Every Day in December

by Kitty Wilson

  ‘Oh my God, Rory! I’m not ninety.’

  What is going on? When I offered to come, we were meant to be shopping for something nice for her operation. A grown man shopping for lingerie with his mother is not a look I am going for, ever.

  Desperately I pull out another – a cotton gown, quite short – and pray.

  ‘Look, I don’t mean to be ungrateful, I really don’t.’ She chucks me under the chin as if I am six, even though these days she has to reach up to do it. ‘It’s kind of you to come with me. I never dreamed I’d get to do this with you. You know, not once I realised you liked girls.’

  ‘Eh? Mum. When did you not know I was straight?’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t sure there for a bit, there was that stage you had, you know with the black nail polish and the what do they call it… Ooh, excuse me,’ she grabs a passing shop assistant, ‘can you help me? What do they call it when men wear make-up, dear?’

  ‘Drag,’ the girl replies. ‘I bet you look beautiful with those eyes. What’s your drag name?’ she asks me.

  ‘Um…’ What the hell do I say? Whilst I may enjoy the odd episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, I’m not in the habit of tucking and donning sequins on a weekend. No problem with it, just not how I spend my leisure time. That would be the correct answer. But all I do is stand here, mouth open and say um repeatedly. Clearly won’t be winning any challenges for quick wit.

  ‘No, no, not that. Just eyeliner?’ Mum interrupts, sort of saving me, sort of not.

  ‘Oh, okay. Guyliner? We stock it on the first floor.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one, that. Thank you, love.’ She pats the girl’s arm, her early petulance disappeared and full-on mumness back in play.

  ‘That’s okay. That would look great on you.’ She smiles and she heads to tinker with a display very nearby.

  ‘That. Guyliner and the nail varnish. Then.’ Mum nods with satisfaction.

  ‘Mum, that was once, once when I was thirteen for Halloween. I don’t think that is the perfect snapshot to assess sexuality.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mind. I mean Janet’s son, older than you, he goes shopping with her all the time. He took her to Ann Summers.’

  No.

  I love her but I am not taking her to Ann Summers. I’ll never be able to have sex again. I may have currently forgotten what sex is like, but I’m hoping one day in my future, when I feel less broken, I’ll dabble again. Ann Summers is most definitely not happening.

  ‘And now they can have children and go shopping, well, it’s a win-win, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t think “they” is a term anyone uses about any group in society these days, Mum. Pretty reductive and prejudiced.’

  ‘Hmpf, the only thing I’m prejudiced against is these bloody things.’ She flips through a rail at lightning speed, somehow managing to tut, flick and speak all at the same time. And I know that her words are true. I’ve spent my life watching my mum be open and kind and generous with every single person she has ever come into contact with. ‘I just told you, I was quite excited about the fact that you may be gay. Mind you, that’s old hat these days, isn’t it? I watched a documentary on Netflix. It’s all about pan these days, isn’t it, love? Are you pan? Best of all worlds it seems to me.’

  Dear Jesus Christ, I swear if there is anything worse than your parents becoming unintentionally but increasingly out of the loop as they get older, it has to be them intentionally trying not to be, over a nightdress rail in the middle of M&S. I can feel the whole department’s eyes on me. It’s clear that it isn’t just my mum that wants to know.

  ‘Tell you what, why don’t we go and get a cup of coffee?’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea…’ she said. I close my eyes and pray. If she suggests what I think she will, I’m going to kill Janet’s son.

  ‘Let’s go to House of Fraser.’

  Now my mum isn’t mean by any shot, she’s the most generous woman I know. But she is the queen of frugality – she uses her teabags twice – and has always had very firm views on the sort of people that shop in House of Fraser. Views that aren’t always very kind, which often reference Margaret Thatcher, and are another example of her lumping a whole band of people together in one box.

