A Proper Family Christmas (34 page)

Jacqui wrote to Annabel and got a Christmas card in return. She wrote to Ronnie too but her letter went unanswered. She spoke to Chelsea on the phone a couple of times but her youngest seemed distracted and couldn’t wait to get off the call. Chelsea wouldn’t say what she was doing for the holidays but she told Jacqui not to count on her being in Coventry. Jacqui’s dream of having her whole family around her that Christmas seemed more distant than ever. There was only one Christmas in Jacqui’s memory that had ever been so bad. That was the Christmas she spent alone in a bedsit in Essex, just seventeen years old, estranged from her parents and broken up from Dave, while Daisy spent her first 25 December as Annabel Buchanan.

Jacqui cried for the girl she had been and the baby she had given away. Then she cried for the women they had become.

Meanwhile, Annabel wrote to Ronnie, tucking a letter inside a Christmas card.

When she saw the envelope on the kitchen table and recognised the handwriting from the note Annabel had attached to their wedding gift, Ronnie’s first instinct was to rip the letter up and throw it away without reading it. But of course she did read it. She wanted to see how far that snooty cow would go.

Dear Ronnie,

I don’t suppose for one moment that you’re ready to forgive me and I can perfectly understand why. Since you left our house on that Sunday afternoon, I have thought of little but how badly I have behaved towards you and your family. Though I have been under enormous stress since Izzy fell ill after taking a tablet of ecstasy, I said things to you that were unforgivable under any circumstances.

You have been nothing but kind to us since the day we first met. I shall never forget your thoughtful gesture at your wedding, asking your guests to chip in for kidney charities. Then, when we asked you to make the ultimate gesture for Izzy, you did not hesitate to be tested. Mark too. We should have given you more time to help you make a more informed decision about what you might be getting into. In fact, Richard was always far more cautious. He wanted to give you more time. I feel I have only myself to blame for putting you under pressure.

You were right to make the decision you did for your children. I, of all people, should know that. We are both of us mothers, who care deeply for our babies and would do anything to keep them safe. I hope that will help you to understand my bad behaviour. But whatever you think of me, please don’t take it out on Jacqui. She loves you as dearly as I love Izzy and you love Sophie and Jack.

With love and best wishes,

Annabel

It was a nice letter but it wasn’t enough. If Annabel had opened a vein for Ronnie it wouldn’t have been enough right then. Ronnie was still furious.

Mark picked up the letter.

‘It must have taken a lot for her to write that,’ he tried.

‘What? She did that in fifteen minutes max. Forget it. Just like I’m trying to forget her. I don’t think of her as my sister,’ said Ronnie. ‘I never did. I didn’t know her. We didn’t grow up together. And if she hadn’t wanted to track us down to act as some kind of organ donors, we would never even have met. We might be related by birth, but we’ve got nothing in common and I don’t see why we have to be in each other’s lives at all.’

‘You’ve got to feel sorry for her …’ said Mark.

‘Why? Why should I?’

‘Izzy …’

‘Izzy got ill in the first place because they let her go to a festival and take drugs. They got their just deserts.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Ronnie. What parent hasn’t taken their eye off the ball for a little while? Izzy’s seventeen. Look what happened in Lanzarote with Sophie! What if Adam hadn’t been there that day and he hadn’t pulled her out of the water, would that have been our fault?’

‘I do think of that as my fault,’ said Ronnie. ‘As it happens.’

‘Well, I don’t,’ said Mark. ‘Kids grow up and they live their own lives. You can’t keep an eye on them twenty-four seven. What happened to the Buchanans could have happened to us. It could have happened to anyone we know.’

But Mark’s words were falling on deaf ears. Ronnie just wasn’t ready to hear them.

While their parents were estranged and looked set to remain so, Izzy and Sophie were still very much in contact. They spoke on Skype pretty much every day and Izzy had sent Sophie a pair of jeans for her birthday. When Ronnie saw them, she told Sophie she should send them back.

‘We don’t want anything from them.’

Sophie had refused, risking her mother’s wrath. She didn’t see why she should stop talking to Izzy just because her mother had fallen out with Annabel. If anything, Sophie had taken the Buchanans’ side in the row. She could see why Annabel might have gone nuts when Ronnie said she didn’t want to do the transplant. Ronnie had promised to help them. Izzy was taking it remarkably well.

