Maeve Binchy's Treasury

by Maeve Binchy

  ‘It’s beautiful, thank you Dad, thank you Mum,’ she said in roughly the same voice that Maura had thanked the family for the carpet sweeper.

  ‘You can get people to take pictures of you so that you can chart your progress from ugly duckling to swan,’ said Maura’s mother.

  ‘Thank you, Grannie,’ said Orla.

  ‘Or you could take pictures of fellows and congratulate yourself later that you had nothing to do with them,’ said Brigid who was sitting smoking, angrily rejoicing in her abandoned husband.

  ‘Yes, terrific idea, Auntie Brigid,’ said Orla.

  Maura could see the annoyance but yet she too felt disappointed. If only Orla knew what she had been saved from . . . a typing course to be taken during the school holidays at Easter and a reconstituted typewriter and a book to practise from. If Orla knew that, maybe she might smile more warmly at her mother. Again Maura wished she had stood out for the gift token. If Orla had that in her hand maybe the day would have been filled with dreams of gear to be bought, to be discussed, tried on, rejected, taken out on approval. Still it was done now and a camera with a whole film of ten snaps in it was a marvellous gift for a fourteen-year-old girl.

  ‘Will you take one now?’ James was anxious to see if it worked.

  ‘We’ll all make faces.’ John wanted it to be a joke.

  ‘Let me take the rollers out first.’ Maura’s mother was already testing the strength of her new gift and her head was a forest of spikes.

  Orla shrugged. She was developing this very unattractive shrug, Maura thought. Far too like Marie France, far too distant.

  ‘It’s Orla’s camera, she can take what she likes,’ Maura said and hoped for a grateful smile, a thank-you look. But Orla just shrugged again.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘I’ll take one if you want to.’

  They spent a long time posing. Marie France had to put on her lipstick, Maura noticed she didn’t bother to put on the Tara brooch. Soon they were assembled. Four adults on the sofa, the three children in front, Orla pressed the button and like magic it came out, a piece of grey-green that turned, in front of their eyes, into a picture of them all.

  They looked oddly dead Maura thought and some of them had devil-like red eyes.

  They all said it was very clever and wondered what would savages, who had never heard of such things, think if they saw one.

  They had little jobs for the Christmas lunch, the boys had to clear up all the paper and put it in a neat pile. Jimmy was to get the wine, Grannie was to arrange the crackers on the table and lay out the chocolates on little glass dishes to be served later. Brigid was given a new linen dishcloth to polish the glasses. Marie France had been given nothing so nothing was what she would do. Maura went out to do the gravy and the bread sauce. Everything seemed to boil at once, the dishes were heavy and Rebecca was under her feet at every turn. Sharply she ordered the child out of the kitchen and then felt guilty. It was Christmas Day, why was she being so irritable? She just felt that something was wrong. It was one of those silly fears, like recovering from a bad dream. In her annoyance and confusion, she let the turkey slip right off the dish onto the floor. She grabbed it furiously by the legs and rammed it back in the baking tin. Thank God her mother and Jimmy hadn’t been in the kitchen, they were both great at wrinkling up their noses and sighing at what were called Maura’s slapdash methods. What they don’t know won’t harm them, she thought, as she rescued the sausages from under the cooker and picked off the surface dust. She hadn’t noticed Orla in the kitchen but the child was there still examining the camera thoughtfully.

  ‘Do you really like it, love?’ Maura asked kindly.

  ‘Oh yes, didn’t I say I did,’ the girl was withdrawn. She would only resist any attempt at a heart to heart.

  ‘Did the flash go off just then? I was wondering was I seeing lights in front of my eyes, or was it lightning?’

  Orla shrugged. I’m going to get that bloody shrug out of her without having to go as far as physical violence, Maura thought purposefully. The boys came into the kitchen.

  ‘Will you take another? Take one of us outside,’ they begged.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh go on, Orla, that’s what it’s for.’

