The Gifts

We slid the Christmas presents across the lunch table like a hostage exchange, pushing them through the no man’s land of salt and pepper shakers and trembling condiments into enemy territory. My mother glided a manicured nail between the tape and the wrapping paper and pried an end open. She slipped the contents into her hand, leaving the paper almost undisturbed except for the one surgical wound at the end. The book was off her wish list, but even so, she gave a taught-lipped smile as she said her thank you.

I looked down at the package sat in front of me and exhaled slowly. Previous gifts rolled through my mind like a gameshow conveyor belt; the thought of the student cookbook from last year, an apt present for a university drop out still fond of ramen, made me clench my teeth together.

I set my face into a calm facade and tore along the central seam, pulling the paper apart. Inside was a thick, hand-bound notebook with a silk cover made from vibrant, swirling hues of blue. The paper inside looked handmade too, flecked with bits of seed and dry grass. I ran my fingers across the pages, feeling the texture ripple under my fingertips. I realised I’d been holding my breath and blew out the air I’d been trapping.

“It’s not that bad is it?” I heard from across the table. I looked up and saw my mother’s eyebrows creasing toward the middle – confused, anxious, frustrated? I could never read my mother.

“No,” I heard myself saying. “It’s not that, it’s lovely. It’s really lovely mum, thank you.”

She visibly relaxed, her angular shoulders softening back into her seat. The present exchange signalled the end of our meal so we gathered our bits and left the restaurant we’d chosen as our neutral ground, parting on the pavement. 

I could feel the blue notebook bouncing around in my bag as I walked back to my flat, rhythmically hitting my leg. Usually my mother didn’t go in for subtlety when she was making a point – eat healthier, get a boyfriend – but this blue book didn’t make any sense; I couldn’t figure out what she was trying to say. I stuffed my hands deep into my pockets to keep the cold from biting at the backs of my hands and hunched over as I strode up the hill to my front door. As I neared the summit, snowflakes started to fall and I took my hands out of my pockets to let them melt in my palm. 

Inside, I hung my coat over a chair to dry out and dropped my bag on the floor. I headed over to the alcohol cupboard and rummaged around before deciding to pull the assorted bottles out onto the countertop. I was hoping for something light, like a Margarita mix or an old bottle of Bucks Fizz if I had any, but discovered I only had various cheap wines, some half empty spirits left over from parties and the bottle of bubbly from when I’d moved in. I pushed them all back into the dark space at the back of the cupboard and shut the door, realising I’d have to head out again.

I shrugged myself back into my soggy coat, picked up my bag and slid the blue book onto the table, extricating it from a graveyard of chocolate bar wrappers and loose change. I made my way down the communal stairs to the front door of the building, opened it and stepped out. The falling snow had got heavier while I’d been inside and was now making it hard to see beyond a few metres in any direction. My shoes had seen better days and as I began the trudge towards the supermarket, the slushy snow seeped in through small openings where my toes creased. I could have turned back as soon as I stepped outside, but I knew I deserved a good Christmas Eve like everyone else, and a brief, chilly trip to the supermarket would be worth it in the end. I also had the notion that this was what it would be like to be an Arctic explorer, and I liked the thought of myself wrapped up in snow gear, plodding towards the pole.

By the time I could faintly see the bright lights of the supermarket sign, my feet were painful, like the squishy bits on the bottom had turned into slabs of ice. I shuffled across the car park and the automatic doors slid open for me. I stopped under the heat vent, with the doors still open and cold air whirling behind me. I spread out my arms and turned my face up towards the hot air and let the stinging in my cheeks fade a bit before I realised I probably looked a bit odd. I dropped my arms back to my sides and looked around to see if anyone had caught my warmth salutation in the doorway. There was no one in sight, so only the CCTV would be able to have a chuckle at my expense.

The alcohol aisle, and the sole purpose of my sub-zero quest, was located at the far end of the supermarket, so I began walking in that direction. About halfway along, I realised all the checkouts I’d passed were empty, and all the checkouts ahead of me were too. I started systematically looking up the aisles, hoping to spot a member of staff, but I was already at Home Baking and hadn’t spotted a soul. 

The notion crossed my mind that this felt like a zombie movie and I wondered whether I should give up and go home, but I still had the promise of my perfect Christmas Eve in front of me, and that seemed worth the small possibility that the world was ending. Also, I’d always figured in an apocalypse scenario that I’d go for a die early approach and get it out the way – surviving seemed like a lot of effort.

I resumed my aisle scanning more slowly, feeling safer with a wary peek round the corner before making myself visible at the end of each aisle. I’d started convincing myself that I was being stupid when I glanced down the cereal aisle and yelped. I turned around and then back towards it in an indecisive shuffle. 

A baby was sat in a carrier in the middle of the aisle. It saw me and started crying, which felt personal. I looked around frantically for a grown-up, and then remembered that I was 28 and that whatever was happening was now on me. I approached the baby slowly, trying not to scare it I guess, and knelt down. I tried rocking the carrier, and the baby stopped crying for a second, presumably taking a moment to evaluate if this change in circumstances was to its liking, decided against it, and started up again. I unclipped the buckle holding it in and lifted it up. I’d seen enough TV mums to know babies like to be bounced so I starting bobbing up and down. The crying slowed to a sniffle and then stopped and I felt like a hero. 

