The Great Christmas Breakup (3 page)

‘Gotta go and
work,
’
he said, when no offer of food was forthcoming.

‘You, work?’

‘On my discs, honey buns. And after that, it’s time to
make nice with da ladies!
’

My daughter Jessie insisted that
Hammertro was a deadringer for
a white
Kanye West, and
clearly
he used his looks
to his advantage.

In another time and place
,
and
gangster life
style aside, I would go for a man like him
in a big way.

‘Stay cool, Mrs T,’ he instructed, as he sashayed out through my broken front door.

‘And I’d get that door fixed if I was you. It ain’t safe around here.’

W
ith a huge, white smile and some sort of strange gesture with
three fingers of his right hand, Hammertro
disappeared back upstairs.

Thursday November 23

‘
Remember what you might lose. Most people are more unhappy
after
a divorce.
’

Jocelyn Priestly.

WHY DID I KEEP
reading
the moronic
burblings
of Jocelyn Priestly?
How could I be more un
happy than I was at that moment?
I was
preparing for a Thanksgiving
meal at the Tees
ons
’
huge mobile home
, located
an hour’s drive upstate.

‘Why do we have to go there?’
Twelve
-year-old Jessie eyed us both with the surly expression of a kid who is wise beyond her years.
I saw she was wearing last year’s party dress, and that the buttons were stretched to breaking point across the front of it. The kid loved that dress, and I didn’t have to he
art to suggest she’d outgrown it
.
Particularly as it was already a size 14.

‘You’ll fight in the car, you’
ll fight with Gran and Aunty Cecily,
then you’ll fight in the car home. That’s not being thankful, is it?’
she said, pouting.

‘They’re addicted to the trauma,’ her
older
brother
J
informed her, slumping against the doorframe
.

At fourteen, he was the image of a young Carson, with hair
just
a shade darker.

‘You’re not wearing those,’ Carson told him, pointing at the filthy jeans that hung midway between his son’s hips and knees.

‘Come off it,
’ I said.
‘Y
our mother dresses as if she is touting
her wares
on a street corner. J looks fine.’

My darling husband slid
his famous look of
detestation up and down m
y own rotund figure. ‘Jeans aren’t ‘fine’ for thanksgiving, Scar.’

‘How dare you!’

I wasn’t just in
jeans and a
dirty
tee – I was wearing a flowing flowery to
p and chunky jewelry
, both
on loan
from Lolly’s
shop.

I looked, as f
ar as was possible in my present
state, relatively hip and trendy.

Or so Lolly had insisted.

Unlike my son, who looked as if he’d just dragged hi
mself out of a conflict-ridden Middle E
astern war
zone.

‘I didn’t mean you, I meant–‘

‘Bullshit, Carson. You hate the way I look. You’re always making sly digs.’

‘Here we go,’ remarked Jessie.
‘What did I say?’

‘Happy thanksgiving,’ J added
.

‘Let’s just go, shall we?’
Carson held open the front door, which he’d fixed as best as he could – which was ineptly and haphazardly – on
his
return from work the night
b
efore.

As we sat in t
he car and watched Carson turn
the key in the ignition over and over again,
I prayed
that the car would
n’t
start and
we’d be saved. Or that it would and we could
ward off
the possibility of hyperthermia. Idly, as I shivered,
I
thought about
the daily quote on
that stupid calendar.

Would I be better off alone?

Was I better off before
I’d met
Carson?

Would I have been better off
now
if I’d never met Mr Harvard?

- Cue tele
phone call with Lolly last week:

‘Yo
u’ll never guess who called in at
the shop
today?’

Lolly had a
successful
boutique
and
stocked her own label
,
‘
LollyBliss
’, plus other trendy labels.
W
ith
her
waist length blonde hair, legs up to her ears and a figure that nervous energy kept trim and taught, Lolly
had everything I’d ever wanted – the looks, the
job, the apartment,
even a vintage 1967 Mercedes like the one my Uncle Hugh
from Cumbria
used to have.
Despite the fact that we hardly saw each other, mostly because she was busy being successful
and adored
and I was busy being
unsuccessful and ignored
, Lolly ca
lled me up once or twice a week
. Out of duty, I suspected, but I appreciated it, nonetheless.

‘Hairy McWeary?’ Hairy had declared his d
esire to wed Lolly at college
and couldn’t seem to grasp that the word no really and truly meant no.
I suppose it hadn’t helped that Lolly had slept with him
once
in the late 80s
,
when pissed out of her mind on schnapps.

