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I think Uncle Terence started the obligatory Christmas jumper tradition because he knew that we would all get hot and need to strip off at some point. When I was at junior school I thought it was funny, now I’m over thirty having a red nose adorning my boobs isn’t quite as hilarious. However, not wearing said jumper will leave me feeling naked and exposed – I will be the centre of attention, which must be avoided at all costs.
I have left it a little late to buy a new Christmas jumper. I’ve been in every supermarket and clothes shop and I am now in the pound shop. I might have to settle for a hot-chick T-shirt, or a ‘bargain buy’ Rudolf that looks like a cross-eyed donkey. Decisions, decisions. I have never been good under pressure, plus the only antlers left are the ones in the pet shop (I checked in there in case they had a jumper that would fit an Irish Wolfhound or some other giant breed, that could be modified for human use). Said antlers are more suited to a Labrador. I might have to buy some for Stanley instead.
4 p.m., 24 December
Stanley has just wolfed down half of the sausage rolls that I had home-baked (well, shop-bought from the late shop next to the beauty salon. They were a bit scuffed up which makes them look more authentically homemade, but also meant they were reduced to a bargain price). We are all expected to contribute, and in the past I have stuck to multiple bottles of bubbly and cut price stuffed dates, but this year I am rather skint. This is mainly because (1) I lent Simon the snake the money to buy his father a rather expensive bottle of malt whisky, and his mother a ridiculously expensive bottle of perfume, and (2) I bought him a gaming station. It was in the sale, but still cost way more than I’d ever spend on a toy, but I don’t think they will take it back. I see a New Year filled with trying to work out what Call of Duty is actually about, and then settling for a romp with Sonic. As I no longer have a boyfriend, snogging Sonic could be as good as it gets on New Year’s Eve.
Frankie says I’m too generous, I’ve always retorted that the giving not receiving is the best bit about Christmas. I’m beginning to think I might need to rethink that one.
So, anyway, I bought two bottles of Prosecco on offer, one as a reward for surviving Christmas, and one to take. Plus some savouries. Half of which have been scoffed.
I now don’t have time to nip down to Tesco Extra to replenish supplies, and wash and iron my hair, and get dressed, so I am going to have to cut the remaining sausage rolls into halves and pretend they are sophisticated snacks.
I’m also going to have to check for teeth marks.
Maybe a dog date isn’t a much better bet than a man?
6 p.m., 24 December
Yay! I have found my jumper and antlers! I’ve just dug out the spare Christmas gift bag that I kept in case of emergencies, and voilà! There they were. Along with some leftover stuffed dates (last year’s disaster) and some shrivelled up mistletoe.
I’ve also come up with perfect reason to keep away from fresh mistletoe! I just googled, more out of desperation than real hope, and it is poisonous to dogs, and I have Stanley. We don’t want vomiting, drooling and diarrhoea in the vicinity of Uncle Terence’s first editions, do we? I never thought I would say this, in response to those three words, but … result!
‘What the hell is that, Daisy?’ Frankie is lurking in my doorway, a drink in her hands, pointing at my list which is pinned to the wardrobe. Along with a photo of Simon with a heart shaped hole cut out of his stomach, and a big cross over the ‘sausage rolls’. She is looking very Ab Fab and is struggling to sound indignant, she’s laughing too much. She starts to pull my list off the wardrobe, then pauses and spins back round to stare at me. ‘Fuck me, you really do take this family party thing seriously! Great jumper, not so sure about the twigs growing out of your head though.’
‘Antlers!’
‘I need to come and see this!’
‘No, you don’t. And you haven’t got a Christmas jumper.’
‘And does this,’ she peels Simon off the door, prods her finger through the hole in his chest, then rotates him slowly, ‘mean you haven’t got a date?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘Well, nor have I.’ She grins, wickedly. ‘I can be your date!’
‘I’m taking Stanley.’ Stanley dives under the bed.
‘Who the fuck is Stanley? Have you been two-timing Simon?’ She gives a low whistle. ‘Dark horse!’
I sigh. ‘Stanley is the dog I’ve agreed to foster over the holidays.’
‘Oh.’ She looks disappointed, then frowns. ‘How did I not know about this?’
‘I smuggled him in, I knew you’d like him once you got to know him.’ It’s her flat, and I really should have asked her, but I couldn’t risk her saying no. Stanley can’t spend Christmas in a kennel.
‘Whatever.’ Frankie suddenly smiles. ‘Well, you can take me too then! Pleeeeeeease!’
‘Where’s Tarquin?’ I look at her with suspicion. She had a night of lust planned, like you do on Christmas eve if you’re a normal person and have a boyfriend, which is why she’s glammed up.
‘I told him to fuck off.’ She downs her drink. ‘He started a sentence with ‘if you really cared about me’, and it all went downhill from there. He needs to get a life.’
She sounds a bit sulky.
‘He is trying to, Frankie, with you.’
‘I’m not ready, I’d be bored within a week and so would he. Can I come?’
