With Love at Christmas

  ‘Is that Dean Martin?’ my mum says.

  ‘Yes,’ we all chorus.

  We ply her with Baileys and Cointreau until she tires of Dean Martin/Michael Bublé and falls asleep in her chair. When they think no one’s watching, my dad slips his arm through Samuel’s. I nudge Rick, and we exchange a secret smile.

  He runs Dad and Samuel home at ten o’clock as Samuel looks very tired, even though they insist that they can quite easily walk.

  I wake Mum up and help her up the stairs. She grumbles as I peel off her spangly outfit and gently jiggle her into her nightie. Then I pull back her covers and ease her into bed. The strong, robust woman I have known for so long is becoming more frail all the time. Sometimes it pulls me up short. The flesh on her hands is thin, loose and mottled with brown spots. I reach out and stroke her mad, brightly coloured hair.

  ‘Don’t do that, Juliet,’ she says. ‘I don’t like having my hair touched.’

  I drop my hand. ‘Do you want anything? Hot milk, camomile tea?’

  ‘That dinner’s sitting very heavily,’ she says. ‘I think I’ll just read for a while.’

  I pass her book over and help to plump up her pillows.

  ‘Don’t read for too long or you’ll be tired tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t fuss,’ she says. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Night, Mum.’ I kiss her powdery cheek.

  ‘I’m not sure I like your father’s friend,’ she says. ‘He seems very familiar with him.’

  ‘You love Samuel,’ I say. ‘We all do.’ She still looks unconvinced.

  I hear a key in the front door and realise that it’s Rick, back from running Dad and Samuel home.

  ‘Sleep tight,’ I say, and leave my mother to it. I know that she’ll settle down right away; she just likes everyone to think that she’s an insomniac when, in reality, she enjoys the sleep of the just.

  In the kitchen, Rick is clipping on Buster’s lead. ‘I’ll give him a quick constitutional,’ Rick says. ‘We could go together.’

  ‘I’m worried about leaving Jaden alone with just mum.’

  Now we can’t even do our usual nightly walk together without regimental planning, so it’s easier not to bother.

  ‘I won’t be long then.’

  Quickly, I jump in the bath while the bathroom is free for once and I’m unlikely to be interrupted. I’m just climbing into bed when Rick comes back with Buster. I listen to him closing up the house, as he has done for the last twenty-seven years. I hear him grumbling away to Buster and smile to myself. I think this Christmas will be a good one.

  Rick comes up and, with a minimum of fuss, climbs in beside me. ‘What have you got here?’

  ‘Trip to Bruges to visit the Christmas market.’ I hand him the sheet I printed out. ‘Samuel liked the look of it.’

  ‘Our resident travel expert.’

  ‘He’s been there before, a couple of times.’

  Rick turns to me. ‘Is he all right? Thought he didn’t look too well tonight.’

  ‘He’s a bit under the weather, a bug or something, and he’s overworked. They’re really busy at the bookshop. I’m sure he’ll be fine once he gets to Christmas.’

  ‘I hope he doesn’t pass it on to your dad. You know what it’s like when they get to his age. One bad bug over winter can finish them off.’

  ‘Thanks for that, Rick.’ Now I’ve got something else to worry about. ‘I don’t think it’s anything serious, just something that’s going round. I’ve told Samuel to go to the doctor, but you know what you men are like. I’ll keep my eye on him.’ Rick’s probably more worried that he’ll catch something himself. I try to turn his attention back to the matter in hand.

  ‘What do you think of the trip? It’s very good value. Everything’s included. It goes by train from St Pancras, so it would be really easy to get to.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Rick says. He studies it intently. ‘Looks good.’

  ‘Do you think we can afford it?’

  ‘No,’ he says, honestly. ‘But if it’s what you really want, then we’ll make it happen somehow.’

  I kiss his cheek. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I might need just an extra bit of persuasion,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, really? And what form would that take?’

  ‘I’m sure we can think of something.’

  I abandon the Christmas market itinerary and we snuggle down in the bed. Our bodies mould along the length of each other with the familiarity of a couple who’ve been married as long as we have. I know every dip and hollow of Rick’s body, and there’s a lovely comfort in that.

