Six Geese A-Laying (Mini Christmas Short Story)

  ‘This woman complained to all the big guns!’ she’s exclaiming indignantly to a second midwife. ‘I was given a formal warning. For one lousy text message!’

  ‘She complained about me too,’ says the second midwife, and shoots Geraldine a scathing look. ‘Said I hadn’t followed protocol.’

  ‘Er…could I have some pain relief?’ Geraldine’s voice is strained.

  The two midwives look at each other.

  ‘The protocol says we have to examine her thoroughly first,’ replies the second. ‘I’ll fetch some gloves.’ She saunters towards the door.

  ‘Will it take long?’ Geraldine sounds desperate. Both midwives raise their eyebrows.

  ‘You wouldn’t want us to rush things, would you?’ says one innocently. ‘We’ll take as long as we have to.’

  The images fade away and we all glance awkwardly at Geraldine. She’s gone rather pale.

  ‘Listen,’ she says at last. ‘Ghost. Or whatever you are. Are you showing us things which will happen? Or…which might happen?’

  The spirit doesn’t reply.

  Suddenly I become aware that Gabby is murmuring into her mobile phone. I don’t think she’s even noticed what’s been going on.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she says, getting up from her chair. ‘Crisis at work. I’ve got to go. Thanks very much for the presentation, but to be brutally honest, this baby stuff doesn’t really interest me.’

  She breaks off, as a kind of angry flash comes from the spirit. On the screen appears an image of Gabby in a maroon suit, holding a baby. She’s just standing there in a white room, holding a tiny baby, while in the background someone’s shouting ‘Gabby! Taxi’s here!’

  Her face is utterly stricken.

  ‘Gabby!’ comes the voice again. ‘You’ll be late! Just bring the baby down, he’ll be fine with the nanny—’

  A tear trickles down on-screen Gabby’s face. Then another. Then another.

  I risk a glance at Gabby. She’s staring at the screen, transfixed. There’s a faint sheen to her eyes.

  ‘Er…Tristan…’ she says into her mobile. ‘I’ll be along later. Yes well, this is important.’ She snaps her phone shut and quietly takes her seat again.

  There’s a subdued atmosphere, and I can’t help feeling a rising apprehension.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s all doom and gloom!’ says Georgia defiantly. ‘I’m sure some of us are going to have perfectly wonderful labours and gorgeous babies!’ She looks around, as if for support. ‘And I’m certainly not going back to work. I’m going to devote myself to my child!’

  The spirit seems to regard her thoughtfully for a moment. The next moment, an image of Georgia appears on a screen. She’s breastfeeding a baby in a vast, expensive kitchen, while Mozart plays in the background.

  ‘There,’ says Georgia smugly. ‘I knew it! Of course, I have prepared for this baby very thoroughly…’

  The image fades away and is replaced by one of a small boy in a school playground.

  ‘Milky… Milky…’ a gang of boys is chanting around him.

  ‘Don’t call me Milky!’ he yells desperately. ‘I’m Mike!’

  ‘No you’re not! You’re Milky Melchior!’

  The images fade away and Georgia clears her throat.

  ‘All children are teased,’ she says, sounding a little discomfited. ‘It’s perfectly normal.’

  Another image comes into view. This time a man in his twenties is at the entrance to a smart restaurant together with a blonde girl, her hair in a very peculiar hairstyle. The place looks rather like the Savoy Grill, although they’ve done a few strange things to it. ‘My name’s…Mel.’ His face twitches in a nervous tic.

  ‘Are you all right?’ says the maître d’.

  ‘I’m fine.’ He gives a tight smile and hands over his coat. Then, as piped music becomes audible through the loudspeakers, his whole body seems to tense. ‘Oh my God. No.’

  ‘The music,’ says the blonde girl urgently to the maître d’. ‘Can you turn off the music?’

  ‘I can’t stand it.’ The young man’s hands are to his head and he’s heading for the door. ‘I can’t stand it!’

  ‘It’s the Mozart clarinet concerto!’ the blonde girl shoots over her shoulder as she hurries after him. ‘He’s phobic!’

  The images die away. I dart a glance at Georgia – and she looks utterly shellshocked.

  ‘I knew it.’ Grace’s trembling voice comes from the back. ‘That’s why we were picked for this class. Because things were going to go wrong for us.’

