Christmas At Leo's - Memoirs Of A Houseboy by Gillibran Brown Page A

not technically. Shane’s sister Penny made it. The one I made had gone mouldy and I’d naughtily switched hers for mine rather than confess that I’d screwed up. It didn’t take long to ice. I wasn’t expert enough to mess on with proper royal icing, so had opted to buy ready-made white fondant icing. It was even ready rolled. All I had to do was unwrap it, unroll it and drape it over the cake and then trim and smooth it. I finished it off by tying a broad red ribbon around it and adding a poinsettia cake decoration as a centrepiece. I dusted it with a bit of edible gold glitter and it looked great. It felt more ‘mine’ now I’d decorated it. I also fancied that it felt more mine because of the dressing I’d graced it with. It had developed Stockholm syndrome, empathising with its ‘kidnapper.’
    I took my time putting the dining room and kitchen to rights. It was still too early for bed. I cast a scowl at the closed lounge door as I walked past on my way upstairs. I got undressed. I switched the telly on. Before getting into bed, I picked up one of Dick’s glossy photography magazines to flick through in between flicking through the TV channels. Time dragged. Nothing held my interest. I flung down the magazine and switched off the telly.
    My brain was like a kaleidoscope, forming and reforming thoughts, but not into pretty patterns. A picture came to mind; of me walking away from mum’s house carrying the box she had given me. I felt cast adrift in some way. She had packed up the aspects of her life pertaining to me, as if cutting the umbilical cord binding us once and for all. The vague feeling I’d experienced in her house, after she told me about her plans for a home based ‘family’ Christmas, returned, only with greater intensity. It felt almost like a physical pain.
    Getting out of bed, I walked over to the window, pulling aside the curtains and opening the blinds, looking out into the dark, winter garden. Cold struck through the glass, making me shiver. I welcomed it as a sensation I could recognise.
    The frightening phrase my mother had used popped into my head: end of life plan . It made me think of Eileen’s mother, Rose, and her end of life. There had been no plan to it as such. She had just been ready to relinquish her hold on life. My mother wasn’t though. She had not been given a choice. Her end of life had been forced upon her by cruel fate and not by the natural weariness of extreme old age.
    The bedroom door opened. I turned away from the window. It was Dick. He was carrying a tumbler of water.

“I’ve brought your medication.”
    “Why did you have to go and tell Shane I was tired?”
    “Don’t snap at me, honey. There’s no need.” Dick put the glass down on the bedside cabinet with my tablets. “He thought you looked out of sorts and asked if anything was wrong. I told him what you told me.”
    “Well you shouldn’t have. I’ve been stuck up here all night bored out of my skull. I wanted to go out for a walk. I needed some exercise. I’m not tired enough to sleep.”
    “Shall I make you some hot milk? It might help.”
    “Milk is for infants and old people. It doesn’t help induce sleep, not unless you lace it with something.”
    “Watch some television then, or read for a while.”
    “What is it with Shane anyway? Why does he always exclude me from any talks about work? What does he think I’m going to do, interrupt him by cracking jokes and doing handstands? Christ!” I turned back to the window, folding my arms tight across my chest to try and contain the anger I could feel building inside me again. “It’s just an excuse for him to have you to himself and pretend I don’t exist for a while.”
    “Don’t be silly.”
    “Yeah, well being silly is what I’m good at, that and cleaning toilets. If we all drank our own piss instead of sprinkling it around the bathroom, I’d have less to do.”
    “If tiredness isn’t souring your temper, what is?”
    I