Chapter 5
5
At half past two, I started encouraging Sara to go upstairs and get dressed. Still in her dressing gown, she had been intermittently dozing in an armchair by the fire, while around her the chaos continued.
The twins were plastering each other with eyeshadow, Jasmine and Bunny were quarrelling over their new iPads because one was silver, and one was pink and each preferred the other one. When I suggested they could just swap, I was looked at with incredulity, so I backed off. It seemed they were enjoying the excuse to argue rather than reach a solution. And of course, it kept their ownership of such trophies to the forefront of Mia and Poppy’s minds.
Every time Vanessa opened a present from John and told him how marvellous he was, often bestowing a loving kiss on his cheek, Sara looked over with some resentment. After Sara’s third sherry and the unwrapping of a Tiffany charm to add to Vanessa’s bracelet, her comments became even more acerbic.
‘Aren’t you the lucky one? Marty bought me a new wheelbarrow for my birthday, and apparently nothing for Christmas, and they say romance isn’t dead.’
‘I’ve been collecting these for years,’ Vanessa said with a fond smile at John. ‘It’s a bit of a cheat really, it means he doesn’t have to think about it.’
‘And of course it’s vegetarian. He thought about the pink, soya bean cashmere cardigan though I expect. Which bit of the bean is used exactly?’
‘I don’t really know,’ Vanessa said.
‘Let’s hope no abused donkeys were used to haul the sacks of soya beans into the factory,’ Sara muttered.
‘Let’s leave it, Sara,’ John said.
‘It will be time for the King’s speech soon. Lunch will be on the table in forty minutes,’ I said brightly.
‘I’m not very hungry,’ Bunny said, ‘I’ve eaten most of my selection box. Can we have it later?’
‘I haven’t even opened mine. No wonder you’re getting podgy,’ Poppy said.
‘I’m not ! Mum what does podgy mean?’ Bunny wailed.
‘Poppy’s being silly,’ Vanessa said soothingly. ‘Now then, let’s all go and wash our hands, shall we? Poppy and Mia have a lot of eyeshadow on their fingers, haven’t they? What a lot of colours.’
‘Can I buy eyeshadow with my birthday money?’ Bunny asked.
‘Oh, you’re pretty enough already. You don’t need any,’ Vanessa said.
Sara’s eyes narrowed as she left the room.
For just a split second, my dream of a perfect Christmas came true. Everyone sat down in their allotted places with only a minor squabble about whether Bunny wanted a red cracker or a gold one. The candles on the table and the sideboard were lit, brightening up the dark afternoon. The best wine glasses and the posh cutlery sparkled and shone, and everyone let out the required ‘ ooohs’ of admiration as John carried the turkey in on the china platter decorated with Christmas trees that he and Vanessa had given me the first year they were married.
He then took his place at the head of the table where Stephen used to sit and began the ceremonial carving of the bird.
‘Is that an actual turkey?’ Poppy said as she watched John pull one of the legs off and start hacking at it, ‘it looks like it’s been run over.’
John has a lot of talents, but carving had never been one of them. I watched him and wondered why did this always happen? Women, i.e. me, did all the shopping, the planning, the work and then at the last minute a man would steam in and grab the spotlight. It was the same with barbeques. I would make the salads, buy the meat, light the barbeque, put out the cutlery, crockery, glasses, and condiments, and then Stephen would behave as though it was all his doing. And people would complement him .
‘I don’t want any of that,’ Jasmine said, as John held out a plate towards her.
‘Really? But I thought you loved turkey?’ I said brightly.
‘No, I’m a vegetarian,’ she said, leaning away from the plate as though it was polluted.
‘Then just have some vegetables,’ Vanessa said.
Jasmine stood up and dabbed at the roast potatoes with a spoon and put two on her empty plate. ‘I don’t like parsnips or carrots.’
‘Those carrots died for you,’ Poppy said.
‘The carrots are dead?’ Bunny said, her eyes wide.
‘Everything on this table is dead,’ Poppy said, ‘absolutely everything. That turkey is just a dead bird, which has been cooked.’
‘I wish I’d known; I could have done you a nut roast,’ I said, ‘or a pie with soya beans.’
‘I expect the soya beans have all been used up to make pretend cashmere,’ Sara said from her end of the table.
‘Let’s pull our crackers,’ I said as Vanessa opened her mouth to respond to this.
