Wyld Dreamers

by Pamela Holmes

  The ticket conductor examines her ticket. ‘Going home for Christmas, are you?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Talking might calm her nerves. ‘My father sent me the money for the ticket.’

  ‘Did he now? That’s nice of him. Mum and Dad want you home, I s’pect.’

  His words hit like stones.

  She imagines what Christmas Day will be like on the farm. Lunch will start as daylight fades. The kitchen will be candlelit and warm. Seymour will carve the goose and dig out the stuffing he made earlier, Julian will hand round bowls of vegetables and potatoes while Simon stirs the gravy. Stella will…Amy sighs. Stella will drift about in a splendid frock weaving mistletoe between the glasses and scattering holly berries.

  How she wishes she could be there too! But there was no question of leaving her father on his own the first Christmas since Shirley died. The possibility had crossed her mind briefly but she dismissed it as unkind when an envelope arrived with the train fare and a note from her father.

  David and Maggie had been summoned home, too. Furious with them both for ‘dropping out’ as she called it, their mother had not sent them money for their fares, only demands. They had to borrow cash from Seymour. They were travelling home today, too. Suddenly her heart leaps. At the end of the platform, Amy can see her mother surrounded by a crowd of people. Shirley is waving gently at a departing train, straining to be seen, her face lit by smiles.

  Amy knows that it cannot be Shirley. Shirley is dead. But something primeval in her muscles and veins and nerves propels her to her stockinged feet. Even while her mind resists this illogical reaction, she finds she is dashing down the train, pushing past people struggling with cases and bags, and grabbing for the door handle tries to wrench it open.

  A stranger stays her arm. ‘Steady there, love!’ urges the woman. Amy forces down the window and cranes her head out. Tears whip away as the train gathers speed. Already the station crowd has merged into an indistinct mass and her mother, or the person she thought was her mother, has disappeared.

  ‘You alright love?’ The woman is still holding her arm. ‘You got no shoes on. Where are they, love? Should I call the conductor?’

  ‘No, no, leave me alone, will you? I’m sorry…’

  Indifferent to the tears that are rolling down her cheeks, Amy makes her way back to her seat. On the way, she stops to help an elderly woman who is struggling to lift her case into the rack. Back at her seat, Amy wraps a jumper around her head and weeps.

  Last night was bizarre. Seymour had arrived at the farm after nine o’ clock, banging through the door in his usual way, bags in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. He was trailed by Stella who was hidden by an enormous bunch of glitter-sprayed branches.

  ‘We knew it,’ Seymour said grandly. Plonking everything on the floor, he wriggled a thigh-high brass urn, a treasure from his great-grandfather’s travels in the Far East, into the middle of the room. ‘Christmas Eve tomorrow and the tree’s still not dressed. Voila, decorations commence!’

  Tiny golden bows had been twisted along the branches and glinted in the firelight. As Stella knelt to arrange them in the urn, her ruby-red dress pooled round her like blood.

  ‘A modern version of Christmas! Isn’t Stella clever? Now the whole room will be bedecked. Look what I’ve brought!’

  Seymour whipped out boxes of fairy lights.

  ‘Drape these lights anywhere you like, Maggie my dear. I’ll pour us a drink.’

  ‘I will… in a minute.’ Maggie was drying her hair by the fire. The champagne popped with a sibilant sound.

  ‘You might have to tighten the bulbs to make them work,’ he said, handing her a glass.

  ‘I know what to do, you know. I have helped my mother decorate for Christmas before,’ Maggie was irritated. The man always had to be centre of attention.

  Seymour ignored her. ‘It’s a great shame you won’t all be here for Christmas. Now, where are the boys? It’s time to celebrate!’

  When Maggie didn’t reply, Amy said: ‘They’ve gone to the pub with Bob and Helen. Suspect they’ll be back soon. You two must be hungry. Shall we eat? I’ve made some soup.’

  ‘Sounds wonderful,’ Seymour followed her into the kitchen. ‘I’ve brought some Italian nibbles, if you’re tempted. Prosciutto, salami, a piece of dolcelatta, focaccia and panettone… ’

  The boys had not returned by the time they’d finished eating. It briefly crossed Amy’s mind it would have been nice to spend her last night before Christmas with David. But Seymour was so entertaining with his stories of ‘nightmare models’ that she wasn’t bothered.

