Chapter 9
? Decorating a Christmas tree
I opened the passenger door, only to find the seat was already
occupied… by an enormous frozen bird.
‘Umm, shall I sit in the back?’
‘Huh? Why would you… fuck, the turkey!’ He lifted it up to reveal a conspicuous puddle on the passenger seat.
‘Shit!’
‘Is it… melting?’
‘Yup. Fuck! I totally forgot about my heated seats. I’m going to have to get this to my mum’s ASAP before it starts gobbling again.’
‘Your mum’s?’
‘Yeah, I do her food shop every Sunday. I keep trying to set her up with online shopping but she’s convinced they’ll try and fob her off with sub-par veg and fresh food that hasn’t come from the very back of the shelf.’
‘I agree with your mum.’
‘Ha. Do you mind if we swing by hers before I drop you off? That’s if you don’t have your own deceased and defrosting poultry in the boot?’
I thought about my Super Noodles and selection of sugary cereals. ‘Nah, I’m good.’
‘Phew. Okay, let me just grab a towel from the boot and give this seat a wipe…’
He shrugged off his coat and chucked it on the back seat as he set to work on absorbing the turkey juices, revealing long, firm arms contained neatly in a light grey fitted cardigan over the top of a faded black T-shirt.
The cardigan-wearing guys at work usually gave me the ick – their ironic charity-shop knitwear looked so contrived, not to mention itchy – but Tom’s cardigan looked soft and practical, as if he’d chosen it for how it felt rather than how it looked.
Which made it look all the more excellent.
I swallowed the excess saliva that had pooled in my mouth as he tossed the towel into the footwell of the backseat.
‘Right, all done. Your carriage awaits.’
I sank into the luxurious passenger seat, which was still slightly damp with carcass moisture, though I couldn’t bear to tell him that.
‘You know, if someone had told me earlier today that I’d be driving Amelia – sorry, Mally – Allister round to my mum’s, I wouldn’t have believed them.’
‘If someone had told me I’d be sat in a car with Tom Brinton tonight, the words “fuck the turkey” ringing in my ears, I wouldn’t have believed them either.’
He turned to me briefly and grinned with his whole face before turning his attention back to the road. ‘So, what brings you back to Scarnbrook?’
I’d rehearsed an answer for this precise question, but his smile had rendered my brain momentarily useless. I issued a placeholder response to buy me some time.
‘Oh God. It’s a long story.’
‘We’ve got time – my mum’s place is the far side of Scarnbrook. It’s lucky I bumped into you – I normally do her shopping at Morrison’s, but she prefers the Tesco turkeys.’
‘Blimey, where to start. Okay, so I’d usually be at work in London next week, but they’ve given us all an extra week off…’
‘Woah, that’s generous. Where do you work?’
‘Oh, the same place as Elle, actually. It’s—’
‘You work at The Helix ?!’
Explaining my way out of this was going to be way harder than I thought.
‘Yep. You still follow Elle’s movements, then?’
‘It’s hard not to when she’s constantly posting about her high-flying life on social media.’
‘I had no idea she was still in touch with everyone here.’
Elle and I never discussed any of our old schoolmates in Scarnbrook. I’d presumed she’d lost touch with everyone, just like I had.
‘Well, it’s not like she interacts with any of us or anything, but let’s just say she appears to be very keen for everyone to know how successful she is.’
Ha, that sounded like Elle.
‘She is pretty successful, to be fair.’
‘So are you. But I don’t see you plastering endless photos of your London lifestyle online.’
‘I’m not really on social media.’ I left out the part where I still checked Billy’s Instagram page seventeen times a day.
‘I keep thinking about quitting, myself. Social media has, well, broken the world a bit, hasn’t it?’
My brain lit up and I beamed at him. ‘Omigod yes. Social media is like forbidden fruit; it tastes good to begin with, but ultimately unleashes a torrent of worms from the rotten core that appear to be hellbent on devouring us all.’
‘Yup. But, unlike you, I guess I couldn’t resist taking a deep bite of that tempting apple.’ He smiled as he watched the road, and completely involuntarily I felt myself quiver. Oh dear.
‘Have you ever thought about deleting your accounts?’ I asked.
‘I have, but TikTok and Instagram have been game-changers at work. Our content has really helped to get our name out there. Anyway, we’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent – you were about to tell me why you’re back in Scarnbrook?’
‘Oh. Right. Well, I’ve been meaning to come back for a while, but it never seemed to work out. But with this extra time off work and no other plans it kind of felt like it was finally the right time, you know?’
‘That makes sense. But you’ve come alone?’
