by Sue Watson
‘Nooooo.’
I nodded. ‘Oh yes, it was mortifying. I was wearing a low-cut Versace that evening, it was rather chilly on deck and it transpired that he was looking at my goose bumped chest and asking if I’d “like a fleece on”.’
Sam was now doubled up laughing, and though it was a painfully embarrassing story for me to tell, I had to join in. ‘Anyway, that’s what I’m like on Sauvignon Blanc... it colours my imagination, I tend to think of everything in a sexual way... or is it that more to do with my age?’
Sam was still laughing, now wiping her eyes on her tea towel.
‘Thing is, Rosalind still isn’t speaking to me,’ I sighed, warming to the theme and enjoying Sam’s laughter. ‘You can laugh, it cost me a fortune in floral tributes to apologise.’
‘Nothing says “I’m sorry I called your husband a disgusting scum pig,” like a bouquet of spring blooms,’ she roared laughing.
‘I was never invited to sunset cocktails on Sky Dancer again,’ I said, a wave of sadness coming over me. ‘Says it all really, doesn’t it? One word out of place and suddenly you’re out, thrown bodily from the social circle. Forget a 200 foot yacht, I’d be lucky to be invited to one of Mimi’s pole dancing classes now.’
‘I think you’ll find calling someone’s husband a filthy little pervert and a disgusting scum pig is actually more than just one word out of place, Tamsin,’ she said. ‘Anyway, they’ve had a bumpy ride themselves this past year, haven’t they? I would feel sorry for them, but they were so obnoxious, always looking down their noses at everyone...’
‘I wonder if people are saying that about me – now I don’t have money anymore?’ I said, almost to myself.
‘Yeah... some will. And they can fuck off,’ she snapped. ‘Do not work yourself up into a lather about fair-weather friends who turned up to drink your champagne and criticise your lifestyle and wallpaper. People who really care about you will still be there, Tamsin, and not gossiping and spreading rumours about you and your marriage.’
She said this with watery eyes and my heart went quite floppy, my own eyes filling up at the thought of everything that now lay ahead.
‘My marriage?’
‘Oh, you know... just jealousy... only gossip.’
I thought for a moment about Simon and what we had... what I’d thought we had, together.
‘I know people talked, even Mrs J told me she thought he’d got someone else when he left.’
‘Who cares? You were always too good for him. I like you better without Simon. And now you’re on your own, I reckon you might just start to like yourself a bit more too.’
I wanted to hug Sam, but she was full of flour and sticky buttercream, and as much as I love her there’s only so much grease a Prada blouse can take.
‘Given how hilarious you are on Sauvignon, might I suggest a second glass?’ she asked, smiling. I nodded. It was nice being here with my sister, laughing, drinking. Sam could even make me smile about the bad bits of my life – she got things into perspective for me and made me realise there were other things going on.
‘Oh Sam, how did I get into this pretty pickle I’m in?’
‘Being evicted from the posh Rotary Club Wives you mean?’ she sighed.
‘There was no “wives” in the title, we were all fully fledged Rotary members.’
‘Yeah... whatever... that’s what they told the wives in Stepford too,’ she smiled, handing me a second glass.
‘I am a lot of things, but I’m certainly not one of those kept women who haven’t a clue,’ I said.
‘Really? Do you know how much your weekly supermarket shop used to be?’
‘Not... really because I got Mrs J to...’
‘Do you know how much you paid to heat your home in winter? Or how much you owed on your credit cards?’
‘Okay, I take your point. I lifted my foot off the pedal of life – as it were. Being married to Simon had turned me into a dependent, pathetic “Real Housewife of Chantray Lane” type, who had everything done for her. But it’s not what I wanted, Sam.’
‘Don’t knock it,’ she laughed. ‘I’d give anything for someone else to pay my bills and do my shopping while I swan around boutiques before a light lunch with wannabe WAGs in the latest French bistro.’
‘It wasn’t quite like that,’ I said, indignantly, while wondering if she’d been spying on me it was so bloody accurate. ‘Anyway, it’s all in the past now – gone are the days of French bistros and footballers’ wives. And yes, I am ashamed of myself, I should have known what our debts were and how much a loaf of bread costs... but I’ve spent my whole life worrying and as a child I would cry myself to sleep most nights.’
