Christmas on Primrose Hill Read online

  She was going to die.

  She was definitely going to die.

  The first bend came at her before she could even process it. Her body was rigid inside the giant suit and she couldn’t steer, stop, see . . . She hit the first corner, then the second almost immediately, but rather than fall, she ricocheted off the walls, the bunny’s moulded round tummy seemingly rebounding her like a pinball. Left, right, left, right . . . She felt the hits, but it was like taking body blows in a sumo suit at a school fete – faint and distant.

  OK, not dead yet, then.

  But . . . suddenly the course was running straight again. There was no relief in that, quite the opposite, in fact, and Nettie felt her heart almost leap clean out of her body as she knew what that meant – after the chicanes came the bumps, the ramps . . . and that meant she was going to . . . going to catch some . . .

  She flew through the air like a cannonball, her arms still outstretched and flailing like cartoon wings. Something – muscle memory, perhaps, from a childhood ski-school lesson – made her bend her knees, ready for the impact, and amazingly, somehow, she got over the first and the second; she was barely aware of the crowd or their roars of delight as she sped past; but the third . . . She knew the riders called it ‘the Giant Killer’. It was what made this event such a big ticket, built especially for this competition, and as she soared higher than any bunny should ever soar, she knew she wouldn’t land this one.

  She wasn’t sure at which point up became down – while in the air or when she hit the ice again? – but the world tumbled, and for a course that was all white, she could see only black as her head was knocked about in the giant rabbit’s head as she rolled and bumped and skidded and collided until . . .

  It was a moment before she realized she had stopped moving. It was a moment before the clamour of the crowd came to her ears. It was a moment before someone carefully pulled off the rabbit’s head and the world rushed at her in a warp weave of colour and sound, brightness and cheer. It was a moment before she found she was standing again, two padded men – the visors of their helmets pushed back – draped beneath her arms as they slid her from one corner of the finishing square to the other, hailed as a legend. And it was a good few moments before she saw that the yellow bucket was being passed round the crowd and was rapidly filling up.

  Chapter Two

  Nettie eyed the custard creams. They were the safest place for her to rest her eyes while Mike prowled in front of the whiteboard with an excitement that was all the more alarming because it had been aroused by her.

  ‘Well, I think we can say that was a successful event, don’t you?’ he asked, nodding his own agreement with himself. ‘Certainly, the costumes worked.’

  ‘Totes,’ Jules grinned, nodding back, one of the custard creams halved in her hands, and Nettie knew her friend was just waiting for Mike to turn his back momentarily before she licked the filling. ‘They lapped it up, especially the bunny – it was hard-core and cute.’

  ‘It was not cute,’ Daisy said, looking up from filing her nails. ‘That thing freaks me out. I mean, who’s ever seen a blue bunny?’

  ‘Who’s ever seen a seven-foot blue bunny, you mean,’ Jules chuckled.

  ‘Exactly. It’s like a mutant.’

  ‘Tell you what, then – next time you can wear it. That way, you don’t have to look at it,’ Jules said helpfully, earning herself an arched, beautifully threaded eyebrow from Daisy.

  ‘There won’t be a next time,’ Nettie said curtly. It was two days later and she still had the bruises on her arms and torso to show for her misadventure; plus her neck felt like she’d slept with her head on a brick.

  ‘Well, that combination is clearly what we need to tap into again,’ Mike said, beginning to prowl once more, clicking his fingers rhythmically. Nettie stared at the patch of thinning hair on the back of his head as he stopped and surveyed the up-down zigzags on the chart. ‘Donations were up seventy-six per cent after Nettie’s stunt. It really engaged the audience and caught their imagination.’ He spun on his heel and pointed at Jules intently. Nettie could imagine him practising the move in his bedroom mirror, perhaps imagining he was Clint Eastwood and with a pistol in his hand rather than a remote control. ‘Hard-core and cute, you say?’

  ‘Yep.’ Jules looked back at Nettie, who was sitting beside her. ‘You did look adorable whizzing down the ice like that, your little arms flailing about, ears flying.’

