The Island Escape

The problem was I couldn’t conjure up any images in the black beyond.

Octavia

There weren’t many days when I regretted setting up my holistic nursery but today, two days before Christmas, was one of them. My eco-ethos meant I couldn’t fob off the kids with sticking a bit of glitter on a few polystyrene stars. Instead, we’d done a full-scale expedition down to the woods to gather ‘material’ for decorations. This had led to a couple of four-year-olds getting covered in dog poo, a little girl collecting rabbit droppings to use as food for Rudolph and another boy sitting in a puddle pretending he was a duck. The morning had ended up being less about decorations and more about turd control.

By the time I’d picked the girls up from my mother’s and popped into the supermarket on the way home, I was officially knackered. My heart lifted as I squeezed the car in next to Jonathan’s Rover. His company had obviously found a little Christmas cheer and let them go early. He could help me lug in the shopping. I’d fought my way round Tesco trying not to barge into people who’d left it until the twenty-third of December to decide they needed a Christmas pud. I’d got all the basics in place but I liked my vegetables fresh. Immi and Polly had bickered from start to finish: the illogical mind of an eight-year-old pitched against the pedantic tendencies of the ten-year-old. They were still having a ding-dong over who was having the chocolate Santa on the Christmas tree. With the last pinch of patience I could muster, I told them to ring the doorbell to ask Daddy to come and help. Charlie eventually came to answer, bringing with him the distinct smell of an unshowered teenager who’s been glued to a screen all day.

‘Where’s Dad?’

‘He’s in bed.’

‘Is he ill?’

‘I don’t think so, just said he was really tired and needed a lie-down.’

I’d give him a lie-down. As usual, Jonathan would rock up to Christmas without writing a single Christmas card or chasing the end of the Sellotape, let alone coming into contact with a supermarket trolley or a vegetable peeler. He’d then dice with death on Christmas Eve by saying, ‘Did we send a card to the boss and his wife?’

I slammed the boot shut, shoved a couple of carrier bags at Charlie and stomped up the stairs. I burst into our bedroom to find Jonathan in his Y-fronts, face down on the bed, shoulders rising and falling with the rhythm of deep sleep. I shook him.

‘Jonathan. Jonathan. Do you think you could give me a hand to bring the shopping in?’

He gurgled and snuffled his way back into consciousness.

‘What are you doing in bed? I need help with the bags. Now would be good.’

Jonathan rolled over and groaned. ‘Can you get Charlie to do it?’

‘I can, but given that you’ve got the afternoon off, perhaps you might like to move your lard and lend a hand rather than tipping up on Christmas Day wondering how the fairies did such a marvellous job. I’ve had a gutful of the girls going at each other, so feel free to chip in.’

He pulled himself into a sitting position and ran his hands over his face. ‘I haven’t got the afternoon off.’

‘What’s the matter with you then? Are you ill?’

‘No.’ He hugged his knees into his chest. ‘I’ve been made redundant.’

All my aggression seeped away. Guilt rushed into the space left behind. I hadn’t seen that coming. I didn’t know what to say. I sat down on the bed and reached for his hand. ‘Bloody hell. When did they spring that one on you?’

‘As soon as we got in this morning. Called in five of us, one after the other.’ Jonathan’s voice was flat, monotone. His face was pale and blotchy. I hoped he hadn’t been crying. One of the things I loved most about Jonathan was that he was solid. Resilient. Which was just as well because my wifely qualities were a bit sparse in the knee-patting category.

‘Why you? They were telling you how crucial you were to their management strategy in your last review.’

‘Cost-cutting. We need to be able to compete with the Asian market and there are plenty of bright young things coming in from university who can do what I do, maybe not better, but certainly cheaper. Seems that experience in computing isn’t as important as I thought. So “Cheers, mate, thanks for all your hard work, of course there’ll be a period of ‘consultation’ but don’t forget your jacket on the way out.”’

‘Wankers. They’ve always been out with the old and in with the new. Think of all those bloody Bank Holidays you’ve worked because there was no one else they could trust to keep the systems running.’ I could understand how people stormed back into their former workplaces and smashed everything up. I needed to step away from the mallet myself.

