Cool. Go die in peace. Sees ya tmrw. X
You have dancing shoes
With nimble soles. I have a soul of lead.
December Twelfth.
Rory.
‘Should she be eating that?’ I’m at Belle’s dining table surrounded by pine-tree-shaped sequins, fake snow and enough glitter to give Rudolph a stroke. All compounded by some kind of Disney Christmas sing-along playlist. Less than a week ago I would have sworn on my life this would not be how I chose to spend a weekend.
‘Probably not. Don’t eat the dough, Marsha.’ Belle winks and rolls a tiny bit of dough between her fingers and pops it in her mouth.
‘Seriously? You’re shocking.’
Marsha takes a huge wodge of the stuff and licks the length of it as she holds my eyes and smirks.
A laugh bursts from Belle and she clasps her hand over her mouth before putting on her serious face. It’s very cute. I’m aware I am not doing well at the keeping-my-distance thing. I have tried but I spent the whole of yesterday wondering how her first workshop in a school had gone. I couldn’t not reach out and find out, that would have been mean, and then before I knew it I was here.
‘To be fair, he’s right. I promised your mum I wouldn’t let you eat it again, she’s worried you’ll cease to have a working kidney after last year, and you promised me, ’member? We have a deal. It’s naughty of me to tease Rory like that. Neither of us should be eating the dough.’
‘Yes, I know. But it tastes good.’
‘No, it tastes bad. You’re just a little toad. I promise not to eat any more if you do too. Shake.’
‘Shake.’ Marsha reaches out and shakes Belle’s hand. Belle winces and pretends she’s being forced down onto the floor with the strength of it, as Marsha’s glee at her power bounces off the walls. I can’t help but join in with the laughter.
‘Plus,’ Belle says as she clambers back up from the floor, ‘no one wants your spitty lick for Christmas. Especially not after last year. You best put that there…’ Belle wiggles a finger at the bit of salt-dough in question ‘…right in the bin.’
Marsha shrugs and lobs it into the bin from where she’s sitting before turning back to model another indecipherable shape and sing ‘Frosty the Snowman’ at the top of her voice.
‘I know it’s bad but it won’t kill her. At least I hope not. I made the dough myself using cornflour and bicarb. I learnt my lesson with the salt after last year. Mind you, I used to eat bags of the real stuff. My nursery teacher used to double the salt in an attempt to stop me eating it and it still didn’t work. My mum said that, along with my insistence on dancing with my skirt over my head, it marked the start of me embarrassing her.’
‘Your mum really knows how to boost a child’s self-esteem.’
‘Oh yes, she’s the queen of it, although, in her defence, I don’t think she does it on purpose. It’s kind of a chain reaction – Dad is vile to her, she passes it on. Luisa has always said that the reason I pick duff men is because I’m scared of long-term relationships and that I’ll turn into my mother so I deliberately choose ones I know I will never commit to.’
‘Interesting. Luisa is a wise woman – do you think it’s true?’
She makes a funny shape with her mouth and shrugs her shoulders. I suspect that she probably does. She turns to Marsha. ‘Hey, our song is coming up next. You almost done?’
Marsha wodges a vast amount of glitter on to her decorations, pummels it in and then grins up at her godmother as if butter wouldn’t melt. ‘Done. Ready.’ She jumps down from her chair as Belle pushes hers back. Belle turns up the volume of her laptop that’s feeding the speakers. What fresh hell is coming?
A very jingly version of ‘Jingle Bells’ starts to play as Marsha puts her two hands up in front of her and starts to bounce around the room. Belle shoots me a grin, one chock full of mischief, and raises her hands as well.
‘Paws’ is her one-word explanation and the two of them throw themselves into pogoing around the room, screeching tunelessly about one-horse open sleighs.
‘Tigger!’ roars Marsha as she bounce-bounce-bounces.
I kind of want to join in. Me – a grown-up who has never pogoed like Tigger before in my life, probably not even when I was five! I raise a paw to see how it feels when they both have their backs to me and it feels weird. There’s no way I can propel myself off this chair and participate properly. I guess that’s okay, not everyone can do the same things, and clearly pogoing like a Tigger at Christmas is something I’m a little too buttoned-up to do.
‘That was so fun.’ Marsha flops back onto her chair when the song is over, picks up a bit of salt-dough, looks at Belle and puts it down again. ‘So fun. Phew. What are we doing next?’
‘Well, I was going to keep it as a surprise but … look out the window…’
‘It’s snowing! ‘
‘It is.’