  ‘No, they said I could take what I liked.’

  ‘What are you going to take?’ They were impatient with her now.

  ‘Just casual pictures here and there, you know to get a picture of Christmas the way it really is, not all people just posing and smiling.’

  They lost interest in her. Maura beamed however. Perhaps Orla did like the gift and she might even take up an interest in photography. That would be marvellous. Maura didn’t praise the idea too much in case Orla might shrug it off.

  Orla went to the shed where the wine was kept. Daddy didn’t hear her come in and had no idea she was there until the flash and the soft whirr announced her.

  ‘Orla,’ he roared, moving towards her very fast. It was almost like a speeded-up film to see how quickly he had drawn away from Marie France and how his arms had fallen from her. Marie France looked at the door with a half-smile. She was straightening her blouse.

  ‘What kind of a silly trick is that?’ Her father wasn’t quick enough. Orla was back in the house and Maura had come out to see what the commotion was.

  ‘Nothing, I’m just taking my own pictures for myself like you said I could.’

  ‘Oh leave her, Jimmy. It’s her camera, let her take what she likes.’ Maura went back to the kitchen.

  ‘It’s just a game, you know a sort of Christmas game,’ Jimmy said, desperate, but Maura had lost interest and Orla had gone off somewhere to examine the picture in peace.

  Brigid was in the dining room thoughtfully polishing the glasses for the festive lunch but her thoughts were in no way pleasant. Why was she being forced to camp out in someone else’s house, share another family’s Christmas because of that bastard? She would show him. She would certainly punish him for this. If only she had some money. Life was so unfair. Look at all this cut glass and silver in Maura’s house, they hardly bothered with it. That little dish on the sideboard might be worth a few pounds and there it was with pencils and sticky tape in it.

  As she slipped it into her handbag, Brigid heard a hiss and saw the flash. Orla stood impassive at the door.

  ‘I was just dusting it, Orla, you know rubbing it against something in my bag.’

  ‘I know, Auntie Brigid.’ Orla was gone before she could be asked to show the picture.

  In the sitting room, where Grannie was meant to be sorting sweets and crackers, Grannie was actually drinking the festive brandy from a bottle that she was holding by the neck. She nearly choked when Orla came into the room and her look was wide-eyed when she heard the camera make its whishing sound.

  ‘Don’t be a silly child, that’s a very babyish thing to do wasting your ten snaps, throwing them away.’

  ‘I know, Grannie, but I am very babyish,’ said Orla.

  It was almost time for lunch, soon there would be excited calls from Maura and everyone would gather. The boys were suspiciously quiet. Orla went to their room and entered without knocking. John was coughing over his cigarette but James was flourishing his in fine style.

  ‘Captured for the future generations,’ Orla said as the camera flashed.

  ‘We’ll be killed,’ James said simply. ‘It’ll ruin Christmas.’ ‘Only if they see it,’ Orla said.

  In her own bedroom, as she waited for her mother to call, she laid out her collection. The group on the couch and the floor, scarleteyed and sure of themselves. Then her mother and the turkey on the floor, her father and Marie France, her grannie drinking the brandy from the bottle, her mother’s friend stealing the silver, her two brothers smoking in their bedroom. She still had four more to take. Maybe one when the plum pudding came in and one when they were all asleep with their mouths open.

  ‘It’s ready.’ She could hear her mother’s excited voice from below.

>   She tore the picture of the turkey into tiny pieces. Her mother was kind. Pathetic but kind. Orla’s eyes went back to her gallery. And look at the great Christmas that her mother had as a result of being kind. No, there was no need to keep the turkey disaster but she would keep the rest.

  She went down to her Christmas lunch with her head held high. She knew somehow she would be a person of importance this year. A person not to be taken lightly anymore.

  Season of Fuss

  MRS DOYLE USED TO BEGIN FUSSING AROUND OCTOBER. THERE WAS so much to do. The Christmas cakes, the puddings, getting everything out. It drove her children up the wall and down again, particularly since they weren’t children anymore. They were grown-ups.

