Relief

by Anna Taylor

  ‘Yeah,’ Amy said brightly. ‘You too.’

  He tried to smile as if he wouldn’t. Whatever.

  Amy had a piece of toast for breakfast, and packed her bags, and set off just after nine. She listened to talkback radio to avoid the hymns.

  ‘Mer-ry Christmas!’ the host kept hollering every time a new caller came through. One woman, her words slurring slightly, said she was going to be celebrating with her dear friend Gypsy, which sounded fine until she let slip that Gypsy was her cat. At that point Amy turned the radio off and sang ‘O Tannenbaum’—which they’d learned in German at school—just to see if she could remember the words. She was okay on the chorus, but the verses, she discovered, required a certain amount of concentration.

  She pulled into her parents’ drive just after eleven. Her mother’s wide white face appeared in the kitchen window. She came hoppity-hopping out the back door.

  ‘You made it here in one piece!’ she said tremulously, as if it was one of the great miracles of modern-day life.

  Which it was, really, if you thought about it.

  Meredith and Michael, and Howard and Ann Strom, and their friend Bill, and Amy’s father were all sitting in the living room.

  ‘Here she is!’ Amy’s father said. He had a paper crown on his head, and little tufts of hair poked out the top and sides, seeming quite out of place and odd, like the hair on a hippopotamus. The couch seemed to be in the process of swallowing him whole, sucking his small soft body down, down into its stuffing.

  He looked remarkably cheery for a man about to disappear.

  ‘This is our Amy,’ he said to the room, even though everyone there had met her before.

  They nodded and shuffled, Meredith launching herself out of her armchair and duck-footing it over to Amy to give her a wet kiss on the cheek; Michael getting in the queue behind her; Amy’s father and the Stroms heaving themselves off the couch. They all lined up, like children waiting to have their photo with Father Christmas.

  ‘Merry Christmas!’ Amy said to each one of them.

  Really, all she needed was a beard.

  At 11.30 her grandparents arrived, which was always a miracle—they were in their nineties and still believed they could drive—and the line-up re-formed, with Amy a part of it this time, standing at the back next to Howard Halitosis Strom, who asked her for the second time what it was she was doing with her life these days. For the second time that day she tried to use diversion tactics to avoid admitting that she spent eight hours a day sitting at a desk doing next to nothing. Howard smiled. He wasn’t the least bit interested in the answer anyway.

  ‘And your father tells me,’ he said, aiming the words moistly at her left cheek, ‘that Zoë is doing extremely well.’

  This was the conversation he really wanted to have. He just had to get past the preliminaries first.

  ‘Yes,’ said Amy, smiling cheerily back, ‘she is.’

  ‘How splendid,’ said Howard. And then he was washed away on the hellos.

  This is how it would go, this Christmas like any other: Amy fielding questions about Zoë who probably wouldn’t have managed to field them all on her own, even if she’d been there. Zoë was the middle sister, and because she was closer in age and looks to Amy, it was Amy, not Meredith, whom everyone went to for information.

  She was trying her luck in London, after spending four years on a soap in Australia. There had been an article on her in Woman’s Day. There were whole websites dedicated to the death of her character, Lydia Ford, killed off in a car accident. Zoë had recently got her first role in the UK, playing a young sassy mother in a VW Beetle advertisement. There was a certain irony in this, Amy thought, considering what a car had done to poor Lydia Ford.

  Did anyone else see the irony in this?

  She didn’t like to bring it up for fear of sounding spiteful.

  Which she wasn’t. Spiteful, that is. It was just that the same conversation got wheeled out over and over again, like a gelatinous stew on a hospital tray. Two years ago, at a family reunion, distant relative after distant relative had launched their quivering selves towards her, believing her to be the shining star. She had politely pointed each one of them in the right direction, over by the presents pile, or the punch bowl, and off they’d gone, unashamedly, as if they were disciples on a pilgrimage to Mecca. As the night wore on, and it certainly did just that, Amy’s patience began to wear a little thin as well.

  ‘So are you the actress?’ a boggly-eyed old trout asked as Amy tried to slip outside for some air.

  ‘No,’ said Amy, ‘I’m the stripper.’

