Eighteen  

SEAGLASS – 1982

Christmases at Seaglass were always magical, until my parents got divorced. Nana made a bigger effort than ever to welcome my mother, my sisters and me, but it didn’t feel quite the same without Dad there. I’ll never forget the Christmas of 1982. I was seven, Lily was eleven, and Rose was twelve. We had a huge tree that year – delivered by boat – which we all helped to decorate. We made paper chains, and a wonky chocolate yule log, then on Christmas Eve, the Darker family women watched ET. It was my first ever trip to the cinema, and I loved every minute of it. But the home movie I can see on Nana’s old TV now didn’t capture any of that. It starts on Christmas Day 1982 and, as usual, begins with Lily.

If Father Christmas really did make a naughty list every year, then my sister would have been at the top. But she still got all the gifts and toys she wanted as a child, even when money was tight. I think Nancy thought that the tantrums would cost her more in the long run. High on Lily’s wish list that year was a Walkman. As soon as she had unwrapped it, Lily listened to it everywhere, even when she was eating, or roller-skating, or watching TV, which made little sense to me. And she was always singing along to something, normally very badly. The song I most remember her murdering that year was ‘Physical’ by Olivia Newton-John.

‘I’m bored of filming this now,’ says twelve-year-old Rose from behind the camera.

‘One more lap, I’m getting faster every time!’ says Lily, whooshing past the outside walls of Seaglass on a newer, bigger pair of roller skates.

‘The slush puppies are nearly ready!’ I hear seven-year-old me say, and it’s a shock when the camera turns in my direction. We’re in the garden that my mother loved so much, and it looks freezing cold. I’m wearing a fluffy bobble hat and one of Lily’s hand-me-down coats. I remember the wooden toggles that I found inexplicably difficult to fasten. I’d had two operations on my heart that year, and I do not look well. I’m far too skinny and there are dark circles beneath my eyes. But I do look happy, playing with my Mr Frosty toy and making syrupy crushed ice drinks for the Care Bears my sisters were too old to play with. The bears had been gifts from Nana. Mine was pink with a rainbow on its tummy. Lily’s was blue with a raincloud, and Rose’s bear was turquoise with a shooting star – she was obsessed with the solar system that year.

‘Stick out your tongue!’ says Rose from behind the camera, and when I do, it is stained red from slush puppie syrup.

The camera turns a little further and I see Conor. He’s sitting at Nana’s ramshackle old garden table, wearing two jumpers, a paper cracker hat and a frown. He appears to be deep in concentration while writing something.

‘Hey, Conor! What are you doing? Working on another article for the school newspaper?’ asks Rose.

‘No,’ says the lanky but handsome boy.

‘What is it then?’

‘It’s the Darker family tree. I’m making it for your nana, to say thank you for having me.’

I don’t remember him being with us that Christmas, but I suppose he often was at Seaglass whenever his dad wasn’t well enough to look after him. I do remember the family tree, though. It inspired Nana to paint her own version of it on the wall next to the staircase, with all our hand-painted faces and dates of birth. The shot seems to linger on Conor’s face for a long time.

‘Who is that?’ Lily says, skating past the camera again, which turns 180 degrees to reveal the sandy causeway.

The tide was out, and Nancy came to stand beside us. We all stopped and stared at the silhouette of a Dad-shaped figure in the distance. I looked up at Nancy’s face, and the strained smile stretched across it confirmed that it was him. I dropped my slush puppie, Lily pulled off her roller skates, and I think Nancy must have taken the camera from Rose, because the next thing I see is the three of us running towards our father who we hadn’t seen for six months. He was dressed as Father Christmas, but barefoot, with his red trousers rolled up to his knees to avoid getting the costume covered in seawater and sand.

We ran across the causeway to greet him as though he were a brave knight returning from battle, which I know must have hurt my mother at the time. She was the one who stuck around to take care of us when he took off – sort of, when my sisters weren’t at school, or we weren’t all dumped on Nana – but we were just children, and didn’t understand the politics of parenthood when people got divorced. Nancy waited where she was on the stone steps that lead up to the house, filming the moment. When my dad went to kiss her on the lips, she turned her head so that he kissed her cheek instead.

One of the best things about Dad coming back from touring around the world with his orchestra were the guilt-induced gifts he brought with him. Don’t get me wrong, we were very happy to see the man, but we were also eager to see what he had bought us. My sisters and I followed him inside and stood in the doorway of the music room, watching Dad as he opened his giant suitcase, instead of unpacking in the bedroom he used to share with our mother.

Lily was never backward in coming forward, and blurted out the question we were all wondering about the most.

‘Did you bring us presents?’

