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Oh my, it was hard to get out of bed this morning. When I lie in bed, all I can see through my window is sky and I thought, ‘I’m not getting up while the rain is lashing down like this, no way.’ When it’s this grey and gloomy, no light penetrates my room at all. I can hear the raindrops falling against the glass as the wind blows them sidewards. When it’s this wet, I want to stay in bed, though of course, I cannot stay in bed. I need to go outside every day, without fail, else I risk losing the privilege. Even if you weren’t coming to visit, I’d be here at some point. When the days are as short as this, you spend enough time indoors. The light is our natural way of telling the time, and we have to seek some each day, to reset ourselves. So, I lie in bed until I hear the change in the pattern of the rain. Waiting for it to stop completely is a fool’s errand, it isn’t going to dry up on a day like today but it will ebb and flow, and I want to catch it on the ebb. First, the wind drops a little, the thrashing of the water against the window quietens, and then the rain gets a more repetitive, predictable pattern to it. When the bleak sky appears a mite brighter, it is time to seize the opportunity presenting itself before it’s taken away.
Stepping out now, it’s only drizzling, but everything is soaked all the same. The sort of wet where the water seems to be hovering. It isn’t running, it isn’t flowing, it’s resting in place, static, every surface drenched. It sits and waits, fighting against gravity, in a bowed dew drop. Water hangs from the bare branches of the buddleia, it coats the blades of grass on the path, it lies upon the surface of the leaves of the raspberry canes. These teardrops on the branches look like buds, as if they are going to burst into water flowers. They are spaced out evenly, you see, and they drape over the branch. There is water everywhere, and it isn’t leaving, it will remain there until it is warm enough or windy enough for it to dry out. Did you know wind was as good as heat for drying? A breeze can make all the difference.
There are so many puddles I cannot skip them all, so my feet are sodden. The rest of me isn’t far behind. I will only keep warm if I keep moving while we natter. If I dawdle, I’ll freeze. I’m already counting down the days until spring. The shortest day is almost upon us, they’ll start to get longer again in a couple of weeks. You see, the light and the heat, they don’t align properly, the light comes first, and the warmth follows a month or two behind. Life is often like that, my dear, with a delay between cause and effect which can make it hard to see how the chain of events links together. But they follow one another, as night follows day, and as spring follows winter.
I focus on the feelings the changing season gives me, as I find it tricky to feel festive at this time of year. I’ve listened to carols and eaten mince pies, but neither warms my soul like seeing a hint of the promises of spring. I’ve realised that people become bound up in the ritual of it all, rather than the actuality of the sensations they are experiencing. They vary though, so those who are religious have their ways to celebrate, and have some alternative traditions, shall we say, to those who prefer to party all night. Christmas is a shared event in some ways but intensely personal in others, and only when you spend Christmas with another family do you realise just how weird everyone else’s festivities are. No matter what people do, though, they are all focused on the same thing. Getting through the darkest time of the year.
*******
My most memorable Christmas was not necessarily my best one, or even my worst one. It’s the one which was different. The others have a tendency to merge in my mind’s eye. Frank liked to host both sides of our family together, which meant I was busy making sure a warm glow surrounded everyone. Joyful times don’t happen without someone making sure they do. But for Christmas 1971, neither my parents nor Frank’s were coming to visit. We had a long weekend together, the two of us and our ten-year-old twins. Frank bought a new television, of which we were extremely proud, it was the first colour set in our street. Our hopes were high for a happy holiday, and I thought that changing up our Christmas routines would revitalise them for years to come. I did not yet know how different our lives would be by the following Christmas, when Frank would no longer be with us.
Christmas Eve dawned clear and bright. Frank worked in the morning and went to the Royal Oak with his colleagues for the afternoon. The girls helped me while I cooked, peeling vegetables, baking cakes, preparing the poultry. I’d have liked to sit watching them do this while I listened to the radio. Of course, it didn’t work out like that, but the girls tried, and we laughed together a lot. I remember that clearly, the seismic change between cooking for four and cooking for more, the ability to take my time, to teach, to demonstrate, to guide my girls through these steps, to instil some of the skills they’d need to please their own households, to produce the future Christmas meals I assumed Frank and I would be invited to join.
My girls were ten years old and their personalities were vivid and vibrant. They sat at the round table with me, framed by a decorated tree in the window, with carols playing on the radio. Their faces were lit with a warm glow that gave the impression they were angels. Lucy wore her hair loose, while Carol’s was pulled back into an elaborate braid. There was a sensuality to this scene, the colours and the softness of it, infused with love, but these feelings of mine were not reflected back to me on my daughters’ faces. They looked disgusted and horrified.
