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“It’s okay,” Barbara Jane says. I get the feeling she isn’t going to be helpful here. “We’ll send Sam onto the roof and if he falls off, it’ll probably just cure his amnesia.”
“Fuck off, BJ.”
“I think it’s worth a go,” Del decides. “It’ll be a Christmas we’ll never forget.”
“Especially if one of us dies,” adds Barbara Jane.
Del shrugs. “I probably won’t be here next year anyway.”
“Granddad,” chorus Jonathan and Barbara Jane, “you say that every year.”
Les seems to have been thinking this whole time. “We should go for it,” he says. “We’re here now.”
“Fine. I’ll get the ladder.” Pushing his comprehensively disarranged hair back from his brow, Jonathan turns on his heel. “What’s the point of having a house, if not to let your family wreck it?”
“That’s the spirit,” says Del.
I’d felt a bit guilty sending Jonathan and his dad up the roof, though I tried to console myself with the thought that if he did fall to his death while wrangling a Christmas tree, he at least wouldn’t be able to fire us. Then again, the whole company’d probably get sold off without him so we’d just wind up getting fired by different people.
After lots of “up a bit, left a bit, it ain’t lining up right”, we all gather back in the garden and inspect the illusion.
“I’ll admit,” says Barbara Jane, “that came out a lot less shit than I expected.”
I think she’s understating it. I’d even go so far as to say it looks pretty good. They’ve arranged the bits of tree so, when you see it from outside, it looks like it’s this enormous thing that starts on the ground floor, goes straight up through the guest bedroom—my bedroom, as it happens—and out through the roof like a very festive Godzilla. I reckon it’ll be even better when it’s decorated, although that does mean we’ll have to get the ladders out again to stick the star on top.
“See.” Del gestures triumphantly like it had been his plan the whole time. “I told you we’d sort it out. Isn’t that better than some piddly little thing you got from John Lewis’s?”
Jonathan is clearly struggling with the need to say something nice about one of my ideas. “It’s very impactful. And it’s impacted my entire day.”
“Been a laugh, though, ain’t it?” asks Del in a not-really-a-question tone of voice.
Settling her sunglasses back over her eyes, even though it’s full dark, Barbara Jane grins. “Definitely a top five Christmas tree story. Almost as fun as the year we accidentally left Jonathan in the garden centre and Granddad didn’t notice until we were past Watford.”
“Or,” Jonathan snarks back, “the year you got arrested for shoplifting from Santa’s Grotto.”
“I just assumed that if he had enough toys for every single child in the world he could spare a couple extra for me.”
“You were seventeen.”
“I was not.” Barbara Jane rounds defiantly on her brother. “I was eight. You’re just trying to make me look bad in front of Sam because you fancy him.”
It’s a bit hard to tell in the dark but I think Jonathan’s gone bright red. “I do not. I don’t find Sam attractive at all.”
“Oh thanks,” I say.
This makes Jonathan even more flustered. “I don’t mean… I’m not saying you’re not… You work for me, Sam. It would not be appropriate to consider you on an attractiveness level.”
“Oh thanks,” I say again.
The persistence that served Jonathan so well on a market stall and when starting his own business also means that he has no clue when to quit. “It’s an employment law issue. I’d be creating a hostile working environment.”
“Jonathan,” I tell him, “you already do create a hostile working environment. You’re a walking hostile working environment.”
“I am not,” snarls Jonathan hostilely while Barbara Jane watches in glee. “Now all of you fuck off. We’ve done the tree, and I need to get my car back from Notting Hill before the parking fees bankrupt me.”
“I think”—Les puts his arm around Barbara Jane—“we should probably go. Your brother’s getting a bit tired.”
Jonathan starts gesticulating. I think he maybe is quite tired. “I am not tired. I’ve just put up with a lot today.”
