Advent Calendar 2nd December!
By
Elisabeth Hobbes
The phone on the desk
rings. Jamie swears and pauses,
foundation stick in one hand, magnifying mirror in the other, and glances at
the screen. The photo shows a badly lit
pic of a handsome, smiling woman holding a Chihuahua to the screen to take a
double selfie.
Mum.
Great. Anyone else you could ignore. Anyone else would hear the voicemail message
once and either leave a message or ring back later. Not mum.
She’ll ring and ring, ring and ring.
Jamie sighs and puts the panstick down.
Jabs at the screen.
“Hello love!” comes the
sing-song voice. “How was the opening
night?”
Jamie’s teeth set on
edge. “Hi Mum. Opening night was two weeks
ago, and I told you then.”
“I forgot. Pantomimes seem to start earlier each year.”
“What do you want, mum?”
“Oh, sweetie!” The eye roll and pout are almost
audible. “Can’t a mother even call her…”
“I’m at work, Mum.”
Jamie cuts in, knowing
that from bitter experience these calls can go on for fifteen or twenty minutes
with no clear purpose. “I’ve got maybe
ten minutes before I need to be on stage for the vocal warm up. The kids in the chorus are all hyper from a
sugar rush thanks to the local TV guys leaving them a box of doughnuts. I can’t talk for long.”
“Ahhh, sweetie! I remember your first school play. You were such a little darling in that sheep
costume wiggling your bobtail, I knew you were going to take after me. Now
your father said I shouldn’t encourage you, but I could always see how much you
loved the theatre when you came into my dressing room. And now you’re on the stage too so I was
right after all to let you. It’s in the
blood, you know.”
Jamie can’t help smiling
even though the story is years old. Jedda
Matthew, Hull’s foremost (and probably only) female impersonator who only gave
up the stage when the early death of her husband left her as a single mother.
“Mum! Please!”
Jamie’ voice sounds sharp and feels tight. It’s a bit of a worry as the last number of
the first act is really tricky, at least two notes too high for comfort. That’ll need some working on this evening.
“I’m sorry, dear. Now, I was calling with some news. I hope you’re sitting down. Your sister is expecting a baby.”
The warning should have
come earlier. Jamie sinks to the stool
on legs that have turned to iced water.
Stares into the brightly lit mirror and sees a face peering back that is
cloud white even underneath the heavy stage makeup, with a mouth that is a
scarlet streak of a smile. False eyelashes
frame eyes that are suddenly filmy with tears.
“Lee’s pregnant?”
Jamie looks from the
mirror to the photo board that has a special place in the dressing room and
finds the photo of two children holding green balloons with the number eight on
them. Jamie and Lee. Twins named by a mother who loved horror
movies. Jamie and Lee consider
themselves lucky that they weren’t named Carrie and Freddie. They’re enough of a pair of clichés as it
is, being such opposites. Tomboyish Lee
scowling into the camera, who later took a Masters in Forensics and Jamie with
a sequinned scarf and a beauty queen smile plastered on wide even back then.
Streamers swirl in Jamie’s belly in a pit that
is huge and wide and gaping. A Mardi Gras
of emotion too big to be contained.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! And what I want to know is, have you been feeling
anything?”
“Feeling what?” Jamie
asks. The only feeling is a slight
resentment that Lee called their mother first, but it is buried almost
immediately beneath an avalanche of the urge to scream and dance round the
room.
“Did you feel that your twin
sister is going to make me a grandmother,” Mum continues in an exasperated
manner, oblivious to the bombshell she’s dropped. “Because Mrs Noah who lives next door to
Annie Blake’s new bungalow says that when one twin gets pregnant, sometimes the
other knows even before the expectant mummy.
So have you felt sick at all? No
strange cravings for pickles. Have you
been wanting to eat meat?”
Jamie sniggers but
manages to rein it in. Too rude for mum,
though she probably wouldn’t understand it anyway.
“I’m vegetarian,
remember,” Jamie says. “If I start
craving steak I’d probably puke.”
“I know you are. And I did
hear you snort, and I do know why,
you know. I was on the stage for twenty
years.”
She pauses to let it
sink in, reminding Jamie that she has a broader mind than her children remember
at times.
“Ah well. Perhaps it only works for identical twins.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Jamie
agrees, glancing quickly at the clock. “Mum,
I have to go. I’m needed for warm
up. These numbers won’t sing
themselves.”
“Aren’t you happy for
your sister? I’m sorry, it must be a
shock. I know you and Chris have talked
about starting your own family. I’m open
minded as you know and I know a lot of couples make it work one way or another,
but really, with the hours you both keep and theatre work being so uncertain...”
Mum’s voice is consoling
now and Jamie can hardly bear it.
“No. Yes. No, I’m happy for Lee. Really
happy. I’ll call her as soon as I finish
tonight. Love you. Gotta go.”
