by Liam Livings
'I'm really nervous actually.' I looked at Clara-Bell and she returned to the here and now.
'Why? What have you gone and done now?'
'He's asked me to spend it at his parents' place. Says they're keen to meet me.'
'And what's wrong with that. You'll be fine. You'll dazzle them with your wit and sparkle all the day long. I'm sure of it, darling.'
'It's a bit,' I thought of the right word, looking around the pub, its oak beams and mock-Tudor decor covered in tinsel and holly wreaths. 'A bit, serious isn't it?'
'Are you with him or are you not with him, darling?'
I nodded.
'And is that or is that not what you wanted?'
Again with the nodding.
'Are you telling me you've not met the parents of another beau in your life before?'
'The guys I met in Vauxhall were hardly take home to mummy and daddy material. Most of them I never saw again, unless you count a nod the next time I was back in Vauxhall. It never got to that stage before.'
'And now here you are, at that stage and little old you is panicking slightly.'
I made a gap between my thumb and forefinger. 'Just a teeny bit, yes.'
'Stuff and nonsense. Either they'll like you or they'll pretend to like you. They're not going to say anything to young Darren are they? We're usually very polite as a society, us British, don't you find? As long as you steer well clear of politics or religion and mind your table manners. You can do that, can't you dear?'
'Of course.'
'Then you'll be all right. No elbows on tables. No chewing with your mouth open. Always say please and thank you. And remember, with the cutlery you start on the outside and work your way in.' She smiled.
'What about you?'
'What, for Christmas?'
'No, going on the Titanic, yes of course. What you doing?'
'Just me, the dogs, an enormous turkey and stuffing and an assortment of various waifs and strays who are on their own, or can't cook, or both at Christmas. It's a tradition ever since The Colonel decided to drop down dead. Since then it's grown and grown. Word gets round that if you're on your own and can bring a bottle, or whatever you can afford, there's a place at my table for the big day.'
'How many this year?'
'Sixteen at last count. I have a list next to the phone. It keeps changing of course. And there'll no doubt be last minute droppers-in on the day. It's marvellous. It kept me busy that first Christmas without him, and it certainly keeps me busy every year since then. Christmas can be such a maudlin season I find.' She smiled weakly at me, then clapped, announcing she wanted to hear about everyone's plans for Christmas, and whether or not they were planning to do any writing among all the mince pies and turkey.
Olive had a house full, 'Even though I said I wasn't doing it again this year, but they've all come back, inviting themselves to stay. I've got sons, daughters, boyfriends, girlfriends. Two of 'em are even bringing their new kitten because she can't be left. Don't know how that's going to go down with Tigger, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm getting it all delivered, 'cause I can't face the shops Christmas week. Writing, I don't know. I've told them. They keep asking to see what I've written, but I'm scared, you know.'
The table of writers all nodded.
'But I've got my new notebook.' She held up a lilac notebook. 'My son got it me. So I'm going to try and get an hour or so each morning before everyone's up. I've been sitting at the kitchen table with my milky coffee of the morning, before going to work, so I'll do that. I want to get back to the one I was writing about the dinner lady who's really a witch. I told the grand kids and their eyes lit up. So a couple of hours of that over Christmas and I'll be happy.'
Clara-Bell's eyes lit up and she clapped. 'Marvellous. Will you bring it in to read a bit in January?'
'Might do.' Olive smiled and sipped her milky coffee.
A couple of the group were going away for some winter sun. 'Lucky devils, don't send us a post card,' Clara-Bell chided.
One woman was off to her mum's down in the New Forest, although she dreaded it because she was still single, and all the uncles and aunties always asked if she'd found 'the one' yet, which made her want to throw carrots at their party hats every time.
After an awkward silence, Shirley suggested she use that and write about how that feels, looking at Clara-Bell for approval, who nodded slowly.
