Christmas on Primrose Hill (11 page)

‘They did text to apologize. They said they didn’t want to create bad PR for White Tiger. You can’t really blame them. They were in all the gear.’

‘But
why
did no one get a licence? Surely Daisy would have known we needed one? That’s her area. She must have gone to school with someone who slept with the cousin of the housemate of the person in charge of Trafalgar Square licences?’

‘With what time, exactly? Flashmob, remember? We’re flying by the seat of our pants here. This is barely controlled chaos. It’s guerrilla-style. We had to get in, do it and get out.’ Jules looked back down at the Twitter page on her phone and gave a low whistle. ‘Oooh, and check this out. They’re eating it up.’

‘Who are?’

‘Your public, sweetie.’ She passed over her phone. Nettie’s Twitter page was almost glowing from the amount of activity on it. Her number of followers was now up to 51,000, and the post that had today’s short-film link pasted into it had been retweeted over 9,000 times – and was still rising.

‘Do you have any idea how colossal this conversion rate is?’ Jules asked, her eyes wide. ‘Your fanbase is seriously mobilized. They are
loving
you.’

‘Not according to some of these comments,’ Nettie said, scrolling down through the comments. ‘“
Yo ass fat even outta dat soot.
”’

Jules laughed. ‘You sound like Mary Poppins.’

‘Are they saying I have a fat bum?’ She remembered the croissant eaten on the bus this morning. Damn it. Fruit only. Tomorrow, then, she promised herself.

‘It’s funny
because
you don’t. Besides, there’s always going to be one or two nutjobs. But most of these are really nice.’ She leaned over, resting her chin on Nettie’s shoulder, as was her way. ‘Look, that one’s saying it was a shame your T-shirt wasn’t white. Isn’t that nice? He appreciated your wardrobe.’

Nettie giggled, joshing her in the ribs with her elbow. ‘Stop it.’ But she did scroll through the comments with a smile on her face.

All
these people had watched her? She couldn’t believe it. The numbers were hard to comprehend. It was like . . . it was like walking into Wembley and every person in the place watching her on the big screens. She hadn’t even done the Ice Bucket Challenge when it had been the craze of the summer, because no one had thought to nominate her, and now suddenly this YouTube clip had had almost 50,000 views? Most of them thought she was ‘cool’ and ‘badass’, and there were a lot of emojis. Her subsequent arrest appeared to have gone down particularly well too – adding to the subversive element, she supposed.

‘And is there anything from our special friend?’ Jules’s chin dug into Nettie’s shoulder as she spoke, but neither of them shifted to move.

‘Oooh, just give me a week and I’ll come back to you on that. I’ve got twenty thousand messages to get through first.’

‘Sarky!’ Jules grinned, sitting up at last and taking the phone from her. ‘Alternatively, you could just go into his profile and see whether
he
’s tweeted anything today.’

‘Oh.’

Jules brought up his profile page and turned the screen to Nettie with a very satisfied smile.

Nettie’s eyes widened in disbelief, her hands flying to her mouth as she saw the single tweet he had posted that day. ‘
U one crazy chick. #bluebunnygirl #ballzup.
’ He had also retweeted the link to his six million followers.

‘He thinks I’m a crazy chick?’ she asked hopefully.

‘It would seem so,’ Jules shrugged, laughing quietly.

‘That’s amazing, right?’

‘Coming from the likes of Jamie Westlake? It’s the highest form of flattery, I reckon.’

Nettie turned with a sigh, resting her forehead on the window. ‘He thinks I’m a crazy chick,’ she murmured happily.

‘So, about tomorrow . . .’

‘Hi, Dad.’

Her father looked up from his spot at the table as he heard the door close. He was wearing a headtorch and had that faraway look in his eyes that he always got when working on one of his special projects. This one was a 1:24 scale model of
HMS Victory
and seemed to Nettie to be like knitting with matchsticks.

‘Hello, Button,’ he smiled. ‘How was your day?’

She paused momentarily from unwinding her scarf. How exactly should she tell him that she’d been arrested in Trafalgar Square, while dressed as a giant blue bunny, for having a bath of iced water poured over her on the hallowed fourth plinth? Even if it was for a good cause, it was still ridiculous. And it wasn’t like the number of views on YouTube, or her legion of followers on Twitter, was going to mean anything to him – not compared with an arrest sheet. They needed to have the police on their side. She felt a twist of anxiety in her stomach, knowing she’d let him down today. ‘Oh, you know – dull.’

