by Sue Watson
Looking at her now, all stress and self-importance, it was hard to imagine her having a laugh and letting her hair down. As her sister, I knew Tamsin had the capacity for ‘fun,’ it was just executing it that was a problem for her.
‘Tam, do you really think it’s worth all the stress? There are better things to spend money on, surely?’
‘Oh I know it’s meaningless and my head tells me there are children dying of hunger when I’m spending all that money on a few decorations,’ she said, taking a large glug of sherry. ‘So I buy more baubles, write a cheque to Oxfam and have another fuckin drink.’ She was now full-on Northern accent, all the clipped tones and long vowels disappeared in a puff of sherry.
‘Ok love, just write that cheque, get through December and worry about global hunger in January – you’ve got canapés to think about,’ I laughed.
‘Yeah, well you can laugh, but imagine if my party didn’t go ahead?’ she said aghast.
‘Oh stop, that’s too horrific to contemplate,’ I joked, but she nodded like I meant it.
‘I’m not like you, Sam. I can’t throw a few mince pies in the oven, put me feet up and call it Christmas.’
‘Thanks!’
‘Oh you know what I mean. You just let Christmas happen, you were never one for big Christmas events and parties ...even before.’
I nodded, and it hung there a few seconds until Tamsin moved on – as she often did when faced with something less than perfect. So she put on her posh voice again, despite the alcohol, and increased it by ten decibels.
‘This year I want glittery, celeb-drenched glamour... my soiree will be the swirling centre of Cheshire’s social scene,’ she half-joked.
‘And you’re hoping to achieve that in three weeks with a box of expensive baubles and two inebriated old queens?’ I said, but she just gazed ahead. Perhaps she was suddenly too overcome with her Christmas plans to respond? Her phone tinkled and she checked her messages; ‘Great, Simon’s working late again...today of all days. He knew it was Christmas family photograph day.’
I rolled my eyes and made a sarcastic comment as she read out his latest lame excuse for not being there for her.
‘There’s always something to do late at the office, isn’t there?’ I said sarcastically.
‘Yes – as you know, Simon is very conscientious and never clocks off,’ she shot me a look.
I could have made more remarks, but left it, the mood she was in it was probably best not to pursue that one.
Tamsin poured herself another sherry. ‘Oh dear, I was hoping Simon would be home to get the dog into his onesie. That dog will do anything for Simon, last year he let him suspend him from the roof by his back legs for our charity performance of Peter Pan.’
‘Yeah, but he wasn’t the best Tinkerbell I’ve ever seen. The dress was lovely but those big brown paws...they were a bit...’
‘What?’
‘Butch? Brown...?’ I offered.
‘God, you two are gender stereotyping him now,’ Hermione piped up from behind her iPad. She wandered in and leaned on the kitchen island and looking up at Tamsin with feigned disapproval. ‘Ma... get a grip, wasn’t dressing him up as a dog tranny enough for you last year? Does poor Horatio have to suffer further mortification and be dressed as another species this Christmas?’
‘Yes he does. That dog lives in the lap of luxury and he’ll earn his keep, Hermione.’
She pronounced her daughter’s name ‘Hermiuney’ and I smiled again on hearing the forgotten flat vowels of the working class Manchester girl that once was. This was the girl Tamsin had locked away a long time ago – she rarely made an appearance in these leafy Cheshire lanes lined with £2m plus homes. Tamsin looked at me, and I knew what she was thinking, but there was no way I was grappling Horatio’s huge chocolate thighs into tight-fitting white fur – Christmas or not.
She sighed, climbing down off the kitchen stool, propelled by sherry, and landing rather abruptly. ‘Cum on, our Sam, let’s see how far the boys have got with me Winter Wonderland,’ she said, swaying slightly into the living room.
Heddon was whipping around the place like the sugar plum fairy as Hall draped the tree with giant white satin bows. Meanwhile Gabe, who’d been hanging around since October, was sitting on her Paris chair eating Monster Munch and flicking through Vogue.
