by Kitty Wilson
‘Yes! I thought you’d get it.’ She pauses for a minute, looks at me, considering. I don’t know what to do with my body so just hold my smile and hope she hurries up. ‘My son is quite tight-lipped about his emotions, you know.’ Oh wow! Is this what she does? Pulls you in and then blindsides you. ‘I don’t know what’s happening between the two of you. I’m nosy, I want to know, he’s my boy, my only baby and I adore him. I’m biased but I don’t think you could meet a nicer man in the world.’
I nod in agreement. I’ve certainly seen the evidence of that.
‘I should probably tell you, we’re just—’ I start to say but she holds her hand up, interrupting me.
‘You don’t need to tell me. Just cos I want to know doesn’t mean I should, he’s an adult and has the right to some privacy. But whatever you’re doing, if you could just keep doing it I would be insanely grateful.’
I don’t know how to respond to that. I know my face alone is chucking out enough heat to melt any remaining snow between here and Bath and that inside, parts of me are squealing with joy.
Even just by being his friend I am helping put a smile on this gorgeous man’s face.
And his mum likes me. I don’t think that has ever happened before. My heart is doing cartwheels … no, scrap cartwheels, my heart is a full-on acrobatic circus.
But today isn’t about me. Today is about Alison.
‘I’m so glad to hear that Rory is more relaxed but ignore your boys for a minute and tell me what’s been bothering you. They mean well and are obviously only trying to shut you down because they care; they probably just don’t get it.’
‘Let you weave some of your sunshine magic on me, you mean?’
‘Ah, I’m more of a Christmas elf at this time of year.’
‘In that case you’ll like this. It’s a little bit Christmas elfish and it’s been so much fun.’ Alison grins and in her I see Rory at his most playful. I rub my hands. I am so here for this.
‘Oh wow, go on then.’
Alison recounts her worry, claiming it’s the closest she has got to naughty before her crazed House of Fraser dash, and I fall a little bit more in love with her. It is the cutest thing I have ever heard. I can see where Rory got his caring side from – always going further than he needs to – from his role model right here.
Her face is a picture as she sits telling me how every Christmas for the past five years she has made batches of chocolate and then crept into her workplace super early and left a bag on everybody’s desk, including her own, as a surprise anonymous gift. It’s clear how much she loves doing this and I can see flashes of the mischief I occasionally glance in Rory’s face as she explains how exciting it is tiptoeing around the building, the adrenaline building if she hears even a merest snippet of noise, terrified she’ll be caught. She is proud that so far no one has worked out the secret Santa is her.
‘I’ve been itching to make them over the past couple of weeks, and yet I know how stupid it is. When I got the date of my appointment through I was so relieved that the surgery would be happening so soon and before Christmas, that they were going to cut this, this thing, out of me quickly. But when the relief had simmered down a bit there was a real pang that it was on the Monday of all days. But I guess that’s the universe for you, a little bit of give and take.’
Isn’t that the truth? I smile. She pauses and looks at me and I nod lightly, indicating that I’m more than happy to listen as she starts to trace a shape with her finger on the table.
‘I am so grateful for my boys, for the fact that Rory flew home so he could be here and spend time with me before and after. That Dave is, well, Dave, the kindest, most supportive man on the planet. I know how lucky I am to have not just one but two of them determined to drive me to hospital, to sit with me, wait for me. I can’t ask them to do a quick flit across to the other side of the city at the crack of dawn to deliver secret homemade gifts to indulge me. It’s too much. It’s taking advantage. But the trouble is now that I’m not doing it this year and I’m out on long-term sick leave, everyone’s going to know it’s me. I don’t do it for the attention, for me the joy is the secrecy, that little bit of Christmas magic, and if I start it up when I am well enough to go back … touch wood, then that magic will be lost. Everyone will know I’m the anonymous gift giver.’
‘I can understand that. I get it completely.’
‘Right. And I understand the boys’ point. It’s not life or death. Cancer is … cancer is life or death and I’m lucky to be in the position I’m in. We caught it early thanks to all those awareness campaigns and the mammograms. I’m guessing Rory told you.’ I nod but stay silent so she can continue. ‘And this secret Santa thing, I need to let it go. And I thought I had but now today is my last chance to do it and I’m in a bit of a panic. I know I should calm down, I know how silly I’m being. But our brains are crazy creatures and boom, it’s at the front of my mind and won’t stop niggling me, even though you’re here and providing a beautiful distraction. You must think I’m so daft.’
‘Hell no. I think you’re freaking inspirational. And that it speaks to the sort of person you are. I think it’s a lovely thing and you’re right, our brains are crazy creatures, they don’t always behave the way we want or expect them to. Mine definitely doesn’t. Where do you work?’
‘Daltons.’
No, surely not. ‘Daltons on the Bath Road?’ I can’t believe it, of all the coincidences!
‘Yes, that’s the one.’
‘And what section are you working in?’
Alison looks at me oddly but bless her, answers. ‘Accounting and payroll.’
My brain is click-click-clacking. ‘Do you have the ingredients?’
‘Not for the chocolates I would normally make. But I could probably gather up the ingredients to make rum truffles.’