‘Well, only this week and next to go and then you’ve got a fortnight’s rest. You look like you could do with it. You’re white as a sheet.’

‘Mm, I’m cold. It’s perishing out there,’ she said, hanging up her coat, scarf and bobble hat, and walking down the hall to him. She planted a kiss on his cheek. He smelt of toast. ‘Wow. That’s looking great.’

Her father’s brows knitted together. ‘Mmm. I don’t know whether it’s my eyes failing or my hands, but I can’t seem to make it work properly. I’m all butterfingers, having to redo everything twice.’

‘You’re tired too, Dad. You should just . . . you know, rest for a bit. You never stop. I take it you were working in the orchard today?’

‘Can’t stop, love. Who’s going to get those saplings in if I don’t? Everyone else is busy with their jobs.’

‘As are you,’ she said, patting his shoulder and walking towards the fridge. ‘Those books don’t write themselves, you know.’

‘I know, but it’s different working for yourself. I can dictate my own hours.’

Nettie glanced back at him. She knew perfectly well what hours those took – he pretended to her that he worked during the day while she was at work, but she heard him tapping away on the keyboard through the night, knowing he was unable to sleep. Those ‘power naps’ he took in his chair throughout the day were all that passed for his rest, and he kept his days filled up, never allowing himself time to stop and think, to feel, to remember. Instead, he threw himself into community projects that meant endless meetings with councillors and support groups, his days spent canvassing signatures, his evenings taken up with reading reports. He was the person who’d first suggested the idea of a Primrose Hill Christmas Market when Camden Council had turned round and said they didn’t have the budget for Christmas lights; it was he who had lobbied for a community orchard to revitalize and regenerate the patch of scrub on St George’s Terrace; thanks to him, there were now pretty hanging baskets in Erskine Road; and he had been key in spearheading the campaign to reopen the library and hand over its running to a team of local volunteers when the council had closed it due to cuts. ‘Have you eaten?’ she asked.

‘Just finished. Sardines on toast. I wasn’t sure if you were eating out tonight or not.’

She groaned. ‘As if I’m going out with Jules again, ever.’

‘I’ve heard that before,’ her father chuckled. ‘Still cut up about her boyfriend, is she?’

‘Well, she’d deny it to the death if you asked her, but I’d say so. I mean, it’s been nearly a year now, but she’s . . . I don’t know, just partying too hard.’

‘Grief displacement,’ her father said, nodding sombrely as he resumed trying to glue together sticks smaller than nail clippings. ‘It’s not unusual.’

Nettie glanced back at him, almost bemused by his diagnosis. Could he really not see the parallels? She wondered whether he’d received a text from Gwen too. ‘So did you make your word count today?’

‘Hmm? Oh, um, no, not quite.’

‘But the deadline you set was January, wasn’t it?’ Her father had always insisted that a deadline – even a self-imposed one – was crucial for condensing and focusing the creative spirit.

‘Indeed, but I’ll make it up tomorrow. I just had a . . . block, you know. Worked it out now, though.’

‘Great,’ she murmured sceptically.

‘Ah, but one thing I did manage to get done,’ he said, pushing his chair away from the table and walking past her to the back door. He opened it and reached for something outside.

Nettie felt herself tense, bracing for what she knew was coming. She had been expecting it any day for the past week. Her father straightened up, bringing inside a small potted spruce, the bonsai of the Christmas-tree world. It was only just over a foot tall, its fronds as wispy as a teenager’s stubble.

‘Oh, it’s looking good,’ she said encouragingly as her father carried it in. ‘Much healthier looking than last year, anyway.’

‘Yes. It’s liking this bigger pot,’ her father said, pleased. ‘Where do you think we should put it? Sitting room?’

She pulled a face. ‘Probably on the table again? It’s still a bit small, don’t you think, for going on the floor?’

‘Yes, you’re right. It still looks too much like a cat’s scratching post, doesn’t it?’ He laughed lightly, pain in his eyes.

‘Maybe next year,’ she offered.

‘We won’t need it next year, Button,’ he said stoutly. ‘Do you want to put some newspaper under before I set it down? God knows I’ll get in trouble if I leave ring marks on the table.’

Nettie ran to the recycling bin and grabbed yesterday’s papers, arranging them on the table, then filled a shallow dish with water. Her father set down the miniature tree in the middle of it, and Nettie fetched a small box from the cupboard under the stairs. From it, she pulled out a small red tablecloth and draped it round the base, obscuring the dish and papers; then she took out three baubles – one was a softly felted Christmas fairy dangling from a golden thread, so that from a distance it looked like she was actually flying; the second was a plump gingham goose; the third a tiny china robin with the reddest of red breasts.