  It would start when she realised that she had lost Theodora’s recipe for the cake, and everything would be turned out on the table. This would reveal new horrors—letters not replied to, knitting patterns which had been promised to friends. All was in disorder, all was confusion, and the very mess that was created served as further proof of how much there was to be done.

  ‘I bought her an album for her recipes,’ wailed Brenda. ‘I even started clipping them out and putting them in for her, but she actually takes them out again and loses them. It’s too bad.’

  Brenda’s own flat was something that a business efficiency expert would envy. She was always able to retrieve Theodora’s recipe for the cake or the latest posting dates to America. She would photocopy them for her mother, but it only seemed to add to the fuss. Mrs Doyle would speculate about where she could possibly have put the originals.

  Her other daughter, Cathy, used to have to lie down with cold compresses on her eyes after an hour of Mrs Doyle’s fussing about the Christmas dinner. To Cathy, it was the simplest meal in the whole year. You put a bird into the oven and when it was cooked, you took it out and carved it and ate it. There were potatoes, sprouts, bread sauce and stuffing to consider but honestly, unless you were about to throw in the towel, you shouldn’t be frightened of that lot. Mrs Doyle would go through her schedule over and over, planning all she should do the night before, and what time she should get up. It was as if she were in charge of a mission control at Cape Kennedy instead of lunch for her two daughters and son and two extra spouses. It was a meal for six, not a space shuttle.

  Michael Doyle said that he sometimes wanted to lie down on the floor and not get up until Christmas was over when his mother began to talk about the cost of everything. In vain would he urge her not to worry about the price of things. She only had to pay for a turkey and some vegetables. She would have made the pudding and the cake well in advance. Brenda, Cathy and Michael provided all the wine and the liqueur chocolates, the little extras like a tin of biscuits, or packets of crisps or a spare set of lights for the Christmas tree to cope with the annual failure of the bulbs to glow.

  They all went away drained, back to their houses weary and tense, the spirit of Christmas snuffed out by the buzzing and bustling of the woman who was unable to relax and enjoy the family that gathered around her for Christmas Day.

  It was Brenda who decided that this year should be different. Brenda was single and successful at her work and allowed to be a little more bossy than the others. In fact, it was a role she was almost meant to play, and this year she played it for all it was worth.

  Cathy had a small baby to think of, a gorgeous five-month-old boy who would be no trouble to anyone, who would sleep peacefully through the hurricane of fuss downstairs, if only Mrs Doyle would allow him to. Cathy was tired this year, unused to the wakeful nights. She should not have to go through all this business with their mother. And Michael’s wife, Rose, was pregnant, so she too should not have to be brought up to high doh by this restless, unsettling atmosphere. She should be allowed tranquillity and a chance to talk about birth and babies to her sister-in-law, Cathy.

  In September, Brenda decided on her plan of action. They told Mrs Doyle that as a treat they would cook the Christmas meal. Cathy would make the cake, Rose would make the puddings, and on the day Brenda could cook the main course. Mrs Doyle was to put her feet up. They would find a Christmas tree for her and decorate it. They would even buy her Christmas cards well in advance and get the stamps so that she did not have to queue for hours at the post office. Mrs Doyle protested. No, they all said, you’ve been doing it long enough for us; just this once, for a change, let us do it instead.

  Coming up to Christmas they wondered why this had never occurred to them before. Mrs Doyle was calmer than any of them remembered her having been in her whole life. Sometimes she would begin sentences of urgency but then she would remember that she had no great onerous duties this year, so she would fall silent again. They all lived near enough for her to have a visit from one of them almost every day, and Brenda, Cathy and Michael congratulated themselves and each other on having reduced the level of fuss by 80 per cent. She still worried about icy roads, and whether she had put enough stamps on the calender she had sent to her cousin, but that kind of thing was just literally incurable. They had cured all that was available for cure.

