Stuck On You Read online

  ‘Sounds great,’ I say with a smile. It might be weird to have Damian here with me but it’s so good to be home and I am still so impossibly excited for Christmas. I can’t wait to see Damian’s face when he sees what we’ve got lined up for him.

  ‘Are you going to be OK sleeping in here?’ I ask him once we’re alone.

  ‘I’m trying to remember… I think it was one of Blue who punched me at a Christmas party… or was that one of…’ Damian thinks for a second ‘… Blazin’ Squad maybe? Whoever it was it was long after they’d outstayed their showbiz welcome. Either way, yes, I’m fine sleeping with them watching over me. I probably won’t hug the dodo though.’

  ‘A wise choice,’ I say. ‘OK, well, I’ll just ditch my stuff in my room and we can go get some food.’

  ‘Can I get a peep into your room?’ he asks curiously.

  ‘Later,’ I tell him. ‘But you’ll be disappointed. I took all the embarrassing stuff out of mine. That’s the joys of being the second child – you get to see what to do, what not to do, and so on.’

  ‘I know that’s right,’ Damian says. ‘I was the eldest. Everything was a battle for me. I paved the way for Si to have it easy.’

  ‘Who did Si have on his walls?’ I ask.

  Damian really doesn’t talk all that much about his family – especially not his brother Simon – and now, with him not wanting to spend Christmas with them, he’s got me wondering.

  ‘Oh, it will have been some Aston Palace player,’ he says with a tone that suggests he got that wrong on purpose. ‘He’s a lads’ lad.’

  ‘And what are you?’ I ask curiously.

  ‘I think my dad thinks I’m some soft creative who doesn’t like to get his hands dirty,’ he says. ‘Anyway, dinner.’

  ‘Yes, dinner,’ my dad interrupts as he reappears in the doorway, suddenly looking like himself again.

  Eric Kirke is sixty-three years old and still gets mistaken for a man in his late forties – something he is incredibly proud of. He’s tall, slim, and doesn’t appear to have a grey hair on his head. My mum always makes jokes about him dying it but I don’t think he does. It was so annoying, growing up, with all my friends thinking I had a hot dad. And yet he’s this big nerd who cracks terrible jokes.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking – is this her dad or her brother?’ my dad jokes.

  ‘You’re going to need to brace yourself for a lot of dad jokes,’ I tell him. ‘My dad wrote the book on them.’

  ‘My dad cracks a lot of dad jokes too,’ Damian replies.

  ‘No, my dad literally wrote the book,’ I say. ‘He writes joke books.’

  ‘That’s pretty good, darling,’ my dad says as he pats me on the shoulder.

  ‘Cheers,’ I reply with a smile.

  His dad jokes might be relentless but I'd much rather he bring this job home than his previous gig – he used to be an army sergeant.

  ‘OK, I’ll say it again,’ my dad says with a big old dad clap of his hands – the kind that makes your ears ring for a few seconds. ‘Dinner time.’

  We arrive in the dining room just in time to find everyone already sitting at the table and my mum placing the last piece of best china down. Dinner is already on the table, in the fancy white dishes with the lids. We never get the lids, not unless we have company. Selena and I chipped one when we were kids (there is some disagreement over whose fault it was but, if we get into that, we’ll argue until the new year) and my mum decided then and there that we could never be trusted with them for the rest of our lives. Watch, I bet she won’t let either of us touch them today.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ my mum says brightly, whipping off her pinny as if she’s in a Bucks Fizz tribute band. Actually, she wouldn’t look out of place in the line-up, with her voluminous bright blonde hair. Unlike my dad, my mum has had a little intervention from the hairdressers but I honestly don’t know many people over sixty who aren’t grey. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a few already. ‘You must be Damian.’

  ‘No, it’s your daughter, Sadie,’ my dad tells her slowly and loudly.

  He… does… not… stop.

  My mum has learned to completely ignore his jokes. She’s managed to engage some part of her brain to just straight up filter them out.

  ‘Welcome to our home,’ my mum says, 100 per cent putting on airs because she knows that Damian is a big deal, in art circles at least.

  ‘Thanks so much for having me,’ he says.

  ‘Please, take a seat,’ my mum insists. ‘Eric will get you introduced to everyone while Sadie and I grab the gravy.’