We did, with the usual problem of some of the girls getting two prizes and others getting none. Something that was swiftly resolved by John awarding the handbag mirror to Jasmine and the set of pencils to Poppy, her scowl showed her disapproval.
‘I wanted the mirror,’ she said, prodding her sprouts.
Vanessa tried to be the peacemaker. ‘Let Poppy have it, Jasmine, she needs it to look at all that eyeshadow.’
Jasmine scowled and shook her head. Then of course Vanessa made some encouraging comments about how wonderful the meal was, how happy they were to be all together again, enjoying a proper family Christmas and John agreed, while Sara sat empty-eyed, and staring into the far distance.
‘By the way, Joy, do you think we could have some different towels?’ Vanessa asked. ‘We seem to have the pink ones by mistake, which are a bit rough. Usually, we have the white ones.’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said, stifling my first impulse which was to scream, tear my paper hat off and throw it at her, ‘I’ll sort it out after lunch.’
‘Oh, no rush. But I thought I might take a nice relaxing bath later,’ she said with a sweet smile, ‘it always helps me sleep after a tiring day.’
A tiring day? What could she have done that necessitated that? I wondered. Other than get up late, eat half a croissant, sit down with coffee, and open some presents. While I had been flogging myself around the kitchen since dawn.
No, I wouldn’t think like that. I would take a deep breath and calm down. I reached for the red wine and filled up my glass. Oh, tidings of Merlot and joy …
‘I wonder what Uncle Marty is having for his Christmas dinner?’ Bunny said.
At that point, Sara stood up with a strangled cry, her paper hat falling to the floor, and dashed out of the room. We all sat looking at each other before I went after her to see if she was all right.
I found her sitting on the stairs, dry-eyed but looking furious.
I put an arm around her. ‘Come on, Sara, don’t let Marty spoil today for you or the girls. You’ll have a lot of difficult days ahead. Let’s enjoy this one.’
‘I keep wondering what they got up to in my house. When I was down in Cornwall with the girls this summer. The cottage there was horrible, and it looked nothing like the photos. There were exactly four plates, four mugs and four sets of cutlery, but only three teaspoons. And the weather was foul. We didn’t have a wonderful sea view, because it was raining all the time, and there was no broadband so when he did arrive, Marty couldn’t work at all, so he went back two days early. And I bet he went back to her. I bet she had dozens of teaspoons. I bet Vanessa has hundreds, all in a special box.’
I handed her a tissue and she blew her nose loudly.
‘Come on, let’s go back and finish lunch,’ I said, ‘the girls will be missing you.’
‘No, they won’t, I bet they are just arguing. That’s all they do these days,’ Sara said, her voice giving a little sad catch.
‘They’re teenagers, that’s what they do,’ I said, hugging her. ‘Remember what you and John were like?’
‘We weren’t as bad as them. And put the four of them together and it’s ten times worse.’
‘At least none of them have set fire to the curtains, like you did.’
Sara clicked her tongue in exasperation. ‘I’ve told you so many times, I was just a kid and that was an accident. ’
‘You were fifteen and you were smoking, and you left a fag end on John’s windowsill.’
‘Oh, bring it all up, why don’t you? No wonder my husband had an affair if I am such a trial to everyone. That’s what you’re saying, aren’t you?’
I sighed. ‘No, I’m not saying that at all. Look, come back into the dining room, let’s have a lovely lunch together and then afterwards we can play charades. Or something. You were always good at that.’
‘Yes, the way I’m feeling at the moment, I could knock a couple of my teeth out and cut my own hair with the kitchen scissors and do Les Misérables with no difficulty.’
‘Sara, stop it,’ I said. ‘Come on. Cheer up, for the girls if not for me. I’ve tried so hard to make things nice for you all.’
Sara dropped her face into her hands and took a deep breath.
‘Okay, I will. Sorry. But sometimes I just wonder what’s the point? What’s the bloody point of all this? Of me?’
Welcome to my world, I thought.
‘You have everything to look forward to. You’re only thirty-six, you probably haven’t even got to the halfway point in your life. Look at me, I’m sixty-three, I’m on the downhill slope to old age and dementia.’
‘You’d better not be,’ Sara said fiercely, ‘I’m going to need you to look after the girls if I have to go back to work. I bet Marty will leave me with nothing, and every alimony cheque will be late, and when he takes the girls out for the weekend, he’ll send them back high on sugar and additives. It’s going to be a nightmare.’
