by Annie O'Neil
The reality was, this Christmas was one to get through rather than one to be excited for. She had loads of cleaning and organising and unpacking to do and before she knew it, the month would be over, the new year would begin and then she could officially begin to love all the months every bit as much as she knew she was going to love living on Christmas Street.
That’s what she’d tell herself anyway.
As she drove past the shop owners turning their open signs to closed, she ran through her Moving Day Plan. Jess loved a plan.
Once she and the movers found her new house, she’d help them carry in her hodgepodge of possessions (half pillaged from her parents, half Ikea.) Helping would not only fill her with endorphins, it would reduce the hourly rate the movers were charging and, with no proper pay cheque coming in until end of January, she was keen to make savings wherever she could. Once the van was unpacked, she would pour the moving lads a celebratory mug of hot chocolate (already in a Thermos on the front passenger seat alongside a cardboard box with three mugs and a few other provisions), after which, she’d give them a jaunty salute and wave them on their merry way, at which juncture – hair freshly tousled, cheeks flushed with exertion – she’d close the door, lean against it and gaze at her new home in delight. The front doorbell would ring. She’d open it only to discover a deeply gorgeous (but not too gorgeous) neighbour standing there. His lightly distressed handyman coveralls would give glimpses of his lean, Diet-Coke-break body as his tool belt shifted sexily along his hips. He’d announce he was a builder by trade (or an artisan craftsman, she dithered on this point). He’d offer to help her put together any Ikea furniture she might have – a desk, a drinks trolley and a bed, which they would save for last. When they finished (merrily sharing life stories minus all of her humiliations of the previous year), the grandmotherly neighbour she imagined living on the other side of her terraced house would appear with a welcome basket filled with baked goods still warm from the oven.
On second thought, she’d scrap Diet-Coke-break neighbour and settle for granny neighbour and her basket of buns. She was woman enough to put her own rivets into her own sockets, or however it was you assembled a bed by numbers. She was a primary schoolteacher, for heaven’s sake. She’d once built an entire nativity out of loo rolls and glitter. Surely she could stick a few bits of wood and metal together. Had her self-confidence dropped that low?
Ooo! An Ocado van. Not so ‘out in the middle of nowhere’ after all. She made a quick mental note to text Amanda, her one remaining teacher friend from London. She could happily assure her she would still have ready access to samphire, golden beetroots and charcoal ginger shots despite the move out of London. Not that she ever bought any of those things when she’d been there, but Amanda had drunkenly insisted, as they’d shared their final farewell bottle of Pinot just under a year ago, that life outside of London would be horrid. Where, she’d asked, would Jess find a cosmo that didn’t come in an M&S can? Good friend that she was, Amanda was still hoping Jess would return. Make a fresh start at another elite school. But … she couldn’t. Too much damage had been done.
Besides, Amanda had been wrong about the cosmos. She’d made plenty at her parents’ where she’d retreated after her ignominious firing. It had been quite pleasant, in fact. Licking her wounds in close proximity to their drinks cabinet right up until they refused to replace the empty vodka and Cointreau bottles. And then her parents had unexpectedly sold their house after two years of it being on the market and were given their first assignment with Dentists Sans Frontiers (#NotItsRealName). Right about now, they would be slapping on the factor 90, pulling molars and excavating root canals on the Marshall Islands. Which were, if anyone was curious, about as far away from civilisation as could be. Hence the need for free dental care.
They’d said they’d change their plans. Or bring her with them, if she wanted. They were loving and wonderful like that, but in all honesty Jess wanted to be alone. She had wounds that needed tending to. Aspirations to recentre. Her first Christmas alone to get through without wanting to garrotte herself.
She pulled the packet of biscuits she’d been eyeing from the box in the front seat and tore it open. Whoever said a Wagon Wheel didn’t make life better hadn’t lived.
