A Christmas Gift

by Sue Moorcroft

  After giving them an hour to finish up at her house she called, ‘Merry Christmas!’ to everybody in The Three Fishes, receiving a chorus of, ‘Merry Christmas!’ in reply, and walked a slightly wobbly line home, slipping over on the very slide she’d helped make and lying on her back, laughing with unladylike snorts, before climbing cautiously to her feet, relieved she hadn’t cracked open her head.

  The alcohol hadn’t made her sleepy, so, once home, she went onto YouTube and watched The Hungry Years gig videos and their segment of a music documentary, watching, wide-eyed, a JJ Blacker with tousled red hair and pointed sideburns. He looked so happy, as if playing with the band was everything he needed.

  Good. She was glad.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Joe had decided on a quiet Christmas Eve in Camden – if your idea of quiet was drum practice. But his plans were overset by an early phone call from Pete.

  ‘What now?’ he asked apprehensively. The last couple of calls from Pete had not led to anything good and he’d thought Pete and his wife, Luanne, would be Christmassing at a chalet in the Alps by now. He should have known Pete never totally unplugged from his news feeds.

  ‘You got a direct line to Santa or something?’ Pete demanded. ‘Early Christmas gift, anyway!’

  Joe twirled a drumstick with his free hand. Through the window he could see a sprinkling of tiny snowflakes. He’d heard on the news that there was a lot more of it to the north of London. ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘Sending a link,’ Pete said shortly, and rang off.

  The link came through right away. Apprehensively, Joe clicked and was taken, with sinking dismay, to the Daily Snoop online.

  JJ BLACKER PAINTED WHITER shrieked the headline. Underneath was a picture of him grinning, his arms around the big Christmas tree prop at Acting Instrumental, captioned A Christmas Eve good news story – Benefactor Blacker.

  According to a new source close to JJ Blacker, he has spent the last weeks working as a volunteer, giving something back to the music industry.

  The piece, short and jolly as befitted its seasonal-good-news status, briskly refuted Garrit’s allegations.

  Our source goes on, ‘I knew him from age eleven to fourteen. He was a neglected child. His stepfather, Garrit, was the one with dodgy connections.’

  The article ran on, redefining Joe as a poor kid at the mercy of an unscrupulous stepfather figure.

  Shaken, Joe tried to absorb this unexpected bounty from the Daily Snoop. Why had Pete been so off when he’d telephoned? To be the subject of a good news story was, well, good news. Great news! Slowly, picking up his sticks to twirl to help him think, he cast his mind back over everything that had happened in the past couple of months. The more he thought about it, the larger a hitherto unsuspected spectre rose above him. He stood gazing unseeingly at the winter’s day beyond his sitting room window and tried to order events in his mind.

  Eventually, he realised he’d have to act, and took up his phone again with a heavy heart and a shaking hand to ring Pete back. Before Pete could utter a word, Joe gambled on his hunch. ‘Why did you do it, Pete?’

  A long, pregnant pause. Then Pete snorted, ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You gave the original story to the Daily Snoop and then tried to inflame the situation with the others.’

  ‘Are you absolutely raving mad, JJ?’ thundered Pete. But his voice, however outraged, wavered, and the sinking feeling inside Joe intensified. He’d heard that tone whenever Pete knew himself not to have the high ground. The band even had a jokey name for the vociferous lying, ‘the act of great indignation’, which Pete put on when trying to trick a venue into providing over and above what had been agreed, or a record-label minion into putting their boss on the phone.

  ‘There aren’t many people who know everything the Daily Snoop printed.’ Joe interrupted Pete’s blustering denials. ‘I’ll tell you how I know you’re the leak. When you rang this morning you were angry where you should have been happy. Pissed off where you should have been delighted. The only reason I can think of for that is that good news for me equals bad news for you. You hinted that Billy was the leak to lead to more bad feeling between him and me, didn’t you?’

  Silence. Joe could almost feel Pete squirm on the other end of the phone.

