Page 19 of It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
His shoulders slumped a little. He knew something was up, deep down.
‘Right, I’d better be off. See ya, munchkin,’ I said to Frannie, taking a gulp of my coffee before kissing the top of her head.
‘Do you have your baby, Auntie Nally?’
Rory’s brow contracted in confusion. ‘Baby? Is there some news you’d care to share with me?’
I reached into my coat pocket and showed him a clump of moss she’d proudly handed me when Elle and I had picked her up from nursery the evening before. I winked at Rory before crouching down to conspire with my goddaughter.
‘Of course I do, poppet! I’m going to take him back to my place and find a lovely cosy spot for him. I’ll send your mummy a photo later so you can see his new home.’
‘Yay! Look, Daddy, Nally has a baby!’
I chuckled, but her words cut deep. Let’s be honest, taking care of this crumbly green lump would probably be the closest I’d ever get to starting my own family.
The journey from Bounds Green in North London to Hither Green in the south-east of the capital was rarely a straightforward one on weekends. With various Tubes and trains to contend with, engineering works could easily scupper the entire trip.
As my final mode of transportation pulled into Hither Green station – thankfully not a rail replacement bus this time around – I was reminded how at ease I always felt in this village-esque pocket of the borough of Lewisham. Especially at this time of year, when the community-funded Christmas tree greeted me at the bottom of the station ramp, its branches proudly bearing the colourful, laminated handiwork of the local schoolchildren.
As I wandered past the ranks of independent stores, I admired their festive window displays, breathing in the comforting scent of mulled wine wafting from the pub on the corner. In the many years since I’d lived here, the pubs had gradually all been renovated and gastronomised, the greasy spoons and old-school carpet shops giving way to craft beer bars and brunchy cafes. Shame, really – I missed my weekly full English breakfast with fried slice. Almost all the rat-run residential streets were now cordoned off with bollards that the local residents’ association had transformed into well-maintained planters as part of the local council’s ‘low-traffic neighbourhood’ scheme. Property prices had soared accordingly. These days, there’d be no way people like me would be able to afford to live in this pleasant Zone 3 conservation area – which was practically gated off from the surrounding A-roads – if they were trying to get on the property ladder as I’d done all those years ago. In fact, the only reason I’d been able to get a mortgage back then was thanks to the credit crunch, an unexpected inheritance from my grampy and the guaranteed rental income from Elle as my lodger. Elle still treated my place like her second home, letting herself in every so often with the set of keys she still had.
I entered the draughty communal hallway, which I shared with the flat upstairs. Their enormous running stroller always took up most of the space to save them lugging it up the staircase to the first floor of our converted Victorian terrace. I glanced down and spied two little be-wellied feet poking out of the buggy’s blackout blanket: often Sophie or Kay had to walk or jog little Oscar around the nearby Manor House Gardens to get him to nap. Then they’d park him at the foot of the stairs with their flat door open, one of them perched on the stairs to keep an eye on him.
I bent my head down low enough to see who’d drawn the short straw today and mouthed ‘Hi’ to Sophie, who looked up from her phone and smiled through her obvious exhaustion and waved back silently. I’d been trying to pluck up the courage to speak to them about the increasingly loud pre-dawn noises that woke me up every morning – at the very least a rug on the wooden floors would absorb some of Oscar’s toy-throwing antics – but I figured they already had enough on their plate without having to factor in a fussy downstairs neighbour.
I let myself into my flat as quietly as possible, which wasn’t easy given the stiffness of my ancient lock. I’d been meaning to get it replaced for a while now, but the prices I’d been quoted had been ridiculous. If only the hardware shop on the corner of my street was still there. They used to stock everything – from rat poison to rat food – and they would’ve popped up the road and replaced my lock in a jiffy for next to nothing. But these days the shop was a high-end ‘concept store’ where every ‘carefully curated’ item of clothing and homeware appeared to have had its saturation colour level dialled right down until it was almost – but not quite – greyscale. I’d only been in there once, but had swiftly left when one of the owners had flared her nostrils in the direction of the bottle of 7UP I’d been swigging from at the time.
