Tom parked and then nipped round to bang on the front door. There was an immediate rush of noise from inside, and a short wait, before the door opened.
“Come on then, come on in.”
He did so, leaving his shoes by the door and grinning around at the rest of the welcome party. From surly fourteen-year-old Charley, skulking by the living room door, to nine-year-old Joel bouncing on his toes, down to four-year-old Mika, toy kitten clutched tightly in her hands as she peered round from behind Megan's legs. He greeted them all, before following Megan through to the kitchen.
“What’s my job?”
“You brought the potatoes?”
He deposited two large shopping bags on the counter. “Affirmative.”
“Better get them mashed then.”
They had several large pans, taken when the homeless camp kitchen had been closed down. Tom set to work, food for two adults and five hungry children, only talking once he’d settled into a rhythm.
“Liza home yet?”
“Yup. Revising.”
“And Mars?”
“Football with friends. How’s your day been?”
“Busy. Nothing irregular. Yours? You were going to meet those two..?”
“For Joel, yep. They’re great. Already have a seven-year-old son, they just really want to be able to help. We've got a meeting on Saturday with all of them and Joel, so I’m banking on you…”
“I’ll be here.”
How’d they built this up? It had been a wild idea, after the Camps had closed, when they’d looked at all of the children being cast out and hadn’t been able to leave them. Megan had given up everything to move out of London, up north to a place where rent was affordable. To Nottingham, because Tom had a job there already, with three scared and isolated children, making it up to six when people found out what they were doing. They’d eventually found relatives for eight-year-old Mitch and six-year-old Hope, and others had replaced them, the most recent teen runaway Charley. Megan tried to find families, blood or adoptive, for all of them, with varying levels of success. Hopefully soon there might be rules around this kind of things, networks of foster parents and adoption agencies and social workers, but right now social services was so overstretched they'd signed it all off on a single meeting and a DBS check. Which was less than ideal, because who else might be as able to do what they were doing now, who might be able to take advantage? But they could only help these few.
Tom was there on Saturday, a passing greeting to Megan as he walked in through the door and she and Joel walked out. Mika was already holding onto his trouser leg, tugging at him to come and play. He detached her, though, hanging coat and bag out of her reach and heading for the stairs.
“In a minute, Mika. Where are the others?”
She pointed to the open door of the kitchen, then thought a second and pointed at the stairs too.
“Let’s do the rounds and go see everyone, then we can play, okay?”
An enthusiastic nod. Tom held out a hand to her and put his head into the kitchen.
“Charley, Mars. Good morning to you both. What are today’s joys?”
Mars looked up from his homework, while Charley carried on scowling at hers. “Maths,” she muttered.
“History.”
Tom grinned. “Two of my favourites.”
“All homework sucks.”
“And has to be done. Outing this afternoon, though, and we can have a film tonight for everyone that’s finished.”
“So long as it’s not another stupid garden. And I’m going out this evening. Megan said I could.”
“Then that’s fine, Charley, so long as the homework’s done. As to what we’re doing this afternoon, we’ll talk about it at lunchtime. Now you two get on, and come find me if you want me to try to help. Especially if it’s English – not sure I can remember any maths, that might have to wait for Megan to come home.”
“You'd find this easy, I'm crap at maths. Goes with being stupid.”
“You're not stupid, you've just missed a lot of school. Show me what you're stuck on.”
“Everything.”
He took Charley through dividing a couple of fractions, glanced over Mars' shoulder, then left them to it and climbed the stairs. It was impressive, really, how Megan had managed to institute homework time every Saturday morning. Though a sad side to it too, because both he and Megan had on many occasions had to deal with the tears and frustrations of children who'd missed months of school and had far too much on their minds without academic subjects. They sat down to wrestle with homework, and Tom and Megan did what they could to help them and keep them from getting in trouble even more than they did anyway. At least Charley had a friend now, and seemed so much happier for it.
Two flights of stairs to reach Liza’s door, to tap on it gently.
“Yeah?”
He opened it enough to stick his head around. “Just coming to say hello. How’s it going?”
She rearranged papers of neat handwriting. “Y’know. There’s a lot to learn.”
“I don’t want to bother you too much, just to say hi and remind you not to stress too much. Compulsory outing this afternoon.”
“I know.”
He smiled. “I’m downstairs when you want to take a break.” Closed the door quietly behind him and then turned to grin at Mika. “Time to go and play?”
She grabbed his hand again and tugged at it, grinning back. He laughed and followed.
Mika was a dolls kind of child, and Tom had spent a good many hours over the past months lying on the floor with her, learning to work out what she wanted, when her dolls were to have a quiet tea party and when it was to turn into a brawl. Today, apparently, the brave princess was rescuing Mika's beloved kitten from the dragon, and Tom made dragon noises until she laughed and took the dragon away. The kitten was rescued, and now the dragon was sad, and it turned out that the vicious beast had actually just wanted to be friends with the kitten. Mika thrust more dolls at him and got out the toy tea set, and he helped her set the “table” on the floor, though she took things away from him to rearrange them herself when he did it wrong. It seemed it was time for a tea party, dragon and princess and kitten and all.
