Devils, for a change

by Wendy Perriam

  Hilary’s mind was on the goose still, anger fighting shock. Canada geese were a protected species; handsome ornamental birds, born for flight and freedom, not for Christmas tables.

  ‘Joe’s an ace shot, I’ll give him that. Take a look in here, dear. Even when we’ve no cash for the necessaries, at least he keeps my freezer stocked.’ Rita opened the door of a battered rusting freezer, pointed out half a dozen wood pigeon, two mallard from the river, skinned and jointed rabbits in bloody plastic parcels, even a whole hare. ‘He got the freezer free, as well. Fell off the back of a lorry, didn’t it? Funny how much stuff falls off them lorries. I reckon we’ve furnished our whole house with what my old man calls “liberated goods”.’ She slammed the door, opened up the fridge instead. ‘Have you made the bread sauce, Maureen? I’ll do it, if you like.’

  ‘Hop it, Mum, I’ve told you. I’ll do everything in time. Just get out of my hair.’

  Hilary stood staring at the open fridge, could hardly believe its squalid jumbled state; food crammed in anyhow, pots and jars without their lids, mouldering hunks of cheese; remains of meals which looked as if they dated from a month or more ago; nothing covered, nothing wrapped. Never before had she ventured into Rita’s kitchen. Both times she had visited, they had stayed in the main room, and though Rita offered tea and snacks, they had never quite materialised. Thank God for that, she thought now, her mind on germs, bacteria. But she could hardly avoid eating Christmas dinner. She paused outside the sitting room, had no desire to go back there, face the smoke, the noise; could already hear a burst of wild applause exploding from the television, the pounding of a rock band. She must see Luke, whatever Rita said, must check on how he was. That was what she’d come for.

  ‘Look, I’d like to say hallo to Luke. I won’t be long, I promise.’

  ‘Okay, please yourself. Maybe you can make him see some sense. He won’t listen to a word I say, won’t even get his clothes on.’

  She found Luke in his vest and pants, stretched out on the floor, wrecking his toy cars. Several lay immobile on their sides; two more collided with a defiant-sounding crash as she closed the door, joined him on the lino.

  ‘Pile-up on the motorway? Too much drunken driving over Christmas?’

  He didn’t answer. It was hard for her to speak herself, keep her tone jokey and offhand, while she had to sit there looking at his face. She was prepared for it in theory, but the reality was worse. The bruising covered more than half his face, mottled dirty purple on his cheeks, fading on the neck to a dingy greyish yellow, the blackened eye still bloodshot and inflamed. Thank God she’d come, she thought at once-put him first, done what he had asked, despite her strong aversion to spending Christmas with the Craddocks. She’d been tempted to refuse, at first, when he’d phoned her from the call box; use Liz as her excuse, explain that Liz and Harry had invited her themselves, made all the arrangements. He’d hardly seemed to listen, just rammed in his last coin. ‘Please come,’ he’d said. ‘I want you to.’

  Still, she’d hesitated, aware they could be cut off any moment. How could she agree? The Craddocks might not welcome her – not now – and she’d be letting Liz and Harry down, upsetting all their plans. Yet Luke himself had been let down, had no one to say yes to him.

  ‘All right,’ she’d said, suddenly, speaking in a rush, before the avaricious phone could axe her voice. ‘I’ll be there, Luke, I promise.’

  Easy to decide that; far more delicate and difficult to explain her change of plan to Liz, who’d rung herself, later on that evening, to elaborate the programme for their own jolly Northern Christmas. She’d found herself prevaricating, realised she felt guilty, like the Craddocks, fearing Liz might blame her for the whole affair, call her arrogant and foolish for trying to pressure Joe into attending a school function, without foreseeing what might happen as a backlash. In the end, she hadn’t mentioned Luke or Joe at all. There were several other reasons – sound and pressing reasons – for deciding she had to stay at home. The completion date had been postponed, to start with, and she was genuinely nervous about leaving the house empty, especially over Christmas when break-ins were more likely. Liz had almost exploded down the phone.

  ‘Are you out of your tiny little mind? That blessed house is almost off our hands. Let the Philpots worry – it’s theirs now, legally. Okay, they’re having trouble finding money, but you say they’re still dead keen. So why ruin your whole Christmas nannying a pile of bricks and mortar which belongs to someone else, when you could be up with us in Scarborough, having a real ball?’