Jamie hangs up while mum
is still saying effusive goodbyes and is halfway to finding Lee’s number when
the two-minute call comes over the tannoy.
The call will have to wait.
***
By the time the
performance is finished and Jamie is back in the dressing room there are five
missed calls, all from Lee. Jamie finds
a seat upstairs on the Night Bus before punching the speed dial with trembling
fingers.
Lee starts apologising
before Jamie can even get a word in.
“Jay! She told you!
I’m so sorry you had to find out like that. I didn’t want to say anything to anyone until
I was sure but Mum dropped round this afternoon and found me chucking up into
the kitchen sink. She wouldn’t stop
badgering me until I did a test. You know what she’s like. ”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. You and Chris should have known before anyone
else. What did Mum say?”
Jamie stares out of the
window at the fairy lights illuminating the shop fronts and grins. “Oh, she was full of some weird stuff about
whether I ‘felt your sickness’ or ‘sensed your womb’. I swear she thinks we live in Star Wars. She asked if I’ve been wanting to eat meat.”
Lee explodes into
snorts. “No! I bet you almost pissed yourself laughing.”
“A little bit. She also told mentioned how pleased she is
that you’re going to make her a grandmother.
So, you didn’t tell her everything?”
“I thought I’d leave
that. Why don’t you and Chris come up
next Sunday? I’ll do a roast and we can
tell her over the chicken. I need to
practice for Christmas.”
Jamie laughs and grins,
knowing from Lee’s tone of voice that her expression will be almost identical
as they discuss the secret they’ve shared for seventeen agonising, heart-breaking
months of planning and failure and more planning.
Because Mum might have
heard about Lee’s pregnancy first, but she got one thing wrong. Lee isn’t making her a grandmother, Jamie
is. With Chris’ sperm and Lee’s gladly
donated eggs and womb.
“Sounds great. We can tell her everything. Chris can take a photo of her face and we’ll
put it on a bib for the sproglet.”
Jamie grows serious for
a moment. The enormity of impending parenthood
suddenly becoming real, accompanied by a mild punch to the guts that Lee will
get to experience something Jamie never can.
“Lee, I don’t know what
to say. I don’t have the words to thank
you enough. You know what this means for
me and Chris.”
“Don’t got getting soppy
on me!” Lee warns. “I know you’d do the
same for me if you could. Just don’t expect
me to change nappies or tap me for babysitting too often. And I’d better get a really good gift this
year!”
They kiss into the phone
and Jamie hangs up, counting the minutes till the bus pulls in at the stop
round the corner from the flat.
Chris is lying on the
sofa, long, lean legs buried underneath the cats. He’s working his way through a box set of Frasier. Beside him is a pile of exercise books and an
empty wine glass. Chris decided a couple
of years ago that he’d had enough of soul-destroying auditions and walk-on
parts in local theatre, and that teaching seven-year olds was his calling. He doesn’t miss the stage and they’ve already
agreed that when the baby arrives Chris will be the stay at home dad and Jamie
will continue to work.
Jamie bends over, covers
Chris’ eyes from behind and kisses the top of his head.
“Hi Honey, I’m home!”
Chris leans round and smiles
the smile that made Jamie’s toes curl with instant desire from the very first
moment they met. Jamie knew instantly
that Chris was The One when he winked across the room at an open audition for Hello Dolly in Slough.
“What a day. The kids are clinging on until the end of
term by the skin of their teeth. Who’d
be a teacher in the Christmas term? Want
some wine? You’re later than I expected,”
Chris says. An evening with only the
cats and TV for company always makes him extra talkative.
“Mmm-hmm. I caught the bus rather than the Underground.”
“Urgh, rather you than
me!”
Jamie walks to the
kitchen, returns with a glass of Pinot and flumps onto the sofa, legs across
Chris’ lap.
“I needed to call Lee. She had some news.”
“News? And?”
Jamie looks into Chris’
eyes, which are full of anticipation.
Fear. Hope. They’re chocolaty brown and flecked with a
touch of green, with thick lashes.
“Lee’s pregnant.”
Jamie reaches out a
hand, strokes Chris’ face and smiles. He
feels tears starting to prickle behind his eyes.
“We’re going to be
dads.”
If you enjoyed this story by Elisabeth Hobbes please visit her at the following links:
Amazon
Website
“I suppose a kiss of gratitude is out of the question?”
Widowed Lady Eleanor Peyton has chosen a life of independence. Living alone on her rocky coastal outcrop, she’s cut herself off from the world of men—until William Rudhale saves her life and demands a kiss!
As steward to Lady Eleanor’s father, Will knows the desire he burns with is futile—but he’ll still wager he can claim Eleanor’s kiss by midwinter. Yet when the tide turns Will realizes vulnerable Eleanor is far too precious to gamble with. Can he win his lady before it’s too late?
Happy Reading!
See you tomorrow!
No comments :
Post a Comment