Last Christmas

by Julia Williams

  ‘Of course,’ said Cat’s mum. ‘Yes. Noel. That’s who it is.’ But she looked unconvinced and, by the time the nurse was calling for visiting time to be over, she seemed to have forgotten who he was again.

  ‘I’ll be in to see you tomorrow, Mum,’ said Cat. ‘And I’ll go and get you some things from home.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, sweetheart,’ said Louise. She looked tired and unsettled. Noel found it very disconcerting to see his energetic mother-in-law looking so frail and, well, old, lying in the bed. How could a fall have effected such a dramatic change?

  ‘The doctor thinks the bang on the head may have disorientated her,’ Cat said as they left the hospital. ‘And her blood sugar is incredibly low. She’s barely been eating apparently, which can lead to confusion. I’ll have to go round to sort out her place tomorrow. I don’t think she’ll be going back there for a while. If at all.’

  ‘Where will she stay, then?’ Noel hadn’t really thought this one through.

  ‘With us of course,’ said Cat, ‘where else can she go?’

  ‘Cat,’ Noel said carefully, ‘I know this has been an enormous shock to you, but are you really sure this is a good idea? You’ve got enough on your plate as it is.’

  ‘Are you saying you don’t want to look after my mother?’ Cat flared up.

  ‘No,’ said Noel. ‘I’m just saying think about it carefully. Maybe she’d be better off in a home.’

  ‘There’s nothing to think about,’said Cat.‘She’s my mum. And we’re all she’s got. I can’t let her go into a home.’

  Noel backed off. Now was not the time to have this argument. He put his arm around her and kissed her on the head. ‘You never know,’ he said, ‘it might not come to that. I’m sure we’ll work something out.’ Though quite what, he had no idea.

  Marianne was walking to school, pondering the Nativity problem, and wondering if there was any way she could wrest control of it away from Diana. Miss Woods had been immensely helpful in providing information about the old traditional Shropshire Nativity that had been handed down from mediaeval times and been played in barns and village churches right up to the turn of the last century.

  ‘It’s a derivation from an old mystery play,’ Miss Woods had explained. ‘I can remember taking part in it as a very young girl.’

  It seemed so much more appropriate to take that traditional route somehow, particularly now they’d been given the go-ahead to use Hopesay Manor Chapel. The play itself was very simple and therefore suitable for children and, with the judicious use of some sixteenth-century carols, and the beautiful setting, Marianne felt sure they had a very good chance of winning the competition. If only she could somehow persuade Diana Carew.

  ‘Marianne.’ She heard her name being called and, turning round, saw Gabriel running up the hill after her. They’d not seen each other for a couple of days, Gabriel having been tied up with sheep shearing and Marianne having given every spare minute to helping Pippa. Even when Gabriel had been helping out at Pippa’s they’d not had a lot of time to spend together, and since Benjy’d died Gabriel had been warier of letting Stephen know what was going on between them. She hoped that wasn’t an excuse and he wasn’t getting cold feet. On the night of the flood, Marianne had really felt they were beginning to establish something together. She didn’t want to see their fledgling relationship wither and die before it had even properly got going.

  ‘Gabriel!’ she said gladly. She’d have loved to have given him a peck on the cheek, but was aware that hundreds of eyes were probably twitching behind the curtains as it was. Miss Woods and her cronies never missed a trick in Hope Christmas, even when their houses were recovering from flooding.

  Marianne waved as Miss Woods went whizzing past. She’d noticed earlier, to her amusement, Miss Woods was taking her electric buggy out again. Since the flood they’d seen less of it than normal as the roads had been too slippery and dangerous.

  ‘Is it just me,’ said Marianne, ‘or does she get faster on that thing?’

  ‘She’s probably gearing up for next year’s Grand Prix season,’ grinned Gabriel. ‘Marianne, I wanted you to hear this from me before anyone else told you—’

  ‘Sorry, what were you saying?’ Marianne was distracted for a moment as she saw Miss Woods’ buggy topple sideways slightly, before she righted it. ‘For a minute there I thought she was going to have it over.’