  After the second bottle of champagne, the four of them pushed back the furniture and started to dance. Maggie had recovered her spirits and flung herself about in her usual way. In a dramatic response to Marc Bolan’s insisting they should ‘Get it On’, she accidentally knocked over ‘the tree’. Insisting it was nothing, Seymour knelt down beside Stella to re-arrange the fallen branches.

  That was when Amy noticed what the low light failed to hide and what she only remembered later when David woke her up as he crashed into bed. Seymour’s hand under the sheath of Stella’s hair, his fingers trailing softly down the girl’s velvet-clad bottom. That was puzzling enough. What was even more perplexing was realising she felt a twinge of jealousy.

  The train pulls into the station. Her father’s car is parked by the kerb. He leans from the driver’s seat to open the passenger door, just as he had in June when he picked her up here.

  She would never forget his bizarre turn of phrase. As she’d settled in the car, he had taken her hand and said: ‘Your mother has joined little Jesus.’

  The way he told her that Shirley had died.

  Gingerly she opens the door. He says: ‘It’s lovely to see you, Amy. How are you?’

  He’s wearing a shirt she’s not seen before. He’s had a haircut. She can smell he is wearing aftershave. He does not usually wear aftershave.

  ‘Hi Dad. Good to see you too. You look well.’

  ‘I’m fine, you know, considering. Train trip okay?’

  ‘Yes, no problem. Thanks for the ticket money, Dad.’ He starts the engine.

  ‘I was thinking, Dad, do we need to buy the food for tomorrow?

  We don’t have to eat turkey if it feels a bit…’

  ‘It’s sorted, darling. I’ve bought the food and all the trimmings.’

  ‘Really? Alright then.’

  They do not speak as they drive home. In her family this is not unusual and it is something she appreciates today. The silence gives her a chance to prepare for arriving at the house, the first time she’s been back since Shirley died. Will her father have put up a Christmas tree?

  John does not take the usual route for that would mean going past the funeral parlour. Instead he drives by the common, a gorse-covered piece of land crisscrossed with footpaths. Sometimes she walked back from school that way. Memories of the pineapple smell of the flowers on early summer days flood back.

  ‘Do you remember that incident, Dad, the man who flashed at a young girl walking on the common?’

  ‘I do. He was caught by the police. Local, wasn’t he? Your mother got worried about you walking home alone after that. Insisted you come home on the bus.’

  ‘And that day she found mud on my shoes and accused me of walking on the common. And you stuck up for me. Do you remember?’ Amy reaches over to touch her father’s shoulder. ‘I appreciated that, you know, Dad. But Dad…’

  She is overwhelmed by guilt. ‘I lied to you, Dad, do you know that? I lied! I don’t know why but I lied.’

  He pulls the car over to the verge. Amy twists round in her seat to cry on her father’s shoulder. Damp spots blotch his shirt.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I did walk across the common. Mum was right all along.’

  For several minutes, he holds his blubbing daughter.

  When she is calm, he says: ‘Better now, Amy?’ He starts the engine. ‘By the way. I’ve got a girlfr
iend.’

  Christmas Day is dominated by absent women; Shirley and her father’s ‘girlfriend’. Amy tries to imagine her mother is sitting at the table eating turkey and potatoes and stuffing. She thought people exaggerated when they said they couldn’t remember what their dead relative or friend looked like – how could they forget a loved one’s face? But now she knows it is true; she cannot summon Shirley’s face. Instead the shadowy and nondescript presence of ‘the other woman’ is palpable.

  ‘Look, I’ve found it!’

  Her father’s cream-coated fingers wave a silver shilling, the coin her mother hid in the Christmas pudding every year. It appalls Amy that he can take such pleasure in the absurd ritual but she also senses he wants to impress ‘the other woman’ even though she is not present.

  ‘Where does Caesar keep his armies?’ Her father insists they pull the Christmas crackers. Thankfully he ignores the paper hats. Amy assumes that’s because he fears looking silly when he has his girlfriend on his mind.

