sitting beside her on the sofa and felt a little bit sick.
That doll had been on her Christmas wish list, not Gemma’s. Mummy must have got mixed up somehow. But Daddy said Mummy was a bit sad at the moment, and it made her do strange things.
Gemma stopped brushing the doll’s hair and looked up. ‘When’s dinner?’ she asked. ‘I’m hungry.’
Juliet looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It said ten past four. She was hungry too. Christmas lunch should have been hours ago. She wanted to go and ask Daddy, but last time she’d ventured into the kitchen he’d been hunched over the table, crying softly.
‘Soon,’ she told Gemma, trying to smile.
Her sister nodded and returned to fussing with her doll. Juliet just sat there, feeling even sicker.
After a few moments, Gemma stood up and picked up the doll. ‘I’m going to go and show Mummy what I’ve done with Georgina’s hair,’ she said.
Juliet jumped off the sofa and stood in the doorway. This is what she’d been dreading. ‘Not right now,’ she told Gemma softly. ‘Mummy had to go out for a bit.’
Gemma’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, but she didn’t question her older sister’s words. That was because she was five. Juliet was nine and she was a big enough girl to know the truth. Daddy had said so. He’d also said Gemma was too little, that she wouldn’t understand, and that it was Juliet’s job to make sure she didn’t find out.
A sudden image of her mother running from the house, raw stuffing still clinging to her fingers, then jumping into the car and driving away left Juliet feeling breathless and shaky, but Gemma glanced back up at her, eyes so large and trusting, and she covered it all over with a smile.
‘Is she coming back soon?’ her sister asked, only half-interested in Juliet’s answer as she started twisting the doll’s hair, attempting her own five-year-old version of a plait.
Juliet kept smiling, even though it felt like her insides were being sucked into a big dark hole.
‘Yes,’ she said, and blinked back the moisture that had gathered in the corner of her eyes.
She bent down a little bit so she was on Gemma’s level. ‘If you want, I’ll show you how to plait Georgina’s hair
properly, and then you can show Mummy when she comes home.’
Gemma threw her arms round Juliet’s neck and squeezed her hard. ‘You’re such a good big sister, Juliet! I love you.’
People liked Gemma the best because she was cute and ‘bubbly’. Juliet didn’t know exactly what that meant, but she suspected it meant not shy and nervous, like she was. Sometimes she wished Gemma was different, but right now she understood why people liked it when her little sister directed all that enthusiastic affection at them.
She was a good big sister, wasn’t she? And she would keep on being a good big sister, the best she could be.
She sat down cross-legged on the carpet and Gemma sank down beside her. Juliet took the doll and with a frown of concentration began to braid its hair. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘this is how you do it …’
And once she’d shown Gemma, she let her have a go too. And while her sister chatted and plaited, her chubby little fingers almost tying themselves in knots, Juliet glanced towards the living-room door.
Maybe while Gemma was busy she ought to go and see if Daddy needed help cooking the dinner. Somebody had to do it. And she didn’t know if Mummy was ever coming back.
Juliet stopped and let the shoppers flow round her as she reached into her handbag and pulled out her Christmas notebook. She got a rush of warmth, of comfort, every time she picked it up, and this occasion was no different. She smiled as she looked at the pretty botanical print of poinsettia on the cover.
Other people had Christmas wish lists, but Juliet didn’t go in for wishing much these days. Wishing didn’t get you anywhere. If things were going to be perfect, you needed to plan, make lists, research. Juliet was very keen on making Christmas perfect, and this book was her road map, her shining beacon in the midst of all the festive chaos. It was diary, organiser, address book and To Do list all rolled into one, and once November came around it hardly left her side. She flipped it open and quickly found the page with today’s shopping list, marked with a colourful sticky tag.
Ah, yes.
Glacé cherries for the Rudolph cupcakes she’d promised to make for the Christmas Fayre, cinnamon sticks and cloves for mulling apple juice after the church carol service, two more rolls of Sellotape and a metre of red velvet ribbon.
She slid her book carefully back into her bag and began to dart through the Christmas shoppers with nimble ease, spotting gaps before they properly appeared, judging who was going to keep moving and who was going to stop and marvel at the pretty Christmas lights.
And marvel they should. Juliet was very proud of her hometown, and Tunbridge Wells was at its prettiest this time of year. No wonder so many of the supermarket chains and department stores filmed their big-budget Christmas adverts here every October. The Pantiles was the location of choice – one of the town’s oldest streets with its Victorian and Georgian buildings, its little shops nestling beneath the two-hundred-year-old colonnade. White lights hung between the white pillars and twisted round the branches of the trees that ran down the centre of the paved street, and every shop window was immaculately decorated with greenery and tempting Christmas fare. The scent of mulled wine and roasting chestnuts drifted from the traders in the market.
But Juliet really didn’t have time to stop and stare, to marvel or smell anything this afternoon. Her Christmas notebook was calling to her from inside her bag, tugging at her consciousness, reminding her of all the unticked boxes on her To Do list that were waiting hungrily to be filled.
She glanced at the old-fashioned clock mounted above one of the boutiques. Ten past two, and she had to be at the boys’ school by three twenty. Once she’d got her shopping, she needed to post a parcel for her elderly neighbour and then she’d just about have enough time to dash to the butchers and order the turkey.
That lovely plump bird was the linchpin to Christmas dinner. Crossing off that item would start a chain reaction throughout her To Do list, leaving it awash with little ticks. The thought made her slightly giddy. However, she was distracted from the image of all of those satisfied little boxes by strains of ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ belting out from inside her handbag.
Gemma?
Juliet stopped walking and rummaged for her mobile.
Not Gemma.
Just St Martin’s primary, sending out an all-parent alert that head lice were rife in the school again. Great. With four heads to check she’d be spending the whole evening with a nit comb in her hand. A complete time suck. Just what she needed at the moment.
She closed the message and searched the