Jess frowned at her still slightly unfamiliar reflection in the wing mirror. Her last (and only?) act of London daring had been to visit Amanda’s stylist and ask for a Claudia Winkleman/Audrey Hepburn-esque fringe. Neither effect had been achieved, but the new fringe gave her something to do with the GHDs her mother had given her when they’d moved to the land of no electricity. Getting the new coif was her way of saying thank you to Amanda for landing her a month’s freelance work that would tide her over until her new job began. The gig was for an office supplies company that needed lively blurbs describing the new products in their spring catalogue. There’d be more work if she proved her mettle, and, as her evenings would be free of girlfriend duties now that she was single, fifty shades of paperclips was her destiny.
All of a sudden, as if the journey hadn’t been more than the blink of an eye, the moving van pulled over, an arm came out of its window gesturing that she should go ahead, and then, for the first time ever, Jess turned onto Christmas Street as a resident.
A huge white splat crashed against her windscreen.
What the hell?
She yanked the emergency brake because, if she wasn’t mistaken, she’d just driven from a clear starry-nighted Britain into a very intense suburban blizzard. She leapt out of the car only to be hit straight in the face with a … was that a snowball?
‘Sorry!’ A male voice called as she blinked away icy fractals of snow. Snow that seemed determined to cling to her hastily applied mascara just in case a freak event occurred and an actual, genuine neighbour popped by to welcome her to the street.
A man came into view as she continued to blink away the snow, failing to slow her hammering heart. She saw his shoes first, trendy trousers second, a very nice quilted jacket third and … hmmm … He was quite clearly trying not to laugh. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ he said in a lovely, sing-songy voice that instantly made this peculiar form of welcome not so awful after all. ‘We’re just …’ He swivelled round and put his arms out as if he had just flung open the doors to a magic kingdom and … in a way he had.
It was snowing on Christmas Street. Big huge fluffy flakes of snow floating down from the starry sky above. Ermmm … starry sky? Could it snow when—
Another man ran up – slight, Asian and very beautiful. He slipped his arm round man number one’s waist. ‘Oh my God, we’re so totally sorry.’ His eyes flicked to the moving van now idling behind her car. ‘Are you the newcomer for number fourteen?’
‘Yes?’
Jess actually knew the answer to that, so why had it come out as a question?
‘We’re Kai and Rex,’ the Asian man explained, complete with hand gestures. ‘Rex can’t throw for toffee. I hope you’re all right. We’ll send flowers. We own a florist’s so don’t even try to stop us. Can you get your car down the street? It’s all a bit …’ He fluttered his hand down the cul-de-sac, which was well lit enough to show the street was entirely covered in snow. Except for the roofs. And some of the gardens. In fact, most of the gardens were bare. Why was it only snowing on the street?
‘Hi! Hi, doll. You must be Jess … Green was it?’
A very attractively put-together Australian woman joined their small group. Shiny black hair, evergreen-coloured eyes, and an immaculate Snow White complexion, she looked as though she’d just stepped out of a winter-wear catalogue. The type that made snowball fights look fun rather than the cold, slightly assault-y experience Jess had just had.
The woman put out her hand. ‘Drea. Drea Zamboni. I’m at number one.’ She pointed at the large brick semi-detached house across the street from where Jess had pulled her car to a halt. A huge snow machine was parked on the pavement
in front of the postage-stamp-sized front garden. Enormous plumes of glittering snow were arcing up and over them. Drea put a seasonally manicured hand on Jess’s arm. ‘I bribed the estate agent to give me your name.’ She winked, then gave Jess a smile that some might have interpreted as sinister.
Jess’s stomach lurched. This was all a mistake. She should turn around now before discovering the residents of Christmas Street were all vampires or zombies or whatever was worse than vampires or zombies. Wombats? Could wombats be evil? Maybe watching Game of Thrones before she’d packed up her laptop hadn’t been the best of ideas.
‘Kidding.’ Drea laughed. ‘I didn’t bribe him with anything. The man’s as loose-lipped as a nun’s knickers on Boxing Day.’
Jess opened her mouth to say she was pretty sure that wasn’t a saying but Drea was on a roll.
