‘He’s only sixty-five, Care,’ I replied. ‘Bit early to be putting him out to pasture.’
Through the open door, I shuddered when I saw Artemis and Arthur, my niece and nephew, leaping from their car seats and sprinting up the garden path towards me. The pair of them were terrifying, with red hair and wild eyes, and were unnaturally strong for children. Last Easter, I’d watched in horror as they tore a sealed cardboard box to shreds with their bare hands because Manny told them there was a bag of Percy Pigs inside. Not that I wouldn’t have reacted in the same way but it was still very unnerving to see tiny children destroy something in less time than it took me to eat a Hobnob.
My sister paused and took a step back to properly look me up and down. While I had Dad’s wavy, reddish-brown, hair and the solid Baker family build, Cerys took after our mum. Her hair was long and thick and black, and her petite body, once all sharp planes and angles, had been softened by the two terrors who ran straight past the pair of us into the living room where the presentslived. Even with two kids and a full-time job, she had an effortless grace about her. I had to work hard to look professional and put together, whereas Care was always elegant and chic.
‘You look like shit.’
She was also extremely rude.
‘Seriously, Gwen.’ She dumped her bag on the chest of drawers at the bottom of the stairs and combed her hands through her shampoo-ad hair. ‘You look ill. You look like you haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a month.’
‘Well, it’s probably closer to three so I’ll take that as a compliment,’ I said, letting the smile I’d been working hard to keep on my face disintegrate as she pushed past me and marched into the kitchen.
‘If it isn’t my favourite sister-in-law!’
Just when I thought things couldn’t get more annoying, Cerys’s husband swaggered into the house. Oliver was the opposite of my sister. Too big, too loud, too brash, he was a sledgehammer of a man with a thatch of strawberry-blond hair and ruddy cheeks that screamed ‘Ask me the rugby scores, I definitely know them’. For years he’d been torturing us with his rudeness, his know-it-all attitude and impossibly blunt statements, and for the life of me, I could not work out what my sister saw in him.
Suffice to say, we didn’t get on.
‘Merry Christmas, Oliver,’ I said, presenting him with my cheek against every better instinct. If my life was a horror movie, I would absolutely be one of those people who invited a serial killer into the house out of politeness and got murdered while they put the kettle on.
‘Merry Christmas, Gwen,’ he replied. ‘I heard you got dumped.’
And who’s to say my life wasn’t a horror movie?
‘And I heard you’d developed some tact,’ I said sweetly. ‘But then I suppose not everything we hear is true.’
‘Shall we do your presents?’ Mum asked as we all swarmed into the living room, Artemis and Arthur already under the tree scavenging for brightly coloured packages with their names on them. But before they could attack, Cerys shook her head, pressing her beautifully manicured fingers into her temples.
‘I know it’s early but can we do presents after lunch? I’m ravenous and my blood sugar isextremelylow. I don’t want to get a migraine when I’ve got to drive back tonight.’
‘I knew you weren’t eating enough the moment you walked through the door,’ Mum said, leaping to her feet. ‘I can have the starter on the table in two minutes, get yourselves sat down.’
‘But it’s only just gone one, we don’t eat until two!’ Manny protested. ‘And we never do presents after lunch, we think people who do presents after lunch are weird! I’m not even hungry yet.’ He held up a handful of orange and silver foil to be presented as evidence. ‘I only just finished Gwen’s chocolate orange.’
‘Manny, please shut up,’ I whispered, slapping the chocolate wrapper out of his hand. ‘The sooner we eat, the sooner they can leave, meaning the sooner we can finish the bottle of Bailey’s in peace. And don’t think you’re not replacing that chocolate orange.’
‘Better earlier than later,’ Nan agreed as she nodded towards the front windows where the skies looked heavy and full. ‘They’ve forecast snow this afternoon.’
‘Worst comes to the worst, everyone can stay over,’ Mum said happily as Cerys physically removed Arthur from his presents and carried him into the dining room, literally kicking and screaming. ‘That would be nice, wouldn’t it?’
I looked at Manny, Manny looked at me and Nan shook her head.
‘My advice is to say nothing,’ she advised, ushering us into the other room. ‘How else do you think I’ve lived this long?’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘The table looks beautiful, Bronwyn, that’s a very … interesting centrepiece.’ Nan said as she sat down. Great-Grandma James’s tablecloth was almost entirely covered by poinsettia-printed place mats, Mum’s ‘special occasion’ coasters and every single condiment known to man, all positioned around what looked like a moderately sized holly bush that had been plucked straight out of the garden, woven through with battery-operated fairy lights and sprayed with glitter. On top of the holly sat an entire nativity scene, cast with Sylvanian Families, and I was almost certain those Sylvanian Families used to be mine. I stared at the one-eyed grey rabbit playing Mary as I took the middle seat next to Nan, Manny subtly crossing himself as he sat down on my other side.
‘I made it myself,’ Mum said with a blush as Oliver the man-child reached out to touch the leaves and promptly pricked himself. ‘I’ve been taking floristry classes in the village, turns out I’ve something of a natural talent for it.’
‘You know they say florists have the same psychological profile as serial killers,’ Cerys said, as her husband sucked his finger beside her.
‘I’ll keep that in mind if I find the time for another hobby,’ Mum replied with pursed lips as she dumped a plate of pâté on toast down in front of her eldest.
Lunch was the part of the day I’d worried about the most. All of us, sat around a table with nothing to do but talk to each other? Terrifying. Thankfully I’d memorized the last five local council newsletters and was completely up to date on sports, politicsandKardashian gossip – in other words, I was perfectly equipped to keep the entire family talking about anything other than me.
‘Crackers?’ I waggled a red and gold cardboard tube underneath Manny’s nose.