  ‘Right,’ the woman said, ‘I mean wrong—wrong one.’ And she opened and shut her small round fishy mouth and swallowed twice—glug, glug—like there was something stuck there in her throat.

  ‘I can see that now, actually,’ she said. ‘Now that I’m up close.’ She tapped at Amy’s arm with her fingers, trying to be affectionate but actually pushing her away, and scooted back inside.

  ‘So are you the piranha?’ Amy called after her, once the door had swung back into place. She called it, but it was under her breath really.

  Bad move, nonetheless.

  Christmas dinner was scheduled for one o’clock, but first they had to put on hats to make it feel like a celebration. Amy’s father was leading the way in that regard; he’d been wearing his, apparently, since 10 a.m. He was decreasing in age, it seemed; was sweeter and odder every time Amy saw him. She expected, come Easter, for him to be wearing school socks and a blazer; nappies the Christmas after that.

  ‘It covers up my bald patches,’ he said to her jollily, unfolding a paper hat for her—a green one, because he knew it was her favourite colour. ‘And it pins my ears back.’

  ‘Do you think it can cover my face?’ Amy said.

  ‘What would you want to do that for?’ he said in a tone only a parent could use.

  She pulled the crinkled paper down over her hair and head—hard, so that it ripped. She hadn’t meant for that to happen. It came away in her hands, a flaccid strip of tissue.

  Without a word, her father trotted off to the kitchen to get her another.

  Amy’s grandparents, Grandma and Grandpop, perched side by side on the couch, their hands in their laps, were already wearing theirs. They were still snipping at each other, quietly, about Grandpop’s failure to brake fast enough at the zebra crossing.

  ‘They hadn’t even stepped out onto the road, love,’ he hissed, aiming the words out the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Yes, dear,’ she replied. ‘So you keep saying. But sometimes, you know, people speed up.’ She blinked rapidly as she said the last two words, demonstrating the acceleration, it seemed, with her lids.

  Howard Strom was sitting in the armchair over by the window.

  ‘So, your granddaughter Zoë,’ he said, ‘is making it big in London, I hear.’

  ‘Sorry, dear?’ Amy’s Grandma leaned forward in her chair, clasping her hands tighter in her lap. Being hard of hearing ran in the family. Like mother, like daughter, Amy thought, and then realised that if they were like that she probably would be one day too.

  ‘Your granddaughter!’ he shouted. ‘Mak-ing it Big! In London!’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Grandma said, ‘but she isn’t here today—’ and then she paused, uncertain in her certainty— ‘is she?’

  In the kitchen, Meredith and Amy’s mother were making preparations for the feast. Meredith had developed a brusqueness of movement she brought out just on family occasions, just around their mother. It was an ‘everything is under control’ quality—slightly tight lipped—which was amusing considering she only wore Indian cotton, and as a result looked floaty and ethereal, at first glance. Amy’s mother was seeing to the turkey, and Meredith was vigorously chopping parsley, the knife rattling against the board. She’d whipped her dark, fuzzy hair into a ponytail on the top of her head, and each curly strand shimmied with her movement.

  ‘Now Michael will have a little bit of turkey, w
on’t he?’ said Amy’s mother, fowl fat up to her wrists.

  ‘I’ve already told you, Mum,’ Meredith said. ‘You know the answer.’

  ‘A little bit can’t hurt, surely.’

  Meredith ground one toe against the lino and scratched her head.

  ‘He might have a couple of Dad’s sugar snap peas,’ she said.

  ‘Well, what’s the difference then? Peas? Turkey? They both go in your mouth.’

  ‘He’d only do it so he’d have something to put on his plate.’ She bit her at her lip and raised her eyes to the ceiling in an exaggerated Don’t Cry display.

  ‘Jesus wept,’ said Amy’s mother.

  ‘Well, don’t make me weep too.’

  Amy moved into the kitchen between them, suddenly aware of the knife in Meredith’s hand and her seemingly frayed nerves.

  ‘Maybe we could put him on the table as a centrepiece,’ she said. She was trying to be light. ‘We could put a glaze on him. He could meditate.’

