whatever happened in the past, the fact is that now I’m alone.’
And the surest and safest way to get through C-Day, I’ve long learned, is to suffer it out, try and not inflict my company on anyone else and take comfort from the fact that in twenty-four short hours, 26th December will roll around and it’ll be all over for yet another year.
At least, that’s the plan.
*
Maybe it was the conversation with Joy and with Dermot earlier, but in bed that night it was like the Ghost of Christmases Past came back to haunt me.
25th December, 1990.
Thank God we lived in a flat-roof bungalow, that’s all I can remember thinking when Mum got up to her annual festive ritual again. She did this, year in, year out, and the seven-year-old me absolutely loved it, despite the whispers floating round the school playground.
‘… Everyone knows there’s no such thing as Santa Claus …’
‘But that’s not true! I’m telling you, I saw him last year! I waited up for him and about midnight, there he was, giant sack and all. He even took away the carrot stick I’d left out especially for Rudolf …’
‘Just listen to you, Holly Johnson. You’re off your head, that’s what’s wrong with you. Because there isn’t any Santa. It’s just your mam and dad doing it to try and get you to be good over Christmas. You should see what my parents do every year to keep us believing. Sure last Christmas, my dad …’.
‘Shhh!’ I remember Sandy Curran, who we all used to nickname Sandy Currant Bun, hissing. Then an embarrassed silence while the penny dropped; that the words ‘dad’ or ‘parents’ were something not to be mentioned in front of me, as they all instantly remembered my own particular family situation. In fact, barring Jayne Byrne – a quiet-spoken girl in my class whose father had died the previous year – I was the only other girl who came from a single-parent family.
‘Sorry Holly,’ one girl grumbled reluctantly.
‘Yeah, me and all. I forgot.’
‘I didn’t mean to …’
‘It’s OK,’ I shrugged, realizing in the way that little girls of seven can, that my little family had been earmarked as different right from the get-go. Realizing it, though not having the first clue why.
‘Ho, ho, HO!!!’ was all I could hear from the roof of our little bungalow, in a woman’s impression of what a deep man’s baritone should be. Which was followed by footsteps, but God bless Mum, because she was so svelte and petite, by absolutely no stretch of the imagination could anyone – even a seven-year-old – possibly confuse those footsteps, with a rotund, fifteen-stone Santa Claus.
The trouble she went to just to keep Christmas magical for me, her only child. And I loved her for it, even though I hadn’t the heart to tell her all the disturbing rumours that had been circulating the playground ever since Halloween. Or about Beth, another girl in my class who was openly laughed at and ridiculed for ‘still believing’.
Then there were the snow prints on the living room carpet, leading a trail all the way from the chimney over to our Christmas tree and back again. To this day, I still don’t know how Mum even managed it. Papier mâché? Cotton wool? Back then, I was too young and thick to dig a bit deeper. And yet every Christmas morning without fail, there they’d be: real, live snow prints dotted all over our living room carpet.
Money was tight for Mum and yet still Santa never failed to deliver in style. A doll’s house that particular year, I remember. A little girl’s fantasy version of just what a proper Victorian doll’s house should be, right down to window boxes and plastic figurines in bonnets and corsets that you could move around inside.
‘You see?’ she said, beaming that wise, calm smile that’s imprinted on my mind to this very day. ‘Santa never forgets good children.’
It’s only looking back now that I realize how tough Mum must have had it really. She’d adopted me at forty-two, quite lateish in her life, certainly for the nineteen eighties, a time when women in their forties rarely had kids and certainly didn’t go adopting on their own. It was an extraordinarily brave thing to take on, then as now, and until I arrived I think she never really thought it would actually happen. I was, as she used to joke, ‘her little surprise’.
Right from when I started preschool, she was by far the oldest of all the mums waiting for us at the school gates. Not only that, but she was one of the few who worked full-time too; all the others seemed to have husbands who were the main breadwinners. Back then, right bang in the middle of The Decade that Taste Forgot, I can still see all the younger mothers, in shoulder pads with big hair and waaaay too much blusher, nattering excitedly about Talking Heads / Duran Duran / who was going to see Fatal Attraction that weekend.
And right there at the back, always at the back, Mum would be waiting quietly for me. More often than not, still in her nurse’s uniform of long blue trousers with a white top over them, navy woolly cardigan, flat, sensible shoes with her hair pulled back into a tiny bun. Neat as a pin, like always.
‘Is that your mammy or your granny?’ I remember one girl in my class innocently asking me. I never said a word to Mum about it, but I think she knew anyway. She knew by the way I hugged her tight that night and said, ‘I think you’re lovely … and not that old at all!’ She just knew, same way she always knew everything, mind reader that she was.
