I attempted to mime the act that hadn’t even happened yet but would be burned into my retinas until the end of time.
‘Please never do that again,’ he warned, his face pale and bleak.
‘How long have you had that dolphin tattoo on yourhip?’ I asked as I narrowed my eyes at my cousin. ‘And why don’t I know about it?’
‘You were never meant to know about the dolphin,’ he whispered, yanking his boxers up over his belly button. ‘I have protected that secret foryears. What is going on?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said again, hurling myself backwards into my pillows. ‘But I would like to know who you’re sending festive fap photos to?’
‘Perhaps you should try to work out how you’re defying the space time continuum before you waste any time on that,’ Manny suggested as Dad bellowed both our names from the bottom of the stairs. ‘We’d better go down before they send a search party. Now, do you want to tell your mum and dad what’s going on or would you prefer not to spend Christmas Day in a straitjacket?’
‘So, you believe me?’
An unbearable weight hovered over my shoulders as I waited for his reply.
‘I don’t know how or why but yes, of course I believe you,’ he said, opening his arms for a hug and the heaviness that hung over me disappeared just for a moment. ‘Whatever it is, we’ll work it out.’
‘I hope we work it out soon,’ I replied. ‘I don’t know if I can relive this entire day all the way through again.’
‘That bad?’ he asked doubtfully.
‘Justin Bieber’s Christmas album bad,’ I confirmed gravely.
Manny’s hands flew up to cover his mouth as he gasped.
‘We’ll get through this together,’ he promised. ‘We’ve faced great adversity before. Remember when they took the Nutty Truffle Log out of the tin of Roses?’
‘I thought I’d never get over it but I did,’ I said, my confidence somewhat bolstered. ‘You’re right. If we can make it all the way through thatLast Christmasmovie, we can make it through this.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Manny cheered as we set off downstairs. ‘Christmas Day the sequel, let’s have it!’
The rest of the day went on as only I knew it would. I moved through most of it in a daze, too shocked and confused to really process what was happening. Occasionally I snapped to my senses long enough to look for hidden cameras in the house or a big blue police phone box outside, but by lunchtime, after Nan’s savage review of my dress and Cerys’s request for an early lunch, I found myself reluctantly resigned to the facts; I was officially repeating the worst Christmas Day on record.
‘You could have warned me about your dad buying you a vibrator,’ Manny hissed in my ear as I forced down my last bite of turkey. ‘I almost choked on my bacon butty.’
‘Your reaction was almost worth living through it again,’ I whispered back while Oliver regaled the table with a thrilling tale about the time he successfully sued a pet shop for selling gendered mice, just as drunk as he had been the day before.
‘What are you two gossiping about?’ Mum eyed us with suspicion from the other side of her contemporary art masterpiece of a nativity scene.
‘We were debating whether or notDie Hardis a Christmas movie,’ Manny answered. ‘Gwen says it is but I’m not sure.’
He was an evil genius. The one debate guaranteed to fire up any dinner table.
‘Of course it is. The entire film takes place on Christmas Eve, at a Christmas party,’ Cerys said, racing to take the bait. ‘Bruce Willis has come home for Christmas, it could not be more of a Christmas movie.’
‘Sorry but you’re wrong,’ Oliver argued. ‘Die Hardwas originally released in July which makes it a summer blockbuster by definition.’
Cerys glared at her husband. ‘But the concept of Christmas is pivotal to the plot of the film. There’s a tree, there are presents, ergo, it is a Christmas movie.’
‘Ergo?’ He replied through peals of laughter. ‘Er-fucking-go?’
‘Oliver!’ Nan said sharply. ‘Language!’
As Manny opened his mouth to interject, I grabbed mine and Dad’s empty plates and elbowed my cousin out of his seat. ‘We’re going to clear the table,’ I said loudly. ‘Should I fill the dishwasher?’
‘Do you know how?’ Mum replied, her eyes huge with surprise.
‘Haha, very funny,’ I replied, stacking plates along my arm as Manny cautiously pinched the edges of the gravy boat, a foul look on his face. ‘Back in a tick.’