  She spotted Michael out the kitchen window then, down by the back fence, hovering around the vegetable garden. His lanky frame was stooped, the shoulders rolling forward slightly towards his chest, his oval head glowing in the midday light.

  ‘Goodness, Amy!’ said her mother. That appalled quaver again, with the undertone of delight. ‘What a sense of humour!’ And she lifted the slippery bird up out of its baking dish and dropped it heavily onto an enormous plate. It slid out of her hands, looking for a moment like a soaped-up baby, skating helplessly under the water in a bath.

  Amy’s father came into the kitchen and grabbed another paper crown out of the packet.

  ‘I’ll take this out to Michael,’ he said to Meredith, patting her supportively on the back. ‘Just because he isn’t eating, doesn’t mean he can’t join in on the fun now, does it?’

  He headed off to the vegetable patch, putting on a Christmas carols CD on his way out the door.

  Amy went to get the champagne glasses from the cabinet. Grandma and Grandpop were still in the living room, trying to have a conversation with the Stroms’ friend Bill, who was trying to have a conversation with them back. Neither party was having much success. Howard was studying the family photos on the bookcase; Ann was setting the table. It seemed that everyone was waiting for something to happen. Perhaps just for the food. Amy headed back into the kitchen and finished her job, mixing the last of the cream into the trifle.

  ‘What about a little glass of sherry,’ Amy’s mother said to Meredith, ‘just a little one? For Michael?’

  Meredith said, ‘Mum,’ which really meant no.

  At 1.15—a little behind schedule—they all gathered around the dining-room table, and spread their Christmas napkins on their laps, and adjusted their party hats.

  Amy’s father turned down the music, just a touch.

  ‘Well, Happy Christmas everyone,’ said Amy’s mother, and they all started to eat. All of them, that is, except for Michael, who took small sips of his glass of water, and every now and then looked at his plate—large, white, empty, apart from four pea pods, still with their stalks—almost wonderingly.

  ‘Aren’t you having any turkey, old chap?’ said Howard Strom, chewing on a crisp piece of skin as he spoke.

  The rings under Michael’s eyes seemed to grow darker.

  ‘Oh no thanks,’ he said, as brightly as he could.

  ‘Some roast vegetables?’ said Howard, clearly not getting the message, behaving as if it was his house, as if he was the host.

  ‘No thanks,’ said Michael.

  Meredith stuck a large piece of potato in her mouth, but didn’t start chewing it. She stared, instead, at her quivering fork.

  ‘Well, what about some more greens then?’ said Howard. Was he drunk?

  Amy’s father looked at her, and looked at the table cloth, and then at the wall. Finally he looked at Howard.

  ‘Michael is fasting,’ he said, with more assertiveness than Amy thought she had ever heard him use in her life.

  Amy’s mother cleared her throat and patted at her hair.

  ‘On Christmas Day?’ said Howard.

  ‘On Christmas Day,’ said Amy’s father, and he smiled at Michael as if to say, Never mind, boy, eat your peas.

  ‘Fasting on Christmas Day,’ repeated Howard. ‘Did you hear that, Ann?’

  His wife nodded.

  ‘Well I’ll be damned,’ he said.

  Amy felt a banging in her head, as if there was a small angry thing in there trying to get out. She looked at Howard’s thick fat neck, the jowls hanging in flaps just below his jaw line. He stuffed another enormous piece of turkey into his mouth.

  ‘In the West,’ she said to him, ‘we eat far more than we actually need.’

  Her voice trembled a little as she said it. Had she read that somewhere, or was she simply making it up? She would carry on regardless. She thought of the African children, their limbs like sticks, their bellies round and empty as coconuts. This speech was for them. For them, and for Michael, who just happened to be the underdog today.

  ‘We’re greedy,’ she said, meaning, you, Howard. ‘In a village in Japan people live well into their hundreds, and they say it’s because they only eat as much as they need, not as much as they want.’

  Where had that come from? Was it true?

  Howard continued to chew on his flap of turkey, and then swallowed, watching Amy the whole time.

  ‘Well, I say if you’ve got it, flaunt it,’ he said. ‘No use in cutting down on a bit of pleasure just for the sake of it now, is there?’