‘Here, tell me what you think. I bought the new one this morning,’ he said, reaching up to the shelf where her mother’s favourite potteries were kept (all made by Nettie at school and woe betide anyone who touched them) and handing over a small brown paper bag, the top neatly folded over.

She lifted out an intricately carved wooden snowflake with tiny jingle bells in the centre.

‘Do you like it?’

Nettie handled it like it was an injured bird. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Yes, I thought so too. Your mother will love it when she gets home.’

Nettie handed it back to him without meeting his eyes and he carefully placed it centre front on the miniature tree. But even on a tree as tiny as theirs, the four baubles did a scant job of decorating it.

‘It gets bigger and prettier every year – just like you,’ her father said quietly, placing an arm round her shoulder and squeezing it tightly. ‘This Christmas is the one, Button, I know it.’

She dropped her shoulder on his head, wishing she could share in his certainty. ‘I know, Dad.’

Chapter Seven

‘Just think of Jamie!’ Jules shouted as another gust of wind reared up from behind her and blew her hair in front of her face.

‘That’s easy for you to say!’ Nettie shouted back, but with a tremor in her voice. She gripped the rope tighter, keeping her eyes dead on Jules’s as the expert did the final safety checks.

‘Here, here have another tot,’ Jules said, running over and handing across the hip flask again. Somehow, she managed to make a fluoro safety vest look like a fashion statement.

‘But I’ve had five already.’

‘Yeah, and you still look like you need the bottle. Go on.’

Nettie nodded and took another shot. The liquid amber burned her mouth, her throat, her stomach; but it did blur, slightly, the terror that was darting around her like a firework in a box.

‘Are you sure this harness will work?’ she asked, turning to the safety instructor again.

‘Admittedly it is our biggest size. We usually use this for lifting cows,’ he chuckled. ‘Luckily you don’t weigh the same. It’s absolutely fine.’

‘You’ll be fine, Nets,’ Jules echoed, placing her hands on Nettie’s shoulders.

Nettie tried to smile back, but she knew she was mad, stark raving mad, to be putting herself through this. She did not like heights. It was her Official Fear. For some, it was spiders or small spaces or the dark or rubber-soled boots. For her, it was standing 308 metres above London with only a rope to keep her alive. The city – her home town – was very, very far below her, cars like scuttling beetles, pedestrians no more than pin-dots from this height. Buildings rippled away into the distance, morphing into an indistinct grey that merged with the far sky. On nearby ledges, charcoal pigeons ruffled their feathers and stared down across their domain.

‘So remember, Mike’s filming all this. Caro’s shooting from the ground looking up.’

‘It doesn’t make me feel better to know that if I fall, the entire thing will be recorded, Jules.’ She pointed a stern paw at her friend. ‘And you are
not
to use it if I do.’

‘As if!’ Jules laughed. ‘Anyway, if you did fall, wearing that thing you’ll probably bounce.’

Nettie whitened on the spot.

‘Hey, hey,’ Jules said, paling too and giving her a big hug – well, as big as she could get with Nettie in the bunny suit. ‘It was supposed to be a joke. I’m just messing with you. Listen, you’ll be fine. Stop looking like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like you’re going to burst into tears.’

‘But I think I might.’ Nettie bit her lip just as the health-and-safety officer came over with the White Tiger media executive, Scott Faulkner, and a photographer from the
Evening Standard
. ‘Oh, do you want a . . . ? Yes, of course.’ She quickly pulled the rabbit head on and tried to lock her knees as the lens clicked.

‘Right,’ said Jonno, the crazy-damn-fool climbing professional who was doing the abseil with her and looked as relaxed as if he was about to drift on a lilo in a pool. ‘You set to go?’

She shook her head, but he laughed and patted her shoulder like she was joking. ‘That’s the spirit. Come on, then. Just remember we’re in this together.’

He went and stood by the edge, seemingly unperturbed by the sheer drop a foot to his right. It made a mockery of the steep slope on the ice course in Lausanne last week and Nettie wondered, for the thousandth time, exactly how, in the course of a few days, her life had been usurped by a timetable of daily dares that were damn near killing her with fright. He tugged and pulled at her body harness, which was about to become the only thing separating her life from death, for a final time.