MY GRANDFATHER’S ABSENCE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A WEIGHTY cloak that shrouds every family gathering I have ever attended.
On the rare occasions when my grandmother would mention how much Frank loved his grandchildren or his garden or his cars, that old cloak would float down and wrap itself round us in a cosy, familiar embrace. She would smile wistfully at his photograph and recall how he brought her apples or beans or tomatoes from his garden. She would laugh as she folded the washing, remembering how he would hold her bosom in bed, saying, ‘Anything more than a handful is a waste.’ At times like these, that old cloak would envelop us all, warming us gently from the inside out.
But Eileen could turn inwards too, remembering the months that followed the crash. The lack of news, the incessant media coverage, the loneliness. How her faith in the Lord barely carried her through. She might talk about how, after having raised three daughters—‘Praise be!’—they were finally blessed with a son, but, alas, Frank would never get to see him grow up. She might mention how he was ‘so looking forward’ to walking his youngest daughter down the aisle, but, in his absence, she’d had to do it instead. Or she might look around the room, taking us older grandchildren in, and say, ‘He gave you all horsey rides from that couch, you know’, then she’d add that he wouldn’t get to meet half of us, or see us grow up. And sometimes, curtains drawn, she would share how her bed was vast and cold at night, and she hated making tea for one.
The air would grow thick in those moments, that old cloak descending with the weight of a mud-encrusted trench coat, pinning us all to the spot, covering the room in a hefty silence.
Then, quick as a flash, my grandmother would get up and put on the kettle or fluff up the cushions or water the plants, dismissing her grief and ours with the comment that ‘Our Lady lived through worse’.
Yes, that old cloak could always grow heavier, and no one would wear it as well as my nana. That cloak became her familiar, her comfort, as she waited for the cold grief of night.
They say that time is the great healer. While my grandmother never quite released her monopoly on pain, that old cloak was eventually relegated to a hook in the corner, a quiet reminder of Frank’s absence. She never did remarry.
My father once told me that, when they got the news that the plane was overdue, he briefly imagined that Poppa hadn’t even made the flight. For a small moment, Dad fantasised that Frank had disembarked, cashed in his airfare and bought himself a one-way ticket to Italy or Singapore or Egypt—‘the lucky bastard’. That we were still waiting for his postcard. Weather great. Lots to see and do. Wish you were here.
My grandfather was that guy who’d sneak off for a cigarette and a yarn at a wedding. You’d spend the rest of the night wondering when he was going to slink back in, straighten his tie and refill his drink, the waft of stale cigarettes the only reminder he’d ever been gone.
Frank was frozen in time. He became Brett’s inimitable hero, and ours too. He never had the chance to get old-fashioned or close-minded or embarrassing. He was perched on a pedestal he never chose, elevated to an untouchable status by his wife, his children and his grandchildren. From up there, he was a hard act to follow. He was always the man we would one day become, or marry, or raise.
For the Christmas family, the arrival of a telephone was life-changing. A special cabinet was built in the hallway, equipped with pad and pencil, and if you timed it right you might just overhear the latest neighbourhood gossip shared via the party line. Here, appointments were made, invitations accepted, timber ordered and reminders left.
All phone calls were timed, ‘because calls cost money’ in the fifties.
But, during the month of December, something magical would happen. Parked between Christie and Christofferson in the local white pages was the name Christmas. Our name. It was at this time of year that important requests needed to be made, and the faithful knew exactly who to ask. The children of the district would call up, with the help of their parents, and be greeted by my grandmother’s ever-cheerful voice.
‘Hello?’
After a nervous pause: ‘Ca-can I speak to Father Christmas?’
‘Oh! He’s out in the workshop at the moment.’ (Given my grandfather’s profession, not technically a lie.) ‘If you give me your number, I’ll get him to call you when he comes in.’
And so the game would go.
