by Imogen Clark
Dad and I have sometimes been invited to Michael’s for Christmas, although I suspect that was Marianne’s doing. Dad always refused to go so I went on my own and that’s where I got a taste of what other people’s Christmases are like. Marianne must spend most of December cooking and wrapping presents, judging by the incredible bounty that there always is. I once caught Michael shaking his head and rolling his eyes in my direction, mock disbelief at his family’s extravagance written all over his face. All the same, he couldn’t disguise his pride at the Christmas that Marianne had created and his joy at providing for his children. The contrast with what we’d had couldn’t have been starker.
I spend some time pondering over what to do with regard to Mrs P and Christmas presents. I am not sure we have reached the personal gift stage in our relationship but I want to get her something to show her how grateful I am. She is becoming such a large part of my life and I hope, but am not sure, that she feels the same. I find her in the kitchen with Dad. She is wiping his mouth with a flannel and he holds his face up to her like a puppy waiting to be tickled.
‘Here’s Cara,’ she says to Dad as I walk in. ‘Have you seen the beautiful dress that she’s made for Beth? It’s quite a work of art.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ I say, brushing off the praise. ‘But I am very relieved that it’s finished. The wedding’s on Christmas Eve, Dad.’
Dad isn’t listening but Mrs P ploughs on.
‘It’s so romantic,’ she says. ‘And Cara’s a bridesmaid. Do you hear that, Joe? Your little girl is going to be a bridesmaid.’
I like to hear her chat like this to Dad. There seems to be an easy, if one-sided, banter passing between them. Every so often, Dad will cock his head to one side and look at her as if he has something to say but the words he needs are no longer within his grasp.
‘What are you doing for Christmas, Mrs P?’ I ask.
‘Oh, nothing special,’ she says. ‘I’ll get myself a little bird to cook and some mince pies and then settle down for the Queen and a good film.’
‘Will it just be you this year?’ I ask delicately.
‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘Just me.’
I invite her before I have time to think about it. It just seems the natural thing to do. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I worry that she might think I am trying to get help with Dad, but actually it’s more about me having some company. If she is suspicious of any less than altruistic motives, she doesn’t show it. She beams at me, a proper wide smile that makes her hazel eyes twinkle and shows the gap between her teeth.
‘Are you sure that I wouldn’t be interrupting?’
I nod at Dad and wink at her. ‘Interrupting what exactly? I know that there are two of us but Dad’s not much of a conversationalist these days. Michael is having Marianne’s tribe and Beth and Greg will be on honeymoon. You’ll be doing me a favour by coming. Otherwise I’ll just talk to myself all day and eat too many chocolates. You wouldn’t be working, of course,’ I add quickly, just in case she thinks otherwise. ‘You’d come as our guest. And bring someone with you if you’d like.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ she says, still beaming. ‘But it’ll just be me.’
‘Well, that’s settled then. I’ll order a turkey!’
Guests for Christmas. Or, rather, guest. I surprise myself by how excited I feel at the prospect until I realise that I have no real idea where to start. Christmas has never been much to write home about around here. I buy myself a glossy magazine on how to deliver ‘the perfect Christmas’ and waste time thinking about table settings and holly garlands and hope that Mrs P isn’t expecting too much.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Michael, 1986
This is his favourite time of day. With the detritus of their lunch still on the floor, his mother unfastens Cara’s pelican bib, clicks open the highchair straps expertly with one hand and carefully slides his sister out and on to her hip. Michael watches as his mother takes a flannel from the drawer, runs it for a moment under the tap and squeezes the excess water from it while all the time chatting to Cara about the mess she has got herself into. Carefully, she pats at Cara’s face to remove the remains of the strawberry yoghurt that didn’t quite make it into her mouth. Cara screws up her nose and shakes her head, trying to make the task more difficult, but his mother perseveres and soon Cara is clean again.
‘Right then, my little pixie,’ his mother says. ‘It’s time for your nap.’
Cara’s objecting body goes stiff, her arms and legs jutting out like lollipop sticks, and she hurls her head back in readiness to protest, but before she can scream, his mother pushes her nose into the space beneath Cara’s chin and rubs her head backwards and forwards. Cara starts to giggle. Michael watches as his mother places a gentle hand on Cara’s head and pulls her in close to her shoulder. That was Michael’s favourite place, the hollow above his mother’s collarbone, and for a moment he feels a stab of jealousy that his sister is still small enough to snuggle into it. He probably could do too but he has learned, now that he is seven and at school, that he is too grown up for that kind of baby-ness.
He wonders what they will do today while his baby sister has her nap. He has been looking forward to these special times, the parts of each day when Cara is asleep and he gets his mother to himself. He hopes that they might get out the Play-Doh and make spiders and ladybirds, cupcakes and worms. It is important, he knows, that each creature be fashioned from a single colour. His father is very particular about the Play-Doh. He knows this because he has seen his father lose his temper when a tiny piece of the yellow accidentally got mixed in with the green. After that, he and Cara were only allowed to make things using one colour at a time so that there could be no danger of cross-contamination. Michael remembers his surprise and disappointment when he started going to playgroup and learned that not everyone kept the different Play-Doh colours separated in their own pots. Playgroup Play-Doh was all a dull orangey-brown, like the dead leaves that lay in the gutters on the way to school. Michael thinks, slightly regretfully, that he is probably too big for Play-Doh now.
