‘I’ve spent five decades pretending, plastering on a smile and trying to be kind and gentle the way people forgot to be kind and gentle to me when I was young and in love with someone I shouldn’t have been…’
This is broken by a lot of tears from Izz that sends my hand flying up to my mouth so I don’t spoil their live stream for all these viewers, over eight thousand of them, according to the little counter on the top of Fern’s screen.
Izz goes on, recovering herself. ‘I’m not doing that any more. No more pretending half a life is enough for a person.’
Alexi’s been nodding the whole way through this, and he’s smiling when he speaks next. ‘When love comes for you, you have to let it happen, all you people watching,’ he tells the world beyond the camera, ‘you have tolet love happen, and hold on to it. In the end, love and the things that bring happiness are the only things that matter.’
‘Auntie Margi,’ Lucy whispers. ‘Are you OK?’
I realise my face is streaming with tears. I feel like my heart wants to burst right out of me. The whole time they were speaking I felt their words like a boxing bout.
‘Where are you going?’ Lucy asks as I try to find a tissue and my boots, all without getting in the way of the camera, but knowing if I’m going to get across my kitchen and out that door, that’s just not possible, not if I don’t have a second to waste.
‘We’re inviting you all to help save the Wheaton Village Hall,’ Izz is saying now.
‘Where we fell in love on the dance floor,’ adds Alexi, and my heart swells for these two, bearing their souls like this.
‘The council have condemned it,’ Izz tells the audience of unseen strangers.
I’m scrabbling for my coat in the boot room, causing an avalanche of cagoules and windcheaters, which, first thing in the new year, are all going to the charity shop.
‘But it’s part of Cotswold history,’ I hear Alexi say.
‘Of our history,’ Fern shouts – yes,shouts– and everyone laughs in surprise.
I’ve got my bag. I fix my face in the kitchen mirror, but it doesn’t matter really.
Izz is saying, ‘And we need your help. Please.’
‘Got to go, sorry,’ I say, nipping behind them, knowing this will prompt a stream of comments asking if that was the panda-eyed lady who was on the news yesterday holding that younger guy’s hand and making a complete fool of herself. And I don’t even care.
Let them laugh if they must.
I’m running, actually running, right down the high street and past the queues of people waiting to get into the school, some of them with their heads bent, watching the live stream from my cottage on their phones.
There are banners tied between lamp posts and street signs. They read,Save the village hall. One in the shape of a big gingerbread man says,Don’t discriminate against gingers. One has my face on it – how did they make that so quickly? – and it reads,meme mom says he’s not my son. I don’t really get it, and I don’t care either. It doesn’t matter whether they think I’m a funny person they admire or if they’re simply making fun of me. All that matters is love and the things that make you happy, and right now, I need to do a whole lot of work to get those things back because I blew it.
Wheaton looks like something between a Christmassy protest and a festival, and it’s actually starting to snow and there’s some singing coming from the church and if this didn’t feel so urgent I might stop and take it all in but I can’t.
‘Have you seen him?’ I shriek at the people in the queue.
I don’t recognise a single one of them, but a few recognise me, and someone shouts after me, ‘I saw him at the gingerbread thing.’
It’s hard to get through the revellers, especially without spilling their cups of hot chocolate and mulled wine. Everyone’s smiling. There are a few pieces to camera still going on. I know some people are holding their phones up as I dash past, filming me. Again it doesn’t matter.
Sully’s at the school door and I reach for him.
‘This way,’ he says, pulling me inside, and he trails behind me as I jump the queue, following the scent of gingerbread.
‘He’s just taking over from Leo in the grotto,’ says Sully.
I keep pressing on, past the dining hall and the PE cupboard and into the gymnasium, my eyes adjusting to the dark, my brain only just registering how delighted everyone looks, drifting around the candlelit tables, admiring the builds, fingers pointing at little details, kids sneaking sweets out of the dried icing and into their mouths, just how it should be.
An elf, one of the new volunteer mums, is about to stop me barging into the grotto, but she realises what’s happening and stands aside to let me onto the little stage.
‘Father Christmas is on his way,’ she tells the waiting kids. ‘He’ll be a few minutes,’ and there’s a little cheer.
I draw back the red curtain and trip the last step into the darkness of the grotto because what does pride matter anyway when there’s me and Patrick at stake?