  ‘Yeah, it was the ears I loved. They were hilarious,’ Caro snorted from across the table. ‘Honestly, you couldn’t have planned the whole thing better.’

  ‘Ha! No chance Nettie would have signed up for that in advance. You’ve got a thing about heights, haven’t you?’

  ‘And speed,’ Nettie mumbled, quite sure she had a borderline case of PTSD.

  ‘Well, the good news is, you survived,’ Jules said, patting her on the hand. ‘Another bicky?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Nettie nibbled at the edges of the custard cream. She needed the sugar. She wasn’t sleeping well at the moment.

  ‘Ladies, if we could focus on the matter in hand, please.’ Mike had put on his sarcastic voice, but it only served to make him sound needy and Daisy resumed filing her nails. ‘I’m sorry I missed the stunt. It would have been good to see. We need to come up with more ideas like this.’

  ‘I can show you,’ Caro said, tapping quickly on her iPad and then picking up the Apple TV remote on the table. As their IT and data analyst, she was the go-to person for anything technical (and spare charging cables). ‘I already asked White Tiger for the footage . . . There. I’ve sent it to your inboxes,’ Caro said with customary boredom. Her higher intellect meant she rarely engaged below a certain interest level.

  ‘Oh, right . . .’ Mike said, his face brightening as the screen on the wall was switched on. ‘Righty-ho, well, let’s see what we’ve got here, then.’

  He straightened up and Nettie swivelled her chair a little, to get a better view of the white screen as ‘Titanium’ began pumping through the speakers, Mike nodding his head in time to the beat. The camera angle was wide, panning over the crowds, their heads flashing red, pink, white and blue in the strobe lights. Nettie felt sick, actually sick, as the lens picked out the menacing white ice wall that meandered between them all, the riders already shooting down it in a clash of flashing skates and jutting elbows.

  Then she saw it. The blue blob that looked like a glob of Blu-tack from the wide-angle camera, tipping over, heavy-headed, at the top of the ramp, its padded paws as frictionless and unsteerable as if a pillow had been thrown down. Nettie felt her heart catch as she watched the blue bunny rapidly pick up speed; within three seconds she must surely have been doing sixty miles per hour, her arms flailing – the bucket dangling uselessly at her elbow – and ears flying, just as the girls had said. Her hand clapped over her mouth in aghast horror as she watched the bunny ricochet off the chicanes like a cartoon character – up one moment, doubled over the next. It was so hard to believe it was her in there, even though her body still all too clearly remembered the sensations, and adrenalin fizzed in her hands and feet and stomach.

  Vaguely she was aware of the girls laughing – it seemed, from the corner of her eye, that Caro had her head on the desk – but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the screen. The ramps were coming up, and in the next instant she watched open-mouthed as she flew through the air, belly up, the huge paws at least creating some drag, before she landed with a teeth-clattering thud and slid in spinning revolutions all the rest of the way down the slope.

  The crowd were going wild for it, almost falling over the barricades to applaud her, as the riders – who’d seemingly been watching with the same horror she’d felt, for no one unwittingly went down that course – rushed over, pulling her to her feet and taking off the rabbit’s head.

  Instantly the cartoon-like illusion was broken. Her head seemed dwarfishly small in the outsized suit, and her long dark hair, matted from the heat in there, stuck to her pale
cheeks in limp strands; even her full lips – usually rosy – were blanched. A shriek of laughter pealed through the conference room as her head actually reeled a little, her stunned, slightly cross-eyed expression seemingly as funny as the rest of it. Nettie watched her own legs buckle, her paws sliding everywhere on the ice as the two riders – one of whom was Jules’s latest conquest, Cameron Stanley – grabbed her under the arms and jubilantly presented her to her adoring public.

  The cheers grew yet louder still.

  ‘Hear that? They reckoned it was a bloke in that suit,’ Jules said. ‘What a surprise for them seeing a pretty little thing like you in there.’

  ‘They probably assumed it was another of the riders,’ Daisy added. ‘Who else would be able to go down there like that?’

