Mistletoe and Mayhem

by Catherine Ferguson

  Meeting up with Nathan would piss Crystal off big time.

  Hm. Tempting.

  No, no, no, I’m bigger than that!

  So I open my mouth to tell him that the last thing in the world I feel like doing is sitting across a table from him, hugging a beetroot and goji berry smoothie.

  Then I remember I need a favour.

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ I say. ‘So you know that friend of yours who’s an electrician? Do you think you could give me his number?’

  ‘Eddie? Er – yeah. His number’s right here.’

  As I scribble it down, I’m distracted by a commotion in the background. Something slams. Then there’s the sound of someone shouting.

  Crystal?

  ‘What the fuck is this, Nathan?’ she’s demanding. ‘Do you really expect me to eat raw fish for my birthday meal?’

  ‘Hang on,’ Nathan calls.

  ‘No, I won’t hang on. It’s my bloody birthday and all I’ve got to show for it is some sodding running gear and a dead fish.’

  I grimace. That Lycra running gear must be a job lot that he doles out to all his girlfriends …

  ‘We can go out if you like,’ he calls. ‘Book Beansprouts!’

  ‘Beansprouts! Bloody Beansprouts! I swear if I have to look at another beansprout, I’m going to turn into a fucking beansprout.’

  Nathan groans. ‘Look, I’ve got to go, Lola. Give me a call and we’ll grab that drink.’

  ‘Oh, Nathan, before you go?’ I say sweetly. ‘Can you put Crystal on?’

  ‘Er – why?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much, just passing the time of day. Please. Put her on.’

  There’s a lengthy exchange as Nathan presses the phone on a bemused Crystal.

  ‘Yes?’ she demands eventually. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Your boyfriend just asked me out,’ I say jauntily. ‘Thought you should know. Bye!’

  I hang up, feeling rather triumphant.

  I’ve got Eddie’s number.

  And a cheery reminder that I so don’t have to eat beansprouts any longer…

  I call Eddie immediately and he turns up the very next day to look at the washing machine. And I’m thrilled beyond words when he actually manages to fix it.

  He leaves behind him a pile of oily, worn-out parts, which I drop into a bag and take outside. The bin is full to over-flowing, though, and I’m about to take the bag back inside, when my eye lights on a big orange skip across the road.

  It’s at the end of someone’s driveway.

  But I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if I just …

  I cross the road, looking furtively about for onlookers, then throw my bag in. I’m about to walk away, when my eye catches something red and glittery. I saunter closer to see what it is.

  It’s one of those wall-mounted stag heads. The sort you see in draughty old hotels, where someone always jokes, ‘Christ, that beast must have been charging at some speed!’

  Except it’s a Rudolph reindeer with a big shiny red nose.

  Instantly, I’m picturing it on the wall of our hallway, putting visitors in a festive mood and making them giggle. Okay, it’s a bit naff. But that’s the whole point. Christmas is the one time of year when taste flies out of the window, and ‘cheap and garish’ is actually a good thing.

  I lie awake that night, mentally checking off my ‘to do’ lists and thinking about Rudolph in that skip. In my mind, he’s already hanging in our hallway. But what if someone comes tomorrow morning to empty the skip? And what if there are other discarded goodies in there?

  The thought of Rudolph being tossed on a rubbish dump, like a bald pine tree in January, fills me with distress.

  Eventually, at half past midnight, I can bear it no longer.

  What’s that well-known saying?

  One woman’s rubbish is another woman’s sparkly festive delight? Or something like that.

  I look out of the window. It’s five below zero and the snow is drifting gently down. I pull on my wellies and my big coat over my pyjamas, grab a torch from the Crap Closet and – as quietly as I can – let myself out of the flat.

  As I fiddle about putting the front door on the latch, I think I catch a parked car’s headlights in my peripheral vision.

  But when I glance up and down the road for signs of life, it’s all dark, so I must have imagined it. (Possibly my anxious mind playing tricks. I’ve never raided a skip before in my life.)

