by Judy Astley
A present for Vanessa was still a problem. Losing her sense of direction slightly, she found herself at the Tiffany outlet in the store. It was full of delicious and expensive sparkly goodies and she thought of Roger’s phone call about a present for the matron of honour at his wedding. What was it he’d thought of? Wasn’t it a silver yo-yo that he’d bought for Leonora’s friend? It suddenly seemed like the best possible choice for Vanessa. Melanie’s heartbeat lightened and skipped as she went to the counter and picked out what she wanted. Vanessa wouldn’t have a clue what to make of it. She’d think Melanie had lost her brain cells entirely, yet the item was beautiful, frivolous, totally unlike anything Vanessa would ever choose for herself – exactly what a present should be. The assistant went to the back of the store to pack the present, placing it in its soft turquoise bag, then into the distinctive Tiffany box. Finally she handed the package over to Mel. Good, she thought, that is something perfect.
Melanie called in to see Cherry on the way home, to collect a painting Cherry had been doing for her to give to her mother for Christmas. It was of the bouncy fox terrier, a portrait of him from photographs rather than from life (or even death, the way Cherry worked) but Mel knew Cherry would capture the exact doggy likeness. Gwen would like it – she kept a special photo album with photos of all the dogs she’d owned, but this would be the first one to have its own properly painted portrait.
Cherry’s house smelled of home baking. It was also immensely and unusually untidy. There was a skateboard in the hallway, wrapping paper was strewn across the normally immaculate sitting room, clothes were abandoned on the sofa and a pair of trainers was threatening to topple someone who didn’t watch where they were going on the stairs. The whole place felt warmer than it usually did. Mel would have said that if Cherry was wine, she’d be a well-chilled white, but something had changed, and the Cherry who let her in and invited her for mince pies and a drink in the kitchen was more of a full-bodied exuberant red.
‘Looks like you’ve been busy,’ Mel commented inadequately. The kitchen table was covered, not with Cherry’s usual impeccably detailed paintings and superbly neat watercolours, but with huge sheets of cartridge paper, stamped over with bold Santas, mistletoe leaves and holly.
‘Potato prints.’ Cherry pointed to the palettes of bright poster paints and abandoned cut-up slabs of potato that waited by the sink to be cleaned up. ‘Remember doing those when you were little? I wish we’d known then they’re not just good fun for kids.’
‘So you made all these?’ Mel said, admiring the pages.
‘No, not just me, I was helping Carlos, Helena’s little boy. He wanted to make loads of it to sell at his school Christmas fair. We did pretty well, I think, and now he’s doing some for us. My contribution to the fair was a hundred mince pies. Well, it would have been, Helena and I ate about twenty as soon as they were cooked. We’ve got a few left, have one.’ Cherry opened a cupboard and pulled out a big Tupperware box, moved the artwork carefully aside and put the pies on the table.
‘Drink?’ she asked, pulling a bottle of red wine from the rack.
‘Do you mind if I have tea?’ Mel grimaced. ‘I’ve got a bit of a fuzzy head still from last night. I went to a party across the road. One of those where the person who’s walked past you every day for twenty years asks if you live locally.’
‘Ugh! Horrible. I went out, too – Helena is a great fan of The Archers and she took me along to an Archers Anarchists quiz night. Great fun. Our team won. Helena’s part of the West Kensington gay and lesbian faction. We filled an entire pub basement near Oxford Circus.’
‘Well, it sounds a lot more fun than where I was.’
‘Yes, it probably was.’ Cherry looked more contented than Mel could ever remember. She didn’t fidget, didn’t frown, didn’t keep looking around as if there was something she’d forgotten, like she used to.
‘Chezza, when . . . how . . . how did you and Helena get together? I mean, it’s all a bit of a surprise. Hope you don’t mind me asking.’
‘Of course I don’t mind! You’d have asked sooner if she’d been a man, admit it.’
Mel shrugged. ‘Well, possibly. Yes, probably. Anyway, tell me.’
