‘Look who it is!’ said Uncle Brian. ‘You made it then!’ I had a momentary, almost musical sense of how the two phrases could have been spoken, with warmth and relief. He seemed to block the front door that he’d opened to let us in.
‘We did!’ Mum said, insisting on a happy tone.
He looked down at me and I said, ‘Happy Christmas, Uncle Brian,’ holding on, for now, to the basket with our presents in it.
‘Roads all right, then?’
‘Oh, fine,’ Mum said, ‘they’re saying snow later perhaps.’ She blinked at him and shivered.
‘Well, come in,’ he said, ‘come in!’
Mum went into the kitchen to hug Auntie Susan and her sister Auntie Linda, and I followed after and was hugged in turn. ‘Don’t you look smart!’ Auntie Linda said. ‘Thank you,’ I said, loved always by the aunties and with a note of flirting now. I was wearing my worsted school suit with a red paisley tie, and Mum revealed her new red and green frock as she shook off her coat. ‘Wow!’ said Auntie Susan, making her turn round. ‘Well, go through and join the others, if you can face it!’ The sherry bottle was open on the table among the sprout leaves and peelings, and a humorous mood of defiance of Brian was building but not completely taking hold.
In the sitting room was a mild-looking bald man in a dark suit and tie, Mr Holland, a friend of Uncle Brian’s from work. ‘I was sorry to hear about your sister,’ Mum said, with unexpected knowledge, and he said, ‘Oh, thank you – I’m so grateful to Brian and Susan for asking me this year. And this must be your son,’ he went on, in the welcoming tone Uncle Brian had failed to find. The table was laid for lunch behind the sofa, with a tree in the corner hung with Christmas balls and tinsel, a red glittery star at the top. Malcolm and Shirley appeared in the doorway. ‘You lot going upstairs?’ Uncle Brian said. ‘All right, then, go on.’
‘Ooh, open a window!’ Shirley said as we went into Malcolm’s bedroom. ‘I do apologize, David . . .’ – flapping a hand under her nose. There was a poster of a red E-type Jaguar on one wall, and a white wardrobe and chest of drawers. A bursting old armchair had been brought upstairs for Malcolm and he sprawled there now, one leg over the arm, while Shirley cleared a space for us to sit on the bed. The smell was like some of the senior studies at school, socks and stiff hankies and the fart competitions. Last Christmas when Shirley’d gone out of the room Malcolm had groped under the mattress and shown me a copy of Health & Efficiency he’d stolen from W. H. Smith’s, completely naked families, beautiful Roundhead fathers and Cavalier teenage sons playing volleyball and crazy golf together. ‘Look at those lovely titties,’ he said, watching me, and I said, ‘Oh . . . Oh, yes, I see . . .!’ before he quickly hid them away. ‘Comfortable?’ he said now, and winked at me unnervingly. He had the bulk and the menace of someone three years older, and both of us must have remembered his ambushes last year under the pier at Clevedon, in the wet rocks, where no one could see us. Still, it was Christmas, and he made an effort to be pleasant.
‘So what did you get?’ he said.
‘My mother made me a new jersey,’ I said.
‘Oh, nice. What colour?’
‘It is nice,’ I said, ‘it’s dark green, with a boat neck, you know? and cable-stitch panels on the front and sleeves. And I got some money from . . . my other aunt, in Scotland, who’s not an actual aunt . . . and otherwise really just a book that I asked for.’
‘Which one was it?’ said Shirley, as if picturing the titles available.
‘Um, Poems and Fables?’ I said, ‘you know, by John Dryden.’
‘Ooh, after you with that, Dave!’ said Malcolm.
‘What about you?’ I said.
‘Mum and Dad gave me a beautiful bracelet,’ said Shirley. ‘And Auntie Linda gave me this ring.’ She extended her right hand. ‘Do you like it?’
‘It’s really rather lovely,’ I said.
‘I’ve seen them in Wooly’s,’ said Malcolm. ‘I can tell you how much.’
‘All right, Malcolm,’ said Shirley, warning but wounded too. ‘Malcolm got a tape recorder,’ she said.
‘Gosh,’ I said, ‘what will you use it for?’
‘Gosh,’ said Malcolm. ‘All sorts of things.’
‘When you work out how to use it, Malcolm,’ said Shirley.
Malcolm shifted in his chair. ‘It’s easy,’ he said. ‘Even you could work it out.’ He had the bluff deflecting manner of his father already, his air of not needing to bother with us.
‘You just have to make sure the tape doesn’t come unspooled,’ I said, ‘I can show you how to do it if you like.’
