Page 17 of It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
Kyle had been a surprise hire fromThe Helix’s primary UK rival about six months ago. He and Elle didn’t have the greatest working relationship given that Elle had had her eye on a promotion before Kyle was parachuted in without so much as a cursory job interview. In truth, Ellestillhad her eye on the role.
‘You don’t think this is related to the extra week off in December, do you?’ I asked.
‘I do, yeah. And, seriously, you cannot tell anybody this, but I think jobs are on the line. Lots of jobs. In fact, a skeleton editorial team might be the only thing that survives.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Yeah. Fuck. So, you can see why putting yourself out there now could be a wise move for you, right?’
‘I honestly had no idea things were this bad.’
‘They’re bad, all right. The editorial team’s practically climbing over each other to prove they can create viral content. But, as Kyle reminded us this week, so far our December traffic is even worse than normal. Apparently we’re in desperate need of “festive feels with aHelixtwist”.’
She pretended to be sick. Yet my own nausea was very much genuine. Not only was I at an ever-growing risk of having to write this feature for her, but my job security was plummeting by the minute. I made a mental note to dig out my CV this weekend.
‘Can you now see why I’m basically begging you to do this, for both of us? I know it’s totally out of your comfort zone, but I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t absolutely on my knees here to try and save our jobs. Every original voice and fun idea I can commission at the moment will really help to keep Kyle off my back – especially if it’s got a Christmas angle. And if you make enough of a mark, there’s a chance I could make you a permanent part of the features team.’
I took a long sip of my sloe gin, giving Elle’s tirade the chance to settle in my bloodstream alongside the growing concentration of alcohol. Did I want to become ‘a permanent member of the features team’? No. But did I have any other employment prospects or professional connections whatsoever that I could fall back on in this horrendous job market? Also no. As much as I hated to admit it, writing this article would – at the very least – help to keep my options open if the shit did indeed end up hitting the fan.
‘Jesus, this is a lot to get my head around. Okay, so say I agree to do this – which I haven’t, by the way. What if I didn’t strike the right tone? All your usual writers would put some witty spin on all of this. But going somewhere new would be a big deal for me. And I’d feel really uneasy putting my name to something that could end up hurting the people who actually lived there.’
I drained the rest of my drink, watching Elle as she turned something over in her mind.
‘I reckon we can work around that.’
‘How?’
‘We won’t name the town. Thinking about it, we could even come up with a fictional name to add an element of mystery. And you can change the names of anyone you happen to encounter to protect their privacy.’
‘Hmm.’
‘And, if it was the dealbreaker, you could even write the piece anonymously. Come to think of it, all these secretive elements might even make it more compelling and shareable as readers try and figure out what small town we visited.’
‘You’re not going to let me say no, are you?’
‘Probably not. But, c’mon: what else are you going to do with all this time off work before Christmas? I really think you can do this, Mally. Even if you won’t do it for yourself, will you do it for me? Please?’
I blew out the air from my lungs while pouring myself another extra-large measure. I downed it in one go, so I could at least later pretend I’d agreed under the influence of too much booze.
‘Fine. But those anonymity conditions are non-negotiable, okay?’
Elle squealed and bundled me into a tight hug. Uncomfortably tight.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you! This is going to be so much fun to organise! Right, first of all we need to figure out where I can send you. Does anywhere spring to mind?’
‘Nah, not really.’
But I wasn’t telling the truth. Because, if I was the leading lady in a made-for-TV Christmas movie, the obvious place for me to go to would be my hometown: Scarnbrook, a sprawling village on the very furthest outskirts of Bristol, where Elle and I had grown up. Despite the painful memories it held, I’d been thinking about my hometown more than ever this year, since it was the twentieth anniversary of What Happened – not that anyone had bothered to acknowledge it. And, now that the digital connection I’d had with Livvie had been unceremoniously severed by a faceless Silicon Valley algorithm, it suddenly felt as if Scarnbrook might be the only thing I had left of her.
But I knew that sharing this ice chip of an idea before it had fully taken shape would backfire. Elle would quickly melt it with a blast of hot air, just like she’d done with all my other attempts to suggest a trip there in recent years. She’d always insisted I wasn’t ‘ready’ to return after what happened back then. My family had always made it abundantly clear through their actions, as well as their total absence of words, that they had no desire to show their faces there again. And Elle herself no longer had a reason to go back, since her mum had moved out of the area a couple of years ago. As far as Elle was concerned, Scarnbrook was a mere footnote to the ever-growing tome of her exciting life. Whereas for me it was the formative prologue and opening chapters.
Was I ready to return now? Yeah, probably not. But I reckoned it was more or less impossible to ever be ‘ready’ to go back to the place I’d been so happy for the first eighteen years of my life, before my sister died, my family dispersed and everything changed.
I rolled the notion around in my head while Elle yabbered on. The longer I did so, the more frozen matter it collected that hadn’t seen the light of day for years. By the time I turned in for the night, drunk and apprehensive about what the hell I’d agreed to, the idea was no longer an ice chip, but a snowball-sized plan.
The question was, would I ever be brave enough to throw it?
Chapter 4