She looked at me, we were both leaning on the ovens trying to keep warm
‘I was so unhappy.’
‘I know and I hate that you went through all that, but you mustn’t forget there were golden moments too, Tam.’
I didn’t answer her... I wished I could shake it off, and perhaps with Sam’s help I could. But some days it just came in on me – the past.
* * *
Mum couldn’t afford to buy us much, what money we had went on Dad’s whisky and what Santa brought was usually a disappointment. I’d watch Christmas films and ads on TV of perfect families, with a dad carving the turkey, a mum presiding over Christmas pudding and smiley-faced children opening their presents. I’d imagine the wreaths on the door, a fire blazing and gifts around the tree, how I longed for a Christmas like the families on the telly.
I remember going to my friend Karen’s house when I was about eleven years old. There was a green and gold wreath on the door and the Christmas tree was the most beautiful I’d ever seen. Her mum was smiling in a beautiful shiny kitchen, and later she brought us warm mince pies on silver doilies. They had a colour TV and a video and her dad put tinsel round the room and poured sherry into strange shaped glasses. ‘They’re called schooner glasses. Mum and Dad always have sherry in them,’ Karen said, like she was letting me into a family secret. How I envied her life, her parents and those very special shaped sherry glasses. I can laugh now at the kitsch glassware and how the child in me saw a perfectly average family and thought they were royalty. But back then I thought Karen was the luckiest, richest girl I’d ever met. I wanted to feel like she must feel, live like she did – and I wanted it so much it had become a stabbing pain in my stomach for the rest of my life.
And despite having had enough money for a hundred turkeys and a million gifts since then – it occurred to me I’d never actually achieved this ‘Christmasness’. Living in Sam’s world had made me realise that perhaps Christmas wasn’t something you achieved. Perhaps Christmas could only be planned so far and the rest was down to the messy unpredictable nature of human life? In which case, I thought – who cares what colour your baubles are?
* * *
‘I’ve been thinking... about the future,’ Sam said later that night.
‘Whose?’
‘Ours actually,’ she looked down at her feet. I followed her eyes... bloody flip flops and black painted toes – in this weather. For once I kept my mouth shut – what did I know? ‘Look, we’ve not always been the best of friends... we’re totally different people, but turns out we’re both in what you would call “a pretty pickle” and I would call “deep shit”.
‘I’m going to be sick,’ I said, lunging into the back of the bakery and arriving at the downstairs bathroom sink just in time. I threw up, vowing never to touch Sauvignon again while wiping my face on a towel that had seen better days. It was rough and scratched my face dry rather than blotting it as my own soft towels did. I saw myself in the mirror and wondered where the years had gone. How many Christmas parties, carol services and theatrical productions had I presided and fretted over? And for what? I had spent the past twenty odd Christmases spending time and money on other people. I had probably ignored my own family’s needs to tend to those people who were now not answering my calls (you know who you are).
> I tried not to cry and walked back into the bakery where the warmth of cinnamon penetrated my nostrils and my heart. Sam must have seen in my face that I was feeling fragile and she put both her arms around me.
‘What I was going to say about our future, was you can stay as long as you need to and if I sometimes get cross it’s just because you’re one of the most annoying people I know. But I love you and I’m here for you.’
‘Oh Sam, you’ve been so good to me – you’re even putting a roof over my head.’
‘Hardly Tam... it’s a shared bed in a tiny room in a very small flat. It’s nothing like the glamour and luxury you’ve been used to.’
‘I know you always thought I was having this amazing life... there was a time when I thought that too. But it was meaningless – and you were right about the people, they were shallow and selfish. They only want you when you’re winning.’
‘I’ve been saying it for years. How many festive fucking canapés can a woman serve before she’s accepted into a world like that?’ Sam huffed, angry on my behalf, which touched me.
We both laughed at her comment, humour relieving the pain temporarily.
