‘The new flat? How’s that working out?’
Like living in a poorly ventilated bookshop stockroom that only had one window, barely functioning heating and a boiler that only warmed enough water for one tepid shower a day. Manny’s friend Beck had described it as‘bohemian’ when she showed me around but in truth it was a disaster.
‘I love it.’
‘And have you spoken to Michael?’
I attempted a casual shrug, but my shoulders got confused and forgot the second part of the motion, locking up around my ears instead, and instead of smiling, I just showed her my top teeth. I looked like a confused, constipated badger.
‘I’m giving him space.’
An entire galaxy of it, against my will.
‘You know you don’t need to worry about me, Mum, everything is fantastic,’ I lied, actively squeezing my shoulder muscles with my hands until they relaxed. ‘Life couldn’t be better, I promise.’
Aside from the aching, cavernous void in my soul that kept me awake at night and routinely sent me spiralling down a 3 a.m. YouTube rabbit hole, searching for bad acoustic cover versions of ‘Someone Like You’ performed by off-key teenagers in Idaho, while I shovelled chocolate Häagen-Dazs down my gullet in between gut-wrenching sobs.
But still, Christmas. Hurrah.
I beamed at the room around me. Manny was right, Christmas was going to be wonderful. Nothing to do other than eat myself into type two diabetes and occasionally change the channel on the telly. ‘I should’ve known, you never give me any trouble. Thankfully I get enough from your sister and your cousin,’ Mum said, her Welsh accent lilting as she clutched my coat to her heart. ‘Now take your bloody shoes off, I’ve hoovered up in here.’
There really was no place like home.
‘I didn’t know if you were planning to stop at the services on the way up so I didn’t make you a proper dinner.’ She pulled me out of the chair she’d just pushed me into and led me, shoeless, into the kitchen before I could say a word. ‘But I put a few bits out for you and Manny, you can help yourself.’
‘There are enough sausage rolls here to feed the entire village,’ I said as I came face to face with what looked like an entire stockroom of the big Tesco laid out on the kitchen table. Be still my grumbling tum. Mum and Dad weren’t particularly adventurous eaters but if you made it in a mini size and whacked it in the snack section, they were all over it. The Bakers really did love their picky bits.
‘Can’t have Manny going hungry,’ Mum replied, bustling over to the oven to remove a batch of mince pies. ‘He’s a growing boy.’
‘We’re both thirty-two and he’s already six-foot-three,’ I reminded her as I took my regular seat at the table, already halfway through a mini pork pie. Underneath the table, I subtly unfastened the top button of my jeans. Might as well start as I meant to go on. ‘The only direction he’s going to grow if he eats all this is outwards. I saw on the news it might snow tomorrow.’
‘So your dad said, I’ll believe it when I see it. Did he tell you your Aunt Gloria called right before you got here? Natalie’s gone into the hospital, we might have a Christmas baby in the family if we’re lucky.’
‘Bloody unlucky for Natalie if we don’t get a Christmas baby,’ I replied as I swallowed the pork pie and grabbed a jam tart. ‘I very much doubt she wants to be in labour for more than twenty-four hours.’
‘You shot out of there like you couldn’t wait another minute. Made a right mess of me you did, but it was worth it.’ I choked on a bit of pastry. Since when was an episiotomy something to get nostalgic about? ‘Your sister on the other hand, now she took her sweet time. Nearly two days I was in with her. Your dad had to go out and buy another box of cigars because he couldn’t hold his water in the waiting room.’
‘And he almost missed the birth altogether when he went out for a bacon sandwich,’ I finished the story for her and we both smiled. It was not the first time I had heard it. ‘Classic Cerys. Probably wanted to run through the numbers one more time before she made her appearance.’
‘Bickering already and she’s not even here yet,’ Mum shot me a mild warning look. ‘You’re worse than the kids at school. I don’t want any arguments tomorrow.’
‘What was it you always used to say? I want never gets,’ I replied with a smile. My older sister was my peacekeeper kryptonite, but then Cerys could get a rise out of a Buddhist monk.
Mum placed a brand-new jar of Branston’s pickle on the table. ‘My kingdom for a quiet Christmas. One day without you three fighting, that’s all I ask for.’
‘You never know.’ I nabbed a cocktail sausage. ‘Christmas is a good time to pray for miracles.’
‘I’ll give you a miracle,’ she said, clipping me lightly around the back of the head. ‘Go and get your cousin, I bet him and your dad are out there gossiping with the front door wide open.’
Pausing to slip on my trainers, I made it to the front doorstep in time to see Manny locking up the Volvo, mydad kicking at a slightly underinflated tyre with his slipper then clapping his nephew on the back. Manny put his arm around Dad’s shoulders and the two of them laughed at a joke I couldn’t quite hear. I smiled, lingering in the doorway so as not to interrupt.
I didn’t remember much about my Uncle Jim, Manny’s dad. He was a lorry driver so he worked away a lot and Manny and I were only nine when he died. An invisible patch of black ice, no one else involved, nothing anyone could have done. But I did remember how sad people were afterwards. Dad didn’t cry in front of me or Cerys but his grief was always with us, hanging around the house like an uninvited guest: no one knew how long it might stay or when it might be polite to ask it to leave, so we quietly entertained it for as long as it cared to stay.
A week or so after the funeral, Manny moved in with us. Just for a little while, while Aunt Sue went to stay with her sister in Portugal to ‘get herself together’. A few weeks turned into a few months and after a year or so, Aunt Sue decided she wasn’t coming back and it became clear Manny was staying with us for good. It worked out perfectly for Dad, who had always wanted a son and missed his brother something fierce, and for ten-year-old Manny, who was completely alone and all at sea. The two of them needed each other and the universe seemed to know it, plus I’d been in the market for a brother ever since Cerys cut the hair off my Rollerblading Sindy so it worked out pretty nicely for me as well. Twenty years later, we were more twins than cousins, and I couldn’t imagine our lives without him.
‘Who wants a drink?’ Dad asked as I placed the last of my presents underneath the tree.
‘Me please,’ I called, head lost in the branches. Mum’s tree was a marvel, tall and full and swimming in ornaments, most of them even older than me. I lay on my back underneath it, sniffing up a great big lungful of its precious pine scent and felt every atom of my body relax.