‘It was just before that exhibition really, I’ve been seeing people from an art group for ages and then suddenly Helena was one of them. We went out sometimes, all of us together, men as well, it isn’t just women. Then a few times she couldn’t go because of babysitters for Carlos, and I found I’d rather stay in with her than go out with others.’
‘So it was a lot like falling for a man?’
Cherry considered for a minute. ‘Well, no, not really. With men I always used to fancy them first, you know that daft feeling you mistake for love, and then it was a toss-up whether it ever was or wasn’t the real thing. But this way round, well, I didn’t even know I was going to fancy her. I didn’t even know she was a lesbian. This kind of thing hadn’t crossed my mind . . . well, not for years, not since I really liked a girl at college – she was completely straight, though – it was just a crush thing then, I thought.’
‘I can see that you’re really happy,’ Mel said.
‘Oh, I am, I am. I’m me, the real me for the first time in years and years. Oh, and I must show you this!’ Cherry leapt out of her chair and went to the fridge. She opened the freezer and pulled out a small plastic box. Mel shrank back, expecting the worst. ‘Helena got me this for Christmas! Isn’t it wonderful?’ She removed the lid. Inside the box lay a small curled-up creature.
‘Isn’t it perfect? A beautiful weasel! And whole – not a mark on it! Her brother found it lying by a dustbin. He thinks it must have been poisoned.’
Melanie looked closely at the little animal. It was, or had been, quite lovely. Now it was a love token – not a life wasted, then, she thought.
‘You’ll have no surprises on Christmas Day!’ she laughed, feeling that if she didn’t make a joke she might just burst into tears. The champagne effect was lasting far too long.
‘Well, she could hardly wrap it and put it under the tree, could she?’ Cherry pointed out.
‘True. Listen, I’ll see you before the dreaded day. Thanks for doing the painting, my old mum will be thrilled. And send love to Helena when you see her again, won’t you.’ She hugged Cherry. ‘I’m so glad to see you happy.’
‘Oh, me too!’ Cherry’s eyes shone. ‘And Mel, I know you like being on your own but . . . well, I’ve got an awful feeling I might have wasted years by actually insisting on it.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m fine on my own,’ Mel said as she walked down the path. It sounded like a mantra that had gone meaningless with overuse.
‘And wave your broomstick at that horrible Patty woman for me!’ Cherry called as Mel got into her car.
It was getting dark outside. Gwen closed the curtains and switched on the Christmas tree lights to make the place look a bit more cheerful. She’d stapled the cards onto ribbon and hung them from the picture rail in the hall and the house was looking quite festive. Even so, she’d be glad when Christmas was over – it seemed like a suspension of real life that went on longer and longer each year. She preferred it afterwards, the sales, the bustle, the knowledge that spring was coming again. As soon as Christmas itself was finished, past Twelfth Night, you could feel the days getting longer. Then she and Howard would be going away for their big break. Perhaps Melanie would come out and visit for a few days – that would be nice. And she could do with time off, Gwen couldn’t remember when Melanie had last gone away for a proper holiday. That was one of those things nobody liked doing by themselves, though she wouldn’t put it past Mel to take off for a fortnight in Barbados all alone and then insist it was the best time she’d ever had. Gwen would find that hard to believe. Perhaps next year she’d meet someone new. She shouldn’t be quite as picky as when she was young – you could live with almost anybody if you were prepared for a bit of give and take. When it had come down to it, she’d rather live with Howard and
all his faults than struggle on without him. What would be the point of that?
* * *
Max was on the doorstep when Melanie got home. In the dark, for there were no lights on in the house, she almost didn’t see him. He was hidden by a massive, densely branched Christmas tree.
‘I wasn’t sure if you’d have one yet, so I brought you this. It’s a Norwegian Blue,’ he said as she fumbled in her bag for her keys, trying to hide her face, sure he’d be appalled at how delighted she felt to see him. Her expression might give it away, she’d look beaming and silly.
‘The garden centre always sends them out to their trade customers. I’ve had three. This might be a bit big.’ He sounded diffident, slightly awkward.
‘It’s fabulous, Max, thanks! It’s very . . . well . . . big isn’t adequate to describe it, in fact it’s massive!’