I headed straight for the mantelpiece in the living room to open today’s advent calendar window.
Mum still sent me a calendar every December, though she’d stopped sending them to Josh a few years back after he’d taken her aside to ‘impart his wisdom’ about single-use plastic and the plight of the world’s cocoa farmers. But she knew my weakness for anything that contained that heady mix of chocolate and countdowns, so they’d kept on coming.
I peeled back the sixth cardboard door of theDoctor Who-themed calendar and dug through the foil to reveal a Dalek-shaped milk chocolate treat. As it melted on my tongue, I wondered whether anyone had ever thought about developing a Dalek-shaped ice lolly. I subconsciously composed a message to Livvie in my mind:
Idea: Dalek-shaped ice lolly called ‘Dalick’. Or maybe‘Licksterminate’. Preference?
I pierced the pointless thought as I kicked off my boots and dumped my coat on the bed of the spare room, carefully removing the moss from my pocket before I did so. I’d been thinking about converting Elle’s old bedroom into a fancy living room ever since she’d moved out when she and Rory got engaged. It was the largest room in the flat – square and light with a stunning original fireplace and beautiful bay window.
But everything was still as it was after Elle had gone, meaning it remained a functional two-bedroom flat rather than the amazing one-bedroom property it had the potential to be. Projects like this, which would undoubtedly involve making countless decisions and changes, always sent me into a tailspin. Over the years, I’d managed to convince myself that having a spare room had handy dumping ground, storage and washing-drying benefits, as well as serving as an actual spare bedroom on the rare occasions my parents came to stay. It was easier to just shut the door on the mess and keep the flat the same as it’d always been.
I carried the moss past my much-smaller double room, which was sandwiched in between the spare room and the bathroom, right in the middle of the property. It always felt safe and snug in there, like my own little nest. The long and low window looked out over the flat’s narrow, concrete side return, which led to my measly patch of grass and rotting garden shed / spider sanctuary at the end. Mum always tried her best to whip the garden into shape whenever she was here, but she was fighting a losing battle. It was fair to say that I hadn’t inherited her horticultural instincts at all. It wasn’t exactly an inspiring view out of my bedroom, unlike the one I’d had in Scarnbrook while growing up, but it was private and the room wasn’t overlooked from any direction, thanks to the busy railway line that bumped up directly against the garden.
The living space was at the back of the flat – an awkwardly shaped room that somehow managed to house a kitchen, sitting and dining area. Even though it was creaky, tired and rough around the edges, this was the room that had grabbed my heart back when we’d first viewed the flat all those years ago. While Elle had always had designs on the front bedroom, it was this dark and enclosed living space, with original stripped floorboards, bare-bricked chimney breast housing a woodburning stove and shelves creaking with the previous owners’ books and trailing succulents that immediately made the flat seem like a place I could feel comfortable in.
I made an offer straight after our first viewing. At Elle’s insistence, it’d been a cheeky one since the financial crisis had suddenly put buyers like me on the front foot. She’d coerced the estate agent into letting slip that the owners were desperate to move to secure their dream countryside project, and I’d ended up getting a bit of a bargain by today’s London property standards.
I removed a saucer from a kitchen cupboard and placed it on a shelf among some neglected house plants and creased-spined books. I laid the moss on the plate and put a small, torn square of kitchen roll over half of it, as if it was tucked up in bed. I took a photo of it and sent it to Elle.
Mally:
For Frannie (she’ll understand). Thanks for a fun night. Might seeyou in the office on Monday x
Elle (voice message):
Ha, she loves it! Best godmum ever. Oh, and don’t think I was toodrunk last night to remember about your Christmas movie article. I’vehad some more ideas so I’ll find you on Monday to talk it over. Arghit’s so exciting!
Maybe there were some people who found Elle’s fondness for sending voice messages endearing, but I wasn’t one of them. Especially when she was sharing vital logistical information and I had to listen to them over and over again, always knowing they could disappear at any moment due to her tendency to randomly delete them, too.
I’d been hoping that all that gin-induced chat about me writing this feature would’ve been forgotten. But who was I kidding? This was Elle. When it came to her ideas and plans, she never let them go until they became a reality.
