‘I can only hope you’re right.’
‘Want another tarot reading?’ She was reaching for her bag at her feet.
‘No, I’m alright,’ Quinn said, afraid of seeing the devil coming back. ‘I trust the last one.’
‘Hm.’ Ivy sniffed. ‘Alright then.’
‘Can I get a reading?’ Daniel asked. ‘There’s this thing…’
‘Yes, let’s do one.’
Quinn sipped his own tea, more elegantly than Ivy, his eyes on the shimmering lights of the shop’s Christmas tree.
‘What are your plans for Christmas?’
Ivy thought for a moment. ‘Spending the day with Mum. She lives over in New Radnor.’
Quinn knew the place, a small nestled village in mid-Wales with sprawling luscious green mountains. Only he knew now they would be lethal, covered in white and ice, the perfect postcard Christmas town.
‘That will be nice.’
‘It will be, but she will insist on going Christmas carolling.’
‘On Christmas day?’
‘It’s a New Radnor tradition,’ Ivy said. ‘We do it every year. And every year I pretend to hate it.’
‘But you love it?’
‘You heard me sing,’ Ivy said, and Quinn recalled the pitchy tones of Ivy in the town hall. ‘You don’t hide a voice like mine.’
Quinn smiled just as the front door opened and a customer walked in. They smiled back at him, meandering through the aisles.
‘What about you?’
‘It will either be spent celebrating or trying not to make it awkward with Mum and Harold.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Ivy mused. ‘Christmas is a time for family, after all.’
‘Even when that family tries to screw you over.’
ChapterThirty-Eight
Early mornings were not Quinn’s thing, but he didn’t mind when so much relied on the day ahead. Black painted the sky as he showered, and the morning’s artist didn’t add light until he was wrapped in winter clothing. He peered out of his window at the emerging hazy day, carrying a cardboard placard he’d made the night before that read ‘Queer to stay’.
Christmas Eve arrived much quicker than Quinn expected. When he was a kid, he would shake with excitement, and as he entered adulthood, he still trembled with enthusiasm. He would usually spend the day relaxing, the mounting enthusiasm for the next day building with every second that passed.
Only now anxiety had replaced anticipation, knowing that not only were they making a last bid to get their voices heard, but they were about to disturb the opening of the much-loved Hay Castle. He never thought he would disrupt the opening for a heritage site.
Peering out of his window, he could see a crowd already gathered on Castle Street. It warmed his heart to see banners and signs being held in the air, declaring ‘slay another day’ and ‘fuck the patriarchy’. He shivered with excitement, feeling rebellious. Looking at himself in the mirror, he tried to muster his best attitude face. He settled with something that landed between a pissed off rock star and ‘can-I-speak-to-the-manager-Karen’, and headed out into the crisp winter morning where the weak sun shimmered on fresh snow.
‘There he is!’ Ivy said, wearing a long pink coat and a baby pink scarf. The crowd turned and cheered, Ivy leading the pack like a fairy-type Pokémon. Her pink bobble hat wobbled on her head, black hair falling from underneath. Her cheeks were rosy red and there was an air of excitement in her expression. ‘Are you ready to stick it to the man?’
‘Always ready!’
The three drag queens were what the gays called sickening. Penny wore virgin white robes with a huge white wig. The ghost of Christmas past had never looked so fabulous. Then there was Ebeneezer, floating in green robes and a jolly red beard. Santa Whores came dressed as the ghost of Christmas future in a black PVC boiler suit that would have looked unflattering if it wasn’t for the chains that were tied around the waist, making the outfit look more dominatrix than industrial.
‘Werk,’ Quinn said.
