‘I must fix that,’ he said to Bill, who wasn’t listening. He picked up the curtain hook and put it on the window sill with the others. He wiped the window with his hand to see outside. It was raining. ‘Bing Crosby is going to be disappointed again,’ Frank said.
He took off his pyjamas. He was already shivering from the cold but if he didn’t get dressed now he might end up staying in his bed clothes the whole day. He put on a shirt and, just to prove how like any other day it really was for him, he pulled on a plain blue V-neck jumper. There was no reindeer or Santa Claus in the knitting pattern, and if he’d pressed the jumper with his thumb, ‘Jingle Bells’ would not have played. He gently began to pull his trousers out from under the sleeping cat like a tablecloth on a laid table, but Bill woke up immediately and trotted off into the hall with what might or might not have been a grumpy look on his face. There was no way of knowing.
Frank picked up his glasses and looked at the clock: it was almost 6 a.m. He followed Bill to the kitchen, fed him and went downstairs to collect the newspaper, forgetting that today there wasn’t one. He picked up a pizza menu with the words ‘Turkey pizza!!’ in green letters across the top and he opened the front door to let Bill out. He picked up an animal charity Advent calendar that had been on the bottom step since November and he went back upstairs.
Frank made a cup of tea and turned on the gas fire – it took twenty turns of the knob before there was a flame. A new record. When eventually it caught light, the flame almost took his face off. He sat down in the armchair in the living room and opened all of the windows on the Advent calendar. Behind each window there was a different sad-faced puppy, neglected cat or mistreated donkey. There were two flaps on today’s window. The perforations on the right flap weren’t cut properly and only one side opened. When he tore the sealed flap so that he could see the rest of the maltreated Labrador’s face behind it, a Christmas card from the local church fell off the mantelpiece. The flat’s butterfly effect again.
Frank picked up the fallen card and put it back on the mantelpiece between a brass elephant and a china giraffe. When Frank had bought the giraffe the woman in the charity shop had said, ‘I was going to put this aside for you before you came in today. You must have quite a few giraffes now.’
Frank had never been happy with the idea that he might be that predictable. He’d once gone into the local pub and the barman had asked him if he wanted ‘the usual’ and as it was the only pub in the village, he felt that he had no choice other than to stop going to the pub. He hated the fact that he was thought of as a regular in the charity shop. Somebody that all the old ladies who worked there talked about and put giraffes aside for. Probably referring to him as ‘Giraffe Man’, in a similar way that Frank had given some of his neighbours Native American names to match their personalities or their activities – ‘Trims His Lawn With Nail Scissors’ and ‘Washes His Car Too Much’. He was glad when the woman stopped working there. Although he hoped she hadn’t died, as was often the case when there was a change in staff at the charity shop.
She was right, though. Frank’s collection of ornamental animals – which were all priceless but not in the way that he believed – was substantial. He himself had joked to his cat that he had the fourth-largest mantelpiece zoo in the country. It was lucky that he had so few Christmas cards.
There was the Christmas card from the local church on the mantelpiece, advertising the previous night’s midnight Mass, one from a local roofer called Dennis who was keen to begin his new year on Frank’s roof as it was the only roof on Sea Lane that wasn’t a bungalow and required the use of his ladder. There were two cards from Beth and Laura: the Thanksgiving card and a card with ‘Happy Holidays’ on the front in lettering the same as that of the famous Hollywood sign. Frank was pleased that Beth had been well enough to sign her own name this time. There were two other cards on the mantelpiece, one from either Stephen or Stephanie that came every year, with Frank never having worked out who either Stephen or Stephanie was, and there was a card from Christmas herself – Kelly.
Kelly Christmas was the name of the care worker who’d looked after Frank following his accident with the milk float. Once a week for three months Kelly had brought light into Frank’s flat. It was like having an extra window or as though somebody had moved Fullwind closer to the sun. Kelly’s home visits had given Frank a reason to put his teeth in in the morning. When her Christmas card had arrived he’d been reminded how much he missed not just her company, but company in general.
