by Sue Watson
‘Where the hell is Simon?’ I kept saying over and over again. We’d been lucky with our property business, starting up during the property boom, buying to let, beginning with flats and ending up with large office blocks, penthouse apartments. Our hard work and good luck along with Simon’s business flair and contacts had got us here, but it looked like our luck and his talent for business might have just run out.
I was at a complete loss, and I kept asking Sam what I should do – a complete role reversal for us. Sam had to collect Jacob but suggested we all pack some stuff and stay with her, but I had to stay to see Simon, so she agreed she’d be back first thing and we’d work out what to do. I told everyone else it was all a huge mistake and to go home because I was absolutely fine and Simon had texted to say he was sorting it. He hadn’t. I lied because I was embarrassed and worried and didn’t know which way to turn and I didn’t need people watching me in my anguish.
Once they’d all gone and the kids (who were still in shock) were in their rooms packing, I poured another dry sherry into a crystal flute and took my seat at the kitchen bar. My mouth was dry and I was numb, but slipped into autopilot – I raised the pale liquid under the light. ‘Cheers,’ I said to no one and took a long drink. The dry, spicy warmth filled my chest and tasted vaguely of Christmas as it went down, filling me with warmth but adding to the burn of worry in my stomach. Where was Simon?
I gazed around in the silence at my beautiful kitchen and took another big sip. We’d bought the sherry on our last visit to Spain and enjoyed it, along with amazing views, at a stunning bar set high in the mountains. It was the finest sherry in the region, served chilled, bone dry and brought to life by a dish of salted almonds at our table in the sunshine. It had been a good summer, I thought, then remembered how the following day Simon had been called away to deal with a problem at work. As he packed, I’d asked if someone else could deal with the problem, but he shook his head, kissed me on the cheek and went, leaving me alone in our luxury hotel bedroom with stunning sea views and our own pool. I remember feeling terribly guilty, imagining how many people would envy me this – yet I’d never been so unhappy or so alone in my life. Like now.
I’d imagined all our troubles were behind us. Those rumours about him and a woman at his gym were as ridiculous as all the other silly stories about our marriage being a joke. As Simon had said, it was just nasty stuff put around by jealous people. Was it too much for others to believe we had all this money and a happy marriage too? It was like we weren’t allowed both, and I was determined to prove that not only was it allowed – but that we had it! It wasn’t a lie, I was happy and our marriage had survived the bumps on the road of life. I’d decided recently that fretting about Simon’s whereabouts and our future was doing me more harm than good and I was going to put all my fears and insecurities behind me and celebrate by making this Christmas even better than the last. From the tree to the food to the music and our annual party, I’d planned to work hard and make it the best. I loved my husband and wanted to make him proud of me... of us. But at this stage it seemed I didn’t even have a home to live in, let alone a house to hold a party.
‘I don’t know why you waste money every year having so-called charity events, you should give it all to charity instead,’ Sam had whined when I’d told her my plans for Christmas. ‘A carol service? A thirty-strong choir in the garden?’ she’d said like I was planning to build a bloody motorway through the front lawn.
‘It is for charity... you don’t begrudge those poor starving little children!’ I’d said.
‘Not at all. But the cost of putting a carol service on in the first place will cost a fortune. Why don’t you have a small family Christmas and just donate the money directly to the charity instead of killing the fatted calf for those poor starving little children?’
‘Who do you think I am? Bob Geldof?’ I’d snapped.
‘No – but I don’t know who you think you are. Your front garden isn’t St Paul’s Cathedral on Christmas Eve,’ she’d snapped back. She was always better than me in arguments was our Sam.
And here I was, no parties, no carol singers, no bloody lawn for that matter. I was just a crumpled heap, leaning on my island in my clotted cream designer kitchen, drinking last summer’s sherry and wondering what the hell was going to happen next.
