Chapter 22
On Friday morning, Lola messaged me.
Help, I need a life fixer!
Not sure I qualify any more, but happy to listen x
Lola started work at twelve, so we arranged to meet for a coffee at one of the other Bigley cafés, McGreggs.
As the name implied, the menu heavily featured ultra-processed meat either wrapped in pastry or sandwiched between cheap bread.
Given my previous aversion to junk food, I’d never been inside.
The tables were wobbly, chairs spindly and the décor dismal.
I was especially encouraged by the surly service as I ordered tea and a raisin swirl.
This place would never be in direct competition with the new Tucker’s.
Tucker’s would have proper mugs and plates instead of disposable cups and napkins, for a start.
Lola arrived a few minutes later. Her hand-knitted jumper was on inside out and she had yellow eyeshadow on only one eye.
After purchasing a breakfast cob and hot chocolate with all the toppings, she got straight to it.
‘I spoke to Fletcher.’
‘Right.’
‘He made up the job interview.’
I nodded.
‘Apparently, I’ve been putting too much pressure on him. He’s realised he has this thing, decision paralysis. It causes social anxiety about shopping. That’s why he’d asked me to come, he thought it might help. Then when it came down to it, he couldn’t face it.’
‘Okay.’
Lola picked at her cob. ‘It’s a load of BS, isn’t it?’
She’d asked me here for my honest advice. I might as well give it. ‘Yep.’
‘He probably just saw it on TikTok or something.’
‘Do men your age watch a lot of TikTok?’
‘He’s nearly forty.’
Oof.
‘What do I do though, Alex? We’ve been together over a year. All those things I said at your house are still true. He’s not perfect, but if I’m insisting on a perfect man, I’ll never find one. Even if I did, he’d hardly put up with me for long.’
‘If Fletcher called now and ended things, how would you feel?’
I finished my pastry while she thought about it.
‘Offended. Rejected. Angry because we’d planned to spend Christmas with his family and I spent ages choosing his Christmas present. I’d feel as if all those things Mum used to say are true.’
I wanted to ask what her mum used to say, but now wasn’t the time. ‘Heartbroken? Devastated?’
She sighed. ‘Not as much as I probably should. But it not being some grand passion isn’t a good enough reason to dump him, is it?’
‘Not at all. Is him letting you down, manipulating you into doing his Christmas shopping and then fobbing you off with insultingly ridiculous excuses a good reason?’
‘Yeah. Doesn’t sound great.’
‘What would you miss more – him, having a “him”, or knowing a him chose you to be his “her”?’
Lola looked at the ugly ceiling strip lights. ‘I don’t know.’
I reached over and took her hand. ‘Okay. What do you think Fletcher would miss more? You – the real you, that you said you can be with him – or having an easy, fob-off-able, minimal-effort-required girlfriend?’
She dropped her gaze to mine. ‘I don’t think he’d miss me much at all.’
She messaged the group chat later that day:
Asked Fletcher if I could come over and he ignored the message. Sent another one saying it was important and he replied that he was tired, could I leave it for another day. You’ll all be pleased to hear I told him we can leave it full stop.
I quickly messaged back:
How do you feel?
Before she could reply, Darya sent through the advent challenge word for today: STRONG.
What she said
Or at least, I’m trying to. It would help if I can find someone to hang out with on Christmas Day
Darya’s message came through so fast she must have been typing it before Lola pressed send:
Your place or mine?
Will phoned me a few minutes later.
‘Edith and Bonnie wanted to speak to you, if you have a minute?’
‘And me!’ Jordan yelled in the background.
‘Of course.’
‘I’ve put you on speaker.’
‘Right,’ Edith said. ‘Hi Alex.’ She paused for a moment before adding, ‘Bye, Dad!’
‘Okay, I’m going!’
‘Has he gone?’ Jordan asked. ‘Go and check he’s not earwigging from the other side of the door.’
There was a moment’s silence.
‘All clear,’ Bonnie declared. ‘Quickly, Edith ask her before he comes back.’
