Joe and Clara's Christmas Countdown

by Katey Lovell

  ‘You’re so soft,’ Clara said. ‘You’d get more money selling it on eBay.’

  ‘Better it goes to someone who loves it, though,’ Deirdre answered. ‘Her face lit up when she put it on, and if that’s not an indicator that it belongs with her, then I don’t know what is.’

  A gang of three boys were rifling through the accessories, discarding eye patches and feather boas before settling on a random selection of baseball caps (worn backwards) and posing like gangsta rappers. Clara snapped the moment for posterity, and then felt a tap on the shoulder.

  ‘Is it our turn yet?’

  The brilliant white of Joe’s new jumper dazzled her. Two big black lump-of-coal eyes stared out from his pecs, and a three-d carrot poked forward from a point just above his navel.

  ‘I like the jumper,’ she said approvingly.

  ‘Some nutter who’s really into Christmas bought it for me,’ he replied with a grin. ‘I’d never have predicted I’d be the kind of man who’d be wearing this sort of get-up.’

  ‘Ah, but you’re a youth worker now,’ Clara replied. ‘Everything goes out of the window when you enter this weird and wonderful world.’

  ‘You’re right. I thought the days where a group of people would be chanting ‘Go Joe, go Joe, go Joe’ to try and get me breakdancing were well behind me. Turns out I was wrong.’ He pulled a face. ‘I did a couple of helicopter spins to keep the crowd happy and I think I’ve done my back in as a result.’

  Clara laughed. ‘Now, that I’d have loved to have seen. Perhaps you can show me later. I’ll ask Disco Dan to play some Run DMC so you can show me your moves.’

  ‘Nuh huh. I wasn’t joking when I said my back was killing me. If you want to see back flips and head spins you’ll have to watch some Diversity videos on the internet when you get home.’

  ‘That’s an average night for me,’ she joked. ‘Let’s face it, Ashley Banjo is easy on the eye.’

  ‘So they say. My mum watches that dance show he judges without fail, Simone too. What is it about that man that has females of all ages falling at his nimble feet?’

  ‘He knows how to dance. Plus, tall dark and handsome became a thing for a reason.’

  She flushed as she took in Joe. Well over six foot tall. Black skin. And undeniably gorgeous, especially in a goofy Christmas jumper that was slightly too small for him. Yep, and he had some of the Banjo charm.

  ‘It looks like you’ve been busy up here. Deirdre’s idea wasn’t as crazy as we thought after all.’

  ‘This lot are the selfie generation,’ she said. ‘Their motto is “photos or it didn’t happen”, so we shouldn’t be surprised it’s gone down a storm. They’re liking the novelty of an actual printed picture too. Most of them store their pictures on their phones and don’t bother getting a hard copy.’

  ‘Sounds like me,’ Joe admitted. ‘I’ve got about 500 photos on my phone that I keep meaning to print them out, but I never get around to doing it.’

  Clara wondered if he’d kept the shot of the two of them at the theatre. If he’d looked at it like she had, trying to decide if they looked good together.

  ‘Well, let’s get a photo of us now it’s quietened down,’ she said, pushing her thoughts aside. ‘Record that Christmas jumper for the ages.’

  She held out the camera, lens facing towards them, and prepared to shoot.

  ‘Not yet!’ Joe exclaimed, grabbing a fez and popping it on her head before standing back to appraise her. ‘That’s better. Now you really look the part.’

  ‘If that’s the way we’re playing it, you can wear these,’ she laughed, handing him some large glasses with a plastic moustache dangling from them.

  He gamely put them on.

  ‘I think we’re ready.’

  She leaned in towards him and quickly took the shot. The flash caused her to blink, but didn’t stop her carefully catching the photo between her thumb and forefinger, determined not to touch the developing print.

  ‘I wasn’t ready!’ Joe protested, mock-scowling at her from behind his disguise. ‘I think my eyes were closed!’

  ‘Ah, it’ll be fine,’ she said with a flick of her hand, just as Disco Dan announced (in a typical party DJ manner) that Joe was needed to assist Deirdre and Lynsey with serving the hot dogs. That explained the sudden exodus of the kids from the photo booth, thought Clara. They were bottomless pits, eating anything they could lay their hands on.