  ‘Go on, Amy. Where does Caesar keep his armies?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dad. Tell me.’

  ‘Go on, guess,’ he urges, starting to laugh. His mirth is unbearable. It suggests he is light-hearted; how can that be?

  It was only later when watching Morecambe and Wise on television that her feelings turn to fury. She cuts her father a piece of the fruit cake she made. Every few days since November she has dutifully dripped leftover beer into holes made in the cake’s surface. Now she can’t stop thinking that while she was doing this, thinking about him, he was leering over another woman, thinking about someone else. Her mother’s ashes were barely cooled. It is all Amy can do not to throw the cake at him. Instead she flounces off to bed. Despite her anger, she falls asleep immediately.

  Her first thought on waking next morning is that she’s late for milking. Then she remembers where she is.

  On Boxing Day, they eat leftovers for lunch, then walk in the woods. Afterwards, John leaves in his car without saying where he is going. She does not ask. At six o’clock the car pulls up at the house. She watches from her bedroom window as her father checks himself in the mirror, perhaps wiping lipstick from his collar. He springs from the car.

  Later they watch the Old Grey Whistle Test on television, something she cannot do at the farm as there is no reception. His foot taps to the music.

  The next day passes in a similar way. They have breakfast, take a walk, boil up the turkey bones for soup and eat supper. Then John leaves in the car.

  Amy decides she will make bread. Searching in the cupboards, she finds the round baking tin Shirley used for baking birthday cakes. Squatting back on her heels, she examines its discoloured base. There’s a tiny piece of burnt cake on the rim. She chips it off with her finger nail and lets the hard crumb dissolve on her tongue; it is still sweet.

  All the cakes Shirley made for her over the years. Plain sponge with pink icing, chocolate cakes with cream filling, and once a fruit cake that Amy didn’t like. She’s ashamed to remember that she flew into a tantrum. And when she was fifteen, Amy put in a special request for coffee and walnut cake. It sounded so sophisticated and Amy’s friends came and… Tears overwhelm her. Amy pushes the tin to the back of the cupboard. She and her father can eat sliced bread.

  Later, she wanders into the back garden but it’s like a parade ground. Plants cut back hard like they’ve had an over-zealous haircut.

  Her father arrives back before seven o’clock with take-away rice and curry. They eat in front of the television. Amy goes upstairs to read. She can hear him downstairs, humming as he washes up the beer glasses.

  On the fourth day, she blurts out at breakfast: ‘I want to meet her.’

  ‘Meet who?’ her father says innocently. ‘Your friend. What’s her name?’

  ‘Vi. But why so you want to meet her?’

  ‘Because she’s obviously making you happy.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘You seem happy.’

  ‘I mean, are you sure you want to meet her?’ Amy does not answer.

  Her father sighs. ‘Have you got anything you could wear?’

  He is irritating when he is not direct; she wishes he’d say that he hates her second-hand clothes bought at jumble sales, her ‘granny dresses’, her thick tights, her clogs.

  ‘This is all I’ve brought. I don’t have money for clothes,’ she snaps.

  ‘If you had a proper job, you would be able to afford them,’ he replies coolly. ‘What about your place at secretarial college? You’ve missed that for this year. Are you going to try again for the spring intake? I fetched an application form in case you want to complete it while you’re home.’ He waves it at her.

  ‘I don’t want to.’ She sounds like a petulant child. ‘Alright, I’ll look at it…soon.’

  Outside, a young couple walk by. Their voices are animated, they are in a hurry. The woman wears a matching hat and scarf, perhaps a present from the man.

  Her father is still talking. ‘You’ll need a job. You can’t live at that farm for the rest of your life, you know. How are you going to earn a living? Is that David going to marry you? There’s no talk of that I suppose?’

  ‘Drop it, Dad. We don’t talk about that sort of thing. We’re happy the way we are.’

  ‘I bet he is. Living in sin. Gets just what he wants and no responsibilities. Just hanging about at that place. I’m not sure I understand what you’re all doing there.’

  ‘We’re re-building a cottage and I’m growing vegetables and…’

  ‘There’s no future in that,’ he shouts.