Shirley was waiting on a few submissions to various magazines. 'First Christmas without Dad, so I'm not really looking forward to it.' She looked at the table.
Clara-Bell reached across the table and squeezed her hand, the bright red nail polish matching the holly berries all round the room. 'You know you're welcome at mine. Just bring yourself and a bottle or whatever you can. Plenty of room at my table, even if some have to sit on decorating stools. Do come. Don't spend the day alone, you will promise me that won't you? Will you find time to write do you think?'
Shirley fiddled with her hands, folding and refolding the red napkin in her lap. 'I sometimes feel like, if I start, it'll all come pouring out, and I don't think I can cope with that now. You know?' She looked around the table and some smiled, some nodded slowly. 'I looked at the letter I wrote to Dad and had to stop half way through.' Another pause, more napkin action. 'We'll see.' She looked up, her eyes filled with tears.
Clara-Bell leant across to give her a hug and whispered something into her ear. Shirley nodded against Clara-Bell's neck before sniffing loudly, wiping her eyes and nose with the napkin, taking a deep breath and settling back into the general chit chat of the group.
Chapter 31
Christmas Day
'Get a fucking move on, or we're gonna be late. And Mum's not 'appy if you're late, trust me. What you doin' in there, primping still. You look sexy as you are. Fucking COME ON!' Darren was stood outside the bathroom while I checked my teeth for bits of food from the breakfast I hadn't been able to eat due to my stomach doing somersaults in my chest.
I left the bathroom. 'It's not too much is it? I can take the shirt off. How about a T-shirt, is that better, or are they expecting me to dress up do you think? I've got a plain white T-shirt I could put on.' I started to walk towards the stairs.
Darren grabbed me. 'You're fine. You look perfect. You are perfect.' He kissed me. His freshly shaved face brushed against mine, equally as smooth. The first time we'd coincided our shaving in memory. I felt something stirring in my underwear.
Darren reached down, his hands in my underpants and grabbed me. 'Now, what is this we have here? It's like a little mouse, waking up from slumber.'
'Thank you, but I will have less of the little.'
'I wonder what would happen if I gave it a little squeeze, like this.'
My eyes lit up as he touched me in just the right place. The mouse continued to waken.
'Got the presents? Jackets? Wine? Chocolates?' He released his grip.
'You can't just leave me hanging. A man has needs.' I widened my eyes and he walked away.
'I know. But we're just about to see my parents, and we're already -' he looked at his watch - 'gonna be five minutes late so there's no time for that. Just keep it in mind, when we're sat at the table, listening to my uncle's fifth story about his job in the scrap metal yard.'
We walked into the living room of a small terraced house on the council estate side of Loughton. Only fifteen minutes' walk and it felt like another world. I slapped my internal snob as I noticed a St George's flag hanging from a window of a neighbouring house.
Eighteen people cheered as Darren and I sat at the table, two places left at one end for us. I was so grateful we were sat together I almost cried. I didn't, I kept it together and concentrated as Darren went round the table introducing uncles, aunties, his mum ('Pauline, everyone calls me Paul love' - she kissed me fully on the lips), his dad (Steve, who shook my hand so hard I thought it had broken), and an assortment of nieces and nephews between three feet tall and teenager, looking at their phone
s, not bothered about what the adults are talking about.
Instantly I forgot all their names. I nodded and repeated that it was nice to meet them, again and again, like an idiot stuck record. I reached for a glass in front of me, looked at Darren. 'Water, where do I?'
'You not drinking?'
'Is there a jug of water on the table?'
Pauline noticed us talking. 'Fanta, Coke, Seven Up, Doctor Pepper, that do?'
Darren left the room with my glass and reappeared with it full of tap water.
Pauline noticed me drinking the water like my life depended on it. 'Don't you want a soft drink. We've got plenty.' She gestured to the middle of the table filled with two litre bottles of fizz.
'Fine, thanks Paula, Pauline, I mean Paul.'