  She’d changed tack quickly, tried to explain instead about the wedding dress, how it wasn’t finished yet, how she’d agreed to make the bridesmaids’ dresses, too; and how Gill Lawley’s headstrong daughter wasn’t the easiest of clients, kept changing her mind about length and style and fit.

  ‘She sounds a right spoilt bitch to me. But never mind, bring the damn stuff with you. It’ll be quite like old times to have you sitting sewing seams.’

  ‘Liz, I can’t! There’s yards and yards and yards of it. The wedding dress alone is like a crinoline.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll come and fetch you in the car – and the bloody sewing. Or Harry’s car. That’ll hold a dozen crinolines.’

  In the end, she’d told Liz – had to, more or less. Liz was getting ratty, piling up reproachful details of the outings she’d arranged, the Mozart concert she’d booked at great expense, the gifts she’d bought which were far too big to send.

  Their last long-distance phone call was late on Christmas Eve. ‘Are you sure you’re not still cross, Liz?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, no, I’m not – of course not. It’s just a rotten shame, that’s all, a ghastly bloody mess.’

  ‘But you do agree I made the right decision?’

  ‘Yes, I s’pose so.’

  She had debated it herself through a mainly sleepless night last night, wondered if she’d blown the whole thing up, casting herself as the self-sacrificing figure, or the wretched humbled sinner seeking a new penance. Now, she was quite certain she’d been right to come, faced with Luke’s grim and swollen face. If a child could do that damage to himself, accept that pain and bruising as the price of being noticed, then it was vitally important he got that notice; that someone said ‘Yes, I‘m here. I see you.’ She was also uncomfortably aware of the parallel between them. Both of them had turned on their own bodies – she even more extremely by drawing blood with a vicious leather belt.

  She sat back on her heels, picked up a toy Ford, which at least gave her an excuse to stop looking at his bruises. ‘Did you get these cars for Christmas, Luke? A lot of them look new.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What else did you get?’

  ‘Stuff.’

  ‘Nice stuff?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘I’ve got a box for you downstairs.’ She noticed just a flicker of new interest, as he sat fiddling with a wheel-less pick-up truck.

  ‘What d’you mean, a box?’

  ‘A Magic Lucky Dip Box. Why not come and see?’

  He dropped the truck, slumped against the wall. ‘Too fagged.’

  ‘Couldn’t you sleep last night?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Nor could I. We should have been together, had a snakes and ladders marathon.’

  ‘What’s a marathon?’

  ‘A sort of race – a long one.’

  ‘I don’t like snakes and ladders.’

  ‘You used to.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I just played it to please you.’

  ‘Well, I owe you a favour then, don’t I – something in return? What’s it going to be?’

  He scowled. ‘Stop taking the mick.’

  ‘I’m not. You can have a favour, Luke – just one – a special Christmas one.’

  ‘You mean anything I like?’

  Now it was her turn not to answer. She was acting irresponsibly again. She shouldn’t promise anything, when she might have to let him down. He h
unched his legs up, stared at her defiantly. ‘Okay, then, don’t let them send me to that school.’

  ‘Which school?’

  ‘The one for bad boys.’

  ‘What d’you mean, Luke?’

  ‘I heard them talking.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That woman and my Dad.’

  ‘You mean the social worker?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘She said I’ve got to go back to my own school after Christmas, but then they’re going to send me somewhere else.’

  He must mean a remedial school, the sort of place they dumped the kids they’d once called ‘maladjusted’, or ‘educationally sub-normal’. No doubt they’d changed the terms now, prettied them with euphemisms, but the reality was probably much the same – dropouts and delinquents all herded up together, labelled as failures early in their lives, removed from the mainstream. That was wrong for Luke – she knew it, knew he was intelligent, didn’t want him branded as a thickie or a yobbo, shunted to some siding where he could stay his whole school life, with no chance of catching up, no chance of being normal. And even when he left school, the stigma would remain; employers losing interest once they checked his records, realised he‘d been ‘dustbinned’. since the tender age of seven.

  Why had Joe said nothing, hushed the whole thing up? Because he suspected she’d object? How could she? If Luke’s Head had decided he was unsuited to the school, needed special educational provision, she was powerless to oppose him. For all she knew, the process could already have been started: educational psychologists alerted, the social worker preparing her report. She glanced across at Luke, longed to wrest him away from all those so-called experts who would turn him into a ‘case’, probably put him on some huge computer, make him just a number and a file.

  ‘Hilary! Where are you? We’re going to open presents now. Come down here and join us, and bring Luke with you, please.’