‘You’ve had enough wine, I’ve made you some tea,’ she said. ‘Mum always said there was nothing like a nice cup of tea when life was shit.’ That word again, Mum used words like that – usually when she was ‘ill’, and though Sam didn’t know it, for Mum ‘a nice cup of tea’ was usually a mug containing a nice splash of whisky.
I watched as Sam gently pasted some cupcakes with syrup. It was quite therapeutic to see those thirsty cakes quenched with warm syrup and I was hoping she’d frost some so I could watch that too – then lick the spoon. I was hurting inside but found this whole process quite comforting.
She looked up from what she was doing. ‘Do you remember Nan baking?’ she asked.
I nodded. It was only the times spent at Nan’s that were truly happy as a child.
‘The house was always warm and smelled of food cooking,’ I sighed, salivating at the thought. Perhaps it was these times I needed to think about when I considered the past – when we stayed at Nan’s and she read us stories and fed us cake. I’d spent a fortune in therapy over the years, but the way to deal with the past was to embrace the Christmases on Hyacinth St when Granddad brought home mistletoe insisting Nan kiss him underneath it. ‘You silly old sod,’ she’d say, faking reluctance when he tried to claim his kiss. Nan and Granddad’s tree was always a real one. I could smell the pine and feel the prickly dark green fronds.
‘I always thought it was just luck that we were there on the day the tree was decorated but looking back they must have planned it that way.' I remembered once, before Sam was born, being discovered alone at home by a neighbour. She must have called Nan and Granddad, who came to collect me. They had no car and walked through the wintry streets in the middle of the night, and the following morning when I woke up in their cosy home I ran downstairs and found a Christmas tree leaning against the wall. Granddad must have gone out first thing to get it before I woke.
Once, another Christmas time, we arrived late to my grandparents after my parents had been rowing. A policeman took us in the car and when we got there, Sam, who was about five years old, saw the tree waiting to be dressed. She asked granddad if we could decorate it and I kept telling her we couldn’t because it was almost midnight. But Granddad said, ‘Oh it’s better after midnight – the fairies come out to help.’ He brought in the box of decorations, the old paper chains, the cracked old baubles, all breathtakingly beautiful to us. We gasped at the glass owl, the little wooden rocking horse, the favourite and familiar blue Cinderella slipper – while Nan made hot chocolate. Later, she came in with a box of Quality Street sweets she said she’d found in the back of the cupboard. Now I realise she probably had those chocolates there for a reason – for a night like this when we’d be rescued from our parents. Once Granddad had worked out which light was broken in the string of multi-coloured fairy lights, Nan put the plug in the wall and Sam whispered ‘fairies’. The lights and the baubles twinkled and we ooed and aahed and Sam said she could hear the bells on Santa’s sleigh.
I had spent thousands of pounds and as many hours planning and decorating my own Christmas trees since, from traditional red and green, to post-modern purple. But do you know what? They never captured the essence and beauty of Christmas the way Nan and Granddad’s tree did that night.
I was suddenly dragged into the present by Sam, who was now whipping up frosting.
‘I’m going for cranberry,’ she said. ‘The cake’s sweet, so the cranberries should be a good balance.’
She split the frosting into two bowls and handed me one with a palette knife.
‘What?’
‘Frost some cakes,’ she smiled. ‘If you’re going to hang around here you might as well make yourself useful.’
I smiled, took the palette knife and began to work on smoothing the buttercream onto the sponge cakes.
‘And no licking the spoon,’ she said. Here in the kitchen Sam was the boss, she was ‘the big sister’ for once and surprisingly I didn’t mind her telling me what to do. I didn’t have to think or worry or take on any responsibility for anyone else. It was like taking a holiday away from myself – and despite all my worries, I liked the freedom.
‘You are clever,’ I smiled. ‘I wish I had a skill like you do, especially now. I could help more with the business.’
‘You say you have no skills but you do. You have an eye for design and you’re a great PR person, you can put people at their ease, chat along and make them feel good about themselves. In that way, you can do so much more than me.’
She was being kind. ‘I suppose I have a modicum of what you might call “people skills”,’ I sighed. ‘Yes I can design interiors, come up with a table-scape when I have to. In the past few years I’ve been involved in some quite unique “events” – but it’s not about skill, it’s all done with a cheque book.’
