The 12 Christmases of You & Me Page 9

  ‘You should. It’s pretty good.’

  ‘What happens?’ I reverse out of the parking space and wait to pull out onto the road.

  ‘He travels back in time and changes some stuff, but it messes up his present-day life. Like, really messes it up. I wouldn’t want to go back in time and mess things up so badly I don’t get to marry the love of my life.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ I move out, heading for Lily’s place. She still lives near Mum and Dad, though she’s over in one of the new-builds on the site of the old community centre rather than next door.

  ‘You could go back in time and make sure you marry the love of your life.’ Lily raises her eyebrows at me but I concentrate on the road ahead. ‘Instead of letting him get away.’

  I roll my eyes as I make a right turn. ‘I didn’t let anyone get away.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Lily sing-songs her response, but I don’t bite. When I change the subject back to her hen night, she’s happy to oblige.

  Annabelle – miraculously – has done her homework, even though it isn’t due in until Monday. She’s chilling out (do teenagers still ‘chill out’?) in her room when I get home after dropping Lily off. I ask her if she wants to watch a film – she can choose – but she grunts in response without looking up from her phone. So I’m surprised ten minutes later when she flops down next to me and grabs the remote, navigating her way through Netflix.

  ‘Can we watch Sabrina?’

  ‘The teenage witch or the Harrison Ford film?’

  Annabelle gives me an odd look, somewhere between bewilderment and loathing. ‘The witch version.’

  ‘Fine by me.’

  Annabelle aims the remote at the TV, but she doesn’t press the button yet. ‘I’m not going back to the beginning.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to follow it.’ I used to watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch when I was young, so it’ll be another bit of nostalgia to add to the past two nights’ worth.

  Annabelle presses play and folds her legs up underneath her. I find myself watching her for a moment rather than the TV, marvelling at the young woman she is becoming. She isn’t a little girl any more, and the realisation is shocking even though the evidence has been right there in front of my eyes. Her dark hair is pulled up into a messy bun, exposing her slender neck, and the whites of her eyes are stark against the black liquid liner. When did Annabelle start to wear make-up? I’m about to ask but stop myself, not wanting to ruin this rare moment of closeness. Besides, Jonas wore make-up to express himself when he was Annabelle’s age – maybe this is the same thing?

  I force my eyes away from my daughter and turn to the TV screen. This is not the sparkly teenage witch I remember from my youth. This is something much, much darker and I’m not sure I approve. Again, I stop myself before I say anything to Annabelle, pressing my lips together tightly. I will watch this programme with my daughter and it will be fine.

  My eyes are starting to grow heavy by the time the episode finishes but Annabelle wants to watch one more.

  ‘It is the weekend, Mum.’ She presses the palms of her hands together. ‘Please?’

  ‘Go on then.’ I can’t say I’m enjoying this non-cheesy version of Sabrina, but it is nice to spend time with my daughter without any bickering. Grabbing another cushion, I settle down against the arm of the sofa, fighting a yawn as the next episode starts. I’ll close my eyes for a few seconds, just to refresh them…

  I wake with a start, but I’m no longer on the sofa watching a gothic Sabrina. I’m not in my bed – or any bed. I’m standing in a café, a mop in hand, with ‘Christmas Wrapping’ playing from a radio on a shelf behind the counter.

  THIRTEEN

  I look around me, taking in the wood-panelled walls and the triple row of tables and chairs bolted to the floor, each with a set of plastic bottles containing tomato ketchup and brown sauce with gloopy dollops congealing around the spouts. There are blackboards lining the walls displaying breakfast and lunch menus as well as daily specials. Today, the soup of the day is minestrone.

  There’s a counter at the back of the café with a refrigerated display unit stuffed with cakes and cans of pop. The shelves behind the counter are crammed with cups, glasses, tea- and coffee-making things and all other sorts of crap, and there’s an air of griminess sticking to the whole place that even the tinsel strung in every conceivable place can’t mask.

  ‘Maisie? Are you mopping that floor or not? The rush is about to start so stop looking so gormless and get on with it, will you?’