I looked around to see if anyone had spotted my moment of glory and remembered my existing predicament. Baby usually equals parent, so how was I the only one here? It hadn’t exactly brought itself to the shops, so there must be another human around. I returned to my aisle scanning and shouted ‘Hello?’ and ‘Anyone lost a baby?’ a few times, but there was no one.

Now I was a bit worried that I’d accidentally adopted a baby, like finders-keepers. I didn’t really have space in my life for a baby, what with all the barely being able to look after myself I was doing. I was starting to get sweaty as I realised that there really was no one around. I was also learning that babies get really heavy when you’re carrying them and I hadn’t done an arms workout in about five years.

My attention snapped to the back of the store when I heard a metal clang followed by feet hitting the linoleum floor. A beansprout of a teenager came into view at the end of the aisle we were in, overshot us, squeaked his shoes on the turn and dashed towards us. 

I shouted “Where were you?”, realising I had the urge to cry now that someone was there to help me. His eyes went wide and I rushed to apologise and explain the empty checkouts and the abandoned baby.

He gestured towards the front of the store and we wove towards the entrance via the cereals aisle to pick up the carrier. As we wandered along, he explained all the other staff had driven home when the snow started looking bad, and he’d stayed because he could walk home.

“They abandoned you?” was all I could think to ask.

“Not abandoned so much, I volunteered. Wanted them all to get home safely, and we’ve barely had anyone in, just you and the mum.” He gestured to the baby. “She had two other kids with her and seemed pretty fraught, Christmas Eve and all. They’d run out of gravy granules and she said Christmas would be ruined without the gravy so she’d popped in to get some. I didn’t see her come in, so didn’t realise when she left with two kids that there were supposed to be three.” He gestured to the baby again. “Only realised when she called the store. You’d think it’s the first time we’ve had a kid accidentally left in one of the aisles, but it happens every couple of months. No harm done.”

We sat down in the chairs at the customer services desk and the baby started crying again. The teenager, who I now knew was Toby because we’d stopped long enough for me to read his nametag, let the baby hold one of his fingers and wagged it up and down. He started making faces and the baby stared up at him mesmerised. I just sat and stared too. I might as well have been the baby carrier for all the help I was.

“Jiggle your knee,” he said. I jiggled and the baby and Toby looked up. “He’s smiling, I think we’ve got a handle on the situation.”

Our weird equilibrium was broken by a 4x4 pulling up in front of the automatic doors. It pulled in slowly, wary of the slush churning under its wheels. Then a woman threw open her door and careened towards us. 

When she reached the information desk, she didn’t actually register me or the teenager, and started checking the baby over like it had been involved in a horrific accident and not just been chilling near the cereals. Then she hugged me awkwardly, because she’d still not taken the baby back, and then we did the fumbling handover of the baby. Toby held his hands under the baby’s head as I passed it over and I looked at him apologetically. 

Handover completed and baby carrier in hand, she was on her way. While all this had been going on, her other kids had been breathing on the inside of the windows of her car and making smiley faces, so now as she drove off, two big steam smiles stared out at us.

After a few moments of complete silence, Toby asked me what I wanted and I must have looked confused because he added “to buy…” on the end like it was obvious, which it probably was from his perspective – I was a customer, empty-handed, in a shop. I thought about my prize in the end aisle and told him I’d be right back. This was what I had come here for, my Holy Grail on Christmas Eve, but I found myself dawdling. Instead, I ducked down the aisle with the hot chocolate powder and picked up a tub and some mini marshmallows to go with it. 

Whereas last-minute Christmas alcohol had felt like a completely normal thing to venture out in a blizzard for (people are always understanding when its alcoholic beverages at stake), hot chocolate felt a bit weird. I muttered something about it being a Christmas tradition, which wasn’t really true, but could be I guess if I do the same thing next year. 

Leaving the supermarket with an awkward wave to Toby, I could see the tracks from the 4x4 were already being covered, only a slight indentation of their path remaining. I realised there was no noise around me and started to feel like the silence was pressing in on me. I crunched some snow under my foot to reassure myself, but the thought still crossed my mind that if someone was nearby, they wouldn’t know I was there because they wouldn’t be able to hear me, and that probably meant I wouldn’t know they were there either. Walking around in a blizzard is a great way to freak yourself out, it turns out.

Once I was back, I made a hot chocolate and turned on the cooking channel. I kept looking over at the table and the blue silk kept catching my eye. I grabbed the blue book and ran my fingers over the first page. I wondered what I would write in it, and what my mother expected me to write – page 1, ‘how to sort out my life’ – and picked up a pen.

Now I’m reading my own words back to myself and I’m wondering what I’ll think next year if I read them again. I feel like I’m looking at myself the way my mum sees me, alone and holed up in a flat with invisible prison bars between me and everyone else. No wonder she keeps pushing on them.

So, what do I do next? Well there aren’t many magic cures which you can put into motion on Christmas Eve when everyone already has their little pods of people they’ve hunkered down with, but I do have a best friend who refuses to give up on me and an invitation to join her on Christmas Day. I’ve already declined it with an embellished version of ‘Thanks, but I’ve got plans’, but it’s worth a try.