A Typical Family Christmas

by Liz Davies

  ‘Where did you get it?’ Kate was staring at the huge monstrosity which took up most of the space in front of the bay window and then some. The top branch was slightly bent because the tree was a fraction too tall for the height of the ceiling, and the star sitting on it leant drunkenly to the left. Kate always placed the tree slightly to the side of the window, so it was visible from the road, but not totally blocking all the weak winter light. And she referred an angel on the top – the one she and Brett had bought in a little Christmas marker in Copenhagen the year they were married. It might be old, but it held memories, as did every other bauble she’d lovingly and meticulously collected.

  ‘I took a little run out to the garden centre,’ Helen informed her.

  ‘Oh, lovely,’ Kate said, weakly. Inside she was seething. How dare her mother-in-law decide to buy their tree without consulting her? How dare she throw out the family’s decorations? Kate would like to throw her mother-in-law—

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Helen said. ‘I thought it would save you a job, as you’re rushed off your feet. I put the lamb in the oven, too, and prepared the veg. Dinner should be ready in half an hour.’ She paused and threw Beverley a supercilious look. ‘You know how I like to keep busy; I can’t just sit around all day. Unlike some people.’

  ‘There’s no point in keeping a dog and barking yourself,’ Beverley muttered, peering over the top of her glasses.

  ‘You didn’t need to buy any decorations,’ Kate said quietly, hanging on to her temper by a very fine thread indeed. ‘There’s a box full of them in the garage.’

  ‘I know, dear. Tatty old things. I put the box next to the wheelie bin,’ Helen said, ‘ready to be collected by the bin men.’

  ‘Right.’ Kate, with another look at the hideous tree with its red and gold decorations, stalked outside to rescue the box of ornaments, and marched back with it. She popped it into the cupboard under the stairs for now. As soon as Helen had gone to bed, Kate intended to replace each and every nasty plastic bauble with those beautiful, unique decorations the family had lovingly collected over the years.

  ‘Are the children around?’ Kate asked, following her mother-in-law into the kitchen to find Helen squinting through the closed oven door.

  ‘You need to give this door a wipe over,’ Helen said. ‘Some nice hot water, a squirt of washing-up liquid, and a good application of elbow grease should do the trick.’

  Kate knew the oven needed cleaning, but it was the least of her worries. It frequently needed cleaning. So did everything else in the house. It must be nice to have all day, every day to yourself, she thought, with nothing to do but potter. No job to go to, no children to taxi around, no parents’ evenings to attend, no—

  ‘Where are the children?’ she asked again. Whatever they were doing, they were being suspiciously quiet about it. When it came to kids, silence was never golden unless they were asleep, and sometimes not even then she’d learned, after a disastrous incident with the washing machine and a bag of flour.

  ‘No idea. They come and go as they please. I think Sam’s in his room,’ Helen said. ‘He’s been in there all day.’

  Kate held back a sigh. Trust the kids to disappear when the nanas were here, but she didn’t blame them. She wished she could disappear, too. ‘I’ll get changed, then I’ll take over from here. You sit down and put your feet up,’ Kate suggested, meaning “please get out of my kitchen”.

  ‘Nonsense! I’ve started, so I’ll finish.’ Helen made shooing noises with her fingers.

  Kate obediently shooed, her quiet seething becoming more of a bubbling simmer. She knew Helen meant well, but honestly! There was being thoughtful, and then there was being downright interfering. Her mother-in-law had always been the same – Kate had never felt good enough; no matter what she did, Helen managed to make her feel inadequate and sub-standard. The oven door remark was just the latest one in a whole line of similar comments, stretching right back to before Brett and Kate had got married.

  It had started the first time Kate had met Helen. Some comment about Kate’s hair, which had been long, dark and straight, and how Kate could inject more body and life into it if she’d had a good few inches chopped off the ends. Apparently, a decent cut would take care of all those split ends, too, according to Brett’s mother. And Brett, bless his oblivious little cotton socks, had wondered why Kate had taken exception to the suggestion. ‘She means well,’ Kate remembered him saying.

