Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes (14 page)

The following weeks flashed by in a blur and before I knew it, the festive season was upon us. Everything was about Christmas and razzle-dazzle. Lizzie and I went shopping for Grace’s presents and for a little while, among the glitter and the Christmas music, I almost forgot about Tom and
her
. We chose some Christmas cards together and as Lizzie pondered over different Christmas scenes I spotted a glittery, red card with the picture of a cosy log fire on the front and ‘To My Loving Husband at Christmas’ written in red glitter. I looked at Lizzie, “Tom’s loving,” I said, waving the card in the air, “he’s loving someone else!” Then my eyes filled with tears and the card became a blur.

She smiled and gave me a hug; “He’s a stupid idiot. You really need to decide what you want to do babe,” she said handing me a tissue.

I was living on a knife-edge as he still didn’t know I knew. I felt helpless but in a strange way, I was ultimately the one with the power to light the touch-paper that would urge us all forward into an unknown future. Things had happened that I hadn’t wanted or planned but knowing still gave me that modicum of control. It was pretty scary to know that it was down to me and that, at any time, I could press the nuclear button.

So many times I’d almost done it. One evening, we were having a Christmas dinner party with friends and as we ‘worried’ about A Qaeda and enthused about the chocolate mousse, I thought,
I could say it now. I could suddenly announce over the coffee and homemade star-topped mince pies that my husband is shagging another woman
. I thought about it as we drove home and looking over at Tom it was on the tip of my tongue to say ‘who’s Rachel?’ but I shuddered with fear and looked away, seeking sanctuary through the curtain of rain at the car window. I just couldn’t bring myself to set in motion a whole cataclysmic process of events that would change our lives forever.

And then it was Christmas Eve. Mum came to visit early in the morning. She was dropping off our presents on her way to the airport; she’d decided to spend Christmas in Norway with Beryl.

 “We’re going to watch the Northern Lights from a roof-top Jacuzzi,” she announced, over a large slice of Christmas cake.

“Well I don’t blame you Mum – it sounds more fun than sleeping in our spare room and spending Christmas Day watching satellite reruns of
Only Fools and Horses
.” We both smiled. It wouldn’t be the same without Mum and I wondered what the hell Tom and I would find to talk about, locked in the house with Del Boy and a giant tin of Quality Street for two whole days. I was aching to tell her about Tom’s text and ask what she thought I should do – but Grace had joined us for cake so I kept it light. We talked about the past and giggled about family Christmases and how every Boxing Day Gran would get tipsy on Snowballs, insisting they weren’t alcoholic whilst sliding slowly off her chair. Mum and I told Grace about the handmade
Blue Peter
decorations we’d made one Christmas when I was little; “They looked like alien spaceships but your mother insisted on putting them all over the house,” Mum told her; “she was about your age Grace. It seems like yesterday.”

When Mum left, Grace and I waved goodbye on the step and I thought about how hard Mum and Dad had worked for all those years to make Christmas special for me. Mum shopped and cooked and baked and Dad worked overtime, yet it all appeared like magic in the morning and I ripped sparkly paper and squealed with delight at a new doll or selection box crammed with chocolate bars. I thought about Grace’s first Christmas and her bemusement at all the presents and food and attention. We’d bought her a big plastic car to ride in – she was far too young but Tom and I couldn’t wait. We’d laid her in it and while I held on to her he had pushed her carefully round the living room, beaming all the while.

Closing the door, I suddenly felt all the Christmases I’d ever known, rushing in and drowning me with tinsel and love and laughter.
What was going to happen next? Would Tom and I still be together next Christmas? Did I want to be with him a year from now, knowing what I knew?
Telling Grace I needed the bathroom, I ran into the downstairs toilet and locking myself in I quietly sobbed and sobbed for the past, until there were no tears left.

After a short while, I decided to pull myself together and finish wrapping the last of the presents. I climbed into the messy spare room and began pulling out boxes and wrapping paper. Just touching the smooth pattern on my matching metallic paper and glittery silver bows cheered me up a little. For Grace’s presents, I’d bought pink and blue paper with angels and scattered snowflakes and I gathered the rolls together with the gifts and sticky tape and started to wrap. Folding the corners and ripping at tape with my teeth I thought that although my marriage may have been in deep trouble, Christmas was coming and I needed to rally for Grace. I spotted my dusty old stereo in the corner and joy of joys, an old Johnny Mathis CD was nestling inside. I continued wrapping to the sound of
The Little Drummer Boy
.

