by Maeve Binchy
The door to the dining room was open. She saw that the dishes from last night had been removed. And Donald, Georgia, Heather and Hazel were all sitting at the same table.
A plate of toast and a pot of tea had been prepared.
They were obviously coping.
She must now try to act normally. Maybe this thing could be saved.
‘Eggs anyone?’ she asked cheerfully.
They shook their heads. No, thank you, they were perfectly fine. This was said in normal, civil tones. There were no nuances, no sneers.
Ellie felt the whole world tilt slightly. They couldn’t possibly intend to ignore her outburst last night. That was too wildly unlikely to consider.
Heather cleared her throat. ‘We were wondering if perhaps you would like to bring in your cup of tea and join us,’ she said.
‘Sure I will,’ Ellie said. She felt a hollow in her stomach. This was it. They were going to deal with her all together. Well, she had to face it sometime. She sat with a bright smile on her face.
Georgia was now the spokesperson.
‘We’ve been discussing things and we think we will all write to people we know to tell them how good this place is,’ she said. ‘And another thing, we realise that it’s Christmas time,’ she said firmly.
Ellie looked around her wildly. ‘Yes, um . . . it is indeed Christmas time,’ she said eventually.
‘So perhaps we should all go shopping in town,’ Georgia said. ‘And buy a turkey, even?’
Ellie had already offered them a turkey for Christmas and they had all laughed in derision. Hazel and Heather wanted goose or nothing. Donald said he liked only guinea fowl. And Georgia said she would prefer a couple of dozen oysters and otherwise couldn’t summon up any interest.
So Ellie had planned a steak-and-kidney pie. But this looked like an olive branch and she must be seen to accept it.
‘A turkey!’ she exclaimed, as if she would never have thought of such a thing. ‘Wouldn’t that be lovely?’
Donald said that he thought a Christmas tree might be suitable and Heather and Hazel wondered could they go to a carol service when they went out. With her head still reeling, Ellie got Kate’s old car out and they headed for the town.
Georgia immediately bought crackers and fairy lights, and negotiated with a young man to deliver a tree that afternoon. Heather and Hazel went round the turkey stalls prodding at the breasts of dead birds with all the expertise of farmers’ wives. Donald went to an off-licence and explained to anyone who would listen that he had found drink a good servant but a poor master, so he did not imbibe now, but still he was buying for four ladies, so he wanted to get something chateau-bottled and from a good year.
Ellie went around buying whatever else might be needed, keeping an eye on all of her very mad companions.
She lost Georgia first. Running up and down, revisiting the places she had been, she began to panic. She saw a pub door swing open and envied the lucky people who were not in charge of certifiable lunatics like she was, people who could go and have a wintry lunchtime drink.
From inside she heard a voice singing
‘I like New York in June
How about you?’
There was something familiar about the voice, so she went back to look. There was Georgia sitting on the bar conducting the entire clientele in a sing-song. Then she actually stood on the bar for the crescendo. Her legs were still very good, Ellie noted. Legs and cheekbones did it all the time. Georgia had the place in the palm of her hand.
Amazingly, Georgia did not fall but was helped down to huge applause. Ellie got her out as strangers patted her on the back and said she was wonderful.
‘I wish the others could have heard you,’ Ellie said. But Georgia was too busy smiling at her fans to reply.
They all had hot dogs and loaded the car and Ellie found them a carol service. Donald told the clergyman that they were from an old people’s hotel and would love some of the young people in the parish to come and help them smarten the place up a bit and a date was fixed.
When they got back to Woodlawns, the Christmas tree was arriving and it had begun to snow again. They laughed like children and threw snowballs at each other. By now it seemed that they had never eaten at any other table than the one they all shared together.
When they had finished supper they decorated the tree. Donald told them that he had been without alcohol for nine years now. They murmured their admiration, but his eyes were sad.
‘It wasn’t soon enough,’ he said. ‘I was such a fool, didn’t see how much I was losing.’