There was no stamp on the envelope and Frank had wondered whether Kelly had hand-delivered it herself. He wondered if she’d rung his doorbell at a time when he wasn’t in or one of the many times that he’d chosen to ignore it. He thought that perhaps she had posted the card and snuck away and that he was just another name on her list of former clients, in the same way that he was on the lists of all the charities and catalogue companies who sent him packets of Christmas cards and Advent calendars every year.
He heard a car outside. He thought for a moment that it might have been Kelly Christmas. Badly parking her little blue company car, driving onto the grass verge that ran along the side of the road and knocking over the white concrete bollards as she’d so often managed to do.
He looked out of the living-room window at a white car that had just been parked on the other side of the road. A young family got out of the car and walked up the path of a bungalow opposite. Frank watched the front door of the bungalow open and an elderly couple welcomed the family inside with hugs and kisses.
Frank sat down and switched on the television. Double murder, street market suicide bomb, flood . . . the news wasn’t taking the day off. He changed the channel and watched Herbie Goes Bananas while he waited for his Christmas phone call from his daughter.
Christmas Day was one of the three days in the year that Frank was guaranteed a phone call from Beth. She also rang him on his birthday and on Father’s Day, even if sometimes that call was a week too late or early, depending on whether the UK and US Father’s Days coincided or not. But Frank looked forward to his three annual phone calls from his daughter more than the holidays they arrived on.
At 2.30 p.m. Beth still hadn’t rung. Bill was back in the living room with Frank and they were both eating turkey dinners. Bill’s dinner looked disgusting but no less appetizing than Frank’s, which had come frozen and complete with vegetables and gravy from a cardboard box. He ate it from a plate on his lap.
Battle of Britain was on television and during the scene where Christopher Plummer has an argument in a pub with Susannah York Frank fell asleep. When a telephone rang Frank didn’t know if it was in the film or part of a dream. The shrill tone sounded more recent than 1940. His paper hat had fallen over his eyes and he thought he was dead. On the third or fourth ring he realized that it was his telephone and he wasn’t dead. He rearranged the hat and stood up, sending the plate from his lap onto the carpet. He picked up the phone.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Happy Christmas!’ It was Beth.
Frank was confused. Even though there was a tree in the room he’d momentarily forgotten what day it was. ‘What’s the time?’ he said.
‘Here?’ Beth said. ‘Just after eight.’
‘In the morning?’
‘Yes. Is everything all right?’
‘Just a moment.’ Frank put the phone on the desk. He picked up his plate from the floor and took a sip from the glass of wine that he’d poured five hours ago and had hardly touched. The wine had first been opened three months ago and when he couldn’t get the cork back into the bottle he’d covered the opening with Sellotape. It tasted sour and he pulled a face like a baby sucking a lemon.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I must have dozed off. Happy Christmas. After Eights? Do you have those there?’
‘The chocolates? I think so. Yes. I always preferred Matchmakers. I’ve never seen those here. Anyway, Dad, enough about chocolate, Laura wants to speak to you first. Let me pu
t her on.’
Frank took another sip of wine. It was slightly less tart on the second sip.
‘Merry Christmas, Frank,’ Laura said.
‘Happy Christmas. I fell asleep. What are you up to today?’
‘I’m helping Mom cook and then we might drive to the beach for a bit.’
‘The beach? I presume that it’s nice weather there, then?’
Laura didn’t answer straight away, as though she was checking the window or Googling the weather forecast.
‘It’s pretty sunny,’ she said eventually.
‘Thank you for the card.’
‘Thanks for yours,’ Laura said.
‘I’m sorry if it was a bit boring. The choice of greetings cards available here hasn’t really changed since the nineteen fifties.’
‘I liked it,’ Laura said. ‘Retro.’
‘Retro,’ Frank repeated. ‘A bit like me.’
