‘Could you help me upstairs with this lot?’
‘Can we do in a bit? Just sending some emails?—’
‘It’s just, if the kids come back they’re going to see?—’
‘Can I do it when I’ve finished?’ He disappears back up the wooden staircase to the loft. Simmering with irritation now,Shelley lugs the shopping upstairs in two loads, and then heads to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
The sink is piled high with dirty dishes. Shelley’s family seem to be under the illusion that this is a magical sink that cleanses its contents without any human involvement, like those freaky public loos that sluice everything down when you’ve gone out.
She re-fixes her blonde ponytail and tears into the washing up. And now she remembers that Joel has invited ‘the boys’ around tomorrow for mince pies, mulled wine and their annual festive table football tournament. Shelley likes Joel’s friends, gathered from his various magazine jobs and a football team he belonged to, briefly. She’s happy for him to invite them all round, as it’s usually a jolly occasion. But they’re not ready this year. Not a single decoration has been put up yet, and there isn’t a tree. There aren’t even any mince pies, for crying out loud. They’re Joel’s friends! Couldn’t he have sorted this?
She scampers upstairs and bursts into Joel’s studio. He springs back in his chair as if she’s pulled a gun on him. ‘We need to get a tree,’ she announces.
‘What? What kind of tree?’
What kind does he think? An apple tree? A weeping willow? ‘A Christmas tree! You’ve got the boys coming over tomorrow?—’
‘We can get it tomorrow morning,’ he says with a shrug.
‘Can’t we just do it now? So we can decorate it in the morning and do the room? Make it look festive for everyone coming? The man’s there till around seven…’ The Christmas tree man, she means. He’s been selling real pine trees all week from a pop-up shop in the old launderette.
‘We don’t need it all decorated for tomorrow. It’sagestill Christmas.’
‘It’s not ages, Joel. It’s eleven days?—’
‘Fucking hell, are you counting?’ he splutters.
‘It’s just, I’m working four days next week?—’
‘So am I! I’m workingallthe days!’
‘Yes, so if we don’t do it this weekend that’s another week gone?—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Joel places his phone face down on his desk, a vast expanse of vintage teak the size of Kent. He won’t admit how much it cost. ‘It’s a business expense,’ he’d insisted. Whenever he looks cross when Shelley buys anything other than the cheapest white wine, she is tempted to tell him it’s necessary for the smooth running of their family home. So that too is abusiness expense.‘All this fuss,’ he grumbles now. ‘Every year it’s the same?—’
‘Joel, I didn’t invent Christmas. I’m not the Virgin Mary.’ What is she saying? Is she going mad? Inexplicably, Shelley’s eyes prickle with sudden tears as she looks around Joel’s immaculate workspace.
There are several computers and tablets; state of the art technology that no one is allowed to touch. A new laptop is Joel’s prized possession. He also lied about the cost of this; Shelley knows because she checked. Not because Joel isn’t entitled to buy whatever he likes. He earns the money, after all. And it’s not just a laptop, it’s avital tool, he says. No, she only checked the price to confirm to herself that it really hadn’t been £200, and that therefore, he must think her an idiot.
Her gaze sweeps across the rest of the room. There’s his beloved football table, which Fin and Martha used to nag to play until Joel’s rabid competitiveness drained all the fun out of it. In the corner, a fantastically expensive guitar, virtually unplayed, gleams from its stand, and the walls are hung with huge framed prints showcasing Joel’s typography. ‘FREE YOUR SOUL’, one of them reads. Okay, Shelley thinks, but could you also get the ladder out and climb up through the hatch, like I keep asking you to, to free the Christmas decorations from the loft? She’s about to ask again, but the way he is looking at her now –Pleasego, his look says – sends Shelley stomping back downstairs, calculating that in three days’ time she’ll be getting together with Pearl and Lena and then her equilibrium will be fully restored.
And then, she is sure of it, everything will be all right.
2
TEN DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS
Lena stares at Tommy and waits. She is waiting for his top lip to quiver, as it does when he’s winding her up and trying to trap in a laugh.
Surely this is a joke. Tommy has always been a prankster – she’d fallen in love with that daft, larky side of him – and this is a good one.
So the old elm crashed through Mum and Dad’s kitchen roof and now they’re coming to us for Christmas!
Hahaha! Hilarious. Any second now, laughter will burst out of him and she’ll play-wrestle him in mock-fury.Don’t you ever do that to me again!
But Tommy still isn’t laughing. And something hard and cold seems to clamp itself around Lena’s chest as she registers his chalk-pale face, the sheen of sweat on his forehead.
‘Tommy,pleasetell me this is a joke?’
