A Typical Family Christmas

by Liz Davies

  ‘To Riley’s house.’ Ellis said, over her shoulder.

  ‘Come back here.’ Kate waited for her daughter to sidle back into the kitchen. ‘Who’s Riley?’

  ‘A friend from school.’ Ellis refused to meet her eye.

  ‘I’ve never heard you mention her before.’ Kate’s heart thumped and a shiver of worry slithered down her spine.

  Ellis shrugged.

  For God’s sake, why did all her kids shrug? Was it something they were taught in school – “Today we’re going to learn about the Industrial Revolution, but first we’ll do five minutes of shrugging”.

  ‘Who is she, and where does she live?’ Kate demanded. ‘I’m sure her mother won’t be too happy to have a stranger descend on her for Christmas. Anyway, that doesn’t matter, because you’re not going.’

  ‘Mum!’ Ellis stamped her foot. ‘You can’t stop me, it’s all arranged, he’s—’ She stopped, her eyes widening, and she bit her lip.

  ‘He? Riley is a boy?’ Kate’s mouth dropped open. Her daughter was not only planning to be absent for Christmas, but she was planning on spending it with some spotty git with an excess of hormones and an urge to do something with them?

  Over her dead body.

  ‘Duh, yeah...’ Ellis recovered quickly, folding her arms and scowling.

  ‘Don’t you “duh” me, young lady. How am I supposed to know who Riley is, considering you’ve never mentioned him before? And no, you’re not going to stay with some boy for Christmas. Or ever.’

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased—’

  ‘Yeah, right. How on earth you thought you could get away with pulling a stunt like this, is beyond me.’

  ‘Fine.’ Ellis stamped her foot again. ‘I’ll stay here, but don’t expect me to give up my room, and I’m not having Portia sleep in mine, either. If you’re so keen on having the wrinklies to stay, then one of them can sleep in your bed!’

  With that, Kate’s lovely, mature, thoughtful daughter, whirled and stormed out through the door, slamming it so hard it rattled the mugs hanging from the mug tree on the counter.

  Kate stood there, aghast and embarrassed. How dare Ellis behave so badly in front of her grandmother. And how dare she give the impression that neither of the old ladies was wanted.

  A sob came from Beverley, and Kate turned to see tears sliding down her mother’s face.

  ‘She’s a teenager,’ Kate said, as if that simple fact both explained and excused her eldest daughter’s appalling behaviour. ‘I’m sorry you had to see that. Of course, we’re delighted to have you and Helen for Christmas. If it was up to me, you’d spend every Christmas with us.’

  Kate crossed her fingers against the fib. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her mother, she did, but Beverley could be so joyless.

  ‘Don’t cry, Mum,’ Kate said, cursing her children from here to next week. ‘I’ll sort something out.’

  And she did, just not in the manner she’d been expecting.

  Chapter 13

  Brett was turning purple. It didn’t suit him, Kate thought, not with his light brown colouring and grey-blue eyes. He stopped blowing, held the nozzle which protruded from the inflatable mattress firmly closed, and panted.

  ‘Isn’t there a thingy you can use to blow it up?’ Kate said. ‘You know, a foot-pump? I’m sure we’ve got one somewhere,’ she added, as she wrestled with putting a fresh cover on the spare duvet.

  ‘Its’s in the garage,’ Brett puffed.

  ‘Why don’t you go and get it?’ She shook out the now-covered duvet vigorously, making a loud thudding slappy sound.

  ‘Shh, you’ll wake Mum,’ he hissed, flicking his gaze towards the ceiling.

  The spare room was directly over the living room, but Kate guessed Helen wasn’t asleep yet; she was probably lying there, quietly seething, and plotting her revenge.

  ‘Well?’ Kate said. ‘Go and get it, or you’ll still be blowing this thing up in the morning.’

  ‘I can’t believe you did this to me. Us,’ he amended quickly. ‘Besides, I can’t get it.’

  Kate wasn’t sure where to start. She picked the last comment as the line of least resistance. ‘Why not? I thought you said it’s in the garage.’