‘Enough rum truffles?’
Alison gets up and checks the fridge, then wanders over and opens a drawer which from where I’m sitting I can see is crammed with chocolate. Life goals right there. She turns to face me, a grin as wide as the Avon gorge across her face, and nods.
‘Alison, if you feel well enough and strong enough to help me make the truffles you need, I think I may be able to help you perform a Christmas miracle.’
‘Belle Wilde, you are something else. Will you really?’
‘Of course! I’d love to.’
‘You know what, they’ve been saying awful things about your dad recently in the papers but I don’t believe any of it. He can’t be that bad, he has to be good at his core to have made you. He must be so, so proud to have you as his daughter. You’re just lovely.’ Alison walks around the table and wraps me in a huge hug. I blink back the tears that suddenly threaten to fall and let myself breathe in the warmth of her embrace.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
* * *
December Twenty-first.
Belle.
As I run down the steps into the basement at Hope House, I cannot keep the smile off my face. This is the sort of Christmas mission I love, the sort I was born for. I just have to hope that today is not the day that Fat Alan has broken his madly unhealthy addiction of sleeping in the dungeon.
I asked Ariana if she minded me asking her client for a favour, but she laughed and gave me some tips. Tips I’m hoping I can ignore. I’ve raced through the cleaning and now I need to get down there. I push open the door and hear his gentle snore fluttering up from his very large body huddled on the two pallets in the corner.
For this next bit, I’m going to have to play a character and not one I’m madly comfortable with. In fact, not one that I would ever, ever, have played if this wasn’t about making Rory’s mum smile today, on her most scary day.
More than a little bit nervous, I walk over to Alan, crouch down and gently rock his shoulder.
‘Alan, Alan,’ I whisper into his ear.
He rolls over a bit and
makes a nestling noise. ‘Mmmmm.’
‘Alan, Alan.’ A gentle snore comes from him. I try again. Nothing. This is not working. Ariana’s advice is in my head: be tough with him. He’s here because he likes mean, likes to be told what to do. Shout at him a bit and he’ll be putty in your hands.
I’m not keen. I’ve been hoping to avoid that.
I remember back to my first couple of days on shift when he was waking up and seemed quite fond of my feather duster. I take it out of my cleaning basket and brace myself.
‘Alan, wake up.’ I make my voice steely, commanding and prod him with the tip of it, although how he’s going to feel it through his full-on latex suit is a mystery. ‘Alan!’ I prod him again. His eyes shoot open.
‘Alan.’ I wallop him with the duster. I don’t know if he is smiling, you can’t see facial expressions through the mask but he seems receptive.
‘Alan. I need you to wake up and do as you’re told,’ I bark. This is ridiculous. ‘I need your help.’
Silence.
‘Alan. You are going to wake up, get dressed and take me to Daltons and let me in. I’m going to be ten minutes and you’ll lock up after me. You’re not going to tell anyone I was there and in return I won’t tell anyone about this. Snip snap. Quickly. Do as you are told, right now, right now,’ I shout, my tone as firm as it has ever been.
He jumps to his feet.
‘Yes, mistress.’ His words are muffled but his head is nodding up and down frenetically.
‘Right away. I don’t need you to talk to me. Just do as you’re told.’ This feels so odd.
‘Of course, mistress.’ He bends at a funny angle so I bat his bottom with the feather duster a few more times, not quite believing what I’m doing, the thought of Alison’s face if I succeed motivating me.
Rory.
Today is the day. Hopefully after this we will all know if the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes, if Mum is going to need chemo or radiotherapy or if it’s contained and they have it all out. The consultant said she believed there was a good chance of the latter being the case but until Mum is on the table and she can look around properly she can’t be sure. I’m trying not to be nervous, to keep it in, but I’m scared of what we may hear, that we won’t get the news we’re hoping for.
My phone bings with a photo from Belle. When Dave and I returned from the shed yesterday, the kitchen had been a fug of cocoa powder with the most delicious smell of rum and chocolate emanating from a huge saucepan. They were rolling small ball-shaped chocolates and singing ‘White Christmas’ at the top of their shamefully tuneless voices. Both had turned in unison and waggled their chocolatey hands at Dave and me, as we walked through the door, their glee at their unspoken threat mutual. In fact, scarily mutual and scarily unspoken. It was quite possible that they had developed some kind of freaky Christmas telepathy in the hour we had left them alone.
Mum had been determined to make those chocolate things and even though both Dave and I thought that she should concentrate on her health and the events of today, the grin on her face yesterday told me that we had been mistaken. A chocolatey mess was what she had needed and Belle was the one who had listened and made it happen. A couple of hours later I had dropped Belle home with a huge cardboard box full of pretty cellophane bags secured with reams and reams of curly red, gold and green ribbon.
I open the message and lean over to show Mum, who is out of Recovery now, with all of us waiting on the consultant for an update. She’s still a little groggy but was so happy to see me and Dave that tears pricked at the corners of my eyes when they wheeled her through.
