Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Christmas Eve 3:20 p.m.

The hour it takes to get back to Notting Hill turns into an hour and a half as traffic jams up on the motorway. Even when Adam refrains from turning on the radio, or humming and singing, he is still annoying by way of the fact that his phone buzzes and dings with messages every thirty seconds. And then there’s the dramatic noise of self-pity he makes every time we go over a bump in the road that slightly nudges his leg. I refrain from complaining, however, in case he does make true on his threat to tell Marcy of my unwillingness to tolerate him. That would cap off this horrible holiday, this horrible year, this turning out to be a horrible day, just perfectly.

I breathe a sigh of relief as I pull up at Elgin Crescent. There. Job done. Prince Adam has been safely delivered home. I’ll help him out of the car and back into his chair, wheel him into his flat and he can hum and sing and be a weasel on his own time.

I open up the door and unpack the wheelchair from the boot, helping him into it. He sniffs my head again as he scrambles into the chair. What a weirdo.

‘It really is an awesome smell. Granny Smiths. A superior apple.’

I start to push Adam towards number one hundred and twenty when he asks me where I’m going.

‘I’m dropping you off? I thought you said one-twenty Elgin Crescent?’

‘Um, well, the thing is I have a couple of errands to run before I can go home.’

‘So?’

‘So… I need someone to help me. I can’t get in and out of places, or even down the street by myself.’ He gestures at his leg. ‘And with the snow. It’s really coming down now! I could use my crutches, but the ice will make it dangerous…’

Is he kidding me? He wants me to push him around to do errands at half past three on Christmas Eve? After I’ve just done a two and a half hour journey to pick him up because he was foolish enough to break his leg? I want to say this to his face but I can see that the threat to tell his mummy over me is right there on the tip of his tongue. I yank my hat further down over my head so that it covers my eyebrows, and pull my coat further around me, buttoning it right up to the neck. I am very cold. My house is very warm. I want to be at my house.

‘Don’t you have friends who can take you on these errands?’ I ask, my teeth chattering a little as I do so.

‘Are you joking? It’s Christmas Eve. They’ve got plans.’

‘I’ve got plans!’

‘What are your plans?’

‘Just… stuff. None of your beeswax.’

‘Stuff! Sounds thrilling.’

‘Can someone else not take you around? Where’s your girlfriend?’

‘We broke up.’

I see a flash of something darker in his jolly demeanour, but it lasts less than a second and then he’s smiling at me again.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, reaching out my hand to pat him awkwardly on the shoulder.

‘Yep. Was drowning my sorrows when I did this.’ He points at the cast on his leg and pulls and exaggerated face of self-pity.

Against my wishes I feel a tug of compassion for him. Getting your heart broken at Christmas is the worst and I should know. And the broken leg on top of that. That’s terrible luck.

I peek at my watch and sigh.

‘Fine. But thirty minutes is all I have to spare and then and I’m bringing you back to your house.’

‘Hurrah! Thirty minutes is all I need.’

* * *

Thirty minutes was not all he needed.

We’ve been in Hatchett’s pharmacy for fifty minutes already, and Adam has only sniffed half of the perfumes in here in an attempt to find the perfect one for Marcy. I have already told him that she wears Chanel No. 5 and nothing else, but Adam reckons it’s time for her to wear something new. He doesn’t even want to use those little paper smelling sticks the assistant keeps giving to us. No. He wants to spray the perfume into the air and then have me roll him into the cloud of scent so that he can consider its merits and disadvantages. God knows what the pair of us smell like. I tried to widen my eyes at the pharmacist to try to get her to hurry him along – the place is heaving with people picking up last minute prescriptions and gifts, but she ignores my looks and seems genuinely happy to help. She’s practically swooning over Adam’s assessment of each perfume.

I gaze out of the glass windows into the street. The sky is starting to turn dusky dove grey which means that all of the colourful flashing fairy lights are being switched on. Ugh. Now I’m going to have to walk home past everyone’s twinkling windows and smug trees and tacky light up ornaments.

‘This one has a cool name,’ Adam says, picking up a bottle of perfume called Bondage. It’s in a black leather phallic shaped bottle. ‘But hardly appropriate for mum.’

‘No.’ I agree. ‘Definitely not Marcy’s style.’

‘Shall we smell it anyway?’

Adam doesn’t wait for my answer before liberally spritzing the perfume into the air and frantically gesturing for me to roll him into it.

‘Yikes,’ he says after taking a big whiff.

Yikes indeed. This perfume smells like a pair of worn leather undies that have been sitting in the sun all day. And now we are both covered in it. I sniff my arm. I smell horrible.

‘Enough!’ I grumble, coughing and spluttering over the disgusting fragrance. Argh! The scent seems to be getting stronger and stronger with each passing moment. ‘We’ll take a bottle of Chanel Number 5 please.’ I say firmly to the assistant.

‘But we still have more to test!’

‘I smell like an overworked, over-heated gimp, the fairy lights are starting to come on outside and I just want to go home and eat my noodles. Now give me your wallet.’

‘Home for noodles? Those are your plans?’ he asks, a look of disbelief on his face.

I huff and ignore the question. ‘Just give me your wallet so I can pay and we can get out of here.’

‘She’s mean isn’t she?’ Adam says to the assistant who practically wobbles with horn for him.

‘Wallet.’

Adam ignores me, smiling at the assistant in a way that makes her pupils dilate.

‘Fine!’ I reach down into his leather jacket pocket for a wallet. Nothing. He then gives me the same smile he gave to the assistant and though I admit it is a little disarming, mostly because it’s so intense, it does nothing for me in the swimsuit area. He raises an eyebrow cockily. He thinks I won’t dig into his jeans pocket for the wallet? Ha! He doesn’t know me. Marcy once dropped her bracelet down the loo and I retrieved it for her, no problemo. I have zero fear. Hardcore bitch, remember? I reach my hand into Adam’s jeans pocket and he jumps in shock. I pull out his leather wallet.

‘Ha!’ I cry, holding it aloft triumphantly before pulling out a bunch of notes and handing them over to the assistant.

‘Hey! That’s stealing!’ Adam lifts his bum off the wheelchair slightly.

‘You don’t want to buy the perfume?’ I ask. ‘Marcy will be so disappointed, not having a gift from her only son.’

Adam sighs, defeated.

‘Look, she really loves this stuff.’ I say more kindly. ‘She’ll be happy.’

‘Are you two together?’ The assistant asks, looking between us with more surprise than I’m comfortable with.

‘Definitely not!’ I say, wrinkling my nose.

The assistant, a woman seemingly without shame, wordlessly scribbles her phone number on a post-it note and hands it over to Adam, with a meaningful raise of her eyebrows. He takes the post it and puts it his pocket, patting it twice.

‘Ugh!’ I mutter, as we leave the chemist. Broken heart my bruised ass.