Page 2 of Christmas Wishes at Pudding Hall
The question sounded like he was enquiring as to whether she had all her things for a school trip, not the end of the last ten years of their life together.
Christa threw the keys at him from the doorway. He panicked and dropped them. He never was good at ball games – only mental games.
‘As set as a jelly,’ she said and she paused. ‘Okay, well, bye then. Good luck with the show.’
Avian glanced up at Christa and gave her a sliver of a smile while Simon seemed to see something interesting on the floor.
‘Ta,’ he said, and she turned and walked away from the place and person she had poured her heart and soul into, feeling the tears stinging her eyes. She wasn’t enough for Simon. He had used her all those years and traded off her skills and talent and then claimed them as his own.
Outside on the street, she leaned against a wall and took several deep breaths. Ta. He ended their marriage and business with the wordta.
Her stomach churned as she put the heavy bag at her feet, as she tried to focus on her surroundings to keep her present in the moment. For the past twenty years and more, she had thought this feeling would never return. All the work she had done to make sure that her life was shored up so these feelings of anxiety and uncertainty couldn’t find their way aboard. And yet here she was with no job, no direction, and nothing to anchor to now that Simon had pushed her out of the life they’d built together.
She felt the hot flush of shame of not having enough, of not being enough. Just like when she was twelve and she had stood in line at the food bank. Her dad had been sick, coughing all the time and hadn’t worked for a week. She had a list of things they needed but with no money and little in the house, that had been their only option. With a letter from her dad and a shopping bag, she tried to stand tall to give them impression she was older than she looked.
She tried to push the memory away but it insisted on being acknowledged.
It had been cold, just like today…
‘Next,’ said the man at the food bank.
Christa walked towards the door but the man stopped her.
‘Where’s your parent?’
‘He’s sick; he’s at home,’ she said and shoved her hand into her shopping bag. ‘I have a letter from him with his number.’
‘We don’t allow kids to come down on their own. Tell him to come down and you can get what you need.’
Christa started to argue but the man was gesturing to the person behind her.
She turned and walked to the back of the line, feeling tears welling, wondering how she was going to get the food until her dad recovered.
Crying, she hated herself for not being older and being able to get what she needed for them.
She had vowed then to never let this happen to her ever again.
And here she was, thirty-five years old, without a plan or a direction. Simon had been her safety net for so long, she had put up with more than she should have to be secure but at what cost?
She realised that she had put her security into the hands of someone else, and instead she should have woven her own net. Whatever she needed to learn before was back to remind her that she still didn’t get it. That hiding behind Simon was avoidance. And now she had to do the work. She had no one to blame but herself for not standing up to him more, for not insisting on looking at the paperwork, for not owning her talent and asking to be recognised for her contribution to Playfoot’s.
The rush of awareness made her head hurt but it was the clearest thought she’d had in six months. Whatever she was going to do next wasn’t in London and it wasn’t with white tablecloths and a wine list.
She heaved the bag back onto her shoulder and started to walk down the busy street, seeing some of the usual faces who often came to the back door of the restaurant.
‘Hiya, Sam,’ she said to the man in the overcoat and she reached into the heavy bag on her shoulder, pulling out a container of her best chicken stew with rice and vegetables, pressing it into his hands. She had cooked it low and slow and always stirred with a little hope that the people she gave her cooking to would find some care and support.
‘And a little sweet treat for after, because I know you love the lemon slice with coconut.’
Sam smiled a toothless grin at her.
‘You’re a good egg, Chrissy. We’ll miss you.’
Christa felt her eyes prick with tears. ‘I’ll miss you also, Sam.’
‘Here comes Darryl and Allen,’ said Sam and soon Christa had walked up the street and handed out her containers of food, with little care packages of wet wipes, and plastic cutlery, Chapstick and some deodorant, and sanitary items for the women.
It wasn’t much but it was her goodbye present. For ten years she had been feeding the homeless six nights a week from her kitchen door. She would worry about them, and though Simon told her they had choices and were like human seagulls, Christa viewed them as her community and it eased the burden of the waste that she saw in the kitchen.