‘Okay, so we want to get Dad a proper Christmas present for once, so we need you to take us shopping. Please. Dad has practically no friends, so we didn’t know who else to ask.’
‘Only we want it to be a surprise,’ Jordan said. ‘So, we came up with a plan.’
‘Ooh. What’s the plan?’ I asked, genuinely intrigued by their enthusiasm.
‘He’s making us go shopping tomorrow so we can get something for Grandma and everyone, and each other.
If you came too, then we could accidentally leave Bonnie’s elephant in a shop, so they have to go back to find it, then you, me and Edith can quickly get the present.
You can take it home with you so there’s no chance of him stumbling across it on one of his mad cleaning missions. ’
‘Sounds like you’ve really thought about this.’
‘Last year, we gave him chocolates and a set of toiletries. It was all we could find in Bigley using our pocket money. The deodorant stank like toilet cleaner, but he used it every day because he wanted to pretend he liked it.’
‘What are you getting him this time?’
‘He needs new walking boots. Sometimes when we’re all doing his head in and he’s super stressed, he goes for a walk to “reset”. If we get him proper, good-quality ones, it’ll be kind of like an apology for being annoying and a present in one.’
‘That’s a brilliant idea, I’m sure your dad would love it, but you do need a lot of pocket money to buy decent walking boots.’
‘I got seventeen pounds in tips after our gig. Altogether we’ve got twenty-four.’
‘Yeah, that’s not really enough.’
‘Oh.’ I could hear the disappointment through the phone.
‘How about a slight modification to the plan? I’ll buy your dad the boots. You could get him gloves, or a book, or… how about some vouchers?’
‘Vouchers?’ Edith was not impressed. ‘The whole point of the boots is that they mean something.’
‘Yes. These vouchers will mean something. A voucher to make your dad a hot drink, or a nice breakfast. To tidy your rooms or do the washing up. Jordan could look after Bonnie while he goes on a walk? Or,’ I said, warming up to my theme, ‘how about a whole day without arguing or complaining?’
‘A voucher to play elephants!’ Bonnie shouted.
‘The voucher is things Dad wants to do, and you are the only person who wants to play elephants,’ Edith retorted.
We decided to get him a book, too, mainly because they were so proud of the lost-elephant plan, and it gave me an excuse to hang out with them all for the afternoon.
When I arrived at Will’s cottage the following morning, things weren’t going great.
‘Ugh. Bonnie won’t stop crying,’ Edith huffed, stomping down the stairs. ‘She’s going to ruin it.’
Will appeared behind her. ‘She won’t tell me what’s upsetting her. Insisted on talking to you.’
I found Bonnie huddled under her bed, face tear-stained and her stuffed elephant pressed to her chest.
‘Elephant doesn’t want to do the plan,’ she explained with a few more sniffs and sobs. ‘He’s scared of being in town and then left all by himself. He’s a savannah elephant, so he doesn’t like towns. What if someone poaches him or shoots him with an elephant gun?’
‘How about one of your other animals?’ I asked. ‘Are there any who don’t mind busy places?’
She gave a woeful shrug.
‘Shall we ask them?’
Slowly, Bonnie crawled out from underneath the bed, and one by one picked up each of the trunked teddies on her window seat, pressed them to her ear, then put them back again.
I held my breath, hoping one of the toys would ‘agree’ to come along.
While I’d make sure they had a present for Will anyway, the children had been so excited, and it was so positive that they’d banded together to do something thoughtful for their dad.
It would be such a shame if their plan fell apart before we’d even got in the car.
‘Not Elephant Shrew says she likes adventures and wants to see all the twinkly lights in Nottingham,’ Bonnie said, having reached the final stuffed toy on the shelf.
She held up one finger. ‘She is an elephant shrew, but remember she is not an elephant and not a shrew but is very small and can go really fast so can run inside a tiny hole if she gets scared.’
‘Perfect. Thank you, Not Elephant Shrew.’
‘She isn’t real, so she can’t hear you.’
‘Right, silly me. Shall we get going, then?’