‘Sorry about all of the hoo-hah. You’re more than welcome to join in. In fact,’ she held up a bottle of Australian Chenin blanc and grinned, ‘we insist upon it.’
Jess shook her head, not entirely comprehending what was happening on the ‘quiet, peaceful cul-de-sac’ she’d been promised when she’d signed on the dotted line.
A snow machine, Drea the Australian, Rex and Kai the florists … and, further down the street, what appeared to be full-on snowball warfare.
Oh, no. Winter was coming.
‘C’mon.’ Drea’s bright green eyes were on Jess as she flicked her hand in a way that indicated the men should turn round and go back to the battleground. Which they did. Who was this woman and what power did she wield over the neighbourhood? ‘I know it seems a bit mad now, but it’s all good fun really.’
‘Ermm … if you don’t mind my asking, what is it, exactly?’
Drea’s smile brightened as if she were about to launch into an infomercial. ‘It’s the first annual Christmas Street Living Advent Calendar.’
Jess’s eyebrows went up another notch. ‘And that is …?’
‘We’re Christmas Street, right?’
‘Yes …’ Jess answered slowly, still uncertain as to where this was heading.
‘There are twenty-four houses on the street …’ Drea paused and gave one of those nods that indicated she thought Jess should be catching up about now. When she didn’t, Drea spelled it out. ‘We were originally going to go for the “put an image up in your front window”, but I thought it’d be far more festive if we opened our doors to each other. You know. Like in an actual neighbourhood? Everyone was always asking me if life in Australia was just like Neighbours.’
Jess raised her eyebrows. That’d be kind of cool. She glanced around wondering if Susan and Karl were standing by to do triage on the next snowball victim.
Drea snorted. ‘It totally isn’t, but it’s a damn site more neighbourly than it is here, so here’s my little stab at bringing some homespun joy to Christmas Street. Right, doll,’ her voice shifted to the cheery but strict tone a flight attendant used when they were telling exit-aisle passengers how to pull the doors open and make sure no one wore their stilettos as they slid down the inflatable ramp, ‘here’s how it’s going to work. Each house hosts a little surprise every day until Christmas as if our doors were doors to an actual advent calendar.’
Jess shook her head, still not entirely understanding.
Drea turned Jess towards the cul-de-sac and clicked her thumb against her knuckle as if pressing the button on a PowerPoint presentation control. ‘There are twenty-four houses and twenty-four days in the lead-up to Christmas. Each day, the house number corresponding with the day of the month will throw open its doors and give the street a little Yuletide surprise, just like an advent calendar gives you a choccy or a picture of a doll or an artisan vodka, right? Easy-peasy puddin’ and pie. We’ve all got our assignments, so all we have to do now is let the fun begin.’
Jess goldfished for a minute, not entirely sure how to respond. She’d barely said hello to her neighbours in London, let alone thrown open her doors to the entire building. A decade of ‘thou shalt not be friendly to thy neighbour’ was hard to shake. Especially when this one seemed so full on. Saying that … it did look like everyone was having fun.
Drea continued in her cheery but matter-of-fact way, ‘I’m number one, as I said. We’ve got the snow, of course, to kick things off properly and …’ she pointed towards her doorstep where Jess noticed a barbecue smoking away, ‘… we’ve got loads of shrimp on the barbie to remind us – me – a little bit of home. Christmas is what you grow up with, am I right?’
Jess had grown up with family and mince pies and a stocking that always had a Chocolate Orange in it. Would she have to give everyone who lived here a Chocolate Orange?
‘You’re number fourteen, so you’ve got a couple of weeks to come up with something fun,’ Drea said, as if she’d gained access to the Chocolate Orange idea and was dismissing it.
‘Two weeks …’ Jess echoed as she looked round at the street – her street – aglow with lights, frosted with snowflakes, filled with people laughing and hurling snowballs at one another. It was then that she felt the first stirrings of the festive magic she thought had died in her last year.
Another snowball hit her. On the knee this time.