I snuggled up to him. ‘Poor you.’ I couldn’t imagine Jonathan without a job. That’s what he did. Got up and went to work every day. He took a boffin-like pleasure in being ‘in computers’, a geeky delight in the ‘sounds very clever’ comments from people who didn’t want him to elaborate further in case they had no idea what he was on about. Shock was giving way to practicalities. How would I cope with him in the house every day while I rushed three children out to school and went to work myself?

The volcano effect was my forte – the most pressing thing came to the priority surface. Jonathan, on the other hand, spent any time when he wasn’t being a workaholic tutting over milk cartons opened in non-date order, spoons in the fork section of the cutlery drawer and tea towels gaily discarded on the back of chairs. Disorder caused him pain, whereas the kids and I didn’t even notice.

When I’d unexpectedly found myself with the proverbial bun in the oven, aged twenty-two, I’d been grateful for Jonathan’s practical approach to life. Over the years, though, the über-organisation Jonathan required became a barrier to having fun. God forbid a trace of paint, glitter or glue should sully our kitchen table after a craft session with the kids. His latest obsession – putting the honey on a little square of kitchen roll in case it left a sticky ring on the shelf – made me want to drizzle it around the skirting boards and stick Stan’s dog hairs in it. The idea of Jonathan lying in wait when I trollied in after work, leaving a trail of shoes, coats and bags, didn’t spell harmony for us.

It seemed the wrong time to mention the little matter of money, but I’d never been good at picking my moment. We couldn’t survive on my wage as a nursery manager.

‘Did they give any indication of your package?’

‘Statutory pay.’ He looked down at his hands.

I didn’t want to turn the knife by asking for an exact figure – though my mind was working out a savings versus mortgage payment ratio – but anything statutory didn’t sound good. It was too late to do any Christmas cost-cutting. I was regretting the XBox splurge, cross with myself for letting Charlie suck me in with his ‘everyone’s got one’.

I found a smile. ‘Never mind, love. On the upside, you won’t be called in on New Year’s Day and you can have a proper holiday, a real rest. There’ll be something out there for you, something better. In the meantime, it’ll be great to have you at home.’

I turned to hug him. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered.

I kissed the top of his head and went downstairs to heave in the shopping.

And yes, I had sent a bloody Christmas card to the boss and his wife.

Roberta

‘Happy Christmas, beautiful. Thought we’d get the day off to a good start.’

Seasonal goodwill to irrational men and jailbait wives was shining all around, from Scott’s perspective at least. I was still sleeping in the guest suite. When Adele had arrived in her usual whirlwind of news from Down Under a couple of days before, Scott and I had embraced an entente cordiale worthy of the Middle East, all ‘Coffee, darling? Sauv Blanc or Chablis? Soup or salad?’ As soon as Adele and Alicia were in bed, I’d retreat up to the second floor, with barely a hiss goodnight.

Now here he was, holding out a glass of pink champagne, like every other Christmas.

I took it, resting the delicate stem on my stomach, trapped between so much and so little to say. Scott took a large swig from his glass, then sat on the edge of the bed.

I knew that look.

He pulled back the edge of the duvet, looking playful and cheeky, the same sun-kissed maverick I’d met in Italy where I’d been studying art history a lifetime ago. He was nothing like the boys I’d known before who twiddled away at me as though they were trying to tune into Capital Radio, downing pints and not thinking beyond their summer bar jobs. I’d spent three days resisting having sex with him before he headed off on his bus tour, promising to write. Octavia – as usual – had teased me something rotten. ‘Australian sex-god meets Britain’s answer to Mother Teresa. You won’t hear from him again.’ She was wrong. At twenty-two, Scott knew what he wanted from the world – money, property, status – and me.

‘You’ve got a gorgeous body,’ he said, leaning over to kiss my neck. I turned my head away.

‘Come on. We always have sex on Christmas Day.’

‘This isn’t like any other Christmas Day though, is it?’ I said.

‘It could be.’

‘How can it be? Really, Scott, how can it? Do you understand this goes beyond one of our normal rows? That you have actually overstepped a line?’ I slammed my glass down on the nightstand.

‘You know I didn’t mean it. I got carried away in the heat of the moment. I’d had such a tough day. The bank pulling the plug on that property up in Queensland, that venture capital guy messing me around. I took it out on the wrong person. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said.’ He paused. ‘It still does me in, too, you know. I would have loved those babies.’