  ‘I’d better go,’ he said, pulling off the glasses and tossing them back into a bucket. It wasn’t the right one, but Clara didn’t say anything. As predicted, everything was in a muddle anyway. ‘Deirdre will be on the warpath otherwise.’

  She thought there was a reluctance hidden in his words, as though he didn’t want to go.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, placing the camera down on a chair. ‘See you later. And save me a hot dog!’

  She watched as he made his way to the far corner of the room, the primary coloured lights of the disco reflecting off the pure white of his jumper. The kids swarmed around him, eager for food.

  Clara looked at the now-developed photo, still in her hand. The image showed her gurning at the camera, clutching the lop-sided burgundy fez with one hand as she poked out her tongue. Joe’s eyes weren’t closed, she noticed. They were looking at her.

  Clara pocketed the photo, then promptly forgot all about it as she headed towards the food stall, where a hot dog smothered in tomato ketchup was waiting for her.

  Joe

  Tuesday, December 19th 2017

  ‘Nice wellies,’ Joe observed, as Clara rounded the corner.

  ‘They are, aren’t they?’ she replied cheerfully. ‘When you said to wear something suitable for walking, I thought I’d better come prepared. You didn’t say whether we were staying on the beaten track or if it’d be wet and muddy.’

  ‘Everywhere’s wet and muddy. It’s Manchester in December. But we’re not going into the woods or anything, you’d have been fine with trainers,’ he said, balancing on one leg and waving a black Adidas samba in front of him.

  ‘Are you going to let me in on where we’re going? This is a bit of a weird meeting point.’

  They’d arranged to get together outside the newsagent’s. No one else was around, not even the kids who gathered there on their bikes and loitered until the newsagent sent them packing. It was cold, bitterly so, and even the teenagers would rather be inside than hanging about on street corners on a night like this.

  ‘We’re going to do the Advent window walk,’ Joe explained. ‘Dad’s organised it through church. This is the starting point,’ he said, pointing towards a homemade stained-glass window. Bright-yellow tissue paper allowed the shop’s light to shine through, creating a vivid image of a star, radiant beams shooting from each of its pointed tips, as a red number one blazed in the corner.

  ‘I’d wondered what this was about,’ Clara said. ‘There’s another window like this in the florist on Beesham Street.’

  ‘There’s a whole trail of them. The idea is that you follow the windows through Advent and then on Christmas Eve the final window display goes up at the church hall. Some are in shops, some in houses. It’s a different way of doing an Advent calendar.’

  ‘A way without chocolate,’ Clara said. ‘That’s tragic.’

  ‘Not if we go and buy some supplies first. We’ll need fuel to get around the whole walk, won’t we?’ he said, pushing open the door to the shop. A welcome surge of warmth hit him. ‘Come on, I’ll treat you.’

  Clara grinned. ‘Now this is beginning to sound like my kind of walk. But how do I choose between a Dairy Milk and a Twix?’ she asked with a shrug, mitten-encased palms upright.

  Joe leant in.

  ‘You know what,’ he whispered flirtatiously. ‘I’m feeling wild. Have both.’

  ***

  By the time they reached window nineteen, Joe and Clara had been walking for the best part of two hours. It shouldn’t have been the most appealing route, the rows of terraced houses laid out i
n a grid-plan style little more than Lego houses, but walking along these streets – not far enough out of town to be suburbia, but not buried in the heart of the city itself either – felt right. It was neither here nor there, a hazy in-between, but to Joe this area was, and always would be, home. There was a charm in the way the front doors led straight to the pavements (although no one ever used the front doors – they were usually blocked off by a settee or a coffee table to make the most of the small living space that passed for a front room. Entry was almost always via the yard and kitchen). Joe might have grown up in the detached rectory next to the church, but all his closest friends from both school and youth club had lived in the back-to-back red-brick terraces.

