A Proper Family Christmas (5 page)

When she relayed the news to him, Harrison assured Sophie that if she didn’t come on the trip, it wouldn’t make a difference to their relationship, but Skyler, who was Sophie’s ‘best friend’, said that Sophie was really opening herself up to danger by staying home. All that temptation. German girls were supposed to be really beautiful.

So, Sophie said she would go on the trip. She forged her mother’s signature on the consent form and made excuses for her parents’ absence at the meetings parents were supposed to attend ahead of the departure. She took in the photographs and identification she needed to be included on the group passport. Yes, for the past two months, Sophie had been pretending that she was going to go to Germany, in the vain hope that her wishful thinking would become a reality. Her parents would find the money somehow. Her dad was always playing the lottery. Just a little win would do.

But now it was too late. The trip left on Friday and Sophie did not have the money. When she got back to school after the bank holiday, Sophie had to admit to Miss Johannson that she would not be joining the party. It was so unfair. That girl in the Great House at Little Bissingden probably never had to give money a second thought.

On the appointed day, everyone who was going on the German trip came to school in their casual clothes. Those pupils who weren’t going to be on the trip had to come in wearing uniform. There were just three in Sophie’s class who wouldn’t be going. Sophie herself. Nathan (who was going to a family wedding that weekend). And Shelley Tibbetts. Shelley Tibbetts had been the butt of everyone’s jokes since they arrived at the school almost five years before.

Sophie went to the library as her peers piled on to two coaches for the overnight boat trip to Hamburg. Seeing Skyler primping herself earlier that day, Sophie had silently wished her ‘best friend’ a dose of seasickness.

To make things worse, not going on the school trip didn’t mean there wasn’t work to be done. Sophie’s form teacher reminded her that GCSEs were now less than a year away. Sophie should use this quiet time, without the distraction of her friends, to make real progress with her coursework. It was a rare opportunity to have the one-to-one attention of the teachers.

It was not the kind of opportunity Sophie could appreciate when she thought about her classmates, creating memories that would always exclude her.

Sophie sulked for the rest of the day. When Ronnie asked what was wrong that evening, Sophie reminded her that the rest of the class were on their way to Germany.

‘Bloody stupid arranging trips that cost so much money,’ Ronnie said. ‘You’ll be able to go to Berlin when you’re grown up and earning your own cash.’

‘That’s not the same,’ said Sophie.

‘I never got to go to Berlin,’ said Ronnie.

‘You weren’t taking German.’

‘Well, I’ve got some news that will cheer you up,’ said Ronnie, as the family sat down to dinner.

Sophie dug her fingers into her thighs. If her mother chose that moment to announce that they had won the lottery, Sophie would definitely scream. But they hadn’t won the lottery.

‘You know that Grandma is sixty this year,’ Ronnie continued.

‘That’s really old,’ said Jack.

‘Yes, well, don’t go saying that to Grandma. Anyway, she and Granddad have been saving up for a holiday at the end of August. And they want us to go with them!’

Sophie’s heart sank. They went on holiday with the grandparents every year as it was. And every year they went to the same place: the campsite near Littlehampton where Granddad Bill had bought a static caravan about a million years before. It was horrible, that van was. It was nowhere near big enough for the whole family and it still smelled of the cigars the previous owner liked to smoke.

‘Whoop-di-do,’ said Sophie.

‘Hang on,’ said Ronnie. ‘I haven’t told you where it is yet.’

‘Surprise me,’ said Sophie.

‘Lanzarote. We’re going to Lanzarote. All of us.’

‘Where’s Lanza-
rotty
?’ Jack asked.

‘It’s an island off the coast of Africa but it’s actually part of Spain.’

‘Is it?’ asked Mark.

‘Yes,’ said Ronnie. ‘Actually, it is. And we’re going to be staying in a resort with three swimming pools.’

‘Hooray!’ Jack was over the moon but then it didn’t take much to make Jack happy. A packet of Haribo. An episode of
Harry Hill’s TV Burp
. Their great-grandfather’s toxic farts.

‘Swimming pools! Swimming pools!’ Jack chanted.

‘Will I have to share a room with Jack?’ Sophie asked.

‘We’ll have to sort that out with Grandma.’

‘I didn’t get to go to Germany,’ Sophie reminded her parents.