  Kate knew exactly what Helen meant, and the comments had persisted ever since, couched as “helpful” suggestions. Which was why there was absolutely no point in challenging her. The one and only time Kate had done so, had resulted in Kate looking like the bad egg and her mother-in-law snivelling daintily into her handkerchief and tearfully telling Brett that she had no idea Kate felt so antagonistic towards her, when she was only trying to help. Of course, Brett took his mother’s side. He always did.

  ‘Are you OK, Sam?’ Kate asked, popping her head around her son’s door. He was sitting in the dark with only the light from his Xbox for illumination. God knows what game he was playing, but the green colour on the graphics made her son look like an extra out of The Walking Dead. His grunt of acknowledgement was also oddly similar to the noise the creatures made.

  ‘What have you done with yourself today?’ she persisted.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What time did you get up?’

  ‘Dunno. Late.’ Sam didn’t take his eyes off the screen.

  She gave up and went to find one or the other of her daughters. Without any luck. Both rooms were empty, although she did notice the pathetically deflated air bed on the floor in Portia’s room, with the foot pump in a prominent position next to it, and took an educated guess that Helen had put it there.

  Her mother-in-law certainly had been busy, but if Helen thought that either Ellis or Portia would be happy with the arrangement, she was sadly mistaken. For one, Ellis would vehemently object to sleeping on the floor – in her eyes, being the eldest gave her certain privileges, and bunking down on a wilting airbed wasn’t one of them. Neither would she want Portia in her room.

  Kate smiled grimly. She knew exactly what Helen was playing at; she must have heard Beverley saying she preferred Ellis’s room last night, and had therefore put the air bed in there which, if her plan was successful, would mean Beverley would have to sleep in Portia’s room, instead.

  The sneaky old bat.

  Kate found she was quite looking forward to her daughters’ return home. Under the current circumstances she had to grasp any chance of amusement with both hands, however small, and the sight of the inflatable mattress would certainly provide that.

  Then common sense kicked in and she realised what a pair of brats both girls would appear to be, and she didn’t want her mother to witness yet another “who’s going to end up with nana sleeping in their room” episode. She couldn’t even blame Helen – not really. Even if her mother-in-law hadn’t turned up so early, Kate would still be facing the same situation, just in reverse; her own mother would have been firmly ensconced in the spare room and everyone else would have been fighting over where Nana Peters would lay her hairspray-encrusted head.

  Blowing her cheeks out, Kate plodded across the landing to the stairs leading up to her and Brett’s attic conversion, wondering if it was better to just leave things the way they were. Her mother could continue sleeping in their bed, and Kate and Brett could sleep downstairs in the living room. It wouldn’t be so bad once he’d blown the air bed up, and it was only for a few nights. Everyone would be happy – except for her and Brett, but that was nothing unusual – and she was prepared to do anything to make the festive season pass a little smoother and ensure they all came out of the other side alive.

  It was amazing how quickly a brownish stain right in the middle of a pristine cream carpet could change a person’s mind, Kate thought, a few seconds later, as she surveyed her bedroom.

  She tried to console herself with the fact that at
least her mother had tried to clean it off, as she stripped off the bedding and hunted out some fresh linen in preparation for her and Brett moving back into their own room this evening.

  After changing out of her work clothes, she bundled up the sheets and made her way downstairs, full of determination to tackle her girls. If either one of them said a peep about sharing, she’d stop their pocket-money for a month. She’d take their phones off them; she’d take their Christmas presents back to the shops; she’d—

  ‘Arggh!’

  Kate, unable to see where she was placing her feet because of the load of washing in her arms, stumbled over Pepe, and landed heavily on her knees in the hall. There she remained for a long, long second, in that state between injuring oneself and not yet feeling the pain but knowing it would be monstrous when it arrived.