  I slither across. The temperature has dipped dramatically, turning the road surface into a bumpy skating rink. I almost come a cropper by the skip. Only grasping onto a gatepost saves me landing on my butt.

  Rudolph is still there but he’s been moved!

  Either more rubbish has been put in the skip or someone else is staking him out.

  My heart beating very fast, I carefully lift him out. He smells musty, like he’s spent years boxed up in someone’s loft, but a quick squirt of freshener will brighten him up. I’m tempted to get my torch out and look for more treasure in there.

  But I can’t carry anything else just now, so I start slip-sliding back across the road, through our gate and round the side of the building to the shed.

  I’m used to the shed door creaking. But in the dead of night, I nearly leap out of my skin at the ghostly noise. I glance anxiously back at the house but no lights come on.

  So I leave Rudolph in the shed, fumble for my torch and cross the icy wasteland again, back to the skip.

  I felt sure I’d spied something metal and silvery in there, like one of those stands that displays your Christmas cards. And sure enough, when I carefully draw it out, that’s exactly what it is. Excellent! Someone’s been having a good old Christmas clear-out.

  I shine my torch briefly at the house, wondering who lives there and hoping they won’t mind me rescuing their rubbish. And that’s when the hedge catches my eye.

  Holly!

  Lots and lots of it, gleaming darkly under the street lights. With red berries in abundance.

  My mind is racing.

  I’d need very sharp scissors, gloves and a plastic bag and – no, no, no! I can’t possibly start plundering their holly as well as their skip!

  Shame, though …

  I aim the torch beam into the skip. It’s mostly a mish-mash of wood and cardboard, as if someone is fitting a new kitchen. But there’s a big bundle of Christmas lights under an old floor lamp. They probably don’t work and they’ll take a hundred years to untangle, but they might be worth a try. I stretch right over and scoop them out, and then I see something that looks like a tree on a plinth underneath.

  It’s about three feet high, painted white, and it could look fabulous as my Christmas centrepiece (on that table that, as yet, doesn’t exist. But hey, if I’ve found the perfect decoration, the rest is sure to fall into place).

  There’s only one problem.

  It’s wedged firmly between a kitchen cupboard door and the floor lamp.

  I get a bit of a sweat on, trying to pull it out, but it’s no use from this angle. I need to be higher. So I heave myself up the side of the skip and sort of lie on my stomach, my legs up at the back.

  It’s not easy getting leverage while trying to stop myself falling headlong into the skip. But with a bit of huffing and puffing, at last my lovely tree is free for the plucking. Now I just need to reach the teensiest bit further down … gently does it … and—

  Aaargh!

  My centre of gravity shifts without warning, I lose my balance and pitch forwards, wellies in the air.

  And then, just as my life is flashing before me – like Scrooge when he tumbles down the lift shaft to Hell – someone grabs me firmly round the waist.

  I find myself hauled out of the skip (but not before I’ve made a successful grab for the tree). Panting, feet skating on solid ice again, I look up into my rescuer’s face.

  It’s Seb.

  He’s staring down at me but I can’t see his expression properly in the dark.

  ‘Hi there!’ I sq
ueak. ‘You must be wondering why I was…er…’

  ‘Diving head first into a skip? No, not at all,’ says Seb. ‘I saw old Rudolph earlier on, as a matter of fact, and I almost rescued him myself.’

  ‘You did?’ I stare up at him in amazement.

  ‘Yeah. I’d just parked up over there and I was going to have another look, but you beat me to it.’

  ‘Are you winding me up?’

  We slither over to the kerb. Seb is wearing a suit and brogues under his coat and his soles are probably even more slippery than my wellies.

  I wobble backwards and he manages to grab me, in spite of his armfuls of Christmas treasure. But then I over-correct too dramatically, cannon right into him and, next second, we’re both on the ground.

  Seb’s on his back and I’m sort of sprawled across him, with my nose resting on his chest.

  ‘Oh God, sorry,’ I groan. ‘My fault. I never was any good at balancing.’

  Seb puts his arms around me, and my whole body tingles with pleasurable shock. ‘Any broken bones?’ he asks, feeling about on my back and my waist.