After working a full summer’s day on the building site, my grandfather would trudge home, shower, pour himself a cold pint, then read over the day’s messages, all carefully logged at the telephone cabinet in my grandmother’s looping script. He must have spoken to hundreds of children in New Plymouth over the years, dutifully playing his festive role.
Even after Erebus, when the Christmas calls continued to come, my grandmother didn’t falter. Every 28 November, she would go to mass and pray for the soul of her beloved Frank. Then, the following week, she would don her imaginary red hat and answer the telephone, promising a return phone call as soon as Father Christmas was free. This was a tradition that even death could not sever—only, now, Eileen needed a little help. She diligently added the children’s names to her ‘Nice List’ in preparation for my uncle Selwyn’s weekly visit—for it was he who was handed the mantle of Father Christmas. No child would be disappointed on my grandmother’s watch.
But, as time went by, the calls slowly dwindled. The local shopping mall had its own jolly fellow to draw in the crowds, and New Zealand Post began offering free mail delivery to the South Pole. Then, in later years, with the advent of dancing-elf emails, Eileen’s personalised telephone service really took a hit. But she didn’t seem to mind.
Eileen continued her good work until Christmas Eve 2015, her last Christmas with us. Santa never knew how good he had it.
Eileen as she appeared in the Taranaki Daily News in December 1994, in her official duty as assistant to Father Christmas.
The eternal summers of my youth felt like one long holiday at Nana’s. The five-hour car trips from Wellington to New Plymouth, Simon & Garfunkel playing until we stopped for lunch in Whanganui, ‘Poi E’ in Pātea (of course), then a loo stop in Hāwera, cheese in Eltham. Craning our necks to be the first to spot the mountain. In summer it was hot, and in winter it rained. I celebrated countless birthdays at Nana’s, and countless Christmases too.
Waking up at Nana’s was an exercise in mindfulness. The old bed springs creaked when I moved, so I would lie there quietly, waiting. Nana could be scary. I didn’t dare wake her. I’d stare at the ceiling, at the model airplanes suspended above, a constellation of plastic and metal spinning in the air currents. There were books on shelves, and bedroom curtains with green and blue flowers. The carpet was fluffy and worn. I’d look over and see Nana in the single bed beside mine (Mum and Dad slept in hers). I always thought I’d drawn the short straw having to sleep in the same room as Nana; my younger brother got to sleep in Brett’s room until he came home from uni.
Sunday mornings were spent at the Catholic church, Our Lady Help of Christians, followed by a family lunch. Fourteen people jostled around the tiny kitchen table, eating Dagwood sandwiches with interesting ingredients—chutneys and piccalillis, Egmont cheese, iceberg lettuce and condensed-milk mayonnaise. I only wanted Marmite.
Once, I remember Nana boiling the hell out of a marrow that had been growing in the garden, then serving us the thick, sodden slices with sausages, peas and mashed potatoes—my least favourite kind of meal. I tried to hide the marrow in my cheeks, its acrid juices slipping down my throat as I quietly ran to the toilet to spit it out. Cousin Nat got my horrid peas.
One year for Christmas, I got a Walkman and a Bruce Springsteen tape that I played over and over till I knew every song by heart. That Walkman went everywhere with me, clipped to my shorts, even when I climbed the retaining wall in Nana’s driveway. Then, one day, as I got to the top of that wall, the clip broke off. As my Walkman plummeted to the ground, my entire summer fell away with it. I was devastated. I eventually got a replacement, but I had to go without The Boss for the rest of the holidays.
When I upgraded to a Discman I gave my Walkman to Nana. I would wake to find her with the headphones on, batteries humming, as she whispered along to a chorus I couldn’t quite make out. Then it dawned on me: it wasn’t a chorus at all. The Walkman formerly dedicated to The Boss and Bon Jovi had become a walking, talking rosary.