  Gabriel looked incredibly nervous. Suddenly Marianne’s heart was in her boots. She had the panicky thought he was about to tell her it was all over. Marianne felt a cold rush of reality flood over her. The most lovely man she’d met in her life, and she’d stalled at the first corner. When was she ever going to get this love thing sorted?

  ‘Marianne,’ Gabriel said clearing his throat.

  There was a sudden screech of brakes, a thud, and a lot of shouting.

  Marianne began to run to the top of the hill, and stared in horror over the other side. Miss Woods’ vehicle was lying on its side; she was emerging from it grumpily waving her stick.

  ‘Didn’t you see me?’ she demanded of a rather woebegone-looking Diana Carew, who was sitting on the floor nursing her shoulder.

  ‘Well, if I’d seen you, I’d not be sitting here like this, would I?’ was the acerbic reply.

  Marianne and Gabriel went to see what they could do, but Diana waved them away.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said tetchily. ‘No thanks to that ridiculous woman.’

  ‘It was an accident,’ said Miss Woods to no one in particular. ‘If people will not look where they are going…’

  Stifling a grin, Marianne tried to make Diana more comfortable till medical help arrived, which luckily it did in the form of the local GP who happened to be passing. Breathing sighs of relief, Marianne and Gabriel beat a hasty retreat, as their presence clearly wasn’t needed.

  ‘What was it you wanted to say to me?’ said Marianne, not entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.

  Gabriel swallowed hard.

  ‘There’s no easy way to tell you this,’ he said, ‘but Eve’s back. And I think she wants to come home.’

  Cat stared in dismay at her mother’s kitchen. Noel had offered to do the school run so Cat could go and get some things for Mum. While she was there, Cat had thought she might as well see if Mum had any food she could take in to the hospital. Louise’s kitchen, like the rest of her home, was normally pristine. One of the constants in Cat’s life had been that calm, orderly home, always a haven of peace where she would come and recharge her batteries. It had been like that her whole life.

  Now there was days-old washing-up in the sink, and a nasty smell coming from the dishwasher. Cat went into the cupboard under the sink for some dishwasher tablets, and found Mum had put the salt there, but no tabs were to be found. Rootling around in the other cupboards, Cat discovered Mum had for some inexplicable reason been storing up tins of cat food, though she hadn’t owned a cat in years.

  Eventually Cat discovered the dishwasher tablets in the cupboard where her mum kept the flour, but not before uncovering everything in a state of complete and utter disorder. Not only that, half the contents of the cupboards were past their sell-by date, and by the time Cat dared venture into the fridge, she wasn’t at all surprised to see it covered in mould, with cheese and ham dating from weeks back, and at least two pints of milk that gone off. There could be no more poignant display of her mother’s infirmity. Cat wanted to weep for what had been lost.

  Memories of her childhood years poured over her in a torrent. Cat sitting at this very kitchen table drinking milk while her mother listened to the radio, making Christmas decorations, doing her homework, while Mum pottered around her. So much of her life had been spent in this kitchen. All of her life spent knowing there was one solid certainty in it. That, whatever happened, however rough things got, there was one person who would never let her down. Whenever she fell her mother had been there to pick her up. And now that certainty had gone forever. From now on she’d have no o
ne to pick her up but herself. She was overcome with an irrevocable sense of loss. Nothing was ever going to be the same again.

  This would never do. Cat felt compelled to do something, anything, to take her mind away from the hopelessness of the situation. Her mother had looked after her for her whole life, and now it was Cat’s turn to return the favour. First things first, she could begin to sort this chaos out. Cat set off on a frenzy of cleaning. She cleared out the entire contents of the freezer; she cleaned the fridge; swept the floor; rearranged cupboards; and only when she’d done all that did she sit down and put her head in her hands. Mum had clearly been hiding the extent of her problems from Cat and Noel for months. There was going to be no way she could come back here. She’d have to come to them.

  Noel hadn’t seemed enthusiastic about the idea, it was true. Cat frowned—surely he couldn’t really believe Mum should go into a home? He must see it as she did. Mum had done so much for them, now it was time to look after her.

