There was an awkward beat. ‘Don’t say sorry. I’ll always love you,’ said Kelly.
‘And I’ll always love you,’ I replied.
We sat there, luxuriating in our robustness as Eartha Kitt sang ‘Santa Baby’ and Mol polished off her chocolate cake. Kelly sighed, resting her hand on the back of her daughter’s small head.
‘So what would you do for Christmas, if you had the choice?’ I asked.
Kelly closed her eyes. ‘Rosie-Rose, I would sleep for a thousand years.’
24
After my grandparents died it felt almost ridiculous for my dad and me to celebrate Christmas, to share a turkey, the biggest, driest bird that two people would have to tackle well into January – or even bother with a tree. I was always happy when it was over and life returned to normal. For the last five years, I’d spent Christmas at Joe’s parents’ house, and never really enjoyed it. Dad had been invited several times but always declined, asking me to come to France instead. I never did.
Christmas was getting nearer, but our flat bore none of the evidence. Joe was out a lot, catching up with his friends from school and university, and I was at Connie’s a great deal, often not leaving before ten at night. I was blocking Christmas out, so was taken by surprise when I got to Connie’s one morning in mid-December to see a Christmas tree, deep and green and unadorned, waiting in the bay of her front-room window.
‘They’ve just delivered it,’ she said. ‘Will you decorate it for me?’
I stood in front of it – about seven foot, a quite majestic spruce. There was a large box on the armchair. ‘My baubles,’ Connie said. ‘I was flustered with their threads. I can’t pull them apart. You’re going to have to do it.’
I surveyed the tree, inhaling the smell of sap. ‘That’s OK,’ I said.
‘Thank you,’ said Connie. ‘Don’t bother about work today. Let’s do this instead.’
‘But we’re so close to the end.’
‘Exactly. We don’t need to panic.’
Since our awkward conversation about Connie choosing to share the contents of her novel with me, I hadn’t dared to ask her any further questions. It wasn’t as if she had overtly warned me off that afternoon, but a rebuke was in the air between us: You have a job to do. Type it up and stop asking me about it. As much as I wanted to satisfy my own desire for answers about Connie’s relationship with my mother, I felt that trying to do this might actually push Connie – and the spectre of Elise – further away. Then I would be completely lost. And it wasn’t just this. I liked Connie. I liked the fact that somehow, because it was her, I didn’t mind decorating a Christmas tree.
*
I set a fire going and Connie brought out a bottled of chilled champagne. ‘It’s ten in the morning,’ I said.
‘And? Can you open it? Jesus, my fingers.’
I poured us a couple of glasses. I’d never met anyone like her, a woman who made champagne at ten a.m. feel perfectly acceptable, almost necessary. I opened her bauble box: Connie had gone all out. Inside were white fairy lights, tinsel, old and frail-looking tin globes in cerise and turquoise, pillar-box red, bright orange. Their shades surprised me: I did not think Connie was one for all that glitter. Again, I had to recalibrate her in my mind. Just when I thought I’d got a hold on her, she wriggled away.
‘Are you having guests on the big day?’ I asked, trying to keep my balance on the armchair, my hand plunging into the fresh dark branches. ‘Is that why you’ve bought such a large tree?’
‘No,’ said Connie, puzzled. ‘Are you?’
I laughed. ‘In our flat?’
‘So where will you go?’
‘Joe’s parents’,’ I said.
‘You make it sound like you’re going to Fagin’s.’
‘Fagin’s would be preferable.’
‘But I bet you get glorious presents from him.’
‘Sometimes.’
‘What’s the best thing he’s found for you?’ she said, her eyes alight.
I ran my memory over the many Christmases we’d had together. Joe had never really tailored my presents particularly tightly. Nice picture frames, a cashmere shawl, candles, books. All lovely, but not the considered thoughtfulness one might hope from an antique-dealer boyfriend. ‘There’ve been so many,’ I said. ‘I can’t pick one.’
‘I see,’ said Connie. ‘And who will cook?’
‘His mother.’
‘Of course.’
‘She never makes it a very relaxing experience.’
Connie placed her glass down, and began to comb a stretch of gold tinsel. It looked like a giant caterpillar shimmering from the light of the fire. ‘Then why are you going?’ she said.
‘That’s what my best friend says.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’m going because I love him.’
Connie turned her focus to the tinsel, continuing to comb it out with a shaking finger. I sorted through the box to look for the next bauble to attach, feeling my cheeks go red, grateful for the fact I had to lean over, thereby avoiding Connie’s gaze. ‘The lights are what I like most about Christmas,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The twinkling. They bring me peace.’
I closed my eyes and suddenly felt my mother falling away inside me, unclaimed, unspoken. ‘You’re lucky, being able to be on your own,’ I said. ‘I’ll probably be sat next to Lucia.’
‘Lucia?’
I looked up, my fingers round another bauble. Connie was sitting very still and upright, as if she was waiting for something. ‘Joe’s niece. She’s six,’ I said. I’d given away another real name, and it felt to me as if I was shedding the skin of my made-up self.
‘You don’t like children?’ Connie said.
‘I don’t like Lucia.’
Connie chuckled, coming over with the tinsel and clumsily attempting to push it deep into the tree. ‘I’ll do that,’ I said.
She sighed, handing over the tinsel and returning to her armchair where she slowly yet determinedly took another sip of champagne. I saw the glass shake, and looked away. ‘Why don’t you like Lucia?’ Connie said.
‘Because she’s precocious.’
‘Maybe she’s just confident and you don’t like it.’
This was a radical thought and I didn’t like that. But maybe it was true? Maybe I did see a self-confidence in Lucia, a happiness in her self that I’d never known. Was I jealous of a six-year-old? I felt pathetic. ‘She’s actually just irritating,’ I said defensively. ‘It is possible to be six years old and unlikeable, Connie.’
‘Oh, I’m sure.’
‘How many children do you know?’ I said.
‘Not that many. Any children I did know are all grown up.’
‘Do you buy them presents and things?’
‘No. I send money to my brother’s children. Phoebe and Jack.’ She rubbed her face. ‘I last saw them when they were teenagers. They’ll be in their thirties now.’
‘That’s – quite a gap.’