Rex shouted, ‘Sorry, darling!’ He gave Kai a playful wag of the finger. ‘Be nice to Jess! Santa’s keeping track of all this, you know.’
‘Come on, love. Join in. You’re part of the street now.’ Drea gave her a half hug and lifted up her wine bottle in a toast. ‘You’re one of us!’
Just as Jess’s foot finally hit the first step of her stairs to head up to her as-yet-to-be-put-together bed, the doorbell rang. Her spine went stiff, her shoulders shot up to her ears. Didn’t whoever it was know it was time to go to bed now? It’d been a long day. Finishing the packing, watching Game of Thrones while she waited for the moving men, loading up the boxes, handing the keys to her parents’ house over to the new owners, driving to Boughton, unpacking the van, not to mention burning about a million calories in the snowball fight.
She stopped herself short as the bell sounded again.
She’d wanted this. The whole neighbours-in-and-out-of-each-other’s-houses thing. Already it was proving to be a thousand times better than she’d imagined. Not only had she joined in on the snowball fight, so had the van drivers. Then she’d helped build a snowman after enjoying some of Drea’s heavenly buttery, garlicky prawns (Aussies knew their way around a prawn), along with a couple of glasses of Christmas cheer. Just to prove she was neighbourly, obviously.
Then, as the families with little ones began shuttling their children off to bed and the empty bottles of Chenin Blanc clanked into the recycling bins, about fifteen people had formed a queue at the back of the van (organised by Drea, surprise surprise) and bish bash bosh – everything she owned in the world was tidily stacked in the sitting room, bar her mattress and its Ikea bedframe, which Kai and Rex had hauled upstairs to her new bedroom. (‘Penance, darling. Penance.’)
She opened the door, half expecting her imaginary Diet Coke man to be there, screwdriver in one hand, thirst-quenching beverage in another, with an offer to put her bed together.
It was Drea.
‘I hope we haven’t put you off, darls.’ Drea lifted her half-full wine glass in a mini-toast. ‘Welcome to the neighbourhood?’
If she’d blinked, Jess would’ve missed it. But there was a whisper of fragility in the welcome. Just enough to whisk away her initial concern that Drea might be too scary to be friends with.
‘Thanks,’ Jess said. ‘It was great of everyone to help.’
‘Really? Because sometimes I know I can be a bit …’ Drea made a sound and gesture that meant ‘in your face’. Through it, the fragility Jess had glimpsed was now loud and clear. So much so that Jess was tempted to pull her new neighbour into a hug. A splinter of pain lanced the urge. Interfering had landed her where she was now, so best to
keep herself to herself. Her hands anyway.
She opted for the verbal, British version of a hug. ‘You all right?’
‘Yeah, course, fine. It’s just Christmas, isn’t it?’
Ermm … no. That was twenty-four days away.
‘I bloody love Christmas,’ Drea said, leaning against Jess’s doorframe looking out to where the snowman stood on her lawn, head slightly akimbo, carrot nose wilting a bit in the not entirely cold December night air.
‘Will you be going home? I mean, back to Australia for it?’
‘What? Me? No,’ Drea barely gave her a glance, her eyes still fixed on Frosty. ‘No, I live here now.’
‘Oh, really? Your accent sounds …’ Jess sought the right word ‘… really fresh.’
Drea laughed. ‘Aw look, when you grow up talking a certain way, it’s hard to shake it. Anyway. The Brits love it. In my line of work anyway, but no. I’m an Aussie born and bred, but my life is here now. Has been for the past four years. My business is here. My house. Only thing that isn’t is my kid.’
Jess’s heart squeezed tight as the concern in Drea’s eyes turned to pain.
‘Oh?’ Jess said in lieu of the ream of questions clamouring to be answered.
‘He’s grown now,’ Drea said by way of explanation. ‘Twenty-four years old. Works at a law firm. Got his own flat in Melbourne. Tats. Surfboard. Steady relationship. He’s living the dream.’ She ended in a whisper, as if living the dream seemed absolutely unimaginable to her.
