Chapter 3
‘Have the best time!’ I said, waving Tabbi off from the doorway to the flat.
I’d spent the last couple of hours giving her pep talks when a sudden panic about the trip and the disturbance to her routine had overtaken her – at one stage there seemed to be a real possibility that it all might fall through at the eleventh hour.
I couldn’t allow that to happen – too much alone time was at stake.
Tabbi grunted in response, her giant suitcase bouncing down the staircase like the fading drumbeat of a retreating army.
What a beautiful sound.
I pressed the front door closed and squealed quietly with delight.
I peered out the window to confirm that, yes, she had definitely climbed into the waiting taxi outside, which had driven away towards the soft-focus late-afternoon horizon.
I drew the curtains and unhooked my bra, deftly removing it from one of my sleeves before flinging it across the room.
I retrieved Jason from his blue dome, slowly lifting and twirling him around the deliciously dim room as if he were some kind of trophy and I was about to be interviewed by BBC Sport. His four orange legs hung passively in confusion-induced paralysis.
‘For two-and-a-bit weeks it’s just you and me, buddy.
Wahoo!’ I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used an exclamation mark out loud.
I placed him down on the rug next to the dormant fireplace.
He arched his back in a stretch, before padding back to his IKEA-branded tent, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just taken place.
I flicked the kettle on and opened the fridge to figure out dinner, stretching this way and that as I weighed up the options.
I had low-demand plans for my first solo evening that involved nothing but me, Jason and at least one of Nora Ephron’s Meg Ryan movies.
I planned to spend the next week or so in a similar self-care-focused fashion, popping out for supplies, treats and microdoses of vitamin D as and when, but with no fixed plans until Christmas Day itself, for which I’d been invited to spend the day with Laurie, Ben and the kids.
I was heading to my mum and sister’s place in the suburbs between Bristol and Bath on Boxing Day for ‘lunch and games’ – which could mean anything – but at least I’d dodged whatever shenanigans they’d planned for Christmas Day itself this year.
Having never been a fan of festive traditions, and refusing to even use the word ‘Christmas’ for the whole month of December, Mum had insisted on taking me and Anneka on all manner of ‘adventures’ every Christmas Day – or, as Mum preferred to call it, ‘the twenty-fifth’ – when I’d still lived with them.
One year we’d gone truffle hunting in the local woods where, as far as I knew, no truffles had ever been discovered before or since (or indeed on that very day).
And then there’d been the infamous time she’d taken us fishing on a private lake.
‘No one’s going to be patrolling on the twenty-fifth, worry-wort!’
How wrong she’d been.
But, while Mum and Anneka seemed to get a kick out of what inevitably turned into various Thelma and Louise-type getaway situations, albeit with lower stakes and fewer canyons, I’d always longed to have a cosy family Christmas at home – even just the once.
The kind of traditional Christmas Day my classmates got to experience: staying warm in their matching pyjamas and unwrapping gifts next to a glimmering tree.
But no. We never even had a Christmas tree, exchanging modest gifts with each other on New Year’s Eve instead.
‘Onwards, not backwards!’ Mum had always proclaimed, as she’d whipped away my duvet at the crack of Christmas morning dawn each year for another one of her twenty-fifth adventures, which never involved comfy PJs, Christmas stockings or the great indoors.
The two of them had carried on their Christmas capers every year since I’d left home for university, and we’d come to the unspoken understanding that I had respectfully, and permanently, bowed out of their unconventional routine.
Hopefully, by Boxing Day – ‘the twenty-sixth’ – they would have got all that stuff out of their system for the month and they’d be content with a low-key day at home.
But, other than those two visits, I had no plans.
No other people-ing to gear myself up for.
And no obligations except for one speech I had to finish ahead of the New Year.
I’d been tasked with writing the ‘all hands keynote speech’ (I couldn’t shake the mental image of the audience as a load of giant, human hands with googly eyes stuck on them) for the CEO of a sustainable soap start-up called eFill, who was insisting his key message should be ‘Beyond break-even in 2027’.
‘I’ll pronounce it “seeven” instead of “seven” to make it rhyme!
’ he’d declared excitedly on my briefing video call with him at the start of the month.
