by Sue Watson
Whilst the people I’d thought were my friends never got in touch, plenty of others did, offering their help, attendance – and in the case of the rather handsome butcher in the square, a free turkey.
Sam said it was because I was so friendly and despite Phaedra and Anouska being shallow, selfish bitches (her words), other people had remembered the kindnesses I’d given over the years. But it was more about my parties – I always gave the best parties in the area and this one was no exception, I was high-kicking my way into Christmas after all.
The White Angel Bakery Party started at 10.30 in the morning and the champagne flowed. Sam had made the most exquisite pastries and dainty, snowy little cupcakes and we laid them out on large white tables inside and out. Dusted with sparkle and lit from above (I always light from above, darling), they looked stunning. I’d told Jesus it was a family affair so no coke, no dildos and no swearing – he accepted these conditions but said the swearing may be an issue. ‘Well then darling, so as not to offend you’re going to have to swear in your “native” language, and I don’t mean Mancunian.’ So Jesus snapped away, grimaced at the kids and stayed relatively sober while swearing in Portuguese and taking bookings for family photos and future Christmas cards.
Children all took turns on the reindeer, when Heddon and Hall weren’t completely monopolising it. I had to have a quiet word with Heddon when a queue of ten crying children had formed and he was refusing to budge because he was waiting for Jesus to ‘capture me in reindeer flight’.
In between reindeer rides, Hall had set up Santa’s impromptu grotto, which consisted of a gossamer curtain behind which sat a rather corpulent Heddon dressed as Father Christmas. He made lots of ho ho ho noises, while Hall as Santa’s little helper danced around in a pink sequinned elf outfit with glittery wings – he looked delicious and the children loved it.
By the time the carol singers turned up at 5 p.m. we’d taken more orders than we could have dreamed of. Sam and I were ecstatic, but just a little concerned about how we were going to get it all done with only four days to Christmas.
‘We’ll do it,’ I said, squeezing Sam’s hand, back to the old Tamsin, making everything right again. Sam seemed relieved at my blind faith and I had to smile because I wasn’t 100% sure we had the time either – but we were so determined the bakery was going to be a success we’d do anything.
I’d always paid someone to select the music for my own parties, but as Hugo had kindly offered I allowed him to take over the deck. I had been slightly nervous about his choice of music and had a word before proceedings started. ‘Now Hugo we need something Christmassy, I don’t want any of that rapping stuff you were playing where black people call each other terrible names.’
‘So what were you thinking... Nicky Menaj’s “Stupid Hoe”?’
‘I’m thinking “Wombling Merry Christmas”,’ I said. Sometimes he could be as sarcastic as his auntie.
It was hot inside with the ovens on and all the customers milling, so I wandered outside into the cold evening to listen to the carol singers. It had stopped snowing sometime around dawn and the crisp white ground had turned to slush. ‘Silent Night’ was filling the clear frosty air, as the black roads and grey pavements emerged slowly from their white burial ground.
Hearing the singing I was transported straight back to my grandparents’ house – carols on the radio, a real fire and paper chains hanging from the ceiling. That was a perfect Christmas, no colour scheme, no expensive crackers, festive flower arrangements or organic geese on the table – just us, our family.
Sam wandered out into the night, her face pink with warmth and happiness, she was holding Jacob and Ella’s hands. Richard was behind them, his hand on the small of her back, loving her, taking care of her, and it warmed my heart.
I turned from my sister to see Hugo and Hermione walk towards me with polystyrene cups of champagne. ‘Happy Christmas, Mum,’ they said.
‘We are going to be okay, we won’t have much but...’ I started.
‘Mum, really it’s all good,’ Hermione sighed, putting her arm around me. ‘Well, I say all good – I’m having a love-hate relationship with this glitter nail varnish right now.’
She was looking earnestly at her nails and I smiled with relief – glad she had her priorities right. One day she’d realise that nail varnish didn’t matter – but for now I would leave her to find that out for herself. Enjoy it while you can, I thought – the real concerns in the world are too big and scary for you just yet.
I hugged them both, my arms around their waists because they were both bigger than me.
‘Are you guys okay?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, we’re fine, Ma,’ Hugo said and hugged me back.
I looked around at everyone else also having a genuinely good time with their kids – but without co-ordinated outfits or baubles – and for the first time in years I felt that Christmas tingle, I could almost hear the sleigh bells and the sound of reindeer hooves. But when I looked to see where the sound was coming from, it was only Jesus pulling Heddon and Hall through the snow on the white reindeer.
35
Psychic Talents and Fallen Angels
Sam
Tamsin’s Christmas soiree was a roaring success. The orders poured in and with all we’d taken it looked like the bakery would survive well into the next year. We had done so well I was even wondering if one day we might open another Angel bakery, and that night, after the party, when everyone was cleaning up I put it to Tamsin as we washed up together.
‘I love that idea,’ she smiled. ‘After all there are two Angel sisters, so there should be two Angel Bakeries... but only two, let’s not get greedy. We could call the other one “The Fallen Angel” after me,’ she giggled, before suddenly becoming quite serious. ‘Sam, if things do work out for us, let’s promise ourselves we’ll never get so rich or ambitious we forget what’s important and lose ourselves.’
