This is Me by Shari Low

Author:Shari Low [Low, Shari]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2019-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Three

Denise – 1986

The lights on the Christmas tree in the corner were flickering, the angel on the top a little lopsided. Not that the kids had cared. Now that Claire was seven and Doug was six, they were beyond excited about Santa’s visit tonight, and so hyper before they went to bed that they were practically swinging from the paper chains that draped from every corner of the room.

Kneeling on the floor, Denise sat back on her heels and rubbed the base of her back. She’d been bending over, wrapping these presents for the last hour and her festive cheer had well and truly disappeared.

She’d been hoping beyond hope that Ray would get home in time to help, but in truth, she’d known it was a long shot. The plant shut at lunchtime, so it was normal for the men to head to the pub for a pint on the way home. In Ray’s case, that invariably meant ten pints once he got going. He couldn’t help himself, she knew that. He just loved being sociable and having a good time with the other guys. It was one of the things she loved about him, so she rarely complained. Besides, how many times had his mum told her that the worst thing Denise could do was put demands on him? He had a lot on his plate, Jenny said, between working and supporting a family with two kids. Denise had to make allowances.

If she were being honest, though, she just wished those allowances didn’t need to be made at 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve, when she still had to finish sorting the presents and get the preparations done for her first time hosting a Christmas lunch tomorrow.

Her own family weren’t coming – Agnes said she wasn’t traipsing across the city on Christmas Day – but Ray’s mum and dad were definitely going to be here. Ray had said that offering to do it was the least they could do now that they were in their own house. She got a tingling in the pit of her stomach just thinking about that. Her own house. And it was a bought one too, not one off the council. No one in her family had ever owned their own house before, and much as her mum would die before she admitted it, Denise knew Agnes was a tiny bit impressed.

It was just a shame they’d got it under such sad circumstances. Situated in Giffnock, a lovely suburb in the south of the city, it had been Ray’s grandad’s house, until he’d passed away a couple of months before. The house had been left to his only son, Ray’s dad, Pete, although there was still an outstanding mortgage on it. Pete had decided that he was too late on in life to be taking on a mortgage and a house that needed complete modernisation. He and Jenny were happy in their tenement flat and had no desire to move. ‘They’ll take me out of here in a box,’ Pete always said.

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