Sam hadn’t got a clue. She thought my life was easy, like it was all just one lovely long lunch, but it was a constant battle. My social circle was highly competitive and if you weren’t struggling to keep your husband, you were competing with kids’ school results, party kudos and charity functions. I lived in a place where footballers’ wives mixed with regional TV royalty, and since the Salford influx from the BBC, we were positively awash with new money and WAG glamour. Everyone wanted theirs to be the glitziest evening, the sunniest garden party, the finest charity lunch.
Christmas was the most punishing. Every year it was the same, you had to have the best location, the finest food and the glitziest baubles on the biggest tree. It was relentless and fickle, you were only as good as your last Christmas canapé - and quite honestly, though I hadn’t admitted it to anyone, the mere thought of another round of bloody Christmas balls (in every sense of the word) filled me with dread. My friends would have been amazed to hear it didn’t make me happy. I gave nothing away – and people marvelled at my Christmases, which had a different theme every year. Once my ‘Victorian Christmas’ was in a double-page feature in Cheshire Life. ‘A bewitching Victorian-themed Christmas in the £2m home bedecked with vintage baubles and filled with a boisterous family and tinkling laughter,’ it read. The reality had been a little different. Simon had been working late at the office – again! And so I’d ‘borrowed’ Mrs J’s son for the shoot and told him to keep his back to the camera. I remember sitting there with the journalist while the photographer snapped away, thinking how it summed up my life. Everything was fake, from the feigned festive joy to the caring, present husband.
But this year I really hoped things might be different.
I’d seen less and less of Simon in recent months which he’d put down to pressure of work, but I knew it was more than that. Only the night before the bailiffs arrived I’d found him hidden in his study having a hushed conversation on the phone. He quickly clicked the phone off as I walked in and refused to tell me who he’d been speaking to. I’d had an uneasy feeling deep in the pit of my stomach and stormed straight back to our bedroom. I’d grabbed my bespoke pillows and gone to one of the spare rooms. But I couldn’t sleep and on discovering the Vogue December issue I’d pored over the festive gloss, turning the pages of a lavish turkey dinner, champagne served in crystal and a perfect model wife and mother presiding over it all. Despite my own faked Christmases of a photo-shopped husband and borrowed children, I couldn’t help myself and part of me still bought into the dream. I wanted to be that perfectly groomed, smooth-haired woman in her glitzy top and black velvet trousers. She was laughing, her mouth open showing perfect teeth with effortless glamour. She wasn’t insecure in her marriage and stressed about the festive season, she was comfortable with herself and sure of her husband. Those glossed lips were saying, ‘I am the best wife and mother, I make perfect canapés, cook the most golden goose and after all that I will still have enough love and libido left to delight my husband in the bedroom.’
I’d Googled the glitzy top the woman was wearing and bought it there and then, thinking if I wore that top on Christmas Day, Simon might love me again.
Simon. I finished my sherry. Yes – Simon was bound to arrive soon, or call. It was all so sordid and unseemly and things like this didn’t happen to people like us. Oh how we’d laugh at the blundering bailiffs who probably hadn’t even read the correct address. The paper they’d handed me was lying on the counter top, I reached for it and my eyes skimmed along the page looking for the wrong road, the incorrect house name (we didn’t have a number – you’re no one with a house number). But there it was ‘The Rectory, Chantray Lane.’
My eyes filled with tears as my brain began to adjust to the possibility that this might just be happening... to people like us.
3
Christmas Roses and Champagne Truffles
Sam
Before the bailiffs arrived I’d been keen to escape Tamsin’s theatrical Christmas madness. I was looking forward to taking Jacob home to tea and cinnamon toast in front of our little open fire. We’d snuggle up, watching the glittering, silent snow outside and when he was in bed asleep I would start baking for the morning. This was my life now – and since Steve had died I’d been desperately trying to keep everything on track for both me and Jacob. I hadn’t always succeeded, but thanks to Tamsin, who’d been my safety net – I was finally getting there. But looking at Tamsin sobbing by the beautiful Christmas tree while two guys hammered signs on the outside doors I realised I had to be her safety net now.
Like everyone else, my first thought was that this was all a big mistake – but when Tamsin couldn’t get hold of Simon, we all realised this was very real.