‘You’re super modern, Frank,’ Laura said. ‘Everybody says so.’
‘Thank you.’ Frank hoped that she wasn’t being sarcastic; it was difficult to pick up subtle nuances in her speech pattern – which was more of a straight line than a pattern – and he wondered who ‘everybody’ might be. ‘I hope Beth didn’t wake you up just to talk to me,’ Frank said. ‘I expect you were out last night.’
‘Just a few friends. Nothing major.’
‘I remember when I had a few friends,’ Frank said. He meant it as a joke but it was true – a few friends and then a couple of friends and then just one friend and finally no friends. ‘How is your mum?’ he said, unnecessarily lowering his voice in case Beth could hear him.
‘Good.’ Frank read from Laura’s one-word answer that Beth was still in the room and Laura didn’t want to talk about her but the short, positive adjective was enough to settle him in the same way that her emails could.
In Frank’s inbox on the library computer he had more than twenty emails with the subject title ‘Lump’. They were all short, often just a list of markings out of ten for Beth’s physical state or the weight of her world in pounds that day or the height or depth of her spirits at the time of writing. Laura sent Frank an email update at least once a week and sometimes as many as three times. For a man who very rarely opened a book any more, Frank was spending a lot of time in the library. A week before Christmas Frank opened Laura’s longest ever email. It had the subject title ‘The Reunion Project’.
Hi, Frank,
Feliz navidad.
Don’t laugh.
I was thinking about Mom and how she’s been so miserable lately. I thought it was Lump and the radiation and the back and forth to the hospital, but guess what, Frank? I don’t think Lump is completely to blame. I think the melancholy started pre-Lump. I think she misses Jimmy. I also think both Mom and Jimmy really want to be together again. They just don’t know that yet.
I said not to laugh.
In the email Laura explained how she was going to attempt to manipulate her mother’s emotions. She would play music in her room and leave her door open so that Beth could hear the song that she’d first danced to with Jimmy at their wedding. She’d put music on in the kitchen, too, and in the living room, songs by the bands and the singers that Beth and Jimmy had been to see in clubs and concert halls in their first years in America. Every film that Laura selected on the TV movie channel would be about rekindled love and old flames reigniting. The food that Laura would cook would be the same as the food that Jimmy used to cook. Every sight, sound and smell that Beth experienced would be controlled by her daughter. When Laura had said on the phone just now that she was helping Beth cook, Frank wondered if it would be another forgery of one of Jimmy’s signature dishes.
Frank was distracted by a car’s headlights flashing on and off outside his living-room window. He watched a middle-aged couple and their dog, all three of them wearing tinsel scarves, walk through a front gate a few buildings along the road.
Laura seemed to sense his distraction.
‘Shall I hand you back to Mom?’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ Frank said. ‘Have a nice day.’ He realized how unintentionally American he sounded. He was going to fit right in over there.
He listened to the activity thousands of miles away at the other end of the line. There was music playing and he wondered if Laura had chosen it. He heard her say something to Beth that he couldn’t make out but it made Beth laugh. She was still laughing when she picked up the phone. Frank was pleased that she seemed to be having the happy Christmas that he more than ever before wished for her.
‘Father,’ she said in a mock-posh English voice and then in comic American, ‘Whassup?’
‘I don’t think I’ll ever get used to my granddaughter calling me Frank.’
‘It is your name,’ Beth said.
‘She says that you’re going to the beach. On Christmas Day?’
‘We always go to the beach at Christmas,’ Beth said. ‘I’m sure I have to tell you every year.’
‘I hope you’re taking things easy,’ Frank said.
‘I’m fine, Dad. A little tired. They gave me the day off.’ Frank guessed that ‘they’ were the hospital and the day off would have been from radiation therapy, but he never pressed Beth for any medical information unless she herself offered it. If he needed to know anything he could send an email to Laura. ‘How about you?’ Beth said. ‘What do you have planned for today?’
