Read Online Paparazzi Princess by Cathy Hopkins - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Cathy Hopkins
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Hampstead Heath. Oops, only fell over three times.
I’d been to Trafalgar Square to see the tree and sung along with the carol service that was going on. Ding dong merrily on hi-i-i-igh.
I’d been to Selfridges to meet Santa in his grotto but felt a bit daft lining up with a bunch of three-year-olds so went and tried all the perfumes on the ground floor instead. Mmmm. Nice.
Pia and I had got the boat from Westminster down to Greenwich and got most of our presents from the indoor market there. Handmade soap for Flo and Meg. Music CDs for Charlie, a fab brown velvet hat for Aunt Maddie to replace the monstrosity with ear-flaps that she wears which looks like a tea-cosy. It probably is a tea cosy. A book on history for Dad – if he ever has time to read it – and a green silk scarf for Pia when she was off buying chips.
Me and Pia even went to the Great Christmas Pudding Race in Covent Garden, which is a mad affair where people run around balancing a pudding on a plate whilst crowds of spectators try to grab, jostle and trip them up. There was a great atmosphere there. Near the Piazza, a vintage carousel was a whirl of brass and chrome as children rode the beautifully carved horses and called out to each other over the carols that wheezed out from an ancient-sounding organ. Everywhere, endless stalls offered a multitude of gifts for shoppers eagerly looking for stocking fillers. Busking musicians sang festive songs, street performers juggled, danced and did astonishing acrobatics, while mime artists dressed as robots, aliens and characters from history stood as still as statues.
Lastly, I went to Sadler’s Wells to see the Nutcracker ballet with Pia and her mum. It was truly magical and Pia and I pirouetted all the way back to the tube. All good fun, all very merry but I couldn’t help but notice the couples everywhere we went. Misty-eyed, arm-in-arm, laden with parcels, laughing together, living out my Christmas fantasies – only I had no boy to play them out with. Boo hoo, sob sob. Poor moi.
‘It’s a strange time,’ I said to Pia as we stuffed ourselves with croissants at her house on Christmas Eve morning. ‘Like, there’s this huge pressure on us all to be happy because it’s Christmas. You must be happy, have a jolly time, but what if you don’t feel like that? Mrs Moran was right. There is a lot to think about.’
Pia slurped a glass of orange juice. ‘Yeah. What makes your ding dong merrily on high? Different things for different people.’
‘When Mum was alive, it was always about our traditions. Things we did every year that made it Christmas for us.’
‘I know. So why not make some of the things we’ve done this week your new tradition?’
I screwed up my face. ‘Maybe.’ I thought over the things we’d done but none of them seemed enough. My mum was special and I needed something unique to remember her by. ‘But what? I’d like to do something that I know she would have loved but also something different. Apart from going to see the tree in Trafalgar Square, which was cool, I can’t say there’s anything that felt like the right thing to commemorate her by.’
‘So what would you like to do?’ she asked.
‘Dunno. Maybe I should go somewhere quiet, away from the rush and the shopping and people. Somewhere that feels, I don’t know, sacred. A church, I think, maybe – maybe not – or a temple or mosque. I don’t know what I believe yet and Mum wasn’t religious either, although she always respected other people’s beliefs. What I’m looking for is hard to describe, a kind of . . . inner calm. Do you know what I mean?’
Pia nodded and made a peace sign. ‘Yeah, like something with a good vibe, man. Yeah, I get you. That would be nice. Jess goes holy-moley.’
‘Somewhere I can go or something I can do every Christmas to remember Mum.’
‘That would be Westfield Mall, then,’ said Pia with a grin. ‘Right in the middle of the Marks and Spencer’s food department.
I’d been to Trafalgar Square to see the tree and sung along with the carol service that was going on. Ding dong merrily on hi-i-i-igh.
I’d been to Selfridges to meet Santa in his grotto but felt a bit daft lining up with a bunch of three-year-olds so went and tried all the perfumes on the ground floor instead. Mmmm. Nice.
Pia and I had got the boat from Westminster down to Greenwich and got most of our presents from the indoor market there. Handmade soap for Flo and Meg. Music CDs for Charlie, a fab brown velvet hat for Aunt Maddie to replace the monstrosity with ear-flaps that she wears which looks like a tea-cosy. It probably is a tea cosy. A book on history for Dad – if he ever has time to read it – and a green silk scarf for Pia when she was off buying chips.
Me and Pia even went to the Great Christmas Pudding Race in Covent Garden, which is a mad affair where people run around balancing a pudding on a plate whilst crowds of spectators try to grab, jostle and trip them up. There was a great atmosphere there. Near the Piazza, a vintage carousel was a whirl of brass and chrome as children rode the beautifully carved horses and called out to each other over the carols that wheezed out from an ancient-sounding organ. Everywhere, endless stalls offered a multitude of gifts for shoppers eagerly looking for stocking fillers. Busking musicians sang festive songs, street performers juggled, danced and did astonishing acrobatics, while mime artists dressed as robots, aliens and characters from history stood as still as statues.
Lastly, I went to Sadler’s Wells to see the Nutcracker ballet with Pia and her mum. It was truly magical and Pia and I pirouetted all the way back to the tube. All good fun, all very merry but I couldn’t help but notice the couples everywhere we went. Misty-eyed, arm-in-arm, laden with parcels, laughing together, living out my Christmas fantasies – only I had no boy to play them out with. Boo hoo, sob sob. Poor moi.
‘It’s a strange time,’ I said to Pia as we stuffed ourselves with croissants at her house on Christmas Eve morning. ‘Like, there’s this huge pressure on us all to be happy because it’s Christmas. You must be happy, have a jolly time, but what if you don’t feel like that? Mrs Moran was right. There is a lot to think about.’
Pia slurped a glass of orange juice. ‘Yeah. What makes your ding dong merrily on high? Different things for different people.’
‘When Mum was alive, it was always about our traditions. Things we did every year that made it Christmas for us.’
‘I know. So why not make some of the things we’ve done this week your new tradition?’
I screwed up my face. ‘Maybe.’ I thought over the things we’d done but none of them seemed enough. My mum was special and I needed something unique to remember her by. ‘But what? I’d like to do something that I know she would have loved but also something different. Apart from going to see the tree in Trafalgar Square, which was cool, I can’t say there’s anything that felt like the right thing to commemorate her by.’
‘So what would you like to do?’ she asked.
‘Dunno. Maybe I should go somewhere quiet, away from the rush and the shopping and people. Somewhere that feels, I don’t know, sacred. A church, I think, maybe – maybe not – or a temple or mosque. I don’t know what I believe yet and Mum wasn’t religious either, although she always respected other people’s beliefs. What I’m looking for is hard to describe, a kind of . . . inner calm. Do you know what I mean?’
Pia nodded and made a peace sign. ‘Yeah, like something with a good vibe, man. Yeah, I get you. That would be nice. Jess goes holy-moley.’
‘Somewhere I can go or something I can do every Christmas to remember Mum.’
‘That would be Westfield Mall, then,’ said Pia with a grin. ‘Right in the middle of the Marks and Spencer’s food department.
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