  As he moves in to kiss me, there’s an anguished cry from Jaden’s bedroom. ‘Nana,’ he says. ‘Where’s Mummy? I want Mummy!’

  Rick and I exchange a resigned glance. ‘Put that cuddle in the bank,’ I say as I haul myself out of bed and try to find my slippers.

  ‘Along with all the others,’ Rick mutters.

  We both know that it will be a long night, with our fidgety grandson sandwiched between us.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning, Rick felt like death warmed up. It was getting harder and harder to function on just a few hours’ sleep, and Jaden had spent more time in their bed than he liked. Whenever Chloe was out on the lash, he ended up coming in with them. They’d never let their own children sleep in their bed – it was something he’d been particularly strict about – but he’d found that being a grandparent meant that he broke all the rules of good parenting. This was one that left him redeyed and yawning all day.

  Rick glanced at his watch. Minute-perfect. He was just finishing his toast when Merak arrived, ready and willing, as always, to start the day. Every morning his assistant walked from his own place to Chadwick Close in time for them to set off. You could set the clock by him. Buster greeted Rick’s apprentice enthusiastically. That was mainly because Merak, more often than not, had some small treat tucked away in his pocket for the dog – a little biscuit or something.

  ‘Morning, Merak,’ Juliet said as she was gathering her belongings ready to go off to work herself. ‘Everything all right with you?’

  Rick had hoped that his wife wouldn’t have to be working full-time at this stage of her life, but there was no doubt that the extra money to help out Chloe came in handy. Plus Tom’s being back at home was a drain on their finances. If nothing else, the shopping bill had doubled overnight. His son might be mostly immobile in front of the computer, but it seemed to take a lot of food to fuel his inertia.

  ‘Oh, yes, Mrs Joyce,’ Merak replied. ‘I am very well indeed.’

  The lad’s English was improving all the time. His manners were impeccable, and all the customers loved his formal charm. He was tall and blond, which also seemed to go down particularly well with the ladies of a certain age whose flooring they laid. Rick’s assistant had a pale, solemn face that looked as if it had rarely been troubled by the sun. He frequently appeared to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, and seldom smiled, but that didn’t seem to put them off either.

  At that moment, his own son appeared. Unusual for this time of day. Tom was scratching his head and his crown jewels at the same time. Rick’s heart sank. Sometimes he couldn’t believe this was a child of his loins. He might have inherited some of his genes, but the work ethic one clearly wasn’t among them.

  ‘Yo, Merak,’ Tom said, and high-fived him.

  ‘Good morning, Tom.’

  ‘Don’t suppose you’re going to be doing anything useful today?’ Rick snapped.

  ‘No,’ Tom said. ‘Not really. It’s pointless looking for a new job until after Christmas, if that’s what you’re banging on about. No one’s hiring.’

  This conclusion, Rick assumed, had been reached through hearsay as this week his son hadn’t even gone as far as opening the local paper to see if there were any vacancies in it. He must think he could somehow absorb them by osmosis.

  ‘A friend of mine is working in bar in the city centre as manager,’ Merak offered. ‘They are
still looking for extra Christmas staff, I believe. It is good place to work. Is busy. I am doing three nights each week myself. I could give your name to him.’

  ‘Nah,’ Tom said. ‘Had my fill of bar work. Thanks all the same.’

  ‘No,’ Rick said. ‘Don’t put yourself out when you can sit at home all day and have your mother running round after you.’

  Unperturbed, Tom filled the kettle. ‘I’ll find something in the new year. Don’t sweat.’

  That was one thing his son was never in danger of doing – breaking a sweat. Rick and Juliet exchanged a glance. His wife sighed. She came to kiss him. ‘I’ll see you later. Have a good day.’

  ‘Come on, Merak,’ Rick said. ‘Some of us have work to do.’

  It didn’t matter what he said, it was like water off a duck’s back to Tom, who simply raised a hand in cheery farewell.

  The two men drove out to Great Linford where their current job was, listening to Radio 2 on the way. It was only ten minutes away from home and, as usual, he let Merak drive the van. The lad whistled along to the songs as he went.

