Snow Angels, Secrets and Christmas Cake (13 page)

I nodded, big tears dropping down my face. He stood up while I watched the dying embers of the fire send up little smoke signals. Mrs J would say it was the spirits telling me to stop him leaving, to kiss him better. But I had to kiss me better first.

He left silently and I watched from the upper window as he trudged home in the snow, shoulders hunched, head down. A wave of sadness overwhelmed me, I didn’t want to hurt this man, but in my own mixed up way I suppose I was trying to protect both of us. I may be the woman he wanted, but I couldn’t be the woman he needed. I had to protect my life and my heart... Love and loss had devastated me once already.

Perhaps in the long term it was best for me to let Richard go? I couldn’t give him what he wanted, a committed relationship, a ready-made family – and yet ultimately wasn’t it what I wanted too? I knew I was being stupid – and perhaps if I’d been brave enough to take a chance, I might finally have found what I was looking for... but I just couldn’t do it.

T
he following day
we ordered a taxi to drive me and all the deliveries around the area. The taxi driver was called Keith and on the journey he told me all about his three baby mothers and his current girlfriend’s weakness for crack. It was like a real life Jeremy Kyle and I half hoped I’d see him again to find out what happened next. Things hadn’t been great between Sam and I, so I felt, as the big sister, it was up to me to make amends, so that night I joined her to work late in the bakery.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ I announced as she slaved wordlessly over cupcake batter. ‘I know you’re worried about the van situation and I hope you don’t think I’m interfering,' I said pointedly, ‘but I called Gabe.’

Sam looked up. ‘Why?’

‘Well. Given that Gabe and I have a little unspoken, unfinished, ‘thing’ between us, I asked if he might help us out with deliveries until we can get the van fixed. I hadn’t heard from him since the bodice-ripping incident but asked if he could do me a favour. He said yes straight away, which I took as a good sign so I asked if he might help us out with deliveries until we can get the van fixed. I said we’d pay him petrol money... worryingly he said we could ‘come to some arrangement’, and if I have to prostitute myself for this business, so be it,’ I giggled.

‘You wonderful, wonderful... old tart,’ Sam said, reaching her arms out to hug me and it felt good being able to help her again.

‘He asked if I’d be joining him on deliveries and I said yes and that seemed to seal the deal for him.’

I blushed, just thinking about our telephone conversation, it was quite delicious, and I flushed again remembering how my eyelashes had batted down the phone line.

Sam seemed so relieved. ‘Oh Tam, you’ve saved my life – and my business!’ She’d jumped up and down like a little girl and we’d danced around the bakery together to celebrate. I saw a couple of people pass by and to my horror realised they were yummy mummies from the school. Sometimes I really do think she asks for it, I thought, as Sam swept me across the floor like bloody Fred Astaire and the yummy mummies peered in, nudging each other with smirks on their faces. Sam was oblivious and while fox trotting across the bakery floor I stared hard right back at them through the window. The next time I looked they’d gone.

‘So, let’s celebrate the solving of the van issue,’ I said. I’d found a warm bottle of cheap Sauvignon in one of Sam’s cupboards and poured us both a glass to toast before we started work.

‘Here’s to no talk about men, money, vans or business,’ I said as we clinked glasses.

Sam agreed, but within minutes was asking if I’d heard from Simon.

‘Mmmm I don’t want to talk about Simon either – quite frankly he can toss off.’

‘Nice mouth,’ Sam said, laughing.

‘I am such a potty mouth on Sauvignon Blanc, it makes me say things I wouldn’t normally dream of uttering,’ I giggled, feeling the welcome warmth of the white wine fill my chest. ‘As Rosalind Rice discovered last summer just before her yacht company went tits up,’ I went hot, recalling my horrific faux pas on board Sky Dancer.

‘They were launching their latest model and I was languishing on deck sipping what I assumed to be a decent wine, but it was in fact a new world Sauvignon,’ I curled my lip. ‘Anyway, I was three sheets to the wind when Rosalind’s husband sauntered up, and in front of everyone gesticulated toward my décolletage and said “Would you like a threesome?”’

Sam had stopped kneading, mouth half open in shock. ‘Rosalind’s husband? Oh God, what did you say?’ she asked, a smile playing on her lips.

‘Well, I was outraged. I slapped his face and called him a filthy pervert. Not words I would use normally in polite company,’ I explained.

‘No, but it’s not every day someone’s husband propositions you in polite company is it? She’d temporarily stopped kneading the bread to take all this in.

‘So what happened?’