She huffed when she saw him and after unsuccessfully attempting to dress the dog herself she demanded Gabe help her. He was understandably reluctant to get involved but my sister was determined he would do as she requested. After Horatio was dressed, Gabe said something to her and she wafted him away embarrassed. Then she rushed over to Heddon and Hall who were clambering up trees and along pelmets in the pursuit of Christmas style.
Peter Heddon and Orlando Hall decorated Tamsin’s homes every season. She’d fly them out to her holiday home in France each summer, the apartment in Miami every January and they’d style all her other ‘events’ throughout the year here in leafy Cheshire. Today they were getting ‘White Christmas ready’ and to say they were on a Christmas high would be an understatement.
‘Oh that wreath’s not working... and the glitter to white ratio is all wrong,’ Tamsin was wringing her hands – a storm was brewing and I just didn’t have time for one of her dramas over the technicalities of a wreath gone wrong. There were plenty of people on hand to support her and I needed to return to the real world where people cooked their kids’ teas, put a wash on and didn’t obsess about ‘glitter ratios’ or dress their dogs up as polar bears.
I sometimes wondered what it was that Tamsin was looking for. To me, it seemed she had a perfect life; a husband, two great kids, plenty of money and several homes dotted around the world. Yet my sister was always searching for the next high and Christmas just seemed to bring out the worst in her. For example, a Christmas turkey was apparently ‘out’ this year and she was desperately trying to get her hands on an organic goose. I mean that literally – she would have chased the right goose and caught it herself if she thought it would look good on her table – or ‘table-scape’ as she called it.
Along with her Christmas goose, Tamsin also chose ‘the right’ friends. Wrought from a shared love of materialism, multiple homes and absent husbands, her friendships were with women who’d been spoilt by money. They spent their days in the spa, shopping in town or eating leafy lunches in glamorous restaurants. These women talked only of the next dinner party, their newest designer dress, who their husband’s latest mistress was – and more importantly, where the mistress got her nails done.
I suppose they were all seeking fulfilment in their own way, too, but recently I’d begun to think my sister might need more than this. She’d seemed agitated and I worried there were things about her life she wasn’t telling me. Only a few days previously she’d announced over a glass of Chardonnay that she wasn’t sure about her future. ‘I sometimes feel like I’m in the wrong life, one I don’t deserve and I feel like I’m on a treadmill, only as good as my last lunch, my last dinner party – I wonder where I’ll be ten years from now,’ she’d said.
I was surprised at her honesty. ‘Tamsin, stop looking over your shoulder to see who’s coming up behind you,’ I’d said. ‘Life isn’t about who throws the best dinner party,’ though I suspected in her world it probably was. ‘Stop judging yourself against everyone else – there’ll always be someone more stylish, more wealthy, more accomplished than you...’
‘Who? Where?’ she said. ‘I’ll hunt that bitch down.’ She was joking, but I couldn’t help but feel that a little part of her meant it, because personal perfection and being the best had always mattered so much to her.
When we were kids we’d loved to try and catch snowflakes in our hands, twirling around with our arms outstretched just waiting for one to land. From an early age I was aware that the delicate snowflakes would melt as soon as they landed on our warm palms. But Tamsin, who was six years older than me, never quite seemed to comprehend this and she’d lunge for them, scr
eaming in surprise, almost tearful, as they disappeared at her touch.
It seemed to me that she’d been trying to catch and keep those snowflakes all her life. She would grasp at things, ideas and people and like a snowflake, she wanted to touch them, possess them, keep them in the moment - but just like when we were children, they always melted in her hand and she was left with nothing.
The photo shoot was a perfect example of Tamsin’s futile ‘snowflake chasing’. She was desperate to get the best shot, to seem like the perfect family having the perfect Christmas. She wanted so much to present this image to her friends that she made everyone – including herself – stressed and miserable in the process.
I put my jacket on, stage one of my escape from the madness.
‘Oh I don’t know how we’re going to get this photo done,’ she was stressing.