‘What did you lose?’ Ellie asked.
‘My wife, my job, my self-respect.’
‘Did your wife die?’ Ellie hardly knew where she got the courage to ask him.
‘Yes, yes, she died.’
Georgia put out her hand and laid it on his. ‘Maybe she thought it was a good life, the life she had with you,’ she said. Georgia? Saying something nice?
‘And you must have been very interesting company,’ said Heather.
‘What with being a judge and everything,’ agreed Hazel. The sisters agreeing?
These were strange times.
They talked on until late in the evening. Georgia said that her career had not been as successful as she might have liked. She often looked back and wondered had she sacrificed two perfectly good husbands for nothing.
‘I wouldn’t say it was for nothing—I bet they wouldn’t say that!’ Donald was gallant.
Heather and Hazel talked about Mummy and Daddy but not in the usual idolising way.
‘They were a little old fashioned,’ Heather said.
‘And thought they were right, no matter what,’ Hazel agreed.
‘And I did have a boyfriend, but Daddy said he wasn’t suitable,’ Heather said sadly.
‘So that’s why they made Hazel give the baby away, you see,’ Heather explained.
Everyone saw and they were saddened by it.
‘But he might still get in touch one day,’ Hazel said hopefully and they all cheered up again.
They planned the next day. They would dress up for dinner. Ellie looked out the clothes she had been going to wear at Christmas with Dan. How extraordinary that she hadn’t thought of him all day!
Later, when she was fixing Georgia’s nightcap, which tonight was a Brandy Alexander, she told Georgia that she thought she might be getting over Dan.
‘I do hope so, my dear, you are much too attractive for a man who goes honk-honk in his car,’ Georgia said. ‘Ellie, do you think I could let anyone see my hair tomorrow, instead of wearing the turban?’
‘I’ll cut and style it for you,’ Ellie offered. She ironed Donald’s dress shirt and she helped the sisters decide which stoles to wear. And there was a huge excitement when they all assembled.
Donald was resplendent in full evening wear; Heather and Hazel wearing the entire contents of their jewellery boxes; and eventually Georgia making her entrance down the stairs with her shining silver hair, and her classic black dress.
Kate rang during dinner. Georgia answered the phone.
‘Ellie? Yes, I think she’s sober enough to talk to you, she’s been pouring brandy over the pudding. Will someone call Ellie? It’s Kate on the phone. Oh, and Kate, how is your mother? She is? Good. Good. Well, we’ll all see her when you bring her back here. You will be bringing her back with you, won’t you?’
Ellie took the phone. They could only hear her side of it and had to guess what Kate was saying.
‘No, of course not, perfectly sober, everyone, all of us. Yes, of course. And you’ll be bringing Mother back, won’t you? Oh, and Kate, everyone here has written letters to all their friends to encourage them to come and stay in Woodlawns. Oh, and another thing, a lot of boy scouts are coming on Friday to paint the fences and make window boxes. Will you be back while the tree is still up?
‘The Christmas tree, Kate, it looks lovely. We are all perfectly all right, don’t keep asking me how I feel. I fee
l just fine. No, he hasn’t been in touch, but that isn’t important. Love to Mother from me and from everyone here. Bye, Kate . . .’
Just then there was a honking sound in the avenue. Dan had come to see her on Christmas Day. Ellie went to the hall door. All the others went to the door of the dining room to listen.
He didn’t even get out of the car. ‘Come to take you for a drive, honey,’ he called. ‘Can you get your coat and come with me now?’
‘Happy Christmas, Dan,’ Ellie said.
‘Hey, honey, what kind of an answer is that? Is it a yes or a no?’ He held his head on one side as he used to do, it used to drive her wild then.
‘It’s geriatric-speak for goodbye, Dan,’ Ellie called and closed the door.
