A Faraway Smell of Lemon by Rachel Joyce

 
    It is half past nine, and Oliver will be eating porridge in his Asterix porridge bowl. At the age of thirty-three, Oliver has no regular habit but this and he adheres to it religiously.
    “Sod him,” Binny snorts, wading into the stream of Christmas Eve traffic. Despite the High Street billboards and flashing illuminations wishing peace on earth and goodwill to men, she is met with a rude fanfare of traffic horns. Cars are packed with families and presents gift-wrapped in festive paper. “Sod him,” she repeats. She will not stop for anyone. And neither will she weep. The wet streets glisten under the heavy December sky.
    Everything that is wrong with Binny’s life points back to Oliver. Things she never used to expect him to remember or notice are now his direct responsibility. The broken glass in the front door: his fault. The shower: his fault. The fresh cuts to her hands and the broken china left scattered on her kitchen floor. The fact that she has bought no Christmas cards. All, all, his fault.
    Now that she has dropped the children off at school for their final dress rehearsal, Binny has five hours to fix Christmas. She has done nothing so far. Only this morning, Coco pinned two large wool socks, for herself and Luke, above the mantelpiece. (“Just so we don’t forget,” she said.) If only the machine that is Christmas would come and go without Binny. To her horror, she spots one of the other school mothers springing toward her along the pavement like a toy deer. Binny stops in her tracks, looking up and down the High Street. She is not the sort of person who can easily hide.
    Tall and broad, Binny towers over other people, even when she stoops. When she looks in the mirror, she finds a wild-haired giant who seems to come with inbuilt shoulder pads. (“Big-boned” is what her mother called her. “Healthy”—that was her father’s version. He called an abundant crop of potatoes healthy as well as a rise in stock shares and a second helping of pudding. Binny has her father’s eyes, her father’s intelligence, and also, sadly, her father’s height and shoe size.) She is dressed, as always, in something long and shapeless she found tangled on the end of her foot this morning as she staggered to the bathroom.
    The woman approaching her wears a festive jogging suit with sparkly trim. She even has festive red fur ear warmers and gloves to match. She is something to do with the school PTA, but Binny can’t for the life of her remember what, because she never reads the letters or the emails and she never attends the functions. If she stands very still—if she pretends, as it were, that she is not here—maybe the woman will not notice her.
    “Binny!” the happy jogging suit calls. “Hiya!” She maybe shouts something about theNativity play too, but she is panting a little and more than ten yards away.
    The performance is this afternoon. It was only last night that Luke revealed he was playing the part of Bill the Lizard. “But there is no lizard in the Nativity,” said Binny. She was aware she was beginning to wail. “Bill the Lizard is the innkeeper’s pet,” said Coco. “He is very important. He brings Mary a cushion for the birth and he sings a solo about ‘Wherever I leave my hat that’s my home.’ Also, I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.” When Binny complained it was no good, she couldn’t make a lizard costume at the drop of a hat, no one could, and actually the Ghost of Christmas Past was in another bloody story altogether, Coco and Luke exchanged a small but solemn look. “It’s all right, Mum,” said Coco slowly. “Meera’s mother said she will make our costumes. Luke is going to have a blue tail with spikes and everything. I am going to have a lamp and a fur hat.” Coco seemed more than happy about that.
    The jogging suit is so close there is almost no hope of escaping. There will have to be a full conversation, and the jogging suit will ask if Binny is all sorted for