‘We’ll see what we can do,’ said Mark.

‘It’s going to be lovely,’ said Ronnie. ‘A proper family holiday.’

Sophie cheered up just a little.

But the following day, Skyler texted from Berlin. Apparently Harrison was missing Sophie badly. Skyler was taking it upon herself to keep him from getting too sad. Just a little later, Sophie got a text from another friend, saying that Skyler and Harrison had been spotted making out in the youth hostel.

A holiday in Lanzarote didn’t seem like such a big deal any more. Sophie’s life was still rubbish. She would never be as lucky as the girl in the Great House.

A couple of weeks after the fete, Izzy sat her GCSEs. It was a tense time for all the family, though no one doubted that Izzy would do well. She had always been academic. As a small child she raced through all the reading programmes, achieving a reading age of twelve when she was still only seven years old. She’d been accepted at her first choice secondary school. And now she was on target to pass into the sixth form there with no problem whatsoever. After that, good A levels and a great university place were practically a formality.

So, when Izzy’s parents said that she would be entitled to a special treat if she got good GCSE results, Izzy was not in the least bit superstitious about planning what that treat might be long before the results came in. She knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to go to a festival with Jessica and the others.

Izzy presented a compelling case. The festival she and the girls had chosen was one of the cheaper ones, an event called SummerBox. It was relatively nearby. Just over the border in Northamptonshire. The bands that were headlining would attract a sedate crowd (positively square, said Izzy. Like her dad’s favourite Coldplay). And
everyone else
was going. Jessica and Gina and Chloe and …

‘Pleeeeease!’

Izzy tipped her head to one side and put on her most appealing look. She could tell that her father was softening but her mother …

‘I don’t think you should go,’ said Annabel. ‘You’re only sixteen.’

‘Seventeen in October,’ Izzy pointed out. ‘And sixteen’s not young. I could get married if I felt like it.’

‘Not without our permission,’ Richard reminded her.

‘Look, everyone else is going.
Everyone.
To celebrate the end of our exams. I’ll be the only person who didn’t get to go and when everyone’s back at school in September, I’ll be left out. They’ll all be talking about it and I won’t be able to join in.’

‘Hardly a terrible hardship,’ said Annabel.

‘You don’t understand,’ Izzy wailed. ‘Please! I’ll never ask for anything else again.’

‘You’ve asked for at least five things since breakfast,’ Annabel pointed out. ‘Is this festival instead of or as well as that concert in London?’

‘Mum,’ said Izzy. ‘That’s unfair. You said I could go to that concert ages ago. Don’t you remember?’

Izzy wasn’t really surprised her mother didn’t remember. Izzy had asked her about it while they were on holiday in Turkey for the Easter break. Unusually, Annabel got completely wasted on cocktails. It was a night that Richard referred to often, because apparently Annabel had jumped on him and ravished him like she used to when they first got together. The thought made Izzy sick. She stuck her fingers in her ears whenever her parents alluded to it. But at the time she had taken advantage of Annabel’s inebriated state and the subsequent hangover to wangle all sorts of concessions.

Anyway, the argument as to whether or not Izzy should go to a festival continued, with Izzy getting more and more irate as her parents raised more and more concerns. There were all sorts of things for a parent to worry about. And not just the usual drink, drugs and sex.

‘The weather will be awful and you might end up with trench foot,’ suggested Richard. ‘No laughing matter, trench foot. Nearly cost us the First World War.’

‘Dad!’ Izzy wailed. This was no time for joking. Izzy needed to know as soon as possible. Yes, it was technically true that she might yet be revealed to have failed all her exams but that wasn’t really likely, was it? Meanwhile the festival tickets went on sale first thing on Friday morning. They would be sold out within an hour. If Izzy was going to stand any chance of being there, she had to have her parents’ ‘yes’ now.

Eventually, Izzy could bear it no longer. She stormed off to the sanctuary of her bedroom, and then she crept back downstairs to listen surreptitiously through the kitchen door.

‘What do you think?’ Richard asked.

‘Well, Jessica’s mother said she would drive them there. She says it’s not like Glastonbury. It’s a fraction of the size. The security is very tight. Lots of middle-class families go. They even take their toddlers. And Chloe’s parents, the Greenwoods, live nearby and have agreed to be on standby overnight. So if the girls get into any trouble whatsoever, they can call Kerry Greenwood and she’ll be there within ten minutes.’

