The Mother of All Christmases Page 4

  She didn’t hear the man approach until he was almost upon her. Alarmed by the sudden sound of fast footsteps she turned and saw a figure running towards her, black hood obscuring his face. Her instinct kicked in, she stepped quickly to the right and so did he. They collided and, even though he wasn’t a large man, he hit her like a speed train, sending her careening to the ground.

  ‘Jesus, sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Take it,’ said Palma, kicking her bag towards him. ‘There’s nothing in it, so take it and piss off.’

  ‘Eh?’ said the man. ‘I’m out running love, I’m not a bleeding mugger. You barged into me, I was trying to skirt round you. Here, let me help you up.’

  ‘I can get up myself,’ said Palma, batting his hand away. Her shoe felt loose when she stood up and put it back on her foot properly. The cheap plastic had split down the side. ‘Oh bloody great. I’ve broke my shoe.’ Her beige coat wasn’t looking good either. She couldn’t tell in this light if it was scuffed or only dirty. ‘Flipping marvellous.’

  ‘Palma?’ The man asked.

  Palma’s eyes flicked up to his face. She didn’t recognise him, though when he pushed his hood backwards off his head, there was something vaguely familiar about his eyes, as if they linked up with a very old dusty memory.

  ‘It is Palma, isn’t it? Palma Collins – it is you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, warily. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Tommy Tanner. We were in the same school. St John’s High.’

  She knew the name instantly, not that it was a good sign. The Tommy Tanner who’d been in the same group for maths, English and science had left at the beginning of year nine to go to a youth detention centre.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ he asked.

  ‘Sort of,’ she said, still wary.

  ‘How are you?’ he said, grin now turning up the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Piss wet through with a knee throbbing like a bastard and with a broken shoe, if you’re asking,’ said Palma, cross at that grin. How dare he grin.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ he said. ‘I tried to get round you as fast and wide as I could because I didn’t want you to feel threatened.’ He pronounced it as ‘frettened’.

  ‘Well you did a great job,’ said Palma, brushing her coat with her hand. Luckily it didn’t look damaged and the muck would sponge off.

  ‘I’m a boxer now. British welterweight champion. I’m in training for my first defence which is why I’m out running at this time of night, if you’re asking.’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ came the dry reply.

  He laughed. ‘You’re funny.’

  Palma took a step and the pain shot through her knee. She swallowed the blasphemy.

  ‘What are you doing walking through the park at this time of night. It’s not safe,’ said Tommy Tanner.

  ‘You’re telling me,’ said Palma. ‘I’m trying to get home via a shortcut.’

  ‘That’s really daft,’ said Tommy. ‘They do drug deals behind those bushes. I thought everyone knew that.’

  Palma did. Quite a lot of them were done by Clint, or your man as Christian called him. He wasn’t her man, she wanted to say to that, and never would be. She took another step and winced.

  ‘Do you want to lean on me?’ said Tommy. ‘I’ll see you home. Where do you live?’

  ‘Tollin Road,’ lied Palma. She lived a few streets away from it but she wasn’t going to give him her precise address. ‘And no, thanks, I’ll be okay in a minute or two.’ She flexed her leg, didn’t put a lot of pressure on it when she took her next steps. Tiny, cautious pin steps. It would take her months to get home at this rate.

  ‘Look, grab hold,’ said Tommy, holding out his crooked arm. When she didn’t he wiggled it and insisted. ‘Go on, I won’t bite.’ She expected him to add the old chestnut, unless you ask nicely and was pleasantly surprised when he didn’t.

  Reluctantly Palma took it and Tommy started to walk at a pace conducive to her temporary disability.

  ‘That’s better, in’t it?’ he said. Then he looked at her and laughed, shaking his head. ‘Palma Collins. I used to fancy you like mad at school.’

  Palma’s eyebrows made a small upward movement of disbelief.

  ‘Yeah, course you did.’

  ‘I did,’ Tommy persisted. ‘But you fancied Steven Bagshaw. I felt gutted when I heard that.’