  ‘Erm, OK,’ I say, following her to the kitchen.

  Once we’re alone my mum hugs me.

  ‘So good to see you, my darling,’ she says. ‘I just can’t believe you brought your boss.’

  My mum knows everything. She knows how much I’ve been wanting to change my job, how much Damian can drive me crazy. She also knows that I’m quitting, that I chickened out of giving my notice, and that I felt so guilty I invited my boss home for Christmas. To be honest, when I told her I was bringing him, she just sounded excited.

  ‘I always thought if you brought someone home for Christmas it would be a boyfriend.’ She laughs. ‘Or a girlfriend. Just not, you know, your boss. Then again, if I had such a good-looking boss, I’d take him everywhere with me too.’

  ‘I don’t take him everywhere with me,’ I insist. ‘If anything he takes me everywhere with him.’

  ‘Maybe he has the crush on you,’ she teases.

  ‘Hardly,’ I reply, perhaps a little too loudly. I quickly lower my voice. ‘If he did he wouldn’t have me intervening in all his dates.’

  ‘Or maybe he would,’ she says with a wink. ‘Anyway, let’s go back through.’

  ‘Do you need me to carry the gravy?’ I ask, noticing two fancy jugs of gravy on the worktop in front of her.

  ‘Of course not,’ she replies firmly. ‘You’re mad if you think I’m letting you get your hands on my jugs.’

  We head back into the dining room where my dad has just about finished introducing everyone to Damian.

  ‘And this beautiful creature is Susie, my wife,’ he says. He says ‘my wife’ in Borat’s voice, which is either a seriously dated reference that needs retiring, or so out of touch it’s actually even funnier to say now.

  Damian is sitting next to Ben, my nephew.

  ‘What’s your best turnip price?’ Ben asks him.

  ‘Five hundred and thirty bells,’ Damian replies. ‘Yours?’

  ‘Four hundred and eighty bells,’ Ben replies.

  I know kids like to talk gibberish, but I never thought I’d hear Damian humouring a six-year-old. My face must show how confused I am.

  ‘Animal Crossing,’ Selena tells me by way of an explanation as she reaches to lift the lid off the dish in front of her. My mum lightly slaps her hand with a slotted spoon, stopping her in her tracks. Selena just rolls her eyes. ‘I didn’t think you’d be bringing someone here who could talk video games with Ben.’

  ‘Saves me pretending I know what I’m talking about,’ her husband, Mark, chimes in. ‘I’m pretty sure my son has a mortgage from a racoon.’

  I’m sure that makes sense to someone, somewhere. It clearly makes sense to Damian because he laughs.

  ‘Can I visit your island?’ Ben asks him.

  ‘Of course, you can,’ Damian replies. ‘I didn’t bring my Switch with me but I’ll invite you as soon as I get home.’

  ‘I’ve got mine,’ Ben tells him. ‘I’ll show you mine after dinner.’

  ‘Can’t wait,’ Damian replies. Then he looks at me and laughs. Probably at my face – I don’t know what it’s doing but this is honestly all so surreal.

  ‘You doing all right, sis?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah, you?’ she asks with a cheeky smile. She also knows everything. I think everyone might know everything, to be honest… everyone but Damian.

  ‘Dinner smells great,’ Damian says.

  ‘Thank you,’ my
mum replies as she removes the lids from the serving dishes. ‘We always have a Christmas dinner dry-run before Christmas.’

  ‘But we have sausages, instead of turkey, so we don’t completely ruin the main event,’ I joke.

  ‘It’s Susie’s practice run,’ my dad says. ‘So she doesn’t muck it up on the day.’

  ‘I have never mucked up a dinner in my life,’ my mum insists. ‘But I do like to have a go at the vegetables, make sure my timing is right.’

  ‘A dry-run so we don’t get dry spuds, if you like,’ my dad says.

  ‘Well, two Christmas dinners sounds better than one to me,’ Damian enthuses.

  ‘Let me serve you,’ my mum says. ‘Carrots? Peas? Potatoes?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Damian replies.

  ‘Yorkshire puddings? I know not everyone thinks they belong with a Christmas dinner, but we are in Yorkshire. What about parsnips?’

