Chapter 33
Aside from the Grinch being green and having onion breath, Nell decided she fit every other criteria for being one.
She was grumpy as hell with all of the festive cheer and wanted to shout that Christmas was stupid, stupid, stupid.
How well would that go down with the extended Abraham family?
Almost as well as announcing she was, on reflection, a lesbian, and that she’d fallen in love with a woman.
A gorgeous, intelligent, career-driven woman who’d ditched their romantic Christmas plans for a work assignment.
Her mother handed her a plate of carved meat to put on the table in the dining room. “Cold turkey and ham for supper.”
Nell managed to suppress an eye-roll as she took it from her.
Such gluttony. It’d barely been four hours since their gargantuan Christmas dinner of roast turkey, stuffing, and six different types of vegetable.
Six! Yet here they were, setting the table for supper.
Her mother directed proceedings from the kitchen, while she and Caroline did her bidding.
Nell took her time, careful to stay out of an inane conversation about the choice of hymns at Midnight Mass.
So what if they’d omitted “O Come All Ye Faithful”?
Thank god she’d given herself an early-release clause this year.
Normally, she felt obliged to stay until the twenty-seventh, but she planned to leave after lunch on Boxing Day.
Then she’d return to Devon and lick her wounds.
Today had been never-ending. She’d woken after a fractious night, having failed miserably to get comfortable on the same single mattress that she’d slept on as a child.
Breakfast in the kitchen had been slightly later than usual on account of Midnight Mass.
Her mother had fussed over jams and her father had hidden behind the pages of The Telegraph’s business section.
The new Smart TV—a gift from her brother Declan to their parents—remained off because her father pronounced it was rude for it to be on while they were eating.
She couldn’t bring herself to point out his hypocrisy as he ate and read at the same time.
“Declan’s done very well for himself, making senior partner,” he’d said, his voice muffled by the broadsheet.
“Indeed,” she’d said, hoping her instant affirmation of her father’s pride in his first-born would mean an end to the conversation.
If only he showed the same interest in her or Caroline.
Her mind had wandered back to the text awaiting her when she woke.
Mattie had wished her a Merry Christmas.
She’d typed a response: I miss you. I think about you all the time.
Are you coping, being surrounded with so much tragedy?
I want to spoon you at night so I know you’re warm and safe.
Then she’d lost her nerve, deleted it, and sent, Merry Christmas to you too. Xxx
After the admittedly tasty lunch, everyone gathered in the parlour, as per family tradition, to watch the King’s Speech.
Nell’s lips had twitched as she remembered Angie’s incredulity about calling one of the rooms a parlour.
Declan and their father had insisted on standing for the National Anthem.
Caroline had glared at her two sons who were less than surreptitiously playing Clash Royale on their phones.
Three glasses of chardonnay had made it bearable, but only just.
Nell ferried bowls of salad, plates of bread and cheese, mince pies, and a fruit Christmas cake into the dining room.
Her mother wiped her hands on the dainty apron tied around her waist. “Remember salad cream for your father.”
Dutifully, Nell fetched it from the fridge.
And then her heart stuttered. Mattie’s voice, here, in her parents’ home.
Nell turned to the TV screen, and there she was, wearing a thick coat, scarf, hat and gloves, but still looking cold and pale.
On screen, local residents accused government officials of failing to enforce government regulations that demanded all new buildings were constructed to be more resistant to earthquakes.
A loud bang interrupted them. Mattie flinched.
True professional that she was, she used the moment as evidence of how the noise of cranes demolishing buildings deemed unsafe was adding to everyone’s anxiety.
Oh, Mattie. She was wearing her camera face, but surely what was happening around her was taking its toll. God, how Nell wanted to smooth away that frown on her forehead.
“Would you like pickled onions or chutney, Nell?” her mother asked.
Neither. I’d like Mattie. The woman you see on the screen there, that’s her. The woman I love. “Chutney, please.”
Mattie’s report segued into scenes at a medical facility.
“Do put the salad cream down on the table. Your father will be most disappointed if you drop it.”
“I’m listening to this.” Nell ignored her mother’s disapproving tut, her eyes fixated on the screen.
“Doctor Zabu Bruneau is an obstetrician with one of the aid charities working alongside Turkish medics at the field hospital set up in the car park of the now abandoned building. Many of the pregnant women she and the team have treated are suffering from trauma and hardship.”