In the dining room they all hugged each other and scurried to sit down at the table again before she came back. Donald played the piano for them afterwards, just as he had that time when Ellie had found him. With his eyes closed, and his face very chiselled and handsome. And Georgia sang for them and told them tales of the music hall, mainly tales where everything had gone wrong. Heather said that she always asked for the mail in case Hazel’s son might get in touch and she would go away, and Hazel said in amazement that she would never go away from Heather, never in a million years . . .
Ellie knew that some day, quite soon, she would leave here and go and find a proper life. But in the meantime there was plenty to do to supervise the scouts and to get her mother and sister home. And very often the less explanation there was for anything the better.
Christmas Present
CHRISTMAS WAS COMING: THE LIGHTS HAD GONE UP EVERYWHERE. Santas appeared in the shops, and the threatening notices about Ordering Turkeys In Advance had appeared in every butcher’s window. Mam had ordered theirs. Joe had checked several times.
‘Oh, Joe, if you ask me again, I’ll get into the oven and baste myself on Christmas Day. Of course I’ve ordered one. And whatever it is, it’ll be wrong.’
She was right, Joe agreed resignedly. On Christmas Eve his granny and his grandfather came, and somehow the day went downhill the moment they arrived. They weren’t married to each other, these grandparents—they didn’t even like each other. Granny was Mam’s mother and seemed to think Mam would have lived in a smarter house in a classier way if she hadn’t married Dad. And Grandfather was Dad’s father, and he was bad-tempered about everything and said that people’s values had changed and the world wasn’t what it used to be.
Joe’s mam and dad even started to fight with each other, which they didn’t do for the rest of the year. Each year they thought it was going to be fine, but then, a couple of days before, the rot would set in. Joe was only ten and he could see it coming. His parents were very old, why couldn’t they spot it like a black cloud on the horizon?
‘It’s getting grand and Christmassy, Mam,’ he said, about three days before.
‘You’d know it was, your father’s started singing that song again.’ Her mouth was in a grim line. It was a song his dad had heard on the radio:
I’ll scream if I hear White Christmas
Just once more on the radio
And since I’ve been grown up
Each time it’s shown up
I’ve gone and thrown up in the snow . . .
Joe thought it was great too. Mam didn’t. She loved Bing Crosby and what’s more her mother loved Bing Crosby and this was making a mock and a jeer of everything that was important.
Dad bought paper napkins with jokes on them.
‘They might liven up the Night of the Living Dead around our table,’ he had said.
Mam said that her mother thought that a Christmas meal without linen napkins was more or less like sitting down and eating chips out of a newspaper.
‘Something that you and I did a lot when we were courting and you loved me,’ Dad said.
‘I still love you, you big fool,’ Mam said, but her heart wasn’t in it. It was like being on automatic pilot.
Joe asked his friend Thomas if it was the same in his house. It wasn’t: there were so many of them in Thomas’s house, dozens of them. There were never enough presents, and people were always giving things for the wrong ages. Even the wrong sexes. Thomas got a night-dress case shaped like a crinoline lady once. They had put it in the kennel and the dog had eaten the head off it and got sick.
‘But do they fight, your Ma and Da?’
Thomas thought about it. ‘They roar,’ he said, ‘but not more than usual.’ That wasn’t much help.
Joe wished that Grandfather and Granny wouldn’t come, they were the cause of the whole thing. If it were just themselves they’d have a great time. If his grandparents weren’t there they could watch what they liked on television and maybe he could go round to Thomas’s house or Thomas could come to his. And Mam and Dad would sit and laugh and say ‘Do you remember this?’ and ‘Do you remember that?’ and they always seemed to remember good things.
Grandfather remembered times when people had heart. And Granny remembered the style and the quality that used to come to their house years ago when things were different. And both memories seemed to cast everyone into gloom.
‘What would you like best for Christmas . . . not a present, not a million pounds, but just for something to happen?’ Joe asked his mam.
‘I’d like your father to quit singing that send-up of “White Christmas”,’ she said.
‘What would you like best, Dad?’