There was no mistaking the tight knot of rage in my stomach, even though I wanted to believe that he was sorry. God, I was desperate to accept he was so sorry that he was coming apart at the seams, trembling in his shoes about whether I would forgive him this time. However furious I’d become in the past, I’d never truly considered leaving him.

But then he’d never taunted me about my babies before.

A door banged downstairs. Alicia would be getting ready for our present-opening ritual. I shrugged, unable to voice any thoughts that wouldn’t inflame me further. Christmas morning wasn’t the right morning to embark on a big discussion because I had no idea where it might end. Octavia had been right all those years ago: Scott was too unpredictable, though that was rich coming from her.

It was one of the things I’d loved about him.

I sipped my champagne, feeling the bubbles spread their soothing tendrils through me.

Scott was the picture of contrite. He smoothed a strand of hair behind my ear. I shook him off. ‘Come on, doll. I made a big mistake. What can I do to make it up to you?’

I drew my knees up to my chest. I could still feel the stickiness and grime of that police cell no matter how many times I showered. ‘Nothing.’

‘It’s Christmas. Let’s enjoy ourselves. For Alicia’s sake.’

I wavered, unsure whether Scott was just trying to weasel his way out of trouble or was genuinely regretful. I did want Alicia to have a lovely day.

In case lovely days were suddenly in short supply.

Maybe, over time, I could forgive him.

He swung round to face me, his index finger under the silk shoulder strap of my nightie.

But definitely not yet.

‘No. Just no. Get off.’

He stood up, backing away, hands raised in surrender. ‘OK, OK. No need to turn nasty.’

Pot. Kettle.

I got out of bed. ‘Come on, we need to get downstairs. Alicia still gets excited about presents.’

Scott drained his glass, shaking his head as though I was completely irrational. He paused at the door. ‘I hope you’re not going to spoil today by sulking.’

I waited until he’d disappeared downstairs to hurl a pillow at the wall.

I heard Alicia shouting down the landing. ‘Mum? Mum? When are we doing presents?’

I called down to her. ‘I’m up here. Shower’s not working properly in our bedroom. Be down in a mo. Can you see if Granny Adele wants a cup of coffee?’

As soon as I arrived in the kitchen, Adele was right there, getting in the way of the fridge, standing in front of every cupboard I wanted to open, like a dog I’d forgotten to feed.

‘Where’s Scotty?’ she said. ‘He used to love Christmas, first one up. When my Jack was alive, we’d all get up at six to make the most of the day. I used to buy kilos of potatoes, parboil them, fluff them up in the colander. And Jack, he was in charge of the turkey. We used to get it from Mr Saunders. His is the house on the corner of our road, you know, the one with the blue gates and the boat-shaped bird table on the front lawn …’

Endless detail rained down in the strong Scottish accent Adele had retained despite emigrating to Australia in her late teens, fifty years earlier. I put the coffee machine in motion and nipped into the loo to text Octavia. She’d sounded wrung-out when she’d filled me in on Jonathan’s redundancy the day before. With three kids who all came with a bewildering array of after-school activities, I knew they struggled to keep their heads above water even when Jonathan was earning. I wondered how I could persuade Octavia to let me lend her some money.

Happy Xmas – hope you are OK. All bearably festive here. Kilted kangaroo bouncing about but calm everywhere else. Going out for lunch shortly. When can you escape for a walk?

We’d always gone out for a walk on our own on Christmas Day. As teenagers, we’d examined each other’s new eye shadows and compared appalling knitwear. In our twenties, I’d tried to play down Scott’s extravagant presents. Even when we were broke, he’d still decorated the tree with little love messages, souvenirs from places we’d been, postcards of paintings I loved. Once Charlie was born just after Octavia’s twenty-third birthday, Jonathan appeared to skip romance and went straight to the practical. Octavia laughed it off. ‘Anyone can buy fancy knickers. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a husband who can build a cupboard to keep them in.’

Since we’d had children, our walk on Christmas Day was simply a pressure cooker valve – a breather to let off steam about our families so that we could return with smiles on our faces. Today, more than ever, I’d be glad of the escape.

A beep on my mobile signalled Octavia’s reply.