  ‘And we’re living the way we want to and it’s different …’ Her chin thrusts out, the force of her words makes her shake. ‘I don’t want to be like you. I’m not like you, with your boring life and your television and your…’

  He stands up. His face is flushed.

  ‘If you want to come and meet my friend, get yourself into the skirt I bought you for the funeral. It’s hanging in your room. And the top I gave you for Christmas.’

  ‘Wear the clothes from Mum’s funeral? Isn’t that a bit weird?’

  ‘I just want you to look your best when you meet her…’

  ‘Then I don’t want to meet her!’

  But that wasn’t true.

  13

  ‘Shit’, Seymour pads into the kitchen, ‘that fucking cat.’

  The goose carcass is strewn across the kitchen, bits of skin stuck to the flagstones. The Minton china platter from which the bird was served yesterday at Christmas lunch lies on the floor, balanced on a roast potato and a rib bone. Though he has always found its flower-patterned border somehow wearying, he is relieved the dish remains intact. It holds memories from his childhood, both good and not-so-pleasant. The upturned gravy boat is coated in congealed fat.

  ‘Why didn’t they close the kitchen door before they went to bed?’ Seymour delicately lifts a piece of half-chewed meat from between his toes; he flicks it under the table. Someone else can clean up the mess. As he puts the kettle on the hob, he decides to return to London later that day. It’s getting tricky here, what with one thing and another.

  ‘Hi.’ Stella is in the doorway in her night clothes, her hair wild from sleep, her eyes ringed with make-up.

  ‘Cat’s been up to his tricks. He wasn’t shut out of the kitchen last night,’ Seymour replies.

  ‘Don’t fuss, darling.’ She glides over to place a cool finger on his lips.

  Strands of hair lie like fine spider webs across her neck. He ignores the thought of brushing them off her skin with his tongue and kissing the soft indent above her clavicle where her scent pools.

  He steps backwards. ‘Shit!’ Mushy roasted carrot sprays over his foot. He wipes it back and forth across on the floor. ‘I’m going back to London.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘I’ve got to do some work.’

  ‘I don’t care, I want to be with you.’

  ‘Stella, you should stay her
e with Julian.’

  ‘I don’t want to stay with Julian. There’s a synchronicity between us that’s irresistible.’

  ‘Stella, you’re going out with Julian. You’re his girlfriend.’

  ‘I’m sleeping with you.’

  ‘Only a few times.’

  ‘I want to be with you, Seymour.’

  ‘Stella, our being together. It was… you know…’ He watches her face fall. ‘Of course it was wonderful. But you and I, we knew it was just a casual fling. Friends. Nothing more, you knew that. We discussed it.’

  Her eyes are glassy like one of the dolls his sister had as a child. It’s the look she has as she reaches orgasm. He takes a handful of her hair, as heavy as a curtain and tugs it gently. He won’t leave this afternoon. He’ll leave as soon as he’s dressed. Alone.

  Gerald swerves on to the verge just outside the village as Seymour roars by. The man didn’t notice him. Parking his car in the farm yard, Gerald is relieved to have made it safely. In truth he’s a bit too smashed to be driving. Luckily the roads are quiet on Boxing Day.

  He weaves his way into the house, Jackson at his heel. No sounds of life.

  ‘Jules?’ he calls weakly.

  He is the only person who uses this nickname and, though he knows his friend hates it, Gerald still uses it. Jules is quicker to say than Julian and anyway, the boy – for Julian is still a boy – should not be so precious. It’s only nomenclature.

  ‘Anyone here?’ Gerald says again but this time he expects no answer.

  Gerald collapses on one of the sofas in the sitting room. It’s cold. He pulls an abandoned jumper over his body. ‘Jackson, up here boy.’

  Both man and dog know this is not allowed but needs must. Gerald lights a joint and stares at the ashes in the grate as though with enough concentration the embers will spontaneously ignite. At some level, he believes it might just happen.

  Minutes later, he is asleep.

  The smell of smoke doesn’t rouse them. If they stir, they will assume that Simon has lit a fire. Why would they get out of bed for that? Downers and dope have made Julian drowsy and Stella, propelled by confusion and misery when Seymour left the farm twenty minutes ago, had fled back to their bed and fallen into an unhappy slumber.