The music was soothing and reminded me that this really could be a wonderful time of year. I started to wonder if things were really as bad as I thought they were. Perhaps there was an innocent explanation after all and I had got things horribly wrong in my own head? I was running out of paper and as I stumbled over near to the window to get more I heard Tom’s voice coming from the garden. I was surprised to hear him; he must have come back from work early. At first I thought he was chatting to the next-door neighbour but then I stopped dead in my tracks with a handful of gold ribbon and reindeer wrapping when I heard the softness in his voice.

It was the voice he used for Grace, the one he used to use for me. Grace wasn’t there, so I clambered over tinsel and presents and very, very carefully opened the window. I gasped as the icy air blasted into the room and almost whipped the window from my grasp. I grappled with it then slowly, and as quietly as possible, placed it on the latch. I was sure he must have heard and I held my breath. For a while he seemed to go quiet. I crouched down by the window so if he looked up he wouldn’t see me. A piece of holly was digging into my thigh but the sharp, prickling pain was weirdly reassuring.

After what seemed like ages, but was probably only a few seconds, he started talking again. My face was hot and itchy despite the chilly blast coming through the open window. “I miss you too,” I heard, “I know, I know but we have to wait… after Christmas... Can’t do it to Gracie…”

My heart was in my mouth and my stomach had turned upside down. I was about to explode with hurt and tears and anger, but in a flash the fog of the last few weeks cleared and the truth stared me in the face in the fading December light: it was true – everything I had imagined and probably more. I couldn’t move, rooted to the spot under the window, with the cold air blasting through my hair. It wasn’t just what he was saying, it was the way he was saying it. The tone of his voice took me back through the years to when we first met, filled with kindness, softness and sex. Suddenly I knew that there was no way back from this. And there, under the window, crouching like a wounded animal in the reindeer wrapping and tinsel, my heart split in two.

There was nothing to hide behind now. What I had heard had removed all doubt, all other possibilities and had left me with only one option: I would have to face Tom. But I couldn’t say anything on Christmas Eve, surely? I couldn’t do that to Grace. So instead that afternoon, I found myself making festive mince tarts. I grabbed the flour from the cupboard and desperately creamed it into lard and butter, my knuckles white and my head spinning. Suddenly, white-hot anger seared through my brain.
That Bastard. How can he do this to me?
Throwing the doughy wedge onto the flour-topped table I reached for my rolling pin; surely, this would help? Rolling it out with gusto I imagined it was her, Rachel, flattened to the table with my huge wooden rolling pin, again and again – smoothing it over and rubbing her out. But somehow it didn’t help in the way it used to with MJ.

Twisting open the jar of brandy-scented mincemeat sent a whiff of pure Christmas to my nostrils and reminded me of home and Mum. I began to cry as I carefully spooned the sweet, jammy lumps into pastry circles before plunging them into the hot oven. But even the slow drift of warm, cinnamon air that rose from the cooking pastries didn’t make me feel better, so I made another batch. And then another. By 3pm, the tart count was 60 and rising. I knew if I didn’t deal with this Tom problem soon, there was likely to be a European mince-tart mountain emanating from a small town in the Midlands. Added to this, the more anxious and heated I became the more the pastry was suffering at my hot hands. The tarts took on the kind of floppy, warped appearance that would have had Salvador Dali reaching for his easel. I knew I would have to speak with Tom, and soon.

Tom went to collect the turkey from the butcher’s down the road. He did this every Christmas and Grace always made a big fuss like he’d fed, bred and killed the bloody bird himself. It was the perfect Christmas scene, me rolling out pastry for yet more surreal tarts and Grace carefully placing pentangles on the Christmas tree (I told you, there was something of the night about her). We had on our usual Christmas CD and with a huge carrier bag of bird, Tom sauntered in to the tune of
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
, shouting “Ho, ho, ho!”

What a fucking tosser you are
, I thought coldly, vigorously rolling out pastry as he appeared in the kitchen doorway wearing a white beard and a red hat. I ignored him and carried on rolling, with some fierceness now as he stood in the middle of the kitchen.

