A Merry Little Christmas (18 page)

‘You feel a bit neglected?’

‘Sounds pathetic when you say it like that,’ admitted Marianne.

‘Not at all,’ Gabe kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘I shouldn’t take you for granted. You’re my second chance and I know how very very lucky I am.’

He held her tight for a few minutes.

‘Ugh, you still smell of cow,’ said Marianne, ‘go and have a shower.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Gabe. ‘You wouldn’t care to join me?’

‘Maybe when you’re properly clean,’ said Marianne, laughing.

Half an hour later, they were sitting in the garden sharing a glass of wine and watching the bats flit through the sky.

‘That was delicious,’ said Gabe, taking her hand. ‘
Now
can I persuade you to take that shower?’

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ said Marianne flirtatiously. This was great. Just like old times.
Nothing
could ruin the evening now.

Just then the phone rang.

‘Great timing,’ muttered Marianne, before picking up to find her mother on the other end of the line.

‘Hi, Mum,’ said Marianne rather ungraciously, wishing her mother had chosen any other moment to call. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Sorry,’ she mouthed at Gabriel.

‘Well, it’s about Christmas,’ began Mum. Not again.

‘Mum, it’s June,’ said Marianne. ‘I refuse to have this conversation in June.’

‘Well, we’re thinking of going away in January, so we wanted to know that you were coming before we booked.’

Oh that was good. Even by Mum’s devious standards.

‘Who said anything about us coming to you?’ said Marianne, feeling direct action was called for.

‘We assumed – well it’s so cold in Shropshire at Christmas,’ said Mum. ‘Much better for the twins to be somewhere warm.’

‘We do have heating up here, you know,’ said Marianne. ‘Anyway. Like I said, we haven’t even thought about Christmas yet.’

‘Well, if you could think about it and just let me know?’

‘Of course,’ promised Marianne, and put the phone down, resisting the urge to slam it.

‘Christmas – in June?’ said Gabriel. ‘Bloody hell.’

‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Marianne. ‘Damn. I really really don’t want to go to London again. Not after last year.’

‘Invite them up here,’ said Gabriel.

‘I doubt they’ll come,’ said Marianne. Her mother had a well-known aversion to the countryside.

‘Okay then,’ said Gabriel, ‘let’s tell everyone we’re staying put and anyone who wants to come is welcome.’

‘Do you want me to live beyond my next birthday?’ said Marianne with a grin. ‘Now where were we …’

At that moment, a wail came from one of the twins.

‘Ignore it,’ said Gabriel.

Marianne tried. For about two minutes. Then the other twin started off too.

‘No rest for the wicked,’ she said, with a sigh.

‘I’ll do it if you like,’ said Gabe.

‘No. You’ve had a busy day,’ said Marianne, kissing him on the top of the head. She didn’t feel resentful when he offered to help. ‘Don’t go away, though, because I promise I will be back.’

‘Do you think there’s something wrong with Mel?’ Noel asked Cat, as they drove over to the hospital to see Louise. A night in a hospital bed had turned into a week, during which time Louise had picked up a chest infection. She was barely eating, was more confused than ever, and seemed to Cat to be diminishing before her eyes. How could someone go into hospital and end up being more ill than when they were admitted? It didn’t seem right. So far, despite trying to talk to the staff, who all seemed either busy or indifferent, Cat had come no nearer to finding out the cause of her mother’s illness – the tests were ‘inconclusive’ – and she had yet to actually track down a consultant who might have an idea of what was actually wrong with her.

‘What, more than usual?’ said Cat. ‘Maybe she’s actually stressing about her exams.’

‘I think it’s a bit more than that,’ said Noel. ‘I don’t know. She just seems really down. And she looks pale.’

Cat felt guilty. Since Noel had spent more time working at home, he seemed to be more on the ball with the kids than she did. And she’d been so busy and worried about Mum, she hadn’t picked that up at all.

‘It might just be she’s spending too many late nights chatting on BBM,’ said Cat. ‘We really should make a point of taking her phone off her before bed.’

‘It might be,’ said Noel, looking unconvinced. ‘I think she seems really unhappy.’

‘Oh God,’ said Cat. ‘I feel terrible now. I should have noticed.’

‘Don’t,’ said Noel. ‘You’ve had so much on your plate. And I may be wrong. After all, don’t I have the emotional intelligence of a gnat?’