Jonathan deep in the doldrums and moaning about how much I’ve spent. Mum quoting gloomy figures from Daily Mail about job market. Kids high on sugar. Happy days! Can’t wait to go for our walk – 4-ish?

Poor Octavia. I didn’t know how she stood Jonathan and his penny-pinching. I’d pointed it out early on and we’d had one of our few proper rows about it, descending into a slanging match about me being born with a silver spoon in my mouth. All credit due to her though, she’d been the first to cheer me on when Scott and I shunned my dad’s money and made a living doing up tatty old houses.

Was it really all for nothing?

Octavia

Jonathan usually loved choosing the Christmas tree. He would spend hours in the local garden centre, debating with the children until they found the perfect specimen, the one and only Norwegian spruce that could grace our lounge. Then he’d haul it into the right place, the exact spot between the fireplace and the dresser. Immi and Polly would decorate it according to Jonathan’s rigid spacing and ornament eking-out rules, with Charlie chucking the baubles on willy-nilly.

But this year Jonathan had come up with ‘I haven’t got time/the girls don’t want to go today/the trees will be cheaper nearer the day’ until the one ritual I could delegate without guilt had plopped back onto my plate. The result was spindly and lacklustre. Instead of the usual good-natured banter over whether to have the fairy or the star on top, the kids had argued over who was going to hang up the bloody glass reindeers and who got stuck with the crappy old snowflakes. Resentment had sliced into my fantasies of a cheery household floating about singing angelic bursts of Once in Royal David’s City, and lingered right through to Christmas Day itself.

Mum had arrived at eight o’clock that morning as though we would need five hours to prepare a roast lunch for six people. She stood in the kitchen hovering but not actually ‘doing’ until the hairs on my neck were quivering with irritation.

I managed to shoo her out to play Scrabble with Immi, which meant I could slosh industrial quantities of Chablis into my glass without copping the fourteen units a week speech. This year’s project of knocking our lounge and dining room together to make one big living space was beginning to look like a mistake. Instead of being tucked away with the XBox, Polly and Charlie were right under Mum’s nose. As Mum thought anything more hi-tech than a landline was the path to all evil, it was only a matter of time before she decided to deliver the ‘Give a child a cardboard box and they’ll be just as happy’ speech.

Normally, Charlie would laugh and say, ‘Oh Nanna, get real,’ but this year, a huge bellow of ‘Jesus Christ, we’re not in the 1950s’ came echoing through to the kitchen. A door slam followed.

I poked my head through the hatch and saw my mother rear up like a meerkat on its look-out mound, turning from Jonathan faffing about with the precise angle of the serviettes, to me, waiting to see how we were going to deal with – shock, horror – God’s name being taken in vain on Christmas Day.

Jonathan rolled his eyes and went back to straightening the knives and forks that Polly had thrown down in a slapdash manner. I tried Roberta’s New Age bollocks of visualising lying in a hammock in Barbados, but discovered that only a hiss at the husband would do.

‘Jonathan, do you think you could go and deal with Charlie, please, while I finish off lunch?’ I probably sounded calm to the casual listener but sixteen years of marriage had taught him to recognise the meaningful ‘—CCCHHH’ on the end of that sentence. With one last tweak of the table mats, he made his way upstairs.

I shouted through to Polly. ‘Come and take through the cranberry sauce for me, love.’

No answer. I shouted again.

‘In a minute.’

‘No, now, we’re nearly ready to sit down.’

‘I’m just finishing this game.’

I bit back a bellow of ‘Come now!’ Never mind a flipping virgin birth, my kids doing what they were told the first time I asked them would be the true miracle of Christmas.

Instead of Polly appearing, Immi came into the kitchen instead. ‘My tummy hurts. I don’t want any lunch.’

Honestly, next year I’d just do beans on toast.

‘It’ll make you feel better if you have something to eat. I’ve made your favourite, cauliflower cheese.’ I stroked her strawberry-blonde curls.

‘I’m not hungry. I already ate all my selection box. Do you want to know what I had? I had a Curly Wurly, a Mars bar, a Milky Way, a Twix – I’ve got one stick of that left – and a packet of jelly babies.’

At this rate, we’d need an appointment with the emergency dentist. ‘I thought Dad said you could only have one thing.’