  ‘It is. The light in the fluorescent tube has gone.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s pitch black in there.’

  ‘You managed to find the air bed.’ Her reply was rather on the tart side. Kate had had enough of this day – she just wanted to get to sleep. She had a feeling she’d need as much rest as possible to cope with the next few days. Or plenty of gin. Maybe both...

  ‘I knew where that was,’ he explained. ‘The foot-pump could be anywhere.’

  ‘Take a torch?’ she suggested, starting to lose patience. Did she have to think of everything?

  She looked up from stuffing a pillow into its pillowcase to find her husband who, she reminded herself, held down a quite senior and very responsible job, with a sheepish expression on his face.

  ‘The torch is in the—’ he began to say.

  Kate finished it for him ‘—the garage. Why is it in there?’ The torch was supposed to live under the sink. That’s where they always kept it.

  ‘I left it in there the last time,’ Brett admitted.

  ‘Oh.’ Kate thought for a second. ‘So, the fluorescent tube didn’t just die tonight, then?’ She’d assumed he’d gone to switch the light on earlier, only for it to fail.

  ‘Er, no.’

  Great. He knew it had needed replacing but hadn’t bothered to do anything about it. Serves him right, she thought, that he was now forced to blow the air bed up by hand. Or should she say, by “mouth”?

  Brett took an extremely deep breath and returned to the arduous task of inflating the mattress using only his lungs.

  Kate left him to it and sat on the sofa. The TV was on low, but she found she couldn’t focus. There was something she needed to get off her chest before she’d be able to sleep.

  ‘What did you mean, “did this to me?”,’ she asked, after a moment. ‘I did nothing to you. If you’d have given me the slightest bit of support, instead of letting me deal with this on my own, Ellis and Portia would be bunking up together right now, and we’d be sleeping in our bed.’

  Brett looked up at her, his lips puckered around the little tube, his eyes bulging slightly.

  ‘But you didn’t say a word,’ she continued. ‘I’m fed up of playing bad cop.’

  Brett stopped blowing. ‘I’m pretty sure I don’t play the good one.’

  ‘That’s because you opt-out of playing altogether. Avoidance isn’t a valid parenting strategy.’ Although, she had to admit, it had generally worked for him in the past.

  ‘You should have put your foot down,’ he said.

  Kate glared at him. ‘I did. Then when I appealed to you to back me up, you said you couldn’t deal with it right now, because you were going to play a game of squash. That was Friday night, and there’s not been a peep out of you since.’

  ‘You haven’t said anything since then, either, so I assumed it was sorted,’ Brett said.

  ‘No, it wasn’t sorted. Ellis made my mother cry.’

  ‘You need to speak to her in the morning.’

  She slapped the arm of the sofa in frustration. ‘I’ve got an idea, a radical one I admit, but why don’t you speak to her?’

  ‘I’ll be in work.’

  ‘So will I.’

  ‘Are you saying you intend to go to work and leave them here alone? The two mothers and the kids?’ Brett looked horrified.

  ‘You stay home, if you’re so worried.’

  ‘I can’t. Do I have to remind you that I’m the main bread-winner?’

  ‘Don’t start,’ she warned. ‘You might have a high-powered job and earn three times the amount I do, but my job is important, too.’

  ‘Four times.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I earn four times more than you.’

  Kate blinked slowly. �
�I can’t believe you’ve bothered to work that out.’

  ‘It doesn’t take a mathematical genius. Just look at your wage slip, then look at mine.’

  ‘Fine. If you really want to do this now—’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve spent eighteen years raising your children. I didn’t have the luxury of being able to work my way up the greasy promotion pole. I,’ she poked herself in the chest, ‘wasn’t able to work at all until a few years ago, because I was too busy cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning, sorting out school uniforms, bandaging grazed knees, taking the children to the park, to swimming lessons, to piano, to school, to dental appointments, to the opticians, to the doctor, on playdates. I was the one who stayed up all night with them when they were ill. I was the one who sponged them down when they had a temperature. I was the one who cleaned up sick...’ she trailed off, remembering Pepe’s little accident. Nothing had changed – she was still cleaning up sick. In fact, she was still doing all the jobs she’d just listed, but with the added burden of working, too.