Darren squeezed my thigh. 'They don't bite. Have a beer, and calm down.'
One of the aunties carried three plates of beef, ham and turkey in huge steaming piles and put them in the middle of the table. The children started to pick at them until adults slapped their hands and shouted 'oi' at them.
Two enormous plates of Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes followed, and the last to leave the kitchen were two bowls of carrots and Brussels sprouts. The kitchen auntie sat and told everyone to dig in. A sea of hands filled the table, grabbing at the meat plates until one of the older uncles said they'd better say grace 'Like we normally do.' He then looked at Darren and quickly to me. This uncle closed his eyes, coughed and said, 'For what we're about to receive may the Lord make us thankful. Amen.' The room echoed the Amen and then resumed the grabbing and passing of plates.
We pulled the crackers, everyone turned to their neighbour and pulled their own and their neighbour's at the same time. The children at the end of the table had various approaches ranging from ignoring the cracker completely and maintaining complete eye contact with mobile phone, or ripping it up into pieces and throwing it on the floor. I got a green plastic monkey, which Darren hung from my pint glass, now half empty of beer. I played with the monkey as he smiled at me then winked quickly.
As everyone ate, at first the table was silent except for murmurs of 'delish', and 'good meat' with a bit of story about where it had been bought -the big supermarket in the large new town half an hour further into Essex, where it was 'on special'. Both the town and the supermarket were experiences I'd yet to partake of, which caused an awkward moment when an auntie asked where I got my meat from. I sensed that 'the Q Guild butcher at the end of the High Road' wasn't the right answer, so instead said, 'I get it delivered, normally.'
This was met with a chorus of 'ooh' and 'aaah', like I'd said I got it delivered on a magic carpet from Aladdin the Disney character every week.
'Yeah, I mean. I don't pay for it to be delivered. I have a thing where you pay each month, then it's free delivery.' I took a mouthful of food, grateful for the diversion from my latest nonsensical statement.
Another squeeze from Darren under the table.
An auntie at the far end of the table asked what I did as a job, 'Are you all over the place, so you can't get to the shop?' She smiled, a roast potato on her fork near her mouth.
'I used to be a teacher.'
A chorus of 'oohs' and 'aahs'.
'But I gave it up. I'm a writer now, full time.'
The auntie took a bite of her potato. 'What sort of stuff you write? I like to pick up a book sometimes, when I'm up Asda's getting the food shop with these lot.' She looked at a small boy and girl next to her at the table.
'I write novels, short stories, that sort of thing.' I swallowed, suddenly my throat was dry again.
Another voice shouted across the table, 'What's the difference between a novel and a book, 'cause I never know?'
I explained they were both different words for the same thing, a bit like boat and ship.
Darren rescued me by adding that I was writing a novella at the moment, and I also wrote content for other people, like web pages and blogs.
Pauline stopped eating, and said, 'I've never got that. This blogging. Why does anyone want to do that?'
The auntie at the end of the table told her two children to be quiet then looked at me. 'Can I get your stuff on Amazon then?'
'I've not had any of my stuff published yet.'
Darren interrupted, 'But the other stuff, it's all on the internet. He's working for the school he left. You can see their blog and all the comments. He looks after their Facebook and Twitter an' all.'
An uncle folded his arms across his chest, blue tattoos of an anchor and a swallow covered his forearms. 'They pay you for being on Facebook?'
Darren smiled at me, then looked at the uncle. 'There's a bit more to it than that. He writes for people who can't, or don't have time to write. It's called copy writing isn't it?' He looked at me, I nodded, smiling, and squeezing his thigh under the table to stop it jogging up and down.
Uncle Tattoos started to pick something from his teeth with a fork.
Pauline shouted across the entire length of the table, all eight feet of it, 'Not with a fork please!'
Uncle Tattoos put the fork on the table, then looked at me. 'You write for other people and they pay you? That's copy writing is it?'