  ‘I can’t believe I’m alive,’ Nettie muttered, her eyes wide as she watched her wan self, trying to smile, to stand. ‘Honestly I can’t. It’s a miracle. My dad must never see this.’

  Mike pressed ‘pause’ – freeze-framing the short on an image of Nettie being held up, her head lolling to the side – and perched himself on the corner of the conference table, his arms crossed loosely over his thigh as he leaned in slightly towards her.

  ‘Well, Nettie, I think we can all see for ourselves there the incredible response to your . . . uh, slide.’ He smiled. ‘How would you feel about repeating the success?’

  ‘Terrible.’ She shook her head firmly, reaching for another biscuit.

  ‘No, no, don’t make a rush decision. One thing you must bear in mind is that it would never be as bad as the first time. You’ve done it already, remember, mastered the course.’

  Mastered the course? Mastered the course? She had slipped and crashed and bounced her way down a sheet of ice! How did that constitute mastering the course? There had been no technique, no free will involved at all. ‘I could have died, Mike.’

  He gave an earnest shake of his head. ‘I think the bunny saved you, Nettie.’ His forefinger stabbed onto his own leg. ‘You were as safe in that costume as a kitten in a drum.’

  There was a pause. ‘That’s not very safe,’ she said, flummoxed.

  He looked at her for a long moment, before inhaling sharply and pulling back. ‘Well, far be it from me to force you to do anything you don’t want to do. I’m merely looking for ways to help you.’

  She frowned. ‘Help me?’

  ‘Well, yes. You’re in charge of charitable donations. It’s no secret that when Jules was doing the job two years ago, she exceeded her targets by forty-six per cent, whereas you are down fifty-one per cent. The clients keep asking me if there’s a problem.’ He threw his hands in the air. ‘And what am I supposed to say, huh? That my head of CD has personal problems? Is that their problem?’

  ‘Of course not, but . . .’

  He nodded repeatedly, and the ‘but’ rippled into the room like a big, fat excuse. ‘You see what I’m saying here?’

  ‘Um . . .’ Nettie hesitated, keeping the biscuit to her mouth, as though for protection rather than ingestion.

  ‘I can’t carry dead weight. Everyone has to earn their place on the team.’ He pointed towards the window. ‘I’ve got people queuing up to sit in that chair you’re sitting in right now. Young graduates, hungry for the exposure, the experience . . .’

  Nettie wasn’t sure that was true. She opened the post every morning. He got five CVs a week at most.

  ‘I know your personal circumstances have been difficult, Nettie, but I think you need to take some time to think, really think, about whether or not this is the industry for you.’ He slammed his fist into his palm. ‘It takes drive, commitment, hunger, passion. You used to be so . . . so . . . hungry, Nettie.’

  To her surprise, no one cut in that she still was. Nettie eyed the girls on the team. There wasn’t much evidence of drive or passion in any of them, and the only hunger in the room had been just about sated thanks to the plate of biscuits. Daisy was checking her hair for split ends. Caro had the iPad secretively tipped towards her, which meant she was playing solitaire. Only Jules was paying full attention, resentment burning her eyes black.

  ‘What happened to you? Where did you go?’

  Nettie wanted to slap him. He knew exactly what had happened.

  ‘From what I was told by my predecessor, you used to be first in, last out every day. You knew if we were low on tea or needed to order more print cartridges. You answered every phone on the first ring. But now?’ He frowned. ‘Now . . . ? I know things have been difficult for you, but I want you to take a long, hard look, Nettie, at where you’re going with your career. Is this still right for you? Because if so, we need to start getting some results, and fast. The bunny worked. Don’t dismiss it out of hand. You should be thinking how to make it work for you again. Make it your USP.’

  ‘What, Giant Flying Bunny?’ Jules grinned, leaning forward and squeezing Nettie consolingly on the shoulder.

  Mike shrugged. ‘Why not? Think big. You could become White Tiger’s mascot.’

  Caro frowned, momentarily ceasing chewing her gum. ‘Well, if they were to have a mascot, wouldn’t that be a . . . white tiger, then, Mike?’

