Why mummy drinks at chri.., p.28
Why Mummy Drinks at Christmas, page 28
‘I think you might be stuck here, Hannah,’ said Sam grimly. ‘I think we all might be.’
‘Never mind,’ I said brightly, ‘the more the merrier. Shall we do shots?’
Oh what bliss! Shots on Christmas Eve instead of peeling bastarding potatoes. What on earth had I been so worried about? This was the life!
‘Do you think I should?’ said Hannah anxiously. ‘Do you really think Edward’s OK?’
‘Yes! Look, he’s waking up!’
‘Oh God, no, don’t wake him.’
Edward opened his eyes blearily and asked if Father Christmas had been yet. Hannah told him not yet, and he was going to have a sleepover at Aunty Ellen’s house, but Father Christmas would definitely find him, not to fret, and no, he couldn’t have any more of Aunty Ellen’s special chocolate milk, maybe some water would be a good idea. Astonishingly, Edward accepted all this and – to everyone’s great relief – went straight back to sleep on the sofa, as a wide-awake child was most certainly not conducive to the shots I’d set my heart on.
More worrying, as the night wore on, was the fact we could not get hold of any of the girls. At ten o’clock we’d been unconcerned, assuming they were in a noisy pub and couldn’t hear their phones. We had another tequila and said we’d try them all again in a bit. By midnight panic had set in, and apart from Jessica, we were sobering up rapidly. The snow was now positively blizzarding outside and you couldn’t even see to the end of the garden. Somewhere out there in that were our daughters.
‘Toby’s at home now, but he’s not heard from them, and he didn’t see them when he was out,’ said Sam.
‘Do you think we should call the police?’ I whimpered. ‘What if they’re lost in the blizzard, or dead in a doorway like in The Little Match Girl?’
‘I don’t think you can call the police and ask them to go and check all the doorways in town in case your child’s huddled there over a box of matches,’ pointed out Simon.
‘I’se FaceTiming Persephone with my shots,’ slurred Jessica in the background. ‘Hi darling, s’Mummy, I been doing shots.’
‘Ask her if she’s heard from Jane,’ I demanded.
‘Pershephone shays Jane sent her a WhashApp at 11.15,’ Jessica announced.
‘Thank God. Wait. Is that 11.15 UK time or Ibiza time?’
‘Ibeefa.’
‘So 10.15 here. So Jane was still OK at 10.15, and the girls know to stay together. Maybe the police could trace them from the WhatsApp.’
‘I’m going to try Sophie again,’ said Sam. ‘Oh come on! Pick up!’
‘Oh look! Look! Jane’s calling! Jane! Jane! Are you OK? Are you dead in a doorway like the Little Match Girl? Mummy can’t come and rescue you because I’ve had all the shots and there’s too much snow, even though I said I’d always come and get you. Jane, where are you, why haven’t you answered?’
‘Why do I have like thirty-nine missed calls from you, Mother?’ demanded Jane. ‘And twenty-seven texts going, “Are you OK, Mummy loves you?” Are you drunk?’
‘Only a very little bit, and we were very worried. Are Sophie and Emily there?’
‘Yes, we’ve gone back to Emily’s because we couldn’t get a taxi for love nor money because of the snow and Christmas Eve, so we just walked back to Emily’s house.’
‘They’re all at yours, Hannah,’ I announced joyfully to the anxious assembled faces.
‘Seriously, Mum. Chill out,’ said Jane crossly. ‘I thought you weren’t going to do this anymore.’
‘I’m your mother. I’ll always worry, it’s what mothers do. Are you all right, though? Are your feet wet? Have you got frostbite? Did you wear your ski socks out? Make sure you warm up, have a hot drink!’
‘Mum, we’ve been back for hours, we’re fine.’
‘Why didn’t any of you answer your BLOODY PHONES THEN?’
‘The snow must’ve knocked out the mobile signals. We literally had no calls until all of a sudden I had a million missed calls. Sophie’s in the loo and Emily’s in the kitchen making popcorn. I’m sure they’ll call in a minute too.’
‘I’m just so glad you’re OK! I love you!’
‘Mum! CHILL!’
‘MORE SHOTS,’ I cried joyously, as Jane hung up.
