Chapter 32
‘Merry Christmas, everybody,’ said Brian from his radio.
‘News from the Cosgrove household is that once again Cath wiped the floor with me at Monopoly. I was bankrupt after an hour. She very kindly allowed me to have a banker’s loan to tide me over, but there is absolutely no getting away from the fact that I was not put on this earth to be a property mongrel. ’
Vincent’s head twisted to the radio. ‘Mongrel, Brian?’
‘I think he means mogul,’ said Jane, with a titter. ‘God bless him.’
Elizabeth, on a search for everyone, walked into the bar just as Bing started to sing ‘Deck the Halls’. She had just been marvelling at how beautiful the dining car looked with the table all Christmas-ready and the decorations at the windows, and here were more.
‘Oh my,’ she exclaimed, looking around.
‘All down to Henry and Roo,’ said Frank.
Roo was about to give Henry the credit for the bulk of the tarting up, but her voice was drowned out by him bursting through the door carrying a stock pot with a ladle stuck in it.
‘I’ve managed to recreate the famous Clodagh O’Brien Smith’s eggnog,’ he announced, pleased as punch.
Somehow he’d remembered how she did it, though the quantities were a little experimental.
He’d beaten egg yolks and sugar, then set them aside while he ever so slowly heated up cream, milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, a pinch of salt, brandy plus the scraped seeds from a vanilla pod until the mix hit the first stage of simmering then he whipped it off the heat.
He recalled how long it used to take her to temper the eggs by adding the warm cream mix to them spoonful by spoonful, then whisking so they didn’t scramble.
But my, it was worth the labour. The smell drifted up from the pot and brought so many memories flooding back as sweet as the day they were made.
It was as if someone had taken the essence of Christmas and served it up as liquid, silky gold.
Just as Frank was giving Elizabeth a kiss in greeting, Grace arrived. She looked tired, thought Frank. He wasn’t to know how long she had stayed awake last night with things rolling in her mind.
‘Merry Christmas, Grace,’ said Frank and she thought, He’s used my name, instead of “love”. He gave her a kiss and she noted it was the same sort of kiss he’d just given Elizabeth.
Vincent was the last to greet Elizabeth. There was a stupid awkwardness there they both tried to ignore. He smells lovely, she thought. Like a pine forest.
She smells lovely, like a flower garden, he thought, placing his lips to her soft cheek.
Jane tasted the eggnog and it took her back to a December she and Clifford had spent in Austria, drinking eierpunsch in a market. They’d planned to revisit it, but they ran out of time.
‘I’m going to help my Cath construct the trifle now,’ said Brian, ‘but I’ll leave you in the capable hands of a gentleman you’ll all know very well. I always play one of his specials at this time of year and I think it goes down well. No one’s asked me to stop putting it on anyway. Ho ho…’
‘Oh, bless him,’ said Roo. ‘I hope he doesn’t realise that probably hardly anyone listens to him. I would love him to believe he has an audience of millions.’
‘It’s a couple of years old, but it’s my particular favourite of all the Sir Colin of Castle Streets and of course I’ll be back later with you all.
Ooh, I meant to tell you that Santa brought me a lovely woolly hat and scarf set.
Very dapper. And a tin of my favourite peppermint patties. What did Santa bring you?’
‘Sod all, Brian,’ Vincent answered. ‘Alas, I’m not sure our train showed up on Santa’s radar.’ Though Tim was wondering, if Santa didn’t bring him that letter, who the hell did?
There was nothing else to do but listen to the radio together and drink eggnog. Roo dropped a couple of cherries in hers. Frank was only shocked she hadn’t put a sprout in it.
‘This episode of Sir Colin of Castle Street was first recorded in front of a live studio audience on Christmas Day 1948,’ said a plummy male old-BBC announcer voice. Then a tinkly tune revved up and that live studio audience were prompted into claps and cheers.
‘What’s this about then?’ asked Elizabeth. ‘Anyone know?’
‘Sir Colin is a geriatric who believes his grandmother had an affair with the king and he acts more royal than royal,’ said Jane, with a fond smile.
‘He’s also very stingy and he gets his words all mixed up, so plenty of comedy material there.
I used to listen to this on Sundays with my mum and dad. ’
It was the only time she really felt that they were a family unit, sitting by the radio every week, and she had savoured it.
Her dad didn’t laugh much ordinarily, but Sir Colin tickled his funny bone and Jane would wish this jovial father lasted beyond the programme, but he didn’t.
All she got was that emotional oasis once a week.
Roo was prepared not to be in the slightest bit amused.
But maybe it was the jolly ambience, the camaraderie, the heavy slug of brandy in her drink, or maybe it was just because funny humour existed in the 1940s too that she found herself chuckling along with everyone else.
Henry had a very infectious laugh when it ramped up.
It was nice, they all thought, to hear it from him.
At the end of the half hour, they all started clapping along with the studio audience, their cheeks aching from the workout.
‘What the hell have I just listened to?’ said Roo, wiping her eyes.
‘Joy,’ said Frank, glad that it had visited him and reminded him it was still to be had.
A little later, in the galley, Frank was checking on the turkey when Grace walked in.
‘Do you need a hand?’ she asked him.
‘No, I’m okay,’ he replied, pushing out a smile that didn’t sit comfortably on his lips, as if it didn’t want to be there. He could have done with a little help but not from Grace. He just didn’t want to be Fred Astaire-ing round those eggshells, not today. He wanted a break from it.
She nodded, stepped out and then, seconds afterwards, put her head back around the door.
‘Do you think I could see a photo? If you have one. Not now, later,’ she said.
There was no misinterpreting what she meant by that. He tried not to let the fact he was stunned show.
‘Erm… yeah, I’ll get it for you.’
‘Thank you.’
And with that she was gone and he stood stock still in shock, wondering if that had really just happened.