by James Rice
I handed out my presents. I’d tried my best to find lounge-colour-scheme-matching wrapping paper but the best I could manage was white with a scattered array of Winnie-the-Pooh characters. It didn’t seem to matter: Mum tore the paper to shreds before it even had a chance to register. I’d bought her a box set of Elvis Presley CDs and as soon as she saw his black and white grin she gasped and told everyone to stop unwrapping while she put some music on. My father was next to open his present – a bottle of Scotch and a poster of Marilyn Monroe. I told him Marilyn Monroe was the Pamela Anderson of her day. He nodded and chewed the inside of his cheek. One Christmas my father chewed his cheek so much he bled, spotting his new Ralph Lauren shirt with red stains. Mum used to say he’d one day chew a hole right through and end up with two mouths, but Mum never says that any more.
Sarah was the last to open presents. She had to be coaxed a little by Mum, who was rubbing her arm and whispering, ‘Come on, your turn, love.’ Sarah’s been practising extra hard these past few weeks. Since the allegations against Cullman the Christmas Dance Fantastical’s been delayed and so now Sarah has to keep practising right through till the twenty-eighth. Sarah placed her Buck’s fizz on the floor and slowly peeled back the paper of her main gift: a crate of Hi-Wizz Vitamin Energy Shake. She nodded (a crate of Hi-Wizz Vitamin Energy Shake was what she’d asked for). She also received the usual makeup and pyjamas and perfume. What Sarah really wants is breast enhancement surgery but Mum says she’s not allowed to until she’s at least in her twenties. Apparently Mum was in her twenties when she first got her breasts enhanced. Sarah says that’s not fair because there are girls in school (e.g. Lucy Marlowe) who’ve had the op., but Mum’s word is final. I bought Sarah Singin’ in the Rain because there’s lots of great dancing in it. Sarah muttered that she didn’t know we were buying each other presents this year.
By the time we’d finished it was getting light. Sarah disappeared upstairs to bed, my father to his study, Mum to the kitchen to prepare Christmas dinner. I sat on the dining-room window seat and watched her rubbing oil onto the turkey carcass. Occasionally my father ventured out of his study for some nuts or a mince pie. He opened the bottle of Scotch I’d bought him. Mum gave him a glance of The Eyebrow but my father just smiled and said, ‘It’s Christmas, you can start early at Christmas,’ rummaging through the cupboard for a glass. He poured. He asked Mum if she wanted him to drive. She didn’t reply.
‘If you want me to drive I won’t drink,’ he said.
Mum washed her hands. She lifted a bowl of stuffing from the fridge and tipped it onto the chopping board. She shook her head.
‘OK.’ My father knocked back the drink, poured another and disappeared back into his study.
Once dinner was in the oven we left for Golden Pines. Mum drove. It was starting to rain. I thought Mum might have brought her Elvis CD to listen to on the way but she didn’t and we listened to the rain instead.
Halfway down the Social De-cline my father got bored of listening to the rain and switched on the radio. Sarah’s dance song was playing. Apparently it’s called ‘Screemin Boi’ by someone called Miss X. According to the radio it’s the Christmas number one. It thudded from the speakers the whole way out to the Pitt but Sarah didn’t once try and dance. She just watched the passing cars, the rain on the windows.
Mum exited the carriageway by the industrial estate, taking the back roads through the Pitt. Mum always takes the back roads through the Pitt because it means she doesn’t have to pass Kirk Lane or Ahmed’s Boutique or the church or any of those old places. By the time we pulled into Golden Pines the rain was heavy. My father asked if Mum had her umbrella.
She shook her head.
‘Guess we’ll just have to run for it, then.’
The reception was empty. Mum stood for a while by the desk, staring at the ‘Ring For Attention’ bell. My father and Sarah sat on the couch. I stood beside Mum, counting the drips from my coat soaking into the carpet. The phone behind reception started to ring. It rang six times and stopped. Then it rang again. The receptionist stepped out. It was a different receptionist to the one at Nan’s birthday. This one’s badge said ‘Evon’.
Evon led us past the TV room. The other old ladies were all together, slumped in various mismatched armchairs. A few were alone but most had family members gathered around them. Mum asked why Nan wasn’t in the TV room. Evon said it hadn’t been one of Nan’s good days.