I look at Stanley, who is peeking out from under the bed. He stares back, resignedly.
‘It’s full of old people, and books.’
‘You should get a career in sales, oh hang on, you have! Please, it’ll be fun. I can do old people.’
I’m sure she can. ‘You’ll have to promise to behave and not put a straw in the vat of mulled wine.’
‘Promise. I won’t.’
She probably will.
‘And not propose to Uncle T?’
‘Is he rich?’
‘Very, but he’s probably married at the moment. I can’t remember. You mustn’t try and steal him!’
‘Okay.’ She puts on her sweet and innocent smile. But I know she’s not either.
‘Come on then,’ I sigh, I haven’t got time to argue, ‘I’m taking my car and getting a taxi back.’
‘Cool. Can I wear your antlers?’
Chapter 3 (#ulink_819dbee7-0771-5970-80cb-8658c9bc73d6)
7.30 p.m., 24 December
So, I have arrived at the party minus a boyfriend, and plus a dog and a flatmate. And now Ollie frigging Mr Perfect Cartwright is here.
Brilliant.
‘Oh my, how lovely to see you, Daisy, sweetheart!’ Uncle Terence manages to catch the plate (minus most of the sausage rolls), put his foot on Stanley’s lead, flick most of the pastry off my jumper with his silk handkerchief and kiss me on both cheeks without breaking into a sweat. ‘Splendid jumper, by the way!’
Stanley is so shocked he stops licking my toes, sits down and stares.
Uncle Terence is a bit of an enigma. He’s rather debonair, the only man in the village who can pull off a bowtie and is a kind of cross between a cuddly uncle and a London man about town. Yes, I know, it’s hard to imagine until you meet him. I’ve also absolutely no idea how old he is, except he’s older than me and not as old as my mother. I also know he used to run a literary agency which he thought he’d hand over to Ollie (he actually is his uncle) until Ollie’s dad persuaded his son that the medical profession was a much worthier cause.
‘Thank you! Looking forward to the party!’ I flash my new-lipstick smile, and he looks impressed – it looks like the magazine was right, it was well worth spending all that money on. I reckon it cost more than the entire contents of my make-up drawer.
‘Oh, my goodness, they look a bit pasty, don’t they?’ My mother picks up a sausage roll and eyes it suspiciously, before dropping it behind a pile of books and finally forgetting about Simon and my pompous prick comment offers her cheek for a kiss.
At least she’s been distracted from the lack of boyfriend.
‘Oh darling, what happened to your boyfriend? Tell me again!’ Bugger. Spoke too soon. Mum peers around me, as though I might actually have brought him and forgotten.
‘He had to cancel, I told you, things came up!’
‘Oh no. Such a disappointment.’ For a moment her face falls, then she chirps up. ‘Never mind, we’ll find you another nice young man. Sadie at Number 17 has a lovely son, he’s a dentist, always handy to know a good dentist! Don’t you think so, Terence?’
‘Far too boring for a bright young thing like our Daisy.’ Terence winks at me. ‘No hurry is there my dear? Get your career up and running before you go for all that nonsense, eh?’
‘Oh, my goodness, yes, we forgot to tell you.’ He’s now set Mum’s mind off in a new direction, which I’m not sure is a good thing. ‘Daisy has got another job!’ Terence raises an eyebrow. ‘She works for the Hunslip and Over Widgley Local Guardian, she’s in charge of promotions and marketing you know. They headhunted her, a proper job!’
‘Really?’ Uncle T whispers in my ear.
‘Small ads, not exactly proper.’ I whisper back, as my mother carries on regardless.
‘No?’ Uncle T studies me for a moment, then smiles. ‘Well, what is proper, my dear? What would you really like to do?’
‘I’m not quite sure yet.’ I scan the room and am quite relieved that Ollie seems to have disappeared from view. With any luck he’s gone home. It’s just so bloody embarrassing, the way my mother still keeps trying to throw us together when our lives have gone in totally opposite directions. Why on earth would the hugely successful Ollie, with his glamorous girlfriends and on-track life even want to talk to me, let alone father my babies?
‘Oh, she’ll soon be editor, won’t you Daisy!’ My mother has high expectations. Terence merely raises an eyebrow.
‘You can do whatever you want my dear, you know. You’re awfully clever, you always were such a bright girl.’ He pats my hand, then hands me the end of Stanley’s lead back. ‘And who needs a date, when you’ve got a dog?’
‘Exactly!’ I told you Uncle Terence was nice. Very nice.
‘Back in a jiffy, just going to stir the mulled wine dear girl, then I’ve got a gorgeous original edition to show you. Quite a find, a real gem, and I know you of all people will appreciate it!’ He winks.
‘Fab!’ I grin back at Uncle T.
‘Ollie has a proper date, you know!’ Mum nudges me in my ribs.
‘What a surprise.’ I mutter. Ollie has a date for every occasion apparently. How does he do it? Every year, according to my mother and Vera, Ollie flaming Cartwright has a different woman in tow.
