The Gift

by Mark Haysom

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

A heartbreaking and beautifully told short story about the meaning of Christmas, The Gift introduces characters from Mark Haysom's stunning new novel Imagine, available now in ebook and publishing in print in December 2015. Visit Mark's website at: http://mark-haysom.co.uk/ to read an extract from the opening of Imagine and to read about Mark's other work, including Love, Love Me Do which is available now in print and ebook. Praise for Love, Love Me Do : 'Haysom's skilful debut ... a highly readable novel with a warm heart' The Independent 'In just a word or two, Mark Haysom evokes the pain of a deserted parent or the fear of a little boy' We Love This Book ' Love, Love Me Do manages to be both funny and heart-breaking' Good Housekeeping

Release date: November 17, 2015

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 33

Sample

Christmas morning, 1963

Nanna Bird has been on her knees so long, they hurt. It’s been worth it though for the look on Baxter’s face every time his car slaloms through the Scalextric chicane and flashes past the finishing line while hers goes careering off at the first bend.

It’s been worth it too for a morning of rare smiles from Megan as she’s played her records on her new Dansette record player. She can’t remember her looking so happy.

Nanna didn’t have a clue which records to buy to go with the player. Her choice would have been Glenn Miller or Joe Loss; proper music you can dance all night to. But she’d got talking to an assistant in Woolworths – a nice girl, despite all the mascara and a skirt so short it barely covered her embarrassment – and she said the best thing would be to buy the top three in the Singles Chart.

She’d pointed to a poster behind the counter.



And Nanna, still not absolutely sure what a Singles Chart was, had nodded.

But the girl had been right: it turns out Megan loves all three. So much so, that since unwrapping them this morning, she’s played them over and over, one after another, again and again.

Nanna is word perfect now.

‘You were made for me,’ she sings, still kneeling on the carpet, her arm tight around Megan, bobbing her from side to side, laughing. ‘Everybody tells me so …’

Megan and Baxter have been up since before dawn – and Nanna not long after. Their whispered voices had woken her where she slept on the sofa and she’d decided at once that if she were to get up with them, their mother would be able to sleep in for a while with the baby.

It would do Christie good, she doesn’t get much of a chance to rest: that’s what Nanna had told herself. But really, she was very nearly as excited as the children.

She’d carried a cup of tea through to the bedroom, just t. . .