The shrill siren of Cara’s wailing snakes down the stairs and he knows that this must mean that his mother has put her down in her cot. The complaining will continue for a minute or two before Cara stops objecting and resigns herself to sleep. Then Michael will get a delicious two hours of his mother to himself. That’s one of the problems with going to school. He is forced to be away for the precious time each afternoon when Cara is asleep. It is such a waste. Michael is not sure what his mother does with the time when he isn’t here but it cannot possibly be as good as spending it with him.
He hears his mother tiptoeing across the hall and then she appears at the door. Or rather, her hands do. The rest of her remains hidden. She is holding something up, roundish, a pale-orange colour, some kind of vegetable. He is confused.
‘Look what I’ve got!’ she says as she appears around the door.
He tries hard to remember the name for the thing that she is holding. ‘A turnip?’ he tries but he feels that that is the wrong answer.
‘Nearly,’ she says. ‘It’s a swede.’
He is too old for Guess the Vegetable.
‘And do you know what day it is tomorrow?’ she asks.
‘Friday,’ he says impatiently.
‘No!’ his mother says and then, ‘Well, yes, but that’s not it. It’s Halloween! So I thought we could have a little Halloween party, the three of us and Daddy. With apple bobbing and some toffee apples and . . .’ She holds the vegetable above her head as if it is a silver cup that she has won in a race. ‘A jack-o’-lantern. We’ll chop the top off, hollow the middle out and cut out a face. Then we can put a candle inside.’
Michael can see that this idea has potential. He has noticed these lanterns in shop windows and likes the way the carved heads leer out of the gloom at him as he walks past. He nods enthusiastically and seats himself at the table while his mother bustles about retrievi
ng a wooden chopping board, a knife and two spoons from various drawers.
‘So, first we chop off the top,’ she says and offers him the knife, handle first. It is the long knife with the wooden handle and this is the first time that he has been permitted to touch it. He takes it gingerly, as if it might explode in his hands. His mother stands close behind him. He can feel the warmth of her through his sweater. She holds the swede still with one hand and guides the knife with the other.
‘I think we need to chop just about . . .’ She moves the knife across the surface of the swede until she judges that the ratio of lantern to lid is about right. ‘Here.’
He pushes the knife into the swede but it won’t sink into the flesh and just slides to the right.
‘Careful!’ says his mother quickly. ‘Try again.’
He does but the swede is much harder than the apples that he has been allowed to chop before.
‘Shall I help?’ she asks and wraps her hand around his so that they can push down together. The force of her hand digging into his hurts his fingers but he mustn’t show her this in case it upsets her so he bites his lip and lets her push harder. The knife makes a jagged path through the first third of the swede and then stops in the middle.
‘Oh,’ says his mother. ‘Well that’s no good. Let me just . . .’ She takes the knife from him, swede still attached, and presses down. The knife slides another inch. His mother leans into the task, pushing all her weight down on to the board, and finally the knife slices through, coming out at the bottom at an odd angle. She lifts what will be the lid and examines it. One side is much thicker than the other. ‘That’ll do,’ she laughs. ‘Now, we have to gouge out the insides so we have space for the candle.’ She passes him the swede and a spoon. Having seen how much difficulty the knife had, Michael is not holding out much hope for the spoon, but he jabs at the yellowy flesh with as much force as he can muster. A little piece about the size of a penny flies out and his mother claps her hands. ‘That’s it!’ she says, in a way that makes Michael think that cutting this one tiny piece will somehow magically signal the rest of the flesh to come away easily. It does not.
When he has hacked away five or six little slivers and the surface of the swede is barely dented, he gives up. He puts the spoon down on the chopping board and rubs at his finger where the pressure of the metal has made a dent in the flesh.
‘Can you do some now?’ he asks, not wanting to disappoint her but at the same time not relishing the prospect of digging at the swede any longer.
She smiles at him. ‘I’d forgotten how tough it is,’ she says, taking the spoon from him. ‘When I was a girl, Auntie Ursula used to carve the lantern. She was really good at drawing. Her face shapes were fantastic. Mine were always kind of wobbly.’
Michael listens, enjoying hearing his mother talk. He has never met his Aunt Ursula because she lives a long way away. In America, he thinks. Or was it Australia? Or Africa? All these places sound the same to Michael, who has never been far out of London. His mother stabs at the swede as she talks, the little pieces of flesh flying all over the floor. ‘We need to clear up before Daddy comes home. He’s not going to be very pleased with us when he sees all this mess,’ she says, laughing and biting her lip at the naughtiness of it all.
Michael is torn between wanting to spend time with his mother in the kitchen and dragging her off to play with his Lego. The lantern is making very slow progress and there is such a short period of time before Cara will wake up and career, like a walking bomb, through his delicate models. ‘Can I just go and play while you finish that?’ he chances, hoping that she won’t be too disappointed.