Nan was in bed. There was a nurse kneeling at her side, guiding her arm into a beige dressing gown. Nan’s whole room was beige. There were beige curtains and beige walls. They’d tried to decorate it for Christmas, an assortment of tinsel-scraps and paper snowflake streamers hung round her window frame, but these only emphasised the beigeness. There was a small fibre-optic tree on the bedside table. Mum watched the pulse of its glow. She didn’t look at Nan.
The nurse turned to us and said she was just getting Nan ‘all cosy’. I recognised the nurse from last time. She was wearing a badge that said ‘Jade’ but I didn’t recognise the name Jade so maybe it was a different nurse or maybe I just didn’t read her name badge last time or maybe I’ve just forgotten the name Jade since then. It was a while back. Jade tied Nan’s dressing gown in a double knot. She pressed her jaw closed. ‘Don’t want to go catching any flies,’ she said.
There was a tray on Nan’s knee and on the tray was a plate and on the plate was a Christmas dinner and on the Christmas dinner was a layer of gravy, long since congealed. Jade said it seemed Nan wasn’t hungry. I’m not sure if Jade doesn’t know about Nan’s not eating, or was just being polite in not mentioning it. She lifted the tray from Nan’s lap. The gravy wobbled like jelly. She wished us a merry Christmas and stepped out into the hall.
Mum sat on the chair beside Nan. She reached out and held her hand for a second, then held her own hands together on her lap. There were several tubes draped over the headboard, connecting Nan’s arm to a hooked-up bag of clear liquid in the corner. Sarah sat at the end of the bed, next to the bump of Nan’s toes. My father stepped over to stare out of the window. The rain hissed out in the car park, drumming the roofs of the cars.
‘Hi, Mum,’ Mum said.
Nan stared straight ahead. Her face was more skeleton-like than ever. It still had that thin layer of ultra-fine, white hair I could never stop staring at as a child. The tray had left a rectangle of flattened duvet on her lap. A metallic tap-tap-tap came from the corner as Sarah began to nod along to her earphones.
‘We brought you some cake.’ Mum took a wad of silver foil out of her bag and placed it on Nan’s dressing table. She peeled it open to reveal a slice of Christmas cake.
Nan didn’t acknowledge the cake. She was staring at the cross above the door. That’s what she does when we visit – stares at the cross above the door. My father used to say it’s because she’s cross. He used to say, ‘She’s cross, that’s what she’s trying to tell us. She’s cross.’ He doesn’t say that any more. He just stares out of the window. He stares out of the window and Nan stares at the cross and Mum stares at her hands and Sarah stares at her iPod and I don’t know where to stare. Usually I stare at Nan’s feet, the bump they make in the bed sheets. Today her big toe was sticking out from under the blanket. Her toenail was longer than I’ve ever seen it. Whose job is it to cut her toenails? Jade’s? Evon’s?
Ours?
‘Merry Christmas, Mum,’ Mum said.
Nan stared at the cross.
‘Have you had a nice day?’
Nan stared at the cross.
‘We went to church this morning, the whole family. We really enjoyed it.’
Nan stared at the cross.
Last Christmas, as Nan was staring at her cross, she started mouthing a couple of words, over and over. It took us the whole visit to work out what she was mouthing. At first Mum though it was ‘pyjamas’ and told Nan she was already wearing pyjamas, but then my father realised it was ‘praise Jesus’. He was made up when he realised – we all were.
We couldn’t stop smiling at how clever he was.
We all sat there, smiling, as Nan praised Jesus.
Nan didn’t start with religion till Herb died. That was when she began to change. Mum said she’d have been better off dying beside him that night, but I don’t know if that’s true. Nan and I had some of our happiest times in those final couple of years. It was me who found her that afternoon. It was back when I was living with her. Nan was meant to be picking me up from school and I thought it odd, her not being there at the gate when we finished, but she always baked on Fridays and baking made her absentminded. It was only when I got back to the house and found the milk still on the step, the paper still in the letterbox, Mr Saunders pacing the porch, crying to be fed, that I knew there was something seriously wrong.