  ‘Do I like parsnips?’ Damian asks me.

  ‘Does she chew your food for you too?’ my dad jokes.

  Damian looks a little embarrassed. I don’t think he thought it was weird that his assistant would be doing a better job at keeping track of what foods he does and doesn’t like.

  ‘Yes, you like parsnips,’ I tell him with a smile and a friendly nudge of my elbow.

  My mum serves everyone – which I think is a combination of trying to seem fancy because Damian is here and of course the lifetime ban on my sister and me touching the crockery – as we make small talk among ourselves.

  ‘Have you told Damian all about how we celebrate Christmas?’ my mum asks right before popping a carrot into her mouth. You can see the look of relief on her face when she realises it’s perfect – she shouldn’t worry so much. My mum has been a housewife for at least the past thirty years. It’s safe to say she’s amazing at everything.

  ‘Yes, I’ve told him how intensely we celebrate Christmas,’ I say. ‘But I haven’t got into the ins and outs.’

  ‘We have lots of weird and wonderful traditions for what we call our Five Days of Christmas,’ my mum explains. ‘On day one we go for a walk around the island, and the town, delivering Christmas cards. We split up into teams, take a pile of cards each, and the winning team gets a prize. Day two is Dickens Day.’

  ‘Dickens Day?’ Damian says.

  ‘The less you know about Dickens Day, the easier it will be to go through with it,’ Mark reassures him. Poor Mark, roped into all our weird family traditions. At least Damian only has to do all of this once. Mark has married into it.

  ‘Day three is preparation day. We make sure everything is ready, all presents are wrapped, all food is stocked up, and so on. Day four – which is Christmas Eve – we visit the Winter Wonderland during the day, and in the evening we go to the cinema.’

  ‘We’ve got this gorgeous old cinema on the seafront,’ I tell him. ‘Every Christmas Eve they screen It’s a Wonderful Life. The place absolutely packs out. And everyone is invited to go in their pyjamas, so it isn’t weird to see lots of people walking around ready for bed on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘Oh wow,’ Damian blurts. ‘When you said there was lots going on you really meant it. What happens on Christmas Day?’

  ‘Oh, Christmas Day is just Christmas Day,’ my mum says. ‘We exchange presents, have dinner, play games. Do you have any family traditions?’

  ‘Erm, not really,’ Damian replies awkwardly. ‘Just all the usual stuff.’

  ‘Do you have any non-English heritage?’ my dad asks curiously. ‘You know how lots of us, if you go back enough, usually have family from somewhere else. Different cultures have some fascinating traditions.’

  ‘My dad wrote the book on that too,’ I tell him. ‘Christmas traditions around the world. He writes all kinds of novelty books.’

  ‘Christmas is so different in so many places, as you’d expect,’ my dad starts. ‘In Italy, traditionally, their presents are brought by a witch, not Santa Claus. My favourite story – and, you know, take these things with a pinch of salt, of course – a particularly dark Christian tale… La Befana was just a normal woman whose child died. Then, when she heard about the birth of Jesus, mad with grief she convinced herself that he was her child.’

  ‘Dad,’ Selena shrieks. ‘Not in front of Ben!’

  ‘It has a happy ending,’ he insists. ‘She met him, gave him gifts, and in return he made her the mother of every child in Italy. So La Befana brings the presents. There are a few versions but that’s my favourite.’

  ‘I think I had a great-great-great-granddad who was from Iceland,’ Damian says. ‘Maybe even a couple more greats, actually. My mum did one of those family tree things online.’

  ‘Ah, Iceland,’ my dad says excitedly. ‘Have you heard of the Yule Cat? Another traditional Christmas folklore character that is really quite dark. The Yule Cat is a huge, vicious creature that lurks in the snowy countryside, just waiting to devour people who haven’t received new clothes to wear for Christmas. In some rural societies, employers would reward members of their household with new garments and sheepskin shoes. So really, if you didn’t do good work in the run-up to Christmas, you might get devoured by the Christmas cat.’

  ‘Well, I’d be in big trouble,’ Damian says. ‘I’m way behind on my work.’

  ‘You’ve got your cameras with you, right?’ I remind him. ‘Maybe just going through the motions will inspire you.’

