Chapter Four #3
My mother uses Christmas as a sort of prop.
Not in a religious or spiritual sense, but like the central pole of a circus tent holding up the sagging marquee of life.
For as long as I can remember, or at least from when I first became old enough to notice it, she has always insisted on our family spending Christmas all together, no excuses brooked.
It has ever been the one time in the year when she could guarantee her offspring would be there, her husband, of course, and whatever sundry relations she deemed to be in need.
It might be something to do with being married to a soldier and the chronically peripatetic existence that entails, with your children away at boarding school, your husband off for months at a time, the sheer disruption of constantly being on the move – or expecting to be.
Goodness knows how, given his was not a career that afforded special privileges, but somehow my father always managed to accede to Mum’s edict and be home for Christmas.
Perhaps he just got lucky or maybe he realised this was the one principle his wife would not sacrifice.
Whatever. Until this year, as kids, throughout our teens, twenties and into our thirties, through having our own children and, for David, marriage, my brother and I have always accepted as an immutable law that we would all be going to Mum and Dad’s for Christmas.
It’s an imperative. And now I’d blown it.
Chucking the phone aside and lying down on the bed, I thought about this.
In reality, in the last few years, discounting the Covid threat to Christmas which was all calmed down at the last minute anyway, just when my mother was nagging my father to get hold of an army tent for the garden, Christmas with my parents had not been too successful.
David’s wife, Sally, had plainly and completely understandably – although to her credit she had tried hard to disguise it – resented never being allowed to go to her own family or for that matter host her own festivities.
This had made David uncharacteristically disgruntled.
Their twins in any event are what you might kindly call a handful and therefore better off in their own space.
Even Carl, who adores his gran and grandpa, had been hard put when it came to whole-hearted enthusiasm, the problem being my mother wants Christmas to be exactly as it was when David and I were small.
This means not just a whacking great turkey and ‘all the trimmings’, which is nice enough (although Sally’s vegetarian) but stockings on the end of your bed, paper hats, crackers with groan-provoking jokes, watching the late queen’s and now King Charles’s speech at the time it is broadcast, followed by an evening spent sitting round the dining table playing cards: pontoon – it has to be pontoon.
You’re not even permitted to collapse in front of the box and watch a film, unless it’s The Sound of Music.
I had noticed last year, although, like Sally, he was striving to conceal it, how bored Carl was, his surreptitious little yawns behind his hand, forgetting when to say ‘twist’ in pontoon.
It was obvious he would have infinitely preferred to be left to his own devices, literally, and play with whatever latest noisy techno game Santa Claus had given him.
Oddly enough, however, understanding all this made me feel better. I wasn’t a selfish, uncaring mother abandoning my son. Everything I’d done was perfectly normal and acceptable. My son was simply spending time with his father. Closing my eyes, I relaxed. I’d phone him in a minute…
‘You said you were going to call me at five o’clock. At five o’clock French time precisely, you said.’
‘Jesus! Is that the time?’ Sitting up I glanced at my watch.
‘I know I did, darling, and I’m so sorry.
’ It was nearly half past five and a bloody good job Carl had taken it upon himself to phone me otherwise I’d probably still be out for the count and none of tonight’s guests would have got their meat and two veg.
‘I fell asleep, love. I lay down on my bed for a bit and must have conked out.’
There was a little silence. Then he asked, ‘Are you okay, Mum?’ The mildly reproachful note in Carl’s voice had been replaced by concern.
‘Yes, of course I am. Why do you ask?’
‘It’s not like you to crash in the afternoon.’
‘No, well, I didn’t get much sleep last night. Strange place and all that. But I’m absolutely fine. What’s more to the point is how are you? How’s it all going?’
‘Oh, Mum,’ he sounded awed, ‘it’s all fab-u-lous!’
I laughed; his impression of Craig Revel Horwood from Strictly was spot-on.
‘This morning,’ he went on eagerly, ‘Papa took me to this really cool roller-blading stadium and then after lunch – wicked pizza, Mum – we went shopping to get me some new gear.’
‘Sounds wonderful.’ I smiled at the pleasure in his voice. ‘But listen, Carl. Don’t let your father buy you loads of new clothes. You’re growing so fast you’ll be out of them in five minutes.’
‘Mum?’
‘What, love?’
‘Are you seriously suggesting I can stop Papa doing anything he wants to do?’
I smiled to myself; he sounded so grown-up. ‘No, okay,’ I conceded.
‘But there is someone you might be able to stop doing something.’
‘What? Who? Is someone giving you a problem?’ I was instantly on alert.
‘Nonna,’ my son said firmly. ‘My grandma, my Italian grandma.’
‘Why? What’s the matter? Is she being horrible to you or something?’ A tiny flutter of panic, and fury – the old bat – rose in my throat.
‘No, no, of course not. In fact, she’s being very nice to me, too nice in fact.’
‘What do you mean?’
As my mother had earlier, Carl dropped his voice as if worried someone might be listening. ‘She won’t stop,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘feeding me.’
‘Feeding you?’
‘Yes. Feeding me. Every time she lays her eyes on me she insists on stuffing me with more… like… food.’
I laughed in relief. ‘Well, it makes a welcome change from you constantly raiding the fridge at home. I’m beginning to think your nonna has the right idea. But if it’s too much, just say – politely, mind – that you’ve had enough or you’re not hungry.’
‘That’s easier said than done,’ my son said gloomily.
I could just imagine him, mouth turned down at the corners, eyes sorrowful, shoulders drooping – oh, as well as being a good mimic, Carl is superlative at the sad clown act.
I almost felt tempted to video call him to enjoy the performance, but we’d agreed to restrict that.
Instead, we chatted on for a while longer until I noticed the time, rang off and, in something of a panic, sprinted for the kitchen.
It was gone six o’clock. I’d have to get a wriggle on. But then, that’s nothing new.
For some unknown reason, speed goes hand-in-hand with professional cooking these days. Whether they’re on television or in a restaurant kitchen, every chef is on a race to the death. I would ask you if you have any idea why this should be the case, but I don’t expect you know either.