by Angela Huth
Christmas shook a little life into the house each year. It was an event Mrs Whicker looked forward to, and prepared for well in advance. April was the month in which she chose her Christmas cards – a process whith annually enraged her as she found the shops full of Easter cards at that time, and went so far as to write to The Times about the matter. By October, all presents had been sent for from the Army and Navy Stores catalogue – Mrs Whicker chose this store in deference to her third husband, Felix, who used to buy his ties there. By November the presents were all wrapped, so one of Marble’s extra autumnal duties was to flick at them twice a week with a feather duster. By December 24th when Fen, Idle and Emily were traditionally expected, everything had been ready for so long that the acute observer might light upon a certain air of fatigue about the decorations. The tree had begun to moult, the holly to die, the paper chains to sag and the presents themselves, piled on the floor, Marble had dusted in vain. Badger, the half-blind Airedale, stumbled daily among them and the fact that he had mistaken most of the large parcels for lamp posts was evident from the blurred colours of the wrapping papers. They sat like half-ravaged islands in a sea of stained carpet, and it occurred to no one to re-wrap them. Badger, however, remained unreprimanded.
The Harris family always arrived at tea time. Soon after lunch, very severe in order to conceal her excitement, Mrs Whicker would give Marble orders to come upstairs and help her dress. When people came to the house, or were about to come, their relationship reverted to its old formality for the sake of appearances. If this arrangement hurt Marble, she kept the fact to herself, and gallantly referred to Mrs Whicker as ‘M’Lady’ left over from the day of Lady Warren – and which appealed to her more than ‘Madam’. She kept up this term of address until they were on their own again.
This year, Mrs Whicker rose from her chair with unusual agitation as the hall clock struck two. She had a feeling – stronger than other years-that this would be her last Christmas, and she wanted to savour the best moments. So, waiving coffee, at a minute past two, with Marble and Badger behind her, she made her way up the grand staircase, a Tudoresque fantasy of 1930s’ oak, to change for dinner. A few moments later, as she trembled into the dark tunnel of her cold silk dress, miles away in Oxfordshire Idle switched on the wipers of the snow-encrusted car.
‘I’d do anything to stay at home,’ said Fen, beside him.
‘Me too,’ said Emily. She looked back at their house, roof and window ledges thick with snow, no lights, sad at their departure. ‘Why do we always have to go to Grannie?’
‘There won’t be many more years,’ said Idle. ‘She’s going downhill fast. I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t her—’
‘You say that every year,’ interrupted Fen, petulant. In response, a slight frown drew together Idle’s grey brows. He started the car.
Fen and Idle, Emily behind them, followed Marble (in pleated cap and apron) through the gloomy hall. They waited for her to undo the heavy double doors into the morning room. They knew what they should see. Mrs Whicker had a special pose, same every year, for their arrival. It hadn’t changed.
She sat very upright in a throne-like Tudor chair, shrunken but regal, ebony stick in hand, Badger at her feet. Her hair, which she kept a brave burnt-umber, was a skinny pile on top of her head, and two diamond brooches flashed on her flat bosom. From where Emily stood, far across the room, Mrs Whicker’s eyes seemed to have receded far back into her head, into the shade of two deep hollows. Perhaps that’s what Papa meant when he had said she was going downhill fast. Her eyes were rolling away.
‘My dear Idle. Frances, Emily. You’ve arrived.’ Mrs Whicker’s voice rapped out at them, surprisingly vigorous. She tapped her cane on the floor. They all went towards her.
The journey over the rich red carpet towards her grandmother’s throne Emily had been making for as many Christmases as she could remember. It was a journey she found both fearful and sickening, stepping as they did through the droppings of light that fell from the deep silk shades, into shadows cast by large pieces of furniture. This furniture was dark in sunlight, quite black in the evening, only highlighted by the glow of an occasional red cushion – a cushion which, Emily knew from experience, was a hard and solid thing built for ornament rather than comfort. The room smelt of musk, sweet potpourri and sickly joss sticks, burning in their brass holders. Emily felt her stomach lurch, her step falter. The dread with which she approached her grandmother made her dizzy. She tried to reason with herself: she felt sorry for the old woman, so frail, so lonely. She wished to be kind and polite to her. But, since the incident of the false teeth, the act of touching her was something that required great self-control. Emily could think of nothing she hated more.
But she had to go through with it. It was already over for Fen and Idle, the little ceremony of kisses and welcomes. Now it was her turn. Closing her eyes, she briefly rubbed cheeks with Mrs Whicker, smelling in that instant, beneath the superficial zephyr or powders and scents, the unbidden smell of old, crimped skin.
She stepped back. It was over. This near, at the back of the hollows, she could see clearly the red orbs of her grandmother’s eyes. Mrs Whicker surveyed her, moving them slowly. They were dull rubies, lustreless.