  Steven Bagshaw. She was suddenly back at her desk and mentally fist-pumping when Mrs Potter moved the class seats around and she found herself sitting next to him in tutorial. Cartoon hearts had pumped out of her eyes. She remembered smiling at him and seeing his eyes drag up and down her with disdain.

  ‘You remember some stuff, don’t you?’ said Palma.

  ‘I do. He’s dead, you know. Alkie and druggie. Died two years ago. I went to his funeral.’

  ‘Steven Bagshaw?’ Surely not. He was one of the posher kids. They lived in a big house and were stinking rich but his dad was a socialist and wouldn’t pay out for a private school, that much she could recall. Steven Bagshaw was on course to be a doctor or a vet. His dad used to hit him when he didn’t get As in exams, she also pulled that out of the memory bag.

  They turned the corner into Tollin Road.

  ‘Which one is yours, then?’ Tommy asked.

  ‘It’s okay, I can see myself home from here.’ She removed her arm from his. ‘Thanks.’ Then she huffed a little as the word bounced around in her brain with a sarcastic echo. Thanks for what? Thanks for scaring the living daylights out of me and displacing my kneecap?

  ‘All right,’ said Tommy. ‘Well, it’s nice to see you again. After all these years, crazy that. I recognised your hair before anything else. It was always a bit mad. Looks nice pink, though.’

  She had naturally pale blonde hair, like watered-down sunshine Grace Beresford had once said, and she’d always worn it short and punky. Four years ago she’d shaved it off, apart from a mid-strip that she’d dyed black during a short-lived Mohican stage. She hadn’t liked herself very much then. She was lost and alone and that’s when Clint O’Gowan had wormed his way into her drawers.

  ‘You can leave me now, I’m okay from here on. Nice to see you again, too.’

  ‘You don’t sound too convinced.’ Tommy chuckled and she was visited by a fleeting picture of him as a teenager: twinkly eyes, smile constantly on display. The face of a cheeky pixie.

  ‘See you.’ Palma turned and walked slowly away from him towards the last house on Tollin Road, trying to keep the limp out of her steps. When she turned to see if he was still loitering, he was. ‘I’m going in the back door,’ she called and turned the corner, then set off at a fast hobble to her first-floor flat in Beckett Street.

  The last thing she needed was another bad boy in her life. Especially one who had known her before Grace Beresford worked her magic.

  An hour later, she was getting undressed for bed when the doorbell went and there was only one person who rang it like that: an insistent, impatient pulse that could be translated as why am I ringing at all? This door should be open to me. Palma let out a long breath, by which time there had been more buzzing, like an extremely pissed-off wasp. She considered pretending she wasn’t in, but he’d only come back again so it was better to get it over and done with. She looked out of the window to see him staring up at her, arms outstretched, mouthing expletives at her for keeping him waiting.

  She quickly slipped her jeans back on and fastened them up before pressing the door-entry button. She heard him crashing up the stairs two at a time. He burst in through the door because he was incapable of movements that weren’t jerky or exaggerated since he’d taken too much of the stuff he was supposed to peddle. The smell of weed pumped out of his skin, riding on his sweat.

  ‘What’s happening, then?’ he said, crossing to the fridge in the corner of the room and helping himself to a Vanilla Coke.

  ‘Well, it’s just happened and now I have to wait and see.’

  ‘Taking a bit of a time, isn’t it?’ he sai
d, sniffing. His long skinny nose was destroyed inside and he sniffed constantly. A lot of people knew him better as Sniffer O’Gowan than Clint.

  ‘Well you can’t push nature,’ said Palma. ‘I’m doing my best.’

  ‘You fertile now?’

  She knew where this was going.

  ‘Fingers crossed I’m already pregnant.’

  ‘If not, you can get your knickers off and I’ll make sure you are.’

  He was only half-joking. If she’d as much as smiled at that, he would have taken it as a green light. She felt sick at the thought. She’d slept with him once and it had been the biggest mistake of her life because he figured that now the door had been opened, it wasn’t allowed to shut. It had taken a lot to fob him off, although she’d been helped by his being a guest at her Majesty’s pleasure for a year. Give Clint an inch and he didn’t just take a mile, but the road and the traffic lights as well.