  Oh, dear God, here it comes, she thought, as a shock wave travelled up from her poor knees and into her hips. Bloody hell, but that sodding hurt; she was sure she must have broken something or dislocated her kneecaps.

  It took a while to realise that the whimpering she heard wasn’t coming from her, but from Pepe, who was sitting on his fluffy haunches and gazing at her with concern.

  The dog was a damned menace.

  With a lot of groaning and considerable effort, Kate struggled to her feet, rubbing her knees and wincing. It hurt so much, she almost felt sick with it.

  Pepe watched from the side-lines, his head cocked to one side. She couldn’t decide whether he was commiserating with her, or whether her predicament amused him.

  ‘Go away,’ she hissed at him.

  Pepe whined a reply but didn’t move.

  Leaving the washing where it was and continuing to massage her damaged kneecaps, she staggered into the living room.

  Her mother hadn’t moved from her chair and was still knitting with a speed suggesting the end of the world was nigh if she didn’t hurry up and finish the garment she was working on.

  ‘It’s for you,’ Beverley said, holding up her creation proudly, and momentarily taking the wind out of Kate’s proverbial sails. ‘Do you like the colour?’

  ‘Yes, lovely.’ Mustard yellow wasn’t her favourite shade, but it was the thought that counted. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A pullover.’

  ‘Great. Look, Mum, you’re going to sleep in Portia’s room tonight—’

  ‘She’s got to you, hasn’t she?’ her mother interrupted.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘That woman. His mother. I could tell she wasn’t happy with me having her precious son’s room. I know she put the air bed in Portia’s room, because I saw her do it. Oh, she thought she was being sneaky, but she can’t pull the wool over my eyes. I know what she’s playing at. She’d give her right arm to have your lovely room.’

  ‘Everything alright, Beverley?’ Helen said from behind Kate, and Kate jumped, the movement sending fresh waves of pain through her knees.

  ‘Tickety-boo,’ her mother replied. ‘I was just telling Kate that I had the best night’s sleep ever last night. It’s so peaceful at the top of the house, away from the racket the children make. Isn’t it kind of Kate and Brett to let me have their room?’

  ‘Mum, I—’ Kate began.

  ‘The pair of them will do anything to make my stay pleasant – I’m sure they do the same for you, don’t they?’ Her mother smiled sweetly then said to Kate, ‘You’re such a good daughter, and I do appreciate you putting yourself out for me.’

  Kate, ignoring Helen’s thunderous expression, turned slowly on her heel and walked back into the hall.

  She was just in time to witness Pepe cocking his leg on the mound of sheets on the hall floor and giving them a liberal sprinkle.

  Chapter 17

  After the day he’d had, Brett was seriously considering jacking it all in. He’d get a job in a pub, or on a farm, or sweeping the streets. All those were perfectly good, respectable jobs. They all provided a valuable service, and they all had the minimum risk of receiving snotty emails from snotty clients. None of them would involve trying to persuade reluctant and suspicious companies to buy your company’s product because you told them it was better than any other company’s product, when in fact there wasn’t an iota of difference between them. None of those jobs would involve trying to screw said companies out of as much money as possible, while said companies were trying to pay as little as possible.

  He was sick of it. Sick of the pressure, sick of the never-endingness, and really, really fed up with the commercialism of it all. Brett, who’d once won employee of the year, hated being employed by the company he was with.

  Also, he had The Abyss for a boss.

  He couldn’t wait for midday on Friday, when the whole place would shut down for the Christmas period and he could forget about bottom lines and targets for three and a half lovely days. It didn’t matter that the two nans would both be there, bickering and trying to outdo each other. It didn’t matter that the kids would be squabbling and trying to get their own way at their siblings’ expense. It didn’t matter that he and Kate might very well be at each other’s throats trying to keep the various factions happy, and only succeeding in cheesing everyone off. Anything was better than having to go to work and—

  ‘Why is that bloody dog pissing in my hallway?’ Brett dropped his briefcase on the floor, thought about what he’d just seen the dog doing, and hastily picked it up again.