There are two photos. The first is of the beribboned bags sat upon desks at her workplace. How Belle had managed to get in there, I don’t know. Then there is a second photo of her, mask on and with exaggerated tiptoeing across the car-park, bags in hand. She must have an accomplice, someone who took that picture, maybe someone who had helped her break in. I knew Mum wouldn’t have given her the keys, and Belle breaking and entering at dawn is not beyond possible.
‘That girl is an angel. An angel, you hear,’ Mum says.
‘You may be right,’ I concede, not mentioning the likelihood of forced entry being one of the angel’s skills.
There had been something special about seeing her amongst the mess yesterday, my mum and her happily working alongside each other, giggling as they did so, as if they had known each other for years. A pang hits as I realise my mum had always been kind to Jessica, always made her welcome and yet in all the years we were together never once had I seen her so relaxed, so at home with Jessica as she had been with Belle yesterday.
I don’t want to dwell on it too much, but I can’t help but think how odd it is, the way life pans out. Never had I thought when I used to stare across our tutorial group at Belle – on the rare occasions she turned up – that that wild, untamed hedonist of a girl would one day become my friend and would end up sitting in my mum’s kitchen making her Christmas wish come true.
I would my father looked but with my eyes.
* * *
December Twenty-second.
Belle.
The bite of the wind means I burrow my face down into my scarf and pull my hat a little further down my ears as I hurry down the street. I can picture them turning red, then blue then snapping off at this rate. It is cold.
I play Puff the Magic Dragon all the way down to St Marks Road to make me smile. It was a favourite game of mine and Rose’s when we were kids on days like today, huffing out big clouds of hot air into the cold weather and pretending we were dragons. We’d follow it up with the loudest dragon roars you could imagine, but these days I keep those inside my head. There isn’t much you don’t see in the community in which I live – my mother can’t bear to visit the area, squishing up her nose and saying things like ‘I don’t know why you can’t live in Clifton, or Cotham, somewhere a bit more civilised, darling’ – but loud dragon roaring all the way to the shops is possibly still a step too far.
I love this community, probably for all the reasons my mother doesn’t. Its vibrancy, the mish-mash of people that you come across and make friends with. The fact that right now it is Christmas means there are decorations everywhere, up in people’s windows and spilling into the street with unfettered joy. Just as there had been for Diwali last month and the Grand Iftar earlier in the year. Everyone comes together, shares food and music and celebrates each other’s cultures. I love it.
I wave at Temperance as I walk past the minimart. She has Innocence on his knees spray-painting a nativity scene onto the front of the whited-out window. She stands behind him waving her arms with force as she barks at him, ‘You must use the talents God gave you to make people understand the power of his word. Hallelujah to his word!’
The timing is perfect, I’m able to high-five her on the Hallelujah and carry on my way. I turn onto St Mark’s Road now, heading to SweetMart where I plan to pick up some of the spices that my father loves to use at home. I’m making him a little ingredients hamper for Christmas now I have some money in my pocket and am looking forward to selecting things I know he will appreciate and that aren’t easily available elsewhere.
There is a box of Christmas baubles out on a wall, so I stop for a minute and root through until I find one with a little painted reindeer. It looks ever so old, and as if it has been much cherished. I fall in love immediately and pop it in my bag. It will look perfect on my tree. Then my eye catches one more, again very old – a fox made out of some kind of old wool, like an ancient teddy bear. He has patches where his fur has worn away, is a little scrunchy to the touch and one eye has fallen off and somehow, and I do not know why – apart from an unhealthy obsession – I am reminded of Rory. Why I think he will love this scritchety old thing I don’t know, but convinced I am. I pop it in my bag alongside the reindeer bauble.
Mum had called this morning to let me know Dad was home, that he had responded well to alcohol detox at The Priory and had already seen the psychot
herapist that Rory had engaged for after-care. Had I seen the pictures the press snapped of the two of them deep in conversation? Hadn’t he looked serious? She felt like this was a really positive step forward.
I haven’t told her I block stories about Dad from my news feed. Neither did I comment that I thought the process of alcohol detoxification should have been longer than he had stayed for – by my reckoning, he shouldn’t be out until Christmas Eve.
A quick look on Google and it was clear to me that Mum – not the press – had hidden behind the stile at the end of the garden to snap the photos. Who went for a walk with their therapist, especially in December, if not to get a picture? Honestly. Those two are as bad as each other.
I’m thankful to Rory for trying; the guy he engaged has qualifications and recommendations coming out of his arse, plus a CV that includes a brief stint with at least two of the Rolling Stones, and that sort of stardust impresses my dad. I know that had it not been for Rory’s advice he would never have engaged with sobriety and a detox programme at all, although truth is I still doubt his commitment and I’m not convinced our family’s issues can be resolved that simply.
But it’s a start, and there’s a chance he may actually listen. I’m hopeful for a damascene moment where he decides that he (and the whole female population of the world) will be served best if he stops drinking altogether. I don’t hold much hope but I indulged in a brief fantasy when I woke up this morning of me handing him his Christmas present as tears spring to his eyes and he realises he’s been a bit of an arse. Self-indulgent, sure, but you know, who doesn’t want their dad to approve of them. Especially when that approval has been withheld for so blooming long!
Hence the guarded enthusiasm behind my shopping trip now.