She is concentrating on the swede. Michael notices that her tongue is sticking out of the corner of her mouth, like his does when he is working on sums at school. She doesn’t seem to hear him so he slides down from his chair and slips quietly away. As he leaves the kitchen, an angry cry comes from upstairs and he holds his breath but then silence is restored.
He is just getting his Lego down from the shelf where it lives, out of Cara’s reach, when he hears a knock at the door. It is too late for the postman and so there is only one person it can be. Michael feels his mood changing like lights going off all around him. He puts the Lego down and goes to look out into the hallway. His mother is there before him, almost running towards the front door, the spoon still in her hand. He watches as she lifts the latch. The woman, Tilly, is on the front step. She’s all hair, Michael thinks. He is irritated. Does she not know that this is his time with his mother?
‘Oh, hello,’ says his mother. ‘How nice to see you. I wasn’t expecting you today.’ She says this in a way that makes Michael think she means the exact opposite.
‘Oh, I was just passing,’ says Tilly and winks at his mother.
When she winks she sticks her head forward, her long neck straining and one side of her face creases up. She looks like a tortoise, thinks Michael.
‘Well, do come in. I’m not doing anything special,’ says his mother to the woman, Tilly. Michael resents calling her by her name and it’s worse when his mother makes him call her ‘Auntie Tilly’. He only has one Auntie and she is called Ursula. Yes you are doing something special, he wants to shout. You are spending time with me while Cara is asleep, and we are making a lantern for Halloween. He wishes now that he had not deserted the kitchen for his Lego. It would have been much easier to stake his claim for his mother’s attention if they had been together when the doorbell rang.
‘Have you got time for a cup of tea?’ his mother asks.
The woman, Tilly, doesn’t answer. She just follows his mother towards the kitchen.
‘You’re all right with your Lego, aren’t you, Michael?’ his mother asks.
He can feel her slipping away from him. She is going to go in the kitchen with this woman where they will sit and drink tea and laugh loudly at things that aren’t funny. Panicked, he says, ‘Actually, Mummy, I think I might get a bit stuck and need some help. And we’re making the lantern, aren’t we?’
‘We can finish that later,’ she says, without making eye contact, and then disappears into the kitchen.
The woman, Tilly, looks back at him as she follows his mother. She twists her face into what others might call a smile but Michael knows that it is isn’t real. It does not stretch as far as her eyes. Nice try, child, she seems to say, but you can’t compete with me and my tales of the world outside this house.
‘You play nicely, Mikey boy,’ she says and then she pulls the door shut behind her.
Michael goes back into the lounge. The castle that he has been building all holiday is sitting on the carpet. He has used only yellow and red bricks and has worked out how to join the walls at the corners so that they hold each other up. He is inordinately proud of it. Even his father has commented on how excellent it is. He picks the castle up and throws it at the floor. The tiny pieces scatter in all directions.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Cara, 2017
Now that we have a guest for Christmas, I feel the need to make more of a festive effort than usual. I buy a real tree, something I’ve never done before. The cleansing scent of pine fills the house but the needles begin to shed the minute I bring it inside. I also get new lights and some garish pink baubles from the supermarket. They look out of place in our shabby sitting room, like a glitter ball in a library, but I like them and keep watching them twist and turn on the branches, casting rectangles of light across the walls. I even buy a cut-price advent calendar, reduced because December is halfway through already. I open all the little cardboard doors up to date in one go. The pictures are unsurprising. Toys and parcels and snowflakes and a little elf. Behind the door for the fourteenth I discover a tiny picture of an angel. She has blonde curls and a dress the colour of periwinkle flowers. Two little half-circles suggest that her eyes are closed and another that she is smiling. The image seems familiar and I stare at her for a moment or two trying to place what it is that I recognise, but nothing springs
to mind.
The gifts for Michael and his family sit, unwrapped and accusing, on the table. I’m pretty sure I haven’t missed the last day for posting yet but I really must get them sent. There are no excuses other than my bad organisation. It is not like I’m inundated with Christmas presents to send. I’ve bought one of those fancy wrapping-paper sets: red tree-spotted paper, gold curling ribbon, tasteful gift tags. I set to with Marianne’s gift first because it is pleasingly rectangular. I am just cutting the paper to size when, out of nowhere, it comes to me why the angel in the advent calendar is so familiar. We had one just like it that used to sit on the top of the tree. She was made from a clothes peg and had a tiny china head that wobbled from side to side if you shook her, not that we were permitted to shake her. Somewhere inside me I hear a voice.
‘Be gentle, Cara. She’s very precious. If you wobble her head like that you’ll break her and Mummy will be very sad.’
Mummy?
I try to concentrate but the memory drifts away like the scent of a lilac blossom on a breeze. Whose voice was it? I claw at my memory, desperately trying to retrieve the sound, but the more I struggle, the further it retreats. Surely, it must have been my mother? Who else would be worried about the fate of a Christmas-tree angel? Not Dad, for sure, nor Michael, and there was no one else. It must have been her.
