Free The Accidental Guest by Tilly Tennant Page A

should have our Boxing day dinner tonight and then settle down to watch telly.’
    ‘Turkey and oven chips?’ Jess grinned.
    ‘Just so.’
    ‘And then we can have Christmas dinner on Boxing Day.’ Gina clapped her hands together. ‘It’s kinda topsy turvy. I like it!’
    ‘Right then…’ Hannah began to clear a space to work, transferring the food they weren’t eating into pots to store overnight while Gina rooted in the freezer for a bag of oven chips. ‘Peas too?’ she called as she held the bag up for Hannah to see.
    ‘Let’s leave the healthy stuff for tomorrow,’ Hannah replied. ‘Tonight I want to eat chips and ketchup and maybe even a pickled gherkin.’
    ‘Sounds good to me.’ Gina shoved the peas back into a drawer and shut the freezer. After popping a tray of chips into the oven, while Hannah and Jess finished up cleaning the surfaces, Gina flicked the CD player on once again and began to bop around the kitchen. ‘Time to get pissed,’ she laughed as Hannah gave her head a wry shake.
    Hannah reached for their slightly battle-scarred turkey to begin carving off some more. ‘I think I’ve had enough with those two brandies you forced down me earlier.’
    ‘They were medicinal,’ Gina said. ‘These will be purely recreational.’
    ‘Can I have one now?’ Jess asked.
    ‘You can have a snowball.’
    ‘Ugh! Can’t I have something a bit less disco?’ Jess pouted.
    Hannah burst out laughing. ‘You certainly inherited your mother’s way with words!’
    ‘Can I though?’ Jess insisted.
    Hannah looked at Gina. ‘I don’t mind if you don’t.’
    ‘Only one,’ Gina warned Jess. ‘A light beer or something.’
    Jess grinned broadly. Hannah knew why she wasn’t causing more of a fuss. It wouldn’t be long before Gina was plastered and then she wouldn’t notice Jess craftily refilling her ‘one’ glass of beer a few times. But it was Christmas, an odd one, but Christmas nonetheless, and Hannah figured Jess was as entitled to let her hair down as they were. And she was pretty sure that both she and Gina had been sneaking shots from their father’s drinks cabinet before they were eighteen too, though Gina was a lot more sensible where her own offspring was concerned. It was just another aspect of being a mother that Hannah had resigned herself to never experiencing.
    Hannah fixed more brandy, this time mixed with a generous measure of lemonade to make them last a while, and Jess headed out to help herself to a bottle of Belgian beer from the stock Hannah kept in the outhouse down the garden. She came back into the kitchen some moments later kicking snow from her boots. The day was already turning to dusk, and a blast of cold air roared in through the open back door.
    ‘It’s stopped snowing,’ Jess announced.
    ‘Bloody typical,’ Gina said. ‘We could have done with that a few hours ago when we were waiting for an ambulance to get through. I bet it’ll be melted tomorrow.’
    ‘I don’t think so…’ Hannah’s gaze went to the darkening skies outside the window. ‘It feels like it might freeze over rather than melt.’
    ‘Then the roads will be lovely and slippery to cause more havoc for Boxing Day.’
    ‘That’s not good.’
    ‘I suppose it just means we’ll have to sit around snuggled in our PJs all day and watch films with all those chocolates we’ve bought each other,’ Gina said cheerfully.
    ‘Sounds good to me.’ Hannah sipped her drink. ‘I wonder if Tom will have been reunited with his family by then.’
    ‘I expect so.’ Gina shot a glance at Jess, who returned it with a little shrug.
    ‘Still…’ Hannah continued, ‘I wonder if he’s ok.’
    *
    Much later, when they had full bellies and were sitting together on the sofa like cats huddled in a barn, Hannah passed a tray of chocolates to Gina.
    ‘I know it’s hard to believe, but I think I have to give in.’ Gina pushed the box away. ‘I’ve eaten more chocolate today than I have the rest of the