The advent challenge word for the day was FUN.
Nottingham City centre the second Saturday before Christmas is not a relaxing place to be, but when Bonnie took Jordan’s hand, Edith then slipped her elbow through Will’s, and we were able to negotiate the crowds and enjoy all the lights and decorations as well as a Christmas brass band without any mishaps.
That is, until Bonnie stopped dead in the middle of a busy pedestrian crossing outside the shopping centre, letting out a screech loud enough to draw alarmed stares from all sides.
‘Not Elephant Shreeeeew!’ she wailed, holding up both fists to the sky and sinking onto the road.
‘Bonnie, you can’t stop here!’ Will grabbed her around the waist and hurried to the other side while she pounded her feet against his hip and stretched out both hands in the direction we’d come.
‘Nooooooo!’
Will moved into a doorway, out of the constant stream of shoppers, and set her on her feet.
‘What’s happened?’ Edith asked, pressing both hands against her face. Her lack of disdain should have been a dead giveaway.
‘I left Not Elephant Shrew by the Christmas tree.’ She pointed back at the shopping centre, bouncing up and down in agitation.
‘Oh no!’ Jordan’s mouth dropped open.
‘Right.’ Will put his hands on his hips, giving me a look that said, ‘I’m trusting you know what’s happening here and are going to make sure I don’t regret going along with it.’
‘Why don’t you go back with Daddy and show him where you left her?’ I suggested. ‘Me, Edith and Jordan can meet you at the Winter Wonderland when you’re done.’
We’d decided to go ice-skating on the temporary rink in the Old Market Square, followed by hot chocolate and crepes in the Christmas market.
‘Quickly, Daddy, she’ll be lonely without me.’
Will was about to say something else, but before he had a chance, Bonnie was running back towards the crossing. He sprinted after her with the zeal of a father saving his child from being hit by a bus.
‘Let’s go,’ I said, checking Will had safely caught up with Bonnie, one step away from the busy road.
We hurried through the city centre towards the Waterstones bookshop, where Jordan and Edith circled the tables of popular books right beside the main entrance, selecting the latest thriller from an author they knew Will liked.
‘Hey, Edith, what about this?’ Jordan nudged his sister as we stood in the checkout queue. To the side of us was a display of humorous stocking-filler titles. One of them was titled, Get Yourself a Real-Life Girlfriend. ‘We should have got him that instead.’
‘Ew!’ Edith’s eyes widened as she glared at her brother, not-so-discreetly gesturing her head towards me. ‘Why would you even say that?’ she added in a furious whisper, turning her back to me.
‘I was being sarcastic,’ Jordan huffed.
‘Yeah, but other people might not have known that.’
Had it always been this hot in Waterstones? I unwound my scarf before it suffocated me.
At that point, the shop assistant called us forward, and the book was mercifully forgotten.
By Jordan and Edith, at least. As I wobbled around the ice-rink, squeezed through the market crowds to an alpine-chalet style café and bagsied the last table, as the kids chattered and bickered good-naturedly, cheeks rosy and plates piled with pancakes, it was impossible not to fret about Edith’s reaction.
‘You seem a bit quiet,’ Will asked discreetly once we’d finished eating and were making our way back towards the shopping centre car park. ‘Everything okay?’
I nodded, willing myself not to blush as I glanced at him. ‘Yes, absolutely. I’ve had a great time.’
‘Don’t tell me – it’s a lot.’
‘Compared to spending Saturday alone in my acre of forest?’ I couldn’t help smiling as he raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to elaborate as I’d done before.
‘Yes, it’s a lot of people, and queues and noise and bustle.
Also, a whole lot of festive feels. Honestly, seeing your kids having so much fun together, enjoying the kind of Christmassy day I could only have dreamt of at that age. At any age. It’s been great.’
For a few steps, we beamed at each other like lovesick teenagers, until Bonnie suddenly bent down to say hello to a pigeon, causing Will to stumble into her, me to knock into him and bringing both of us back to earth with a literal bump.