Christmas for One: No Greater Love
This book is for Jo Ward. She has always been there for me, a brilliant mum to Luke and Alice, a great sister, fabulous aunt and a lovely friend.
Megan woke to the sound of squealing coming from the landing. It was Kirsty, the daughter of the foster family she was staying with.
Today was a special day: Christmas.
‘I got a Sylvanian Families tree-house! I love it! I love it! Thank you, Mummy and Daddy!’ Kirsty screamed, her excitement pushing her voice up an octave higher than usual.
Megan pulled the duvet up over her shoulders and swallowed, unsure if she should get up or stay put. It was the same way she felt every morning in Tall Trees Avenue. Sometimes she got up early, put her school uniform on and slid back under the duvet, waiting for Pam, Kirsty’s mum, to knock on the door and invite her down to the kitchen for her Frosties.
What was the right thing to do today? Should she stay silently in the bedroom trying to be as little bother as possible or should she go and join in? Megan knew that Christmas morning was a big deal and, despite being only seven, she was smart enough to realise that if the Bartram family were opening gifts without her, they probably wanted some time to themselves.
She laid her cheek on the pillow and tried to imagine what her mum was doing right that moment. Then she thought about each of her brothers and sisters: Janey, Mel, Jason and Robbie. She blinked. Her heart was beating very fast between her ribs. Like a little bird trapped inside a cage, that was how she always pictured it. Patting her chest, she whispered, ‘Ssssshhh…’, as though it were a living thing that she could calm.
There was a tap on the bedroom door and Megan sat up. Pam came in, wearing her sweatshirt with huskies on the front. Megan thought Pam might have dressed up today, maybe in a red sequined dress like the one she had seen a lady on the telly wearing. The sight of the huskies with their real googly eyes that moved when Pam jumped was a bit disappointing.
‘Morning, Megan. Looks like Santa’s been! There’s a little pile of presents under the tree with your name on them.’
Megan felt her tummy flutter with excitement. Pam walked briskly to the window and drew the curtains, lifting the catch to let the breeze whip around the room. Megan wondered, as she did every time Pam performed this little ritual, if she smelt. She had been living with the Bartrams for three months, but she still didn’t really know if they liked having her there.
Suddenly the door burst open and Kirsty rushed in. ‘Come on, Megan! It’s Christmas!’ She smiled, reaching for Megan’s hand, pulling her from the warmth of the bed.
Megan understood that today there was to be a truce. No hair-pulling or pinching, no stealing her chips when the adults were out of the room.
She sat on the floral-patterned carpet in her nightie and slowly removed the paper from her gifts: some new white socks, a small pink stuffed unicorn with a furry mane and big eyes, and a Blockbusters board game. She beamed. Nice presents!
Two hours later, Megan sat on the sofa in Kirsty’s old bridesmaid’s dress, running her hands over the layers of lilac tulle that reached her ankles. She felt like a princess. Delicious smells wafted from the kitchen – roast potatoes, Christmas pudding and brandy butter. Her mouth watered, even though she knew that she wouldn’t get to eat any of it.
When Kirsty’s dad, Len, reached for the car keys, she started quivering with nerves. Out of sight of the others, she placed her small hand against her chest and whispered, ‘Ssssshhh.’
‘Come on then, flower.’ Len waved the keys in her direction.
She liked Len. She liked being called ‘flower’.
Megan zipped her navy school coat over her fancy frock and waved goodbye to the family, who were all sitting round the Christmas tree. Megan blushed with guilt. She knew she should be excited about going to see
her
family, but part of her wanted to stay there, among strangers, and eat proper turkey and gravy, followed by Christmas pudding, brandy butter and charades.
‘Take these with you!’ Kirsty removed the seal from the tin of Quality Street that had sat so temptingly under the tree for the last week and shoved four sweets into Megan’s palm. Two were flat gold circles, one was a green triangle and the other an orange bon-bon shape.
‘Thank you,’ Megan whispered as she placed the sweets in her coat pocket.
Len was a man of few words. Rather than make Megan feel even more awkward, the thirty-minute drive in comfortable silence helped her relax a little.
As Megan stepped through the front door of her mum’s flat, she was met by laughter. ‘What the bloody hell have you got on?’ her mum asked, leaning on the kitchen door frame, her cigarette held up to her mouth between two long red nails. She was in vest and jeans, despite the season.
‘Kirsty said I could wear it.’ Megan bunched the skirt in her fists and let it fall. She felt sick, like she had done something wrong.
Her mum shook her head and narrowed her eyes against the yellow wisps of smoke. ‘Everyone’s in the front room.’ She nodded her head towards the sound of the telly and went into the kitchen.