‘Why do you need to even take a photograph? Why not just live it, you don’t have to record it for others to see you’re a happy family,’ I said, fastening my jacket. But she’d grabbed a passing Hermione and was virtually holding her down whilst applying glittery eyeliner to her lids and made some enigmatic remark about even though we were sisters I didn’t really know her.
I hadn’t the time or the inclination to start bickering. ‘I’m going now – those fish fingers won’t grill themselves,’ I smiled.
‘Nicole Scherzinger's personal trainer says eat nothing white after 6 p.m.,’ Hermione added mock-earnestly.
‘Oh no... how’s that going to fit in with your white Christmas?’ I asked. My niece snorted, we often teased Tamsin, who was usually a sport about these things.
‘Close your eyes Hermione, and close your mouth Sam... I’m not such a pedant that I will make everyone eat white food,’ then she winked at me. ‘But now I come to think of it... you’d look pretty in my winter wonderland eating only egg whites Hermione.’
‘Ha ... Ma you’re so random. One man's LOL is another man's WTF.’
‘I’m not quite sure what she just said,’ Tamsin looked at me, puzzled.
I shrugged, ‘Nor me. I’m getting off now guys...’
‘No. You can’t, Jesus is here... I heard him at the door.’
I’d had enough of Tamsin and her Christmas circus, and Jesus’ arrival was like the second coming – literally. In any other household, the announcement that Jesus had arrived may raise a few eyebrows, but not in my sister’s insane universe. Jesus was the appointed photographer, who also happened to be an old friend of Tamsin’s and like all her friends wasn’t quite what he seemed. He was small, dark and brooding with a morose manner and a faux accent – and I really didn’t have time for that pantomime today. I had to tackle the oncoming snow and collect Jacob from the childminder before the weather set in.
‘Come on, just say hello to Jesus, we’ll do the “switch on” and you can get off,’ she smiled. Tamsin always got her own way, particularly with weaker mortals like me, so I agreed, and as Jesus whipped out his camera and started snapping, Tamsin walked up the central staircase in the main hallway. It was a beautiful wide staircase with wrought iron banisters sweeping downwards in a curve. Tamsin loved playing the film star and as she slowly walked down the stairs like Gloria Swanson, Jesus was shouting ‘oh yes, go baby go...’ like he was in the throes of sexual abandon. He was winding himself in and around the banister, his camera strap now almost choking him, but he carried on snapping and ‘yes baby’-ing.
‘God help us if Jesus gets his Nikon caught in that wrought iron,’ I whispered to Gabe, who was watching the whole scene open-mouthed.
‘Jesus, he’s gonna hang himself... and as for him...’ he sighed nodding his head toward the spectacle of Heddon dancing around the fireplace with a bale of baubles and white fur.
I rolled my eyes, it was complete madness, but as I watched Tamsin make her descent, I softened. She seemed so happy, smiling like a little girl – this was all she wanted, to be loved, for someone to say you are okay, fabulous even, and don’t let anyone tell you any different. Tamsin was my big sister and even though I was now thirty-six years old she still bossed me around and called me every day to see if I was okay. She could be stroppy and stressy and annoyed the hell out of me with her bloody onesies and twenty foot Christmas tree, but as she waltzed and sashayed her way down my heart went out to her.
‘You go girl,’ I shouted loudly from the foot of the stairs while clapping, almost drowning out Jesus’ cries of photographic ecstasy. She blushed and smiled, pretending it was all a huge joke, but I knew she loved the clicking camera and the applause. I also knew she didn’t get any attention like this from her husband anymore.
‘Fabulous,’ I called as the lights were switched on and the room glowed with ‘Christmasness’. I blew her a kiss and hugged Hermione whose eye make-up had been abandoned for Tamsin’s Christmas lights switch on. As everyone made loud noises of approval, the door chimed.