Zabu, as in Mattie’s friend-with-benefits? It was an unusual name. How many doctors shared that name and worked for a disaster relief charity?
“Naturally, our patients are stressed and worried about the effect it’ll have on their pregnancy. Getting a check-up and being able to see their unborn child on an ultrasound scan is reassuring.” The name Dr Zabu Bruneau appeared in a caption at the bottom of the screen as she talked. It was her.
The camera returned to Mattie. “While we were filming, a woman arrived at the clinic, three weeks before her due date. Elif lost her own mother in the earthquake. After a four-hour labour, she gave birth to her son. It was, Elif said, her first sign of hope.”
Nell watched as the new mother presented her son to the camera.
Tears lined the woman’s pallid cheeks. She begged for help for her city, fearing the world she had brought him into.
Nell saw the fear clear in Elif’s eyes, though there was wonder and love there too, as she gazed at her baby and clung to Dr Bruneau’s hand.
Zabu and Mattie were in Turkey together, two career-minded women with a shared history. If Mattie was in need of comfort, Dr Bruneau would be there for her.
Something smashed. A woman, quietly sobbing. And then Nell’s name being called, over and over. She snapped out of her trance. Her hands were empty. She looked down. She was standing in a pool of yellow salad cream and broken glass. “Sorry.”
“Really, Nell. I did warn you to be careful,” her mother said, her annoyance obvious as she went to the sink and wrung out a cloth. “Use this. I’ll have to see if there’s another bottle of salad cream in the pantry.”
Nell fell to her knees. She should clean up the mess.
Caroline put her hand on Nell’s shoulder. “What’s up with you?” her sister asked. “I haven’t seen you cry in years.”
Nell looked up at the TV. Mattie was still on screen but Nell couldn’t hear her. Mother must have turned the volume down.
Caroline followed her gaze. “Dreadful business. Those poor people. Is that what’s upset you?”
Nell shook her head. She slumped back onto her heels and stared at Mattie. Caroline disappeared briefly and then returned to the kitchen.
“I’ve convinced Mother that she needs to take a breather in the living room while you and I clean up this mess,” she said, ripping pieces of kitchen towel paper off a roll. “So if it isn’t the news that’s upset you, what has?”
Nell closed her eyes. Once she uttered the words, she couldn’t erase them. But her mouth opened anyway. “It’s her.”
Confusion crossed Caroline’s face.
“Her.” Nell jabbed a finger at the TV. “The journalist.”
“What about her?”
“She’s...she’s my...” Nell hesitated. How should she describe Mattie? Lover, girlfriend, partner? “I’m in love with her.”
Caroline chuckled, then her laughter died. “Oh, dear god. You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” Nell bowed her head. She couldn’t bear to see if there was distaste or revulsion on her sister’s face. Caroline was the most liberal of all of her family. If she was disgusted, then there’d be no hope of understanding from any of the others.
Caroline dropped to her knees beside Nell. “Here.” She handed Nell some kitchen towel.
Nell took it and started to wipe up the mess. Caroline snapped on a pair of their mother’s pink rubber gloves and scooped up shards of glass. “I have to admit to being surprised. I didn’t know you were that way inclined. You hid it well.”
“I hid it from myself for a long while.” Nell dumped the sodden tissue into a rubbish bag that Caroline had placed between them.
“Is it a knee-jerk reaction because of,” Caroline scrubbed at the grout between the tiles, “Gavin?”
Nell rocked back on her heels. “No, Caro, it isn’t. There was a woman before him.”
“Oh.”
Nell stared at the floor. I’m like the salad cream, splattered across the floor and unable to fit back into the jar.
The sound of slippers shuffling closer broke the trance Nell realised she’d drifted into again. She tied the bag of sodden tissues and glass and stood up. “Nearly finished,” she said, before her mother had chance to pass judgement on their cleaning prowess.
“We’re all waiting for you so we can start supper.” Her mother pursed her lips. “A new jar of salad cream is on the table.”
“Marvellous.”
Her mother sniffed. “Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Nell.”
In her peripheral vision, Nell saw Caroline slap her hand over her mouth to suppress a giggle.
“Bring some extra side plates with you. Come now, both of you.”
Caroline held Nell back as their mother left the kitchen. She let out her laughter with a hysterical snort. “I feel like I’m seven again.”
Nell gripped her sister’s hand. “Do you hate me?”