At which point I’d had to make up some story about a ‘slow internet connection’ so I could turn my camera off and rest my head in my hands while he continued sharing his ideas that centred around speaking in rhyme, as if that would distract his employees from the less-than-ideal financial projections.
But I couldn’t complain. My speechwriting books had been pretty much full ever since I’d become self-employed in August, with word-of-mouth referrals to Flora Bell Speechwriting Services so far negating the need for me to do any kind of proactive marketing.
But January and February were looking a bit quieter, and with ChatGPT nipping at my heels like a soulless AI puppy, one of my other tasks for the next couple of weeks was to follow up on some LinkedIn leads I’d yet to get back to.
Maybe even – shock, horror! – write a post introducing myself and my services to drum up some more interest. I just needed to triple check Will was still blocked on there, first.
I nudged the fridge closed with my bum, having sensibly concluded that tonight had ‘takeaway’ written all over it. I ordered a sharing platter of sushi from my favourite local Japanese place, which was due to arrive in about an hour.
Until then, it was just me, the sofa, the cinematic comforts of New York and a new heated blanket I’d been patiently waiting for this very moment to debut. As I’d predicted, Jason’s comfort radar immediately detected the new source of warmth and he made a beeline for my lap.
Settle in, Flora, this is your time. You’ve earned this.
I pushed ‘play’ on When Harry Met Sally and reclined into a horizontal position. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so relaxed. It didn’t take me long at all to fall into a deep sleep.
The flat’s intercom jolted me out of a dream I was having about searching for a toilet while wearing a wedding dress whose fastening system of multiple zips and endless buttons made it near-impossible to remove.
All my dreams seemed to involve wedding dresses these days, as if my subconscious was as keen to torment me as much as my reality.
Focus on right now, Flora: you’re safe and your sushi is here.
I stood up a little too quickly, and woozily lifted the intercom’s receiver.
‘Hey, I’ll be down in a sec.’
I hung up before the driver replied, grabbing a couple of pound coins for a tip and slipping my feet into my slippers before descending the two flights of steep stairs.
I opened the front door, and got the shock of my life. Well, of my month.
It wasn’t my sushi order after all: it was Mum and my sister, Anneka.
‘SURPRISE!’ they shouted in unison.
‘Oh! Hi.’
‘Well, aren’t you going to invite us in?’ Mum asked.
I stood aside, still in shock. They’d never visited the flat before.
Now I understood why Anneka had asked for my address recently; it wasn’t so they could send me a Christmas card (they never sent Christmas cards) – it was so they could scare the living daylights out of me while I was braless and hungry. Where was my damn sushi, anyway?
‘Top floor,’ I instructed, trudging up the staircase behind them. What on earth were they doing here, unannounced?
‘You don’t seem that happy to see us, Flo-no,’ Anneka said, looking back at me as she effortlessly bounded up the stairs two at a time thanks to her long legs. I rearranged my mouth into a less disappointed shape.
‘It’s always nice to see you both. But you know how much surprises freak me out.’
It wasn’t just surprises I disliked, but anything unpredictable whatsoever.
That’s why I’d planned the fuck out of mine and Will’s wedding, dividing the entire day up into colour-coded cells of ten-minute blocks of time on a biblical Google sheet.
When I’d shared the document with Laurie, my chief – and only – bridesmaid, she’d called me immediately and ordered me to go outside and touch some grass. Weirdly, it had helped.
My dislike of the unknown had also been why I’d found myself secretly writing Will’s groom’s speech for the wedding, despite his insistence that he had it under control.
I couldn’t bear the idea of him saying something I hadn’t prepared myself for, so I’d tried to predict what he might say by writing it all down and getting it out of my head.
The day he’d found the speech in the ‘wedding’ folder on my laptop – even though I’d never intended to share it with him – had been the very worst day of my life.
‘You honestly think I’m going to say all this personal stuff about my dead parents, Flora? Do you even know me at all?’
‘Of course I do! But I’m nervous about the speeches, Will – surely you know me well enough to understand that?’
‘Can’t we just scrap the speeches, then? This was meant to be a low-key wedding, remember?’
‘We’ve been over this! My sister wants to make a speech. So it would be weird if you didn’t.’
Will had sighed, deeply. ‘Fine.’
‘So… have you written it?’
‘For fuck’s sake, Flora – why can’t you just trust me?’
‘I just need to know if—’