‘No, that bloke you liked. Dickie Something?’

I filtered her words. ‘Robert?’

‘Yes, that’s it.
Robert Simpson?’

‘The one who looked like a dark
Brad Pitt?’

‘Yes. You called him Dickie because–‘

‘I had a puerile sense of humo
r, yeah, yeah.
’

‘
But anyway, he asked about you.’

‘No!’

‘Said he wouldn’t mind catching up.’

‘No!’

This second
‘
no
’
had a different meaning. How could I
meet
the
on
e who got away looking like the
one who’d been
recently
dragged from a swamp?

‘Come on. You’re always saying your life is boring and
that
you’re so
darn
miserable. Some harmless flirting with a hottie from yo
ur past isn’t going to ruin you and Carson,
is it?’

‘It will when Robert
takes one look at me and asks what the hell happened?
At which point I will top myself.
’

‘Don’t be crazy, Scarlet. You’re still gorgeous.’

‘I’m a fat lump.’

Lolly wasn’t one to lie. ‘You just need a little makeover, that’s all.
New clothes, new hair. You’re still the same person.’

‘I
’m
about two of the person he knew.’

‘A coffee wouldn’t hurt, would it?’

It was out of the question.
‘What is he doing now, anyway?’

‘
Same as before, s
ometh
ing boring like corporate banking
. Looks incredible though. Slightly graying, but still gorgeous.
More Clooney than Pitt now. Delicious!
I could never figure out why tall, dark and handsome wasn’t your type.’

‘I was dating Car
son, remember? He asked me out
too late.’

‘Never too late,’ Lolly said, and then there was some ruckus in the background and she abruptly hung up,
leaving me with memories of Robert Simpson and my earlier, slimmer, life.

‘Scarlet!’

Carson’s
sharp
voic
e jolted me out of my flashback
, and my seat.

‘What?’

‘Get out and push.’

‘Why do I need to push?’

‘Because you can’t drive, remember?’

‘And whose fault is that?’

‘Here we go,’ said J to Jessie
this time
, from the backseat.

Because it was
Thanksgiving, I deci
de not to argue further and go
t out
to push
. No
snow, thank goodness, but it was
freezing and I
realize
d I’d
left my gloves in the flat.

‘Come on, Scar,’ called Carson,
revving
the engine of the clapped-out Toyota.

What the hell
kind of man was he
?
It was hardly gallant, making me do this.

Never mind, i
f all the skin was ripped from my hands during
this pathetic attempt to attend
the world’s worst Thanksgiving celebration, at least I wouldn’t have to do the washing up.

Again.

The wheels spun, the engine strugg
led, and finally, the car shot
forward.

I had to run in my heels to get back into the car, because Carson couldn’t risk
stopping in case the bloody car seized up
again.

As I jumped
in,
my shirt caught on a bit of metal near where the seatbelt had been reinstalled
by one of the previous five owners, presumably
after an accident.

The metal
tore a
hole in the shoulder of my outfit.

‘Well, that certainly completes the look,’ Carson remarked, without taking his eyes off the road.

It was supposed to be a joke, but i
f I had some sort of sharp implement, I would have plunged it into his neck then and there, kids or no kids.

I turn
ed
ar
ound to check that Jessie and J
had
their coats –
it
seemed
colder in the c
ar than outside, now that we were moving. There were breezes leaking through from every panel of the old motor.

‘Slow down, Carson. The faster you go, the quicker the kids freeze.’

‘Stop telling me how to drive, will you?’ Carson mutte
red, which triggered the decade old
Thanksgiving Day argument about driving.

‘I might, if you’d do it properly.’

‘Care to take over?’

Bastard!

‘You know I can’t drive.’

‘Are you still blaming me for that
, too
?’

‘Maybe you should l
earn to drive, Mum,’ Jessie said
in a soft voi
ce, seeing the tears in my eyes and
trying to avert a disaster.

I
roll
ed
my head around and
thre
w her a sad little smile.

‘Maybe.’

- C
ue
de
pressing
recollection from the past:

‘Everyone needs to
be able to
drive.’

It was
nearly
Christmas and we were
standing on the corner of 5th, near Saks.

‘
Why?
We
live in New York City, Scar
. And we don’t have a car.’

I watch
ed
the people
around us
, rugged up in
their warm coats, struggling with their many bags of unnecessary gifts, and wonder
ed if I was
making the right choice in marrying Carson.