I remember shucking peas on the back porch, and sliding on soapy black polythene past espaliered trees thick with apples and pears. I remember rolling topsy-turvy down the steep front lawn, a gaggle of cousins giddy with whirling and laughter, trying to stop ourselves before we crashed into the letterbox. School holidays, bored and hot, Nana giving us a bucket of water and some brushes to ‘paint the fence’. Perhaps we’d get a Mr Whippy if we’d been good.
One time, I offered to hang out Nana’s washing, trying to help, trying to please. When I was almost done, she appeared beside me and rearranged half the line. I’d ‘done it wrong’. Somehow, I held my tongue, perhaps out of respect, or because I loved her, or because I was scared. She ‘dressed the line’, and told me the ‘rules’ for hanging out washing: she didn’t want the neighbours to see her ‘smalls’, so a lady should always hang them on the inside, followed by her clothes, and lastly the sheets or towels. I looked about, searching for the neighbours supposedly so intent on catching an eyeful of old-lady knickers, but they were an acre away on either side, hidden behind retaining walls and trees and paddocks and glasshouses.
On rainy days, we would hassle Nana for homemade biscuits or scones with butter and jam. She’d put on her record player, piling the black discs one on top of the other. I loved to watch the records drop to the turntable, waiting so patiently as the needle swung across. The air would be filled with laughter as we danced around the lounge like idiots. We always started with the same warm-up: ‘Come On Eileen’ by Dexys Midnight Runners. I knew all the words by heart, and while the bit at the beginning was obviously about my nana, I just couldn’t reconcile the rest with the woman peeling potatoes in the kitchen.
‘Come On Eileen’ would fade out and give way to the record we’d all been waiting for: ‘Shaddap You Face’ by Joe Dolce. Eileen wasn’t a cheeky grandmother, and she certainly didn’t swear. A dynamic cocktail of insolence, fear and hysteria had me and my cousins yelling that chorus at the top of our voices—saying ‘shaddap you face’ to my grandmother and living to tell the tale was about as good as it got. That song is still a family favourite.
One year after Erebus, I remember travelling to Eileen’s fiftieth birthday party with Mum and my paternal grandparents, Granny and Granda. We were coming as a surprise, and Dad had already flown up with my baby brother, Andrew. When we arrived, I put on my best sailor dress and we hid. I was only four years old, but I can still remember the overwhelming cocktail of emotions as we waited to surprise Nana. She wasn’t hard-case like my granny, who taught me about whisky—‘two fingers’—and she wasn’t into practical jokes or tricks. Who knew how she’d react? Tense and breathless, we rushed into the lounge.
‘Surprise!’
We got her good. Fortunately, she was delighted.
Eileen often came to stay with us in Wellington for weeks at a time. I remember watching her peeling an apple, the skin coming off in one long, curling, crunchy piece. Whenever my parents went on holiday, Nana was summoned. A retired widow managing three teenagers like it was nothing. My siblings and I would place our bets over the menu du jour. Would it be corned beef with boiled carrots and parsnips? Or quiche with tinned salmon and corn? (Happily for me, marrow was a thing of the past.) These meals were always followed by pudding—semolina or custard with fruit, jam roly-poly or rice pudding.
The kitchen was the heart of my grandmother’s home, bustling with preserves and baking, meals stretched depending on who was coming for dinner. If you wanted to hide from Eileen, you’d best be out of eyeshot of the kitchen window. Under her watchful gaze, everything ran like clockwork. ‘Don’t run through the house!’ The fly-screen door slamming as we made a hasty exit.
When Brett was born, my poppa had built an archway between the kitchen and the lounge, and installed a concertina door to separate ‘us’ (the kids) from ‘them’ (the adults). It was this same concertina door that would keep me apart from the Big Blue Men before being quarantined in the hallway. When the six o’clock news was on, we were banished to the kitchen to eat in silence ‘behind the concertina door’.
Nana’s table seemed never-ending, always groaning with food and family. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realised it was only a four-seater that could be stretched to fit six. My sister and I still have the white bench seats that Frank built to accommodate all the extras.