  Oh, no. I don’t even need to turn around to see the owner of the voice. That was the unmistakable screech of Val Stevenson. Of all the places I had to return to, this would be bottom of my list of preferences.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’

  I hear the squeak of Val’s grey pumps on the floor. The pumps didn’t used to be grey but everyday wear in the grimy café has taken its toll. ‘What is wrong with you, girlie?’

  ‘Sorry.’ I don’t look at Val as she approaches, instead concentrating on the terracotta vinyl flooring as I swish the mop back and forth. If I look at Val, it’ll be true. I’ll be back working at Val’s Café on Kingsbury Road and I really, really don’t want to be back there.

  ‘That’s it. Put your back into it.’ In my peripheral vision, I see Val flop onto one of the nearby chairs but I shift so she’s behind me. If I close my eyes tight and wish really, really hard, will I wake up on my sofa? It didn’t work when I was trapped in 1995 for over a week, but I’m desperate.

  ‘You’re going to wear a hole in the floor if you carry on like that.’ I hear the scratch of a lighter behind me. ‘Move it along, girlie. I want you to mop the whole floor, not just those three inches. Honestly.’ Val tuts and I hear the scratch again. I take a peek behind me – slowly, and through squinted eyes so it doesn’t count – and see Val trying to light the cigarette hanging from her puckered lips. Shaking the lighter, she gives it another go and is successful this time. She inhales deeply before tipping back her head and letting out a plume of smoke. ‘Come on, girlie. Chop chop!’ She claps her hands loudly before taking another drag.

  I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Val reaches for the little metal ashtray sitting next to the congealing bottle of tomato ketchup. A quick scan of the premises reveals there is a little ashtray on each table. Of course there is. Although I’m gobsmacked right now, back then I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid at seeing somebody smoking indoors, in a food establishment.

  ‘What am I actually paying you for?’ Val flicks the ash off the end of her cigarette, missing the ashtray and sending ash fluttering onto the table, glaring in my direction. ‘Because I don’t have to pay you, you know. I could pay somebody else instead. Someone who actually does the thing I’m paying them to do. Like mopping the bleeding floor before the lunchtime rush.’ Val’s voice has increased in volume and screechiness with every word, and she’s gasping for breath by the time she’s finished. I wonder what would happen if I let Val fire me. Or, better, if I were to walk out myself. Because I loathed this job the first time round and I don’t think I’m going to enjoy it this time either. And it isn’t like I have to think about Lily’s butterfly effect thing; nothing major in my life ever occurred in Val’s greasy spoon café. I could find a job somewhere else, somewhere where the floor doesn’t have a permanent stickiness to it no matter how vigorously you mop. I’m sure the past Maisie would thank me for it.

  ‘Give me that.’ Val heaves herself up from her seat and snatches the mop out of my hand. ‘Customer.’ She shoves the cigarette in her mouth before attacking the floor with the mop. When she whacks the side of my foot, I’m sure she does it on purpose.

  ‘Maisie McNamara!’ My name being called from across the room takes my attention away from Val’s vicious mopping, and I can’t help smiling when I see Aaron squeezing his way along the narrow gap between the tables towards me. ‘I didn’t know you worked here. I’m over at Westerly’s.’ He scrunches his nose up. ‘Cleani
ng coaches is shit.’

  Cleaning a grungy caff isn’t paradise either, but I don’t tell Aaron this. Val is right there, listening as she swishes the mop over the ingrained grime, spilling ash periodically.

  ‘I think I’ve seen you around college.’ Aaron throws himself down onto the chair nearest the counter. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Really good. It’s better than Westgate, anyway.’ I’m in a half-squat, ready to sit down opposite Aaron, when I catch Val glaring at me. I straighten and rummage in the pocket of the hideous tabard Val made me wear over my clothes.

  ‘God, yeah. No Stewie breathing down our necks, and I have a free period first thing on a Friday so I get a lie-in.’

  Val coughs behind me, and it has nothing to do with the cigarette still dangling from her lips.

  ‘What can I get you?’ I pull the little pad and chewed-up pencil from my pocket, watching Val out of the corner of my eye.

  ‘I’m meeting somebody, so I’ll wait until she gets here, if that’s okay?’

  My eyes slide to Val, who’s poking the mop half-arsed under a table. ‘Sure. Give me a shout when you’re ready.’