I went round to the alley and climbed over the wall into the yard. I got in through the kitchen window. There’s a way to jiggle the lock so it falls right out. I called to Nan and she called right back to me and she sounded frightened, more frightened than I’d ever heard her.
I tried my best to lift Herb off the bed but he was so stiff and cold and unmovable. I phoned an ambulance. After that we waited. At first I sat on the floor. I told Nan about my day at school. This was during the Andrew Wilt period and I knew that the best way to take Nan’s mind off things was to talk about our chess games. It was only when Nan started crying that I climbed into bed with her, forcing myself between her and Herb. She couldn’t get over him, that was the problem. Her side of the bed was against the wall and Herb always slept on top of the duvet. Nan held me to her chest so I couldn’t see her tears but I still felt them, running down the back of my neck.
Like that we waited for the ambulance.
By the time we arrived home the rain had stopped. Mum served the turkey. Nobody ate much. Mum picked but I didn’t see her actually eat any. Each time she caught me looking she smiled and I smiled back and carried on eating, trying my best to finish as much as possible. She didn’t ask if I’d taken my medication. At one point a piece of turkey slipped from my fork, splashing gravy onto my new Christmas jumper, but Mum didn’t even look, she just kept smiling down at her plate. Elvis crooned from the living room. The Sampsons’ inflatable Santa grinned from across the street. My father ate using only his right hand, his left hand cradling the rim of his Scotch glass. He stared at the tablecloth, at the spot where he’d usually place his inframammary infection photos. The only sound was the clinking of cutlery.
After dinner Sarah went to her bedroom. My father went to his study. It was just Mum and I sitting in the lounge, at opposite ends of the couch. We watched BBC News 24. The only news was that it was Christmas. They cut to a shot of a reporter, supposedly in the North Pole, supposedly interviewing the real Father Christmas.
I waited till Mum began to snore, then retrieved my coat and your present. I took some turkey, too, and a little leftover Christmas pudding, for Scraps, and headed off down the carriageway to the Pitt.
I stopped off at the canal on the way, to see the ducks. I figured people probably don’t bother taking bread on Christmas Day and it’s only fair that they eat too. I could give them Scraps’ Christmas pudding. He wouldn’t mind – he’d still have the turkey.
The canal had melted in the rain. It had formed those little white islands again. Only today the ducks were nowhere to be seen. I walked up and down for a full fifteen minutes but I couldn’t find a single one of them. Then it struck me: the ducks have left. They’ve given up on Skipdale. They’ve flown south, where it’s warmer. They’ve finally seen sense and got the hell out of here.
I followed the carriageway down the Social De-cline. I couldn’t stop smiling about the ducks, the thought of them, off somewhere warm. Pitt families go all out with Christmas decorations. The boarded-up houses were still in darkness but those inhabited were bright enough to compensate. There were flashing lights, nativity scenes, ‘Santa Stop Here’ signs. Five different houses had one of Artie Sampson’s inflatable Father Christmases. Even your father had made the effort. The front of your house was lit by a string of electric-blue lights, pinned along the gutter. A nodding Rudolph grinned from his dashboard.
I crossed Crossgrove to your back hedge. I scanned the field for your brother but he was nowhere to be seen. I slipped in through the hedge gap. I took the turkey from my pocket. It was only as I knelt to the missing-plank gap that I realised Scraps was missing, his chain lying limp on the shed floor. Your living room was brighter than usual due to the Christmas tree, twinkling its various light-sequences. Scraps was laid out in front of the fire. You were kneeling beside him, rubbing his belly. Your father was on the couch in his usual position, sipping from what looked like (though from a distance it was hard to verify) a snowman-shaped mug.
I crawled up into the shed anyway. Where else would I go? It was especially cold tonight – Scraps must give off more heat than I gave him credit for. I dragged the toolkit over to the window and sat, forehead against the glass. You were wearing your dressing gown. Sunglasses. Your hair was tied up, covered in small squares of tinfoil. You were stroking the side of Scraps’ head, eyes fixed on the TV. Your father had freed his hair from its ponytail. It flowed down the back of the couch, right to the floor. Occasionally you’d turn to your father and say something. Occasionally he’d turn back. Occasionally you’d both burst out laughing.