“It’s dead,” said Carol, leaning in to see it better, moving her head around to examine it from different angles. “It’s a dead chicken and it’s on our table.”
“It’s an uncooked chicken, it’ll still be dead when we bring it out from the oven and your Dad carves it. But it’ll smell delicious and you’ll be eager to eat it then.”
“Hmmm,” said Lucy. “I’m not so sure. Is it a boy or a girl?”
“It’ll always be a boy, a cockerel, the girls are kept for their eggs, you see, but there is only room for one cockerel per brood, and so the others are fattened up for us to eat.” I was finding this amusing, eager to tease them for their inability to link the animals they saw in fields with the food on their plate. “He’s already been plucked and butchered, at least we don’t need to do that.”
“Ew, Mum, do you have to? Isn’t it bad enough as it is?”
“Well, Carol, you need to learn, you’ll be cooking for your own family before too much longer, and today’s the day you’ll discover how you stuff a chicken.” I topped up my glass with the remainder of the bottle of wine. “It’ll be delicious, wait and see.”
“Come on then, Mum, let’s get started. What do we do first?” Lucy beamed at me which caused Carol to scowl a little harder.
“Well, first we need to find the giblets. The butcher will have wrapped them in greaseproof paper and popped them back inside. Insert your hand and pull them out.”
“Mum, what exactly are giblets? And what do you mean by insert?”
Of course, no sooner had I explained this than both girls had turned green and vehemently refused to touch a chicken ever again, so I did what was necessary. I sliced a pat of butter in half, handed them one each and told them to rub it over the outside of the bird, massaging it into the skin, while I put the giblets on to boil. No arguments allowed.
I stood in the kitchen, listening to their squeals, sure that there’d be more butter on the floor and their clothes than on the chicken, but knowing they needed to learn somehow.
“Girls, how are you doing in there?”
“It is disgusting. It’s all cold and rubbery.”
“It’s so sad, this poor bird.”
“Keep going girls, it’ll taste better the more butter you can soak in.”
One of the best bits about having children is when you can make them do the chores you secretly hate doing yourself, while pretending it is for their own good.
*******
“Ho-ho-ho, and a merry Christmas to you all.”
Frank returned home earlier than I’d expected. We’d barely finished preparing everything and I was wiping up after the girls’ adventures with butter. I was serving left-over stew for dinner, and it was bubbling on the stove, alongside the simmering stock and a cold frying pan, sliced chicken liver in a little oil awaiting Frank’s return. He was the only one of us who could stomach such a thing.
“No-no-no, my girls, surely you’re not still awake at this time?”
I didn’t want to remind him it was only seven o’clock, besides, I was happy to delay their bedtime if Frank was in a good mood.
“Ho-ho-ho, shall you join me in my quest for health and happiness tonight?” Frank could still be charming after an afternoon in the pub, but it helped if you didn’t pay close attention to what he was actually saying.
Thankfully, my girls were too excited to listen to him, they wanted to talk to him. They told him about the stockings they’d laid on their beds, the glass of milk they were leaving out for Father Christmas. Then they rambled on about the chicken, to hear them you’d think I’d made them murder the bird with their bare hands, not prep a clean, butchered carcass for the oven. Frank poured himself a second whisky, offered a sip to his girls which they pretended to take, wincing in the way they knew pleased him, before getting excited about watching television. I joined them with my glass re-filled, and together we sang along to the variety show on our new telly.
When the show finished I insisted the girls go on up to bed, but they were gregarious and joyful, dancing and singing themselves, and I didn’t have the heart to hurry them along. Their mood was contagious. Frank watched them, glass in one hand, cigarette in the other, with a grin on his face which reached his eyes. His white shirt was open at the collar so I could see the grime lining the inside. His tie was nowhere to be seen, and I hoped that meant he’d left it in the office rather than in the pub. I could pick out the traces of my terrier which were still alive in his face, though his jawline was beginning to droop and his cheeks were mottled. He was a successful man, but that had come at a cost, and it was starting to show.
“Okay, girls, that’s enough, time for bed, your poor dad needs some peace.”
“No-no-no, girls, I’d watch you all night, you know that.” Frank paused to empty his hands before holding them out to the girls, beckoning them into him. “But your mother, now, we know what happens if we make her angry, don’t we?”
Both girls bounced into his arms and he squeezed them, staring at me from between the backs of their heads, a red-faced buoy in a sea of blonde hair. He kissed each of them on the cheek and gestured them my way. He was ready for some adult time I could tell, no matter what he said.
