Hope was a four-letter word.
The next morning, I knelt on the floor in front of my grandmother, my hair wild around my face, still in my pyjamas and without having even touched my chocolate orange.
It was still Christmas and I was not OK.
‘If you could wish for absolutely anything, what would it be?’ I beseeched, gripping her knees through her flesh-toned tights as though someone was coming to take me away.
When I woke up back in my bed again, exhausted from Christmases past, there were only two potential wishes left for me to take care of, Nan and Cerys, and the idea of spending my day making Cerys’s wishes come true was a bridge too far. It had to be Nan, it justhadto be.
‘Gwen, what is the matter with you?’ she asked, removing my hand from her leg. ‘Have you been on the cooking sherry?’
‘If you could wish for absolutely anything, anything at all in the whole world, what would it be?’ I repeated, absolutely frantic. I could not and would not go through this again. ‘There’s no time for messing around, Nan, I cannot eat another mouthful of turkey, I cannot spend another evening at Dorothy’s, I cannot look at a Gen 2 Cordless Personal Wonder Wand, you’vegotto tell me.’
‘I will only ask you this once but are you on drugs?’ she replied. ‘Because you look just like Phil Mitchell onEastenderswhen he was doing the crack cocaine.’
‘I’m not on crack,’ I confirmed with a violent shake of the head that did nothing to help my case. ‘Please answer the question.’
‘Maybe you’re having an episode then.’
My response really depended on her definition of an episode.
‘No, I’m not having an episode.’
Nan sipped her sherry, looking dubious.
‘My Aunt Carol, your great-great-aunt, she had an episode once. She told everyone she’d been talking to fairies at the bottom of the garden and they gave her the electric shock treatment. In fairness it was the best thing that ever happened to her, she ended up leaving her husband and going to work for the BBC. Sometimes it does work.’
‘I’m not having an episode. Or at least not that kind,’ I replied, keen to move on but quite keen to find out more about my Great-Great-Aunt Carol another time. She sounded great. ‘It’s a very serious question, Nan. If you could wish for anything, what would it be?’
She swallowed and pursed her lips, snowflake brooch on her jacket twinkling like the lights on the Christmas tree.
‘I’d do away with the internet.’
I slumped backwards onto the floor. ‘You’d what?’
‘I’d get rid of the internet. There’s too much of it.’
There was no hope. I was going to be trapped in this Christmas for all eternity.
‘You think there’s too much internet?’ I repeated. ‘What does that even mean?’
‘Barking at you from the minute you wake up,’ Nan replied, scowling at the very thought of it. ‘People don’t need to know everything that’s happening all the time, it’s not good for them. Is it handy to be able to see the weather for tomorrow? Yes. Is it convenient to do a shop and have it delivered? No denying it. Do I need to know what some complete stranger on the other side of the planet thinks about Britney Spears at three o’clock in the bloody morning? Certainly not. I know what I think about Britney Spears, that’s quite enough.’
‘Whatdoyou think about Britney Spears?’ I asked, incredibly curious.
‘I think she’s been through it,’ Nan said with a ferocious look. ‘And I should like to have a word with her parents.’
Me and her both.
‘I’d get rid of ripped jeans while I’m at it,’ she added before I could reply, her dark eyes lighting up with enthusiasm. ‘They’re disrespectful. Plenty of people out there can’t afford nice clothes and you’ve got folk running around tearing things up on purpose and selling them for a fortune? Rude. And don’t get me started on the terrible haircuts you see these days. I’m all for self-expression but they’re taking it too far. Did I ever tell you about the time I burned my bra in the sixties? It was a very big deal back then, I only had two to my name.They were much harder to get going than you’d think, your Aunt Gloria had to get hers started with a firelighter. I bet they go up a treat these days with all the bloody padding and whatnot.’
I held my hands against my face, pressing the fingertips into my eyebrows then sliding them around to my temples. This was going nowhere fast.
‘OK, can we start again? Let’s say, for example, you got the sixpence in the Christmas pudding after lunch,’ I said, as cool as a deep-fried cucumber. ‘Would you really wish for everyone to have the hair they were born with and no internet?’
She thought about it for a moment then wrinkled her nose. ‘Probably not, pet.’
I sighed with relief.