  ‘It’s called division of labour,’ her husband replied loftily. ‘You did your part, and I did mine.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t realise that doing your part meant a total abdication from anything parental, including telling your spoilt brat of a daughter that she has to do as she’s told, whether she likes it or not.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I asked, which daughter, because from where I’m standing both of them appear to be spoilt.’

  ‘And that’s my fault, too, is it?’ Kate cried.

  ‘Shh, you’ll wake my mother,’ Brett said.

  ‘Sod your bloody mother.’

  There was a noise from the hall, and the pair of them paused.

  Helen stuck her head around the door. ‘Is everything all right? I thought I heard voices.’

  Brett shot Kate a “now-see-what-you’ve-done” look. Kate resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him.

  ‘We’re fine, Helen. Why don’t you go back to bed?’ Kate said. She could do without this right now.

  Helen didn’t move. ‘Brett, darling, is there anything I can do to help? Take a turn at blowing that thing up?’ Helen said.

  Kate almost choked on a laugh as she tried to keep it in. Helen, blowing up an air bed? Ha, ha.

  ‘I can manage, Mum, but thanks for asking,’ Brett said, with a smile which Kate wanted to wipe off his face. He never looked at her in such a considerate and grateful way.

  ‘I hate to think of you being ousted from your bed, especially since you have work in the morning,’ Helen said, her voice oozing concern and sympathy. ‘Wouldn’t it have been better to have come to some other arrangement?’ This last comment was aimed at Kate.

  ‘We’ll sort something else out for tomorrow night,’ Kate said, gritting her teeth. If she kept on doing that, she’d have to see a dentist before too long.

  ‘I do hope so; Brett needs his rest. And to think of Beverley with that big bed all to herself, while poor Brett has to sleep on the floor...’ Helen gave a little twist of the mouth and a sigh to accompany it.

  ‘I’ve got to sleep on the floor, too,’ Kate pointed out.

  ‘Ah, well, Beverley is your mother, and her visit is quite short notice. We all have to make sacrifices.’

  Kate wasn’t quite sure what sacrifices Helen had made.

  Another false sympathetic smile from her mother-in-law was accompanied by her saying, ‘Besides, you don’t have to go to work tomorrow. Brett does.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Do what, dear?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Have work tomorrow. You’ll have to amuse yourselves, I’m afraid. I’ll be back in time to see to the evening meal.’

  Helen frowned. ‘I see,’ she said, frostily. ‘I hope it won’t be as late as tonight’s was. I’m sure it was delicious, but I don’t like eating at nine o’clock. I find it gives me heartburn.’

  Kate had observed Helen merely picking at her food, wearing a slight moue of distaste as she did so.

  She rolled her eyes. Between rolling and grinding, she wasn’t going to have much of a face left by the time the mothers went home. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Kate said, trying not to snarl.

  Helen gave a tiny gasp, her hand went to her chest, and her eyes widened. ‘I’ve just had an idea. How about if Beverley has my room?’

  Helen’s face was open and guileless, but Kate wasn’t fooled. ‘Are you offering to sleep down here, on the air bed?’ she asked sweetly, knowing Helen would never make such an offer, not in a million years.

  ‘Good lord, no!’ Helen exclaimed. ‘I was thinking that your bed is so big, that Brett and I could share, then everyone will have a good night’s sleep.’

  That suggestion was wrong on so many levels that Kate honestly didn’t know where to start. First, her mother was probably asleep by now and wouldn’t take kindly to being woken up to move rooms. Second, why should Brett get a better night’s sleep than she was going to have? Third, ew. Just ew. The thought of Helen snuggling up to Brett made her stomach turn. Fourth, the only reason Helen was even suggesting this, was because Kate and Brett’s huge attic room with its luxurious en suite was gorgeous, and Helen was insanely envious that Beverley was getting to sleep in it and she wasn’t. Ha, you old hag, Kate wanted to shout – you thought you’d get one over on my mum by arriving early, did you? Wrong! Beverley had certainly come out on top in the war of the bedrooms.