I hadn’t expected this. You and your father and Scraps, together in the living room. Me, out here, alone. This was new.
After a while I began to sense Them. I could feel Them, glaring down from the tops of the shelves, the dark corners. I unhooked the nail gun and held it on my lap. It helped. I realised it wasn’t fear I was feeling, it was anger. There was an anger in me. I don’t know if I was angry at you or your father or Scraps or Them, but the anger was there. This was also new.
I took the turkey and the Christmas pudding from my pocket. I placed them over in Scraps’ corner. I figured he’d find them, eventually. Then I took out your present: Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I fixed the ribbon, brushed off a few scattered pudding crumbs. I tried to think of somewhere I could leave it for you, somewhere only you would go. I couldn’t think of anywhere, so I just held it on my lap, next to the nail gun.
Soon I could hear Them. They hissed from the shelves at the back. I shut my eyes but I could still sense Them, crawling through the darkness. I held the nail gun out in front of me and squeezed the trigger. The gun jerked, cracking like a whip, spitting a glittering nail into the far wall of the shed. A warning shot. I fired again. The hissing ceased, the crack of the wood emphasising the silence.
I shot out a few more nails, just to be sure.
Then I placed my cheek against the glass. I concentrated on you. Nobody moved, neither you, nor your father, nor Scraps, nor I. I found that if I closed my left eye I couldn’t even see your father. He’d disappear into the darkness. Gone in the blink of an eye. I kept my left eye shut for a while.
Then I must have shut my right eye.
I don’t know how long I slept but next thing the door was creaking open, cracking as it struck the corner of the toolkit. Next thing someone was stoop-stumbling into the shed. From the snorting and grunting and the gagging whiskey smell, I knew it wasn’t you.
My cheek was frozen to the glass, frosted by my breath. I knew the door must be partly obscuring me but to what extent I’d no idea. I was sure any second he would notice me, perched there in the corner. He creaked over to the back, where Scraps usually lies. As my eyes adjusted I noticed Scraps still inside the house, laid out in front of the fire. You were beside him, sleeping.
I peeled my cheek from the window, as quietly as possible. Your father was hunched, rummaging through the jars and rusted tins that layer the shed’s shelves. He was grunting, shaking his head, hair dancing down his back. He dislodged a paint tin, which rolled across the floor, clinking against the toolkit between my knees.
There was a square patch of ceiling, silver-lit by moonlight. As your father ru
mmaged one of Them scurried out, its shadow stretched limb-long. Your father gasped. He’d caught his arm on a nail in the wall. He examined the small patch of nails, plucked one from the wall and held it to the moonlight. I realised I was still clutching the nail gun. He dropped the nail and turned back to the shelves, reached to the back, dislodging something, a bottle, holding it up to the light to examine its quarter of amber liquid. He unscrewed the lid and sniffed its open neck.
Another one of Them crept out, joining the one of Them in the centre of the ceiling, their merging shadows creating a new, indefinable, stretched-out silhouette. Your father took a swig from his bottle. He swilled and he swallowed. He sighed. He took another swig. Another one of Them crawled out. Another. Another.
Then your father noticed something on the floor. He knelt, the old boards creaking with his weight. He lifted something and examined it in the moonlight. The piece of turkey I’d left for Scraps. He sniffed it, took another swig, never taking his eyes from the turkey. My shaking began to rattle the metal-flapped lid of the toolkit. I lifted the nail gun from my lap. I didn’t know whether to aim at your father or at Them. All I could hear was their mass hissing.
More of Them were creeping from the shadows.
Your father took another swig.
I dropped the nail gun and scrambled to the door. The toolkit tipped, its contents spilling over the floorboards. Your father cried out, his bottle shattering as I leapt the stairs. I slipped on the grass, twisted my ankle. I stumbled down the side to the hedge and tore out across the field. It was raining. Your father shouted – slurred shouts, contradictory:
‘Come back here, you little shit … You’d better run …’
I did run. I ran through the estate, up past the Rat and Dog. I ran till I reached the church, till my legs and my lungs couldn’t take any more. I leant on the church wall. The rain was heavy. My ankle ached. I was shaking all over. Beads of rain dripped from the hood of my parka.