  ‘Christian Stephenson has got a rare blood group and the baby will have the same, which they’ll find out when it’s born.’ It was a lie she’d thought of to use in case Clint suggested he act as surrogate for the father, just as she was acting surrogate for the mother. He’d swallowed it easily enough and wouldn’t have thought to check.

  Clint pulled a thin spliff out of his pocket and lit it. She hated the smell of weed but she was too wary of him to tell him to put it out.

  ‘Well he can fuck off if he wants his money back if you’re not up the duff,’ said Clint.

  He sat down heavily on the sofa and Palma sighed inwardly. She wanted him out of the house, not settling in.

  ‘Clint, do you mind, I’m going to bed early. I’ve got a headache.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he growled under his breath and pushed himself to his feet.

  ‘It’s a good sign though. You get headaches when you’re in the very first stages of pregnancy, when your body starts to change.’

  She was lying again. She hated lying and more or less everything that had come out of her mouth since Clint walked in had been a lie, but his brain was too destroyed even to question if symptoms could manifest themselves within hours of fertilisation.

  He crossed to the door then returned to her. He came so far up to her face that she had to take a step back. His breath smelled of smoke, weed and unbrushed teeth. ‘When you do a test, ring me. I want to know either way.’

  ‘I will,’ she said. ‘You know I will. Straight after.’

  More lies.

  His footsteps on the stairs made a heavy noise for someone so light, Palma thought. The outer door crashed shut and only when she saw him strolling away down the street did she feel her shoulders relax and realise how much tension she had been carrying in them.

  Chapter 7

  Eve was having a crafty catnap when she was rudely awoken by a loud rap on the office door.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, quickly composing herself and instinctively reaching for what she thought was her still fresh, hot coffee – but it had gone cold, indicating how long she’d been out of it for. This level of tiredness that was felling her in the early afternoons couldn’t be normal. In walked Effin, his mouth puckered into a disgruntled moue and his eyebrows low over his eyes. In short, he wasn’t happy about something.

  ‘Got a moment, Missus?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Effin. Everything all right?’ Though clearly it wasn’t.

  Effin sat down in the chair in front of her desk and opened his mouth to talk but it seemed that he was having difficulty finding a starting point.

  ‘Can I be frank?’ he said eventually.

  Eve had never known him be any other way, so she was surprised he’d even ask. She nodded.

  ‘It’s the hag—’ Effin stopped, coughed, began again, considering each word that he put down after the other this time. ‘It’s about Mr MacDuff. I wondered . . . how well do you really know him?’

  ‘Well, I personally don’t know him all that well,’ said Eve, ‘but Jacques does, and he speaks very highly of him. Is there something . . . specific you needed to know? Do you have a complaint about his work?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Effin quickly. ‘Not about his work.’

  Eve would have bet her life savings that his complaint featured something to do with his niece, Cariad. She and Davy got along like a house on fire and Uncle Rottweiler didn’t like it at all. But there was little Eve could do about it, if that’s what this was about.

  ‘Then . . . what is it, Effin?’

  Effin took a deep breath before continuing. ‘You’re a woman, Missus.’

  ‘I am,’ agreed Eve, trying to hang on to a straight face.

  ‘And you know how . . . women can be attracted to the wrong sort of fellow. The ones that have looks and charm and are a bit gung-ho. Ones that are a bit older than them and more . . . experienced, some might even say dangerous.’

  ‘I do, I do indeed, Effin.’

  Yep, she’d called it right. This was about Davy and Cariad.

  ‘Whereas nice girls should go out with nice boys.’

  ‘In an ideal world, yes, Effin. But you can’t force a heart where it doesn’t want to go,’ said Eve, realising immediately that she’d said the wrong thing from the look on Effin’s face. He hadn’t found an understanding ear, that expression said. He stood up and made as if to leave. ‘I think I’ve said too much. I’m sorry I’ve taken up your time.’

