Chapter 11
I couldn’t remember ever looking forward to a party more.
Well, except for my school prom, which, of course, I never even went to in the end.
I’d been to a few end-of-project parties – it was genuinely rewarding to see clients celebrating the fulfilment of the hard work they’d put in.
However, the reality was I didn’t love standing about with a glass of wine in one hand, an impossible-to-eat-gracefully canapé in the other, making conversation with people I’d probably never see again.
By the time we got to the party, I was already mentally moving on.
I was quite capable of socialising – part of my business was asking the right questions and listening properly to the answers, and while I might not trust people, I didn’t automatically dislike them.
However, shallow party chit-chat irritated me.
Once I got well-known, it was even worse.
People either spent the whole time trying to impress me, or grilling me about being a celebrity.
I’d lost count of how many times people asked if I knew someone else famous, or whether I got loads of free stuff.
I’d rather have been at home catching up on work, or at the gym. Getting my legs waxed.
However, I felt ridiculously cheerful about Christmas crafting with six random people I hardly knew. Thursday’s advent word was TOGETHER, and I was totally up for it.
Merry had filled everyone in via the WhatsApp group about the reasons behind temporarily closing Tucker’s.
Merry
Alex pointed out only the desperate would choose to eat and drink in a grim-looking café with terrible service and worse sarnies than a Morrison’s meal deal.
Donovan
WE choose Tucker’s!
Merry
I rest my case.
I interjected.
For the record, I did not say that! I merely reminded Merry that there are two other cafes in Bigley, conveniently located next to the shops. Tucker’s needs something special to draw people away from the main precinct.
When I’d asked Will if the party-art could include making some Christmas decorations for the café reopening, he’d been more than happy to go along with it.
This, however, had required a phone call on Wednesday evening to discuss my plans for the new décor, and what decorations would work best. That then led to him asking me what I usually did for Christmas and me explaining how I loved spending Christmas Day on my own after an inevitably draining, difficult Christmas Eve with family.
‘You’ve never wanted to spend it with other non-family people? The mediocre boyfriend?’
‘Nico always spent Christmas with his very tight-knit family. He’d only bring a girlfriend along if he was serious about her.’
‘He was never serious about you? When you said in the speech he’d dumped you six times, I assumed you must have a long history.’
‘The main reason we lasted seven years was because neither of us were serious,’ I said, acknowledging to myself for the first time that this wasn’t down to us being ‘mature’. It was a combination of cowardice and convenience.
‘So, what would your ideal Christmas Day look like?’ Will asked.
This question floored me.
‘Um. I’ve never really thought about it.’
‘What? Surely the whole point of a fixer is that you’re full of big dreams and ideas about how to make things great.’
When it came to my own life, my dreams were all about how to make things safe. Stable. Consistent. If I wanted a peaceful day, free of arguments or passive-aggressive comments that made me feel rubbish, the only way to guarantee that was to spend it alone.
But then… What if I did dare to dream bigger? Since my whole life had been tossed up in the British TV Awards tornado, why not use this opportunity to think beyond the boundary of mere survival?
I took a long moment before answering, hardly able to believe Will was simply waiting for me to speak, rather than hurrying me up with his own suggestions, or trying to answer for me.
‘I would laugh,’ I said, after remembering the moment in the hospital. ‘The kind of laughter where you grip onto the person next to you, both bent double as you gasp and wheeze and then someone snorts so hard it makes you both laugh even harder.’
‘When was the last time you laughed like that?’ I could hear the amusement in his voice.
‘Oh, I’d guess not since I was sixteen.’ I’d once laughed so hard with Gemma she’d wet her knickers, which only made us shriek louder.
‘I know, it’s woeful,’ I added in response to his pause.
‘I have laughed.’ I must have done, with Nico, my Winning at Life colleagues, definitely with my nieces and nephews, it was just hard to think of any specific occasions.
‘Only, not the unbridled laughter you can have with someone you’re able to totally let down your guard with. ’
‘I really hope that kind of laughter becomes something you can experience more often than on Christmas Day,’ Will said. ‘What else? In this perfect Christmas, I mean.’