‘Well, when Rosalind’s husband recovered from shock and asked why I’d reacted with such vitriol to his comment, the Sauvignon had really kicked in. I heaped even further abuse on the man, informing him very loudly that I wasn’t into his dirty little sex games. I said I was both horrified and surprised that Rosalind was married to such a disgusting scum pig,’ I grabbed a chair and sat down, Sam was enthralled.

‘You never told me this bit of gossip... Rosalind - a swinger? She’s such a stuck up bitch too...’

‘Mmmm. Let me finish,’ I waved my hand in the air. ‘As I shrieked obscenities at her husband, Rosalind wept, and silence descended on Sky Dancer, their 200-foot yacht. Everyone was staring and he was looking at me with such shock and horror it occurred to me that I may have misunderstood and the Sauvignon had caused me to perhaps overreact to what he’d said.’

‘Nooooo.’

I nodded. ‘Oh yes, it was mortifying. I was wearing a low-cut Versace that evening, it was rather chilly on deck and it transpired that he was looking at my goose bumped chest and asking if I’d “like a fleece on”.’

Sam was now doubled up laughing, and though it was a painfully embarrassing story for me to tell, I had to join in. ‘Anyway, that’s what I’m like on Sauvignon Blanc... it colours my imagination, I tend to think of everything in a sexual way... or is it that more to do with my age?’

Sam was still laughing, now wiping her eyes on her tea towel.

‘Thing is, Rosalind still isn’t speaking to me,’ I sighed, warming to the theme and enjoying Sam’s laughter. ‘You can laugh, it cost me a fortune in floral tributes to apologise.’

‘Nothing says “I’m sorry I called your husband a disgusting scum pig,” like a bouquet of spring blooms,’ she roared laughing.

‘I was never invited to sunset cocktails on Sky Dancer again,’ I said, a wave of sadness coming over me. ‘Says it all really, doesn’t it? One word out of place and suddenly you’re out, thrown bodily from the social circle. Forget a 200 foot yacht, I’d be lucky to be invited to one of Mimi’s pole dancing classes now.’

‘I think you’ll find calling someone’s husband a filthy little pervert and a disgusting scum pig is actually more than just one word out of place, Tamsin,’ she said. ‘Anyway, they’ve had a bumpy ride themselves this past year, haven’t they? I would feel sorry for them, but they were so obnoxious, always looking down their noses at everyone...’

‘I wonder if people are saying that about me – now I don’t have money anymore?’ I said, almost to myself.

‘Yeah... some will. And they can fuck off,’ she snapped. ‘Do not work yourself up into a lather about fair-weather friends who turned up to drink your champagne and criticise your lifestyle and wallpaper. People who really care about you will still be there, Tamsin, and not gossiping and spreading rumours about you and your marriage.’

She said this with watery eyes and my heart went quite floppy, my own eyes filling up at the thought of everything that now lay ahead.

‘My marriage?’

‘Oh, you know... just jealousy... only gossip.’

I thought for a moment about Simon and what we had... what I’d thought we had, together.

‘I know people talked, even Mrs J told me she thought he’d got someone else when he left.’

‘Who cares? You were always too good for him. I like you better without Simon. And now you’re on your own, I reckon you might just start to like yourself a bit more too.’

I wanted to hug Sam, but she was full of flour and sticky buttercream, and as much as I love her there’s only so much grease a Prada blouse can take.

‘Given how hilarious you are on Sauvignon, might I suggest a second glass?’ she asked, smiling. I nodded. It was nice being here with my sister, laughing, drinking. Sam could even make me smile about the bad bits of my life – she got things into perspective for me and made me realise there were other things going on.

‘Oh Sam, how did I get into this pretty pickle I’m in?’

‘Being evicted from the posh Rotary Club Wives you mean?’ she sighed.

‘There was no “wives” in the title, we were all fully fledged Rotary members.’

‘Yeah... whatever... that’s what they told the wives in Stepford too,’ she smiled, handing me a second glass.

‘I am a lot of things, but I’m certainly not one of those kept women who haven’t a clue,’ I said.

‘Really? Do you know how much your weekly supermarket shop used to be?’

‘Not... really because I got Mrs J to...’

‘Do you know how much you paid to heat your home in winter? Or how much you owed on your credit cards?’

‘Okay, I take your point. I lifted my foot off the pedal of life – as it were. Being married to Simon had turned me into a dependent, pathetic “Real Housewife of Chantray Lane” type, who had everything done for her. But it’s not what I wanted, Sam.’

‘Don’t knock it,’ she laughed. ‘I’d give anything for someone else to pay my bills and do my shopping while I swan around boutiques before a light lunch with wannabe WAGs in the latest French bistro.’