  ‘Because it can?’ His wife sounded slightly hysterical.

  He knew how she felt.

  ‘Please will you do something about it?’ he asked and stalked past her, ignoring her glower.

  ‘Brett, darling! I thought I heard someone come in.’ His mother was in the kitchen presiding over a leg of lamb, the enticing aroma of roasted meat and rosemary filling the air.

  It looked delicious. His mother had always been an excellent cook.

  ‘Mmm, smells good,’ he said, pulling one of the chairs away from the table and putting his briefcase on it. After the scene in the hall, he wasn’t going to take any chances on having it watered by a poodle. He’d never get the smell out for a start.

  Kate strode in, clutching a wriggling Pepe.

  She ignored both Brett and his mother, opened the door to the garden and thrust the dog outside, shutting it firmly behind him. Then she strode back out of the kitchen.

  Two seconds later, she was back with the urine-covered sheets. She stuffed them into the washing machine, threw a washing tablet in after them, slammed the door, and strode back out again.

  Brett exchanged a meaningful glance with his mother. Kate was doing a lot of glowering and striding. Why the hell did Beverley have to bring that dog with her? She knew what an inconvenience it was, and the animal’s tendency to pee everywhere didn’t exactly endear him to anyone. Pepe was partial to the odd growl and snap, too, the nasty little thing.

  ‘Ignore Kate,’ Brett said to his mother, conscious of her rather hurt and slightly incredulous expression. ‘The dog just peed on the washing. Oh, hello, love,’ he added as his eldest breezed into the kitchen. ‘You’re just in time for dinner.’

  Ellis stared at the leg of lamb and shook her head. ‘I’m going to Riley’s house. We’ll grab something later.’

  ‘Who’s Riley?’

  Ellis’s expression was pitying. ‘Don’t you and Mum ever talk? He’s my boyfriend. I’ve only come back to have a quick shower and get changed.’

  ‘You’ve got a boyfriend? Since when? Who is he? Does he go to the same college as you? How old is—’

  ‘Speak to Mum, she’ll fill you in. Hi, Nan.’

  Brett watched his daughter wave airily in her grandmother’s direction, open the fridge, grab a carton of juice and breeze back out of the kitchen.

  He blinked.

  Helen frowned. ‘I take it from that, Ellis won’t be joining us for dinner?’

  ‘It doesn’t sound like it.’

  ‘What about Portia?’

  ‘What about her?’

  �
��Will she be eating with us?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Brett said. ‘Is she in?’

  ‘She’s not been in all day. When I say, “all day”, I mean since this afternoon. She didn’t get up until ten-past twelve, then she waltzed straight out. Goodness knows where she’s gone. Maybe Kate can enlighten us.’

  ‘Pepe, Pepe.’ Beverley’s high-pitched, silly voice, the one she used when talking to her dog and which irritated the hell out of Brett, could be heard calling from the living room.

  ‘He’s in the garden.’ Brett shouted.

  His mother-in-law barged into the kitchen, the door thudding open, and Brett winced. Between her and his kids, the door and the plaster around it wasn’t half taking a battering.

  ‘Outside?’ Beverley shrieked. ‘He’ll catch his death. It’s freezing out there.’

  It’s not much warmer in here, Brett thought, when Beverley glared at him and his mother as though they were the ones responsible for Pepe’s banishment to the great outdoors.

  Beverley quickly let the dog in, bending down to check he hadn’t developed frostbite during the two minutes he’d been outside, cooing to him as if he was a little baby.

  Brett grimaced, caught his mother’s expression of distaste, and rolled his eyes. He had a feeling he’d be doing a lot of eye-rolling before Christmas was over.