‘Yes, mistress.’ His words are muffled but his head is nodding up and down frenetically.
‘Right away. I don’t need you to talk to me. Just do as you’re told.’ This feels so odd.
‘Of course, mistress.’ He bends at a funny angle so I bat his bottom with the feather duster a few more times, not quite believing what I’m doing, the thought of Alison’s face if I succeed motivating me.
Rory.
Today is the day. Hopefully after this we will all know if the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes, if Mum is going to need chemo or radiotherapy or if it’s contained and they have it all out. The consultant said she believed there was a good chance of the latter being the case but until Mum is on the table and she can look around properly she can’t be sure. I’m trying not to be nervous, to keep it in, but I’m scared of what we may hear, that we won’t get the news we’re hoping for.
My phone bings with a photo from Belle. When Dave and I returned from the shed yesterday, the kitchen had been a fug of cocoa powder with the most delicious smell of rum and chocolate emanating from a huge saucepan. They were rolling small ball-shaped chocolates and singing ‘White Christmas’ at the top of their shamefully tuneless voices. Both had turned in unison and waggled their chocolatey hands at Dave and me, as we walked through the door, their glee at their unspoken threat mutual. In fact, scarily mutual and scarily unspoken. It was quite possible that they had developed some kind of freaky Christmas telepathy in the hour we had left them alone.
Mum had been determined to make those chocolate things and even though both Dave and I thought that she should concentrate on her health and the events of today, the grin on her face yesterday told me that we had been mistaken. A chocolatey mess was what she had needed and Belle was the one who had listened and made it happen. A couple of hours later I had dropped Belle home with a huge cardboard box full of pretty cellophane bags secured with reams and reams of curly red, gold and green ribbon.
I open the message and lean over to show Mum, who is out of Recovery now, with all of us waiting on the consultant for an update. She’s still a little groggy but was so happy to see me and Dave that tears pricked at the corners of my eyes when they wheeled her through.
There are two photos. The first is of the beribboned bags sat upon desks at her workplace. How Belle had managed to get in there, I don’t know. Then there is a second photo of her, mask on and with exaggerated tiptoeing across the car-park, bags in hand. She must have an accomplice, someone who took that picture, maybe someone who had helped her break in. I knew Mum wouldn’t have given her the keys, and Belle breaking and entering at dawn is not beyond possible.
‘That girl is an angel. An angel, you hear,’ Mum says.
‘You may be right,’ I concede, not mentioning the likelihood of forced entry being one of the angel’s skills.
There had been something special about seeing her amongst the mess yesterday, my mum and her happily working alongside each other, giggling as they did so, as if they had known each other for years. A pang hits as I realise my mum had always been kind to Jessica, always made her welcome and yet in all the years we were together never once had I seen her so relaxed, so at home with Jessica as she had been with Belle yesterday.
I don’t want to dwell on it too much, but I can’t help but think how odd it is, the way life pans out. Never had I thought when I used to stare across our tutorial group at Belle – on the rare occasions she turned up – that that wild, untamed hedonist of a girl would one day become my friend and would end up sitting in my mum’s kitchen making her Christmas wish come true.
I would my father looked but with my eyes.
December Twenty-second.
Belle.
The bite of the wind means I burrow my face down into my scarf and pull my hat a little further down my ears as I hurry down the street. I can picture them turning red, then blue then snapping off at this rate. It iscold.
I play Puff the Magic Dragon all the way down to St Marks Road to make me smile. It was a favourite game of mine and Rose’s when we were kids on days like today, huffing out big clouds of hot air into the cold weather and pretending we were dragons. We’d follow it up with the loudest dragon roars you could imagine, but these days I keep those inside my head. There isn’t much you don’t see in the community in which I live – my mother can’t bear to visit the area, squishing up her nose and saying things like ‘I don’t know why you can’t live in Clifton, or Cotham, somewhere a bit more civilised, darling’ – but loud dragon roaring all the way to the shops is possibly still a step too far.
I love this community, probably for all the reasons my mother doesn’t. Its vibrancy, the mish-mash of people that you come across and make friends with. The fact that right now it is Christmas means there are decorations everywhere, up in people’s windows and spilling into the street with unfettered joy. Just as there had been for Diwali last month and the Grand Iftar earlier in the year. Everyone comes together, shares food and music and celebrates each other’s cultures. I love it.
I wave at Temperance as I walk past the minimart. She has Innocence on his knees spray-painting a nativity scene onto the front of the whited-out window. She stands behind him waving her arms with force as she barks at him, ‘You must use the talents God gave you to make people understand thepowerof his word. Hallelujah to his word!’
The timing is perfect, I’m able to high-five her on the Hallelujah and carry on my way. I turn onto St Mark’s Road now, heading to SweetMart where I plan to pick up some of the spices that my father loves to use at home. I’m making him a little ingredients hamper for Christmas now I have some money in my pocket and am looking forward to selecting things I know he will appreciate and that aren’t easily available elsewhere.
There is a box of Christmas baubles out on a wall, so I stop for a minute and root through until I find one with a little painted reindeer. It looks ever so old, and as if it has been much cherished. I fall in love immediately and pop it in my bag. It will look perfect on my tree. Then my eye catches one more, again very old – a fox made out of some kind of old wool, like an ancient teddy bear. He has patches where his fur has worn away, is a little scrunchy to the touch and one eye has fallen off and somehow, and I do not know why – apart from an unhealthy obsession – I am reminded of Rory. Why I think he will love this scritchety old thing I don’t know, but convinced I am. I pop it in my bag alongside the reindeer bauble.
Mum had called this morning to let me know Dad was home, that he had responded well to alcohol detox at The Priory and had already seen the psychotherapist that Rory had engaged for after-care. Had I seen the pictures the press snapped of the two of them deep in conversation? Hadn’t he looked serious? She felt like this was a really positive step forward.
I haven’t told her I block stories about Dad from my news feed. Neither did I comment that I thought the process of alcohol detoxification should have been longer than he had stayed for – by my reckoning, he shouldn’t be out until Christmas Eve.
A quick look on Google and it was clear to me that Mum – not the press – had hidden behind the stile at the end of the garden to snap the photos. Who went for a walk with their therapist, especially in December, if not to get a picture? Honestly. Those two are as bad as each other.
I’m thankful to Rory for trying; the guy he engaged has qualifications and recommendations coming out of his arse, plus a CV that includes a brief stint with at least two of the Rolling Stones, and that sort of stardust impresses my dad. I know that had it not been for Rory’s advice he would never have engaged with sobriety and a detox programme at all, although truth is I still doubt his commitment and I’m not convinced our family’s issues can be resolved that simply.
But it’s a start, and there’s a chance he may actually listen. I’m hopeful for a damascene moment where he decides that he (and the whole female population of the world) will be served best if he stops drinking altogether. I don’t hold much hope but I indulged in a brief fantasy when I woke up this morning of me handing him his Christmas present as tears spring to his eyes and he realises he’s been a bit of an arse. Self-indulgent, sure, but you know, who doesn’t want their dad to approve of them. Especially when that approval has been withheld for so blooming long!
Hence the guarded enthusiasm behind my shopping trip now.
I walk around the corner of the road, the old church looking picture perfect for Christmas with its stone walls and ancient trees, and the mosque right next door, golden and ornate. As I walk past Thali, Rory pops into my head a second time and I pull my phone out of my bag, texting with my mittens on. Not easy.
How’s your mum doing today?