  Val hands me the mop, but snatches it back again when the door opens and a bouquet of bags attached to a body stumbles into the café. The bags spread out once they’re through the doorway and a harassed-looking woman lurches in, carrying them. Is this who Aaron’s meeting? It isn’t his mum, but maybe an aunt I haven’t met?

  ‘The shops are manic.’ She puffs a breath upwards, lifting the sweaty fringe from her forehead. ‘Why does everyone leave Christmas shopping until the last minute?’ She shakes her head and dumps her bags on the nearest table. ‘I need a coffee, quick as you can. And a mince pie.’

  I look at Aaron, who doesn’t seem to recognise her. Not his aunt then.

  ‘Maisie.’ Val hisses my name, and I start.

  ‘Sorry.’ I shove the notepad and pencil in my pocket. ‘I’m on it.’

  Luckily, I don’t have to remember how to use a fancy coffee machine, because there isn’t one, just a yellowing plastic kettle and a jar of instant. I’m placing the festive shopper’s order down on the table when the door opens again and a young woman bounces in, her high ponytail swinging with each springy step like an American cheerleader on TV. She heads straight for Aaron, stooping to kiss him on the cheek before she sits down opposite, taking his hands in hers across the table. My stomach starts to itch, as though it’s filled with wriggling worms trying to find their way out. This isn’t right. Aaron shouldn’t be holding hands with her.

  ‘Maisie.’ Val is right behind me, hissing in my ear. ‘Serve the bloody customers.’

  I’m utterly exhausted. It feels as though the stuffing has been beaten out of me and my leaden, aching feet are struggling to support my jellied legs. I’ve somehow survived the lunchtime rush and have just waved off the stragglers, collapsing against the door as I close it behind them. How could I have forgotten the pure fatigue of waitressing? I stuck with this job for two years while studying for my A levels and I want to weep for my poor past self. She deserves a pat on the back. And a foot rub. Lots and lots of foot rubs.

  ‘Are you going to stand gawping out of the window all day? Or are you going to make a start on the washing-up before Father Christmas rocks up for his mince pie?’

  Val’s glaring at me, cigarette dripping ash onto the floor, and I wonder what would happen if I dragged the door open and walked away instead of hauling my broken carcass towards the mountain of dishes in the kitchen? If I am in the past (unlikely as that is) and I quit this job, what would happen to my future self? I can’t imagine there’d be a huge change to my life – it isn’t as though I’ve made a career out of waitressing in Val’s greasy café.

  ‘Do you know what, Val?’ I push myself away from the door, trying not to wince as the movement makes me ache even more.

  ‘What?’ Val grabs a bottle of brown sauce from a nearby table and examines the neck before using the front of her tabard to wipe off a gloopy string. She returns the bottle to the table, the gloop hanging from her tabard like a slug, and takes a long drag on her cigarette. She watches me as she exhales, waiting for me to elaborate. I open my mouth, the words of my escape already forming, but the door swings open, almost catapulting me across the room.

  ‘Soz.’ Lily’s mouth is downturned as she helps to steady me. ‘Didn’t see you there. You okay?’

  I nod, rubbing vigorously at my arm, which I’m sure sports an imprint of the door handle. Of all the things that have happened lately – the changing photos, my weird double memories – this is the thing that convinces me the most that I’m here in 1996 in the flesh and not dreaming, because that bloody hurt. It’s real, physical pain. My eyes are watering and everything.

  ‘Hey, Val.’ Lily flings her arm around me and my arm smarts even more as she crushes our bodies together. ‘Any chance you can let Maisie go a bit early?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’ Val points her cigarette at the clock on the wall. ‘It isn’t even two yet and we’re open until four today.’

  ‘Come on, Val. Don’t be such a Scrooge. Let Tiny Tim here have a couple of hours off on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘It’s actually Bob Cratchit who’s the overworked…’ I trail off as Lily frowns at me, shaking her head. I hope current-day Lily knows her Dickens a bit more, otherwise the school musical’s going to be a disaster.

  ‘Come on, Val.’ Lily turns her attention back to my boss, pressing the palms of her hands together and fluttering her eyelashes at her. ‘Where’s your Christmas spirit?’