‘I could help you set it up if you like? Would that help?’ Max dragged the huge tree into the hallway. It could go in the front sitting-room window, Mel thought, where Roger’s bloody piano had once had pride of place.
‘Why don’t you stay and help me decorate it?’ she suggested, then wondered if that was a suggestion too far. He might think there was something a bit intimate about inviting him to share a Christmas ritual like that. Tree-decorating was something families tended to close in together to do. She didn’t know what happened with singletons. All the ones she’d known had either had tiny token trees as if apologizing for joining in with a season aimed at families, or, like Cherry previous to this year, they’d ignored Christmas altogether at home and simply tagged onto someone else’s, decamped to a parent, a sister. For this year, at least, Mel still had Rosa. Rosa was not a tree-decorator, taking off for an essential visit to Gracie or Charmian the moment the boxes of baubles rattled into the room, but she did like it once it was done. Rosa would be home in an hour or so – the thought gave her another delighted tingle.
Max and Melanie manoeuvred the tree into the stand that Mel found in the cupboard under the stairs, and then Max opened a bottle of wine in the kitchen while Melanie found the decorations in the loft.
‘The lights are the first hurdle,’ she said as she accepted a glass of red wine.
‘I’ll lay them out on the floor, we can switch them on and see what’s working.’ He was, as ever, a highly efficient worker. The lights were fine – a miracle, Mel thought, casting her mind back to the silly bickering between her and Roger every previous year about who forgot to stock up with enough spare screw-in light bulbs. Together, the two of them worked steadily, hanging scarlet balls, balding Santas, lopsided cardboard angels that Rosa had made in primary school and the contents of a big box of chocolate stars that Mel had bought that day in Harrods. When it was finished and the tree lights were on, they stood together in silence admiring their handiwork, surrounded by empty boxes, tissue paper and fallen, sweet-scented pine needles. Mel found herself wondering what Max was doing over Christmas, whether he, like Neil, had a sneaky ‘significant other’ and family tucked away somewhere. She didn’t think he had, he’d said he wasn’t anyone’s husband. He somehow had the same look as her, the same air of wariness about being attached.
‘There’s just one other thing I brought,’ Max said, going out to the hall. ‘Another Christmas essential.’ On his way back in he switched off the room lights so only the tree lights were on.
‘What is it?’ Mel asked. ‘What have you brought?’
‘Just this,’ he said simply, holding mistletoe above the pair of them. ‘Some traditions are worth keeping up.’
Max was still kissing Melanie when the doorbell rang.
‘Shame,’ he whispered, his mouth close to her ear. ‘Perhaps next year . . .’
‘Wait . . . what are you doing over Christmas?’ She was reluctant to let go of him, even to welcome her much-missed daughter.
‘Escaping. Going up a big hill with a bunch of atheist anti-festival climbers. And you’re going to your sister Vanessa’s.’
‘Hmm. Boxing Day?’
‘Anything you like.’
‘You’re on. I’ll see you then.’
Max and Roger collided as Mel opened the door and Roger almost fell in. ‘You won’t believe this . . .’ he started, then stopped, gesturing back towards the gate.
Rosa was on the path just behind him, carrying a bin bag which Melanie guessed contained laundry. Rosa looked different in the half-light, softer in the face, peculiarly substantial. She’s not been starving herself then, Melanie thought, very slowly adjusting to Rosa’s unfamiliar new shape, and even more slowly working her brain round to the realization that it was nothing to do with what she’d eaten.
Rosa pushed past Roger, dropped the bag into the hall and towed another person in after her. ‘Hi, Mum.’ She reached forward and hugged Melanie. The newly expanded middle of Rosa was squashed against Mel. She wanted to touch it, check that this was what she thought it was.
‘I think what Dad wants to tell you is that I’ve left uni, I’m six months pregnant and I’ve brought someone home to be with me.’ Rosa stepped aside and put her arm round the boy she’d brought in with her. ‘Mum, this is Desi. Can he stay?’
‘Um . . . Good grief, look, come in first, bring your stuff . . .’