  Normally the thought of even looking inside the three-floored department store in Cabot Circus would be enough to bring her out in hives, and now she wants to go there to buy herself something? This is most bizarre. However, if she wants to treat herself to something a little bit more luxurious for her op, then I am all for it.

  This excursion has been triggered by her talking about her hospital trip – ‘If they think I’m wandering around Southmead Hospital with my bottom hanging out, they’ve another think coming. There’ll be men all over the place ready to take photos and load it up on the internet. Janet dated a porter from up there once and well, the things she said…’

  Janet has a lot to answer for.

  Ten minutes later we’re in House of Fraser and she’s tutting at the price tags. Despite being in Beelzebub’s den she seems full of the next-level joy that she usually only gets when her strawberry meringue sponge – a cake of a devilish nature – turns out right.

  ‘Would you look at this – £120 for a sleep set. What’s a sleep set? It’s just pyjamas with less fabric.’ She tuts.

  My phone beeps and I pull it out and look at the screen. It’s Chad Charles, the latest loud-mouthed boy to catapult to reality fame who had posted some stupid stuff on Twitter years ago. He can wait. This is Mum’s time.

  She grins. ‘Ooh, but look at this…’ She picks up a silk nightie. It’s long and has proper sleeves – she’s had concerns about the tops of her arms for years, even though they just look like arms to me – and is in the palest pink. ‘Ooh, you’d feel like a princess in this. Imagine waking up with this on.’ Then her tone changes, becomes less enchanted-garden, steelier. Hmmm. ‘I’m going to try it on.’ She hasn’t even glanced at the price tag.

  ‘Go for it. I think that’s a good idea.’ I nod encouragingly. She’s still using a whole load of Timotei she stockpiled about the time I was born. This sort of unfettered spending is uncharted territory.

  ‘Yup. And you’re going to wait over there.’ She points to the exit.

  ‘Really?’ Is she scared in case I see a slip of her in silk? Yeah, actually, I can wait over there.

  I stand right by the side of the door – doing as I am told – when my phone beeps again. Honestly, celebrities and their need for constant hand-holding. I’ve already written a statement of apology for Chad and told him to slowly give out money to charities, pitch in, do some good and refrain from posting about it on social media. He should be doing good because he bloody can and somehow it will get known about. Self-serving, I know, but you have to work within the realities of life and human nature. And at least some charities get huge chunks of cash out of it.

  It isn’t Chad.

  I’ve just got a phone call from Greenbank Primary School. They wondered if I could cover a cancellation for tomorrow.

  A smile covers my face, ear to ear. This is great news. I can imagine how happy this must make her. I see her face in my mind, excited.

  Wow. Can you?

  * * *

  Of course. I’ll have to make it Christmas themed which is trickier than you’d think and somehow make it suitable for infants but yeah!

  * * *

  This is great news. I’m so pleased for you.

  * * *

  Thank you. I wanted to let you know.

  * * *

  Will you let me know how it goes?

  * * *

  Of course.

  I start to type Shall I come and help you research … which I know is stupid, there’s hardly anything I can add to the discussion, but sometimes having company is fun. And then my mind flashes to this morning.

  I delete the message.

  I had a dream about Belle Wilde last night, not some teen dream but one where she had very much been in it and as my girlfrie
nd. We’d been going on some wild goose chase and I couldn’t remember exactly what for or where, or even the point of it; there was something about tinsel and chickens and cupcakes, but I knew from the way I felt that everything was all right because we were together.

  Honestly, it freaked me out.

  It still is.

  I made a conscious decision after Jessica that I was better off on my own, even after allowing myself time for grieving and healing. That level of involvement is not good for anyone. I want to be by myself and I never want anyone to hurt as badly over me as I did over her. That way I can keep myself safe. I can keep everybody safe.

  I carry a lot of guilt over her death. I know that I wasn’t responsible for the weather that night, that I wasn’t driving the car, but there is something that makes me feel that it all could have been avoided. That I should have stopped it, that it wouldn’t have happened at all had I behaved differently. Either on that night or the months preceding.