‘I’ll get a kidney from somewhere,’ Izzy said. ‘Even if I have to wait for my new brother or sister to grow up so I can have one of theirs.’

‘That’s not funny,’ Sophie told her.

‘Gallows humour,’ said Izzy.

That evening, over Skype, Izzy was helping Sophie with a GCSE history assignment. But the conversation strayed off the Great War reparations that ultimately led to World War Two on to the cold war that had engulfed their families.

‘It’s miserable here,’ said Izzy.

‘Same here,’ Sophie admitted.

‘I wish there was some way for us to get our parents to talk to each other again. I don’t mind about the transplant. I really don’t. I wouldn’t want to give my kidney to someone I hardly know either.’

‘But we do know you. You’re family.’

‘I do feel like you and me are part of the same family,’ said Izzy.

Sitting at her computer in Coventry, Sophie blushed with pride.

‘Yeah. Cousins for ever,’ Sophie said. ‘No matter what the grown-ups are doing, we’ll always be friends. What are you doing for Christmas?’

‘We’ll be here. We were supposed to go skiing this year but with my kidneys and Mum’s bump, there’s no chance. So Gran will come over and it will be just the four of us and Leander. Mum’s not even doing her usual Christmas cocktail party. Though I can’t pretend I’ll miss that. How about you?’

‘Normally we’d be at Grandma and Granddad’s but since Mum’s not talking to Grandma, that’s the end of that. It’s Jack I feel sorry for. He doesn’t really understand why Grandma isn’t coming round any more. They don’t want to tell him about the transplant thing. Don’t want to scare him. He really worries about you being ill though. He did a talk about you at school.’

‘Wow. I wish I’d seen that.’

‘You’d have liked the pictures he drew. You looked like a cross between Peppa Pig and Miss Hooley off
Balamory
.’

‘Accurate then.’

‘He says he wants to do a sponsored walk for you.’

‘That is so sweet. I hope that this little brother or sister I’m getting in the new year will be half as lovely.’

‘How are you doing? You said you were having some more tests this week. Some check-up?’

‘It went OK. As well as can be expected.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Actually, it was shit. Apparently, I’m getting worse.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Nope.’

Izzy outlined the issues that had shown up during the latest round of tests.

‘Do you feel OK?’ Sophie asked.

‘I just feel tired. It pisses me off that it’s Christmas and there are loads of parties I would normally have gone to with my mates and instead I’m just stuck here at home, sat in front of the TV with Mum and Dad, who are treating me really weirdly since the last hospital visit. They’re constantly watching me, like they think I haven’t got much longer. It’s spooky.’

‘But it’s not that bad, is it? I mean, you haven’t been told you’ve only got a few months to live or something like that? You would tell me.’

‘I’ll make it through Christmas,’ Izzy said dramatically. ‘And apparently they always do loads of transplants around New Year. People have more accidents when they’ve been out drinking.’

‘Grim.’

‘I know. Fuck, Sophie. If I had known this time last year how my life would pan out, I would have done things so differently. You’ve got to promise me that you won’t waste a single day. I want you to live your life to its absolute fullest. Don’t waste time. Get the grades. Get out of the Midlands. See the world! I want you to send me postcards from the four corners of the earth while I’m stuck here on this bloody machine.’

‘You won’t be stuck on it for ever. We’ll go travelling together,’ said Sophie.

‘Don’t wait for me. Don’t wait for anyone.’

‘What? Not even Harrison Collerick?’

‘Swipe left!’ Izzy laughed.

Once she had finished her Skype conversation with Izzy, Sophie remained at her desk, looking at the screen of her laptop as if for inspiration. Though they’d had a laugh talking about Sophie’s terrible taste in blokes and subsequently concocting a strategy to make sure she got to snog someone worth bothering about under the mistletoe, Sophie knew that the joking was all bravado. She could tell that Izzy was afraid.

Before she met Izzy, Sophie hadn’t given much thought to mortality. Death was something that happened to old people, though Granddad Bill just seemed to go on and on. He would almost certainly make it to a hundred so long as he kept on belching his way through the songbook. Sophie would certainly miss Granddad Bill’s wind version of ‘Silent Night’ if her mum didn’t make it up with Jacqui before Christmas Day. But talking to Izzy had made Sophie thoughtful. Her ‘seize the day’ speech was meant to be uplifting but to Sophie it felt sad. Too much like a farewell.