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘It’s taken quite a journey to get here – let’s not cock it all up.’
‘Oh Sam do you have to be so vulgar? Talking of cocks - I have news on Simon.’
‘Really?’ I was salivating, what was the tosser up to now?
‘Mmm I got a call from Anouska earlier,’ she said, plunging her hands back into hot soapy dish water.
‘Anouska? Is she calling you with gossip because she wants to be friends again?’
‘No. Nothing like that – she asked if Simon was with me.’
I was puzzled. ‘Why would she call you to ask that?’
‘Apparently he told her he was working late at the office... she had no idea he has no office any more.’
‘What? I don’t understand.’ Then it dawned on me. ‘You mean Anouska... and Simon?’
‘For almost a year apparently,’ she sighed handing me a wet dish. ‘It explains why he abandoned me in Spain last summer to rush back “to the office”. It also explains the absent weekends and the late night phone calls and why Mimi didn’t want to talk about Anouska when I asked about her at the party – apparently everyone knows but me. So much for the girl at the gym, Davina from work and the woman in the wine warehouse; it was Anouska all the time... right under my nose.’
‘The bitch, she was your friend.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’re not raging and threatening to shut her down and...’
‘Doing my usual Bette Davis? No. Because they deserve each other, they make the perfect couple, both obsessed with money and themselves. And when she finds out he has no money and he’s “late at the office” once too often, they will be over and he’ll be on to the next one.
‘I’m proud of you, Tamsin.’
‘Thanks. I’m proud of me too. And there’s something else... I wasn’t completely surprised about Anouska, I knew because I’m psychic.’
‘Okay... how many fingers am I holding up,’ I said, putting my tea towel down and my hands behind my back. It was a game we played as kids to see if we could read each other�
�s minds – we couldn’t.
‘Oh that’s child's play for an expert like me. Don’t you remember? In my Darjeeling leaves when Mrs J saw a clown I saw Anouska’s face! She was the vulture circling around the dead corpse of my marriage. I have a rare talent, who knows where this could lead.’
‘Hermione’s right, you are such a drama queen,’ I said. We carried on washing and drying and laughed about the possibility of her future as a psychic in a double act with Mrs J.
‘I will only use it for good,’ she said. ‘My talent scares me too much.’
She wasn’t joking, and as much as she’d changed, I loved the fact she was still her over the top self, still able to provide high drama on any occasion. Our lives had changed so much in such a short time and though some of it was going to be tough, there were silver linings. Even Christmas Day would be different this year and we talked excitedly of the big family Christmas in our tiny flat.
‘It will be great fun,’ Tamsin smiled. ‘I am just so grateful for us all to be together, it could be in an old garage... as long as we are all together, as a family.’
It wouldn’t be anything like the Christmas she’d planned. ‘There will be a table and there will be knives and forks,’ I warned, ‘but nothing will match, there won’t be a theme, a colour scheme or a ‘table-scape.’ Hugo and Hermione had said they were just glad the dinner would be edible – which would make a change from when Tamsin cooked.
Everyone else had either gone home or gone to bed and it felt good just to chat with my sister. I’d wanted the bakery to be the one thing I achieved on my own. After Steve I’d been too scared to fall in love again because I couldn’t bear to lose that love, as I had with him. And through Richard I’d learned that it’s okay to ask for help, it’s okay to let people into your life, you can’t keep them out because there’s a chance they might leave or die.
As for Tamsin, she said she would have liked there to be something more with Gabe – but it wasn’t to be and for now she was just happy to be with family, working in the bakery and waking up every morning with a sense of purpose and a future. The two of us working together was organic, we were sisters after all, and though we were different, we were good together. She’d changed so much – what happened to her had made her far calmer, less demanding, less controlling and there were times when she was actually fun.
‘I thought I didn’t have a future that night, when the bailiffs came,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know which way to turn, but you were there for me. I know it will take time but the success of today’s party has given me such a lift – I’m starting to believe in myself again. I hope it’s done the same for you.’
‘It has and you’ve been amazing.’ I’d wondered all along if she would crumble, that one day her surface brittleness would crack and she’d fall apart – but she’d been so strong.
‘You too, sweetie,’ she put her arm around me. ‘It’s ironic isn’t it that Steve was taken from you by a man who’d had a drink... and my childhood was taken from me by a man who’d had a drink too.’
‘Perhaps it’s time to forgive those guys who had a drink and start to take back what’s ours. Steve's gone, but I am still very much alive! I’ll always love him, but I can’t live in the past any more, and neither can you.’
She blew her nose and smiled through her tears. ‘I’m sorry. I am being very selfish... I can’t begin to understand how awful that must have been for you, a young wife and mum losing her husband so... pointlessly.’