  The spirit lifts her head and seems to look directly at Grace. And all of a sudden a new image is on the screen. It’s Grace. Her figure has snapped back into shape, she’s had a new haircut and is walking jauntily down the street. In fact if I’m utterly, grudgingly honest, she looks better than anyone.

  Must be her age.

  Now she’s sitting in a café, holding her baby and sipping a smoothie. The baby starts to cry, and with an expert ease she slips a finger into its mouth and carries on drinking. She looks totally content and natural.

  ‘Your hair’s fab!’ says Georgia. ‘Where do you go?’

  ‘I dunno,’ says Grace in bewilderment. ‘I never cut my hair.’ She peers at the screen. ‘I don’t understand. What’s wrong? What’s the catch?’

  ‘Nothing, apparently,’ says Gina, sounding a little petulant.

  ‘Maybe that’s what you had to learn, Grace,’ says Geraldine, sounding kinder than I’ve ever heard her. ‘That it would all be OK.’

  I’d murmur some agreement, but I’m feeling too tense to speak. I’m the only one in the room who hasn’t seen her future yet.

  ‘So, what about me?’ I try to give a casual laugh. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’

  There’s a pause. Then the spirit nods, and the screen lights up again.

  Even though I was expecting it, I can’t help feeling a jolt as I see myself on the screen. I’m holding a baby, watching Dan as he taps at a crib with a hammer.

  ‘You’re useless!’ I’m saying. ‘It’s a rocking crib! It should bloody rock!’

  The image segues straight into another one. Dan’s changing the baby’s nappy while I hover behind.

  ‘That’s not how the tabs go!’ I’m snapping. ‘You’ve done it wrong!’

  As I hear my own voice I feel an uncomfortable twinge. I never realised before how sharp it was.

  And I’ve never seen Dan with that hurt expression before. I stare, transfixed, as my screen self turns towards him and he quickly wipes it away with a smile.

  ‘Well you’re OK too, Ginny!’ says Georgia, sounding a little piqued. ‘Everything’s fine!’

  ‘It’s not.’ My voice sounds a little hoarse to my own ears.

  Now the images are coming thick and fast. Dan with me and the baby at home, at the shops, at the park. And a constant soundtrack of my own voice, snapping at him. ‘You’re useless!’ ‘That’s wrong!’ ‘Give it here, I’ll do it!’

  Shut up! I want to yell at myself. Leave the poor man alone!

  But my screen-self just keeps on relentlessly hectoring and criticising. And all I can see is Dan’s face, gradually closing in on itself. Until he looks as though he doesn’t want to know anymore. As though he’s had enough.

  I feel a shaft of panic.

  ‘Spirit…’ I say quickly. ‘You didn’t answer the question before. Are these the things that will happen? Or that might happen?’

  I look up. But the room is empty. The spirit’s gone. Slowly the lights are coming up.

  I look around – and the others are all blinking. Georgia’s rubbing her eyes. Gabby looks as though she’s in a trance. As though from nowhere, Petal has materialised at the front of the room.

  ‘That was your final lesson,’ she says in soft tones. ‘I’ll ask you all now a small favour. I would prefer that the exact contents of my classes be kept to yourselves.’

  We all give stupefied nods. I don’t think any of us can quite speak.
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  ‘Please, take a few moments to gather yourselves.’ Petal smiles around at us. ‘You can leave whenever you’re ready. And good luck. All of you.’

  Before any of us can say anything, she makes her way to the doorway and vanishes. We all sit in dazed silence for a few moments. Then there’s a small crash as Intelligent Baby slithers off Georgia’s lap onto the floor.

  ‘Here you are,’ says Gina, picking it up. Georgia surveys it for a few moments.

  ‘Thanks,’ she replies. She takes it from Gina’s hand and rips the whole thing in two.

  There’s a scuffling next to me, and I see Geraldine pulling her leather notebook out of her bag. She rips out the page on which she’d written ‘Davies – COMPLAIN’ and crumples it up.

  ‘There,’ she says, and exhales sharply.

  ‘Does anyone want to go for a drink?’ says Gabby suddenly. ‘I could do with one.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ says Georgia in heartfelt tones.