The subject of my birth parents was one she and I never went into, at least not until I was old enough to properly understand. Even though as a nosey kid I practically had the poor woman persecuted.
‘Molly in my class says you have to have a mother and a father to get born,’ I used to plague her, day and night, like a dog with a bone.
‘And Molly’s quite right,’ Mum would reply, bris
kly getting dinner ready, efficiently cleaning up any mess behind her as she went. Swear to God, our kitchen was cleaner than any hospital she’d ever worked in. You could have performed surgery right on our kitchen table, it was that sterile.
‘But then what happened to my real parents? Did they die? Like Jayne in school’s Dad did?’
‘Holly,’ she’d say calmly, barely looking up from the housework as if to reduce the enormity of where this conversation was headed. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that family is family and that all families are different? Sometimes you have a mum and a dad who aren’t able to bring up a child by themselves and sometimes you have someone like me, who’s on her own, but who wanted nothing more than a little girl exactly like you.
‘I wanted a child like you so badly, then you came along and you were like a miracle for me. It was December when you first arrived and suddenly there you were. My own personal little Christmas miracle.’
‘But Mum …’
‘… What’s really important,’ she’d add, stopping to affectionately ruffle the top of my head, ‘is that in our little family, no child could possibly be more loved than you.’
‘But where did my real mum and dad go?’ I persisted, with all the stubbornness of childhood.
‘Sweetheart, they didn’t go anywhere, and if you ever wanted to meet them, then when the time is right I’m sure we can. But here in our little family, there’s just the two of us: you and me. And if you ask me, we’re the best, happiest family you could ever ask for.’
Didn’t stop me from being utterly consumed with thoughts of my birth parents though, particularly when I was old enough to fully understand, and Mum told me everything. All about my birth parents, how ridiculously young they were when I was born, my biological mother nineteen and still in college, while my father was younger still, just eighteen and barely out of school. She told me how they’d no choice but to put me up for adoption.
But then before what happened I’d happily have battered down the Adoption Authority’s offices to track down my birth parents, wherever they were now, wherever life had taken them.
Whereas after, I gave up even caring. The only family I’d ever had was gone, so what was the point, I figured. After all, I’d been lucky enough to have the best parent anyone could possibly have asked for.
And that, for me, was plenty.
Chapter Nine
D-Day. Thursday. Date night.
I’m in News FM, but as it’s one of my ‘turn up for work even though I’m not getting paid’ days, I’ve got a secret, cunning plan to slip out of here about 4ish, grab a lightning-quick blow-dry, then race home to try on about twelve different outfits before fecking them all in a big mound on the floor as soon as I hit on ‘the one’.
But after years of toiling away in the doldrums, wouldn’t you know it? That’s exactly the moment when my whole career suddenly decides to go stratospheric. Afternoon Delight is just wrapping up for another day and I’m at my desk packing up so I can surreptitiously slip off unnoticed. Next thing, I’m cast into shadow as our presenter Noel, all six feet three of him – the brandy and port gut included – is suddenly towering over me.
‘Hey there, Holly,’ he smiles fake-sincere, in that man-of-the-people-I-feel-your-pain way he goes on. ‘Not in a mad rush off somewhere, I hope?’
I jump a bit, but then it’s pretty unheard of for Noel to linger round as soon as we’re off air. Ordinarily, he just skedaddles out of here the very minute the red studio light clicks off, then heads off to glamorous TV land for his far more salubrious night job presenting Tonight With … at Channel Six. In fact, we’re doing really well if we see or hear from him before the next day’s pre-production meeting.
Not to mention that this is the second time he’s deigned to single me out in the last week alone.
‘Ermm, well actually …’ I begin to say, but it’s a waste of my time as he just cuts right over me anyway.
‘Thought not, good,’ he says. ‘In that case, you can walk me to my car. It’s high time you and I had a bit of a talk.’
That, by the way, sounded like more of an order than a polite request, so with a ‘what the f**k?’ cartoon caption coming out of my head and on numb autopilot, I trail along in his wake. Hard though not to be aware of a lot of raised eyebrows from round the office, particularly from Maia Mars, who’ll doubtless start spreading rumours that I’m now having a hot affair with the boss right under everyone else’s nose.
I’m still utterly at a loss to know what this is all about and the two of us are all alone in the lift before Noel even acknowledges that I’m actually sharing the same airspace as him.