It was always hard to leave New Plymouth after the holidays. As Dad pulled the car away, I’d cry, thinking about Nana living there alone. I’d watch her wave at us all the way up the street till we disappeared round the corner, and my tears wouldn’t stop until Inglewood or sometimes even Hāwera.
In January 2016, knowing that Nana was fading, I took a road trip with my own wee family to New Plymouth along the Forgotten World Highway. When we got to Nana’s, I told her about the heritage trail through Whangamōmona and the Tāngarākau Gorge, asking if she knew it. She chuckled. ‘That’s where I was born, dear.’
She found a photo of an old scene in black and white: a single-bedroomed cottage, smoke pouring from the chimney, railway tracks running right past its door. Her mother, Mavis, stands on the porch in a long dark dress, high-collared, wiping her hands on her once-white apron. Her father, Charlie, is dressed for a rare trip into Stratford. Coal bucket by the front door, empty coal carts parked on the siding next to the cottage, horses grazing in the yard beyond. Two little girls—Eileen and her older sister, Pat—sitting astride their enormous pet pig.
Great Aunty Pat and her husband, Uncle Onie, played a big part in my growing-up years. In Frank’s absence, Onie became our surrogate grandfather. Like Frank, he had a missing fingertip, they had both fought in the war, and his deep belly laugh, twinkling eyes and gentle voice were so encouraging to a young girl growing up in a family of shouty women.
Now, I feel sad I only knew Eileen post-Erebus. I was too young to ever witness her candid humour, her carefree laughter and creative streak. They resurfaced much later, but as only a flicker of their former selves. She never spoke about that dark night, and the months that followed have been described by others as her ‘wilderness experience’. She coped by doing—she ran a tight ship, and her children and grandchildren were expected to toe the line. She coped by visiting the sick and the elderly, and participating in daily mass at her local church. My nana sat with many people over the years, praying for their good health, praying for them as they passed away. She was able to sit with them in their most painful moments, because of her own painful experience. Death didn’t scare her the way it did most people.
Nana wasn’t perfect, but she loved us, and we loved her.
A letter from Eileen, with recipes and kisses attached, and her famous ‘erana’ sign-off.
I often think about Nana’s letters, her familiar handwriting finishing with her distinctive signature: a looping, swirly start followed by squished upward strokes, so the capital N reads like er and Nana morphs into erana. My brother and sister and I could never help ourselves—‘There’s a letter from Erana in the mailbox! Erana is coming to stay!’ We’d giggle behind cupped hands when Mum asked who was on the phone—‘Erana!’ It was Erana who signed giant kisses on her letters to Mum.
X for Sarah, X for Andrew, X for Claire.
Nana would stay with us for weeks at a time, then disappear again around the mountain, fading into letters with kisses and the occasional phone call. As soon as Nana had gone, Erana returned. ‘It’s Erana’—but only ever behind her back.
Not long pregnant with my first child, I received a hand-addressed envelope from the Catholic Cathedral in Wellington. The Marian Mothers had sent me a card of Our Lady, praying for a safe birth and the gift of baptism for my child, on behalf of Eileen Christmas. I laughed. Eileen was already working her circle of influence, trying to recruit our unborn child into the fold. But behind the chuckle lay tension: I’d already lost one pregnancy, so I’d take all the help I could get.
Several months later, holding my screaming newborn as she wailed through yet another night and our tears soaked my shirt, I found myself at a loss. I didn’t know what to do, who to call, where to go. As I performed one more circuit of shush-shush-shush round the bedroom, I wondered how the night might end. I closed my eyes. The image of Our Lady appeared from the front of Eileen’s card, and a Sunday-school song from my childhood popped into my head. I started to sing the Hail Mary as a lullaby, the words and the melody pouring out of me. I sang and I sang, until my daughter fell asleep in my arms.
From that night on, every time she woke, I sang the Hail Mary.
It was as much for me as for my baby.
Thank you, Nana.
