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Barbara Jane puts her drink down carefully on the floor. “Not as wrong as making people play Monopoly in the first place.”
“Tell you what,” says Les, and I’m a bit surprised he’s speaking again so soon. Normally he’s a one-contribution-per-conversation feller. “How about we get the family box and do those? That’s way it’s officially finished.”
Wendy’s on her feet before anybody can say if they think it’s a good idea or not, and forty-five seconds later she’s poking her head back from the first reception room looking nonplussed. “What’ve you done with the box, Jonathan? Don’t you tell me you’ve lost it.”
Jonathan gives her a sharp glance. “Of course I haven’t. It’s in my room.”
“What’s it doing up there?” asks Wendy.
“I wanted it to be somewhere safe.”
Privately, I wonder if he didn’t just find it comforting to have around.
Either way he goes and gets it from upstairs, and we sit with it between us. For a moment we all just look at it, like it’s something sacred. Which I suppose in a small way it is. Then Les opens it up.
“This is normally Del’s job,” he points out.
“Well,” says Wendy firmly, “it’s high time somebody took over.”
“Especially since he might not be here next year,” adds Barbara Jane, smirking.
With a reverence that could almost make you forget what a complete piece of tat it is, Les lifts out the sugar paper snowflake and hands it to his daughter, who pulls a face of visible disgust.
“You know eventually you’re going to have to stop giving me this one.”
Wendy folds her arms. “That was the first thing you brunghome from school when you was little and it’s been going on the tree for nearly thirty years so it’s going on it now.”
Barbara Jane holds it up, inspecting it. “Fuck, I really was uncoordinated wasn’t I? This is barely even a snowflake, it’s just paper with holes cut out.”
For all her complaining, she puts it on the tree carefully, keeping it well away from anything that might damage it.
Then it’s Jonathan’s turn. And his is the apple. His reaction isn’t quite as performatively outraged as his sister’s, but there’s a certain resignation to it. “Whenexactlyare you going to let me forget this?”
“Never,” declares Wendy.
“Sorry,” I ask, “what exactly does he want to forget?”
Jonathan looks embarrassed. Which is a pretty normal reaction to have to your parents but not one I’d usually associate with Jonathan Forest. “Let’s say that we used to have one more of these, but when I was much younger I got hungry.”
I look at the apple. It isn’t exactly realistic. “I hope you were alotyounger.”
“He was twenty-six,” says Barbara Jane.
“I was five,” Jonathan corrects her.
This’d be a good time to raise an eyebrow, but I’ve never had the knack. “And your parents have been reminding you of a potentially traumatic glass-eating experience ever since?”
Wendy smiles complacently at me in a way I can only describe as peak mum. “Traditions’ve got to start somewhere, Sam.”
Meanwhile, Jonathan goes and hangs his apple, and then Les reaches back into the box of nostalgic humiliation. “Hello,” he says, “this one’s new.”
And he pulls out the little guinea pig in the Santa hat.
CHAPTER 24
So this is weird.
Good weird, I think. Not bad weird.