  ‘This is where Billy used to live,’ Joe said, pointing to one of the houses. He didn’t mention Michelle, although he thought of her as he looked at the upstairs window. It was slightly ajar. A small Christmas tree stood in the window, flashing white fairy lights chasing each other around its branches. ‘His parents still lived here until a few years ago. So many happy hours spent in his room playing on the PlayStation and listening to Foo Fighters CDs on repeat.’

  ‘It’s funny how buildings hold so many memories, isn’t it? Logically I know they’re nothing more than bricks and mortar, but it’s as though they absorb the lives of the people who spend time there. My grandparents lived in the same house for forty years, and when me and Mum moved in with them, Mum slept in the room she’d had as a girl. It still had the same carpet down too, this flecked lavender and purple monstrosity. It was like a strange time warp where everything stayed the same.’

  ‘Our house is a bit like that,’ Joe admitted, before remembering he didn’t live with his parents any more. ‘Mum and Dad’s, I mean. When we first moved in it was all done out fresh. I was only young but it’s clear in my mind. Mum was very excited about choosing the wallpaper for the hallway, but I don’t think she’d expected it to still be up now.’

  ‘I can’t imagine your mum ever choosing anything less than tasteful,’ Clara replied. ‘Every time I’ve seen her she’s perfectly turned out, like a fifties film star.’

  ‘I’ll tell her you said that. She’ll love it.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Clara insisted. ‘She looks amazing. No wonder Simone’s so confident about her own style with her as a role model.’

  ‘They are pretty cool women,’ Joe smiled with pride as they continued to the end of the street. An imposing pub stood before them. It looked warm and inviting, and even the off-key screech of a guitar from the weekly open mic night wasn’t enough to quell the temptation. ‘Fancy a quick drink and a warm?’

  ‘That sounds great,’ Clara replied, ‘My feet are numb. And sore.’

  ‘Have you been here before?’ Joe asked, pushing open the large wooden door. The heat hit them in a wave, the same way it does when you take your first steps on land in a foreign country.

  Clara shook her head. ‘Have you?’

  ‘Hi, Joe!’ called the barman with a wave. ‘Not seen you in here for a while.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Clara laughed.

  ‘This place was a regular haunt when we were teens,’ Joe said, raising his hand in reply to the barman. ‘They never bothered checking ID, so we knew we’d get served without any bother.’

  ‘Let me guess, Billy again?’ Clara grinned. ‘He seems to have been the one who always led you astray, so underage drinking is par for the course.’

  ‘Along with a few others. When we were sixteen or seventeen we’d come here on our way home from the youth club for half a pint and they always sent me to the bar. I was the tallest, see, so the staff would ask less questions. To be honest, I think they were just glad to have some customers, even though they must have known we were underage. Back then Billy was about four-foot nothing,’ he laughed, ‘not that he’s much taller now’.

  ‘I’d like to meet him one day. It sounds like he’s played an important part in your life.’

  Joe caught his breath. This was the moment. He couldn’t hold back any longer.

  ‘He has, and not only because he’s my best friend.’ Joe blurted the words out quickly, hoping it would make them easier to say. It didn’t. ‘Billy is Michelle’s brother. Her twin brother.’

  Clara stared, then finally, after what felt like hours, said, ‘That explains why you’re so close. When you’ve been through something like that, it’s inevitable. It must have been awful for him, too.’

  Joe nodded, unable to express just how awful. He’d hoped once he started talking the whole story would rush out, but he couldn’t formulate the thoughts, let alone the words. His head was swimming, his stomach felt as though it was being sliced in two. The red and gold of the damask wallpaper blurred until it looked like blood. He was glad they were at the bar, so he could hold onto the wooden counter.

  ‘It was.’

  Clara must have noticed his discomfort, because instead of pressing for more information she pulled out her purse.

  ‘I think we could both do with a drink,’ she said.

  They placed their order – a dry white wine for Clara and a pint of lager for Joe – before moving to a table in the snug, as far away from the current wailing wannabe as possible. The sound travelled regardless, but at least they didn’t have to see him and his predictable leather jacket, ripped jeans and white t-shirt combo.

  ‘You know I said my feet were cold?’ Clara said, sinking down into a soft chair. ‘They’re suddenly boiling.’ She looked mournfully at her wellies. ‘Do you think I could take them off, or would that be weird?’