  If Amy had been ten, she would have said to herself, or her mother, or whoever was speaking, ‘Why don’t I put my dinner in an envelope and mail it to the starving children then? They can have it.’ She would have said that. She would have agreed with Howard. No use in cutting down just for the sake of it, is there? Just because they’re starving doesn’t mean we should too. She was going round in circles, like a dog chasing its tail. She was turning into her mother.

  ‘The saying, If you’ve got it, flaunt it, is about good looks,’ she said to Howard. ‘Not about food.’ She smiled at him then, attempting to soften the blow. She was skating off into the middle of a frozen lake, and the ice was going to crack any second.

  ‘Is she saying I’m not a good-looking man?’ guffawed Howard.

  Meredith looked at Amy, the whites showing all the way round her eyes. Her eyes were fair anyway, a pale eggshell blue, and at that moment their blueness seemed to be fading into the white of her face. When she was young, Meredith had always lacked the effortless glamour of her high school friends—all of whom seemed unbearably glamorous to Amy and Zoë. She had lacked a certain sheen, and this bothered them, both of them—perhaps all of them?—though no one ever let on. If her two younger sisters were trying to follow in her footsteps in that regard, she had sure tried to lead them up the garden path. But sitting there, right across from her, so wild and so white, Amy felt a surge of fondness for Meredith who had always been there in her life, coveted or not. At that moment she looked a little like a reptile, her washed-out face bordered by a flush of red that was creeping in large circular patches up her neck. She was going to attempt to rescue her—to rescue the rescuer. Amy could feel it.

  ‘Michael has been unwell,’ Meredith said, quite loudly, and the flush on her neck seemed to fade, almost immediately. ‘He’s trying to get rid of his toxicity.’

  Amy’s father nodded at her, as if to say, That’s right. A strange hush had fallen on the table. Amy realised that the Christmas CD had stopped. It was drizzling outside. Her mother was chewing sombrely on a piece of boiled carrot, her arms slack by her side. Down the end of the table Grandma and Grandpop, blissfully unaware of the discomfort around them, were simultaneously cutting at something on their plates. They were simply two halves of one thing, each side doing its job. Michael picked up one podded pea and held it between his fingertips.

  ‘What sort of unwell has he been?’ said Howard to Meredith, as if Mic
hael was not in the room.

  ‘Honestly Howard!’ said Ann.

  ‘Well I’m only asking.’

  Amy looked to her mother, who looked at Meredith, who looked at Michael. He nodded at her, but looked into his plate.

  ‘Cancer!’ said Meredith, with more force than she needed to.

  Amy’s mother let out a half-muffled cry. Ann lifted her hands to the base of her throat. The skin on Meredith’s face suddenly seemed to be pulled tight back, back towards her hairline. ‘Cancer,’ she said again, ‘and he cured himself, I’ll have you know! Michael is a brave man. He needs to watch his toxicity.’

  And then she burst into tears.

  ‘Did-You-Know-About-This?’ Amy’s mother mouthed to her across the table. Amy shook her head. She looked at Meredith who was dabbing at her face with her Christmas napkin, and at Michael who was holding her hand. She realised what it was about him that she had found odd all along. He looked defeated, like a man whose car had broken down in the middle of a desert. In this case, though, the car was his own body: engine trouble once; perhaps nothing more than a flat tyre now. He was a man surrounded by car-repairing apparatus and yet his car was causing him trouble, cleansing machines and all.

  ‘You never told us,’ said Amy’s mother quietly.

  ‘Well, you’d all worry,’ said Meredith. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Well I’ll be damned,’ said Howard Strom again.

  For a moment nobody said anything else.

  Outside—somewhere over the fence—children were singing Christmas carols. Michael cleared his throat and tried to smile.

  ‘If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything,’ he said brightly.

  ‘Quite right!’ said Amy’s father, and he picked up his glass. ‘Let’s drink to that!’ He stumbled to his feet, and so did the rest of them, Michael lagging behind a bit, Amy’s grandparents also, so that it looked for a moment as if they were raising a toast to the three of them, still partially seated, partially airborne.

  ‘If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything!’ said Amy’s father.