I thought again.
‘Companionable silence. A gift from someone who knows what I genuinely like. Every year my parents give me a box of Matchmakers. I hate minty chocolate – to me it tastes like toothpaste. A walk with Ernest. A board game that’s the perfect balance of fun and competitive, with no one getting personal or playing real-life favourites.
Ooh, and a beautiful cheeseboard. With wine. ’
‘A walk, a game, a thoughtful gift and some cheese. Shouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility.’
Rather than feeling encouraging, this stirred up a sadness lurking deep down in the depths of me. It sounded about as possible as Santa Claus and all nine reindeers stopping by for Christmas dinner.
All I could do was determine that next year’s celebrations would be different, complete with people who appreciated cheese that didn’t come in strings.
‘How about you?’ I asked Will. ‘Dream Christmas?’
Will laughed. ‘Firstly, if all three of my children woke at 8 a.m. Rather than Bonnie and Edith bouncing on my bed at five and Jordan managing to stumble downstairs several hours later. If I could avoid the awkward video call with Tilly’s parents, that would be nice.
They moved to Spain after she died and the kids would far rather be playing with their presents than making stilted chit-chat with people they only see on a screen twice a year.
I’d finally manage to get all the dinner in sync, everything ready at the same time.
No one would eat so much chocolate they vomit on the sofa.
We’d manage our traditional moment to remember their mum without it ending up in yelling, tantrums or Edith hiding in the garden until she’s so stiff with cold I have to carry her back inside.
A walk, drama-free board game and cheese also sounds pretty perfect. ’
‘If this was a film, we’d now inadvertently make a magical Christmas wish and end up swapping lives for the rest of the month.’
‘Would you consider my real-life, non-dream Christmas to be a horror film?’ Will said.
‘Because it sounds horrific to me and I’ve been living it the past five years.
Oh!’ He added, ‘I’d like a conversation with an adult.
Someone to roll their eyes at Edith’s tween dramatics with me, to remind me it’s completely normal for Jordan to prefer his PC to hanging out with his crusty old dad, and giggle at Bonnie’s…
well, Bonnie’s everything. She’s one of a kind. ’
‘Don’t you see your own family on Christmas Day?’
‘We did the first couple of years after Tilly died. But Mum told me, via my brother, that it was too depressing, and not fair on the rest of the family to have our grief encroaching on festivities. The kids are used to it being just us now, so we see my parents and my brother’s family on Boxing Day instead. ’
‘Wow. Is it okay if I say that that’s jaw-droppingly insensitive?’
Will sighed. ‘It was more that they were overly sensitive, constantly worried about saying the wrong thing and paranoid about me not enjoying myself every single second.’
‘Of course you weren’t. Your wife had died! They should have been grieving, too.’
‘Yeah. Except the situation with Tilly was complicated. There wasn’t much love lost between them. And while Bonnie doesn’t remember her mum, that almost makes things worse, in that she can get quite fixated on what Tilly was like, and how she should be missing her mummy.’
‘That must be tough.’
‘Edith and Jordan struggled at first, but they’re used to it now, especially because the bereavement counsellor helped us find more positive ways to channel it.
Bonnie started by insisting we set a place for Mummy every time we ate.
Christmas meant writing a card and wrapping a present for her, even though she’d then get distraught because of course Mummy couldn’t open it.
When we decorated the tree, she’d ask about every single ornament, whether Mummy had bought it or liked it or hung it up.
The others found it hard that Bonnie was making such a big deal out of it, when she hadn’t even known Tilly, so how could she miss her.
We had to explain that she was missing the idea of a mummy as much as anything, and that having a set time to make her seem real would help. ’
‘It sounds like you’ve done an outstanding job of helping them navigate all this.’ And to think I was maudlin because I’d be by myself, through choice. Lacey was right. I had no idea how much easier it was to only have myself to feel sad about.
‘Good days and bad days, you know how it is. One minute I’m Superdad, the next a twelve-year-old is screaming down the stairs that she wished I’d died because at least Mum would never have made her wear such stupid school trousers.’
‘Ouch.’