  With my face is pressed to his shirt, and his lovely masculine scent filters up my nose. Feeling the solid muscles of his chest is doing very weird things to my insides. I almost wish I did have something wrong with me then Seb would have to pick me up and carry me over the road, back to his flat and gently remove my clothes and—

  A car swishes past far too fast and heaps something wet and icy all over us.

  My head is swimming. I guess that car spray was the equivalent of a cold shower. Very timely.

  ‘Any wounds needing bandaged? Any injuries that need tending?’ Seb carries on with the jokey medical theme, blissfully unaware that in my mind, he’s already carried me off to his flat with those powerful arms of his, stripped me naked and nursed me back to health with strong but tender hands …

  ‘Sadly, nothing to report,’ I reply, without thinking.

  He laughs. ‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘What? Oh, er, yes, of course.’

  I slither to my feet and Seb levers himself off the ground and smacks the snow from his bum.

  ‘Were you really going to nab Rudolph?’ I ask him.

  ‘Yeah. I find skips fascinating.’

  ‘Oh. Well, since you spotted Rudolph first, how about we toss a coin for him?’

  He laughs. ‘I was going to get him for you, you nutter.’

  ‘For me? Oh, thank you!’

  I am unbelievably touched by this revelation. In fact, I’m stupidly close to tears.

  Seb looked at that filthy old skip and thought of me!

  He shrugs. ‘No problem. Here, take my arm. I’d like to get you back in one piece.’

  We slither over the road and deposit the bundle of lights and the tree in the shed and I shine the torch on Rudolph. ‘Isn’t he great?’

  Seb nods thoughtfully. ‘Having seen him close up, I’m changing my mind about letting you have him.’

  ‘Oh, come on! I was the one who dived in head first to rescue him.’ Actually, I’m rather proud of myself.

  He laughs. ‘And a fine sight it was. No, I’ll give you fair warning. You could have a custody battle on your hands.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ I giggle. ‘Well, I’ll see you in court, then.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  I’ve been out to spend some of my garden centre cash.

  On a blow-up bed.

  There’s nothing else for it. I’m going to have to crash out each night on the living room floor, with Rosie and Josh on the sofa bed. It’s hardly ideal but I suppose it could be fun in a sort of boarding school girls’ dorm/midnight feast kind of way.

  Jasper is pulling up in his car as I let myself in.

  ‘What’s that?’ He points at my big discount store carrier bag.

  I show him the lilo and tell him about my two extra, unexpected guests.

  ‘It’ll be fine.’ I shrug. ‘And at least Justine and Rob will have their own room. That’s the main thing.’

  Jas grins. ‘Sounds a little…er…challenging, your sinister-in-law. I’d like to hear more about her.’

  ‘You would?’

  ‘Yeah, how about dinner tomorrow night?’ He runs his hands through his hair, looking cutely nervous. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Oh. Dinner?’ I couldn’t be more surprised if he said he was thinking of running for President of the United States. ‘Er, yes, that would be great.’

  ‘Fantastic. Hey, listen, I’m in a tearing hurry just now. But feel free to use my room.’

  He makes for the stairs.

  ‘Sorry? What?’ I stare at his legs as he leaps up three at a time.

  ‘I’ll be away visiting the folks for Christmas,’ he calls from the landing above.

  ‘Oh!’

  Is he serious?

  ‘You can water my plant while I’m away.’

  ‘You have a plant?’

  ‘Well, a cactus. Anything else and obviously it would be dead within a week.’

  My head is spinning with these surprising new developments.

  I have a date with Jasper tomorrow night! Is it a date? Or is it just a friendly dinner-chat thing? How do you tell? What am I going to wear? How will Barb react? And what will Seb think?

  Interestingly, it’s this last question that keeps me occupied most of the day.

  It’s only much later, when I’m standing in the living room, ironing some sheets, that I start to think about Jasper offering to let me use his room.

  It will be such a boon, being able to nip upstairs every night – once my guests are safely tucked up in bed – and crash out in Jasper’s room.