‘You haven’t got one, have you?’ Malcolm said.
‘No, no . . .’ I said, ‘there’s one we use at school, for recording, oh, operas and things off the radio.’
I wondered if they would ask me about the summer holidays, but nothing was said, and I couldn’t be sure if this was troubled dignity on their part or total indifference, and even relief, that Mum and I had gone off somewhere else without them.
‘Well, give them their presents, Malcolm,’ Uncle Brian said when we went back down. I got a five-shilling book token, the card from Brian and Susan but written as always by her. Mum gave everyone hot-water-bottle covers that she’d knitted. ‘Oh, lovely, Av, thank you!’ said Auntie Susan. ‘Aren’t they lovely. Look, Shirley’ – wisely not looking for praise from Brian or Malcolm; Shirley herself was non-committal.
‘You don’t need a hot-water bottle,’ said Brian, ‘when you’ve got a missus like mine,’ and he grinned rather meanly at Mr Holland.
‘I’m sorry, Mike,’ Mum said, ‘I didn’t know you would be here, I’d have made you one too.’
‘Oh, not at all, Avril,’ said Mr Holland.
‘I think we’re all going to need our hotties this winter!’ said Linda, nodding towards the window and the purposeful grey of the sky above the front hedge. Mum turned anxiously, and I stared out too, half hoping to see the first wandering snowflakes make their appearance.
‘You may not know I make things, myself, Mike,’ Uncle Brian said. ‘That hearth rug’s one of my productions.’ Mr Holland smiled uncertainly at it, green and white, singed brown in places by the spitting fire. ‘You’ll see another example of my work upstairs, which I think you’ll enjoy.’ This was the smaller black and white mat in the toilet that said PLEASE AIM STRAIGHT, a source of weary embarrassment to Auntie Susan. ‘I find it brings out my artistic side.’ The mats were made up from kits, no artistry involved beyond tugging bits of wool through holes in a canvas pattern, and knotting them in place. It was done with a wooden-handled hook and in a spirit of mockery of his sister’s work, as if to show anyone could do it.
‘I think it must be a very restful hobby,’ Mr Holland said.
Uncle Brian smiled pleasantly. ‘So how’s business going, Av?’
‘Not too bad, thanks,’ Mum said, with a smug look meant to ward off further questions.
‘Getting plenty of work?’
‘Too much, really, isn’t it, love?’ she said, bringing me in.
‘Get some more help, then, Av. Take on staff.’
‘Well, I may have to,’ she said, in an unconcerned tone.
Susan said rather anxiously, ‘And what about your new investor, was it, you were saying?’
‘Oh, yes?’ said Brian.
Mum did something never seen, a blush rose up her neck, glowed in her cheeks through the face-cream and powder, and dropped away slowly through the long thirty seconds she took to outline her business plan. Brian enjoyed her discomfiture, eyes narrowed as he turned it round mentally, looking for purchase.
‘Mrs Croft, you say. I think I heard someone talking about her,’ and his gaze was suddenly distant and offended. ‘That’s the woman you went on holiday with, isn’t it? We never heard much about that.’
‘No, well,’ Mum said.
‘We had a lovely card,’ said Susan, ‘Friscombe Sands . . .’ She had a nostalgic look, as if she wished she’d been there too.
‘As a matter of fact I remember now what it was. Your friend Mrs Croft, she was married to some well-off fruit, I believe,’ Brian said.
Fruit was new, and I saw it absorbed and deflected, as man-talk, by Susan and by Mum too, and Malc said, ‘Oh God,’ in a world-weary way, and then blushed as well. ‘Anyway,’ Mum said, ‘she got a divorce from him, several years ago now.’
‘Did she,’ said Brian, ‘a divorce,’ with a wintry nod as if that was almost as bad. ‘A rich divorced woman in Foxleigh. God help her. Well, perhaps she’ll find herself a nice new husband.’ He looked round the room as a new idea struck him. ‘Bless me! Of course. Introduce her to Mike, why not!’
Mike raised his hand modestly, Shirley giggled, and Linda looked on the edge of saying several things, little sighs, head on one side then the other. ‘I think I’ve had too much of that Allontimado,’ she said.
‘You could do with a man in your life, too, Av,’ said Brian.
‘I’m fine as I am, thanks very much,’ she said; and, ‘we manage very well, don’t we, love,’ quickly rubbing my knee in deflected embarrassment. Brian looked at the two of us, his chin down, eyebrows raised as he thought how to put it. He said solicitously,
‘I suppose, when there’s a kid involved . . .’
‘Brian!’ said Susan.