‘Obvious to say you’ve grown, Emily. But you’ve grown much.” She waved her stick round the room. ‘You can see what I’ve been up to no doubt? Frances, Idle? I’ve been acquiring things from the attics. Those bowls, over there. They belonged to dear Felix. That tapestry chair, Idle : your father bought me that in Quimper. On his way to Dunkirk. Turned out some wounded soldier sat on it on the deck of a fishing boat all the way over. It has a blood stain down one side, still, I believe. Now, a glass of sherry before dinner? I presume Emily will eat dinner with us this year, will she not?”
She rose from her chair, straight backed, hardly taller than Emily. Taking Idle’s arm, she led them back to the door. It seemed to Emily, now her eyes were more used to the light, that a kind of dawn had stolen into the room, making everything a little paler, less frightening. But still the smell was sickening. She was glad when they reached the cool of the hall, and the brighter aspect of the drawing room.
If the morning room was a shrine to Lord Warren, stuffed as it was with the lugubrious furniture he had enjoyed owning, and had bestowed upon his wife upon the occasion of their divorce, the drawing room was a tribute to the other three husbands. The mixture of memorabilia – a tiger carpet shot by Bruce (the Colonel), the mother-of-pearl sewing box (Felix), the Jean Harlow chaise longue from Maples (Robert, the poorest but sexiest) added up to a wonderfully strange taste. But at least it was cheerful. In here, much to Emily’s relief, the Christmas tree and presents stood in the bow window, and most of life went on. The morning room was only for receiving. ‘Keeps the damp out, receiving people there,’ as Mrs Whicker explained. ‘Rooms should be used or they die. So I keep dear Warren’s spirit alive in the red room, just by visiting it on special occasions. It never needed much to keep his spirit alive,’ she would add mysteriously. ‘He was a master of indiscrimination.’
While Emily eyed the presents from a distance-she had learnt in previous years that to be too inquisitive too soon was bound to cause displeasure – Mrs Whicker dealt with the decanter of sherry. She poured Fen a small glass.
‘You’re looking marvellous as ever,’ Fen said to her, uncertainly. It wasn’t easy to guess whether Mrs Whicker would react better to a compliment or no kind of observation. Tonight, it seemed, Fen had judged rightly. Mrs Whicker was in a mood for compliments. She tossed her head.
‘Thank you, Frances. Well, four husbands, you know, and still looking around.’ She spoke more with the relish of a divorcée (which she was) than a widow (which of course she was also, but the husbands had all died after the divorces). ‘Not doing badly, either.’ She clutched the decanter to the diamonds on her breast. The gold liquid inside swayed about making her, too, sway a little on her feet, and cast about for her stick. Sometimes, time
confused her. Tonight, perhaps, she was thinking the brooches were a new acquisition. ‘Dear Felix,’ she murmured. ‘So kind, Felix. So kind, Idle.’ She remembered the present, suddenly, as she felt Idle take her arm, take the sherry and lead her to a chair.
Later, Emily remembered that Christmas as a series of impressions, sleety, sloping a little : vivid, but not entirely clear. The thing that most perplexed her was that the dullness of the two days, the dullness she was used to, was spiked this time with small darts of an incomprehensible unease. Something, somehow had changed in Mrs Whicker’s house. Thinking about it the first night, Emily put it down to her grandmother’s predicted death. Maybe the approach of death made grown-ups uneasy. She didn’t see why, in her grandmother’s case. It was quite time she died, after all. Well past eighty, and not enjoying her life. And making poor Marble work so hard, too.
But at dinner Mrs Whicker gave little impression of a dying woman. In the dining room, lit only by red candles on the table, she sparkled. It was Fen Emily worried about more actively. Her face was very pale. And surely thinner than usual? Noticing this, suddenly, Emily looked again. Yes : she was positive she was right. It was beautiful, in the semi-darkness, but thinner. When had that happened? Which morning had she woken up with those huge purple shadows under her eyes? Emily noticed then that her mother ate little, and was unusually quiet. She felt a moment’s concern – until she remembered. Mama didn’t like this house, didn’t like coming here for Christmas, either. Of course. That was it. She was sad at leaving home. When you did things for the sake of other people it often showed on your face, even if you didn’t say anything. Emily knew that.
She returned to the ordeal of her turtle soup. Then she looked up to find her grandmother’s hand, a small withered turtle itself, shuffling across the table towards her.
‘Leave it, Emily. I can see you’re not liking it. It’s the sherry.’
‘Really—’
‘Go on. Leave it. Knew whichever I ordered it would be a mistake.’ She gave a wicked sigh and snatched back her wandering hand to touch her brooches. A pat for each one. Reassurance. She looked up at her son and daughter-in-law. ‘Oh! Such peace in here tonight. I never eat in here when I’m alone, you know. I find it restless. Now there’s a contradiction for you, isn’t there? The place is peaceful when you’re here, restless without you.’ Emily looked into the depths of her brown soup. She felt vaguely they were being accused, all three of them. ‘But then perhaps it’s just my weakness, restlessness. Would you say, Idle? Houses, husbands, places. I always thrived on change. Awful for you, Idle, come to think of it. I was only thinking the other day. Can’t think why I never thought of it before, as a matter of fact. How awful it must have been for you.’
‘It had its compensations. It was an exciting life.’ Idle spoke kindly. Emily often loved him for tolerating so nobly his mother’s foibles, for supporting her when others criticised.