‘And technically this is for her exam results, so if she doesn’t actually get the results we’re expecting, she has to forego her birthday present instead.’

‘Yes,’ Annabel agreed.

‘Her mock exam results were pretty good though,’ said Richard.

‘They were,’ said Annabel.

‘And she worked very hard for the real ones.’

‘She certainly spent enough time on her computer. Let’s hope it wasn’t all on Facebook.’

‘And it will give us a weekend to ourselves,’ Richard added. That was clearly the clincher for him.

‘All right,’ said Annabel. ‘Are we going to tell her now or should we wait until she’s posted about how miserable and unfair we are online?’

Izzy burst into the room.

‘Tell me now!’ she said.

Izzy was beside herself with happiness when Annabel and Richard told her she could go to the festival after all. Of course she understood that if she failed her exams, it would have to be her birthday present, she told them. And
of course
she would not abuse their trust in her. She knew how important it was that she made them both proud. There would be no alcohol. No drugs. And no allowing boys to stay overnight in the tent. Not even platonically. She also promised that she would call her parents at eleven o’clock each night so that they could gauge whether she had stuck to her promise about the booze.

‘This is very important,’ said Annabel. ‘We are doing this against our better judgement, but we understand that it’s important for you to have your independence. And because you’re so nearly officially an adult, we know you’ll do your best to act like one.’

‘Of course!’

Izzy beamed. She hopped from foot to foot as Annabel wound up her lecture, then dashed straight upstairs to announce the good news to her virtual world.

Annabel couldn’t help feeling warmed by her daughter’s excitement. Now she was a teenager, there wasn’t much that put such a big smile on Izzy’s face.

‘I’ll need some new stuff,’ Izzy said at dinner. ‘Festival clothes. Wellies. Things like that. Can I have them for my birthday? Only early?’

Richard and Annabel shared a look. Richard gave a small nod.

‘Well, I suppose you can always use wellies.’

Annabel took Izzy into London the following weekend. They stayed in the flat Richard used as a pied-à-terre when work was especially busy and shopped for festival gear up and down Kensington High Street. At least, thought Annabel, she could be sure that Izzy wouldn’t get cold if the weekend was nippy or wet, as it was almost certainly bound to be in the middle of June. She piled thermals and extra-thick socks into the shopping basket, while Izzy searched for hippy vest tops that cost £29 a pop even though they looked as though they had been thrown together for pennies.

‘You’re going to be cold,’ Annabel warned her. ‘I don’t want you to spend the weekend wearing crop tops and ending up with a chill.’

‘I know,’ said Izzy, then, echoing the words of her grandmother, Sarah, which Annabel had seamlessly incorporated into her own maternal mantra: ‘You’ve got to keep your kidneys
lagged
.’

‘You think it’s funny,’ said Annabel. ‘You won’t be laughing if you end up unwell.’

‘No chance of that in these,’ said Izzy, holding up a pair of thermal leggings in disgust. She put them back on the shelf.

‘You’re taking them,’ said Annabel, picking them up again. ‘You’re going prepared.’

‘It’s a festival, Mum, not a girl-guide camp.’

‘All the more reason to make sure you’ve got the right equipment.’

The day of the festival arrived. Izzy was up early for once. Annabel made her an enormous breakfast, as though Izzy wouldn’t be able to find any food at all until she was next at home. Izzy happily scarfed her way through a stack of pancakes. Annabel was delighted.

Jessica’s mother, Jodie, arrived in her Range Rover at two o’clock, as arranged. Jodie had picked up Gina en route to the Buchanans’ house. They would be picking up Chloe Greenwood on the way.

The car was already full to bursting with Jessica and Gina’s camping equipment.

‘Anyone would think they were going to the Arctic Circle,’ said Richard. ‘In my day, we’d have a rucksack and a rolled-up sleeping bag.’

‘Yes, well. It’s not your day any more,’ said Annabel. ‘I’m glad to see they’re going to be properly equipped.’

Jodie agreed. ‘It cost a fortune but I told Jessica she’s got to do the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme next year anyway. It’ll look good on her uni applications.’