Megan and Joel were back around midday, the signal to start making lunch. Tom stood up, clicking several joints, and joined Megan in the kitchen, where she was checking Charley’s sums. Mars had already packed up and disappeared, leaving most of the table free for Tom to lay, before going to the bottom of the stairs.
“Food!” he called loudly, to instant response. Mars and Joel, charging down the stairs three at a time in a dangerous battle to be first, almost crashing into him at the bottom. A minute before there was a response from further up, Liza descending far more sedately. Tom waited until she was all the way down, before holding out an arm to invite her to go first, back into the kitchen. “We’ll need to get you outside this afternoon. Look at all those cobwebs!” He wafted an imaginary feather duster round her, and she smiled to humour him.
He stayed for dinner, too, helped to chase the boys to bed, waited for the older girls to retreat too before he and Megan could sit together on the sofa.
“Christmas,” he said to her. “We’re going to have to actually deal with it soon. Next couple of days.”
“I’ve been trying to work out what they expect. Very little enthusiasm, though.”
“Maybe we just do it our way.”
“It’ll be Joel’s last couple of weeks with us.”
“Everything’s looking good then?”
“They’re lovely, he got on great with Dan – their other son. Joel’s probably going to be moving in with them around the new year, once Carys has signed it off. If it works out they’ll try to do the paperwork in February. You know it never takes long.”
“If people want to take on the responsibility…”
“Yeah.” She leant against his shoulder. “So, Christmas.”
“I’ve agreed to do a midnight and a Christmas morning.” He couldn't quite hide the excitement in his voice. Accompanying Ruth had been... extraordinary. But it had been a loss he hadn't anticipated, to assist her and not to stand at the altar himself.
Megan squeezed his arm. “Of course. Coming for lunch?”
“If it’s after one.”
“It can be.”
“Then yes. Are we getting a tree?”
“I think we should, though it’s not a priority.”
“Charity shops often have artificial ones, and I have mam’s old decorations. About time I actually got them out.”
“You don’t do a tree?”
“I’ve lived in one-bed flats for seven years.”
“I guess. Never stopped me, but I only had a small one, not enough for a place like this. You don’t want them for your place?”
“I do some evergreens and tinsel and cards on the mantlepiece. And a miniature crib. I’m an archdeacon, got a reputation to uphold…”
She shrugged. “Next year.”
He grinned. “Indeed. So, we need presents…”
“And food.”
“Have you got money for it?”
“Enough. There’s enough affordable stuff out there.”
“Enough people buy it.”
“Stop being gloomy. I’ll get one of those turkey roll things, it’s cheaper than a whole bird and less fuss. Massive quantities of roasted veg.”
He pulled a face. “I love doing roasts.”
“Should have thought of that before you went agreeing to work on Christmas morning.” She stuck her tongue out at him.
No, he couldn't have it all, and that was fair enough. “Presents?”
“Mika’s easy. Joel can get something sporty. It’s the others that are difficult. I was thinking about something to share, but with Joel leaving…”
“How about tickets for something?”
“That would appeal to the whole lot of them?”
“Or for just one of us and Liza. Make her take a break, give her some time away from the kids. Find out what’s on in the city.”
“You’d enjoy that too.”
“I didn’t say me, you should go, you do all the work…”
“No, you’d enjoy it more. And it’d be good for you to spend time with them, they see enough of me. Anyway, we still have our teens to deal with… They’ll want gadgets like their friends at school.”
“And much as I hate for them to be left out, not happening. Not for five.”
“My thoughts exactly.” She picked at her nails. “Charley doesn’t really seem to want anything. Not anything we can give her.”
“Vouchers? Make rubbish presents, but she could go out with her friends to spend them?”
“Or take her out with Liza. She’d like to be seen as grown up.”
“Mars wouldn’t feel left out?”
“They’re a world apart. I want to say get him a bike or a hoverboard or something, budget though.”
“Skateboard? Can wrap up the helmet and knee pads and all separately.”
“Good thought. I’ll do a clothes shop. They all need stuff anyway. It’ll give them things to unwrap.”
“And a book each.”
“That’s your job.”
He shifted his arm around her. “Once Joel’s placed, the others realistically aren’t going anywhere. Have you talked to them yet?”
“A little bit. You know Liza, "It's up to you, I'm just grateful for you giving me a home." Mars and Charley... most of their response was “why don’t you just move in together now” and a bit of wondering why their opinions matter. I reassured them they could stay with us.”
“Sorry we have to do things the old-fashioned way.”