  Maureen calling from the hall Hilary got up, reached out a hand to. Luke, to pull him to his feet. He ignored the hand, slumped lower.

  ‘I don’t want no more presents.’

  ‘Not even mine? I bought you twenty different ones.’

  ‘Twenty?’

  ‘Well, just tiny silly things. Why not come and see?’ She retrieved his jeans and sweatshirt from the pile of clothes discarded on the floor, helped him on with them, tried to hide her shyness as they walked into the sitting room together. It seemed even more noisy and crowded than before; Kevin wailing in his pram, Amber teaching Sylvie carols, and the television party in its final frenzied throes. At least there were no trains today, though the roars of canned laughter and storms of canned applause still seemed to shake the room. The dark man on the sofa had disappeared, perhaps woken up, at last, by the gang of party guests on screen, who had wrapped themselves in paper chains and were chasing round the studio; clutching glasses, knocking over chairs.

  ‘Lovely cushions, dear,’ said Rita, who was already opening presents. ‘The cloth’s too good to use, though. Joe’s such a pig at meals, we never have no cloth. Here, park your bones and open these few things. The ones in the red paper are all from me and Joe. The shiny one’s from Maureen and that little box is …

  She was astonished by the pile of presents, all brightly wrapped, with gift tags. ‘Love from Auntie Dot’, ‘Cheers from Terry’, ‘Merry Xmas, Joe and Rita’. She had called herself an interloper, intruding on this family, but now they’d made her part of it, included her as well. Never in her life had she received so many gifts. As a child, relations had been rationed – not to mention money. One present from her parents, one from Auntie Eva, a few small things from Katy; a box of hankies from the couple in the shop, perhaps toffees from a neighbour – that was it. She tore the wrappings off a pair of weighty bookends, a ceramic boy and girl in tartan trews, with matching pouts and hats.

  ‘We know you’re into books, dear. Pretty, aren’t they? We could have got elephants, or owls, but I thought those were more unusual. Hey, you’ll never guess what that is. A nail dryer! Yes, so your varnish doesn’t smudge. Clever, isn’t it? You just stick your nails in here and … Ow! It’s blowing cold. Now open up that big one. D’ you like it, dear? It’s a Piccadilly Raindrops Lamp. When you switch it on, it looks as if it’s raining, but the lady in that bandstand thing stays sheltered all the time. Saucy, isn’t she, with just that wisp of clothing?’ Rita laughed. ‘She can’t feel the cold like I do. I get arthritis the minute that it’s damp. No, you can’t see it raining, Luke. It needs a plug on first. Anyway, you saw it in the shop.’ She pushed his hand away, turned back to Hilary. ‘They had one on display, dear, and we thought of you immediately. The rain looks sort of golden and them lilies at the bottom light up pink and mauve. We reckoned it would be nice for your new place.’

  ‘Yes, thank you. It’s …’ Her voice all but tailed away. She was disappointing Rita, as Rita had disappointed her. ‘Lovely cushions, dear’ wasn’t quite enough for the hours of love and labour which had gone into the patchwork, and the hand-embroidered tablecloth would probably end up in a drawer. Her Raindrops Lamp would be more difficult to hide. It was nearly two foot high, with a plastic goddess smirking in a shiny golden temple, her feet growing out of a bed of garish flowers. She felt a sudden pang for the tiny humble things they’d be opening now at Brignor – a box of pins, a biro, a skein of darning wool. They had seemed such treasures at the time, engendered such excitement. She glanced around the room: Ron and Terry shrugging off gold cuff-links and silver Parker pens; Amber complaining about her pastel fake fur coat. Where had all the money come from for these expensive lavish gifts – or were they ‘liberated goods’ again?

  She felt even more embarrassed now by Luke’s Magic Lucky Dip Box, the trifles it contained. She had never intended him to open it in public, have all those mocking eyes turned towards the Woolworth’s jotters, supermarket sweets, home-made bits and pieces she had assembled in a Salisbury’s cardboard box. It had cost her only time – the time and thought and trouble it had taken to make each parcel special, to paint the box itself in brilliant reds and blues, stencil out his name along the top. Luke had hardly noticed it, barely glanced at all the wrappings, just ripped off the snakes-and-ladders paper she’d drawn herself, coloured in so carefully, using his own crayons; or crumpled up the carton she’d turned into a hedgehog, with matches as spines and round brown button eyes. She’d wrapped one tiny present in twelve separate sheets of paper, like the game of pass-the-parcel – thought it would amuse him – but he only seemed impatient with it, ripping off the dozen fiddly wrappings, until he finally found a plastic pencil-sharpener, tossed it to one side. At least she’d diverted Sylvie, who was collecting all the papers up, exploring empty cartons, chewing a rosette. Rita removed it from her mouth, swapped it for a Mars bar.

