which should have been a clue. I should have seen this coming. But then, I never bloody do.
So I spent last night in a drunken sobbing haze, barely slept at all and then missed my alarm. Now I’m driving like a maniac, feeling heartsick and hungover, to get over to Mum and Dad’s before 1 p.m. so I can prove to them that I’m not their most useless child. Poor old childless single Lou, turning up at Christmas on her own – again.
The drive from London down to Surrey is depressing beyond belief. The roads are mainly empty – everyone is clearly already with their families – and the sight of everyone’s Christmas trees and garden lights makes me feel miserable. It feels like everybody else is celebrating and having a good time, whereas my world has just collapsed.
My phone has been buzzing furiously the whole time I’ve been driving across London – so when I pull in at a traffic light, I stop to look at it. Three messages from Beth.
OMG!!! Ged’s girlfriend is pregnant, says the first.
Followed by, Mum’s crying in the kitchen and Dad’s ignoring it all.
The last one says GET YOUR BUTT HERE NOW. I CAN’T COPE.
Great. All I bloody need. A new baby in the family, and not one provided by me. I know by the time I get there, Mum will have come round to the good news and turned it into a positive. Ged can do no wrong in her eyes; Mum doesn’t half cut him some slack. And while she won’t be ecstatic about having a grandchild out of wedlock, I don’t doubt that within seconds she’ll be talking about knitting cardigans. After the grief I’ve heard over the years about her only having two grandchildren, I can’t see her being put out for long. Great. She’s given that one up of late; this will give her another excuse to pressurise me about babies.
The lights go green but my foot on the accelerator doesn’t move; I’m lost in a world of my own. I didn’t want to go today anyway. I’d much rather be curled up under the duvet in a miserable state, but if I missed Christmas I’d never have heard the end of it. But now? I’ve always wanted children. Ged never has, and Beth always says that domesticity and family life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be – which seems damned ungrateful to me. She’s so lucky to have her kids. It’s not bloody fair. Why do I have to be the one on my own? I might never get to have babies.
Tears start spilling down my cheeks, and suddenly I’m sobbing on the wheel, my car engine off. This is terrible. I can’t turn up like this.
There’s a knock on my car window, and I look up to see a policeman.
‘Are you all right, madam?’ he asks as I roll my window down. ‘Only you seem to be causing a bit of an obstruction.’
I look behind me. Oh shit, somehow I’ve caused a mini traffic jam out of the only ten cars driving in London today, and got the attention of the one policeman who seems to be at work.
‘Sorry, officer,’ I say through my sniffles, and turn the engine back on.
‘Cheer up,’ he says, ‘it’s Christmas.’
I wipe the tears from my cheeks.
‘Yeah, that’s the problem,’ I say as I drive away.
Christmas. The time to be happy and jolly. The time to be with your friends and family. The time to have that special someone in your life and hold them close. I’ve never felt less like celebrating in my life.
Daniel
Daniel was sitting on the sofa, making polite conversation with Ged’s new girlfriend, Rachel. She’d been introduced to the family and ushered into the lounge, while his mother-in-law, Mary, had called Ged into the kitchen for a not very subtle conflab. Beth had been dragged in too, but her dad, Fred, seemed determined to rise above the drama. He was sitting next to the Christmas tree, knocking back the Prosecco like it was going out of fashion. He seemed in a very strange mood. Daniel might have expected some reaction to the news of an impending grandchild, but he seemed to be totally oblivious to it.
The kids, meanwhile, found it hilarious. They were keeping a lid on it, but he could tell they were Snapchatting the odd comment to each other by the way that every so often they’d both burst into fits of giggles for no apparent reason. He shot them a warning look, but luckily, Rachel didn’t seem to notice.
She was very beautiful and at least ten years younger than Ged. Daniel hoped she knew what she was getting into. Ged didn’t exactly have a good track record with women. He had left a string of broken hearts behind him, and Daniel had lost count of the hours Beth had spent counselling Ged’s ex-girlfriends over the years.
‘So where did you two meet?’ he asked politely, trying to put Rachel at ease. The poor girl understandably looked a bit shell-shocked. Ged presumably hadn’t warned her that his parents might not be too thrilled to discover they were going to be grandparents straight away.
‘Oh.’ Her face lit up. ‘It was at the Full Moon party in Thailand. It was full of utter losers, and then there was Ged being the perfect gentleman.’
I bet he was, thought Daniel, but smiled and said, ‘That sounds great.’
Rachel carried on about what a wonderful time they’d had together, first in Thailand, then going on to Singapore and Bali before visiting her parents in Australia. ‘I fell pregnant in Bali,’ she confided. ‘So romantic.’
‘Well, congratulations,’ said Daniel. ‘I bet your parents are pleased?’
‘Oh, they’re thrilled,’ said Rachel. ‘Mum’s a bit annoyed with me for coming over here to have the baby, but I just want to be wherever Ged is, and he wanted to come home. He was so excited about the baby, he wanted to tell everyone.’
Really? Daniel wondered if Ged had changed his mind on that one. But knowing Ged, he wouldn’t have thought any of this through.
It was getting on for 1 p.m. and for once it didn’t look like the turkey would be ready in time. Daniel could hear slightly raised voices in the kitchen, and wondered whether he should go and smooth over troubled waters. He was about to get up when the doorbell rang and in rushed Lou: breathless, late, and looking suspiciously like she’d been crying. Oh no, poor Lou, what had happened now? Daniel was fond of his sister-in-law, but she always seemed to pick the wrong men when it came to her love life. This time he’d thought she and Joe, the mysterious new partner she’d met in the spring, were really going places. She’d been so happy last time she’d been over to see Beth and Daniel, and they’d both hoped it would work out for her. They’d asked to meet Joe several times, but Lou had always put them off. Now it looked like another one had bitten the dust, and they’d never get that chance.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she burst out, ‘traffic was mayhem.’
‘Are you late?’ Fred looked up, seemingly a bit befuddled. He stood up to greet his daughter, and staggered a bit, nearly falling back into his seat. Daniel frowned. Fred normally liked a drink on Christmas Day, but Daniel had never known him to be pissed before.
There was a shriek from the kitchen, followed by a massive crash.
Daniel and Lou immediately leapt up and ran into the kitchen to see what was going on, the kids following on close behind, only to find Mary in hysterics with the turkey lying