  On Christmas Eve the house looked festive. They had put up a tree, bigger and more decorated than before. Michael and Brenda had enjoyed doing that, they laughed and poured themselves small vodka and oranges. It was like being children again. Cathy had come and decorated the room with holly. Brian, Cathy’s husband, had tacked it up high so that it didn’t fall down and scrape people’s foreheads, as often happened when Mrs Doyle had tried to shove small spiky bits behind the pictures. They had bought cheerful red paper napkins and colourful crackers. Michael had seen to it that there were plenty of briquettes to keep the fire going and an extra box of firelighters. They had set the table for lunch before they left. They kissed Mrs Doyle and looked forward to the happiest Christmas yet.

  She walked around the warm, neat house. Brenda had taken the opportunity of doing a little tidying as well as just getting things ready for the next day’s meal. The saucepans that held the potatoes and sprouts were shinier, the turkey, with its chestnut stuffing and sausage-meat stuffing as well, was covered with foil. She was to put it in the oven at 11 a.m. That was all she had to do. Perhaps she might look through that kitchen drawer and sort out some of those old recipes. It would please Brenda to see them in that album. But fancy that! Brenda had already stuck them in for her. The drawers were suspiciously tidy and though she couldn’t actually pinpoint anything that was missing, she felt that a lot of things must have been thrown out.

  She would tidy up the food cupboard so that it would impress them when they helped with the washing-up. It was very tidy, actually, with nice, clean paper lining the shelves, That was new, surely. Yes, that must have been what Cathy and Rose were doing as they laughed about babies and backache and insisted that Mrs Doyle sit by the fire out of their way. And her tea towels had all been washed and were stretched over chairs, so that they would be crisp and dry for tomorrow, and a tray had been set for her own breakfast, the boiled egg she would have when she came back from Mass and waited for them to come. Waited, doing nothing after she had made the big journey to the oven to put in the turkey at 11 a.m. The day would be so peaceful, compared to other years. They were very good to her, her children. Very good indeed.

  She sat down by the fire and thought about Jim. She even took down his photograph from the mantelpiece and looked at it hard. This was her twelfth Christmas without him. He would only be sixty-two if he were alive, the same age as she was. It wasn’t old. A lot of their friends had been older than they were and both husband and wife were still alive. It was far too young to have been twelve years a widow. James shouldn’t have died like that. They had hardly had time to say anything to each other and he was gone. Her eyes filled with tears as she heard carol-singers going by. Christmas was very hard on widows and people who lived alone.

  She was determined not to let her eyes get puffy for tomorrow. Her daughters would peer at her suspiciously and interrogate her. No. She would remember the good bits o
f when Jim was alive; how excited he had been when the children were born; how he had bought drinks for total strangers when his first daughter arrived, and ran around to the neighbours knocking on their windows at the birth of his first son. How he had told everyone of their successes; the number of honours in the Inter, the Leaving, the unfairness of Michael not getting that job because of somebody else’s pull. She would think of him coming back from work laughing. She wouldn’t think of those last months with the pain and the bewilderment in his eyes, and the constant question, and the constant, lying reply. ‘Of course you’re not going to die, Jim, don’t be ridiculous.’

  Somehow this Christmas it was harder to put things out of her mind. She couldn’t think why. But it was.

  They arrived, arms full of presents; up and down the street people saw that Mrs Doyle was loved and cared for by her children. They saw she had a bright Christmas tree in her window, and they may even have noticed that her brasses were nice and shiny. Brenda had given them a surreptitious rub when her mother wasn’t looking.

  The lunch was effortless. Their mother sat in her chair, the baby upstairs slept happily through it all, and Michael and Rose talked happily of next Christmas when their own baby would come to the feast. Brenda was the life and soul of the party and said that she had serious designs on a widower who had recently come to the office, and if she played her cards right she might bring him home for Christmas next year.