Darren and I nodded.
'And that's your job is it?'
'It is, yes.' I smiled at him across the table, trying not to stare at his arms. 'What do you do for a job?'
'I'm a plasterer, like Darren here. Me dad was one, I'm one.'
'Are all you guys plasterers?' I looked at the men around the table.
A couple of nodded heads. One said he was a scrap metal merchant, worked in a yard in Dagenham in the East End of London.
'What's that like?' I tried, keen to get the conversation off me and my magical mystery job which no one could believe was a real job.
He talked about how it had changed since the sixties, with the influx of immigrants from the Caribbean, and India, and lately Eastern Europe. He went off on one about how we live in a throwaway world, where someone chucks away an office chair because it's in the wrong colour. Where washing machines and ovens are left out for the rubbish because they don't match the colour of the new kitchen. 'As long as there's metal people don't want, I'm in business.' He paused, then said, 'I never thought about that for websites, someone writing it. I just sort of thought it was there.' He scratched his head. 'And that's what you do is it?'
I nodded.
The conversation moved on so I was no longer in the spotlight and after a while Pauline brought out an enormous Christmas pudding, explaining that she had one more. 'They were on a BOGOF so I've put one in the cupboard. Luxury it said.' She squinted to read the box and started reading the description to the room.
I said I'd have a medium portion, which was met with a 'There's nothing of you, I'll give you a big bowl,' from Pauline.
As Pauline and one of the aunties handed round bowls, I asked if Pauline had ever made Christmas pudding.
'Years ago. Not now. Why bother, it's so cheap on a BOGOF. Have you?'
'No, never bothered myself.' I avoided eye contact and took a mouthful of very nice - for shop bought, as my mum would say - pudding.
All stuffed full, the men led us to the house a few doors down, where one of the uncles and aunties lived, and we sat in the living room, passing round Quality Street and Roses.
'I wanted to at least carry my plate to the kitchen.' I turned to Darren, next to me on the sofa.
'Don't worry about it. Mum's got a special way of stacking the dishwasher, she done a drawing on the wall. They'll come through when they're done. Another beer?'
'Not if we're playing charades, I want to concentrate.'
'Charades, what makes you think we're playing charades. What do you think that is?' He nodded to the forty-five inch TV and grey box beneath it.
'I have no idea.' I shrugged.
'Games console. It's dance along, and sing along now.'
'For the children?'
'The little kids maybe, but the teenagers no
rmally just watch us lot making tits of ourselves.'
'Oh.'
'Charades? What d'you think this is? The sixties?' He rolled his eyes. 'You gonna have a go?'
When in Rome. 'After you, I will.'
And it was fun. Eventually. Once I got over the fact I couldn't dance or sing, and the fact that the uncle with the tattoos and big biceps was a club singer at weekends.
Mid-dance, I turned round to see Darren smiling broadly at me, his white teeth on full beam, and caught his parents clapping along to the music I was dancing to. The auntie dancing next to me slapped my arm and told me to stop posing and 'get a friggin' move on!'
So I did, until I was out of breath and we walked in a slow, zig zag path from their side of Loughton back to my side of town, watching the houses change from fifties ex-council terraces, some with the bright blue original doors when they had all been council houses, to the rows of Victorian terraces with bay windows and cornices.
We fell into my bay windowed and corniced front room, landing on the floor. Darren was on top of me. 'That weren't so bad, eh?' He smiled and squeezed the mouse in my underwear which was awakening by the moment.
Chapter 32
I poked my head through the doorway to the ceremony room. The guests sat on plastic stackable chairs either side of what would have been the aisle, had it been in a church. At the front of the room a registrar stood, a leather bound folder open in one hand. Metal stands held vases of flowers in the far corners of the room, either side of the registrar.
I returned to the little ante room where we'd been directed and Darren sat by my side. He checked in his pocket for the rings and I handed him the blue satin cushion. 'You ready?'