‘Maybe,’ Dad said and we cheered. When my mother said ‘maybe’ it meant no, but when my father said ‘maybe’ it meant yes. One word, two meanings. We might have only been children, but we were more aware than anyone that our parents spoke different languages.

Lily’s smile slid right off her face when she opened her gift, tearing the wrapping paper without even bothering to read the neatly written tag.

‘I’ve already got a Walkman! I unwrapped one this morning!’ she whined.

Our father looked genuinely sad. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, princess. Mummy said that was what you wanted this year . . .’

‘The real Father Christmas bought it for her,’ said seven-year-old me.

‘There is no real Father Christmas. Why are you such a baby?’ snapped my sister, glaring at me as though it were my fault that she received the same gift twice. I knew she was telling the truth about Santa, and suddenly my whole world – not just Christmas – felt like a lie. I started to cry.

‘Lily, that’s enough. I mentioned the Walkman to your father a few weeks ago, but he forgot to tell me and Father Christmas that he was going to get you one. Don’t worry, darling. I’m sure we can change it for something else. Why don’t we do this properly? Conor, can you take the camera for me? We don’t all need to be huddled in the doorway. Girls, give your dad some space and we’ll open the rest in the lounge.’

Lily folded her arms and went into full sulk mode as my dad gathered up all of the presents.

‘I got you another gift, Lily. Just a small one,’ he said, trying to redeem himself. We shuffled into the other room, all with one eye on the gifts my father was carrying, while my mother wrestled us out of our hats and coats.

‘For god’s sake, Frank. We said one present each.’ Nancy’s words sounded like they got stuck behind her teeth. Her gifts were like her love for us and always came with a sense of economy. We sat impatiently in our familiar seats in the lounge. I sat closest to the Christmas tree and the fireplace, and instantly went from being too cold to too hot, so I took off my jumper. I was wearing a red woollen V-neck dress underneath, covered in white lace snowflakes. It was a gift from Nana, and I wanted to wear it every day.

‘I know we said one present each, but I couldn’t resist. I found this in a little shop in Vienna and thought of you,’ Dad said, giving Lily a small pink parcel.

‘Good to know they weren’t all last-minute duty-free purchases from the airport,’ mumbled my mother beneath her breath. She tutted for good measure.

Lily ripped off the paper and beamed when she found a tiara inside. It was covered in fake jewels.

‘Because I’m a princess!’ she said.

‘Yes, you are,’ said Nana, walking into the lounge wearing a pink and purple apron, and speaking in an ironic tone I was too young to appreciate at the time. She gave Lily a withering look before putting a tray of warm mince pies on the table. Nana – always preferring to do things her own way – made savoury mince pies at Christmas. They contained minced beef, onions, and a secret splash of Tabasco, and were served with tiny jugs of gravy.

Lily pouted. ‘Why can’t we have normal mince pies?’

‘Because normal is boring,’ Nana replied. Then she hugged her son, my father, and sat down next to Nancy. I think she always wished that our parents would get back together just as much as we did, forever orchestrating family reunions that she hoped might actually reunite us.

The camera turns to Rose, and zooms in on her face. She was holding a box wrapped in tissue paper that was turquoise – her favourite colour. Unlike Lily, she opened her gift slowly, without tearing the paper at all, while we waited to see what was inside.

‘Wow! Thank you, Dad,’ she said, holding up a telescope.

‘You’re very welcome, and just in case the stars don’t always shine for you . . .’

Rose opened a second gift, and I remember what it was before seeing it on the TV screen: a box of glow-in-the-dark stars.

‘Thank you!’ she said again, giving him a huge hug. It made me realize that Lily never thanked him once.

‘I want stars!’ Lily whined, folding her arms.

Dad ignored her. ‘And this gift is for Daisy, my little pipsqueak,’ he said, passing me a box.

Inside, there were five new books. They were all beautiful hardbacks, and I couldn’t wait to start reading them. ‘It’s always important to have adventures, even if only in your imagination. Sometimes those are the best adventures of all,’ he said, sounding more like Nana than himself. Then he gave me a second gift, and I didn’t understand what it was when I first saw it.

‘It’s a View-Master,’ explained my father, leaving me none the wiser as I stared at what looked like a red plastic pair of binoculars. ‘I know it must make you sad, that your sisters get to go away to school, and I get to travel with my orchestra, and you have to stay behind . . . but now you can look inside this and pretend to be anywhere.’

