all standing in the kitchen staring at her. Violet, in particular, looked a little worried. She was clutching on to Polly, who wasn’t fazed at all, just curious. The boys were young enough to join in and laugh along with her, without really knowing what the joke was about.
She took a steadying breath and smiled at them.
‘What’s up, Mum?’ Vi said, her expression watchful.
Juliet sighed. ‘Nothing. Auntie Gemma just said something really, really funny, that’s all.’
‘It wasn’t a joke,’ Gemma mumbled.
A little hiccup of laughter escaped from Juliet’s lips. ‘I know.’
Gemma put her hands on her hips. ‘I could cook Christmas dinner!’
The expression on her face reminded Juliet of when Gemma had been around two and Juliet seven, and Gemma had refused to wear nappies any more because her big sister didn’t. As always, she’d got her way, and, as always, everyone else had been clearing up the messes for weeks afterwards.
‘It requires not only cooking skills, but organisation and strategic planning,’ Juliet warned. ‘You can’t just get up in the morning and wing it, you know.’
Her sister glowered at her. ‘You have no idea what I do all day when I’m at work, do you? Logistics is my thing. It’s what I do best.’
Juliet did her hardest not to start laughing again. And failed.
The younger kids wandered off now the fun was over and it looked like another spat was brewing. Only Violet stayed to hear the whole thing out. ‘Why are you talking about Auntie Gemma cooking Christmas dinner?’ she asked. ‘You’re not going away, are you?’
That sobered Juliet up pretty quick. ‘No, darling. I’m not.’ She’d thought Vi had been the least upset of all her children when she’d had to break the news they weren’t going to be seeing their father over the Christmas holidays, but maybe she’d allowed herself to be fooled by a bit of teenage bravado. She walked over and hugged her eldest, and Violet even let her. ‘Gemma just made a joke about me going on her beach holiday and her staying here to look after you all. It wasn’t anything serious.’
Gemma huffed out a breath. ‘I said it wasn’t a joke! I was trying to be nice.’
‘You are nice, Auntie Gemma,’ Vi said, peeling one arm away from her mother and inviting her aunt to hug her from the other side. Gemma rolled her eyes, but she didn’t turn her niece down. So Juliet and Gemma stayed like that for a few moments, joined by a fifteen-year-old and almost touching, but as soon as Violet released them, she and Juliet retreated to opposite corners of the kitchen, eyeing each other like boxers in a ring.
Juliet kept staring at Gemma, but used a soothing voice on her daughter. ‘Can you go and check what the boys are up to, Vi? It’s gone awfully quiet, and that usually means trouble.’
Violet looked nervously between her aunt and her mother, then left to check on her brothers.
Gemma lifted her chin. ‘I meant what I said. The offer still stands.’
Juliet shook her head. It felt heavy on her shoulders. ‘I know you did,’ she said wearily, ‘and that’s the saddest thing of all. Because if you really knew me, if you really understood one tiny thing about me, you’d know that I’d never abandon my kids at Christmas.’
Juliet woke up with her face stuck to something smooth and flat. And moist. She poked a finger at the edge of her mouth and discovered she’d been drooling. She blinked a couple of times and tried to make sense of her surroundings. The hard thing beneath her cheek was the kitchen table. The overhead light was on and its harsh glare made her want to close her eyes again, but she pushed her body up with her hands so she was sitting up straight and looked around. A heap of satiny fabric and tinsel lay strewn on the table in front of her.
Oh, yes. Polly’s angel costume.
The last thing she remembered was rubbing her eyes and telling herself just another ten minutes and then she’d crawl upstairs to bed, set the alarm for five thirty and then get up and finish it off in the morning.
She twisted her head to look at the clock on the wall. Ten past two. She moved her jaw, loosening it a little. She was exhausted, but that was hardly surprising. She’d always been pleased all of her children had wanted music lessons, but now she was starting to wonder if it had been such a good idea. Not only was there the inevitable ferrying of her brood to and from those lessons, but Christmas brought a flurry of rehearsals, dress rehearsals and finally the ear-splitting performances themselves.
And then there was the baking, the standing behind trestle tables and handing out glasses of wine poured from boxes that she always seemed to get roped into. She was on the PTA of both her children’s schools, and they didn’t even bother asking if she was going to organise the refreshments each year any more. They just assumed she’d take charge, pull together a rota of willing – and not-so-willing – helpers, wave a magic wand and, hey presto, wine and mince pies, orange squash and Santa-shaped cookies would appear from nowhere.
She linked her hands, straightened her arms above her head and stretched to loosen out the kinks in her spine, before yawning wide and long, and then she stared at the mass of half-finished angel costume on the table in front of her.
She just needed to finish tacking the tinsel round the hem, then make a halo out of a mangled coat hanger and more sparkly stuff and it’d be done. Of course, it should have been finished weeks ago, all ready to go, and it would have been – if she’d known about it. But at teatime, while stuffing her face with pasta and home-made tomato sauce, Polly had enquired loudly where her angel costume was.
‘What angel costume?’ Juliet had replied, her heart racing and an icy sensation washing over her.
‘The one for the carol concert,’ Polly had said and turned her attention to twirling tagliatelle round her fork. ‘Miss Barker gave us all a slip to take home with what we had to wear.’
Juliet stopped washing up and raced to where Polly had thrown her book bag in the hall when she’d come in from school. A quick search revealed two reading books, a host of drawings, an empty crisp packet and a pair of dirty socks. No slip. ‘There’s nothing there, Polls!’ she yelled and marched back into the kitchen, bag in hand as proof.
Polly had shrugged and slurped the last tail of pasta up into her mouth with a smack. ‘Oh,’ she said, totally unfazed. ‘It must still be in the drawer under my desk. Sorry. But I need to be an angel when I sing my solo at the concert tomorrow.’
Juliet had closed her eyes and counted to ten. And then twenty. When, oh when, would these schools learn that giving kids slips of paper to hand to their parents was a disaster waiting to happen? She really wanted to yell at someone, but she clenched her teeth and swallowed the feeling.
‘Never mind,’ she’d said, not as calmly as she’d have liked. ‘It’s fine. I’m sure we can do something with a pillowcase and a bit of tinsel.’
That