“Ho-ho-ho, girls, go to sleep, or Father Christmas won’t be visiting this year.”
I tucked the girls in and repeated these remonstrations, taking my time before returning to the lounge. I thought I had a good idea as to what awaited me downstairs, but I could not have foreseen how this evening would end.
*******
Frank was standing by the fire as I came downstairs, with a glass tumbler of whisky in his hand which looked over-full to me, as if it held beer rather than spirits. I don’t think he’d wasted his time while I was settling the girls. I retrieved my glass of wine, leaving it half-full. I wanted to avoid antagonising him, but I also didn’t want to encourage him to drink more. Recently, we had been arguing when we had both been drinking, less so if only Frank was drunk. That didn’t make it my fault we rowed, if we were to have trouble that evening, it would be Frank who created it. But, in drink, I was less able to see the signs, not as tactful in turning his mood around. He glared at me now, forehead pinched, brow lowered, hair receding. He looked like a cross between a bull and a geography teacher. Any sense of joviality had been exorcised from the room, I felt the draught which blew from the front door, where it didn’t seal properly with the floor, and the overhead bulb seemed too bright for this late in the evening.
I busied myself, turning on the lamp, exchanging light for warmth, and I rounded Frank in order to stoke the fire. At the forefront of my mind was Mother, and her attempts to cajole Father from his moods. She had more patience than I, but then, Father had more justification than Frank. So I stayed by the hearth, close to the adjoining wall with the neighbours. If the evening progressed as I anticipated, they would be irritated. Two weeks before, in another row for another reason, their frustration with our noise had saved me, and I was increasingly sure it would happen again tonight. If so, I hoped there would be the same pleasing coincidence.
“Stop pissing around with that fire, will you?” hissed Frank, his head only inches from mine.
The feel of his breath on the back of my neck caused a quiver to run through me and threaten to knock my knees together, and not in a good way. I didn’t reply, I didn’t trust myself to do so. Frank took a step back, lifted his glass to drain it, stumbled back another pace and was about to fall into a chair before he stabilised himself. His eyes were glazed, his face flushed beyond recognition, his breathing heavy. He raised his arm, and I ducked as he threw his glass, smashing it against the wall behind me.
I retaliated with words. I told him he was a useless husband and a poor father, that we’d have preferred it if he’d stayed in the pub all night. I taunted him, I’m sure I said more, things I’d be too ashamed to admit now. He grimaced, but his eyes flinted despite the gloom of the room, showing his pleasure. He’d succeeded in gaining my interest. For that is what I’ve come to believe he was seeking. By throwing things and shouting insults, he was behaving like a toddler, he was after my attention and I wasn’t mature enough to deny it to him, so I said something more, he threw something else. He lost his temper. I wondered if I’d misjudged, if I’d prodded my terrier too sharply and I was about to regret it. I hoped the girls stayed asleep. But then the neighbour banged on the wall, my saviour, shouting at us to keep it down or else he’d call the police.
“Fuck off, you nosey son of a bitch,” Frank shouted, before dropping his voice only a squidge, ranting about how hard-working he was, about how under-appreciated he had become, and why did everyone have to give him such bother, when he should be free to enjoy his home and his wife as he chose.
I listened, I nodded, I placated. I filled Frank’s glass, and poured myself another. Maybe my girls were listening as I had with my parents, perhaps they stayed asleep, eager to not disappoint Father Christmas when he came. I waited. I knew it would not be long now.
*******
The knock on the door was insistent. It roused Frank from the chair in which he had slumped, spent, with another cigarette in his hand and a glass between his knees. Muttering about the intrusion, expecting the neighbour from the sound of his grumbles, he made his way unsteadily towards the front door. I could not see the look on Frank’s face from where I sat, staring at my hands, waiting, and if I’m honest, hoping.
I heard PC Gary Bowers murmuring to him, and I could not restrain my smile. Frank’s voice raised once in defence of himself against the neighbours, something like ‘my wife, my life,’ before being hushed again by the officer’s deep tones. I wiped my eyes, fixed my hair, pinched my cheeks to be sure they had some colour in them, and I waited, feeling like a seventeen-year-old girl again.
I heard Frank’s footsteps on the stairs, taking his time but taking himself to bed, encouraged, no doubt, by the arrival of the police officer he knew so well. I hoped he wouldn’t disturb the children. For the briefest of moments, I had the absurd notion that they would mistake him for Father Christmas, would hear him go ‘ho-ho-ho’ and believe it was him. They would be disappointed in their dad, more so than I was, if that were possible.