  ‘Effin, sit down,’ insisted Eve. ‘I think I know what you’re saying. You’re rightly protective over Cariad and you’re worried that she’s attracted to Davy, am I right?’

  Effin lowered his head. ‘I am very worried,’ he said. ‘And I know she’s an adult but I don’t want her to get hurt. I want her to be with a nice lad. Like Dylan.’

  Dylan Evans was one of the new boys who had joined them this season. Tall, handsome, young and Welsh.

  ‘Dylan’s a good boy, Missus. His dad Brynn and I were best friends when we were younger,’ said Effin, who’d been only too happy to take the lad on when he’d rung and asked him for a job. ‘Why can’t she fancy him?’

  Eve knew only too well how scary the power of attraction could be. It had been love at first sight when she met her first fiancé Jonathan and he’d left a relationship to be with her. It had caused all sorts of trouble. Cupid could be a total twat at times.

  ‘You know, when I was going to propose to my Angharad, I asked her dad for permission, like a gentleman should. I’d always got on with Alun Hughes and so I wasn’t expecting him to pick me up by the throat and slam me into the wall. He stared me in the eye and he said, “Effin Williams, brifa Angharad fi, a wnai rwygo dy lyged allan a’u iwso nhw fel bolycs sbâr.” What do you think about that then, Missus?’ He sat back in the chair and waited for Eve to respond.

  ‘You might need to translate it, Effin, before I give my opinion,’ Eve suggested.

  ‘Oh, sorry. He said, “You hurt my Angharad and I’ll tear your eyes out and use them as spare bollocks”.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Eve. ‘That’s a threat and a half.’

  ‘I promised I never would hurt her and I hope I never have. I could never understand why he said that to me. And then I had my own boys and Cariad came along and, of course, her dad died and I became her substitute father and I got it then. I understood why Alun would have cut off my bits if I’d messed his girl around.’ He rubbed his head as if there was a pain sitting on his skull that he needed to soothe. ‘Angharad would tell me that I should keep my nose out, but I’m worried, I am. I don’t want my niece getting her heart broke.’

  ‘You can’t live her life for her, Effin,’ said Eve gently. ‘She’s a grown-up. And, for what it’s worth, Davy is a good man. I’m not saying anything is going on between them, before you think I am . . .’ Eve held her hands up ‘. . . but it’s not something I can interfere in, if that’s why you’re here.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m asking, that’s the truth,’ said Effin, getting to his feet a second time. He sighed heavily, then continued: ‘My dad use
d to say that the curse of a parent was that your job was to prepare a child for leaving you and making their own way in the world. To have to let go of something you’ve raised with all your love is the hardest part of all. I know they have to trip up and fall in order to learn but it’s hard to watch. Thank you for listening, Missus.’

  Eve stared at the door long after Effin had gone and thought that if you did parenthood how it should be – and not as her lackadaisical mother had – it sounded terrifying, stressful, fraught with anxiety. Maybe she’d leave it a little bit longer before thinking about having children. If at all.

  Chapter 8

  ‘Oh Joe, you’re going to have to get her to a doctor, lad,’ said Iris, in her best quietest voice so Annie, in the staff toilet, wouldn’t have a chance of hearing them. ‘She’s really not right.’

  Annie hadn’t been herself for nearly a month now, way past the point of this being a bug, and she refused to take any time off because they were far too busy. If they didn’t know better, Iris and Gill would have been urging her to take a pregnancy test because her symptoms were textbook: constant queasiness, headaches, crippling fatigue, but Annie was forty-eight and that particular ship hadn’t sailed because it had never even left the harbour. Pregnancy hadn’t happened naturally despite tests showing there was nothing medically wrong with either of them. ‘Just relax. Stress won’t help,’ they’d been told as they were sent away to let nature take its course, except nature hadn’t bothered. Four rounds of IVF had failed and they had been refused the adoption route. Whatever Annie had now was cruelly mimicking what happened after conception, something nasty intent on sticking its boot right in.