I was a bit taken aback by this. Love them as I did, the prospect of being press-ganged into Sara’s parenting schedule wasn’t something I had ever considered. I’d done the occasional sleepover and babysitting, but that had been enough for me. I had always been convinced that if anything happened to either Poppy or Mia, it would be on my watch and my fault. And Stephen had been even more resistant. He and small babies didn’t ever get on, he said they were like horses; expensive, dangerous at both ends and remembering Poppy’s three-month colic and projectile vomiting, he possibly had a point.
On television the chef produces a fabulous meal and then friends/family come around to eat it. And they are all appreciative, with complimentary and witty conversation and no one gets drunk, argues or pulls a face when presented with beautifully cooked vegetables as Bunny did because the ‘ parsnips were in the same dish as the carrots. ’
I’d put all the vegetables and side dishes out on the sideboard, too, so that everyone could help themselves. This was a mistake as the pigs in blankets were snaffled up in seconds, leaving only one for Poppy. Of course, this provoked some hissing disagreement from all four girls, when they were asked to share a bit more generously. Even Jasmine’s supposed vegetarianism didn’t stretch that far, as she ‘ was allowed to have six because she wasn’t eating the dead bird.’
‘But you’ll eat two sorts of dead pig,’ Mia said heatedly, ‘what’s the difference?’
‘I don’t like pigs as much as I like birds,’ Jasmine said.
‘We did a project in school about pigs, and they are very clean and friendly and just as intelligent as some people. That’s what Mrs Spencer said,’ Bunny said, sticking her chin out and looking belligerent.
Her face a tight scowl, Poppy looked at her lone pig in a blanket, and turned towards Sara, who was reading one of the cracker jokes and evidently not finding it funny. Honestly, I might just as well have saved my money and got twelve from the supermarket. At least one of them might have had a moving cellophane fish to show how sexy I was. Or wasn’t.
‘Mum, tell her …’
Sara and I exchanged a look as though she was hoping I would sort it all out, and I shrugged, stood up, went out to the kitchen to refill the gravy jug and left her to it.
I had looked forward to this day so much, and even I, with my considerable reserves of patience was getting a bit fed up with the endless bickering and dissatisfaction from my family. I loved them all, and this was my way of showing it. And my thanks to them for their support since their father had bailed out, I couldn’t have put a price on that.
What would it take, I wondered, to have the sort of family gathering that Nigella had? Children smiling, grandchildren rosy-cheeked and happy? Everybody laughing like crazy and probably talking about how lucky they were.
Why was it that it had taken me hours, if not days, to produce this meal, and my family were apparently speed-eating as though they had something better to do. I had hoped that my granddaughters would be talking excitedly about Christmas, their days in school, then going off to play with their new toys or games, or at least, eyeshadow.
Instead, everyone was looking miserable, and my four granddaughters were glowering across the table at each other, deliberately not laughing at the jokes in the crackers, not answering my questions with anything other than monosyllables and generally being – dare I say it? – rather rude. And there seemed to be little or no parental involvement, which was strange because Vanessa was usually first to spring to Jasmine or Bunny’s defence.
I looked across at her, marvelling at how stylish and pristine she was, picking at her food daintily. I looked down at my trousers, which despite the stout apron I had been wearing when I was cooking, had been splattered with turkey fat and flour. Vanessa took a tiny sip of white wine.
‘No red for me,’ she’d said as the bottles were passed around the table, ‘I’ve just had my teeth whitened, and red wine stains so badly.’
I’d given a merlot-enriched grin at this and passed the Pinot Grigio, which she declared ‘ not quite chilled enough’ so I’d fetched some ice cubes for her. I was beginning to think I was mad to bother.
Any minute now and I was going to say something.
What I wasn’t sure. Perhaps one of those clever comments that sound reasonable but deliver a punchy message. I wasn’t very good at those; heaven knows I had tried hard enough while Stephen was around and he had made a careless remark that had sent me off in a huff. I generally came up with one days or even weeks after they would have been useful. In fact, during some sleepless nights, I had come up with the perfect response to the time when Stephen had actually told me my bum did look big in some new trousers. And then insisted he was just joking.
I wasn’t staff. It was my Christmas too…
Was that really all I was good for, picking up after people and not protesting that I felt unappreciated? Wanting to feel as though I had a life of my own? That my feelings still mattered? That I still mattered. I couldn’t go on like this. Something was going to have to change.