‘I used to think like that, but this is the first Christmas I feel able to move forward. I’ve changed and I’m coming to terms with life and what it throws at us. I’d put mine and Jacob’s life on hold, clinging to our old life and old ways, keeping Jacob’s hair long because that’s how his dad wore it, refusing to let Richard in and really do Christmas because Steve died on Christmas Eve. But it’s time for us to live a new life. I don’t want to be defined as “that poor young widow” anymore. And Tamsin you have to do the same or the past will destroy you. You can’t anaesthetise the pain with a new handbag anymore. You've had to face everything that’s happened to you, both as a child and in the recent past, but I’m proud of you, big sis.’
She seemed surprised, shocked at how much I’d guessed about her. We sat for a while at the little window table. The snow had started again and already a thick white blanket had covered the square, burying sound and covering our thoughts. It was late and quiet and we were both exhausted from the day, but the hope blossoming in my tummy was like a crocus pushing through the snow.
‘I’ve always been the know-all, the big sister who has to give the advice, be there to wipe the tears and clean the wounds of life... but all the time I should have been listening to you,’ she said.
‘No. We have to listen to each other.’
Then she put down her cup and went over to her handbag on the counter.
‘I almost forgot... an early Christmas present – well, the only one,’ she laughed. ‘Happy Christmas, Sam.’
She handed me a beautifully wrapped, small oblong-shaped gift. I looked at her while taking it from her outstretched hand. I slowly opened it and inside was the most beautiful picture, a watercolour of our Grandparents’ home.
‘It’s Hyacinth Road,’ I gasped. The picture was so detailed, so pretty, a golden glow coming from inside, a wreath on the door and the wonky old Christmas tree in the window. I felt huge tears run down my cheeks.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘From my memory. You told me to let go of the past... but to remember the good times and move forward. Richard painted it from an old photo I had, but it wasn’t taken at Christmas, so I remembered the happy details at Christmas for him to paint.’
I looked into the picture and my heart fizzed with love – for Tamsin for being so thoughtful and Richard for painting it so carefully, with love. I was so lucky to have him in my life. There would always be a corner in my heart for Steve, but someone else loved me now, and I was finally ready to let go. I studied the picture for ages, losing myself through the window of that little house, the details were tiny but so well observed. ‘I can even see the paper fairy we made together, it’s here on our tree now and it was there then in the window of 22 Hyacinth Road,’ I smiled.
‘Yes, it wasn’t all bad... if you look hard enough there are always good times.’
‘Like when we played snow angels?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ she giggled.
‘Come on then,’ I said, grabbing her hand and dragging her out into the night and the snow. She tried to resist but when she saw me laying there, my arms and legs outstretched, she lay down next to me. The two Angel sisters, both women, both mothers, who Tamsin said ‘should really know better’, lying side by side in the snow and screaming with laughter.
* * *
That Christmas Tamsin and I and all our family spent the day together. With Richard, Jesus and Heddon and Hall there were nine of us and as I didn’t have a dining room, we pushed the bakery tables together and threw a cloth over them. For Tamsin’s sake I tried to stay with the white winter theme, but my glasses were blue and my napkins were red – and horror of horrors – made of paper.
‘This won’t be easy,’ she said, holding a red napkin between thumb and forefinger, her lip curling in horror. For my sake, let’s pretend it’s a theme and call it a Christmas mash-up.’ And as she dabbed her mouth with a paper napkin in the wrong colour, and ate frozen supermarket turkey instead of French organic goose – I knew she’d changed. A year ago she would have passed out at the prospect of mismatched (paper!) table linen and a non-organic turkey. The crackers were cheap and gaudy and chosen by my ‘Christmas stylist’, Jacob – and when we pulled them they cracked so loudly, Tamsin, Heddon and Hall all screamed. Jacob and Hugo read out the cracker jokes, Tamsin and the boys did an impromptu medley from ‘White Christmas’ and Hermione put it all on You Tube. And in a symbolic gesture, I asked Richard to carve the turkey. He seemed so delighted at my show of love
and commitment, I thought I’d better take him aside and reveal just how committed I was. We were just about to sit down to dinner and I couldn’t wait, so discreetly gestured to him to meet me upstairs in the flat.
‘I couldn’t wait to give you your present,’ I said. I asked him to sit down and told him the news and we both laughed and cried with happiness and back at the table we exchanged secret glances. But as always, my sister had guessed something was going on and later, in the kitchen as we made Nan’s rum sauce, she gave me a sidelong look.
‘Sisters should never have secrets,’ she raised her eyebrows comically. ‘Do you have a secret you might want to share with your sister?’
I nodded, my face breaking into a smile. ‘You know how I’ve been tired a lot lately... no energy, feeling sick - like I was in the first trimester with Jacob?’
I didn’t need to say any more.
‘I’m so happy... for you...' she said, hugging me and nodding through tears. ‘It’s happy tears.’
‘Me too.’ I wiped my face with a tea towel and handed it to her.
‘Ooh tea towel? For tears? You’ve turned me into a right chav, our Sam,’ she said, mopping her face.
This baby was our hope, our little crocus growing in that snowy winter of our lives. We’d lived through a time of sadness and loss, but now happiness was on the horizon for all of us. The secret was to allow happiness to enter our lives in its’ own time - we couldn’t chase it or change it. Meanwhile I had learned to let people in and my sister had learned to let them go.