  ‘Me too,’ says Grace, stepping forward. Her cheeks are glowing and she looks like a new woman. She shakes her hair back, as though practising for her new style. ‘I’m in no hurry.’

  ‘Sod the baby,’ says Gina. ‘I need a double vodka.’

  ‘Ginny?’ Geraldine looks at me. ‘You coming?

  ‘You all go.’ I say. ‘I…have to get home. Now.’

  ***

  As I arrive home, Dan’s in the nursery. He looks up as I approach, and for the first time ever I notice the wary look in his eyes.

  ‘I’m trying to make up this crib,’ he says. ‘But it won’t rock.’ He shoves it in frustration.

  ‘I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with it—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I cut him off. ‘None of it matters. Come here.’ I hold out my arms and Dan looks at me in startled bemusement.

  I feel a small icy plunge. It’s too late. It’s all too late.

  Then, slowly, Dan puts down his screwdriver. He comes forward and takes me in his arms, and I find myself clinging onto him.

  ‘Happy Christmas.’ I say, my voice muffled with emotion. ‘And…and thank you. For making the crib. And everything. Thank you for everything.’

  ‘That’s OK!’ says Dan with a surprised laugh. ‘Happy Christmas to you too, darling.’ He smiles down at me, stroking my bump. ‘And Happy Christmas to this little one.’

  For a while the two of us are silent, standing by the window arm-in-arm as the snow falls endlessly outside.

  The three of us, I should say.

  God Bless Us Every One keeps running through my head, over and over. But naturally I don’t voice it aloud. Instead, after a while I murmur, ‘You know, I was thinking about names.’

  ‘Really?’ Dan looks up. ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘Well…I was thinking we probably shouldn’t call it Melchior…’

  Sophie Kinsella’s fabulous new novel,

  I’VE GOT YOUR NUMBER

  will be published in February 2012.

  Read on for a sneak preview of the first chapter.

  ONE

  PERSPECTIVE. I NEED to get perspective. It’s not an earthquake or a crazed gunman or nuclear meltdown, is it? On the scale of disasters, this is not huge. Not huge. One day I expect I’ll look back at this moment and laugh and think, ‘Ha ha, how silly I was to worry’—

  Stop, Poppy. Don’t even try. I’m not laughing – in fact I feel sick. I’m walking blindly around the hotel ballroom, my heart thudding, looking fruitlessly on the patterned blue carpet, behind gilt chairs, under discarded paper napkins, in places where it couldn’t possibly be.

  I’ve lost it. The only thing in the world I wasn’t supposed to lose. My engagement ring.

  To say this is a special ring is an understatement. It’s been in Magnus’s family for three generations. It’s this stunning emerald with two diamonds and Magnus had to get it out of a special bank vault before he proposed. I’ve worn it safely every day for three whole months, putting it religiously on a special china tray at night, feeling for it on my finger every thirty seconds … and now, the very day his parents are coming back from the States, I’ve lost it. The very same day.

  Professors Antony Tavish and Wanda Brook-Tavish are, at this precise moment, flying back from six months’ sabbatical in Chicago. I can picture them now, eating honey-roast peanuts and reading academic papers on their his-’n’-hers Kindles. I honestly don’t know which of them is more intimidating.

  Him. He’s so sarcastic.

  No, her. With all that frizzy hair and always asking you questions about your views on feminism all the time.

  OK, they’re both bloody scary. And they’re landing in about an hour and of course they’ll want to see the ring …

  No. Do not hyperventilate, Poppy. Stay positive. I just need to look at this from a different angle. Like … what would Poirot do? Poirot wouldn’t flap around in panic. He’d stay calm and use his little grey cells and recall some tiny, vital detail which would be the clue to everything.

  I squeeze my eyes tight. Little grey cells. Come on. Do your best.

  Thing is, I’m not sure Poirot had three glasses of pink champagne and a mojito before he solved the murder on the Orient Express.

  ‘Miss?’ A grey-haired cleaning lady is trying to get round me with a Hoover and I gasp in horror. They’re hoovering the ballroom already? What if they suck it up?

  ‘Excuse me.’ I grab her blue nylon shoulder. ‘Could you just give me five more minutes to search before you start hoovering?’

