‘You’ve both lost your minds,’ Dad snapped, flicking his napkin out of his lap and tossing it onto the table. ‘Your mother is going to have to talk some sense into you, she’s the one that reasons with children all day. I’m not sitting here and listening to this.’
Still muttering under his breath, he stood up and walked out of the room, leaving the door wide open in his wake. Not the first Baker to exit this Christmas dinner in a dramatic fashion, but certainly the most unexpected from the looks of everyone still sat around the table. Even Artemis and Arthur looked up from their iPads with vague concern.
‘Are you going to go after him?’ Manny asked as the back door slammed shut and the kids went back to staring blankly at their tablets.
‘What’s the point?’ I sagged with an uneasy mixture of success and defeat. I really had thought this would feel better.
He tilted his head to one side in agreement, activating his only wrinkle, the little line on his forehead from where he was constantly raising one disbelieving eyebrow. ‘Not that I’m not supportive, but on the way up you said you were excited to go back to work?’
‘I was excited to go back to pretending nothing is wrong,’ I replied, eyeing Cerys through the Sylvanian centrepiece. ‘After some careful consideration, I’ve come to realize that won’t work in the long term.’
‘Careful consideration in the last twelve hours?’ he asked.
‘And then some,’ I said. ‘You’re going to have to trust me.’
‘I always do,’ Manny said. ‘I’ve got your back.’
Across the table, Cerys picked up her wine and glugged it down as she stared at her husband who was busy fashioning himself a sailor’s hat out of his napkin.
‘In case anyone was wondering, your grandad was quite happy down the pit,’ Nan said. ‘I’m not saying they were singing and dancing down there, but he got to work with his friends and buy a house for his family and he didn’t do it so his grandchildren could spend their lives working themselves to the bone in jobs they hate. I think he’d be very proud of you right now, Gwen.’
The tears I’d been holding back bloomed and trickled down my cheeks, one by one.
‘But he would hate that sodding dress.’
‘Thanks, Nan,’ I said, raising my glass in her direction. ‘Good to know.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘Manny, Cerys, do you want to go to the pub?’
An hour had passed and Dad was still stewing over my announcement, pottering about in the garage and refusing to come back inside. Ever since I saw his head bobbing up and down over the top of the Hyundai, I’d been physically restraining myself from running out to tell him it was all a big joke and I wasn’t really going to quit and I was so sorry. But it wasn’t and I was and even though I was sorry, I knew I shouldn’t be. It was my choice, my life, I had to make my own decisions whether he liked them or not and we both had to learn how to live with it.
‘Fuck, yes,’ Manny said, standing up immediately, his gold paper crown slightly askew. Nan had been dozing in the armchair since we finished dinner but I was almost certain she was faking it.
‘The pub?’ Cerys said, not nearly as enthusiastic as Manny. ‘With you two? Now?’
‘We can schedule something in for a later date if youlike,’ I replied, popping Manny’s reindeer antlers onto Artemis’s head. ‘But I could use some fresh air and a large drink right now.’
Her inscrutable expression flickered for a split second then she pushed herself out of her armchair, up to her feet. ‘Ol, can you keep an eye on the kids for an hour?’
‘Why can’t we leave them with your mum,’ he whined, pausing the poker game he’d been playing on his phone while the rest of us watched our old home movies. ‘I want to come too.’
‘I don’t mind!’ my mother piped up, her head popping around the living-room door as though summoned from the ether. ‘You can leave them with me.’
‘He can look after his own kids for an hour on Christmas Day, it won’t kill him.’ Cerys looked back at Oliver, who was already back to his poker game. ‘In fact, why don’t you come with us?’
Mum shook her head, tea towel in one hand, serving spoon in the other. ‘Too much to do. And what about Dorothy’s?’
‘We can go to Dorothy’s later,’ I promised, taking the tea towel out of her hand as Manny grabbed for the serving spoon. ‘It goes on for hours. And we’ll finish the washing up when we get back, it’s not going anywhere. Come to the pub.’
She looked at the three of us as though we’d suggested she run through the streets naked and slathered in brandy butter.
‘I suppose one quick drink wouldn’t hurt,’ she said, testing the words before she committed. ‘OK, let me get my coat.’
‘Quick, before anyone changes their mind,’ Manny said, rounding up the Baker women and herding us all into the hallway. ‘First round’s on me.’
‘I’m not going to ask you about your job,’ Mum said as she settled into a warm corner of The Baslow Arms. Manny and Cerys stood at the bar, poking and pushing each other while they waited to order and I tried to telepathically remind Manny to bring back some peanuts. Against all odds, I was hungry again.