  Then a thought occurs.

  Seb.

  Will he still be there?

  And if so, won’t it be a little awkward being his temporary flatmate?

  A brief and startling image lands in my head: me bumping into Seb in the middle of the night, on the way to the bathroom.

  My cheeks are suddenly aflame.

  Because in my vision, he is stark bollock naked.

  Next morning, I take my inflatable bed back to the discount store for a refund.

  As I’m walking back along the main street, thinking happily of my dinner with Jasper later, something catches my eye.

  Outside the fruit shop, there’s a gorgeously festive display of Brussels sprouts, jewel-red cranberries in punnets and luscious satsumas, green leaves still attached. And leaning against the side of the open door is the most perfect little Christmas tree I’ve ever seen.

  I stop and stare at it.

  I can just picture it, standing in the living room window, fairy lights casting a beautiful glow on our hand-made, silvery baubles. It would be just perfect. Even Justine couldn’t find fault.

  When I see that it’s priced at exactly what I’ve just received back for the inflatable bed, it seems like a sign.

  That tree definitely has my name on it.

  So I phone Barb and she says to snap it up. We can pick it up in the car later.

  I know I shouldn’t be impulse buying, but sometimes you just have to. It’s like when you go out specially to buy a pair of shoes in a certain shade. How often do you come back after a frustrating shopping trip with a pair that are quite nice but not what you envisaged? And you’re thinking, When I saw that perfect pair last week, I should have snapped them up instantly and bugger the overdraft!

  Hope leaps inside me.

  We have the perfect Christmas tree.

  So maybe – just maybe – it will turn out to be the perfect Christmas, too…

  Later, Barb and I set the tree up in its stand on a table in the bay window.

  She knows I’m having dinner with Jasper later and I’d expected lots of waggling eyebrows and suggestive comments, but actually, she took the news quite calmly.

  I stand back to admire the tree.

  Even without baubles and lights, it looks beautiful. The perfect Christmas tree shape.

  I di
g out the hotchpotch of tree decorations I’ve gathered over the years. It takes me ages because, of course, they’re in a tattered old box right at the back of the Crap Closet. Then I set to work sorting out the ornaments while Barb gets down to the arduous task of untangling the strings of lights.

  ‘Why can’t Christmas be the way it was when you were a kid?’ she sighs, struggling with a set of coloured lights with bulbs in tiny lanterns. ‘I mean, it was all so exciting then, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose.’

  ‘I loved Christmas so much, you know what I used to do?’

  ‘What?’ I ask obligingly.

  She laughs, remembering. ‘I used to be so sad when it was all over, I’d wake up on Boxing Day and pretend like it was Christmas Day all over again. I just loved it all. Going to Gran’s for Christmas lunch, having the aunties and uncles over for tea, playing lotto, with Dad shouting out the numbers, while Grandad snoozed through the whole game. Brilliant.’

  ‘Sounds great.’

  ‘You’re not that keen on Christmas, are you?’ she says suddenly.

  I shrug. ‘There are some things I like about it. The decorations and the lights. And the way everyone is super nice to each other, and strangers in shops wish you Merry Christmas.’

  ‘But you must have got excited about it as a kid?’

  ‘Yeah, of course I did. When I was little.’

  Barb plugs in the lights and switches on. ‘Yay! They work!’

  Her question has taken all the joy out of my day.

  You’re not that keen on Christmas, are you?

  Instantly, there’s the familiar dead weight inside, dragging me down. And that horrible, nagging feeling that I don’t deserve to be happy, especially not at Christmas time.

  We wind the lights round the tree and begin decorating it.

  ‘Perhaps when you have children, the excitement comes back,’ Barb murmurs.

  I glance at her in surprise. She’s always declaring she’s too selfish to have kids. ‘And will that be happening any time soon, Miss Baverstock?’

  Usually she laughs and says something flippant, like, ‘Can you really see me with three toddlers under the age of five? I’d be calling social services myself!’

  But curiously, she just shrugs and avoids my eye.

  ‘Barb? Is there something you’re not telling me?’ I laugh.