‘It wasn’t quite like that,’ I said, indignantly, while wondering if she’d been spying on me it was so bloody accurate. ‘Anyway, it’s all in the past now – gone are the days of French bistros and footballers’ wives. And yes, I am ashamed of myself, I should have known what our debts were and how much a loaf of bread costs... but I’ve spent my whole life worrying and as a child I would cry myself to sleep most nights.’

She looked at me, we were both leaning on the ovens trying to keep warm

‘I was so unhappy.’

‘I know and I hate that you went through all that, but you mustn’t forget there were golden moments too, Tam.’

I didn’t answer her... I wished I could shake it off, and perhaps with Sam’s help I could. But some days it just came in on me – the past.

M
um couldn’t afford
to buy us much, what money we had went on Dad’s whisky and what Santa brought was usually a disappointment. I’d watch Christmas films and ads on TV of perfect families, with a dad carving the turkey, a mum presiding over Christmas pudding and smiley-faced children opening their presents. I’d imagine the wreaths on the door, a fire blazing and gifts around the tree, how I longed for a Christmas like the families on the telly.

I remember going to my friend Karen’s house when I was about eleven years old. There was a green and gold wreath on the door and the Christmas tree was the most beautiful I’d ever seen. Her mum was smiling in a beautiful shiny kitchen, and later she brought us warm mince pies on silver doilies. They had a colour TV and a video and her dad put tinsel round the room and poured sherry into strange shaped glasses. ‘They’re called schooner glasses. Mum and Dad always have sherry in them,’ Karen said, like she was letting me into a family secret. How I envied her life, her parents and those very special shaped sherry glasses. I can laugh now at the kitsch glassware and how the child in me saw a perfectly average family and thought they were royalty. But back then I thought Karen was the luckiest, richest girl I’d ever met. I wanted to feel like she must feel, live like she did – and I wanted it so much it had become a stabbing pain in my stomach for the rest of my life.

And despite having had enough money for a hundred turkeys and a million gifts since then – it occurred to me I’d never actually achieved this ‘Christmasness’. Living in Sam’s world had made me realise that perhaps Christmas wasn’t something you
achieved
. Perhaps Christmas could only be planned so far and the rest was down to the messy unpredictable nature of human life? In which case, I thought – who cares what colour your baubles are?

‘
I
’ve been thinking
... about the future,’ Sam said later that night.

‘Whose?’

‘Ours actually,’ she looked down at her feet. I followed her eyes... bloody flip flops and black painted toes – in this weather. For once I kept my mouth shut – what did I know? ‘Look, we’ve not always been the best of friends... we’re totally different people, but turns out we’re both in what you would call “a pretty pickle” and I would call “deep shit”.

‘I’m going to be sick,’ I said, lunging into the back of the bakery and arriving at the downstairs bathroom sink just in time. I threw up, vowing never to touch Sauvignon again while wiping my face on a towel that had seen better days. It was rough and scratched my face dry rather than blotting it as my own soft towels did. I saw myself in the mirror and wondered where the years had gone. How many Christmas parties, carol services and theatrical productions had I presided and fretted over? And for what? I had spent the past twenty odd Christmases spending time and money on other people. I had probably ignored my own family’s needs to tend to those people who were now not answering my calls (you know who you are).

I tried not to cry and walked back into the bakery where the warmth of cinnamon penetrated my nostrils and my heart. Sam must have seen in my face that I was feeling fragile and she put both her arms around me.

‘What I was going to say about our future, was you can stay as long as you need to and if I sometimes get cross it’s just because you’re one of the most annoying people I know. But I love you and I’m here for you.’

‘Oh Sam, you’ve been so good to me – you’re even putting a roof over my head.’

‘Hardly Tam... it’s a shared bed in a tiny room in a very small flat. It’s nothing like the glamour and luxury you’ve been used to.’

‘I know you always thought I was having this amazing life... there was a time when I thought that too. But it was meaningless – and you were right about the people, they were shallow and selfish. They only want you when you’re winning.’

‘I’ve been saying it for years. How many festive fucking canapés can a woman serve before she’s accepted into a world like that?’ Sam huffed, angry on my behalf, which touched me.

We both laughed at her comment, humour relieving the pain temporarily.

‘You’ve had enough wine, I’ve made you some tea,’ she said. ‘Mum always said there was nothing like a nice cup of tea when life was shit.’ That word again, Mum used words like that – usually when she was ‘ill’, and though Sam didn’t know it, for Mum ‘a nice cup of tea’ was usually a mug containing a nice splash of whisky.