Dad put a strange-looking reel inside the contraption, then held it up to my face. I remember being scared at first, but then I saw a picture of a forest, so real I thought I might be able to touch it. He showed me how to click the side of the gadget. The reel moved, and I saw a picture of a waterfall. It was like magic. I laughed, and my dad grinned, but his smile faded a little when he noticed the pink scar down the middle of my chest. I watched his reaction as he remembered that I was broken, and felt guilty that it made him so sad.

‘I’ve missed you all so much,’ he said. His words were like a hug, and I wanted to believe them. The camera catches him looking at my mother, and her looking away. I was too young to understand any of what was going on between them back then. When you hold on too tight to something, it can start to hurt.

‘Conor, I was hoping you would be here,’ Dad said, holding out a small gift. ‘Let me take the camcorder while you open it. I hope you like it.’ The camera turns to reveal a ridiculously happy-looking Conor, as though he had never been given a Christmas present before, and it made me wonder if maybe he hadn’t. Nana said there were people who didn’t believe in Christmas, or celebrate it, and just the idea of that made me feel sad.

‘Different people believe in different things,’ she said, when I didn’t understand.

‘What do you believe in?’ I asked.

Nana smiled. ‘I believe in kindness and hard work.’

‘What about God?’

She smiled again. ‘I believe that God believes in hard work too.’

‘What should I believe in?’ I asked.

‘You should only believe in what you want to believe, and you should always believe in yourself.’ It was a good piece of advice that I’ve never forgotten.

Conor carefully unwrapped a yo-yo unlike any I’d seen before.

‘I found this in Shanghai when I was performing there,’ Dad said, and my mother rolled her eyes. ‘I’m told they’re the best yo-yos in the world, but you’re the expert!’

‘It’s perfect. Amazing. Thank you,’ said Conor, with actual tears in his eyes, as though our father had given him a yo-yo made of gold.

‘And . . . I’m told you’ve been writing for the school newspaper. I thought this might come in handy if you don’t have a photographer,’ Dad said, giving him another, slightly bigger parcel.

It was a Polaroid camera, and Conor’s face lit up like the Christmas tree he was sitting next to. I remember him taking pictures of us all for his Darker family tree that afternoon. He took more of Rose than of anyone else. Nana used those pictures to paint our faces on the wall at Seaglass a few weeks later, so that who we were that day was captured in time forever.

Dad’s gift for Nana was a cuckoo clock from Germany. It’s one of the most eccentric clocks in the hall. Every hour, on the hour, a little wooden man and a little wooden woman come out of two tiny doors, and meet in the middle before she chops off his head with an axe. They do this all day, every day. My father’s gift for his ex-wife was less disturbing. He gave my mother a small red velvet box, and Nancy smiled her real smile when she opened it. We all admired the beautiful silver heart-shaped locket. There was room for two tiny pictures, and when my mother smiled at my sisters, I was sure it was their faces she wanted to keep inside.

Memories are shapeshifters, especially the childhood variety, but that was a good Christmas. I don’t think any of us appreciated our parents spending it together for us, despite being recently divorced. Looking back, I think they might have done more to make life better for us than we sometimes remember. My collection of happy childhood memories is a little threadbare.

We make moments with our families. Sometimes we stitch them together over time, to make more of them than they were. We share them and hold onto them together as if they were treasure, even when they start to rust. Sometimes those moments change shape in our memories, sometimes we stop being able to see them how they really were. Sometimes we have different recollections of the same moments, as though they were never really shared at all.

I remember the food we ate, the games we played, and the music we listened to. I remember John Lennon singing about Christmas on the radio, and my mother saying how sad she still was that he was dead. I asked if he was a friend of hers; I was too young to understand people grieving for someone they’d never met. I remember me and my sisters singing along to ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’, and the whole family singing carols with Dad playing the piano.

I overheard my parents briefly squabble in the kitchen, but not for long.

‘You can’t buy their love,’ Nancy hissed, and Dad mumbled some inaudible reply. Now that I’m older, I realize that the problem was that he could. He’d show up once or twice a year with gifts wrapped in shiny paper tied with pretty bows, and we treated him like a king. Meanwhile we took her, and Nana, a bit for granted. There are things we all should know better, but being human means you can never know it all.

Alcohol always seemed to help my parents to tolerate being in each other’s company, so they drank more and more of it over the years, and the squabbles were replaced with quiet stares, and the variety of silent conversations all parents have when their children are in earshot.

That night, when my parents put me to bed – together but apart – and turned out the light, I saw a galaxy of luminous stars on my bedroom ceiling. Rose had used her precious glow-in-the-dark stickers to decorate my room instead of her own.

‘Night, night, pipsqueak,’ she whispered, standing in my doorway.

‘Why?’ I whispered.

‘Because you deserve to see the stars just as much as the rest of us.’