  ‘You want me out of the band,’ Joe went on. ‘You tried setting Billy and me against one another and when that didn’t work you created bad publicity and pretended it was me bringing it down on the band. You want the band on your books – but not me.’ Joe could hardly believe what he was saying. Pete! He’d been their manager for years, steering them to bigger and better venues, bigger and better record deals, bigger audiences. He’d shaped their image, nurtured and polished. And he wanted Joe out of the band.

  More silence. Then a long, deep sigh. ‘I’m not admitting responsibility,’ Pete muttered, his voice shaking. ‘But I do think you’re holding the band back.’

  It felt as if Pete had reached through the phone and punched Joe in the pit of his stomach. ‘Because of my background?’ he said numbly.

  Pete gave a snort of derision. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Don’t you think I could spin that into a positive if I felt like it? No, it’s your attitude.’ Then when Joe made no reply he expanded, ‘Your bleeding-heart act, wanting to select songs for their sincerity instead of making commercial decisions! Jeez, JJ, the kids love songs full of obscenities and jokes. You can stuff anthems about society’s ills; give them plenty of the F word instead.’

  Joe could feel a layer of sweat forming between his hand and the phone. ‘Billy’s songs.’

  ‘Billy’s songs,’ Pete repeated, as if he were congratulating Joe on working it out. ‘Look,’ he went on magnanimously, although Joe detected desperation lacing his voice. ‘We could get together in the New Year and find a way forward. Now you and I have been able to clear the air maybe we can find a few compromises—’

  Joe disconnected on a wave of bitter anger. Then, as best he could with hands that shook with emotion, he began to set up a conference call. Before too much longer he, Raf, Nathan, Liam and Billy were all hooked up. ‘I’ve got shit news,’ Joe began, and set about unravelling Pete’s machinations as best he could, heartened by the outrage of his fellow band members and stout declarations of having been completely in the dark.

  It was only much later in the day, when he was exhausted after hours of debate, that he allowed himself to return to the JJ Blacker painted whiter piece in the Daily Snoop and reread it from beginning to end.

  Only one person could be the ‘new source’. Georgine. Could she possibly be signalling that she accepted everything and everyone he was? For much of the day a text from her had waited on his phone but he hadn’t let himself look at it until he’d dealt with the fallout from what Pete had done. Heart beating loudly as he dared to hope, he opened the text and followed the link it contained to video of the students putting on their show.

  His eyes misted over to see the joy shining out of them. That was what the performance business ought to be about. Not backstabbing and questionable methods but positive role models … like Georgine France.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Georgine’s Christmas Day dawned with no hangover, but heaps of expensive presents and a Christmas kitchen fairy cooking a mouth-watering turkey dinner.

  Not.

  In fact, she awoke to silence banging on her eardrums and a Merry Christmas! text from Blair to say she’d bring Georgine’s present to Randall’s later. Outside, fresh snow had fallen, enough to make Georgine’s hungover eyes flinch from its brightness.

  After going downstairs to make a large mug of coffee and pick up her parcels she’d stowed beneath the tree, she returned to bed to rip through wrapping paper bearing sparkly Santas or perky robins. Her haul, mainly from her colleagues, amounted to: a box of different-coloured Papermate pens, a red leak-proof travel mug with a blue G on the side, shower gel, Christmas socks, a small brown bear who did ha
ndstands when wound up, and a shopping list pad with a music stave across the top. Shopping list was spelt ‘Chopin Liszt’.

  She screwed up the paper and checked her phone in case anybody else – like Joe – had texted her. Nope. She answered Blair’s festive greetings, then rang Randall to say Merry Christmas and that she’d be at his place at noon. Phone conversations with her dad tended to be a bit one-sided and short, but he managed, ‘May-ee Kissmas’, which made Georgine’s eyes burn.

  Her mum phoned from France: ‘Because Terrence has invited simply everybody for lunch, and I won’t have time later. Did you open your email, yet? My gift should have arrived at nine UK time.’

  ‘Not yet.’ She opened her inbox while her mother waited. When she found the email she could hardly believe her eyes. ‘A weekend at a spa? That’s an amazing present!’ she squeaked.

  Barbara sounded pleased. ‘I’ve sent Blair the same. I thought we could all go together.’

  Georgine grinned. Aha! So that was how her mother had justified such a massive expenditure. ‘That will be wonderful,’ she said.

