Page 9 of The Night Before Christmas
‘I mean it. Nope. Absolutely not. No Mariah, no Cliff, no Shakin’ Stevens, no bloody Mr Blobby or East 17. None of it. I am playingmyplaylist, or the party’s over.’
‘Yikes, darling, you seriously need to relax. Have some more bubbles.’
Bex was already pouring more cheap Prosecco into her glass, but she obediently put down her phone and allowed Felicity to put on her favourite anti-Christmas tunes instead. It was Sophie’s turn to roll her eyes as The Eels’ classic ‘Christmas is Going to the Dogs’ began to play but Felicity instantly felt that all was well with the world again.
One festive step at a time.
Later, as Bex and Sophie curled up like bookends on the sofa and Felicity relaxed back into her battered old armchair with the stuffing hanging out, she contemplated telling them about Penguin Man. She had just decided against it on the grounds that a) it wasn’t anything yet, and b) some part of her didn’t want to jinx anything, when good old Bex piped up.
‘So, Felicity darling, what did you get up to for Christmas then, dare I ask? If you even had one in the end?’ She was slurring her words slightly, a half empty glass precariously balanced between her elegant forefingers on the sofa arm, her other hand glued to her iPhone as always.
Felicity took a deep breath, mainly to buy some time.
‘I was working. Andrea was – well, busy, let’s say – so I worked the whole time. I say busy, but what I mean is, she had another date with that guy she met online.’
There was a pause.
‘It was quite eventful this year, though.’
Bex looked up from her phone.
‘Eventful how?’
‘We had to carry out a rescue on Christmas Eve. It was really exciting, actually. There was a tiny little kitten stuck in a ditch near the centre. She was so cold and wet, the poor little thing. I thought she’d died at first.’
Both of her friends were listening intently now. At this, they gasped in unison.
‘She was still alive though, and that meant we had to go back and try and find her mum in the pitch black. That took a while. It was all very dramatic.’
It came out all in a rush.
‘Oh no, that’s awful,’ said Sophie.
‘I know. I thought they’d been abandoned, but I think the mum was just a bit feral, bless her. She must have had the baby in that horrible muddy ditch. God knows how we managed to catch her, she was so scared… but we did, and in the end, we brought her back and reunited them, which was really cute.’
There was another pause.
‘I thought Andrea was off banging that Spaniard?’ This was Bex. Ever tactful.
‘She was,’ said Felicity.
‘But you said “we”. “We had to carry out a rescue”, you said.’
‘It’s just an expression.’
‘You said it a lot of times.’
‘I know, but–’
‘So, you rescued these cats by yourself?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Someone helped you?’
Felicity shifted in her seat. ‘Er. Yes.’
‘Hold that thought, I’m out of fizz.’
