‘It was in the loft,’ I explained, holding up a handful of DVDs as the camera panned around to show a tiny toddler in front of a shiny silver tree. ‘There’s loads of them.’
‘Oh my God, that’s me!’ Cerys jumped off the settee and onto the floor and landed beside me on the carpet. ‘I remember that tree! I remember that dress! How can I remember that dress, I’m practically a foetus?’
‘You kept it for years,’ Mum replied, her hand dropping from her mouth to her chest as she beamed at the television. ‘After you grew out of it, your Granny Baker altered it to fit your doll.’
Cerys sat back on her heels, touching the screen with her fingertips. ‘That’s right,’ she breathed. ‘Look kids, that’s the same star on top of the tree that’s up there today.’
‘Wow.’ Artemis twisted a strand of hair around her index finger, shaking her head at this piece of ancient history. ‘The olden days were mad.’
‘Artemis, you’re nine, you think Taylor Swift is old,’ I said as the picture crackled out and cut to Christmas dinner.
‘She is old,’ my niece mumbled under her breath. ‘She’s like thirty.’
‘Oh my goodness, Mum, look at you!’
Before I could reply to my niece, a forty-something-years-young Myfanwy James waltzed onto the screen in a teal two-piece and distracted us all.
‘Look at your hair!’ Cerys gasped.
It was enormous. Two cans of hairspray and four hours of backcombing enormous. But the hair was nothing compared to the make-up, twin stripes of neon pink blusher ran down her cheeks, clashing with the baby-blue eyeshadow and beige glittery lipstick. The eighties were such a cruel decade.
‘I will not apologize for being stylish,’ Nan sniffed. ‘You could take the shoulder pads out of that suit and wear it today.’
‘Yeah, if you wanted to scare children,’ Cerys whispered in my ear.
‘Will you look at your grandad, what a handsome man.’ Nan beamed as Grandad James appeared on the screen and I had to admit, she was right. With his thick black hair and deeply tanned skin in the dead of winter, even his extremely shiny double-breasted suit couldn’t distract from his solid good looks.
After Grandad James came Uncle Jim, rugby shirt tucked into his high-waisted jeans, his curly mullet cascading over the neatly pressed white collar, and behind him, Granny and Grandad Baker. The picture went fuzzy for a moment as someone placed the cameraonto the dresser to show the entire dining table. Dad’s grinning head suddenly filled the frame, complete with the massive sideburns I remember being mortified by throughout my youth. He gave the camera a cheesy thumbs-up before settling down at the head of the table, everyone applauding as Mum came in carrying the turkey.
‘Did you do this?’ Mum asked, her eyes still fixed on the screen.
‘Nope,’ I replied. ‘I think Dad did.’
I looked over my shoulder expecting to see a smile the size of Nan’s eighties bouffant on every single face. Instead I saw five happy faces, a comatose Oliver, and a shell of a man that used to be my dad, staring blankly at the screen.
‘Dad?’ I said, scooting around to face him. ‘Are you OK?’
He sucked in his cheeks and nodded once, his lips pressed together in a tight grim line. Then he tapped a soft fist against the arm of the chair, stood up, hitched up his trousers and walked out of the room.
Oh shit.
‘Cup of tea anyone?’ he called as he went.
No one answered, they were too busy watching the DVD.
An unpleasant sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach made me think this wasn’t quite the magical wish-granting moment I’d been hoping for.
‘Dad?’ I said, closing the living-room door as I followed him into the kitchen. ‘You all right?’
‘More than, chicken.’
He kept his back to me as he filled the kettle, but from the ghost of his reflection in the kitchen window I could see that wasn’t true.
‘I was looking for the family photo albums in the loft and I found the DVDs with them,’ I explained as I clung to the door handle, hovering on my tiptoes. A sad dad was almost as bad as a disappointed dad and my heart couldn’t stand it. ‘Why didn’t you show them to us?’
He placed the kettle back on its hub and flipped the switch, opened the cupboard and took out two mugs. Then he opened the tea caddy and placed two teabags in the pot. Once the caddy had been closed and restored to its proper place, and a teaspoon retrieved from the cutlery drawer, he turned to face me.
My dad was crying.