  When Barbara had rung off, Georgine lay back down and wondered whether to text Joe. She could say something light like, Hope you have a good Christmas. But he hadn’t replied to her last text and the age of instant communication made it pretty pointed when someone didn’t communicate. Especially a someone you’d slept with.

  She decided to wait and see if he texted her.

  She got up for a long shower with the new shower gel, a big glass of water and two paracetamol. By the time she’d dried her hair her headache had lifted and it was time to drive to her dad’s, occasional snowflakes whirling down around the car from a pale grey sky.

  Christmas afternoon proved quite jolly. Randall loved his new cardigan and put it straight on, his bruised arm much better now. He was even happier when he discovered Blair and Warren had patched up their differences as they turned up together, hauling a black bin liner of gifts.

  Georgine almost cried to see Randall wearing a smile that could power every light on the Christmas tree. He used his good arm to hug Blair hard. ‘Am vey peased, Bear. Vey peased i’deed.’

  Warren kept beaming at Blair and winking.

  Randall had invited his friend Sol to dinner, a fact that had passed Georgine by, so she prepared every last vegetable she’d brought and hoped for the best, rotating veg madly between microwave and oven to get everything hot at once. They ate squashed around Randall’s tiny folding table with just enough elbow room to pull the crackers. The mottoes, which seemed to have been translated from another language, caused both mystification and hilarity.

  ‘Man no a isla?’ Sol read. ‘Isla’s a girl’s name, isn’t it? Obviously man’s not an isla.’

  ‘Man is not an island?’ Georgine suggested. ‘But I’m stumped by “be necessary woman and invent it”?’

  They puzzled over that until Blair consulted her phone and came up with ‘Necessity is the mother of invention.’

  It was as she laid her phone back down on the table that Georgine spotted something glittering on Blair’s finger – something that definitely hadn’t come out of a cracker. She was so shocked that a morsel of spicy stuffing caught in her throat and shot up behind her nose, making her eyes stream, not helped by Sol treating her to several hearty thumps on the back.

  ‘Blair! Are you engaged?’ she demanded when she could speak again.

  Randall dropped his fork messily down his new cardigan. ‘Bear?’

  Blair blushed, her eyes sparkling. ‘Warren asked me yesterday and we went shopping for the ring. We were going to announce it at the toast after dinner if nobody spotted it before.’

  ‘Toast?’ Georgine said guiltily. ‘Was I supposed to be buying prosecco?’

  Blair beamed. ‘We brought champagne. It’s hidden in the sack of Christmas gifts.’

  Warren produced a cool bag harbouring a bottle of champagne and four glasses – obviously he hadn’t known about Sol coming, either, but Georgine happily went with a wine glass instead. ‘Only half a glass. I’m driving.’ And she’d probably got some of last night’s booze still sloshing about inside her.

  Over the last of the turkey, they toasted and congratulated Blair and Warren about five times. Randall kept saying, ‘Vey ha-hee, vey ha-hee,’ and Blair gave him a long, intense hug whispering, ‘We’re very happy too, Dad.’

  What a special Christmas for them, Georgine thought mistily, as everybody cleaned their plates of Christmas ice cream dessert with lots of mmms, flopping back and rubbing their bellies, quite unable to eat another thing.

  ‘But I could squeeze in a cup of coffee,’ said Warren, getting up to make it.

  ‘And let’s open the chocolates while we exchange gifts,’ Blair cried, and they all discovered they could fit a little more in after all.

  The washing up was abandoned in piles on every surface. Georgine received a top she’d wanted from Blair and jeans from Randall. She didn’t bring up Barbara and Terrence’s munificent spa gift in front of him in case it made him feel bad, and Blair must have felt the same as she didn’t mention it either.

  Then they Skyped Grandma Patty, who was dressed in a red shiny sweater that made her silver hair glow.

  ‘Ha, Mom! May-ee Kissmas!’ beamed Randall, making Grandma Patty get all tearful. ‘Bear’s engaged!’

  ‘Oh, Blair, honey!’ cried Grandma Patty, clapping her hands. ‘Now you definitely have to come to the States for spring break!’

