Page 57 of Under the Mistletoe with You
‘Well, it’s cold enough in here that it would have been okay, if it wasn’t for the cat.The others will be fine if we cook them thoroughly.’
‘That doesn’t seem very LA of you.’
Nash shrugs.‘I like to camp and do cookouts.What’s a bit of dirt, what’s a bit of cat saliva, etc., etc.’
‘Many health and safety risks, I can tell you.’
‘Worst case, I get food poisoning and get to sample your famous National Health Service.’
Christopher was too busy thinking to listen to what Nash was saying.Is the cat okay?Why was it sneaking into his house to eat table sausages?Raw, uncooked sausages, at that.It seems quite desperate.Though, there really aren’t many birds or small mammals around at this time of year, especially with the weather being so bad.It must be hard to be a cat, if you’re not getting fed enough.
What if it’s not getting fed enough?What if it never comes back and it starves?
‘Christopher?Hello?’
Snapping back to himself, Christopher breaks his gaze from the window.‘Sorry.Let’s go.’
He picks up the seasonings from his cupboards, while Nash changes into dry clothes, and they finally meet back downstairs in the kitchen for the third time lucky.
On autopilot, Christopher gathers chopping boards and pans and gets to work on a bolognese first of all, so that itcan slow-cook on the hob while they get onto the next bits.They work in companionable quiet, Christopher directing Nash, who takes instructions without a retort or comeback, while Christopher slowly melts down a soffritto in a large wide pan.
After a little while, Nash asks, ‘Still thinking about that cat?’
Christopher feels his cheeks heat up.‘Yes.Just hope it’s okay.’
He expects Nash to tease him, or to say something cutting back.To start up the usual back-and-forth.But instead, he gives him a lazy, lopsided smile and says, ‘We’ll keep an eye out for it.I’m sure it’ll come back now it knows there’s food here.It’ll be okay.’
He feels a warm stirring in his chest.It’s probably just the thought of seeing the cat again.Probably.
Nash gets started on the soup, a real broth of odds-and-ends vegetables that they can blend down later.As he’s on such good behaviour, Christopher doesn’t make a comment when Nash starts playing a Christmas playlist without asking.This is what Christmas was supposed to be like this year – cooking together and no fighting, except instead of a wayward film star, it was meant to be his sister and best friend.
At least the music is nice.He checks Nash’s screen occasionally to see what’s playing – pretty much a mixture of Wrabel, She & Him, a little from the Sufjan Stevens’ Christmas albums.Calming, beautiful, perhaps a little bittersweet.It surprises him, honestly.Nash is always so bursting with energy that he was expecting pop punk or maybe even some genre of dance music that Christopher would have no idea what to call.Ultimately, something loud with a beat, something to burn all that fire with.But it’s the opposite.It’s music to curl up to.
Maybe it’s okay that this might be all his Christmas is?After all, there’s some food.There’re some people he cares about, albeit not everyone ...and there’s Nash, for now.Isn’t that what Christmas is about?Though perhaps the visit-from-a-film-star aspect is not universal.
The air swims with the deliciously warming smell of the soup – bundles of thyme and sage and a few bay leaves harmonise with the freshness of lemon and ginger, and just the tiniest kick of heat from some dried red chilli flakes.It doesn’t matter that the vegetables are a random mix of whatever they could raid from the frozen and canned aisles.With the right care, some good flavouring and patience, it all comes together.
Once he gets it going, the as-many-beans-as-possible chilli smells like comfort, too.He melts in some dark chocolate with a very high cocoa rate, cracking chunks straight in and watching it slowly succumb to the rest of the mixture.
It’s not just the music that’s relaxing him; it’s the cooking.Sure, Best-Bet Vegetable Soup and Every-Bean-You-Can-Find Chilli aren’t the same as the multi-hour-long process of proving dough and baking a loaf, or decorating a cake just right, but there’s still that centre of peace he can find in himself.
‘So,’ he begins, ‘other than escaping to Wales, which I presume isn’t a tradition, what do you normally do for Christmas?Are you usually on holiday break on the 22nd?’
‘Sometimes.Most of the time I’d be travelling home to my parents’, in order to minimise the amount of actual time I spent there.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Christopher says, regretting that he asked this question because surely someone doesn’t cross the Atlantic for a solo Christmas without there being something up.
‘Oh, no they’re fine, and we are fine.They love me a lot; we just don’t have a lot in common.They’ve been supportive of everything my whole life, including the acting, and they were pretty good at making sure I was only on sets that were safe when I was young.But we just don’t have that kind of close relationship.’
‘Did they live in LA with you?’
‘Yeah, for a while when I was still a minor.Sometimes it would just be one of them, while the other went back to Canada to work for a bit.They both moved back home permanently when I turned eighteen – I don’t think LA was really for them.They’re proud of me and what I’ve achieved, but I think they don’t really know what to talk to me about, and when I try to make a wedge into their lives ...Sorry, you don’t want to hear this.’
‘I asked,’ Christopher says, meeting Nash’s eyes.
‘I’m sure you were asking politely, not fishing for awkward family stories,’ he smiles, which of course is correct.‘Otherwise, I do a waifs-and-strays Christmas with my friends, many of whom areactuallyestranged from their family for, you know, queer acceptance reasons.’
Well then, perhaps Ambrose’s suit theory was correct?Either that, or Nash just happens to have a lot of queer friends, as he’s an actor.‘That’s nice of you.’