  This was a big job, these days. One of the more successful building companies Rick knew had asked him to lay all the flooring in a brand new five-bed house. There weren’t enough of those around at the moment. The building boom had ground to an abrupt halt with the recession, and half the small businesses he used to rely on for work had gone under. The good contracts to supply the flooring for whole estates – the ones that kept them employed for weeks on end – had all but dried up. Now Rick always seemed to be scratching around for jobs and, at the end of them, people were getting slower and slower at paying up. He was too soft, he knew. He was a sucker for every sob-story, and the cheques that were promised time and time again invariably never arrived. It was getting bad. He needed to get some money in soon, otherwise Walk All Over Me would also cease to be a going concern and he and Merak would be heading down to the job centre and boosting the unemployment statistics. It wouldn’t just be Tom sitting at home on his bum all day. The last thing he needed was this trip to Bruges that Juliet had set her sights on, but how could he deny her when she was hardly demanding to start with? His wife always put herself at the bottom of a very long list. It would be nice for her to have a treat for once. He was just worried about how his credit card might take it.

  He dropped Merak off at the big house, happy that he was quite capable of carrying on by himself for an hour while Rick went to do a quote. Some days Merak would get so into the job that Rick actually had to persuade the lad to stop for a bite to eat, or a drink, and now he’d found out that on top of his day job he was doing extra evening work too. He might have been able to do that once, probably when he was Merak’s age, but now Rick felt every day in his bones. His back ached from bending over, his knees had been giving him gyp for years with all the kneeling down the job involved, and he couldn’t lift the heavy rolls of carpet or the stacks of wood planks like he used to. Now he definitely needed an extra pair of hands, and every day he was glad of Merak’s help. He only wished Tom was similarly motivated. Despite a decent education and a university degree, he’d made nothing of his life. Merak had no family here to fall back on – they were all in Poland, he told him, and Merak regularly sent money back home to help them out. Rick laughed to himself: he could never see Tom doing that. What money that did find its way into Tom’s hands was definitely on a one-way street.

  Rick left Merak behind with a wave and drove to the other side of Milton Keynes to Cublington Parslow, a small village a good half an hour’s drive away. Once upon a time, when Hal ran the business, all the jobs would be concentrated in the city, but now Rick was having to travel further and further afield to keep the work coming in. This particular job was a favour for a friend of a friend, and he’d made it obvious that the work would need to be more than keenly priced.

  It was a bright day, and it was nice to get away from the rigid layout of the grid system employed in Milton Keynes and out into the rolling Buckinghamshire countryside. He wound his way through the undulating lanes and wide-open fields, enjoying the blue sky, the birdsong and the drive. In days gone by he and Juliet used to go out for a drive on a Sunday afternoon just for the sheer hell of it. Those days were long gone now. There was always so much else to do. Every time he crossed a chore off his DIY list, three more tasks were added to the bottom. It seemed to regenerate relentlessly, rather like the doctor in Doctor Who.

  Eventually, Rick bowled up in Cublington Parslow. It was a nice enough village, a bit in the middle of nowhere, but Rick always thought it sounded like the name of someone who’d been in Dallas or Dynasty. He remembered a time when the duplicitous shenanigans of the Ewing brothers had been the sole source of Saturday-night entertainment for Juliet and him. At least that had a bit of excitement. Now, with Rita hogging the remote control, they had to sit through hour after hour of talentless wannabes on X-Factor or Britain’s Got Talent, and then people he’d never heard of who were supposed to be celebrities on Strictly Come Dancing. It just wasn’t the same.

  Rick took in the village. There wasn’t much to write home about. Cublington Parslow consisted of one main street and a single pub; no shop, no post office. There was a duck pond at the crossroads, but if you blinked you could miss it. A family of moorhens picked their way daintily around its periphery. He couldn’t live out here; there wasn’t enough going on. Not that Stony Stratford was the centre of the universe, but there was a heart to it. Here, everyone seemed to be hiding behind their net curtains.

  The houses were an eclectic mix of pretty, ancient cottages and soulless seventies boxes. But on the main drag, it all looked quite well heeled. Rick checked the address he’d been given and then turned off into a side street.