  Growing up alone with Mum, having been abandoned by my biological father, meant that I was a very responsible child and that carried on into adulthood. I’m proud of that, that’s the type of man I want to be. But there are two edges to that particular sword and I never ever want to be in the position again where I can impact someone’s life so badly that it results in such levels of pain. Jess was lashing out and trying to escape from me that night. So it is better for everyone if I just stay by myself.

  Rational me reminds me that Belle Wilde is exactly what her name implies, she’s beautiful and a little too feral for me to handle. We are far from compatible. The picture of a fox pings into my mind again as does an awareness that I may be being over-harsh, judging the Belle I once knew, not the one I’ve met recently. The mind is the most bizarre thing, it seems to be able to hold several conflicting opinions at once and be fine with them all. It’s exhausting. The one thing I am sure of is that Belle Wilde and I might be best off with a bit of distance. It has to be safer that way. Stop my mind imagining it wants things that I really don’t. Although I am pleased about her school booking, that is gr— What the actual…?

  ‘Run, Rory, run!’

  My mother streaks past me at speed and as she does so an alarm starts going off.

  ‘Run, you daft bugger!’ She hurls the words at me over her shoulder as she pegs it out of the House of Fraser, a silky-looking skirt billowing out from under her winter coat.

  I run.

  There’s so much security in Cabot Circus, how the hell does she think she’s going to get away with this? They’re bound to stop us before we even reach JD Sports. I catch up with her and shout across.

  ‘What on earth?’

  ‘Don’t talk, slows you down. Run!’

  ‘Oi!’ I turn my head and sure enough there are two Cabot security guards chasing behind us. They’re still right by House of Fraser and we’re dashing past Timberland. We might be able to do this, get out of the mall, but where then?

  I’m careful not to outpace Mum; my heart and feet are pounding, my adrenaline in full flood. I need to hang back just a little so, worst-case scenario, she can get away and I can distract the guards. How has this become today’s plan?

  For a small woman who, as far as I know, never does any cardio or gym, she sure as hell can run in the moment.

  She’s ahead now, round the corner of the shopping centre, and then runs up to the number 5 bus as it’s driving off, bashing on the door. The driver stops and opens the door, at which point she grabs me and hurls us both on, shouting,‘Drive, drive’ as if she’s in some kind of heist movie. Within seconds we’re down the road, sailing through the green lights as the red-faced security guards come out of Cabot, pausing to see which way we have gone.

  ‘What … the … hell, Mum?’ I pant, holding onto the pole on the bus to steady me.

  ‘Now that, Rory…’ she says, sat on the chequered bus seat, smoothing down a very expensive silk nightie, now fully out and hanging over her trousers, ‘now that’s what I call living.’

  To business that we love we rise betimes

  And go to’t with delight.

  * * *

  December Eleventh.

  Belle.

  I stand on the stage next to delicious Mr Latham. The plan is to deliver a brief five-minute hello in front of the whole school and then get cracking. For all my social anxieties I had always thought that talking about Shakespeare was the one thing that could never scare me.

  I was wrong.

  I’m standing in front of a whole school and I’m proper terrified!

  There are about two hundred and fifty pairs of eyes on me. On me! I’m not prepared for this. Shakespeare to secondary schools, bring it on. Primary school children, not so much. And Shakespeare and Christmas! Christmas is the one thing he didn’t bloody write about at length.

  ‘Let me pass you over to the woman that knows all things possible about the Bard, we’re very lucky to have her at such short notice, Miss Wilde.’

  I smile, take a deep breath, and go with bluff-it-don’t-fluff-it.

