‘I’m good. We can chat tomorrow.’
Mum puts a hand out and I reach for it before heading up the stairs to my room. Inside, I strip down to vest top and knickers and get under my covers with my phone.
Search: Laila Dolman.
That’s his wife’s name.
Like some awful exercise in masochism, I find her easily. Her new wedding photo is her profile picture. I click. Everything is public. She’s got a link to the wedding pictures and she also likes a make-up tutorial about cut creases. I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t, but I click on the photos link.
They got married in a big hotel in London, funded by more than just our house money, looking at the size of the ballroom hosting their reception. It’s a classy affair, his suit is Prada, there are fire-eaters to entertain the guests, a band with a singer that looks like Adele. Shit, thatisAdele. She is glamorous beyond belief (Laila, though Adele also looks flawless) and there’s a Kardashian flair to her, an hourglass to her shape.
What I can’t get over, though, is Mike, or Michael, as she likes to call him. He’s got fake tan, a more sculpted hairstyle and eyebrows, but there’s a look in his eyes, like he adores her. And I shouldn’t. Ireallyshouldn’t, but I shed a tear because that’s not a man I know. I couldn’t have done a wedding like that with all its opulence and spectacle. I’d have hated the extravagance. Maybe this is what he wanted and I couldn’t provide.
I can’t help it – I go through her photos. She’s from Manchester. It doesn’t look like she works, she spends a lot of time shopping and on exotic trips abroad. She had a lovely time in Dubai in 2012 and she knows her angles to create the ultimate thirst traps. She’s everything I’m not and I think I’m fine with that, even if my tears tell a different story. It’s only when I come across a picture with a date tag that I hold my breath a little. It’s a picture of her and Mike. In London. Two months after he left me. Wow. So much for broadening your horizons. The tears flow fully now as my bedroom door opens. I pull the duvet over my head.
‘Oh lordy, you’re not naked and sexting, are you?’ my mum yelps. ‘I thought you were asleep, I made you that hot toddy and brought up some cold meds.’
I pull the duvet back. Mum’s face drops as soon as she sees mine.
‘Oh, Josie. What on earth’s the matter?’
‘It’s just a tension headache, I think. I’ve been burning the candle at both ends.’
She comes over and sits on the edge of my bed, putting the mug and medicine boxes down. ‘I’m sorry I invited Cameron around and didn’t tell you.’
I shrug my shoulders.
‘Do you want a compress or anything?’ she asks, visibly concerned.
‘I’ll take a hug.’ My tears still roll down my face. She comes and wraps her arms around me. She hugged me like this the day he left, the day he told me that he hated everything about my life, about my parents, about me. ‘I’m OK, Mum. I’ll be fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
No. Not at all.
THIRTEEN
In my family, there are people of legend. Yes, there’s Mum and Dad, who had their own following in the late eighties/early nineties and who, and I hate to say this, actually have a small Facebook group of fans who collect their canon of work. Yes, they chat about it and all its artisan filmmaking quality. You then have my brother, who started acting when he was six years old. He was a charming son-of-a-bitch even back then, so Mum signed him up for drama, which led to an agent, which led to things like pantomimes and parts on hospital dramas. As he had these big green kitten eyes, he was excellent at looking very convincingly sad when he had to stand there and cry about the death of his fake mother because she’d fallen off a cliff in the mist walking the dog (we still have that episode taped). Anyway, he then went into a soap and he’s still there. His latest storyline is a complete doozy: he’s gone into partnership with a conman who’s sleeping with his girlfriend AND his sister AND his mother. The tumultuous love pentagon will come to a head at Christmas, where there will be a gas explosion and much shouty confrontation. Apparently, it’s some of his best work, but he will survive (apologies for the spoiler).
And then there is Nan.
Nan has always been a part of our lives, always there with advice and a packet of whatever biscuits she’s bought in for the day. When we were children, she’d occasionally do the school run when Mum and Dad were busy trying to build their kitchen-table sex toy business. She’d pick Sonny and I up and do the little things that would sear themselves into memory. She’d stop at the chippy to get us hot chips and bottles of fluoro pop, she’d take us on the buses and occasionally to bingo, where the caller would tell her off.Barbara, this is gambling, they’re not allowed to be here. But then she’d come at him.Whatever, Trevor.Get your balls out of your arse like you’re the bingo police.Nan says it was exposing me to all those numbers at such a young age that made me such a whizz at maths. She was a single mother so she’s always exuded resilience, fight, fire.
‘Remind me why your tool of a brother isn’t here today?’ she says in her London tones, sipping at a tumbler of Baileys. It’s Christmas Day. Nan is as much a part of Christmas Day as baby Jesus and the turkey, and she has no problem knocking the alcohol back at 9.45 a.m. I picked her up early so she could have some breakfast with us and I love that when I got to hers, she was already waiting in the car park, in a Christmas jumper with a rude snowman on the front.
‘It’s because he’s alternating now. One year with us, one year with Ruby,’ I reply, clinking her glass. I mean, it’d be rude to let her drink alone.
‘That’s a shit rule.’
‘Nan,’ I tell her. ‘We’ll see him between now and New Year. It means two roast dinners in a week.’
‘All them brussels sprouts. That’s not good for anyone’s digestion.’
I laugh and give her a hug. We’ve nestled ourselves into one of the big sofas in the front room, slippers on, the multicoloured lights of Mum’s tree hypnotising us into a trance. My parents’ attention to holiday detail in here is winning. For the past month, it’s been like living inside a sparkly festive disco. There are rules. Christmas jumpers all round. Bublé for weeks. Eat and drink without regret. Don’t put the empty sweet wrappers back in the box. There’s no colour scheme when it comes to Christmas, it’s bright and rainbow-coloured and, more often than not, if it sparkles, it is bought and hung off some empty part of the ceiling. You call it tacky, they call it joy.
‘Right,’ my dad says, entering the room, clapping his hands together. ‘Let’s get these presents open, eh?’
‘About sodding time,’ Nan mumbles.