‘What am I going to do?’ she was pleading, looking over at me for an answer. I couldn’t speak, I had always been the one asking Tamsin what I should do – this was the first time she’d ever asked me.
I gave it a few seconds to take everything in, then took a deep breath and
went outside with Hugo to talk to the two men. My nephew was shaken, but wanted to get to the bottom of it all and I linked him as we both walked out into the freezing cold evening. Once outside we asked for details and the bailiffs confirmed that that not only was the house being repossessed but their company was in receivership, too. What made the whole thing horribly worse was that Simon had seen this coming – and had disappeared. I wasn’t surprised. I’d never really taken to Simon he was all about how things looked and how much everything cost. Tamsin always seemed so bloody grateful to have him, she refused to see anything bad in him at all and I felt she made excuses for him. I remember once going for dinner and he was bragging about their new home in France. One of the guests remarked that they too had a house in the same region and I watched his face change – he was suddenly so angry that he wasn’t the only one with a house there. ‘Yes, but yours is one of those little places near the river,’ he said. ‘Infested with rats those places, wouldn’t touch them myself.’
‘Oh Simon, don’t be so mean, Anouska’s French farmhouse is beautiful,’ Tamsin had cajoled. She feigned a light laugh and I noticed her hand discreetly slip under the table to touch his knee, a pacifying gesture she’d thought no one would notice.
‘What?’ he said and everyone stiffened, waiting for the Tamsin-baiting to begin.
‘And what the hell would you know about French property, Tamsin? All you ever do is shop!’ he said, looking around the table for someone to laugh, join him in his bullying. But everyone looked away and Phaedra asked Tamsin for the pâté recipe to try and move the conversation on.
The rest of the evening was unpleasant. Simon’s mood had darkened and there was no way back. Tamsin had asked me to make Bûche de Noël for dessert (chocolate log to everyone else, but Tamsin thought a French name made it more posh) and I think she hoped it would save the night. But even my festive chocolate log couldn’t disperse the cloud of uneasiness hanging over the table. And when Simon threw his fork down in horror because it was ‘dry and bitter’, I could have pushed the log down his throat.
Sometimes Tamsin let it slip that he’d upset her, but mostly she kept it from me – probably worried I might confront him. I noticed the dynamic quite early on in their relationship and later when Steve and I visited together he’d picked up on it too. I did broach it with her once or twice, but she was furious with me for pointing it out. Tamsin seemed to be constantly treading on eggshells, trying to keep Simon, the pressure cooker, from boiling over. There were times I dearly wanted to step in but knew it would affect mine and Tamsin’s relationship if I got involved because she loved him and typically wanted to deny anything negative about her husband or her marriage. I was torn between feeling protective of her and being angry with her for constantly trying to pretend everything was wonderful and constantly placating him, making him even worse.
That night when the bailiffs had left, Tamsin was in pieces. She’d texted and called various friends and colleagues who apparently knew nothing about Simon’s whereabouts.
‘Where is he?’ she cried, through hiccoughing sobs. Pale and shaking, my sister’s whole life had just been pulled from under her and, like the rest of us, she could barely take it in.
‘What am I going to do?’ again, that question. My heart flinched, she was looking to me, but I felt useless and helpless. I shook my head and I saw the fear in her eyes, the desperation and disappointment of a shattered life, and felt so helpless.
The first person I would call in a mess like this would be Tamsin and so, without her guidance, I hadn’t a clue. ‘It’s obviously some horrific mistake and Simon will turn up in the next few hours and sort it,’ I said, unconvinced. I put my arm around her and she nodded. ‘Why don’t you all come back to mine until he gets in touch?’
‘I can’t leave here,’ she said, panic rising in her voice. ‘He’ll come home. What if he’s trying to contact me...?’
‘He’ll call your mobile.’
‘No... he may turn up, I’m not going anywhere until I make sure he’s okay, Sam.’
I hated leaving her like this, but after a couple of hours of shock and tears she seemed exhausted and still convinced Simon would come home later that night. I wasn’t so sure.
