Page 10 of All Foxed Up

Part of Nat’sanxiety about all of this was because she was hosting the family Christmas for the first time. The guys tried to talk her down off a ledge, reassure her that the family would be fine with some Woolies BBQ chooks and coleslaw, but she wasn’t having it. My bestie had a vision in her head fuelled by Pinterest boards, canny marketing by the supermarkets, and the amazing feasts the grandmothers had put on in previous years, and she would not be dissuaded.

But now we had to bring it all together.

I nodded to Nat and she did the same back, the two of us moving as one.

First there was the plastic tablecloth. She’d found it online, the print on it bright and garish enough to be cutely kitsch, then it was plates, cutlery and condiments. Christmas crackers were set out by each place setting and so were cups. Then wine glasses for those that liked it, unbreakable tumblers for the kids. Nuts, dried fruit and other traditional Aussie Christmas snacks were set out, and that had people drawing closer, just like the ibises. While they sat down at the main table, we organised the buffet.

Plastic containers of freshly made cold salads sat next to Glad Wrapped plates of sliced ham and pieces of cold chicken. Massive bowls of cold prawns joined them. Bread rolls, stone fruit like nectarines and cherries, I kept on unpacking and Nat arranged until finally we stepped back to survey all the work.

“Oh Natalie, you’ve outdone yourself,” Anne said, drawing closer.

Nat was brushing flies away from the fruit when she looked up, then flushed bright red. “Oh, thanks.”

“See…” I said under my breath, shooting her a look.

Her eyes locked with mine and I saw it, the moment when all her hopes and dreams about today seemed to be coming true. I smiled back, amazed at what she’d been able to do with two rowdy boys underfoot, but that was the thing.

She didn’t.

The sleuth had pitched in and so had I once I arrived, because wasn’t that the point of Christmas? To bring people together to make the day special and right now I hoped that was the case for her.

“This looks bloody delicious!” one of Thorn’s dads said, rubbing his hands together.

“Really?” Nat surveyed every single one of their faces, looking for clues that they were being sincere. “Well, dig in!”

And just like that, plastic wrap was peeled back, lids removed, serving spoons shoved in and tongs clacked as pieces of meat were placed on plates. All that hard work was torn to pieces and replaced by this.

I didn’t hate Christmas when it was like this. I was sitting down Nat’s end, between her and Kai, but rather than eat the delicious food, I watched the day unfold. People asked each other to pass them the different sauces, took big mouthfuls of food and then rolled their eyes back in appreciation, a hum setting up around the table, made up of cutlery cutting, chewing, moaning, chatting, slurping, shifting, nodding, creating a symphony of satisfaction. When I turned around, Nat was watching it all unfold too.

I caught her smile, small at first, then slowly spreading, her shoulders started to settle back down from where they hovered around her ears, her back straightening. She nodded and then picked up her own cutlery and dug into her own food.

“Aren’t you hungry, Aunty Hols?” Kai asked me, mayo spread all across his face. I grinned as I grabbed a paper napkin and then wiped it off.

“Hungry as a bear!” I said, curling my hands into claws and roaring, sending him and his brother into hysterics.

“Well, here’s to the amazing cooks,” Joe, Lars’ dad said, getting to his feet. He held out a beer can, dripping with condensation and we all did the same. “I think I speak for everyone when I say thank you for preparing this amazing meal.”

Nat blinked, because part of her still wasn’t used to having supportive in-laws, so many supportive in-laws, but then she smiled. Her cheeks grew pinker and pinker, her eyes growing suspiciously shiny as cheers went up around the table. The boys even held up their little plastic cups, slopping cordial on the tablecloth, but that was OK. Christmas was never supposed to be about being perfect, no matter how hard we try to make it so. Christmas was about family.

“Hear, hear!” I said, adding my own voice to the chorus. “Hear, hear.”

Chapter6

So Australian Christmas traditions were dumb.

Right when we should’ve been holed up in the house, gasping beneath the aircon as it fought to keep up with the thirty-five-degree heat, we were down the beach, being all festive and shit, while trying very hard to pretend we weren’t wilting. Then Thorn, the bloody muppet, said the words.

“How about a game of cricket?”

Cricket is supposed to be a gentleman’s game according to the Brits, and by that they must mean it’s really fucking boring. Games go for daaays. I, and every other woman in Australia, know this, because it seems to be a male past time to leave it droning on the TV all fricking day. One person throws the ball, one person bats and everyone else just stands the fuck around, waiting to catch the ball.

Or in my case, not.

I was standing on the outskirts of the area we had claimed to play the game, keeping an eye on the boys, moving strategically to get between them and the beach. We’d already gone down there for a swim post meal (and didn’t die. Lars seemed vaguely disappointed by that), but the boys seemed drawn to the sea like a pair of seal shifters, not bears. But then someone would hit the ball and they’d shift focus, racing after that.

Better them than me.

I’d said I’d ‘play’ only on the proviso no one hit the ball my way. I was already standing out in the sun. Despite the swim and the light clothes I had on, sweat was trickling down my back. I was sticky, sandy and all around gross, so I wasn’t going to compound that by racing after a damn cricket ball. That agreement seemed to hold up, right until now.

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