Zara Stoneley - No One Cancels Christmas

‘Clean that dirty mind of yours.’ I stare at Sam disapprovingly. ‘Lionel is her neighbour’s cat.’

‘Ah.’ She’s grinning, and I can’t help it, I have to grin back. We know we’re both thinking the same thing (as she does know my Aunt Lynn quite well), and Lionel could quite easily have been a man she’d picked up. Qualifying for a bus pass hasn’t slowed her down at all.

We sit in silence for a moment, savouring the image that has sprung into our minds. It’s Sam who shakes the thought out of her head first. ‘Do you think it’s okay? The cat?’

‘Oh yeah, he’s done it before. He waits until she’s halfway up the stepladder then lets go and stalks off.’

‘Oh. That’s good.’ The look of relief turns to a little frown. ‘That was a bit weird, the cake and coffee thing. She never asks you round for cake and coffee.’

It is weird (even weirder than the Lionel thing) and worrying on many counts.

‘I know.’ Lynn doesn’t really do ‘coffee’, I might pop in for a chat, or she sometimes calls by my place and stops for a drink, or even a meal. But we don’t invite each other round for coffee. And definitely not for cake and coffee. The whole conversation is out of character. Something is off kilter. This feels like bad news and has made me feel all uneasy and icky inside.

What does she need to talk about that means I won’t be up to work afterwards? Is she selling up? Is she ill? My God, is she getting married?

I feel more than uneasy now. I feel sick.

I take a deep breath. It can’t be that urgent if it can wait until Wednesday and be lower priority than Hedgehog Rescue. Surely?

But even though Wednesdays are quiet, she knows that leaving Sam running the place single-handedly could be an issue.

Sam is ace at selling holidays to people who aren’t sure they want them, but she tends to get distracted. And press the wrong buttons on the computer (unlike me of course, ha ha). So why would Lynn suggest I take time off, unless she has something major to tell me, something that can’t be discussed on the phone?

And secondly, Auntie Lynn definitely doesn’t bake cakes. Her occasional spontaneous baking sessions in the past have resulted in deconstructed scones and melt-in-the-middle Madeira cake. Yes, she knows there is no such thing, but that is what usually happens. And you know those recipes that are impossible to mess up? Well, I’ve got news for you, Mr Super-chef.

When I was little I thought they were the most amazing creations ever – nobody else had smashed banana and crisp sandwiches with a side of pancake pieces in their lunch box. I was special.

The fact that we are meeting at her home and not in a café, where cake is provided and guaranteed to pass health and safety requirements, is even more worrying.

‘You don’t think it upset her, talking about booking to go to that place?’

I shake my head. ‘I didn’t even get that far, did I? It wasn’t my plans she was interested in, it was hers . She said she’d tell me all about her plans.’ This is the third, and most unsettling part of it all. What plans? Lynn doesn’t plan things, she does things. And she doesn’t save things up to tell me about later, we fill each other in as we go along.

Sam and I both frown together. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. She just wants a chat with you, that’s all.’ Sam doesn’t sound convinced, and nor am I.

What hasn’t Lynn been telling me?

Auntie Lynn’s house is warm and welcoming, and smells of fresh baking. I lived with her until I was twenty, at which point we both agreed that it might be better if I moved out. Lynn is more free-love than I am, and it was getting awkward and, to be honest, a bit embarrassing to bump into her lovers wandering about in the nude. Especially as some of them seemed a damned sight sexier than the men I brought back. And more interesting. And even, on one memorable occasion, younger.

‘Now dear.’ She pushes the plate of tarts in front of me; they’re a bit of a strange colour, with weird stripes that look like petrified goldfish immobilised in a sea of strangely translucent custard. ‘Lemon curd and marmalade – I ran out of lemon, but oranges and lemons go together perfectly, don’t they?’

I take a tentative bite. A sour sweetness explodes in my mouth, along with a chewy bit that could be orange rind, and my tongue goes kind of numb. I think my eyes are wide and watering, and I seem to have developed lockjaw.

‘I’ve got a bit of news.’ She is smiling, but watching my face closely, slightly nervous – as if she’s expecting me to keel over any second. ‘It’s all been a bit last minute, but I wanted to have a chat about it and explain.’ This obviously isn’t about her cooking. This is about ‘her plans’. The reason I’m here.

There is a long pause. I don’t like pauses, they come before bad news. I’m also not keen on the word ‘explain’. I put the rest of the tart down.

‘I’m going away for Christmas.’

My locked jaw is suddenly slack and I understand her nervousness now. This isn’t about her culinary skills. ‘But we never go away for Christmas, we always have it here.’ We have the biggest tree we can find, too much glitter, and pretend cotton-wool snow if the real stuff doesn’t appear. We make mulled wine and weird-shaped mince pies, we go to midnight mass in our wellies and swap a special present just before we go to bed. We help feed the homeless and then walk the dogs in the shelter, and then we watch the Queen’s speech and play Monopoly.

‘I know, love. But this year,’ she sighs, ‘I’m afraid I have to go and see Ralph.’ She stresses the ‘I’, which I realise I’d missed before. I as in her, not us. Not me. There’s a hollow pang of emptiness inside me, and my heart is racing away as though it knows I need to run and hide. It’s that feeling I remember from school, when I knew I wasn’t going to get picked by anybody to be on their team.

‘You’re spending Christmas without me?’

She leans forward and squeezes my hand, and I realise I sound like a five-year-old child, not the independent woman I insist to the rest of the world that I am. Except Aunt Lynn isn’t the rest of the world. ‘You’re leaving me on my own?’

‘Only for a few days.’

‘And who’s Ralph?’ Is Ralph a dog? Why have I never heard of Ralph before?

‘He’s in Australia.’

‘ Australia ?’ I do realise I’m just repeating everything, but she’s saying all the wrong things.

‘I need to do this on my own, darling.’ Lynn sits back, and I watch mesmerised, as she stirs her mug of tea and the words swirl round inside me. ‘He’s an old friend,’ the way she says ‘friend’ makes me look up, into her eyes, ‘and he’s dying. This will be his last Christmas, and I’d really like to spend it with him. You knew I was in Australia just before you came to live with me?’

I nod. I have some vague recollection of being told, but I was little more than a toddler back then, and all I remember is the strangeness. Aunt Lynn was strangely brown and wore odd, flamboyant clothes, all bright and swirly. Big skirts that swished as she walked, big beads that jingled together, that I played with as I sat on her knee.

Her house smelled different to my old one, all scented and smoky. She smelled different, all warm and inviting. She’d hug me to her chest and sing to me, and even her hugs were different to all the ones I’d had before. Only Aunt Lynn hugged me that way, as though she’d never let me go.

A silly lump is lodged in my throat, and I sit and blink like an owl at her.

Christmas has always been about the two of us being together. How does Christmas work without her?