‘Well, that’ll take all sodding night – they’ve brought everything they possessed. Both of them,’ Roger grumbled. ‘Look, can we get this bloody car unloaded? I need to get home sometime today.’
‘Good thing it was Dad’s car. We’d never have got it in yours.’ Rosa, still clutching Desi’s hand, started wandering towards the kitchen.
‘We’ll give you a hand with the baggage,’ Max said to Roger, almost pushing him out of the door and at the same time detaching Desi from Rosa and dragging him along with him. Mel smiled her gratitude at Max and was left alone with her daughter. Rosa was indeed pregnant. She wondered if she was supposed to feel furious, let down, disappointed. All she could feel was . . . strangely excited.
‘Alex’s?’ Mel ventured, looking at the bump.
‘Yes. I hope you don’t mind too much.’
‘I don’t know what to think yet – you’ll need to give me a day or two to work out what’s real!’ She switched on the kettle and opened a new box of tea bags. Typical, she thought, to resort to good old-fashioned British tea-drinking at a time of crisis.
‘Sorry to give you such a shock. I just thought . . . well, I haven’t been thinking at all for some of the time. I thought if I tell people then it will be true. Then I began to be happy with the idea. At first I thought I’d have an abortion, but then I got all upset about it.’ She shrugged and gave a quavery grin. ‘I just couldn’t do it. It would have been a real, tiny baby . . . like . . .’
‘Like Daniel was,’ Mel finished for her.
‘I think that must be it.’
‘So what will you do?’
‘Well – I have done some thinking. I could get a job till it’s born, then in September I could do a teaching degree here in London. And Desi wants to stay with me and I want him to as well – would that be OK? You’ll like him, honest, and he’s really tidy! It’s just . . .’
‘Just what? Is there a problem?’
‘I hope not – I mean, you were really looking forward to time on your own and then we all turn up. You will say if you’d rather we found somewhere else?’
Mel hugged her. ‘Somewhere else? There’s plenty of room here. It’s fine. I feel very happy that you want to be here. To be honest, I was beginning to work out that being on your own too much is a bit overrated.’
‘Everything’s in, your ex has gone off in a fury, so I should probably go too,’ Max said. Desi followed him into the kitchen, looking nervous.
‘It’s OK,’ Rosa told him. ‘Mum’s cool.’ She glanced out of the window and gasped. ‘Shit, Mum, what’ve you done to the garden?’
‘What’s wrong, don’t you like it? This, by the way, is Max, and it’s all his brilliant hard work.’
‘Hi, Max.’ Rosa
shook his hand and grinned at him. ‘Garden’s great. But . . .’ she stroked her expanded tummy. ‘It could really do with a lawn, space for a swing and a sandpit, something child-friendly, you know?’
‘Oh heavens,’ Max groaned. ‘Right that’s it, I’m off. Happy Christmas, folks!’
* * *
He’d been here before, not to this hospital, not to this Special Care Unit, but to one a lot like it. He’d sat staring into a plastic crib, hours on end, marvelling at the fragile limbs. A Christmas Day baby – poor little thing, he’d be complaining about that to his parents for evermore. Roger could hear him now, ‘Only one day for presents! It’s not fair!’
The big difference was that he’d survive, this one, this time. He was early, an emergency Caesarean to save both him and his mother, but he was comparatively big and sturdy and would be out of this plastic box in a few days and they’d be going home, this new family of him, Leonora and . . . well, he hadn’t got a name yet. Perhaps he should get together with Rosa as well and they could make sure they didn’t pick the same ones. It would be funny, this baby having a little niece or nephew only three months younger than him, but it would be good, they could see a lot of each other, be brought up more or less together. Leonora didn’t want any more, she’d said. Once was quite enough. That was OK by him.
‘So that’s that for another year,’ Howard said as he, Melanie and Max made their way on foot to the race track from the makeshift car park by the A316. Everyone for miles around seemed to be on their way to Kempton. ‘Another Christmas, another year gone, another turkey guzzled. Wasn’t too bad, all things considered, was it, Mel?’