Driving home, I tried to put everything to the back of my mind and chat to Jacob. My heart wasn’t really in it, but I wanted to pretend to both my son and myself that everything was okay.
‘We’re going to be so busy this Christmas at the bakery,’ I said, as much for my own comfort as his. The White Angel Bakery had been open for almost twelve months and this would be my first proper Christmas in business. Ironically, for the first time in five years, I’d actually been looking forward to Christmas rather than dreading it, but now that had all changed, in an instant. Funny how your life can be going in one direction, future mapped out, happy, content – then suddenly everything you know and love is ripped away in seconds.
I pulled the car up to the kerb as we arrived home, it was now evening and The White Angel Bakery was waiting like a twinkly fairy sitting in the snow. It seemed to be covered in icing sugar, glittering under the streetlamps, and I caught my breath at the sight. My heart filled with warmth and comfort at the lights glowing inside, welcoming me back to safety and sparkle. In the window were the cakes I’d baked earlier that day; snowy white frosted cupcakes, pure white macarons with a scarlet cranberry filling and a beautiful Christmas cake, covered in a blanket of white icing. It was stacked with white champagne truffles and dotted with tiny white Christmas roses. How different everything had been less than eight hours before when I’d carefully placed those sugar roses on top.
‘Our bakery is like an angel, Mummy,’ Jacob said, his eyes shining.
‘Yeah... I reckon she’s our angel,’ I sighed, and we both stood for a few seconds in the snow just staring.
‘Is Daddy an angel now?’
I looked down at him. We didn’t talk about Steve enough; I found it too painful.
‘Yeah... Daddy’s our angel, he’s up there watching over us,’ I said, looking up into the snow-heavy night sky, my throat burning with the threat of tears.
I stroked Jacob’s head and he smiled. He seemed pleased and grabbed my hand with his sturdy little gloved one.
‘Come on,’ I said, trying to be ‘happy’, trying desperately not to think for a few minutes about Tamsin or Steve. I had to concentrate on my son, he needed me too.
‘Come on Jacob, I’ll race you,’ I suddenly yelled and we both shot through the snow up the side path to the little flat above the bakery, laughing and panting as we landed at the door.
Once inside I couldn’t help it,
I phoned to check on Tamsin. She sounded a little spaced out and I wasn’t sure if it was shock or sherry, but she said she’d be okay.
‘Come over first thing,’ she said. ‘If Simon doesn’t come back, I’m not staying here on my own. I don’t care if I’ve got two weeks grace, I’m not sitting here waiting for them to come and throw me out. Those bastards have left a big medieval sign on the window saying something about my chattels and announcing to the whole of Chantray Lane what has happened... I am mortified.’
‘Oh Tam that’s awful, I can collect you now if you like?’ I offered, hating to think of them all there. I knew what the residents of Chantray Lane were like and I doubted anyone would turn up to offer any kind of comfort, but they would all read that bailiff sign with relish.
She continued to insist she was fine. ‘I won’t hear of you coming out at night in this. It’s snowing again – look after my nephew, he needs you too, I’ll see you tomorrow.’
I put down the phone and half-smiled. Despite her bluster and ‘posh lady of the manor’ act, Tamsin was all heart and in her hour of need still considered me and Jacob. I sometimes felt unworthy of her – she’d always supported me, throughout my childhood she’d been there. And after Steve’s death she’d held me in her arms and let me cry until I had no more tears left.
We were such different people, my sister and I; she was obsessive, materialistic, she cared how things looked, what people thought and she had this need to belong. I found that quite heartbreaking, because underneath the brittle, designer-clad exterior she was as vulnerable as a child. Tamsin’s caring nature could be a little claustrophobic for me and I’d seen the bakery as my stab at independence. It was my chance to build a future for me and Jacob. After tonight’s drama at The Rectory it was clear we had some heartache ahead but whatever happened I had to keep focussed on my own life too. If I was going to be of any use to Tamsin I needed to keep things together, especially the bakery. If business continued the way it had been we were in for a very successful first year, but only if I could keep things on track.