Cat laughed. It’s what she’d said to Noel once in the middle of a fierce argument. And it wasn’t true.

‘I’ll try and have a chat to her when we get home,’ she said. ‘But you know what she’s like, she never tells me anything important.’

Cat knew she should be trying to take Mel in hand. Her attitude to everything over the past few months had been appalling, but right now Cat simply didn’t have the energy. Louise being ill had taken over everything. She was conscious that she wasn’t being a good enough mum, but she couldn’t worry about that now.

Cat felt bad for thinking it, but she’d rather do anything else than chat with her daughter. Conversations with Mel usually ended up one way, with Mel getting cross, walking out of the room and slamming doors. Lots of doors.

They got onto the ward, and went into the side room, where Louise was. To Cat’s surprise and shock, the bed was empty and stripped down. Louise had gone.

‘What– ?’ said Cat, a cold clutch of fear grabbing her heart. Surely if something had happened, the hospital would have
said.
Wouldn’t they? Or maybe not.

‘Erm – excuse me,’ Cat said to the uninterested looking staff at the desk, ‘my mother, Louise Carpenter – where is she?’

‘Louise? Louise … Oh yes. She was discharged at lunchtime,’ said the nurse. ‘Didn’t anyone tell you?’

‘No, they didn’t,’ said Cat through gritted teeth. ‘Can you please explain to me a) how that happened, and b) she was suddenly well enough to go home, when yesterday, she could barely stand?’

‘She responded well to the antibiotics overnight,’ said the nurse, ‘so the consultant didn’t see any point in keeping her. I’m sorry you weren’t informed. We dealt directly with the nursing home.’

‘Didn’t want to bother, more like,’ muttered Cat. ‘Thanks for your help.’

She and Noel headed back to the car and on to the home, where they found Louise in her own room, at least wearing her own nightie. She was still coughing and looked pale, but there was a slight improvement from the previous day.

‘I just can’t believe they sent her back,’ said Cat to Susan Challoner.

‘Sadly, I can,’ she said. ‘Sometimes the state people are sent back to us in is quite dreadful. Don’t you worry, we’ll look after her.’

‘Thanks,’ said Cat.

Having established there was no more they could do for Louise, and encountering Alfie in the corridor with a bunch of flowers heading her way, Cat and Noel headed home, where they found World War III raging, as Paige had accidentally ‘borrowed’ Mel’s straighteners, and Mel was letting her have it in no uncertain terms. Meanwhile Ruby was wailing because she’d caught her finger in the mousetrap, and James was teasing her that there was a rat living under the stairs. It took a while to quieten Ruby’s wails, and get James to apologise to her, and Paige to Mel, but eventually things calmed down. Mel meanwhile had disappeared grumpily into her bedroom, so Cat gave it ten minutes before deciding to risk a chat. It was unlike Mel to be so mean to Paige. She usually reserved her fury for Cat and Noel.

Cat gingerly knocked on the door.

‘May I come in?’

‘I suppose.’

Mel was lying sulkily on her bed, flicking half-heartedly through a history text book.

‘How’s the revision going?’

Mel shrugged. She did look pale. There were dark circles under her eyes and she looked thin and washed out.

‘Are you okay, sweetie?’ said Cat. ‘Only you seem really unhappy at the moment.’

Mel shrugged, again, but she still looked miserable.

‘Is it Granny? She was much better today, you know, and she’s back at home.’

‘She’s never going to be properly better though, is she?’ Mel looked bleak.

‘True,’ said Cat, ‘but at least she’s not in that hospital anymore. I know it’s tough, with Granny, and I’m sorry I haven’t been around much.’

‘No it’s okay,’ said Mel, ‘I understand. I’m fine. Just busy.’

‘And you’re sure there’s nothing wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ said Mel.

‘You could tell me you know, if there were,’ said Cat.

‘There isn’t, Mum, honestly.’ Mel picked up her history book and started looking at it. Cat hovered for a minute, before Mel looked up at her. ‘History GCSE, first thing Monday morning? I need to revise.’

Shut out. Again.

‘Oh, right,’ said Cat, nonplussed. ‘Far be it from me to come between you and your exams.’

‘Well if you want me to fail …’ said Mel grouchily.

‘It was a joke,’ said Cat, retreating with a familiar sense of failure. One day she’d get this parenting thing right. One day …

Pippa was humming cheerfully in the kitchen, baking bread while listening to the radio. She danced around the kitchen, making Lucy, who was jigging along in her wheelchair, giggle happily. You look silly, Lucy typed.