  ‘No, thanks, Mum,’ Brett jumped in before Kate opened her mouth. To be fair to him, he looked as shocked at his mother’s suggestion as Kate felt. ‘We’re fine as we are for tonight. Go back to bed, eh? I’ll see you in the morning.’

  ‘If you’re sure...?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Kate and Brett watched as Helen retreated, closing the door behind her, then Kate sagged against the sofa. ‘I can’t believe she said that.’

  Brett looked thoughtful.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ she warned, seeing his expression. ‘It’s wrong and downright odd to share a bed with your mother. I wouldn’t dream of getting into bed with Sam and he’s only eleven.’

  ‘It’ll only be for the one night,’ he began.

  Kate decided to try a different tack. ‘If you disturb my mother at this time of night, I’ll never forgive you. She feels bad enough as it is, without making her feel worse.’

  ‘She didn’t look as though she felt bad – she looked like a cat who’d got the cream when you suggested she could have our room.’

  Yes, Kate silently agreed with him; her mother had looked positively gleeful. That was the word. Or was smug a more accurate one? The self-satisfied look she’d given Helen, must have made Helen’s blood boil.

  It was pathetic, the way they acted. Beverley was well aware that Helen always came to them for Christmas. She was also well aware that Helen stayed in the spare room. Which was why Kate was certain her mother had arrived as early as she had – in order to bag the spare room for herself. It was also why Helen had brought her arrival date forward (twice!), to make sure she got the spare room, too.

  Absolutely pathetic.

  Therefore, it was quite ironic that Helen had got what she wished for, and still thought she’d been dealt a poor hand.

  Kate’s wish was that the pair of them would grow up.

  She felt like there weren’t three children under this roof tonight but six, including her husband. No, make that seven – Pepe the poodle was just as much trouble as the rest of them.

  Her patience having finally deserted her, Kate scooted down on the sofa, pulled the duvet over her, and closed her eyes.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Brett asked.

  ‘Going to sleep.’

  ‘On the sofa? What about the air bed?’

  Kate opened one eye and squinted at the semi-inflated mattress. ‘You can have it.’

  ‘It’s not fully blown up yet.’

  ‘Then I suggest you get on with it.’

  ‘What am I
going to put over me? You’ve got the duvet.’ He sounded so plaintive she didn’t know whether she wanted to hug him or slap him.

  Slapping won. ‘Tough,’ she said. ‘Use one of the sheets in the utility room. They’re clean.’

  ‘I haven’t got any pyjamas.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Kate threw the duvet off and scrambled to her feet. She’d reminded him earlier to gather what he needed prior to letting her mother into their room, but what had he grabbed apart from his work clothes for the morning and his toothbrush? A golfing magazine from the little rack next to the loo in the en suite; as if he was going to get any time to read it.

  Dear lord, did she have to do everything?

  Stomping into the utility room, Kate dug around in her ironing pile for a clean sheet, then dug around some more for his pyjamas. The top and bottom were mismatched (she guessed they must have been in there a while, like the odd-sock pile in the bottom) but they’d have to do.

  Muttering crossly under her breath, Kate returned to the living room, to find Brett sprawled on the sofa, the duvet tucked firmly around him, snoring his head off.

  Wonderful!

  Chapter 14

  The following morning, Brett thought it best to be mouse-like and not wake Kate. She was fast asleep, curled up in a ball on a couple of cushions which she’d taken off the armchairs and put on the floor. Tiny little snuffles came from her half-open mouth, and she was deep in the land of nod. At least she appeared to have had a decent night’s sleep, unlike himself – he’d spent half the night tossing and turning, the sofa proving to be too short and too narrow for his long frame.

  He resisted the urge to give his wife a nudge with his foot.

  If he woke her now, he’d have to listen to her nagging and, frankly, he could do without having an ear-bashing before he’d even got into work. He’d get enough of that when he was at his desk; he didn’t need it at home, too.

  He was right – by nine-thirty he’d come to the conclusion that if anyone else thought that giving him a bollocking was a good idea this morning, he might just throw his toys out of his pram and bugger off home.