  Val thrusts her thumb back towards the kitchen. ‘Piled up with the stack of pots awaiting Maisie’s attention.’ She sucks hard on the cigarette before stubbing it out in one of the little ashtrays. ‘I’ll tell you what.’ She wipes her hands down her tabard with a sigh. ‘Because it’s Christmas, I’ll let you go early. But.’ She holds up a nicotine-yellow finger. ‘You have to do the washing-up first.’

  ‘Deal.’ I try not to wince as I hobble towards the kitchen. ‘Thanks, Val.’

  Val shrugs as she rummages in her tabard pocket for her packet of Benson & Hedges. ‘Call it your Christmas bonus.’ She slides a cigarette out of the box and slips it between her lips. It jiggles as she talks. ‘Because you’re not getting any extra cash out of me, Christmas or not.’

  ‘Come on.’ Lily presses her hand between my shoulder blades, propelling me forward. ‘I’ll help you with the washing-up.’

  ‘What’s the rush?’

  Lily leads the way into the kitchen, already pushing the sleeves of her jumper up to her elbows. ‘The grotto closes at three, so get a shift on.’

  The grotto? It takes a moment for the memory to come, mainly because I wasn’t actually there and only heard about it later, but I know what this day is now. This is the Christmas Lily and Jonas had their photo taken with a bemused-looking Santa in the shopping centre – the framed photo has pride of place on Lily’s mantelpiece every Christmas. But although I’d been invited to join them, I’d gone home after my shift at the café so I could study. I was struggling with French and panicking that I’d fail my exams. But I ended up with a B in the end, so I think I can spare an hour to have a bit of fun with my friends this Christmas. A photo with Santa can’t have much effect on the butterflies, or whatever it was Lily was talking about.

  FOURTEEN

  There’s something in the air of the shopping centre as Lily and I step through the revolving door, something physical yet untouchable, a buzz of joy mixed with panic and despair. It’s mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve. Time is running out for those desperate last-minute purchases, and not even ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ blaring out can mask the ticking of the clock. Kids oblivious to their parents’ frenzied state bask in the glory of this most special day, both revelling in the anticipation and wishing it away so the real fun can begin.

  ‘We need to pick Jonas up.’ Lily checks her watch as she power-walks towards the escalator. ‘But it’
s on the way and he should be finishing up any minute.’

  I’d forgotten all about Jonas’s seasonal job at the shopping centre’s wrapping station, so I can’t help laughing when I spot him behind the temporary stand opposite Superdrug, his fingers expertly folding and taping up awkwardly shaped objects. But it isn’t his wrapping skills that give me the giggles (they are so much better than my own, which really are a laughing matter). It’s the elf hat with oversized ears and the twin cherry-red circles painted on his cheeks that amuse me. He looks daft and adorable, and my chest aches just looking at him. How can he no longer be a permanent fixture in my life? How can I stand not talking to him every day?

  ‘It isn’t that funny.’ Lily’s giving me an odd look, and I realise I have a tear worming its way down my cheek. I swallow hard against the lump in my throat and use the sleeve of my jacket to swipe it away.

  ‘Okay, maybe it is.’ Lily grins at me before she pushes ahead, waving her hand above her head. ‘Yo, Elfie! Nice ears, mate.’

  There’s a queue of customers snaking their way past Superdrug but Lily shoves her way to the front and leans on the counter. I can see her chatting away but can’t hear what she’s saying over the rumble of the disgruntled shoppers and Brenda Lee still rocking away. Pushing herself away from the counter, Lily makes her way towards me and drapes an arm around my shoulders. ‘Change of plan. He’s going to meet us at the grotto when he’s finished.’

  Santa’s grotto is up on the second floor, housed in a shed with a roof covered in a sheet of fluffy white cotton wool padding. Red-and-white gingham curtains hang at the window while a white picket fence cordons off the surrounding winter wonderland of mechanical reindeer, workshop elves and Santa’s gift-filled sleigh. Lily and I have been standing in the queue for half an hour and we don’t seem to have moved more than a couple of inches. The bright red post box near Santa’s front door looks discouragingly far away and my feet are throbbing. Hopping from foot to foot isn’t soothing them, though I continue to frequently shift my weight from one to the other.