‘Well – be fair, not everyone, you know—’
‘He’s a very good kid,’ said Susan, ‘anyone would be lucky to have him as . . . well, you know . . .’
‘I know, love, I know,’ said Brian, breaking off on a magnanimous note but leaving the thought he’d stopped short of expressing somehow visible in the air. ‘Doesn’t worry me. I’d be happy to take David anywhere.’
‘So I should blooming well hope!’ said Susan.
Shirley and I had Tizer with lunch, and Malcolm was allowed a glass of red wine. He sat eating his turkey and roast potatoes in a self-absorbed daze, for the most part, while the talk hopped around. I had my usual experience of being ignored by Brian, who never spoke to me directly, and picked on in a well-meaning way by Susan and Linda and Mr Holland when a silence had fallen or they wanted to change the subject. ‘Another glass of claret, Michael?’ Brian said in a posh voice, with a quick mocking look in my direction.
Mr Holland didn’t seem quite ready for the role Uncle Brian had cast him in. ‘So your aunt tells me you’re boarding at Bampton School,’ he said, with a respectful smile at Susan. I felt warily vindicated, in the spotlight.
‘Well, he’s been there a while now, hasn’t he,’ Brian said.
‘This is my second year,’ I said.
‘How are you finding it?’ said Mr Holland.
‘Yeah . . .’ said Malcolm.
‘It’s a very good school, actually,’ I said.
‘So is it dormitories you sleep in, your mother said?’ said Linda, glancing round as if they all thought this rather fascinating.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said, politely, but with a fed-up feeling we’d had this conversation the previous Christmas.
‘Don’t you get homesick?’ Linda went on. ‘I know I would!’
‘Not any more, do you, love,’ Mum said.
‘Are there any other, you know, coloured boys?’ said Shirley.
‘Yes, of course,’ I said.
‘How many would that be, then?’ said Malcolm.
‘About twelve?’ I said.
‘Oh,’ Malcolm nodded, ‘that’s unusual,’ and Mum looked at me a bit oddly, but didn’t let me down.
‘Yes, it’s quite an unusual school,’ I said.
‘They could have their own cricket team, Mike,’ said Brian genially. ‘What would they call it?’
‘Well . . .’ said Mike, and glanced round.
‘I don’t think we want to know, thank you, Brian,’ said Auntie Susie. ‘Mike, have some more?’
‘That was lovely, ladies,’ Mr Holland said, sitting back in his chair.
‘Go on, have a bit more of that bird, Mike,’ said Uncle Brian.
‘Really, I couldn’t,’ said Mike.
Uncle Brian let his eyes slide over me in his general festive survey of the table – I smiled back for a moment and then looked down. ‘Shirley, find out if David wants some more,’ he said.
‘I’ve had enough, thank you,’ I said.
‘He says he’s had enough, Dad,’ said Shirley.
‘Saving space for his next course, I expect!’ said Susie, and shot Brian a look before starting to clear the plates.
We had Christmas pudding, which was in fact my favourite part – I struck a match to light the brandy in the kitchen, and it was Shirley who carried it in. There was custard to go with it, and more sugar, and only after that the crackers, stacked up like a pyre in the middle of the table, were passed round, and arms crossed, and we shouted the countdown to the haphazard pattern of bangs, shrieks and grunts, Malcolm suddenly with two and Linda with nothing, and then the silly game of admiring the novelties and groaning at riddles and seeing by laughing at the others how daft we must each look ourselves in our paper hats. Part of me loved the strangeness of being in the hat, everyone in hats, as if they’d all agreed at last to be someone else.
After we’d sat around like that for a few minutes, Uncle Brian set out tiny glasses for the port, and Malcolm went behind the tree and seemed to turn on the radio. ‘Is it the Queen already?’ Mike Holland said, pushing back his chair. There was an echoey noise of voices, some very near, some further off, scraping and rustling, with murmured thank-yous and louder questions about salt and gravy from someone who sounded like an unkind imitation of Auntie Susan. A painfully posh-sounding young man said, ‘May I have some bread sauce, please?’ and there was convincing rustling and tapping and Mr Holland said, ‘Susan, shall I say grace?’ Already there were gasps and shrieks and talking over what we were trying to listen to, the adults much drunker now than they had been at the time.