Megan unzipped her coat and followed her in. Her mum was standing in front of the sink. A man she had never seen before stood by her side. He wasn’t wearing a top and had a tattoo of a big ugly dog on his bicep. Megan stared at it until he flexed his arm and barked, making it look like the dog was jumping in her direction. Megan gasped and swallowed. She noticed that neither of them was wearing shoes or socks and that their hair was messy, like they had just got up.
‘I got you a present,’ she whispered as she stepped forward.
Her mum turned around and gathered the pink unicorn into her hands. ‘Oh.’ She looked at the man with the messy hair and gave a crooked smile. ‘That’s just what I always wanted. Thanks, Meggy.’ She bent down and kissed her daughter’s head.
Megan inhaled the scent of cigarettes and something else that she couldn’t identify, but it made her tummy flip nonetheless.
‘And I got you these.’ She unclenched her fingers and placed the four sweets on the sticky work surface where they shone like brightly wrapped jewels.
‘Ooh, my favourite!’ The man dived forward and took one of the gold circles into his big hands. Megan instantly wished that she had saved them for herself. They weren’t meant for him.
She wandered along the hallway to the lounge. Hovering in the doorway, she gazed at the room, which looked just like it did on any other day. No Christmas tree, no decorations, no presents. Her brothers, sisters and cousins sat flopped and sagged against the stained sofa cushions and greasy chair arms. They were eating crisps and watching the big telly, which was showing a gravy advert. A smiling mum in an apron ferried steaming plates of home-cooked goodies to a table spread with a clean white tablecloth. A dad, wearing a tie, sat at the head, beaming at his handsome offspring. Megan stared at their own lounge with its curtains that didn’t quite fit the windows and were held shut by clothes pegs, and the rusty Calor gas heater pumping out warmth. It was a world away from Tall Trees Avenue.
‘Fuck me, it’s Cinderella!’ Jason wheezed as he winked at his little sister.
‘It’s not mine,’ she whispered, embarrassed, no longer feeling like a princess.
She sat on the floor next to Mel and watched the last hour of
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
, wondering how long it would be until Len came to fetch her.
‘Did your mum get you a present?’ Len asked casually as she clicked her seat belt.
‘She got me lots of presents, too many for me to carry and so I left them all there.’ Megan felt her cheeks flame as the lie slipped from her lips.
‘Probably best.’ Len winked at her.
Back at Tall Trees Avenue, Megan hung up her coat and walked into the dining room. The table still gleamed with tinsel and candles, and Christmas carols were playing on the stereo. Megan closed her eyes and made a promise that when she was grown up she would be just like the gravy advert lady. She would serve a lovely Christmas dinner to her family, carrying the plates to the table and putting them on a clean white cloth. She would buy everyone the presents they had always wanted and after lunch they would play charades and laugh as they passed around the tin of Quality Street.
She sat down by the tree in the lounge and fanned her princess dress out on the floor around her, feeling both happy and sad. Happy to be able to run her hands over the shiny baubles and to sit watching the twinkling lights, but sad for her mum, Janey, Mel, Jason and Robbie, that their home didn’t have any magic in it. None at all.
Meg stood in the middle of the pavement and stared at the display in the tall glass window. She had been with Plum Patisserie, working for cousins Pru and Milly Plum, for four years, yet continued to be wonderstruck by the incredible confections that creative director Guy Baudin and his team produced.
She beamed and held her scarf against her throat. It was December the first and the window conjured thoughts of snow and sparkle. The single-tier cake sat on a silver and glass podium within a vast glass snow globe. Long shards of crystal hung from invisible wires and caught the light, sending dazzling miniature rainbows out into the grey December day. The cake itself was a foot wide and two feet deep, its sides and edges shaped into a brilliant white snowscape of jagged icing and fondant peaks. In the crevices and dips there was the faintest tinge of grey. On top of the cake, glistening inside this snowy crater, was a frozen pond of the palest blue, made from the smoothest, most blemish-free icing that Meg had ever seen. It was glass-like in its perfection, complete with tiny ice fissures at the edges where a slightly darker blue icing shone through from below. Atop this perfect pond skated a male and female figure. Dressed in silver lamé and white fur, they swirled and glided in intricate animatronic loops around each other, their arms outstretched, missing each other by a hair’s breadth. Where their skates had touched the ice there were left the tiniest scratches, fine flecks of icing sitting like dust to either side of the needle-like tracks, as if kicked up by a flashing blade. Delicate snowflakes danced and fluttered around the two, hitting the roof of the snow globe then falling to the floor before being lifted once again by a gentle wave of air.