  ‘Thank you. Hello, school. I’m so happy to be here, with the lovely Mr Latham…’ A titter runs through the children, some of the mums nod in agreement and I feel the blush spread up my neck, and across my face, matching the deep red of the Elizabethan dress I’m wearing today to give my talk. I plough on. ‘When Mr Latham asked me to come and talk about my favourite storyteller of all time, how could I say no? The truth is, I’m not sure if any of you have heard of this guy. Hands up if you’ve heard of Shakespeare before, any of you? Okay.’ All of Year Six have their hands up, with a woman sat to the side of them looking suitably, and rightfully, smug and about twelve others. ‘That’s okay. Truth is, he won’t have heard of you guys either. Do any of you know why that is?’

  ‘He’s dead, Miss.’

  ‘That’s the one right there. He lived when people dressed like this so he has been dead for some time. You don’t see people wearing this in Asda, do you?’ I run my hands up and down my costume.

  ‘You might in Bedminster, Miss,’ a voice shouts out. I fight the laughter; that’s true enough. All sorts goes on there.

  ‘I’ll tell you, it’s not that comfy. It’s easier to breathe in jeans and a jumper.’ I love this dress, want to be buried in it, but Ariana had laced it so tightly this morning, I think she muddled me with one of her clients – certainly halfway through the lacing I wished I had come up with a safe word. ‘And when Shakespeare lived he wrote thirty-seven plays, thirty-seven! And even more sonnets, one hundred and fifty-four of those, that’s a huge number. Sonnets are poems and we’re going to talk about those later but when it comes to Christmas, out of all those plays and poems he only mentioned it three times. That’s all.’ I hold up three fingers to reinforce the point and catch a glimpse of Mr Latham’s really?-oh-I’m-sorry face and can’t help but smile. ‘But that is not going to stop us now. Oh no. We’re going to spend the day looking at this amazing man, looking at some of the stories he told, looking at how people celebrated Christmas when he was alive, and generally have a day packed full of loads of fun. And I can tell you, I am so excited. I cannot wait to meet you all.’ And I curtsy. Of course I do, because who wouldn’t wearing a dress like this, having finished a speech whilst standing on a stage? Looks like my dad’s sense of showmanship hasn’t completely skipped the next generation after all.

  A few hours later, I’m sat in the hall on one of those little PE benches, legs akimbo and not exactly looking the picture of Elizabethan decorum. It may be December but I’m as sweaty as a pig in July. I have spent this morning with the little ones; we dressed up as kings and queens, fairies, donkeys, bears, Roman generals, witches, soldiers, and put on plays. We made our own Tudor Christmas decorations from ivy and pine, we spiced and honied and drank our own communal wassail (apple juice – even with my slightly shitty adherence to social conventions I know ale in a primary school is a no-no) and we talked about Twelfth Night and watched the British Council’s amazing short
animation of it. This afternoon I have done a little more in-depth work with the older ones; we talked about themes in Twelfth Night and tried to do a scene or two with cue scripts, not an easy task but hilarious and a great insight into Elizabethan theatre. But right now, all that leaping about in this dress means if I sweat any more I’ll be able to fit into those trousers I bought four years ago and so far have not managed to get more than half a thigh into. Do people still pass out from exhaustion in the twenty-first century? Are smelling salts kept in first-aid boxes these days?

  I have an hour left to go and truth is whilst I’m dehydrated, exhausted and broken I am so high. This has been amazing. I’m literally living my dream and the kids are so receptive, more so than in my wildest imaginings. I’d worried like mad when I had been asked to deliver a workshop for each age group on Shakespeare with practically zero preparation time and the knowledge that Shakespeare didn’t really ever reference Christmas, much to the dismay of modern-day directors looking for a sure-fire festive box-office draw. But I’ve done it. I don’t want to get carried away but I think I’ve done it quite well.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Mr Latham kneels down beside me. ‘Can I get you anything? A glass of water?’

  ‘No, no, I’m fine,’ I say, trying to sit up straight and knowing it would be deeply inappropriate to ask him to loosen my stays.

  ‘I wanted to come and let you know how enthused the children are, they can’t wait for you to come back, so I’ll definitely be asking you to come and do more workshops in summer, if that’s okay with you?’