  ‘You’re hungry, lovey, aren’t you? We should have sat down hours ago, if only that damn bird was ready.’

  ‘It is ready, Mum, I’ve told you.’ Maureen shook out Amber’s coat, smoothed down the pink fur. ‘And the sprouts are cooked to pulp. It’s Dad we’re waiting for. Which means we won’t get any dinner till the pubs are shut. We’d better follow his example and knock back a few ourselves. If we all get tiddly, at least we won’t notice if the meal’s spoilt. No, Amber, I haven’t any Mars bars, and you’re not allowed them anyway. Sylvie’s different – she’s grown up. I know you’re starving hungry. We all are. No you can’t have sherry, neither. I don’t want you ending up like Grandad. Oh, look! Diamonds is just starting. I’ve just got to see it. D’you know thirty million people watched it on Christmas Day last year? I read that in The Sun. D’you watch it, Hilary?’

  ‘Well, no, I …’

  ‘See that woman in the lurex gown? That’s Amanda Carson. She’s the star, the bitch, the one with all the diamonds. And that guy just bending over her is her ex-husband, Dale – except they’re going to get remarried. That sulky-looking blonde bit is Dale’s second eldest daughter and she hates Amanda’s guts. S
he’s so thin, she makes me sick. I like her dress, though, don’t you, and the way she …?’

  ‘Shut your trap, Maureen. We’ve just missed the whole beginning, with you yapping on like that.’

  ‘Okay, keep your hair on. I’ve got to explain to Hilary or she’ll get completely lost. Hey, look at that mink wrap! Amanda must have got it from Guy Lowndes. He’s another baddie, Hilary, but he always …

  ‘He’s not a baddie, stupid. He’s the hero of the thing.’

  ‘And what about his wife, the way he just abandoned her?’

  ‘She asked for it, going off with …

  ‘Oh, shut up, all of you! Hilary’s not blind or deaf. She can follow it herself, or have a snooze.’

  Hilary longed to have a snooze. She was already weary from her night awake, drugged by too much sherry, yet she dared not close her eyes. It would seem an insult to the family on screen, a two-dimensional family, who were obviously more solid and important than any real or living one; engendered strong emotions. She had just sorted out the Craddocks, their relationships and names; now she struggled with the Carsons – who belonged to whom, who was sister, son, ex-wife, or merely lackey. She watched them exchanging gifts and greetings, just as they had done themselves, though sentiments and presents were both more elevated. These were exceptional people, as far above the norm as the Saints had been to her, once; set up as idols, models; the non-Christian’s Holy Family. Amanda Carson was Our Lady of the Sitting Room, whose mystique and miracles excited awe and veneration; thirty million worshippers watching at her shrine. She tried to imagine all those separate congregations, up and down the land, revering the same saints, attending the same service, like a new united Religion of the Box; or like the ancient monasteries had been – every Order in the world chanting the same Office at exactly the same time.

  The thirty million contracted to eleven – eleven aged nuns singing in the Brignor chapel – and she not there to swell the sound. A year ago today had been her first full day in the world, so today was an anniversary, as well as Christmas Day – even her birthday, in a sense. She was one year old in secular terms. Maybe that explained why she felt so small and vulnerable, why her thoughts kept sneaking back to Brignor, missing its traditions. She’d feel better once the Christmas con was over. It was a con, without Christ in it, or God. She had longed to go to Midnight Mass, even as a non-believer; hungered for some ritual, if only a pagan one, so long as it were sacred. The television rituals couldn’t compensate: too much bread and circuses, too little soul and spirit. They were advertising space-guns now, farting Santa Clauses; interrupting Diamonds with commercials. She waited till the Carsons leapfrogged back, then sank back on the sofa, sipped her refilled sherry, watched debonair Dale Carson drinking his. At least everyone was quiet now, every eye riveted to the screen, even Amber’s, Sylvie’s. This was their own family– surrogates, ideals; a circle they were intimately involved with, who kindled the emotions maybe dormant in real life – desire, excitement, wonder; a focus of high passion, gods to fill the void.