  ‘Still looking for your ring?’ She shakes her head doubtfully, then brightens. ‘I expect you’ll find it safe at home. It’s probably been there all the time!’

  ‘Maybe.’ I force myself to nod politely, although I feel like screaming, ‘I’m not that stupid!’

  On the other side of the ballroom I spot another cleaner clearing cupcake crumbs and crumpled paper napkins into a black plastic bin bag. She isn’t concentrating at all. Wasn’t she listening to me?

  ‘Excuse me!’ My voice shrills out as I sprint across to her. ‘You are looking out for my ring, aren’t you?’

  ‘No sign of it so far, love.’ The woman sweeps another load of detritus off the table into the bin bag without giving it a second glance.

  ‘Careful!’ I grab for the napkins and pull them out again, feeling each one carefully for a hard lump, not caring that I’m getting buttercream icing all over my hands.

  ‘Dear, I’m trying to clear up.’ The cleaner grabs the napkins out of my hands. ‘Look at the mess you’re making!’

  ‘I know, I know. I’m sorry.’ I scrabble for the cupcake cases I dropped on the floor. ‘But you don’t understand. If I don’t find this ring, I’m dead.’

  I want to grab the bin bag and do a forensic check of the contents with tweezers. I want to put plastic tape round the whole room and declare it a crime scene. It has to be here, it has to be.

  Unless someone’s still got it. That’s the only other possibility that I’m clinging to. One of my friends is still wearing it and somehow hasn’t noticed. Perhaps it’s slipped into a handbag … maybe it’s fallen into a pocket … it’s stuck on the threads of a jumper … the possibilities in my head are getting more and more far-fetched, but I can’t give up on them.

  ‘Have you tried the cloakroom?’ The woman swerves to get past me.

  Of course I’ve tried the cloakroom. I checked every single cubicle on my hands and knees. And then all the basins. Twice. And then I tried to persuade the concierge to close it and have all the sink pipes investigated, but he refused. He said it would be different if I knew it had been lost there for certain, and he was sure the police would agree with him, and could I please step aside from the desk as there were people waiting?

  Police. Bah. I thought they’d come roaring round in their squad cars as soon as I called, not just tell me to come down to the police station and file a report. I don’t have time to file a report! I’ve got to find my ring!

  I hurry back to the circul
ar table we were sitting at this afternoon and crawl underneath, patting the carpet yet again. How could I have let this happen? How could I have been so stupid?

  It was my old school friend Natasha’s idea to get tickets for the Marie Curie Champagne Tea. She couldn’t come to my official hen spa weekend, so this was a kind of substitute. There were eight of us at the table, all merrily swigging champagne and stuffing down cupcakes, and it was just before the raffle started that someone said, ‘Come on, Poppy, let’s have a go with your ring.’

  I can’t even remember who that was, now. Annalise, maybe? Annalise was at university with me, and now we work together at First Fit Physio, with Ruby who was also on our physio course. Ruby was at the tea too, but I’m not sure she tried on the ring. Or did she?

  I can’t believe how rubbish I am at this. How can I do a Poirot if I can’t even remember the basics? The truth is, everyone seemed to be trying on the ring: Natasha and Clare and Emily (old school friends up from Taunton) and Lucinda (my wedding planner, who’s kind of become a friend) and her assistant Clemency, and Ruby and Annalise (not just college friends and colleagues but my two best friends. They’re going to be my bridesmaids, too).

  I’ll admit it: I was basking in all the admiration. I still can’t believe something so grand and beautiful belongs to me. The fact is, I still can’t believe any of it. I’m engaged! Me, Poppy Wyatt. To a tall, handsome university lecturer who’s written a book and even been on TV. Only six months ago, my love life was a disaster zone. I’d had no significant action for a year and was reluctantly deciding I should give that match.com guy with the bad breath a second chance … and now my wedding’s only ten days away! I wake up every morning and look at Magnus’s smooth, freckled sleeping back; and think, ‘My fiancé, Dr Magnus Tavish, Fellow of King’s College London,’1 and feel a tiny tweak of disbelief. And then I swivel round and look at the ring, gleaming expensively on my nightstand, and feel another tweak of disbelief.

  What will Magnus say?

  My stomach clenches and I swallow hard. No. Don’t think about that. Come on, little grey cells. Get with it.