  Joe was relieved that the conversation had moved on.

  ‘In most places it’d be weird, but some of the sights I’ve seen in here over the years are far stranger than socked feet. I’m not sure you’d want to walk on this floor, though,’ he said, pulling a face.

  The wooden floor was definitely of the permanently sticky variety, years’ worth of spilt drinks building up to create a viscous layer that required strong legs to prise the soles of shoes off them.

  ‘I’d better not. People will look,’ she said, scanning her eyes around the pub as though people had anything better to do than examine her feet.

  Joe shuffled out of his coat and sat down on a chair on the opposite side of the low square table.

  ‘It is warm,’ he agreed, loosening his scarf. He had originally thought it was him, but when he touched the radiator, he retracted his hand on contact. ‘Yep, the heating’s on as well as the log fire. That’ll be why it’s super-toasty. The total opposite of The Club on the Corner.’

  ‘It’s alright for you,’ Clara grumbled. ‘Your feet aren’t coated in a layer of plastic half a centimetre thick.’ She looked down at the trainers, flimsy by comparison, and exhaled.

  ‘If you’re that embarrassed, I’ll join you. Come on,’ he said, pushing the toe of one foot against the heel of the opposite trainer in exactly the way mums always tell their children off for, saying it’ll ruin the shape of the shoe.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Clara’s voice was pitchy and high, laced with giggles.

  ‘Taking my shoes off. You must be sweltering with those wellies on. No one’s looking. Might as well be comfortable.’

  Joe saw her throw one more fleeting look around the pub. Everyone was chatting with friends, watching the performers act as though they were playing Wembley Stadium rather than a backstreet Manchester pub, except for the lurcher laid out in front of the fire, enjoying having his belly rubbed.

  ‘Alright,’ she conceded. ‘But I’m hiding them behind the chair so no one knows.’

  She took off the wellies and quickly shoved her feet under the table in case anyone should decide now was the time to inspect her footwear. Her striped socks (complete with a hole in the right one where her big toe was peeping through) were a statement, but not the sort she’d ever want to publicly make.

  ‘Surely someone can come up with a way of making plastic shoes that are comfortable. It reminds me of the jelly s
hoes I used to have on holiday for paddling in the sea – they used to rub like anything too.’

  ‘Can’t say I ever had any myself,’ Joe said, ‘although I did own a pair of Crocs once.’

  Clara’s jaw dropped. ‘And you’re openly admitting that? And here was I complimenting your family on being bang on trend. You obviously don’t take after your mum.’

  ‘Everyone does say I’m more like my dad,’ Joe smiled. ‘Although I’ve no plans to follow him into a liturgical life. I don’t think I could rock a dog collar.’

  ‘But imagine how cool you’d look in a cassock. You could pretend to be a Jedi. Or a Disney princess.’

  ‘I’m happy in my jeans, thanks.’

  They sat in quiet companionship, a sedate acoustic artist picking out a heartfelt melody on his guitar. It wasn’t a song Joe was familiar with – perhaps self-penned – but it was tuneful and melancholy and kind of beautiful.

  ‘Thanks for keeping me company tonight,’ Joe said. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to be alone.’

  ‘Oh, it’s no problem,’ Clara replied breezily.

  ‘No,’ he insisted. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to be alone tonight.’ His eyes connected with hers, as he pressed for her to understand. ‘And I couldn’t have coped with a night in with my family, Mum looking pitifully at me across the lounge. It’s eight years since … since Michelle died.’

  ‘Michelle’s anniversary,’ Clara said, bringing her hand up to cover her gaping mouth. ‘I’m so sorry, Joe. I didn’t even think. And I’ve been prattling on about wellies all night.’

  He held up his hand to halt her flow. ‘Sssh. There’s no need to apologise. This…’ he swept his hand around the pub, ‘… It’s exactly what I need. What you said before was right. Michelle wouldn’t have wanted me to be miserable. She loved to laugh.’

  ‘It’s easier said than done, though, sometimes, being upbeat.’

  ‘I don’t do crying.’