Gary joined me in the lounge and perched next to me, on the arm of the sofa. I glanced up at him, from the side his jawline seemed sharper, his dark hair thicker. He took my hand in his, and sat there, patiently waiting for me to speak. I looked up once more, but then cast my eyes downwards again. What to say? I had no idea how to begin.
“Won’t ask you any difficult questions, Mrs Thompson, only want to check you are okay and settled for the night before I leave. It’s my job to make sure there’s no more trouble this evening.”
I had been prepared for many things, but not this formality. I blinked and my tears fell. Gary brushed them away with his thumb, his hands were rougher than Frank’s, more accustomed to physical work.
“I don’t think there will be, PC Bowers, not now you’ve coaxed Frank off to bed.” I was shaking as I spoke, and I felt his hand tighten over mine in response.
“Please, call me Gary.”
I looked at him, his face was closer than I’d expected. His eyes were blue. A sparkling blue which shone despite him sitting with his back to our lamp. He had rested his helmet on the floor between his feet, and his uniform looked freshly starched and uncomfortable. He looked smart, this man who seemed more powerful and protective than my husband of twelve years. I felt as attracted to him in that moment as I had the first time I had laid eyes on him, all those years ago. He was my bear and, in that moment, I couldn’t believe I’d given up on him for the terrier.
He stroked my cheek again, though I was sure I had not shed any further tears, and he teased a loose hair back behind my ear. I leant closer, rising towards him, showing my compliance, my agreement, my submission to his attention. He raised his other hand, so he was now cupping my face, holding my gaze firm in his. My entire body was jolted alive, tingling with unspent energy, I thought it must be impossible I was still in the home I shared with my family, I was sure I had soared away, carried by my expectations.
“Gary–”
I got no further. He kissed me, leaning his weight onto me as I drifted backwards into the couch, blissfully happy.
*******
You, young ones, you really do want all the details, don’t you? I can’t though, I can’t say anything more about that night. I feel shame, you see. Shame at how exciting I found it, shame at how I fell in love with Gary. Shame at the energy I spent creating opportunities for the two of us to be alone. Shame at the lengths I was willing to go to for us to be together. All I will say is that we weren’t disturbed, that it was one of the most enlivening nights of my life, and one of those events on which fortunes turn.
I understand you have questions, I do too, ones I cannot answer. Was I surprised, in that moment? Was I taken aback when Gary kissed me, or had I predicted it, anticipated it, even encouraged it? I have had many years to wonder how different my life would have been if this hadn’t happened. Should he have kissed me that evening? Did he take advantage of me? Maybe, perhaps. Certainly my fancy-pants lawyer would have made it sound that way. Mostly though, I ask myself why was I so eager? Why did I grab the opportunity with both hands? Was my life really so dreadful?
Hope, you see, is what makes all the difference. You can survive a life which is in the doldrums if you have some hope that there are better times coming. Hope brings us through wars, after all. True, life cannot have been that bad, and so, you wonder why you behaved as you did. And the answer, I believe, is that if you lose hope that life can improve, you lose your grasp of your circumstances, and you hurl yourself at opportunities without thought for the consequences. I had lost hope that Frank and I would regain our love for each other, to be together as we had been when we were younger, and so I allowed myself to be distracted by a new love. At least, this was the best explanation I could come up with for my behaviour. You may judge me differently, but that is fine, my dear. I am used to being condemned.
*******
I’ve seen more blue tits today than usual. I’m not sure if that’s because there are more of them all of a sudden, or whether it’s because I am noticing them now that they are the only things moving. They seem tiny next to the starlings, don’t they? Let alone next to the crows. But they all keep to themselves, the different types of birds in separate parts of the field. There must be so much food around here for them. We are all preparing for it to turn cold, really cold, I mean. Nature needs a re-set, you see, it’s necessary to know that it’s winter, and then know that it’s spring. Even the birds need it, they’ll cope with a short, sharp spell, a freeze is good for everything. And then it’ll pass, it’ll thaw, it always does, spring will come and everything knows then, it’s time to get going again.
I may be saying this, all brave-like, but the longer I’m out, the wetter I’m getting. But I’m glad we didn’t give up and go in, because the clouds are parting now. The sun is low, only another hour or so before it sets, I love it when it’s this large in the sky. Funny how the sun moves about with the seasons, look, my dear, how it shines from behind the oak tree, below and to the left of the tree’s branches, framing its silhouette, dazzling us with its last light. It is a signal, rays of hope, spring calling through the mist of December. It is nature’s way of saying that winter won’t last forever, it will pass, wait and see. I think we all need a bit of that sort of hope every now and then, don’t we?