‘Exciting it may have been. Not all twelve-year-olds ride elephants in India, I daresay. But the psychologists these days claim what children need is security, not ups and downs. They disagree with Shakespeare. “Mortal’s chiefest enemy.” he said it was, didn’t he? Well, Emily here is the product of security. And look at her.’ Mrs Whicker alone cast her eyes upon Emily, who felt herself blushing. ‘Perhaps there’s something in it. I shall be quite pleased to go to my grave thinking that my grand-daughter, at least, will never suffer what her father suffered. That’s a good thought, isn’t it, child?’
Emily, confused, shook then nodded her head. Across the table Idle winked at her, a private sign no one else saw. The top half of his body, rising as it did from the darkness of the table, and set against the darkness of the walls, was magnificent : green velvet jacket, silver hair, twinkling eyes. Emily wanted to run to him, to hug him, to say : this is all grownup talk, Papa. What does it mean? I don’t understand. She sat silently, fingering a silver salt cellar. When at last she looked up again she saw that her mother, in the act of taking a sip of wine, had lowered her eyes. Her cheeks, previously so pale, were now quite flushed.
‘Mama?’ said Emily.
‘Yes?’ The violet eyes right upon her, innocent, enquiring. Emily’s mind raced for a question. Any question.
‘Tomorrow, can we? Tomorrow …’
‘You shall all take a walk on the shore, tomorrow.’ Somehow Mrs Whicker had picked up Emily’s lost thread. ‘You shall gather me a handful of winter shells, if you will, Emily. And when you come back, you shall tell me all about it. I shall look forward to that.’ Her hand scurried for the silver bell. She rang for Marble to clear away the soup.
Emily had a plan which she hoped would materialise after her grandmother died. There would be no more Christmases by the sea. She and Wolf would be together.
She had put the idea to Wolf and he had thought it a good one. His Christmases, too, were bleak : no other children, just Coral and his father in the stuffy house, Coral starting to drink brandy soon after breakfast so that by the time lunch was ready, very late, Wolf said her eyes looked funny. Somewhere in the future, though, Emily and Wolf both imagined another world of Christmas in which the early morning routine, stocking opening, would be more fun : in which it wouldn’t matter if grown-ups were tired by mid-afternoon because there would be somebody else to play with.
But this year, physically, it was much the same as every other year for Emily. She woke early to find a stringy daylight in her room, making opaline veils over the cumbersome furniture. Emily fingered the lumpy shape of her stocking, impatient to open it. She crept to her parents’ room and pushed the door softly. Their room was darker than hers, but she could see they lay at opposite sides of the bed, back to back, asleep. After a moment’s hesitation she decided not to disturb them – though she had done so other years, and they hadn’t minded – and went on downstairs to the kitchen. There she found Marble busying about, in the navy dress she had worn last night, her fringe dampened into four curls that all turned to the left. Perhaps she had never been to bed : Emily wouldn’t have put it past her grandmother to make Marble stay up all night working, and to insist she looked immaculate the next morning.
‘Oh, Miss Emily. Just the person I need. Here, come and help me with these legs. I’m blowed if I can catch them.’
A vast turkey lay in a roasting dish on the table. (Mrs Whicker could make it last, by careful planning of many disguises, for nearly three weeks. The smallest January croquette would bring back vividly to her mind the happy day on which Idle had raised his knife to carve the first slice from the whole bird.) Its sawn-off legs rose wide and recalcitrant, refusing to be drawn together by the string Marble wound hopelessly round them.
‘Here. You hold the thighs, will you? Push them together, so.’ She slapped at a thigh with each hand, making a dull noise.
Emily approached the naked bird. There were lumps of dripping on its breast bone, soon to turn its cold white skin to crackling brown. Its thighs, mottled mauve, were plump and soft under her palms. As she squeezed them, forcing the scaly shins together so that Marble was easily able to catch them in her wild loops of string, Emily felt something of a traitor. Marble, close beside her, smelt of dough and lavender. Then, as she secured the final knot in the string, a more pungent odour filled the air – the high-pitched, sweaty smell of triumph. Smiling to herself, Marble clenched her fist and rammed a lump of chestnut stuffing back into the cavern between the turkey’s thighs. Emily moved away, suddenly cold.
‘There. That’s got him. I don’t know what she expects, getting me to see to the bird. Anyone would think I was a chef on top of everything else, wouldn’t they?’ Marble made a clucking noise with her lips, moving her top teeth, and lifted up the roasting dish. The effort caused her arm muscles to strain, and her skin roughened into a rash of white pimples, so that for the precarious journey to the oven the flesh of the dead turkey and its captor were strangely similar.
‘When d’you think Grannie’s going to die ?’ asked Emily.
‘Not yet awhiles. Or could be tomorrow.’ Marble slammed shut the oven door. ‘If you ask me, she’ll give us all a surprise. Typical Gemini she’ll be, if you’re asking my opinion, when it comes to dying.’
Emily helped herself to cereal. Her stocking, still full, lay on the table beside her.
