Christmas Fireside Stories

by Diane Allen, Rita Bradshaw, Margaret Dickinson, Annie Murray, Pam Weaver

  ‘Where are you going?’

  It was a whisper behind me as I unlatched the door. She was on her feet, reaching for her cloak. Shadows made hollow patches on her face and neck.

  ‘For wood,’ I replied. My heart was a piston in my chest. We were, in essence, alone, for the others were absent in sleep.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ she said. There was a hesitation in her voice, but who was I to discourage her?

  ‘The snow’s let up,’ I said as we stepped out: I closing the door, she covering her hair with her hood. A few flakes were still dropping, like the last scraps from a wastepaper basket. I had doused the station lights hours ago, but even in the darkness, all about us glowed white. Whatever revels had taken place in the waiting room had by now died out.

  All was quiet, even our footsteps as she limped beside me. She told me she had contracted tuberculosis in her hip as a child. Something of her shape, of the awkward, lurching way she walked, seemed somehow familiar and right to me, as if I had known her before, or had always been waiting to know her. I saw no deficit in her walk, only grace, and I said so. She was silent after, and I wondered if I had spoken wrongly.

  ‘Will they get us out tomorrow?’ she said, in her soft country accent, adding, ‘or p’raps it’s today now?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said, enjoying my knowledge. We walked around to the back to our wood store. ‘They’ll send up an engine with a snowplough to clear the line from ———. You’ll be on your way soon. But still—’ in my nerves I chattered on – ‘if you hadn’t been waylaid here, you’d never have seen the captain, and that snake – or its container, at least.’

  Ellen Gibson, to my astonishment, gave a full-throated laugh. ‘You don’t really believe there’s a snake in there, do you?’

  I gaped at her. ‘Yes! Well . . . Yes! Why else would he say . . . ? And the mouse . . . !’

  Her face, all smiles, was a wonder to me. Her dark eyes showed clear in that pale face framed by her hood, and a dimple appeared as a cheery dot to the left of her mouth.

  ‘Oh, Thomas,’ she said, merry now. ‘You don’t want to believe everything people tell you! I’d be willing to bet there’s just a pile of old rugs in there. That fellow’s touched in the upper storey, if you ask me. Gracious me – how old are you? You’re innocent as a lamb!’

  But it was spoken kindly. I swallowed, with a sudden longing to be less innocent. ‘I’m twenty-seven,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I’m nineteen, but I seem to have seen more of the world than you.’ She was standing close to me, by the wood store. I tried to repossess myself, reaching for my sack to fill with branches.

  ‘You must see a good deal more of life, living in London,’ I said.

  ‘I hate London. And I hate her, Mrs Merchant.’ Her voice had lowered suddenly, to a quiet intensity. ‘I’m glad we’re stuck here. We don’t have to go back to London, to her pompous husband she hardly sees and her sons who scarcely know who she is. Miss Ann their nanny’s a mother to them, not her.’

  I had straightened up and was listening. It was dark and cold, but never had I felt warmer or more entranced. I drank in the sight of her and loved the country curves of her speech, not unlike mine.

  ‘D’you know, Thomas,’ this wonder of a person continued, ‘I grew up in the orphanage – in Middlesex. Before I went into service I thought families were all a magical thing and that rich people knew how to live. But they don’t, not this lot, anyway. They don’t know the first thing about . . . About being alive.’

  She half saw my face in the dark, which must have held an astonished expression. ‘I shouldn’t be talking like this, I know – but I’ve no one, ever, to say anything to.’

  I was rooted to the spot, arms full of wood. And by the Lord, had they not been I can’t say what I might have done. I knew not what to reply. I was so hopeless, like a rusty machine that has made no progress in years. All I could think of was, ‘Oh – that doesn’t sound very nice.’

  Ellen looked at me from inside the hood. A flake of snow fell on her nose and she wiped it off.

  ‘You’re a funny one,’ she observed.

  ‘I s’pose I am,’ I admitted. ‘I’ve been shut away down here a long while.’

  ‘That’s not a bad thing,’ she said. ‘Life’s no better in the city.’

  I stood staring foolishly at her. I could have stood there the rest of the night, just with her in my view. She had blocked out everything else.

  ‘You’d better put that firewood down,’ she said. As we turned, she added, ‘I like talking to you.’ And my heart swelled until I thought it would burst. I did put the firewood down, threw it down right beside me, and I took Ellen Gibson in my arms. Her chest met mine, her eyes sweet and eager, just as were her tender lips. We stood out in the glow of the snow and under the moon. For a long time we were heedless of the cold, wrapped in each other, in the wonder of our first kisses. I had never known life could be so thrilling and yet so gentle, or that joy could trumpet so loud within me while the night was yet so silent and still.

  When we did creep inside, all was quiet, except for a few snores. As I went to rekindle the fire I eyed the trunk, wondering how I had so readily believed there was a giant snake inside when I had so little proof. And how, despite my doubting name, I had so readily believed so many things I had been told by people of supposed authority.

  Christmas Eve dawned glittering bright. Sunshine across the woods and white fields raised everyone to jubilation. The men emerged from the waiting room, all hearty except for the reverend, Cecil Walmsley, whose face looked decidedly green against the surrounding white. The barrel was rolled out, empty of its contents.