I licked my lips and rubbed them together. ‘Yeah. I don’t think my parents will ever come back. And my brother – well, to be honest I never have any idea what’s going on in that head of his.’
‘You’re not close?’
‘Not any more, no.’
‘I’m sorry, Mally.’
If he knew about my brother’s online ‘fame’, he certainly wasn’t letting on. I had to presume he did, though.
‘Thanks.’
‘So, what do you do at The Helix ?’
‘Oh, nothing particularly exciting. I work in the comms team and spend most of my time sending emails and organising employee events and stuff. Although I’m just starting out doing some freelance writing bits on the side, too, and would love to be a children’s author in the future.’
My mouth was operating way faster than my brain.
There was no way I wanted anyone in Scarnbrook to find out about the real article I was writing.
But there was a part of me that wanted Tom to know that I hadn’t completely abandoned my creative writing ambitions, which had always been a big part of my identity when I’d been at school.
‘Wow, so you write for The Helix ? That’s amazing. I mean, I always knew you’d be successful so I don’t know why I’m acting all surprised.’
I filed away the knowledge that Tom Brinton had once had any thoughts about me at all for detailed analysis in the very near future.
‘Strictly speaking, I don’t write for them… yet. But I’ve been given my first commission. I’m hoping to write it here while I’ve got some extra time.’
Careful, Mally.
‘What’s it going to be about?’ he asked, pushing my internal alert system up to amber.
I tried to think of an explanation that, at the very least, orbited Planet Truth.
‘It’s about… spending Christmas alone and trying to rediscover small-town festive joy. What better place to do that than where I grew up?’
Was he buying this? I bloody well hoped so.
‘Hang on, you’re spending Christmas alone? How is this even possible?’
‘Oh, it’s no big deal. I was meant to go to my parents’ place like I do every year, but they’ve gone on this last-minute trip to Florida, and Josh has made other plans. So, yeah, it is what it is.’
‘I couldn’t do it. I’m so rubbish in my own company. My brain runs away with itself and I find it impossible to relax. I moved in with my mum when the pandemic kicked off. We drove each other batshit crazy, but it would’ve been so much worse by myself.’
‘No family of your own, then?’
‘It’s… complicated. Well, I guess it’s not actually that complicated since the divorce came through. But, no, it’s not worked out that way. Yet. Hopefully one day.’
Ooh. Single.
‘Sorry, Tom. Someone from school?’
‘Ha! No. Work. Don’t get married when you’re twenty is all I’ll say.’
‘Wow, twenty’s young.’
‘As my mum kept telling me at the time. Abbie was quite a few years older than me when we met at work, and Mum warned me not to jump in with both feet but I didn’t listen.
Turns out she was right, as she likes to constantly remind me.
Me and Abbie, we… well, we wanted different things at different times.
We stuck with it for as long as we could.
But it just got too hard. She’s with someone else now.
How about you – any divorces up your sleeve? ’
Divorces? No. Any truly meaningful romantic relationships? Nada. Endless hope that it was all leading to something? Sure, but it was getting harder and harder to conjure up an image of what the hell that ‘something’ might ever look like.
‘Not really anything up these sleeves other than arms, to be honest with you.’
‘Ha. Right, we’re just about here.’
Tom parked up in front of a small semi-detached bungalow on one of the ex-council estates on the very outer edge of Scarnbrook. There were inflatable light-up Santas, snowmen, reindeer and – randomly – Easter bunnies dotted around the small but perfectly maintained front garden.
‘Your mum’s definitely into Christmas, then?’
‘Oh yes. Most of the decorations go up on the first of December every year, whatever day of the week it happens to be. It’s been the same ever since I can remember.’
‘And… the rabbits?’
‘They were reduced in B&Q and she couldn’t bear to leave them behind.’
‘Fair.’
‘Umm, Mally, before you come in, you should know that my mum, well, she’s been struggling with multiple sclerosis for quite some time now. She’s doing really well, considering, but the last couple of years have been especially hard for her – well, for both of us.’
I had an urge to wrap my arms around him tightly.
‘Yeah, I bet. I can just wait here while you sort out her shopping,’ I said. ‘I imagine it might be a bit strange for a random woman to show up with her groceries on a Sunday evening.’
‘No no no no, she’ll be thrilled to see you, Mally. You might not remember this but back in the day she used to work at the local playschool that we went to before school.’
‘Wait. What?’
‘Yeah, remember Mrs B?’
‘Of course!’
‘Yeah, she’s my mum. B for Brinton. Although she uses her maiden name these days.’
How did I not know this?
‘I remember being in the same playgroup class as you, Ryan and the twins, but I had no idea Mrs B was your mum!’