are you going to be doing?’ she asked.
I shrugged. ‘I’m not entirely sure. Probably just helping with the musical arrangements and the singing. I’ve been invited to meet the class tomorrow because they’re starting rehearsals. I’d said I’d go.’
‘Oh, God, poor you.’ Bella cringed. ‘Cue crying tots because they all wanted to be Mary. And a dozen disgruntled shepherds because who wants to wear a tea towel on their head?’
‘Thanks, Bel, because that’s really cheered me up.’
‘Oh, well, it will be light relief after a trip to Heathrow.’ Bella shook her head. ‘Couldn’t he have got the tube or the Express from Paddington?’
I pulled a face. ‘Mum said she needed me to take him. She wasn’t happy about him travelling on his own with luggage.’ I shrugged. ‘He is seventy-five.’
Bella snorted. ‘He’s travelling long haul and jaunting about the States at the other end. I think he would have managed just fine.’
So did I. My dad still runs a mile every day and you’ve never met a fitter, healthier seventy-five year old – he actually looks more like sixty-five – but Mum had used the magic word on me: need.
‘Oh, well, I said I’d do it. And I’ll time it so that I pick him up to give myself enough time to get to the school.’
‘Well, I think the school thing is taking the piss. Surely they can’t make you … Sorry, Laura –’ she turned to her sixteen-year-old daughter ‘– forget I said that. Taking the Michael.’
‘It’s work. I can’t say no,’ I said.
‘Extracting the urine,’ said Laura, suddenly interrupting with a cool stare at her mother before going back to her book, despite having earphones in. She sat at the opposite end of the huge island counter, perched on one of the white stools. Despite the seeming impracticality, what with having three children and a dog, everything was white: the cabinets, the composite material worktop with its touch of glitter and the tiled floors.
Bella went to say something to her eldest daughter and realised it was a waste of time. Laura, with teenage flippancy, now held the book in front of her face, while her two younger sisters, Rosa, eight, and Ella, five going on ninety-five, were both darting around the kitchen in matching lurid pink fairy costumes, throwing pinches of flour into the air and making wishes with fairy dust. At least it wouldn’t show on the floor.
She turned to me. ‘You can say no. Is it part of your contract?’
‘I don’t know but I’m sure there’ll be something in there about reasonable requests to appear on behalf of the LMOC. Like I said, I don’t really have much choice.’
‘You always have a choice,’ said Bella, groaning and rubbing her shoulders. ‘Here, you have a go. Rosa, Ella, stop that now.’ Her mock glare just brought giggles.
I took the mixing bowl from her while she continued. ‘Tell them you’ve got family commitments. We all need you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’ She looked over at the calendar. ‘Thank God Dave will be home for Christmas; this latest contract feels like it’s been forever.’
Her husband, Dave, was a civil engineer who worked on big overseas projects and was currently in Finland building a new bridge.
‘Keep going.’ She nodded at the bowl. ‘I’m really hoping I’ve got it right this year and all the fruit doesn’t sink to the bottom,’ she said, rolling her shoulders as I manfully stirred the thick cake mix.
I looked with longing over at the Kenwood Chef on the side.
‘It’s not the same,’ said Bella, catching me. ‘Christmas cake should always be hand stirred. It’s tradition. And you’re doing a great job.’
‘I thought it should always be baked at the end of October,’ I said, my shoulder twinging with a sharp pinch of pain. We were at the end of November. I pushed the bowl back over the table towards her. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be feeding it with brandy by now? Here, you’ll have to take over; my shoulder hurts and I’ve got a performance tomorrow.’ I wasn’t going to push it for the sake of bloody Christmas cake, especially when I knew from experience that on Christmas Day both sisters would turn up with a cake each, because the recipe made enough mixture for two cakes (and no one in the entire family seemed to have the power to divide by two) which, added to the extra one Mum always gave me, meant I would end up with three un-iced cakes. I wouldn’t mind but the icing was my favourite bit and I’d still be eating it by Easter.
We always had Christmas at Mum’s, even though my Aunt Gabrielle’s place was definitely bigger.
Bella took the bowl back and, with a calculating expression, turned to her daughter. ‘Laura, do you want to have a go? You can make a wish.’
Laura sighed and shook her head. She wasn’t stupid either. ‘Nah, I’m all good.’
‘I thought that was Christmas puddings,’ I said.
‘Was worth a try.’ Bella grinned shamelessly at me. ‘You can make yourself useful and pour us a glass of wine.’
‘OK, but I can only stay for one.’
‘Really? But the girls wanted you to read them a bedtime story, didn’t you, girls?’
I shot her a quick cross look. Low blow, Bel.
‘Yes. Yes. Yes, Aunty Vila,’ said Ella. ‘Jesus’s Christmas Party.’ She was already waving the book in the air and had come around the island to nudge at me in my black dress with her flour-coated tutu.
Then Bella added in a quiet voice, ‘I could really do with half an hour or so to myself.’
‘All right then,’ I said, rolling my eyes at Bella, taking the battered book from Ella.
‘You’ve only got yourself to blame,’ she said. ‘You bought them the book; they love it.’
‘I know,’ I said with a rueful smile as I opened the front page.
I finally escaped from Bella’s at half past eight, having been conned into reading several other stories while, funnily enough, Bella holed herself up in the lounge with another glass of wine to crack through her Christmas card list. I hadn’t even bought mine, let alone started writing them.
‘Which terminal is it, Dad?’ I asked as I spotted the sign for the slip road for Terminals One, Two and Three.
He began fumbling through the travel folder on his knees. ‘Do you know, I’m not sure,’ he said in a chatty, conversational way, completely unmoved by the fact that I needed to make a major directional decision in the next thirty seconds.
‘Do you think you could find out quickly, because if it’s Terminals One, Two or Three I need to come off the motorway in a minute.’
I heard the shuffle of paperwork and
