Did you know that my novel Twelve Lessons starts between Christmas and New Year......? Making it the perfect holiday read for your tablet / ipad / kindle or smart phone, also in paperback. Heres the opening pages..... It felt like an ordinary Thursday really, even though 2012 was only two days away. This week was the no man’s land between Christmas and New Year. The week of turkey sandwiches, The Wizard of Oz and half price sales. Most people wanted to get the tree down and reclaim their front room, while they switched their focus to a nicotine patch or a half-arsed diet. I can honestly say, looking back at that morning, I had no idea that particular week was going to be as significant in the life of Stephanie Slater. There was no clue at 8:25am that the universe was about to turn the snow globe of my life upside down and shake it furiously. Everything I knew was about to crash into the pit of oblivion, leaving me to catch any fleeting bits of reality as they rained down in a blurry mosaic. But for now, ignorance was bliss, with a side order of Christmas Blues thrown in. Jay snored lightly and I tiptoed around the bed. I would sneak in later and wake him when I got back, spooned into his back. Maybe he’d roll into me and we’d connect again, fully. I knew the feelings were still there for him too, they had to be. I couldn’t allow myself to contemplate anything else. Two coffees and a GHD moment later, I was nearly ready to hit the road. The car had been running for a while now, sod the environment. I wasn’t going to stand out there and freeze to death with a plastic scraper and a woolly tea cosy hat. I sipped coffee and watched the windscreen demist from the warmth of my front room. I was a girl-next-door type and made the best of what I had been given. I had good skin thanks to the whole cleanse, tone and moisturize habit I had adopted early on, when acne and hormones had set in and Grolsch bottle tops were still on my loafers. My eyes were green and I had a scattering of freckles over my nose and cheeks, and my light brown shoulder length locks were transformed once every six weeks to ‘hot honey’. I just wished that I could shed a few pounds; I hoped that this was not an early onset of middle-aged spread. The way I was going this would creep up to the dreaded outsize section soon. Elastic waistband territory might be just around the corner. Maybe I should look for some exercise DVD’s in the sales and jump round with Davina twice a week. I breathed in and zipped up my ironically ‘slim fit’ black trousers and pulled over a baggy black top, multitude of sins etc. With my high-heeled boots and a retro scarf, a swish of hairspray and a generous squirt of Calvin Klein’s latest creation I was ready to face my public. People think being a sales person is glamorous; you have to look the part but believe me it stops there. Massive targets, long days on the road and conferences with drunken colleagues trying to get to know you better were the reality of the job. The perks were good though, a nice car, mobile phone and laptop and to be fair the money wasn’t bad. End of month bonus payments were generous when your sales were good, and mine always were. God knows I needed the money, final demands form ‘Mr. Barclaycard’ were a good motivator. Things used to be far easier. I naïvely didn’t realize what a financial hole a wedding and a house move would make in the same year. Just months after Miss Binks became Mrs. Slater, what had started out as easy repayments on the wedding loan began to creep up in line with the Bank of England base rate, as did our credit card APRs. My obsession with doing better than the Joneses had made things even worse. I had to make sure that everyone in my life saw how well we were both doing. My ego couldn’t bear anything else, no matter what the cost. It wasn’t until later I realized that my filling the canyon in my life called ‘self-worth’ with more stuff, was not going to get anyone to like me more. And this was especially true for how I felt about myself. The first summer in the new house cried out for patio heaters, an oversized gas barbeque and a joiner to fit the sustainable decking that was imported. Then there was the fire pit, garden lighting and cast iron table and chairs. A couple of the neighbours were green with envy, especially the ones next door; they had the best view from their spare bedroom window. I invited them over with the rest of the curtain twitchers to ‘Christen the Barbeque’ once the word was out. I know they say you can’t buy friends but it seemed like they were all happy to get to know the newbies as they drank our Pino Grigo and ate our rib eye steaks. As summer faded into autumn I planned an extravagant Halloween party. Helium balloons, life-sized cut outs of witches and vampires as well as