The following evening, Sophie had volunteered to babysit Jack while Mark and Ronnie went to Ronnie’s office Christmas party. They were expecting a good evening. Apparently no one parties quite like undertakers. They’re all about seizing the day.

Sophie had hoped that Jack would be sufficiently occupied by Minecraft that she wouldn’t really have to do much at all but he wandered into her bedroom while she was Skyping Izzy again. He wanted to talk to her too.

‘Hey, Jack,’ said Izzy. ‘How’s my favourite cousin?’

‘I thought I was your favourite,’ Sophie laughed.

‘How could I resist lovely Jack with his chubby cheeks?’

Jack beamed at the camera on Sophie’s computer so that his chubby cheeks filled the whole of Izzy’s screen.

‘What have you been up to?’ Izzy asked.

Jack launched into a very long-winded description of his recent adventures in Minecraft. Neither Izzy nor Sophie could follow it but they let Jack carry on.

‘Am I going to see you at Christmas?’ Jack asked.

Izzy shook her head.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why not?’ Jack asked.

‘It’s to do with our mums,’ Izzy told him. ‘They’re not friends any more.’

‘But what did they argue about?’

‘Grown-up things,’ Izzy said.

But Sophie, full of teenage righteousness, no longer saw why Jack needed to be kept in the dark.

‘Our mum was going to give Izzy one of her kidneys,’ she said plainly. ‘So that she wouldn’t be on dialysis any more.’

Izzy shook her head. ‘Don’t,’ she mouthed.

Jack looked to his sister for more information.

‘But Mum didn’t want to do it because she’s scared. And Auntie Annabel was angry because it really needs to be someone in the family who gives Izzy a kidney otherwise it won’t work. And she’s worried that Izzy won’t get the kidney she needs and she’ll get much more ill as a result.’

Jack frowned.

‘It’s all right, Jack. There’s no need to look worried,’ said Izzy. ‘I’m OK. I’ll find a new kidney somewhere.’

‘But someone from the family has to give it to you,’ Jack recapped. He still looked worried.

‘Well, that’s sort of the ideal. But it’s not the only way. Sophie, what have you started? Let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about
Doctor Who
! Are you looking forward to the Christmas special, Jack?’

Fortunately, Jack was instantly distracted from the confusing business of Izzy’s kidneys. There was nothing better than talking about
Doctor Who.
The cousins speculated as to what treats the Christmas episode might hold, then Jack went off to find his sonic screwdriver so that he could act out part of the trailer for Izzy.

While Jack was gone, Izzy said, ‘You shouldn’t have told him that stuff about the kidney transplant, Soph.’

‘Isn’t it better that he knows the truth?’

‘Yeah, but he’s not old enough to understand it.’

‘He’ll have forgotten by tomorrow.’

‘I hope so. I don’t want to give him nightmares.’

‘I’d do it, you know,’ said Sophie then.

‘What?’

‘Give you one of my kidneys. We’re cousins. It would be a good match.’

‘You’re too young.’

‘I’m not. There’s no minimum age for donors in the UK except in Scotland. And I’ll be sixteen soon anyway. If anyone tried to stop me, it wouldn’t stand up in court.’

‘Sophie, you can’t. But thank you.’

‘If nothing else comes up, I’m serious.’

‘You’re nuts.’

Jack bounced back in with his sonic screwdriver.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, tonight I’m going to be Doctor Who.’

Because Ronnie wasn’t talking to Jacqui, she needed to have someone else to offload on. Mark was no good. He’d never understand the office politics or the personal slights that occupied his wife’s psyche. Chelsea would have to do instead. But Chelsea wasn’t being terribly good as a stand-in.

When she saw Ronnie’s number on the screen of her phone, Chelsea didn’t pick up the first time. Or the second. Or the third.

Ronnie texted.

Are you still in bed? Call me.

Chelsea called back. She knew she sounded as though she had flu. But Ronnie didn’t bother to ask if that was the case. She launched straight into a rant about Annabel, reading out the letter she’d sent in a wheedling, nasty voice.