“Gracie! Santa’s here with the turkey!” he shouted cheerfully. I glanced over at him in the daft hat and the ridiculous white beard waiting for accolades and high-fives from Grace and I thought
How could you? Our lives are hanging in the balance and you’re standing in the kitchen dressed as fucking Father Christmas
.

Apparently very pleased with himself, he proudly offered me the plastic turkey-filled bag. “There you go, Stella. Ho ho ho!”

And to be honest, I’m not sure quite what happened next. All I remember, through a mist of searing mincemeat, brandy and rage is that I couldn’t keep it down any longer. I don’t know where it came from, but I suddenly grabbed at the bird bag, putting all my weight and resentment behind it and swung six kilos of juicy Christmas bird high in the air. I needed to take the fucking smile off Tom’s smug, white-bearded face. Even through the mist I could see a half smile of incredulousness under the cotton-wool beard; he was probably under the impression this was some new festive tribal greeting I’d perhaps picked up from Mum. Even mid-swing I could see a sort of bemused grimace forming just before he ducked but as six kilos of prime turkey meat whipped past his face and came crashing down on his head, I think he realised: I knew.

“Christ Stella!” he said, a trickle of blood running down the side of his face. “I’m...I’m sorry.”

“You should probably go to A&E,” I said flatly.

“Can we talk first?”

“Just get out!” I spat.

He staggered out to the car, holding a Christmas napkin to his head.

Fortunately, Grace had gone upstairs, so had missed the spectacle of ‘Mummy wrapping the Christmas bird round Daddy’s head’.

“Where’s Dad?” She asked as she came back into the kitchen.

“Daddy has fallen over, darling, and he’s gone to see the doctor,” I sniffed, still reeling from the shock of it all. She nodded, satisfied with the explanation – not that she needed one. With her promised gift of ‘Tokyo a Go-Go Bratz Sushi Lounge with Karaoke and Moving Parts’ on the horizon, Grace clearly had more important stuff on her mind.

Whilst Tom was in casualty, I cried and cried and baked more and more mince tarts. “Is mincemeat like onions Mum?” Grace asked as she wandered into the kitchen and saw my tear-stained face. I grabbed some kitchen towel and dabbed at my swollen, red eyes.

“Yes, a bit sweetie. Mincemeat always makes my eyes sting.” Grace nodded and picked up a tart from the still-warm pastry mountain then went into the lounge to watch TV.

Now Tom knew that I knew, something had to happen. We couldn’t go on pretending everything was fine and Grace and I had to face an uncertain future during panto season at the hands of Prince Cheating-Tosser and Bitch Rachel the Wicked soon-to-be-Stepmother.

As the mountain of crumbly sweet pastries continued to rise, my rage slowly turned to despair. If he left us then Christmases, holidays, school fêtes and Sports Days would all be fatherless for Grace. Nocturnal visits from moths and daddy-long-legs, heavy lifting and tuning in the TV would all be husbandless for me. Who was going to unblock drains, put the bins out, push the car and bury dead goldfish?

I wept as I thought about him with her, kissing her like he used to kiss me, telling her his jokes, his hopes and his darkest fears. Worse still, telling her about me, about us. His version. Mind you, on the bright side, this would also be peppered with his hour-long theories on why Test-Cricket is better than One Day and how football’s all about money and not about the game anymore. I thought about all these Tom-things and cried into luxury, brandy-soaked mincemeat. When I finally stopped baking, I started eating. Well, I had a mountain to move.

At about eight o’clock on Christmas Eve, after a seven-hour stint in A&E, Tom came home. This time a rather subdued figure walked through the kitchen door. Wisely, he was without white beard and Santa hat but with bandaged head and mild concussion. He didn’t say ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ this time. Inexplicably, I felt a sudden rush of sympathy for him, standing in the kitchen bandaged amid the Christmas clutter and mince tarts. I walked on wobbly legs towards him and put my arms round his waist. He felt strange, like a new person I hadn’t touched before, suddenly not mine anymore. His outdoor clothes felt chilled in the warm kitchen and I pressed my face against the cool prickly cloth of his coat. I eventually let go and stepped back to look up at him.