Everyone Is Still Alive by Cathy Rentzenbrink

Author:Cathy Rentzenbrink
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781474621151
Publisher: Orion

Chapter Eight

Christmas morning finds Juliet peeling potatoes and listening to carols on a CD that came with a book her mother gave to Charlie last year. ‘Share the magic of Christmas,’ it says on the front cover next to a picture of a fat Santa, some large-eared elves carrying presents, and a few grateful-looking Dickensian children. She has decided to do without her phone for a few days as social media and the news were making her miserable. This CD is all she is allowing herself to access in the way of entertainment.

Juliet can hardly believe that they were all here together with her mum last year. She had just been for her annual tests, as usual. Every year since her recovery from cancer in 2003 she went for tests in December and got the all-clear in January. There was no reason to suspect that anything would be different. There was nothing wrong with her. She looked and felt great and, as ever, made them all feel special. She had collected Charlie after his last morning at school, and Juliet and Liam had a few days of going to parties and staying out late before heading over to Magnolia Road on Christmas Eve. Charlie had been helping with the decorations and making mince pies. He was decked out in an apron and covered in flour, beaming.

She had such a knack for making things nice, her mother. Juliet found the decorations in a box under the stairs but hasn’t been able to assemble them with the same festive touch. She’d tried to make an occasion of it but Liam wasn’t bothered and Charlie was rough with everything, not wanting to wait until she’d put the lights on the tree, chucking tinsel around and then breaking the golden angel that she remembered from all the Christmases of her childhood. Juliet had wanted to scream at him but she restrained herself as she swept up the jagged, glittering pieces and then cried hot, angry tears as she threw them into the outside bin. And she’d underestimated how much Mum must have been involved in making sure that she got good, thoughtful presents. Last year she felt loved and appreciated on Christmas Day. This morning Charlie and Liam gave her a carrier bag from TK Maxx that contained a scarf-and-glove set, a nightshirt with ‘It’s Snow Joke’ on the front, a box of reindeer biscuits, and a chocolate-flavoured mini panettone. They hadn’t taken the price tags off.

Juliet plops the last potato into the pan and peers into the oven. She’s splashed out £65 on an easy-carve, deboned bird wrapped in a smoky bacon lattice from the M&S at Kew Retail Park. ‘Spend less time prepping and more time celebrating,’ it says on the label. Juliet opens the fridge. Champagne and white wine, a salted caramel Yule log, a snowy profiterole stack, and a cake in the shape of a chimney with Santa’s red wellies waving in the air. She had tried to keep a hold on the excess.

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