‘Thish is fun,’ I mumbled to Hannah and Jessica later as the three of us squashed into my bed. ‘S’like sleepovers when we were young again.’ (Little Edward was in Jane’s bed, but when Hannah had attempted to join him there he’d kicked out like a mule, so she’d retreated in with Jessica and me. Simon, to his indignation, was relegated to the sofa, and Sam and Colin were in Peter’s room.)
‘Including the B-52s,’ Hannah mumbled back. ‘Why’d we drink B-52s? They wash bad idea when we wash fifteen, they’sh worsh idea now.’
‘Feel bit sicky,’ groaned Jessica. ‘Urrrgh.’
‘S’OK.’ I rubbed her back. ‘No be shicky, Jeshica, be fine.’
Jessica suddenly sat bolt upright, and I feared she was about to spew over the whole bed.
‘The BEETROOT!’ she howled. ‘I forgot to bring the BEETROOT becaush Neil is fucking cheating bashtard.’
‘S’ok,’ I assured her again. ‘I’sh got beetroot. Gotta lotta beetroot. S’all fine. Ni’ni’, Jeshica. Ni’ni’, Hannah.’
Monday 25 December
CHRISTMAS DAY
Christmas Day, needless to say, started badly. I was awoken by the dulcet tones of my only sister hurling her guts up, as she’s entirely unaccustomed to shots. I had a vague recollection of her insisting I take a video of her downing a line of Baby Guinnesses to send to Persephone to prove her mother was cool. I feared Jessica was regretting that decision now.
Ten seconds later Little Edward barrelled into the room clutching the stocking we’d cobbled together for him at 3 a.m. from the box I’d found at the back of a cupboard of all the stocking fillers I’d bought over the years and lost before Christmas and rediscovered each January. He seemed unimpressed as he flung himself on the bed, landing squarely on my bladder, shouting loudly about Father Christmas NOT USING HIS LISTENING EARS because none of this was what Edward had asked for. The noise was hideous to my delicate sensibilities, and I left Hannah to it. So much for a civilised Christmas lie-in. Poor Hannah, how did she still do this every day?
Downstairs, Simon was still snoring on the sofa. I gathered all the glasses strewn about the place, fearing my soirée had ended with considerably less elegance than it had begun with, and started stacking the dishwasher.
I’d had a delightful champagne breakfast planned for Simon and me, but that was now obviously out the window, so I made a big jug of Buck’s Fizz with cheap Prosecco and set about scrambling the two dozen eggs I’d somehow ended up with as part of my random Christmas stockpiling. I may not have biscuits beside the spare-room bed, nor indeed a single stamp in the house, but Fanny, I thought, would approve.
After breakfast (Jessica declined and fled back to bed when I offered her both the Buck’s Fizz and the bacon), we went outside. The vast snow drifts and Dr Zhivago-esque conditions of the night before were vanishing, and the road looked passable again.
‘Looks like we can go home,’ said Hannah. ‘And we’ve still got time to get to Mum’s for Christmas dinner. Oh, hang on, my phone’s ringing.’
Hannah came back in five minutes later. ‘That was Mum,’ she said. ‘She’s only twenty miles away, but apparently the snow is still terrible there and they’re cut off. So we can’t get over there. And Charlie texted to say he’s got three emergency appendectomies and an emergency gall bladder removal to do and he won’t be home till God knows when. And I took all the Christmas food to Mum’s yesterday morning and there’s nothing to eat at home because it’s all at Mum’s. So we’re going to have to have a turkey Ginsters out the garage for Christmas dinner!’
‘Stay here,’ I offered. ‘Simon’s not had any Buck’s Fizz, because he was going to try to pick up Jane and drop off Sam and Colin, so why doesn’t he just pick up all the girls and bring them here. He could get Toby too, Sam, and you and Colin can all stay for Christmas dinner. Stay tonight so no one worries about driving, we can all squash in again! What do you think? Oh please, please say yes – won’t it be fabulous?’
‘Are you sure?’ said Colin. ‘Do you have enough food? Can you be arsed? What about your lovely relaxed Christmas you kept saying you were looking forward to?’
‘I’ve got years ahead for that,’ I said airily. ‘Anyway, Christmas is about people, isn’t it?’ I added, going over to the freezer and taking my emergency milk out, just in case. I briefly looked in the cupboards and wondered if I needed to start showing off by conjuring up marvellous delicacies out of nothing; there was a jar of truffled artichokes for reasons that escaped me. Perhaps I could do something delightfully hors d’oeuvrey with them, but then I saw sense and decided I’d far rather get pissed with my friends and family than fanny around (I chuckled to myself at my cunning pun) with truffled artichokes.