  Mike straightened up irritably. ‘You know what I mean.’ He clapped his hands together, looking round at the lethargic, now completely demotivated team. ‘Right, well, on the plus side, the Ice Crush event brought in more than two thousand pounds in total. I don’t have the exact figure here, but let’s take heart from that.’ He punched the air feebly and everyone sighed collectively as he tried to rally them, as though his comments to Nettie had been a mere pep talk and not thinly veiled threats about losing her job.

  ‘Next week the Christmas countdown begins in earnest, so I want you all in on Monday and working at high revs. You don’t need me to tell you it’s our biggest week next week, so rest, take it easy and come in refreshed and good to go. Have a good weekend, everybody.’

  Mike had barely got the words out before the women were scraping back their chairs and showing more energy than they had at any other point in the day. Caro already had her phone to her ear, finalizing the arrangements for her evening plans. Nettie watched as Jules grabbed the last two biscuits and slipped them into her pockets ‘for later’. Everything was always ‘for later’ with Jules – the crumbs on her shirt, the cake in her bag, the cheeky chappy standing by the bar.

  ‘Ignore him. Tosser,’ Jules said under her breath to Nettie as they walked back into the office.

  Nettie hugged her papers closer to her chest. ‘He’s right, though. I’m terrible at this job.’

  ‘No, you’re not. He’s just a bad leader. He couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery and he expects you to coin it in for the charities?’

  ‘Well, you managed it.’

  ‘Only because I was going for his job and trying to impress the bosses,’ Jules groaned.

  ‘You should have got it. It’s a travesty that they gave it to him. We all know he only got it because his wife’s father knows the Middletons and they’re hoping to wheedle an introduction.’

  It wasn’t just Jules who’d been disappointed by the decision. With no obvious career progression at the agency, Nettie had been mentally bracing herself for the news that, any day now, Jules would be leaving. She knew headhunters contacted her on a regular basis but her friend always stopped them in their tracks and Nettie suspected the only reason she was still working there (apart from tormenting Mike whose inept people skills meant he was clearly vastly out of his depth in the job) was to keep an eye on her.

  It was a suspicion that she couldn’t articulate, not least because Jules would deny it and Nettie didn’t want to face the guilt, because she didn’t care about the job like Jules did. Sure, she liked the team, the commute was fine and the hours were pretty regular, but this wasn’t where she had thought her career would end up – shaking buckets at sporting events, begging for spare change in the name of big business charity. Not to mention wearing grotesque fancy dress costumes for a living. />
  No, in her previous life, she had wanted to be in advertising, giving people added narratives in their everyday lives and sprinkling happiness over the prospect of purchasing car insurance or washing powder. She would come to the rescue of ailing giants like Tesco and RBS, and single-handedly rewrite the public’s perception of them before setting up her own company. She’d graft for a few years and then sell at a great profit to Ogilvy & Mather. This was her plan; this had always been her plan, ever since she’d fallen hard for the Diet Coke guy in the Noughties and mended her heart after her first proper breakup. Only, the dream job in advertising hadn’t materialized in time – too many graduates, not enough jobs – and she had settled on this one as a short-term stopgap, justifying it as a lateral move into marketing, which everyone knew was inextricably linked with advertising. One and the same really.

  But then she hadn’t ever anticipated the schism that would one day rip through her life like a tear in a sheet of paper, and ever since then, new rules had had to apply: six months had turned into almost six years, life twisting away from her at all the pertinent moments so that this was all she could cope with, anyway – something low-level, doing just enough to get by. Jules’s arrival on the team nearly five years ago had undoubtedly helped make this office and those meetings bearable – the two of them had connected immediately, Jules buying her first flat just around the corner from Nettie, and they worked and played together as a team – but was Mike right? Was it time to move on? Were she and Jules actually holding each other back, clinging to each other like bindweed, their grip too strong for the other to grow?

  Jules was quiet for a moment. ‘Yeah well, bygones and all that. No point in dwelling on it. Far more importantly, what are you up to tonight?’