  ‘But you must promise me that if I get really bad, you’ll sell this place and put me in a home.’ A sudden vision of Mum swam before her eyes, the last time they’d sat in this kitchen together. Her mother was very stubborn, Cat knew, but Cat could be stubborn too. She sat surrounded by memories of growing up in this place, of coming home with scraped knees, and reading books. Her mother had always been there, an oasis of calm in her turbulent world. Her mother had been her world growing up. Cat looked round the kitchen once more. Whatever happened now, however much Mum and Noel might think it was a bad idea, Cat had no intention of abandoning her mum. No intention at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘So Eve’s back for good?’ Pippa whistled sympathetically. Marianne hadn’t bothered to go home after work. She couldn’t bear the thought of being alone in the little house that had seen so many tears when Luke left her. She knew it wasn’t Gabriel’s fault. She understood why he was doing this. Why he had to at least give it a go for Stephen’s sake. But there was a part of her that was reacting like a child in the playground, stamping her feet and saying, ‘It’s not fair!’

  ‘Excuse the chaos by the way,’ said Pippa, who was folding laundry in the old-fashioned farm kitchen. ‘My parents are wonderful to have us here, but there isn’t a lot of room. Thankfully now they’re retired they do like going off to Spain periodically, so we’ve got the place to ourselves for a bit.’

  Marianne could hear the boys whooping wildly in the haybarn.

  ‘It certainly gives me a break,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘I can’t wait for us to get straight again. Living out of bags is so exhausting.’

  Marianne felt a pang of guilt. Here she was, wittering on about her paltry problems, when Pippa had so much more to deal with than she did.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve been going on too much.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ said Pippa. ‘Come on, have a cup of tea, and we can put the world to rights. You can tell me all about Diana Carew. Is she going to be all right?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Marianne. ‘Apparently she’s put her shoulder out, though. I shouldn’t laugh really, but it was a funny sight seeing Miss Woods take off like that.’

  ‘I bet,’ said Pippa. ‘If I was more suspicious, I might think she’d done it on purpose.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t think she’d do that, would she?’ Marianne stifled a giggle at the thought. ‘I mean, I know they don’t see eye to eye, but that’s a bit drastic.’

  ‘It will certainly make it difficult for Diana to run the Nativity,’ said Pippa.

  ‘Maybe that’s why Miss Woods did it.’

  ‘Pippa, you are a wicked, wicked woman,’ said Marianne, laughing. ‘Still, you’ve done me some good, I can face going home now.’

  ‘You never know, Eve might not hang about,’ said Pippa, as she saw Marianne out.

  ‘Gabriel seemed to think she would,’ said Marianne. ‘She says she’s much better apparently. She’s been undergoing some kind of therapy and now she wants to sort out the relationships in her life, whatever that means.’

  Pippa snorted. ‘I think staying away would be the best way to do that.’

  ‘Actually, I think she is doing the best thing,’ said Marianne. ‘This way, Gabriel gets to have some kind of closure if it goes wrong again. At least I think she is…’

  ‘I sense a but here,’ said Pippa.

  ‘Why the bloody hell did Eve have to turn up now, just when things were going so well with me and Gabe?’ Marianne burst out. ‘I do understand they’ve got stuff to sort out, and I’m really trying to be generous. But bloody hell. It’s going to get so messy. I’m not sure I want to or even should get involved. Perhaps I should just back off.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ said Pippa, ‘I know Gabe really likes you. I can’t see that he’d go back to Eve now.’

  ‘Yes, but what about Stephen?’ said Marianne. ‘It all boils down to what’s best for him in the end, doesn’t it? And let’s face it, we all know what’s best for him is his mum coming home. I can’t ever compete with that.’

  ‘I think that’s very altruistic of you,’ said Pippa. ‘In your shoes I’d be tempted to claw Eve’s eyes out.’

  ‘What good would that do?’ said Marianne. ‘I can’t make Gabriel choose me. And I don’t want to if it’s a question of Stephen’s happiness. I just have to wait and see what happens. And hope that somehow, miraculously, everything will work out for the best.’

  ‘Thanks so much for all your help,’ Cat said to her mother-in-law with gratitude. ‘I really don’t know what we’d have done without you.’

  ‘I’m glad to help,’ said Angela. ‘I always felt bad that I couldn’t do more when the children were small. I was too wrapped up in myself after Bill died to think about anyone else.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ That was unexpected. ‘Maybe you could tell Noel that sometime.’