compulsory fancy dress were all on the list. I carved out two large pumpkins and they were placed on the gateposts, and I made goody bags for people to take away with them. No expense was spared, I wouldn’t want anyone to think that we couldn’t afford it, even though the thought of November’s Amex bill made me feel nauseous. I insisted on ‘doing’ Christmas that year and ended up with a house full of relatives from both sides. There were fourteen in total and, by the time I had finished my preparations, the house looked like something from an interior design magazine. There were vases of fresh holly wrapped in tartan ribbons in each room, a hand carved nativity scene on the hearth and mistletoe hanging beautifully in the hallway. The two trees that I had chosen from a forest shop nearby were adorned with the most expensive and elegant decorations. They all hung from white silk ribbons. The silver snowflakes, glass baubles and faceted crystals all caught the glint of the tiny white lights as they glowed on and off in the background. Yes indeed, I knew how to spend money on looking the part. But no matter how much I spent or what I had, I could never fill the gaping hole I had inside me that felt ‘not good enough’. I kept up the act at all costs—and cost me it did! Snow fell lightly against the backdrop of a grey December sky and the windscreen wipers swished quietly. I day dreamed my way through my appointments, some with gritted teeth. One in particular involved hitching up my skirt and pushing up my cleavage more than I would have liked, but I got the sale and this January’s bonus was in the bag. I sat in the car with the radio on and finished off my paperwork. My phone bleeped and I opened the message envelope from Jay, and any hope of a lunchtime romp faded: Might have to stay out tonight, sorry difficult client wants to see me first thing. He was an account manager too. He worked for a wine company who were very tight in the free samples department since the credit crunch. His job regularly took him away from home these days, he had to manage more accounts than before since Glen, the old timer, had been cut loose. When you are home alone the nights are long. Some of the places he went to were rural and there was no mobile signal. I missed him terribly, not just when he was away, but when he was home too. It felt now like the version of him that I had fallen in love with had faded into someone different, and distant. Our relationship felt like a color TV that had been converted back to black and white. The disconnection made my heart ache. Once things were back on an even keel we’d be fine, and there wasn’t much that you couldn’t fix with a Brazilian and some chocolate body paint in my experience, usually. I sighed and thought of the long night ahead, then sent my friend Lizzie a quick text to see if she was free later on, I hadn’t seen her for ages and I didn’t fancy a night of Christmas re-runs on the television like this time last year. Sorry, I am at a girly night in with wine and fortune teller later on. I called Jay and left a breezy voicemail, I didn’t want him to see through the glaringly unattractive cracks in my feelings. I hung up and the familiar loneliness washed over me. I would much rather have some company tonight, so I took a chance and sent a text back to Lizzie. Maybe I could come along? Two minutes of text tag later I had the address and knew I needed to be there for 6:30pm. It wasn’t my thing but who knows, I might be pleasantly surprised. I made my way home somewhat deflated, knowing that Jay would either be gone or packing to go. When I saw the car in the drive and the bedroom curtains still closed I felt a glimmer of hope that he was still in bed. Maybe I could persuade him to stay after all. I carefully turned the key in the lock as quietly as I could. I slinked out of my jacket and dumped my bag and boots in the hallway. I crept up the stairs. The bedroom door was slightly ajar. I fluffed up my hair and swallowed my fear of rejection. He loves you, you know he does, I said in my head as I hovered for a second or two. That’s when I heard Jay speaking in a hushed voice. “I’ll see what I can do, although it sounds like that will be up to you, not me.” I stopped and listened, holding my breath. There was something in his tone that was familiar, it was an inflection that was kept in reserve for those intimate conversations that you have between couples. I knew this because he used to talk to me like this—pillow talk. Our exchanges recently seemed so much more ‘married’ than what I was hearing now. “Me too.” I heard him say before he hung up. Nip over to amazon to download and enjoy the full story
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 20:09:24 +0000
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