‘I’d like your mother to stop play-acting with decanters and putting name places on the table for five people and calling a jug a sauceboat,’ he said. Joe’s fears were confirmed. The Christmas hostility had settled.
What was the very worst thing about their coming? The complaints. The snide remarks. The things they saw and heard that displeased them. He couldn’t put sticky paper over their mouths. What a pity they had to see and hear so much. Granny did most of the seeing.
‘I see you have plastic flower tubs,’ she would say, ‘what a pity, what a great pity,’ and she would sigh a sigh that went to the very fibre of her being. And everyone would get downcast over the huge descent in standards that had come over the family since Mam had married Dad and gone down to the level of plastic flower pots.
Grandfather said that the music nowadays was intolerable. That there was never a tune in anything like there was in the old days, just fellows shouting and straining and no talent at all. If he had a voice he would sing the songs of the old days. But he hadn’t. The company felt somehow to blame because Grandfather didn’t have a voice to sing with. And as for that mad dog of theirs, barking and yelping, or the studio audiences in any funny show cackling inanely . . .
It was a wonder Grandfather wore a hearing aid if he didn’t like what he heard. And Granny wore those pebbly glasses to see things she didn’t like.
An idea came to Joe.
They arrived on Christmas Eve.
Everything was wrong, of course, as it always was. Granny talked about the journey to this part of the world as if where they lived was some kind of penal settlement far from civilisation as she knew it.
Grandfather said he had come in a train full of alcoholic louts with cans of lager shouting and singing and playing their music at a high volume.
Joe couldn’t put his plan into practice yet. So he endured Christmas Eve night as he always had. The settling in—Grandfather finding the fact that there was traffic on the road a grave setback. Granny saying that the house was so small it was amazing that they didn’t all fall over each other.
Christmas morning they all went to church—and, oh dear, that had all changed like so many things, for the worse.
Then they came home and had breakfast. Joe’s Mam and Dad were beginning to get edgy with each other as they did every year. Dad was humming ‘White Christmas’ under his breath.
‘If you sing, I’ll use the carving knife for a purpose which its makers didn’t intend,’ Mam said through gritted teeth. She was looking at the linen napkins.
> ‘If you fold them and put them in glasses so that we have to take them out again before we can have a drink, I’ll insert one of those things down somebody’s throat,’ Dad said in an undertone.
Joe watched his grandparents like a hawk. He had to be ready to make his move when an opportunity presented itself.
It happened when they were opening presents.
Granny got some awful handkerchief sachet sent to her by a friend who was called the Honourable Something. Granny was overcome by the generosity of this ridiculous present. She stroked it and eventually took off her glasses to wipe her eyes at the emotion of such a tasteful and aristocratic gift.
Joe plunged quickly.
He knocked her glasses from the table where she had placed them, so they fell behind her. Then he engineered that she lean forward for a moment to look at some antic of the dog. She looked without much interest or pleasure or indeed vision, and then she sat back heavily and crunched her glasses to little pieces.
There was an enormous fuss, dustpans and brushes were got. Granny was consoled. New glasses could be got, but not, of course, until after the holidays. Not until opticians went back to work. There was much sympathy and huge confusion. How had this happened?
‘I’m normally so careful,’ Granny said.
Joe was sympathetic. Polite.
Out in the kitchen he heard his father say, ‘Well, she won’t be able to turn the plates upside down and see if they’re bone china this year.’
Joe’s mother said, ‘She’s still got her hearing, she’ll hear if you sing that song about White Christmas.’
But there wasn’t the same bad temper as usual.
Joe watched his grandfather. Sometimes he took his hearing aid out, often to look at it to turn it up or down. Why wasn’t he doing it now?
Switch, the big, lovable near-Labrador, usually lay stretched happily in front of the fire, but at Christmas he always absented himself, so Joe had to keep dragging him back into the sitting room. Switch had been born on some day years and years ago, when Ipswich were playing Arsenal, and his dad always said wasn’t it great that Ipswich won . . .
