My mind flashed back to Tristan. Blood on snow. I shook my head in an attempt to get rid of the image.
I tried to steady my shaking hands as I piped a wobbly line of icing along the roof’s edge. The twins were giggling and whispering to each other, their phones propped up to capture every moment of their decorating process.
Fergus had already managed to sneak a few gumdrops, chewing noisily as he haphazardly stuck candies to his house that kept dropping off. He muttered to himself, his fingers squeezing the piping bag until it exploded and the green icing dolloped onto the tablecloth. ‘Damn and blast it all,’ he grumbled, reaching for his glass of sherry.
‘Remember, everyone,’ Jeannie chirped, her voice unnaturally cheery, ‘we’re judging on creativity, neatness, theming and overall festive spirit!’
I glanced at Miles, who rolled his eyes dramatically before returning to his task. His tongue poked the inside of his cheek as he concentrated on creating a miniature wreath for his gingerbread door.
The gramophone crackled, switching to Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’. The sound of his smooth baritone filled the room.
Suddenly, Mimi let out a small gasp. ‘Ohshit,’ she hissed. I looked over to see that she had accidentally knocked over her gingerbread house; the sides and roof had shattered all over the table.
The twins sniggered, their phones instantly trained on Mimi’s misfortune. ‘Epic fail,’ Beebee said, zooming in on Mimi’s crumbled creation.
Mimi wiped her hands on a napkin and threw it onto the table.
‘Oh, justpiss off,will you!’ she snapped, before storming out of the room.
‘Charming!’ said Clem under her breath as she piped perfect diamonds onto her roof. She punctuated them with glistening blue and white gumdrops.
‘Could I borrow some blue ones, Aunt Clem?’ I asked.
‘Oh no, dear, I don’t have enough!’
It hadn’t escaped me that she had been popping them into her mouth. Therewouldhave been enough for both of us if she didn’t keep eating the damn things. Like a dragon with its gold, she hoarded the best decorations and guarded them fiercely. I looked around the table but saw no other blue gumdrops.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Jeannie tutted, hurrying over to Fergus. His gingerbread house was listing dangerously, threatening to collapse entirely. ‘There’s no point now!’ she said looking at her stopwatch, ‘you don’t have enough time to start over,’ Fergus listed, just like his house, letting out a low belch.
‘Halfway! Thirty minutes left!’ Jeannie trilled, crashing the mallet against the gong.
We fell silent, heads down at our workstations. It was a serious competition; we weren’t here to make cosy family memories.
Eventually, our half an hour was up, Jeannie banged the gong and we all heaved a sigh of relief. I looked around, noting that the twins’ houses weren’t even halfway done, as they had started bickering over something and lost focus.
On Jeannie’s orders, we carried our houses carefully over to the sideboard to be judged. The twins didn’t even bother, they just upped and left their houses on the dining-room table, done with filming their video and not wanting to showcase anyone else’s creations. Even Jeannie seemed glad to see them go.
Callum’s was first in line. The gingerbread house was kept largely brown, but he’d used green icing, chocolate logs and gingerbread men dressed in green and brown camouflage.
‘It’s a hunter’s lodge,’ he said proudly.
‘Very nice, Callum,’ Jeannie said. ‘Very imaginative.’
Miles’s was next. It was a higgledy-piggledy mess, but it was a traditional Christmas theme which would undoubtedly earn him points from Jeannie.
She glanced at it for a second. ‘Hmm. You can certainly tell you’re a scientist,’ she said, moving on. Miles rolled his eyes and smiled at me as Jeannie stopped dead in front of Martha’s.
‘My goodness, Martha, is that Weiss Manor?’ Jeannie said, abashed.
‘Yes,’ Martha replied blushing. She had made columns out of gingerbread offcuts to decorate the front in a Georgian style, and replicated the wreath and the buxus out of icing.
‘And who are these four?’ asked Jeannie pointing at the figures.
‘It’s me, Callum, Mum and Dad.’
‘I see,’ Jeannie said tersely. ‘And where’s the rest of us?’
‘Buried in the back garden?’ Callum teased.