‘So do you,’ said Pippa and stuck her tongue out, making Lucy laugh.

The sun was shining and Dan had actually gone out to work on the fields with Gabe. He was off his crutches, and still limping a bit, but the improvement was vast. The boys were at cricket, Noel, who helped out with the boys’ squad, having kindly volunteered to take them. For once Pippa felt a real sense of contentment.

The letter box flapped open, and she heard the mail dropping through. She wandered out to get it. There were several letters, mainly bills. Great. Thank God for Dan’s sickness insurance, which had helped them through the last few months. If she’d had to worry about money on top of everything else, Pippa thought she might go off her head. The last letter was from the council: Social Services. Pippa looked at it with dread. Everything had gone quiet on the Sunshine Trust front, and she’d been hoping that nothing more would come of Lucy’s losing her respite care package. Burying her head in the sand of course. All the talk on the news for weeks had been about cuts to social services. She’d been grasping at short straws. She opened the letter and read:

Dear Mrs Holliday,

We regret to inform you that owing to budgetary restrictions for the coming financial year, it will no longer be possible to fund your daughter’s respite care package. This is not a decision we have taken lightly, but …

‘… there are more deserving cases, blah, blah, bloody blah.’

Pippa crumpled up the letter and threw it in the bin, her good mood evaporating in an instant. In the past she would have gone to Dan and they’d have raged together and worked out a game plan. But Dan, though much better, needed her support and couldn’t be relied on to give her his. It made Pippa feel lonely to think how much she’d lost since Dan’s accident. His ready empathy and calmness had gone – she hoped not forever – but it meant she could no longer rely on him, not the way she once had.

‘Come on Pippa,’ she muttered, ‘time to man up.’

She looked at Lucy who was still clucking and dancing along to the music. Her beautiful daughter deserved all the help and care she needed. And Pippa was going to do her damnedest to make sure she got it.

‘So what are we going to do?’ said Cat, at the start of the hastily convened meeting at Pippa’s house.

‘But what can we really do?’ said Mary Chambers, a small pale pinched woman, who looked as though the weight of the world was on her shoulders. ‘No one’s taken any notice of the things we’ve done up until now.’

‘Plenty,’ said Pippa decisively. ‘Cat’s already had several articles in various magazines about the work the Sunshine Trust does, which have helped raise our profile.’

Cat nodded.

‘It took a while for people to be interested,’ she said, ‘but the issue’s quite topical now. I am still holding out hope for a TV programme, but these things take time.’

‘Next, we’re going to have a protest meeting at the centre itself. I’ve finally got hold of Tom Brooker, our beloved local MP, and it turns out he’s against the cuts too, despite the party line. He’s even threatened to come along. The local TV bods are interested in covering it, so I’m hoping we can generate a wider story that people can tap into.’

‘But what will it achieve?’ said Mary. ‘We can’t save the centre with a PR campaign.’

‘True,’ said Pippa, ‘but I’m still trying to find extra funding. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I’ve been speaking to Michael Nicholas about that, and he was telling me about a company he works with which likes to invest in social and ethical issues. I’m going to follow that up, and see if they can help.

‘I’ve also set up a petition on the House of Commons website, and I’d urge you all to tweet it, put it on Facebook. Whatever it takes. We all need the Sunshine Trust, and I’m damned if they’re going to take that away from us.’

‘Too true,’ piped up Jeanie Martin, a mother of two severely autistic children. ‘If we all get involved, I’m sure we can save the respite care.’

Pippa smiled. It felt good to be doing something. Better than sitting feeling sorry for herself and waiting for the axe to fall.

Dan came limping in from the fields. He looked tired – he was still not back to working at full pace – and not best pleased to see the kitchen overrun with Pippa’s friends.

‘Any chance of a cuppa?’ he said.

‘Sure,’ said Pippa.

‘What are all these people doing here?’ whispered Dan as she went to the kettle.

‘I told you, Dan. We’re having a meeting about the Sunshine Trust.’ One of the side effects of the accident was Dan feeling wary around large groups of people, which is why she had let him know this morning exactly how many people were coming and why.

‘Did you?’ Dan looked perplexed and rubbed his head. And she felt an overwhelming sense of pity for him. His short-term memory still troubled him sometimes. It must be infuriating.