“I entirely agree with you. We’re both old enough to know how to be serious.”
“And how to know our own minds. And to know if this is what we really want, forever, and to commit to that. Do I want to spend the rest of my life with you? Yes, I do.”
She snuggled up to him again. “You hopeless romantic, you.”
How to propose? A question that had been on his mind for a couple of weeks now, with increasing weight. Not that he really needed to propose, they’d already talked about it quite seriously, but it was marriage. He wanted to do it properly.
But first, gift shopping. Taking advantage of late night Christmas opening to go after he’d finished work for the day. Studying theatre websites to choose between different shows – what would he like to see? What would the girls like to see? And the real fun, of picking out those perfect books, the one title he thought each of them would most enjoy. They had school and public libraries, but owned no books of their own, so this felt like an important choice.
It was fun, turning up three days before Christmas with two massive boxes, having all of the children gather around for a great unpacking. They'd found a good artificial tree, second hand but looking almost new, and Mika sat in the corner with thumb in mouth as Joel and Mars took charge of the assembly. Tom summoned the older girls to the other box, and Megan split her attention between watching them and supervising the tree assembly.
Layers of tissue paper, painstakingly packed. Tom swallowed as he removed them, folded them along ancient crease lines. The white yellowed to cream, the edges fragile from over eight years untouched in the box. And then the first glimpse of silver.
He hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t realised how much it would affect him. On the very top, the star, safe in its box, glass painted with highlights of gold and silver. The star which had topped the tree every year he remembered, until with mam’s illness the decorations had been consigned to lie in their box untouched.
Their tree had always been of the multicoloured variety, and it was nice to do that again. He’d bought new lights, not trusting the old ones to be either working or legal, but everything else was wrapped in memories. In the bottom, the crib, long forgotten, crochet figures needing to be squashed back into shape. He scooped them up and crossed the obstacle course of the room to join Mika, huddled in her corner with wide eyes.
“Here’s your job,” he told her, crouching down. “The extra special job. Where shall we put them?”
She blinked several times. He reached out slowly, offering her a wonky donkey. Placed it on the ground in front of her, and eventually she reached out a hand to touch it. He lined the figures up on the carpet.
“See, we have Mary, and Joseph, and here’s the baby Jesus but we don’t add him yet because he hasn’t been born yet. And here are the shepherds, and the angels, and the three wise people. The shepherds have their fluffy sheep, and the wise people have their camels.” He’d forgotten the camels, how fascinated he’d always been by them. How had she made them, out of nothing but wool and stuffing? “And this is the ox, which is already in the stable. Where shall we make the stable?”
She blinked at him again, and then touched the play table next to her.
“Up here?”
She nodded.
“Okay then. Well…” he put the ox on the table and cleared most of the figures away, slipping the baby into his pocket as subtly as possible. “Up here can be the hill, this is where the shepherds are looking after the sheep.” He lined them up on a bookshelf. “And the wise people… they come from really far away, in another country in the East. They’re not going to come until later. So I think they can live over there.” He walked across the room, lined the figures up on the window sill, and returned to explain to Mika. “They’re watching the stars, because they know all about stars, and they’re looking for a sign that something special is happening. They’re not going to get here until much later. Now, over here is Nazareth, this is where Mary and Joseph live – with the donkey. And Mary’s on her own in her bedroom when an angel appears…”
It was like taking Children’s Church again, something he hadn’t done in almost ten years. Except to an audience of one – growing to six, as the rest of the decorating drew to an end. Mika helped Mary and Joseph to make the long walk along the floor to the stable, and then he stopped the role play.
“And now they have to wait, because it isn’t Christmas yet. Mary’s going to have a baby, a very special baby, and everyone is waiting. That’s why on Christmas Eve night, we’re all going to get up in the middle of the night and go to church: so we can welcome that baby.”
Church wasn’t compulsory, of course – except for Mika and Joel, who were too young to be left home alone. Charley’d gone for a couple of months, off and on, and then stopped. Liza’d started attending when she wasn’t too stressed about work, until she’d found a part-time job that needed her in on Sundays. Mars tended to go, just to stick with Joel. And Tom never got to go with them, because he was always elsewhere, doing visitations and licensings throughout his archdeaconry.
But this time they’d talked about it together and agreed that Christmas was a time for going to church, especially at midnight. So he and Megan spent Christmas Eve in the living room, busy with last-minute gift wrapping until quarter to eleven, and then she went to wake Mika while he knocked on the doors of the other children’s rooms, stirring them to get dressed and come downstairs so that they could drive out of the city, to the church Tom had found to preside in. A small, quiet service, so different from those at Ruth's side, proclaiming the incarnation in a way that seemed to reflect the quietness of that moment. And such an added bonus, to see those five young faces watching him with fascination! There were many kinds of families, and this was his: unconventional, and wonderful.
No comments:
Post a Comment