‘So then, Holly,’ he says just a touch patronizingly as he focuses on his own reflection in the steel metal lift door, then starts adjusting the thick clump of grey hair he’s so inordinately proud of from side to side. I can only guess to make it more camera-friendly.
‘I’ve been keeping a close eye on your work lately, you know, and I have to say I think you’re really doing a terrific job.’
‘Oh, well thanks, Noel,’ I somehow manage to stammer, still mystified but secretly thrilled.
‘That piece about long-distance online relationships last week? Pure gold,’ he goes on, still concentrating on his own reflection, like he’s about to be papped the minute he leaves the building. We reach the car park level on the lower basement floor and the lift doors obediently ping open for him.
‘Anyway, here’s the deal,’ he goes on, striding out of the lift and on through the icy-cold car park, as I struggle two paces behind him madly trying to keep up. ‘I think you’re long overdue a trial run out at Channel Six by now. You’ve worked hard and it’ll be good for us to try you out as a freelance journalist in TV land as well. You deserve a shot; you’ve earned it. So what do you say?’
A weak, watery ‘what?’ is all I can come out with, I’m so utterly flabbergasted.
Channel Six? Is that what he just said? A proper telly gig? And one that even pays me properly? Because this, well, this would be it then. This is a proper break for me. The big one, what I’ve been waiting for and working towards all this time.
‘Now I’m not in a position to offer you anything permanent, you do understand,’ Noel turns to caution me as we finally reach his car, an ostentatious boom-era, seven series BMW with all the bells and whistles on it you’d expect. ‘So it goes without saying that you’d still keep on working here at News FM too.’
‘Of course,’ I tell him, ‘I’d never leave the station high and dry like that.’
‘Good, good. Because all I can offer you right now is a try-out as a freelance researcher, nothing more,’ he goes on, car door open, hopping inside to the cushiness of the cream leather driver’s seat. ‘So, at most, we’re talking maybe one evening’s work per week on Tonight With … . I’m afraid, budget-wise, that’s as much as is on the table right now.’
‘Of course, I completely understand—’
‘I’ll monitor your progress closely and we’ll see how you get on from there.’
‘Ermm, well … that’s really great, Noel. And thanks.’
‘Human interest stories, that’s what you really excel in, Holly. Particularly stories that appeal to women. You know the kind of thing I’m after; you could do it in your sleep. You keep pitching good stuff and I promise I’ll keep broadcasting it.’
He closes the car door with an expensive clunk and zooms the tinted window down so he can keep on talking.
‘So what do you say then? Can I count on you?’
‘Oh God, yes! Absolutely!’ I tell him delightedly, with my head swimming. ‘Of course I’m in! And thanks so much for the opportunity … I’m just so excited about all this.’
‘Good, good, good,’ he says, waving away my gushing gratitude. ‘So that’s all settled then. I’ll call my exec producer and tell him you’ll be part of the team on a freelance basis. He’ll organize a security pass for you and then you’re in.’
‘Fanta
stic!’
‘And, by the way, you start tonight.’
‘Sorry? What did you say? Tonight?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. I’m a reporter down for this evening; out with the bloody flu, can you believe it? On the same day as the Government Budget? It’s one of the busiest days of the year for us, so it’s all hands to the pump. Anyway, I’ll see you in the studio, you know where Channel Six is. About 5.30 p.m. Just make sure you’re not late.’
And like that, he’s gone. Leaving me with my jaw dangling approximately somewhere around my collarbone.
*
The aforesaid exec producer, an incredibly hassled-sounding guy called Tony, calls me immediately afterwards. And so far, I think, so good. Tonight With … airs at 9 p.m., but the research team are needed in situ hours earlier, directly after the Budget’s been announced.
‘So … does that mean we’re free to leave at nine, as soon as the show goes live?’ I ask him, aware of just how bloody cheeky that sounds. On my very first day in a job where I should be trying to carve out my name, not skive off ASAP.
‘And why are you so anxious to rush off anyway?’ Tony asks dryly. ‘Prior engagement or something?’
‘No! Absolutely not,’ I lie, biting the words back and quickly reminding myself of just how much this gig means to me. ‘And I’m so sorry for even bringing it up in the first place.’ Then just so he doesn’t mark me down as a complete skiver, I hastily throw in, ‘Of course, it’s wonderful to get this chance to work with you all and I promise I won’t let you down.’
‘As it happens, I reckon I should be finished with you not that long after nine-ish,’ Tony sighs. ‘So I suppose you could slip off then, as long as nothing else comes up. But with live TV, you never know. It tends to be a bit of a roller coaster.’
Meet Me In Manhattan Page 7