  Georgine saw the hope on Randall’s face and promised rashly, ‘We will. We’ll talk to your doctor and make sure it’s OK, Dad.’

  ‘We’ll manage between us,’ Blair added.

  Overcome, Randall blew kisses at his daughters and his mom. Even Warren got one, which made him laugh.

  Then Grandma Patty had to catch her lift to Randall’s brother’s household for Christmas dinner. Georgine washed up and Blair and Warren dried, taking up the entire kitchenette.

  When Blair was ready to leave, Georgine elected to depart too. Randall and Sol were deep in a game of solo whist, which Georgine had no intention of ever learning to play, so she dropped a kiss on each of their heads with one last, ‘Merry Christmas!’

  Outside, it had begun to snow properly again. ‘Do you have plans now?’ Blair asked uncertainly, flicking Warren a look that Georgine interpreted as ‘if my sister’s going to be alone I’m going to invite her to our place’.

  ‘Yes,’ she said promptly, because this morning’s sadness was threatening to return and being a gooseberry would definitely not be a cure. ‘Enjoy the rest of Christmas and congratulations again!’ She hopped quickly into her car before Blair could press her on what her supposed plans were. She circled the car park, waving gaily and making fresh tyre tracks in the snow. Once out of sight, she relaxed, driving home in silence because one jolly Christmas tune on the radio would have her in tears.

  Snow blew from the bodywork of the few cars she saw, as if they were bursting out of Christmas cards. Avoiding passing beneath Bettsbrough’s jolly Christmas lights, she headed for the safety of the little village of Middledip and a solitary evening drinking wine and eating chocolate.

  She’d treat herself to a couple of new books for her Kindle, and then Christmas would be over so far as she was concerned.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Once safely parked outside her house, she gathered her Christmas gifts and the leftover turkey to make into a curry to share between her freezer and Randall’s.

  Juggling everything, she fumbled for her key, trying not to drop it in the snow. As she unlocked the door, a car door slammed nearby. She glanced around to see a man coming towards her, snowflakes landing on his black beanie hat and big black coat.

  Frozen in more ways than one, she watched his feet sliding in the snow as he approached the point where her garden met the pavement. He glanced down at the single row of footprints she’d made. Then, carefully, he began to make a set of his own footprints alongside.

  Whe
n he stood beside her, he smiled. ‘Well, Mizz Jaw-Jean. Happy holidays.’

  She stared at him. ‘Joe. Where did you come from?’

  His dark eyes regarded her. ‘I’ve been waiting in my car for you to come home and I think I’ve turned into a snowman. Any chance of you inviting me in?’

  ‘’Course.’ Georgine was beginning to shiver herself. She pushed open the front door and he kicked the snow from his boots then followed her in.

  In the small hallway, she removed her own boots and stood them on the doormat. Her heart was fluttering but she kept her voice even. ‘You wouldn’t have had to wait if you’d phoned. Anytime over the past eight days, in fact.’

  He nodded. ‘But some things are better said face to face.’

  ‘Right.’ Good things or bad, she thought. Slowly, she took off her coat and scarf and hung them on the newel. She ought to offer him coffee or something, but if he’d come to say goodbye then she’d rather not delay his actual exit while a drink was consumed.

  Dumping his coat and hat, he followed her into the lounge. Not giving her a chance to choose the armchair, he caught hold of her hand and drew her to sit with him on the sofa.

  ‘Thanks for getting that article in the Daily Snoop,’ he began softly.

  ‘Was it in?’ she said, surprised. ‘I looked for it for days.’

  ‘Christmas Eve. It was their Christmas cheer story. I felt like my heart would burst when I read it.’ His hand, despite his claims of feeling like a snowman, was hot on hers.

  ‘My pleasure.’ Her voice was flat. ‘I only told the truth.’

  ‘But you didn’t have to bother and it means a lot to me that you did. I’ve found out the person who leaked the original article was Pete, our manager. I spent most of yesterday talking to him and the guys. It seems Pete had decided that if he got me out of the band he could manipulate the others better. Billy proved particularly malleable so Pete had begun to set us against one another in pursuit of feathering his own nest.’