Simon duly delivered Toby and the girls, who were greeted by Little Edward sweetly informing them that Father Christmas was a fucker because he hadn’t brought Edward a real gun like he’d asked him for.
By three o’clock we were all squashed round my dining table and mildly pissed again. None of the crockery or glasses matched, and the charming tablescape of candles and flowers I’d arranged on Christmas Eve had been jettisoned in order to fit everyone in. Even Jessica had rallied and managed a couple of glasses of wine, and she was now FaceTiming Persephone again, who’d been very impressed by her mother’s shot-downing skills the night before. Jane had told me at least eleventy fucking billion times to ‘CHILL’, but had said nothing untoward about any of the useful or the whimsical gifts I’d given her for Christmas.
‘Listen,’ I cried. ‘Listen to that! In the distance.’
‘Carol singers!’ said Hannah in excitement.
‘Oh my God,’ said Jessica. ‘How amazing. I haven’t heard carol singers in years.’
‘Do you think they’re coming here?’ said Colin.
‘What will we give them?’ I said in a panic. ‘Is there any ham left? I had ham for carol singers, but I think we might have eaten it all.’
‘You can’t just give carol singers ham anyway,’ Simon insisted. ‘Why do you keep wanting to give carol singers ham?’
‘Figgy pudding then.’
‘It’s probably not even carol singers,’ said Jessica. ‘It’s probably just your neighbour with the speakers turned up too loud.’
‘They’re not very good carol singers, are they?’ agreed Sam. ‘They don’t know half the words. Maybe Julia’s doing some sort of Christmas karaoke?’
‘I love karaoke,’ I said. ‘Maybe we could go and join in? No, there’s too many of us. I’m sure I’ve still got an old karaoke microphone in the attic somewhere. Do you remember, Jane, I got you one for Christmas years ago and you never used it? Let’s get it down and have a sing-song.’
Jane rolled her eyes. ‘Seriously, Mum? Karaoke?’
‘Why not?’ I said stubbornly. ‘I’ve always had a Vision of us all singing carols round the piano at Christmas. Well, we don’t have a piano, so we’ll go for the twenty-first-century version and have Christmas karaoke carols. Come on! It’ll be fun! Simon, go and find the microphone. It’s in a box on the left-hand side of the attic labelled “Jane”, I think.’
‘No!’ everyone shouted. ‘Enough Visions, Ellen!’
‘But karaoke,’ I pleaded. ‘It doesn’t have to be carols. Don’t spoil the Christmas magic. It’s not too late for me to go to the garage with the Baileys, you know.’
‘I don’t think you want to take the Baileys to the garage. Edward was drinking it out of the bottle, and he tends to drool into things like that,’ Hannah pointed out. She was attempting to wrestle the Lego gun he’d made off Edward, as he was pointing it at Toby and yelling ‘Stick ’em up!’
‘Seriously, where does he learn phrases like that?’ she despaired. ‘It’s not from Hey Duggee.’
‘Hey Duggee is rubbish,’ Edward informed her. ‘I like YouTube. I saw a YouTube with nudey ladies and willies!’
‘How has he turned off the parental controls?’ whimpered Hannah. ‘And what has he been watching? No, Edward, no one wants to see your willie.’
‘Simon! The microphone,’ I reminded him, as he watched Little Edward in horror. I could see him thinking, ‘Thank fuck that’s not us,’ and despite the whole withering womb thing, I was in full agreement. Simon sighed, put down his fork and went out to the hall.
‘Ellen,’ he shouted. ‘Ellen, I think you’d better come out here! Hannah, you too.’
I dashed into the hall, visions of burst pipes or dog diarrhoea flashing through my head. But instead, standing on the doorstep, stood Peter, Lucas and an unknown blonde girl. As they saw us, Peter and Lucas burst into an incredibly tuneless rendition of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’.
‘What?’ I gasped.
‘Why?’ said Hannah.
‘How did you get here?’ said Simon.
It turned out it was mainly down to Ciara, Peter’s new girlfriend.