Uncle Brian speared a date from the white-frilled box and chewed as he listened to his own loud contributions. He seemed to decide he liked the trick that Malcolm had played on him – he smiled admiringly at him, and in his mind the expensive present he’d given him had promptly paid off. I found myself anxiously listening for things I had said that had made me feel somewhat embarrassed the first time round. There was a terrible silence just before I said, ‘In fact I’d have to say I prefer Shakespeare’s comedies to the tragedies and histories, in general,’ and Mike Holland said, ‘Do you really, David . . .? Yes, yes . . .’ I didn’t know if I was more thrilled or appalled by what I sounded like, though I knew now what I sounded like to the others, and I laughed and held up my red paper napkin in front of my face. ‘You ought to be on the wireless, love,’ Linda said, ‘oughtn’t he, Av?’ ‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ I said. We’d started listening now for the things we hadn’t heard at the time, in the general busy chat as the meal had got going . . . a brief little murmured exchange between Linda and Mr Holland that I had hardly been barely aware of – ‘Yes, a nice-looking young lad,’ Mr Holland had agreed. ‘Oh, I’ve heard enough of this, Malcolm!’ Susie said. ‘No, really. It’s Christmas,’ she said, ‘turn it off,’ and Malcolm got up and went back behind the tree with a smirk of vindication and after some fumbling switched the tape recorder off. More port was poured out but for two or three minutes a new conversation struggled to get going. Auntie Susan said, ‘It makes you think, though, Linda. I wouldn’t want everything you and I said about Brian being recorded!’
‘You’ll have to watch your words, then, won’t you, my love,’ said Uncle Brian.
Mum kept glancing out of the window, for telltale flakes against the darkening sky. She dreaded them and she longed for them too, as an absolute reason to leave. Then I went to the lavatory and from the window on the stairs I saw the cars crawling past, headlights on, over the first gleaming slush, the hedge of the garden opposite silvered in the three-thirty dusk. Mum said we must set off immediately, she found her handbag, our coats, Brian saying he never saw her, and she was going already. Susan and Linda hugged us, and we made do with a hasty wave at the rest of the party; only Mike Holland stood up. In the hall Mum said, ‘I haven’t had much to drink,’ a sherry and a glass of red, but enough to add to her worry; Brian put on his coat to see us off. ‘Go Chippenham way, will you?’ he said.
‘Oh, I’m not going over the Downs in this,’ Mum said.
‘You’ll be fine. Take care, then, Av,’ Brian almost sentimental as she got into the car. ‘And you, young feller,’ with a hard groping tickle I wriggled out of.
And at once in the car, with the doors shut, headlights on, heater blowing ice-cold air as I swiped my cuff across the fogged-up windscreen, we were ourselves again, in grateful silence where the whole day waited to be talked about – or not. ‘Are you all right, love?’ was all Mum said as she moved off, eyes on the road and in the mirror in the first apprehensive few minutes. ‘Oh, it’s not too bad,’ she said, when we got onto the main road, where the traffic kept the surface clear.
Not that there was a lot of traffic. I had the sense as we drove through Westbury and out towards Melksham of everyone else in the cheerful stupor of Christmas, all England behind small lighted windows collapsing and snoozing in front of the special from Billy Smart’s Circus which we would be home too late to catch. The few other drivers out on the roads seemed to share an air of purpose, or crisis. The heater hotted up, and a reassuring burning smell filled the car. ‘Now I mustn’t make a mistake here,’ Mum said, as we came into Chippenham, turned right and passed slowly through the streets, a few people walking in snowed-on hats, and a Christmas tree lit up in the empty square. ‘I should know, I’ve driven it dozens of times’ – and I knew the way myself, in the passive, subjective way of the child who is driven and notes things the concentrating driver doesn’t see. ‘Left here, isn’t it?’ Mum said, and I said yes it was. When the town fell behind, it was properly night, dashboard lights reflected in the windscreen among the thousands of wet snowflakes rushing towards us, headlamps dipped against the white reflecting swirl. I started us off on ‘Tea for Two’, but Mum wasn’t really trying – she smiled and said sorry, and I knew how intensely glad she would be to get home.
It was the next day the great snowfall came, and all day the day after that, day after day into the unimagined January, the coldest since 1814. We wondered more and more about how I would get to school; then when term began Peter Pollitt came over in his Land-Rover with chains, with Eastman and Du Cane already on board, and carried the three of us with our trunks and our tuck boxes through the wind-whipped snowdrifts and glittering woods to school. The drive had been cleared and then half disappeared under the following fall. Other parents’ cars slithered along in low gear, and I was proud of the chains, and the way Mr Pollitt waited capably for the worried Wolseleys and Rovers to creep past. The whole situation was thrilling and also, as Mr Pollitt quietly mentioned, a very big problem. The school buildings came into view beyond the plantation, lights beaming out across the snow in uncurtained welcome. The great cedar on Hawkers was shelved deep in white, the branches tilting but the frozen snow holding in place.