  He pulled the van up outside the customer’s house. On time. Good. He was always striving to maintain a reputation for good, punctual service. He wanted Walk All Over Me to be a business people could rely on.

  This was a row of what looked like 1960s ex-council houses. It wasn’t quite so salubrious here, but most of the houses were well kept, with pebble-dashed fronts and tidy gardens. Yet the one he’d stopped at looked decidedly run-down compared to the rest in the quiet street. This was a rental place, and he was doing a quote to replace some flooring for the landlord who was best mates with a friend of Rick’s. There’d been a burst pipe in the recent cold snap, and the whole of the downstairs had flooded. Bad news for the tenant and the landlord, but welcome business for Walk All Over Me.

  Rick got out of the van. Most of the slats of the once-white picket fence were broken, and the wrought-iron gate hung off its hinges. The garden was overgrown with straggly pampas grass and untamed laurel bushes. It didn’t look like the small, scrubby patch of grass had been troubled by a lawnmower in a long time. All the window frames needed a good coat of paint and, though there were two wicker hanging baskets on either side, they both carried long-dead blooms.

  He knocked on the door and a young girl opened it. On her hip was a child, a little girl about the same age as Jaden, he’d guess – perhaps a bit older. But, unlike his own grandson, this child had untidy hair, a snotty nose and a dirty face.

  ‘Hiya,’ the girl said. ‘Come on in.’ She was thin, pale-faced, her hair lank. He thought of Chloe who was shiny, rosycheeked and plump with child.

  Rick stepped inside. The house was damp and smelled fetid. He followed the girl down the hall and into the lounge. In each of the downstairs rooms, the sodden carpet had been rolled up, but it was still in situ and the floorboards were wet. There were a few meagre sticks of furniture. The sofa looked as if you could grow mushrooms on it.

  ‘This is a bit of a mess, love,’ Rick observed as he assessed the damage. ‘How long has it been like this?’

  The girl shrugged. ‘Weeks,’ she said. ‘Every time I phone him the landlord keeps promising to fix it, but he never seems to get round to it.’

  ‘I can’t lay flooring on this,’ Rick said. ‘It’s soaked through.’ r />
  ‘The boiler’s been broken for over a month, so we’ve no heating or hot water.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  She shook her head. ‘I boil a pan on the stove.’

  ‘How do you get a decent wash or have a bath?’

  ‘I boil a lot of pans.’

  The child coughed and it rattled in her chest. ‘She doesn’t sound well.’

  A tear sprang to the girl’s eye. ‘She’s on antibiotics, her third lot. Her cough’s not shifting at all. It’s just so damp here. Water runs down the bedroom walls.’

  It didn’t take an expert to judge that this place wasn’t fit for human habitation. ‘Why don’t you get out?’

  ‘I’m trying to,’ she said, her chin jutting in defiance. ‘I’ve only been here a few months. My contract runs for a minimum of six. I’ve asked the council to rehome us, but it’s not that easy. They just ignore me.’

  What was she, nineteen? Twenty? Something like that. Younger than Chloe, he reckoned. No wonder both the landlord and the council thought they could fob her off.

  It wasn’t a bad house. Underneath the years of neglect, it was probably solidly built. It just needed a fortune spending on it to bring it back up to scratch. A quick glance up at the gutters had told him that they needed replacing. He couldn’t imagine why she’d chosen to rent here in the first place. For now, all he was able to do was help her out as best he could.

  ‘I’ll get you some heaters,’ Rick said. He knew he’d got a couple kicking around in the garage at home the girl could make good use of.

  ‘I can’t afford to run them,’ she said.

  ‘It’s none of my business, but if you don’t mind me saying so, miss, you seem to be in a bit of a pickle.’

  At that, the girl burst into tears.

  Chapter Eleven

  Some mornings, I’m so glad to get out of the house. In an effort to get fit, save money, avoid usage arguments with Chloe, I have abandoned my car and am now walking to work every day. It only takes me ten minutes if I stride out. I do, however, invariably arrive at the office breathless, hot and a little bit sweaty, but it does make me feel quite virtuous.