Page 39 of Secrets of Starshine
I make my way up, and see a ladder poking out of the attic hatch on the landing. Archie’s head pops through a few seconds later, and he says: “If I pass the bags down will you catch them?”
I nod, and wait there until the first bin bag appears. There are four in total, the gifts bumping around in extra-thick rubble sacks, which we then carry down into the living room.
“Most of them are wrapped already,” he tells me, opening them up and peering inside. “Just a few left to do.”
“Excellent. I am a black belt at gift-wrapping. It’s one of my favourite things to do in the whole world.”
“Really?” he asks, frowning in disbelief. “I hate it!”
“Really. When Sam was little and there were more things to wrap, I used to have to be strict and ration myself, or I’d have everything done by the beginning of December and then they’d look all tatty by the big day. I just find it very relaxing.”
He calls me a weirdo, which I accept, and produces rolls of paper, tape and scissors from the cupboard.
“Well, have at it,” he says, laying out the unwrapped gifts on the dining table. “I’ll go and put the others in the shed. Then once the girls are in bed, I’ll sneak them back in and put them under the tree.”
I smile as I make a start. Christmas is such a sweet and magical time for little ones, but all of it is rooted in a big fat lie that makes parents’ lives a very complicated business at this time of year.
I choose some paper that is decorated with Christmas unicorns, and start wrapping. I work quietly and contentedly, evening off corners and trimming folds and making everything lovely. There are some board games, which are easy enough, and some painting sets, also nice. A plastic pony in horse-shaped packaging is more of a challenge, but we get there. I save the books for last, because books are the very best gifts to wrap.
Archie joins me, bringing us both a mug of tea, and looks impressed, letting out a little whistling noise as he sees the pile.
“Wow,” he says, eyes wide, “that is some top-level stuff. Mine look like Lottie wrapped them. While she was drunk. This whole thing is much quicker when there’s two of you.”
I nod, but stay silent – I am flicking through the book I am about to wrap, lost in its pages. It is a beautifully illustrated compendium of fairies – not a fairy tale as such, more of a collection of folk-lore and legends from around the British Isles. The pictures are breath-taking, done in such colourful detail that it almost feels like they could fly off the page and flutter around the room.
“This is gorgeous,” I say, turning another page. “Is it for Lilly?”
“Yeah,” he replies, smiling down at it. “Fairies, but a bit more grown-up, because she’s started to make noises about the whole thing being for babies.”
“Ah. That’ll be because of her friend Shannon telling her it is.”
“She told you about that, did she?”
He looks surprised as he asks, and I nod.
“Yes. I wanted to advise her to tell Shannon to eff off, but that didn’t seem very mature. It’s all normal friendship stuff anyway, isn’t it? We’ve all had one of those friends in our time, and part of growing up is learning how to deal with that. Building some resilience and judgement.”
He looks on as I wrap the book, and seems to be turning it over in his mind.
“That’s a really good way of looking at it,” he says, eventually. “I’ve been a bit worried about it. There’s nothing wrong with Shannon at all, she’s just the youngest of five kids, so she’s a bit tougher than some of the others. But yeah…all part of growing up I suppose. It’s not always easy, knowing what the right response is.”
“Oh, I know – and believe me, it only gets worse! Wait until they fall in love and get their hearts broken…but try not to worry about it too much. Things will balance out in the end – and she still loves the fairy thing really, and she’ll flip when she sees this book.”
He looks wistful for a moment, and replies: “Sandy got her into that. She loved them too. She’d spend hours reading from books to her – all the classics, especially anything to do with Thumbelina or Tinkerbell. After she died, Lilly just carried on lying in bed in her pyjamas every night, convinced that her mum would be coming home to read her bed-time story to her. I offered, but she never wanted me – just told me no, thank you, she was waiting for Mummy.”
The image is so clear, so vivid and heart-breaking, that tears spring to my eyes. I place one of my hands over his, and say: “I’m so sorry, Archie. That must have been so hard for you.”
He looks up, meets my gaze, and answers: “No. In all honesty, the hardest thing was when she stopped doing it. When she finally accepted that Mummy wasn’t coming back at all. That was the bit that broke me. And ever since, she’s flat-out refused to have anyone read her a bed-time story – not Connie, or George, any of her cousins. It’s like she just decided that if her mum wasn’t there to do it, then nobody would.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes, both lost in thought. It took Sam a while to adapt after his dad left, but it wasn’t the same – he was always on the end of the phone; he could always go and visit him. His dad still existed in his universe in a way that Sandy didn’t for Lilly.
“This must be so hard for you,” I eventually say. “Not the girls – they seem happy – but for you, Archie. Christmas must be hard, with all the memories it brings.”
He nods, and gazes past me for a moment, as though weighing up what to say next.
“It is,” he replies. “And I hate that. I want Christmas to be magical, you know? I think I fake it well enough for them…and it’s not like I forget about her for the rest of the year. But this bit – between Meg’s birthday and New Year – is the toughest time. I was in the wrong part of the hospital.”
I frown in confusion, not sure what he means, but unwilling to interrupt him.