‘‘That must be Simon. He managed to get away from work earlier after all. He knew how important this was for me,’ she practically chirped. Thank God, Simon’s appearance would take up all of Tamsin’s attention and I could be ruthless and use his arrival as my escape. Mrs J was now answering the door and I slipped quietly into the hall so I could leave while Tamsin greeted him. But as I walked down the hall I could see Mrs J was having a conversation with someone that wasn’t Simon. She was asking whoever it was to wait on the doorstep, but someone was pushing past her and coming in. I watched open-mouthed as two huge bald guys asked her to step aside and began banging snow off their feet on the mat.
‘Tamsin, they won’t wait on the step,’ Mrs J was shouting. I couldn’t possibly imagine what these men were here for, perhaps my sister had hired yet more ‘staff’ for her festive decorating?
Tamsin suddenly appeared, a string of tinsel round her shoulders, a half-smile on her face.
‘They’re bailiffs... say they’ve got a possessive warrant,’ Mrs J announced. ‘They’ve come for the house.’
2
Balls, Bailiffs and Jesus
Tamsin
An Aspen ski lodge was this year’s theme... a flutter of snowflakes, a taste of St Moritz glitz and a little sprinkle of film star glamour for Christmas? That’s all I wanted. And how wonderful if my husband had been there to share it with me, but Simon called to say he’d be late, apparently Japan were on the phone.
‘What the whole of Japan?’ Sam asked me when I told her. She was the queen of sarcasm our Sam, ‘sarcastic Sam,’ Mrs J always called her and as my sister had never really been a fan of my husband, he was often at the blunt end of her tongue.
Anyway, I ignored her – she always said I was over the top at Christmas, she didn’t understand how competitive it was on Chantray Lane. She had no idea of the work, the sheer toil involved in lists and mood boards and instructing staff to do exactly what you wanted them to do. Our Sam thought if she put up a chocolate advent calendar and a paper streamer that was the season ‘done’, and that’s where we differed. I tried not to be too hurt that Simon wouldn’t be there, but it would be yet another happy family Christmas card with my husband photo-shopped into the picture. As Sam had rather peevishly pointed out the previous year, ‘I don’t know why you’re so bothered, he’s been photo-shopped into your lives for years... he never gets involved.’
I pushed this comment about Simon from my mind and concentrated on my designers Peter Heddon and Orlando Hall who were currently straddling various balustrades and screaming with laughter. I made a mental note not to serve mulled wine next year until their swags and bespoke Christmas window-scapes were properly in place. I just hoped the frosty wreaths, crystal snowflakes and fur baubles would survive their jaunty mood.
I was immersing myself in the sheer madness and magic of Christmas preparation when I spotted Hermione and Hugo lounging all over the new white sofas.
‘Will you both please get off my winter white seating it’s not for sitting on! And why hasn’t anyone dressed the dog?’ I yelled.
I sn
atched the gorgeous, hand-sewn polar bear outfit from my son, who was aimlessly wandering around making half-hearted attempts to force Horatio’s leg into it.
‘I have to do everything around here,’ I snapped, wrestling Horatio to the floor, at which point Gabe, my landscaper, looked up from the magazine he was clearly engrossed in.
‘What’s going on here then?’ he said, in faux shock-horror like he’d caught me in a compromising position with my dog. How rude, I thought – I hadn’t asked the same of him when he was leafing through my Vogue and eating vile onion snacks not five minutes earlier.
I was cross now. ‘Gabe, can you please put down my Vogue and hold Horatio down – I need brute strength for this one,’ I huffed.
‘You are kidding me?’ he was smiling, not moving.
‘No. This is not a time for joking, please grab his paws and push.’
At this point I was forced to straddle Horatio, which can’t have been pretty, but he was always very good-natured about these things. Gabe stepped forward and I have to say was surprisingly gentle and I was vaguely impressed by the way he firmly but calmly held Horatio, who was somewhat reluctant to be a polar bear. Despite complaining, it took Gabe only a few minutes to gently ease the dog into his costume.
‘I’m not happy about this, Tammy,’ he said, as over familiar and opinionated as ever.
‘I’m not doing it to make you happy – it’s for the photo,’ I replied, still straddling the dog.