‘It’s not just about the money. You’ve said it yourself, money can’t buy taste,’ she said pointedly, a reminder of how judgemental I’d been in my designer-clad ivory tower. ‘I feel so bad, Tamsin... you’ve always been there for me, helped me through such bad times – I wish there was a way I could help you.’
‘Sweetie, Simon and I owe thousands, not to mention the cost of potential divorce proceedings when we will be funding the lawyer’s villa in St Tropez. You couldn’t possibly help me... I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.’
‘Well you do. Ungrateful, pompous, rude and patronising... to be precise,’ she sighed.
‘But I deliver it all with great style and class,’ I smiled.
‘Tamsin making fun of herself... that’s new and different?’ she was shaking her head and smiling and the radio was playing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, while we sang along, frosting cranberry cupcakes. And it felt just a little bit like Christmas.
17
It’s Going to be a Cold, Cold Christmas
Sam
A couple of days later I woke at five a.m. to freezing conditions. I had baking to do for the day, so once dressed, rushed straight downstairs to turn the ovens on. Despite a jumper and woolly leggings, I also had a blanket around me to try and keep warm, it was always so cold first thing and I couldn’t afford to leave the heating on all night. I boiled the kettle for tea and waited for the ovens to heat up when I heard something at the door. I went to answer it, but by the time I’d unlocked and unbolted everything, all I felt was a blast of cold, snowy silence when I opened the door. I popped my head outside and looked both ways but couldn’t see anyone.
Thinking I must have imagined it, I turned round and closed the door quickly, trying to keep the heat in, when I noticed a brown envelope on the floor. Intrigued, I picked it up and when I opened it discovered a gorgeous watercolour of the bakery. It was so pretty and delicate, it almost sparkled, the fairy lights twinkled and each little cupcake was painted in beautiful pastels.
I knew it was a gift from Richard, I had no idea he was so talented... but what touched me most was the love and time that had clearly gone into such a beautiful, detailed picture.
He’d taken so much care in creating this, and tears sprung to my eyes just thinking about the way things had been, and the way I’d dismissed him. It was selfish, I’d been thinking only about me. I held the watercolour to my chest, my eyes stung – what had I done?
* * *
Tamsin kindly took Jacob to school that day so I didn’t have to bump into Richard. It was still raw, I’d been tired and tearful the previous couple of days and I didn’t want to see him and make a fool of myself, I needed time to think.
‘He asked if you were okay,’ she said when she got back. She looked under her mascara lashes at me, pretending to feign indifference.
‘Well, I finished it. He’s made it quite clear he’s not going to hang around – so don’t go reading too much significance into his enquiry.’
I changed the subject and asked about Simon, which soon shut her up. I hadn’t heard any more rumours about him ‘running off’ with another woman, so assumed Phaedra’s comment in the restaurant was just a repeated rumour, but I did wonder.
‘I don’t even want to say that arsehole’s name,’ she snapped.
‘Wow – listen to her with her Chantray Lane mouth,’ I mocked. ‘I don’t think Anouska would approve.’
‘She can shove it up ’er arse as well,’ Tamsin hissed. We both looked at each other and laughed, the working class Mancunian never far from the Yves Saint Lauren surface.
The door jingled and some rather well-heeled customers came in and Tamsin’s demeanour changed instantly. From suggesting someone ‘shove’ something up their arse, she manoeuvred seamlessly into ‘Good morning ladies, how “lavely” to see you. Now what can we tempt you with? Do please try a soupcon of our divine gingerbread...’ I watched in awe at her amazing ability to put negative thoughts away in boxes and forget about them, almost instantly. I could see the ‘ladies who lunch’ were completely transfixed, and she talked their language. It reminded me of the way Richard had enticed the yummy mummies that day he’d served coffee. At the thought of Richard my stomach turned over, I felt guilty about the way I’d treated him... and I was missing him. I was missing him so much I had a deep, permanent ache in my stomach that intensified when I thought about him. I had never expected to feel like that again and seeing the beautiful watercolour he’d painted so lovingly had made it even worse. But I was soon dragged away from thoughts of Richard with Tamsin’s news.