  ‘And if not, it’s the cat,’ my dad says menacingly.

  ‘OK, enough talking about witches and vicious cats over dinner,’ my mum insists.

  A perfectly normal thing to say over practice Christmas dinner.

  I don’t even think Ben is listening to us, he’s too busy playing with his food. I do love to hear my dad’s weird stories – and his terrible jokes, if I'm being honest – I find it all so fascinating. Damian seems to be really fascinated by them too but that doesn’t surprise me. I’ve always known that he’s just a massive dork hiding beneath a cool exterior.

  I really thought this was going to be weird, and awkward, and kind of embarrassing for me on both sides but everyone seems to be getting on really well, and Damian seems to be on board for anything.

  Just wait until he finds out what Dickens Day is…

  21

  There is something so strange about waking up in your childhood bed. It’s a real mixture of feelings, some good, some bad.

  On the one hand it all comes flooding back from my school days. Waking up, seeing the faint outlines of the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling, and either dreading going to primary school where I knew Mrs Snowball would make us all sing ‘You Are My Sunshine’ until we got it perfect, and throw our Lunchables in the bin because she didn’t deem them healthy enough, right through to high school where worries shifted to how do I get out of PE today and did I revise enough for my science GCSE exam? But then there’s the comfort of all the nice memories too. Being around my family, my mum bringing me boiled eggs to eat in my bed on a Saturday morning while I watched The New Adventures of Superman (I think Dean Cain in his spandex might have been my first crush) and Live and Kicking. I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad Christmas here. Then again, I’ve never brought my boss home for Christmas, so this could be the first. Adam will not believe this, when I tell him about it – if I get the chance to tell him, that is. Thinking about Adam reminds me how spectacularly I have embarrassed myself. What’s the best I can hope for, if we do get to swap a few more notes before I leave? Probably if we both pretend I never asked him out.

  I pull myself out of bed and grab my dressing gown. Every Christmas my mum buys us new matching pairs of festive pyjamas and a big, fluffy dressing gown and leaves them on our beds. They are always impossibly Christmassy – perfect for wearing to the cinema on Christmas Eve – but this year, oh, boy, my mum really has gone for something dorky: elf pyjamas, and, no, not pyjamas with elves on them, but pyjamas that make you look as if you are dressed like an elf.

  I’m slipping my robe on when I remember t
hat Damian is here. I’m not about to go and have breakfast with him when I’m wearing pyjamas that make me look like an elf. Never mind that it feels kind of unprofessional, it’s just completely weird.

  Instead I take the time to get dressed and put on some make-up. Some boundaries need to be kept in place for this to not be too odd.

  When I walk into the dining room everyone is already sitting at the breakfast table – including Damian, who is wearing a pair of elf pyjamas. The moment is so surreal I feel frozen on the spot. My boss… at my parents’ table… in pyjamas… because he’s here for Christmas…

  ‘Good morning,’ he says brightly through a mouthful of crumpet.

  ‘Morning,’ I say as I sit down next to him.

  He washes it down with a swig of tea from a mug that says ‘I’m on Santa’s nice list’ on it.

  ‘How are you?’ he asks.

  It’s so weird; there’s this glimmer in his eye that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before… It’s as if he’s right at home, relaxed, comfortable in a way I’ve never seen. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that having Damian here isn’t weird at all, and that’s weird. God, I need a cup of tea.

  ‘Yeah, I’m good,’ I say. ‘You?’

  ‘I’m great,’ he replies. ‘Slept really well, even though, even with the lights off, the lights outside were bouncing off Lee Ryan’s face above me.’

  ‘Such a relatable problem,’ I reply with a smile.

  ‘Anything you want for Christmas?’ my mum asks me.

  ‘Dial-a-Date,’ I say in perfect synchronisation with my dad. They both knew I was going to say that.

  ‘What’s a Dial-a-Date?’ Damian asks curiously.

  ‘Dial-a-Date was a board game I wanted in the nineties. I asked Santa for it every year but he never brought me one,’ I explain with a faux frown.

  ‘Santa didn’t think it was appropriate,’ my mum says. ‘It was basically like Guess Who? but instead of chaps with moustaches and glasses, it was hunky men in their twenties and thirties – in a game aimed at young girls.’