Chapter 44
44
DECEMBER 2018, SUFFOLK, ENGLAND
‘Urgh, Mum, I so don’t want to come in. I’m, like, ten. Surely you can leave me in the car?’
Kate turns off the engine of the S-Max and the windscreen wipers stop mid-swipe. Heavy drops pummel the glass and Kate’s vision becomes increasingly obscured.
‘Izzy, love…’ Kate negotiates nervously. ‘It’s cold and it’s dark and it’s raining, and look, it’s packed in there.’ She gestures towards the tinsel and tension inside the bustling supermarket. Checkout queues trail towards the back half of the store. The customer service desk has a line of disgruntled click and collectors, clutching phones and order numbers, backing up to the flowers gondola and preventing people from getting to the fruit and veg. And Kate doesn’t even know that there’s a separate queue for the turkey collection point, lurking at the back of the store.
Kate looks at her daughter in the front seat, while the phat headphones Izzy got for her birthday almost drown her mother out .
‘Come on,’ Kate says, lifting one ear. ‘I’ll buy you one of those giant Florentines you like.’
Izzy smiles in defeat and unclicks her seat belt. ‘Okayyyy,’ she says, and they open the car doors, ready to make a run for it.
Izzy’s never been that keen on spending time with her mother. She’s such a daddy’s girl. Even when she was a baby, she rarely sat on Kate’s lap; unlike Chloe or Jack, she didn’t turn to her for one of Mummy’s Magic Kisses if she fell and hurt her knee. And as her teenage years approach, Izzy seems increasingly repulsed by her mother. Often running to Daddy if Kate won’t let her play on the iPad, or complaining to George that Mum is such an ogre. But still, Kate plugs away. Trying to win Izzy over, with warmth, with patience, with Florentines. And Kate has never once implied that, actually, her father came very close to breaking her little heart recently. Kate’s done very well to bite her tongue, as much as it hurts. They walk through the automatic doors and shuffle through the queue at customer services, Kate apologising left, right and centre.
‘Right. The turkey, star anise, figs, goose fat. It’s all I need. We’ll be as quick as we can, poppet,’ Kate says as she strokes Izzy’s chestnut hair from her crown to her back, and she flinches. ‘Turkey collection point turkey collection point turkey collection point…’
‘Mum, what’s wrong with you? You sound deranged.’
Kate gives a harangued smile. ‘Can’t believe I forgot the goose fat last week. Doesn’t matter…’ she whispers under her breath. ‘Ooh, sorry. Turkey, star anise, figs, goose fat… oh, and cream. I need more double cream. Oh, excuse me please, sorry, where’s the turkey collection point? It’s not back at customer services, is it?’
A young man in a green tie gives a big smile. He clearly loves Christmas .
‘Back of the store, madam, there’s a special stand, wait there and one of our partners will go and find your turkey for you. Do you have your order number with you today?’
Kate waves her phone and smiles before hurrying Izzy along with an arm around her daughter’s shoulder. Izzy slinks away to the seasonal aisle.
‘Stay with me, poppet, it’s too busy and I have to get the turkey.’
Izzy ignores the instruction and walks off. ‘I’m just looking at the tins.’
‘Turkey collection point turkey collection point turkey collection point. Ah. Here you are, sorry…’ Kate is flapping, but excitedly. She’s always quite liked Christmas, but this year will be a good opportunity to draw a line under the year they’ve had, to batten down the hatches and get her family back together. Strangely, Kate hasn’t looked forward to a Christmas this much since their first Christmas with Chloe. This one means so much.
Kate joins the back of the queue and waits, level with a little table. On it sits a box of own-brand chocolates to sample. She leans to take one wrapped in purple foil and feels her thighs rub together as she reaches in enthusiastically.
Three bored-looking customers stand in front of Kate with slumped, accepting shoulders. They all look at their phones, at lists, recipes, texts. A chill runs down Kate’s spine when she realises who the shopper is in front of her.
Maybe I’ll get the star anise first…
The customer in front is irked by the rustling of the chocolate wrapper and turns before Kate can leave.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ says a face filled with disdain.
Kate feels like she’s had the Christmas cheer and stuffing knocked out of her.
‘Hello, Antonia,’ she says, picturing Antonia’s naked body stretched out underneath George’s. Anger washes over her. She thinks of Izzy across the store, and the lioness inside her roars. ‘Doing your own errands today?’
Antonia stands tall in her long red woollen coat with a black fur collar. ‘Quite the little comedian I see, Kate.’ Antonia smiles, eyeing Kate’s dark blue winter duffel coat with icy pity.
Kate smooths down the rain-fuelled frizz all the way from her fringe to her ponytail.
I will not walk away. I won this.
Antonia turns her back to Kate, stands tall, and returns to the sanctuary of her phone. Kate sucks on the hazelnut until the caramel is all gone and imagines the texts George and Antonia must have exchanged over the ‘year and a bit’ they were shagging. Were the messages dirty? Were they functional? Were they full of yearning and mischief? Were they full of passion and love?
She’s not texting him now, is she?
‘Mum, can I get this?’ says Izzy sullenly, clutching a bumper tin of Quality Street with a snowy reindeer scene on the lid, knowing Kate is going to say no.
‘Yes, poppet, you can, it looks lovely.’
‘Really? Wow.’ Izzy raises her eyebrows and wonders who kidnapped her mum and replaced her with someone who’s even more of a pushover.
Antonia waits for her order.
A woman as wide as she is tall comes out clutching a box. ‘Goose for Lady Barrie?’
‘Here!’ Antonia nods as she slings her Gucci bag onto the crease in her elbow so she can take the bird in the box. Her red coat sweeps around and her thin frame looks resolute. Down but not out.
Antonia gives Izzy a loaded smile and leans in to whisper in Kate’s ear. ‘He’s. Still. Miserable,’ she says, and glides away to the checkout at the front of the store.
Kate stands, stuck to the spot, frozen in time. Her eyes well up. She doesn’t hear Izzy.
‘Mum? Mum? Are you OK, Mum?’
Kate blinks and a tear falls down her mottled cheek and onto the grey square tile of the floor.
‘Yes, darling, fine,’ she says, nodding reassuringly, voice wavering, relieved that between Izzy’s Bose headphones and her tweenage agenda, she didn’t seem to hear.