‘I was telling her about you, Mum. About how you’re such a pain in the arse all the time and think I’m dead when I don’t answer a text. Ciara said I was lucky to have a mum like you. And I realised I was. And Ciara said Christmases with you sounded great, and I realised actually you do always make it really enjoyable. Like the year we all made that wrapping paper with the stamps. That was so much fun.’
I was astonished and incredibly touched that Peter’s memories were so different to mine. Maybe there had been magic and I’d been too stressed to notice? ‘But everybody cried,’ I said. ‘Including me. Your cousin Cedric still had a holly leaf stamped on his forehead when he went home in the New Year.’
‘Really? I just remember the fun. And Ciara said’ – it seemed I’d better get used to the phrase ‘Ciara said’, but since she clearly talked a lot of sense and seemed a very sweet girl, I thought I could live with that – ‘Ciara said that you obviously put in a lot of work to make Christmas so entertaining, and she wished she’d had Christmases like we did, and then I thought, she’s right, and wouldn’t it be great to bring Ciara for Christmas. So I said to Lucas, let’s go home, because I didn’t want to leave him on his own, and I knew you wouldn’t mind and Ciara would love it. And I wanted you to meet her, because she’s really cool, Mum, really cool, and I’m thinking of popping the question soon.’
I was so busy feeling incredibly proud of being the cool mum that Peter could bring his cool girlfriend home to meet, and realising that all the stress, the crying and the beetroot had not been for nothing, that it took me a second to register the last part of what Peter was saying.
‘YOU ARE WHAT?’
‘Chill, Mum, what’s the big deal?’
‘You’re way too young to get married.’
‘Who said anything about getting married?’
‘You said you were popping the question!’
‘Yeah. I’m gonna ask her to be my girlfriend, like Officially?’
‘You’ve brought her home for Christmas and to meet your family, surely that makes her your girlfriend?’
‘Not till I ask her. Officially. I’m going to do it later today.’
I shook my head at the complicated dating rituals of The Youth of Today. But I was still wasn’t sure how he’d got back from his trip.
‘Oh, we got a mega-cheap flight that got in first thing this morning. Donkey was on it too. He said to say Merry Christmas to my MILF mum, and he’s coming over tomorrow to see if you need any help with anything.’
‘That’s nice of him. And how did you get from the airport?’
‘We hitchhiked.’
‘You … you hitchhiked?’ I took several deep breaths, and decided I could rock and cry in the corner about the hitchhiking later when no one was around.
‘Anyway, I’m starving, Mum. Any food?’
The boys and Ciara were all very thin and sickeningly brown, and despite having been travelling for the best part of twenty-four hours, as well as being raveningly hungry, were in fine party spirits.
‘Oh God, I hope we have enough booze!’ I said anxiously.
‘Don’t worry! We brought supplies,’ said Peter, as they produced a duty-free bag containing a bottle of Sambuca, a bottle of tequila and a bottle of doubtful-looking schnapps.
‘So!’ said Peter, slinging an arm round my shoulders. When did he get so tall? ‘Shall we do shots then, Ma?’
Much much later, I looked round the carnage of my sitting room. There were bodies everywhere. The candles from my tablescape were burning precariously on the bookcase. Lucas, Ciara and Peter were asleep on the sofa. Sam, Toby and Jessica were still doing shots. Colin and Hannah were watching Titanic and mopping each other’s eyes. The girls were upstairs and there was a lot of shrieking and laughter from Jane’s room. Little Edward was … where was Little Edward? Oh fuck, Little Edward was trying to start a fire under the table. I removed the matches and firelighters from his outraged sticky grasp, and handed him the iPad and a box of Ferrero Rocher instead. He seemed to find this a satisfactory exchange and settled down happily. I decided not to ask him what he was doing on the iPad.
I passed Simon in the kitchen on his way to let the dogs out.
‘Hang on a minute, Ellen,’ he said.
‘What?’ I said impatiently.
‘Just this,’ he grinned, and produced a piece of mistletoe from behind his back and gave me a huge kiss.
‘There,’ he smirked, then opened the door to let Flora out for yet another wee.
Jessica suddenly lurched into the kitchen and yelled, ‘THE BEETROOT!’
‘In the cupboard by the cooker,’ I said.
She staggered back to the sitting room bearing the precious jar and placed it carefully on the bookcase between the candles, like a little pickle shrine.