  ‘Do you think he’d want me to tell him that?’ Angela looked so genuinely puzzled that Cat nearly burst out laughing. How was it that Angela and Noel were so incapable of understanding one another?

  ‘I know he would,’ said Cat. ‘Anyway, that’s in the past, you’re here now and we’re both incredibly grateful.’

  It had been two days now since her mother’s fall, and Angela had moved in with a vengeance. But, for once, Cat was thankful for the forceful personality, which ensured that things got done. The kids were far more in awe of Granny Nightmare than they were of Mum and Dad, and Cat was amazed at the difference in their attitudes towards room tidying. Angela had even prevailed on Mel and James to help out with household chores, and during the day when everyone was at home, she’d taken it upon herself to give the whole house a spring clean. Under normal circumstances, Cat would have bristled at this invasion of her house but, right now, she was so exhausted and shocked by the rapidity of what was happening to her mother, she was just grateful to come back to a house that was tidy and to a meal that she hadn’t cooked. Soon she was going to have to check her emails and see how things were at work, but she hadn’t quite got the energy for that.

  ‘It’s a pleasure,’ said Angela. ‘Your trouble is you take on too much. You don’t have to be Superwoman, you know.’

  Cat sighed ‘It’s quite a hard habit to break,’ she said. ‘Once you’re used to doing things, it’s difficult not to keep feeling you should do them.’

  ‘Any news on your mother?’ Angela asked. Again, her quiet sympathy had been much appreciated. All these years of moaning about her, and Angela was turning out to be a great support in Cat’s hour of need. Better even than Noel, who seemed to be in some mental slump and unable to cope with anything. Cat knew they were both under pressure, but living with Noel at the moment was like walking on eggshells. Although he’d taken a couple of days off, he was now saying he was needed in the office. Which was fair enough, Cat supposed. It wasn’t Noel’s mum who was ill, and she knew they both couldn’t take time off indefinitely, but she just wanted him to be around, to feel that, if she needed to, she could
howl on his shoulder. The worst thing about the collapse of her mother was the sudden realisation that her days of being mothered were over. Now it was up Cat to take care of everyone else.

  ‘They’re holding a case conference later in the week,’ said Cat. ‘It turns out she has had a couple of TIAs on top of the Alzheimer’s, and they think she can’t really manage at home anymore. And I think that too, if I’m honest. I’d hate her to burn the place down or something.’

  ‘So what will you do?’ asked Angela.

  ‘She’ll come here, of course,’ said Cat, shocked that Angela could even think there was another option.

  ‘Oh.’ Angela looked disconcerted by this news, and Cat geared herself up for the inevitable lecture. ‘I really meant for the long term. She can’t stay here indefinitely.’

  ‘Why not?’ Cat said. ‘She’s my mother, and I’m all she’s got. I’m going to look after her as long as I’m able to.’

  Angela looked gently at her daughter-in-law.

  ‘Cat, I know you think that now. But believe me, I’ve seen how hard it is for families caring for Alzheimer’s patients. You think you’ll cope, but it’s going to put a strain on everyone. On the children. On Noel. But most of all on you. Do you think that’s really fair? You should really think about that, you know.’

  ‘I have thought about it,’ said Cat, ‘and there’s no way my mum is going into a home. She’s coming home with us and that’s that.’

  Noel was meeting a former colleague in a pub in town, who claimed to have some work for him. Now that GRB had finally given him the push, Noel decided he might as well try and get some consultancy work. But his colleague, a lanky engineer called Will, was pessimistic about Noel’s chances of success.

  ‘A year ago, yes,’ he said. ‘You’d have been calling all the shots and been in high demand. But now, with the downturn in the economy…’

  He didn’t need to spell it out. Noel had been a young engineer fresh out of uni in the early nineties. His first job had lasted eighteen months and, as he was last in, he’d been first out that time. It had taken him another year to find permanent work. But that was before Cat, and the children. He’d been on his own with no family to support. It hadn’t mattered that much if Noel didn’t work for a bit. Like Mr Micawber, he’d felt something would always turn up.