‘Vera thinks he might even marry this one!’
I frown. This raises the stakes as far as my mother is concerned.
‘Such a shame you two couldn’t get together, we were so sure you’d get on well when you were little, your first kiss!’ She’s gone a bit swoony. ‘I hope you haven’t missed your chance!’
I admit it. Ollie and I have snogged more than once, it wasn’t just that drunken fumble under the mistletoe thirteen years ago.
He kissed me when we were six years old, when he was Joseph to my Mary in the Nativity at the village hall – egged on I think by our mothers. Honestly, what kind of parents encourage that kind of behaviour in innocent children? So, I battered him with the baby Jesus. A plastic version, obviously. I hit him pretty hard, though to give him his due he didn’t cry or hit me back, but he shouldn’t have kissed me.
He didn’t try again for another 12 years.
He was a pain in the backside when we were kids. He once pulled my bathing suit down and tried to drown me when we were semi-naked in his paddling pool (‘Just playing, how sweet,’ said Mum), then progressed to blowing out my birthday cake candles before I could (‘Hilarious,’ said his mum).
These days he is even more of a pain, though at least I haven’t actually had to see him in person. Well, until now. When Frankie spotted him across the crowded room and pointed out that not only is he successful, rich and has his life in order – he is also a tiny bit dishy. How did that happen?
Ollie passed all his exams, attended the medical school at Oxford University and is hugely successful and well thought of (according to my mother). He is very serious and always has an attractive, clever girlfriend with him whenever he comes home (according to his own mother – who then passes the information on to my mother).
I, on the other hand, buggered up my exams, did a rubbish degree at a university I’d only heard of through Clearing, still live within the same postcode we were brought up in, lost my job at the local vets after behaving irresponsibly with a scalpel when they tried to euthanise an incontinent cat (I think threatening to report me for GBH if I didn’t leave the building immediately was a bit OTT though), and so foster rescue dogs and have just managed to get a pretty naff job on the local rag.
How can my mother possibly still think we’re compatible when he’s everything I’m not? Have it all Ollie pleases his parents, is smart, has a life plan, a partner, but absolutely no sense of humour (from what I have observed), whereas I have no idea what I’ll be doing tomorrow, let alone in five years’ time.
‘You were such happy, chubby, little things.’
‘We were toddlers, Mum. Toddlers are always fat and happy.’
‘Well, you’re not now, are you! You need to do an egg timer test.’
‘What?’
‘I was reading all about them when I was having my car serviced, they have a wonderful set of magazines in there you know! Not just about cars, although there were car ones as well for your father, and a golf one.’
‘Why do I need to do an egg timer test?’
‘To see how much longer you’ve got before they go off dear! Then you can decide if it’s worth freezing a pack for future use.’ She pats my hand. ‘I mean, now Ollie is off the market.’
‘Mum,’ I sigh. ‘Ollie was your fantasy, not mine.’ Well, he was my fantasy for one brief night after that snog. Well, maybe several nights if I’m honest. But that was all. I mean, at eighteen it doesn’t always take much does it? ‘There are other men, and anyway, I might not want one.’
‘Not want a man?’ She frowns. ‘Oh my! That explains everything! You’re a lesbian! Oh, darling, why didn’t you say?’ She hugs me. ‘Everybody loves a lesbian these days.’
‘No, I’m not.’ I struggle free.
‘How exciting! Is it that Frankie girl?’ She frowns. ‘Is she bi? She’s still bothering Ollie, you know!’
‘No, Mum, she’s not, she’s straight, she’s got a boyfriend and I—’
‘And you can get a sperm donor these days, you can be Mummy and Mum, or Ma, or Mom!’
‘Mum, stop!’ I lower my voice to a hiss, as everybody else has stopped talking – just not her. ‘I am not a lesbian, but I still might not want to get married, and I might not want a baby!’
‘Oh rubbish.’ She shakes her head. ‘Of course, you want a baby. And you need one while I’m still young enough to push a pram, and your dad can still play football with him!’
We seem to have made a massive jump here, from egg testing to kids hurtling round the garden kicking a ball. There also seems to be an assumption on sex. ‘What if it’s a girl?’ I say, which I shouldn’t have done because it suggests there might be a child in my not so distant future.
‘They play, too! Honestly, I thought you youngsters understood all about equal opportunities, you kicked a ball around at school, you know! I mean, you weren’t exactly George Best, but …’
I’m about to ask who George Best is, then decide it might be best not to.
‘Daisy, how lovely to see you!’ Vera kisses my cheek and hands me a glass of mulled wine. ‘Any idea who that tall girl with black hair is? She’s rather monopolising Ollie!’
‘Oh don’t worry about her,’ says my mother, ‘she’s bi, she’s already got a boyfriend and a girlfriend!’
‘Back in a jiffy, Stanley needs a drink!’ I take this opportunity to run off, before my imaginary (and rather more interesting than in real-life) sex life is dissected.