‘He did, but then when I asked him if I could eat the rest, he just went “hmm” and carried on reading his book, so I thought it was OK.’

I could feel a bit of a Jesus Christ incident coming on myself.

‘I gave the Maltesers and Revels to Stan, though. I wasn’t that greedy.’

‘You shouldn’t give chocolate to dogs. It’s bad for them. Anyway, never mind.’ I turned back to stirring the gravy, which had now gone all lumpy.

I took a deep breath and called through to the front room. ‘Mum, it’s ready. Can I pass you these things through the hatch?’

Mum scurried over and busied herself with the food, just as Jonathan reappeared.

‘Charlie won’t come down.’ There was something pathetic in his tone, a waiting for me to get it sorted.

The food was getting cold, which made me want to have my own tantrum. It was definitely early-onset middle age – more bothered about chilly carrots than my son having a Yuletide meltdown. Not for the first time, I mourned the era of spending every holiday backpacking on a diet of beer and crisps. I trudged up the stairs, shouting ‘Start serving’ in the general direction of Mum and Jonathan in the hope that between them they might summon up the initiative required to get a few Brussels on plates without me.

‘Go away.’ Charlie was nose-down in his pillow.

‘Please don’t spoil the day, darling. I know Nanna’s irritating. She irritates me as well and no doubt, when I’m old, you’ll bin my false teeth so you can’t hear what I’m saying either.’

‘I hate Christmas.’

‘So do I.’ And I really meant it.

That made Charlie sit up. ‘How can you hate Christmas?’

‘How can you?’ I smiled, trying not to think of my gravy getting a skin on it. ‘Come on, love, help me out here.’

He got to his feet, torn between wanting a hug and wanting to be bolshie. ‘OK. Sorry.’

I squeezed his hand, or rather the cuff of his sweatshirt. At fifteen, Charlie didn’t seem to have hands any more. He scuffed down the stairs, still my little boy under that gangly mini-man.

In the dining room, I jollied everyone along, praying that Mum wouldn’t choose right now to need an apology. ‘Let’s pull the crackers.’ Polly snatched the fat end of the cracker from Immi, claiming ownership of some plastic earrings. Immi burst into tears and slid under the table, refusing to come out even when Polly handed them over.

As I slopped the chipolatas wrapped in bacon onto plates, I heard Stan throwing up his honeycomb centres in the kitchen. Season of festive fun, my worn-out old arse.

I wondered when I’d last enjoyed Christmas.

An image of peeling off wetsuits, dragging a windsurf up a deserted beach and huddling round a fire with a couple of beers and some prawns on skewers rushed into my mind. I could almost smell the Mediterranean maquis that grew along the seashore. My twenty-one-year-old self, with pink hair, toe rings and a penchant for batik, would be hard-pressed to recognise me now.

The age-old longing that I kept buried, occasionally bunging another layer of earth on top, caught me off-guard. I wondered if he ever thought about me.

Roberta

Christmas Day in the Green household was a day for singing twee Australian songs. This year, I clung to the ritual as proof that we were still a family, rooted in our customs and traditions. I closed my eyes as I sat in the passenger seat, marvelling at Scott who was blasting out ‘Waltzing Matilda’ as though he were off to Bondi Beach with no more on his mind than the state of the surf. Despite Alicia’s entreaties, I couldn’t join in.

When we arrived at the hotel, I prayed that I’d made a good choice this year. I wasn’t sure I could face one of Scott’s forensic investigations into why they’d run out of red cabbage today. Scott strode in, making himself known to the staff, booming a big Happy Christmas to all. Alicia was right behind, light on her feet in her silver sandals, as wispy and delicate as Adele was stocky and stout. Granddaughter and grandmother linked arms together, pointing out the tree covered in glittery hearts and crimson ribbons. I glanced around at the other families and wondered if any of their smiles camouflaged upset so intense that they could feel it trembling in their chests.

Staff in black and white uniforms offered us Buck’s Fizz at the door to the wood-panelled dining room. Scott picked two from the tray. As we sat down, he handed one to Alicia.

‘She’s under eighteen. She can’t drink that in here,’ I said.

‘Lighten up. It’s Christmas, for God’s sake. Bloody British licensing laws. They’re not going to chuck us out. It’s only like a bit of lemonade and orange juice.’