Christmas Eve, the day when everything seemed possible. The presents, long agonised over, had been carefully wrapped with shiny paper and bows of glossy ribbon, their tags written with copperplate handwriting and hope. The fridge was bulging with every possible treat and titbit, even that exorbitantly priced beer that no one but father liked. The Christmas pudding, made with absolute attention to mother’s own recipe, looked and smelled amazing. The tree… well, even if I said so myself, the tree was perfect. I’d finished cleaning my little house just before midnight. It had been scrubbed to within an inch of its life, its cushions plumped, its linen freshly laundered and even its curtains hoovered, twinkling lights strung along pristine curtain poles, and the detritus of everyday life shoved behind locked cupboard doors. The final touch had been the mistletoe, my bounty from an hour-long trek into the depths of Pixie Week Woods and another fight with a particularly offensive barbed wire fence that my fake Barbour would never recover from. It was a small price, I thought, as I pulled the duvet up under my chin. My eyes sprang open at one minute to eight. Ever-prescient Monty stretched, curling to precisely the right angle to offer his chin for a rub. ‘I haven’t even moved,’ I told him, laughing, my fingers finding soft, warm fur. ‘How do you always know?’ He didn’t reply, but his whiskers twitched and the sound of distant pile-drivers vibrated against my chest. I switched off the alarm then diverted from my normal routine by meandering my way through to the living room in my pyjamas, a confused Monty following in my wake. His plaintiff miaows were eclipsed by Mariah Carey as I pressed play on the cd player and began gyrating around the coffee table, the tv remote control held to my lips as I belted out the chorus. The look on his face suggested he’d be much happier with a portion of Sheba than an off-key promise that all I wanted for Christmas was him. Rather than take pity on his empty belly, I scooped him up and held him high in the air as I swayed along to George Michael. ‘It’s going to be a wonderful Christmas, Monty,’ I told the chubby tabby. ‘I can feel it in my bones.’ My parents, brother and sister-in-law arrived within seconds of each other. ‘Good journey?’ I asked brightly. Father looked askance and opened his mouth, but mother buried me under voluminous coat, scarf, hat and gloves so I was spared his rebuke. It was Christmas Day. No one got stuck in traffic on a damp, dull Christmas Day, especially when they only had to drive eight miles along main roads. I sighed through the Chanel-soaked cashmere and busied myself laying everything on the bed so not a crease or smudge might befall them. Back in the hall, I discovered mother inspecting a fingertip that had just been run along the top of the abstract I’d hung outside the loo. Beside her, father stood shaking his head at the multi-coloured, shaggy rug I’d made to block the draft coming in through warped floorboards. Behind him, Pete and Sarah were almost tapping their feet in time to the fruitless seconds marching into their past. I opened my mouth to apologise for their wait then realised I had nothing to apologise for. ‘Sorry’ became ‘So nice to see you all. Merry Christmas!’ The return greetings were stiff. They all remembered two years before, and the eighteen months it had taken me to tentatively patch the damage. They made themselves uncomfortable in the living room while I went to retrieve coffee, mince pies and a selection of Marks and Sparks’ finest Christmas morsels. Monty made himself scarce while the four sat on the edge of tatty sofas covered in extravagant homemade throws. They chatted politely, talking stocks and shares, work, and their latest acquisitions, each sentence an escalation of the previous boast. A Caribbean cruise paid for by short-selling BAT stock was trumped by a new Bentley which was trumped by Sarah being offered an equity partnership in a top ten law firm. Congratulations resounded as mother reorganised Christmas tree baubles to her liking. I forced a smile as I placed bone china mugs on coasters. It was only a tree. It had only taken six hours to decorate it. And smiling was supposed to generate endorphins, wasn’t it? ‘Shall we do presents?’ I asked. The anticipation of longed-for appreciation gave my voice a touch of excitement. ‘What’s the buy-in?’ father asked Sarah. ‘Nothing we can’t handle,’ she said smugly, ‘but we’ve decided to take a break first. I thought a week or two in Val d’Isere, but Peter thinks the snow is better in Whistler.’ ‘These leaves have been in your cupboard too long, Frances,’ mother interrupted with a clink of china and a small moue of distaste. Those tea leaves were brand new. ‘I’ll open another box, mother. Unless you’d like a small glass of bubbly instead?’ She made a show of looking at her watch. Like it mattered what time it was. ‘Perhaps a small one, if Sarah will join me?’ ‘Well, it is Christmas Day,’ Sarah replied, ‘and we are celebrating.’ ‘A glass of ale, father?’ Two bottles of ‘It’s not vintage!’ Bollinger, father’s ‘What, that muck?’ rejection of the designer beer I’d spent all Saturday tracking down, and a third of my only bottle of Scotch later, it was time for presents. I worked this out because Sarah produced three small, ornately wrapped cubes from her elegant, leather handbag and mother sent father to retrieve theirs from the car. If I had pierced ears and a penchant for overpriced gold, I’m sure I’d have loved the Tiffany earrings that Sarah’s secretary had bought for me. Through my smileache, I watched mother and father enthuse over their necklace and cufflinks then make all the appropriate noises as Peter showed off the Patek Philippe watch that Sarah had given him and Sarah produced a photograph of the Louis Vuitton briefcase and matching leather organiser that Peter had bought for her. I knew full well they’d bought their own ‘gifts’. They always did. ‘We all know what you think about the family money so I got you something useful,’ was mother’s introduction to the large, heavy parcel father hefted to my chair. A small nugget of childish joy lit me from within. It couldn’t be the new sewing machine I’d craved, could it? No, it couldn’t. ‘Thank you, mother, father,’ I intoned, the muscles in my face rebelling as I looked down on a hose reel. ‘I remembered you saying you needed a new one.’ But not me finishing the sentence with, ‘so I couldn’t believe my luck when I found one at half price last week.’ In September. I hid tears by heading back into the kitchen, muttering that the potatoes needed turning. Pete appeared as I was pointlessly rearranging things in the oven. He plucked a fresh bottle of Bollinger from the fridge then stopped to watch me basting the spuds with hot oil. ‘Don’t know why you never wear the earrings we get you. Bit ungrateful, you know.’ My mouth dropped open as I watched him turn and wander back to his wife. I found myself fingering my deformed right earlobe and snatched my hand from under my long hair. Maybe he’d forgotten? It had been eighteen years since he’d encouraged his girlfriend of the time to stick a dirty needle through my eight-year-old ear. The infection had taken three months to heal and left my lobe split in two. Peter had thought it highly amusing although clearly not amusing enough to encourage his brain to move the memory into long-term, retrievable storage. I hardened my heart and went to face the music. ‘You haven’t made too much, have you?’ mother asked as I was kneeling by the tree to retrieve my gifts to them. ‘Just one each, mother.’ ‘Lunch, Frances, lunch. You know we’re having supper with the Ashworths.’ No, I didn’t know you were having supper with the Ashworths. If I’d known you were having dinner with the effing Ashworths, would I have spent a month’s income on a turkey, all the trimmings, a case of “It’s not vintage!” champagne and a bottle of the best port my meagre savings could stretch to? I closed my eyes and breathed out slowly, my face thankfully turned from my tipsy relatives. Hang in there, Frankie. Either way, it’ll be worth it. I gave mother her gift first. I’d painstakingly dyed and hand-stitched the silk in an ornate pattern of scarlet, royal blue and dark, almost midnight, purple; her favourite colours. I remembered holding my breath as I made the first cut, but my hands had been as sure as ever. The finished product, a kimono for her alfresco breakfasts on the west patio, would have sold for £399 on my website. I held my breath as I watched her face, part of me still hoping. ‘Do you have the receipt? It’s not really me,’ she said, bundling the silk back into its silver paper. ‘Is it one of yours, Frances?’ Sarah asked. ‘Yes,’ I said with a small smile, thankful that one member of my family had remembered how I earned my living these days. ‘Hmm, I thought so. Rather garish.’ I removed the virtual blade from my belly and swallowed the retorts queuing to spring from my tongue. I got duplicate grunts from father and Peter for their fine gauge, intricately patterned, alpaca jumpers (£350) that had taken me nearly a month to design and knit. Sarah at least unfurled the sunset orange, cashmere poncho to look at it properly. Sure, it was a bold (£399) item, but the colour was absolutely perfect for her skin tone and was about as ‘in’ as it’s possible to get. She’d look amazing in it. She didn’t bother to hide her disdain as she dropped it on her lap with a laugh. ‘Oh my God,’ she said through her titters, ‘what on earth made you choose orange? I’d look like a I was wearing a life jacket!’ The very best examples of my skills were put to one side before I had a chance to mention I’d been approached by a highly regarded fashion vlogger who thought my work was exceptional; that I’d found the perfect new premises and only needed their advice and a little of the family money I’d run from to expand the business. There was no interrupting them. Peter topped up glasses as the four of them scathingly assessed my pathetic life choices. My ‘hobby’ was an eccentricity that was best ignored, my association with the ‘arty crowd’ an affectation, the rejection of my inheritance an aberration, the break-up with my nobody fiancé the only positive in a series of bad decisions. If I’d handed them diamonds they’d have complained they were too hard. I’d been stupid to dream of anything else. I disappeared to put the stuffing balls in the oven; I didn’t need to be in the room to have what was left of my affection for them torn apart. I didn’t sleep. Couldn’t sleep. Got up twice to make sure the baking tray I’d ‘borrowed’ from mother’s kitchen was in position. When the doorbell rang, I was sitting in the hall, dressed in my new orange poncho. ‘Afternoon, Miss Walker. We wondered if we might have a quick word?’ ‘I was just popping out to my parent’s house,’ I told them, baking tray and car keys in hand. They shared an awkward look. ‘If we could talk inside?’ the elder cop asked, his voice gentle. I played curious and a little confused as I offered them coffee or tea and showed them through to the living room, my stomach heaving with apprehension. We sat in front of my perfect Christmas tree. ‘You’re feeling all right, Miss Walker?’ ‘Yes, fine. Why do you ask? What’s going on?’ ‘I’m sorry to inform you, Miss, that your parents, your brother and his wife were taken to Accident and Emergency last night. It appears that they ingested something poisonous.’ I gasped and stood. ‘Where are they? Charing Cross? I need to go…’ ‘I’m sorry, Miss, but they didn’t make it.’ I sat with a thump, looking from one sympathetic, blue-clad man to the other. ‘I don’t understand.’ ‘You cooked the family Christmas lunch here?’ I hugged the baking tray to my chest. ‘Yes. Turkey and all the trimmings. Just how they like it.’ ‘And you all ate and drank the same things?’ ‘Yes. Except the meat, of course. I’m vegetarian.’ ‘And the meat was…?’ ‘Turkey, the gravy had meat juices in it so I guess that counts, the pigs in blankets, the stuffing balls that mum brought with her.’ I raised the baking tray in explanation. ‘Oh, and the cabbage that’s cooked in chicken stock and lemon juice. It’s dad’s favourite.’ ‘The stuffing balls. Do you know where your mother got them?’ ‘They’re homemade. Pork forcemeat, herbs, finely chopped onion and lots of dried, wild mushrooms. I found a veritable feast of fungi on a walk in October… My partner and I had broken up so I started taking long walks to clear my head. I… Well, one day I saw the most perfect crop for Christmas so I got them before anyone else did. Same place I got the mistletoe hanging in the hall…’ I gave a near hysterical laugh. ‘Managed to rip my jacket both times. We had a chuckle about that…’ I looked towards the open sewing box on the coffee table; beside it, still looking the worse for wear despite umpteen rows of tiny stitches, the only Barbour I could afford without admitting I’d been wrong to shut myself off from the Trust Fund. ‘She was so pleased with the mushrooms,' I murmured. 'Promised me she’d have someone check them to make sure they were all right because I’m not an expert… Oh my God… The mushrooms?’ They left soon after, the sergeant telling me a detective would probably be in touch, but he was sure I had nothing to worry about; it was obviously an accident. He and I were underneath the mistletoe when he said a kind goodbye to my wide, wet eyes; Monty winding himself around our feet. I picked up my faithful friend as the door closed, holding him close, kissing his furry face. ‘I told you it was going to be a wonderful Christmas,’ I whispered. Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay
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