‘Planned?’ Frank said. ‘Watching television. Eating some cold turkey. Falling asleep in an armchair.’
‘A traditional English Christmas. Is it snowing there?’
‘Only on the television.’
‘What’s on?’
‘At the moment it’s an advertisement for settees. Hang on.’ He picked up the Radio Times and read out the programmes and the films that he’d marked with a red pen in the magazine and they talked about old TV shows and the things Beth missed most from England, and Frank wanted to tell her that the things that he missed were all in America but he knew that such schmaltz would upset her.
They talked for another ten minutes and then they said goodbye, wishing each other a happy Christmas again and a happy new year in case they didn’t speak before then. After the phone call Frank twisted a few of the bulbs of his Christmas tree fairy lights until the lights all came on again and he closed the living-room curtains even though it wasn’t yet dark. There were a lot of unfamiliar cars parked along the road now. Somebody had put a red Father Christmas hat on one of the white stone bollards on the grass verge. When a car drove by Frank thought that he could hear the bell at the end of the hat ringing.
He sat down in his armchair and changed TV channels and watched the end of It’s a Wonderful Life. He thought about going to America at the beginning of February and he didn’t know if he could possibly wait that long. Sometimes the thought of going to see his family made him want to run through the centre of the village shouting at the top of his voice, like Jimmy Stewart was doing on the television now – Merry Christmas, library! Merry Christmas, charity shop! Merry Christmas, you wonderful old Fullwind Food & Wine!
After a turkey sandwich Frank watched The Two Ronnies. The same episode that he’d first watched forty Christmases ago with Sheila when they were both younger than Beth was now and the same show that he’d later watched with Beth there too. And, when Laura was born, they would have watched the TV show again. If it wasn’t on television, Frank would put his video copy on. After the turkey and the Queen. Frank and Sheila and Beth and Laura, who didn’t understand why it was funny but she laughed because the rest of her family were laughing and the sight of her grandfather laughing was a thing that she found particularly amusing.
Not long after Frank had first met Jimmy, he’d come down to Fullwind for Christmas with Beth and Laura. Jimmy had brought a turkey too large for the oven and had cooked the best Christmas dinner that Frank had ever eaten. He brought his own homemade cranberry sauce with him and he mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables. For dessert
Jimmy made a plum pudding which he set alight and ceremoniously carried into the living room. After dinner they’d all watched The Two Ronnies.
The following year Sheila’s Alzheimer’s was noticeably advanced and Beth was worried that Laura would find her grandmother’s confusion, unpredictability and outbursts of anger too upsetting, and so they didn’t drive down to the flat and Frank watched The Two Ronnies on his own with Sheila once more. He hoped that the familiarity of the jokes and the sketches would be powerful enough to coax Sheila’s lost sense of humour out of hiding but they’d both watched the show in silence, Frank not laughing either as a show of solidarity to his wife.
Twenty million other people had watched The Two Ronnies with Frank and Sheila when it was first broadcast in the late 1970s. He doubted the audience was anywhere near that figure now. Perhaps the families that he’d seen arriving in their cars on Sea Lane earlier would all be sitting down together in front of the television to watch it. Or maybe it was just him and his poker-faced cat, who hadn’t even noticed the programme was on until he’d been woken by the sound of Frank’s laughter and had looked over at the television and then up at the old man in the green paper crown laughing hysterically in the armchair next to him:
Yes Frank, I get it, very clever, four candles.
6
In the twilight days between Christmas and New Year, a period of time that Beth called the holiday taint, Frank started packing. First, he bought a new suitcase from the charity shop. The case was the largest part of a three-piece matching luggage set – large suitcase, a smaller suitcase and an overnight bag – all covered in fabric that had a pattern like the stair carpet of a country hotel. Frank only really wanted the large suitcase but he told the woman who served him in the charity shop that he didn’t like to break up a family.
Frank Derrick's Holiday of a Lifetime Page 4