  My mother cut bread for our breakfast, though I could scarcely eat. We men took turns with shovels to clear the tracks. I worked like a man in a fever after a night of no sleep and with my body in a new, splendid state of exaltation. Oh, the power and joy of woman! The miracle of love! My mind was taken up completely by the person of Ellen Gibson, the miraculous feel and scent of her, by the swell of her bosom which only a short time ago had been pressed to my thundering chest.

  ‘You’re nice, you are, Thomas Lee,’ were the simple words she said after our lips parted and she, enclosed by my arms, looked up at me. But those words were enough to set the whole course of my life. Oh, I had become a man, in every wish and need. I experienced the power of a woman’s closeness, the gift of Christmas a thousandfold. I was baptized in love – in life!

  I could not think of the departure, the moment when the engine would get up steam and pull the company away, those remaining miles to ———, then another, onward, to the great city of London, so distant and unknown to me. Such was my state that I was, like my station, snowed into an eternal present where there was no forward movement, yet all was possible. I was in love. I was now – that was all.

  Mother supplied us with hot tea to fuel our labours. By eleven we menfolk, shovelling on the track, saw a plume of smoke rise from beyond the trees. The sound of the train grew and a cry rose. We stood on the platform and cheered – even the sour Mrs Merchant – as the engine appeared, a metal wedge plough on the front, forcing the snow aside. Ellen stood quiet, and I could not at that moment know her thoughts.

  ‘The Lord be praised!’ cheered Cecil Walmsley groggily.

  ‘London by tonight!’ bawled Captain Savage. ‘My precious creature shall be delivered. I must carry her aboard!’

  My eyes met Ellen’s. Did we believe? I knew I should never ask.

  ‘Come along, girl,’ Venetia Merchant commanded. ‘Fetch our things! We shall be going.’

  At midday, the engine began to move. Percy, Bob and Ernie fell to their tasks. Percy winked at me from the footplate. ‘Had a good night, then, have you, lad?’ To my deep annoyance my face flamed with blushes.

  The train puffed and shrieked, then creaked into movement. They were going – would be gone! My heart leapt and thudded. The train containing these strangely met companions was leaving; one of them, a Mrs
Venetia Merchant, with a face like a study in rage itself at the last-minute defection of her maid.

  We waved the train goodbye. Ellen’s hand was clasped in mine, warm and strong, for she is a powerful, loving woman, who over the years birthed our five children with an air of being born to it. She has been a helpmeet at all times, to myself and my mother. There would be talk of reading the banns, of marriage and all the practicalities of a shared life to come. But at this moment, as the train faded to a dark smudge between the banks of snow, I pulled her to me, an arm around her waist. My Ellen. My love.

  A Railway Christmas

  ANNIE MURRAY

  One of my favourite Christmas memories is of a very different sort of Christmas that was spent far away from home . . .

  We were called ‘Bogiewallahs’ – travellers in a converted Indian railway carriage or ‘Bogie’.

  This Bogie was organized by Butterfields Railway Tours, run by a dauntless Yorkshireman called Ashley Butterfield. Over the Christmas of 1979, Ashley was to have time off. I worked as an assistant to a deputy leader for a five-week tour, living in ‘the Bogie’, as it was fondly known. By arrangement with Indian Railways the Bogie was coupled to trains following a route round India and had room for about thirty passengers.

  The only thing that distinguished it from all the other umber-coloured railway carriages was a small poster on the side. One common feature of life lived on the railway was going along to the loos and returning to find that the engines in the yard – many still steam in those days – had been shunting (again). You had to search, dodging across the shunting-yard tracks, to find out where the Bogie had got to this time!

  Every aspect of life was an adventure. We cooked in a tiny kitchen in the middle of the carriage, on four fire buckets set into a clay surround on the floor. As well as the business of lighting the coals in the buckets (sometimes hanging out of the door of a moving train to get a breeze to them), the huge cooking pans had no handles but were lifted by a lip at the edge. Shifting these about on a moving train was dangerous, to say the least – but is what cooks have been doing on Indian trains for years, just as all food was prepared while squatting on the floor.

  We spent Christmas Day in Cochin in Kerala. Cochin is a port, a place of spice warehouses, famous for its beautiful fishing nets hanging like graceful moths from bamboos all along the sea-front. Lunchtime was for rest, plenty of chat and jokes and curry. We celebrated with the passengers at a restaurant in the town. But on Christmas night we were scheduled to move on north, travelling overnight.

  It was a very hot evening and all of us were warmed inwardly by a good spicy meal. The food schedule for the tour had to be followed, however: supper was to be pea and ham soup. Obediently we filled the fire buckets from the coal bunker in the kitchen and set to on the soup. As we cooked, the train eased into motion and we were soon thrumming along through the suburbs. What with the heat outside and the fires inside, the cutlery in the kitchen ‘was soon too hot to touch! Sweed poured off us. The passengers peeped in sympathetically.

  ‘We don’t really need soup,’ they said. ‘We had such a good lunch.’

  ‘Too late!’ we said with moist cheeriness.

  At last the unnecessary meal was over and done with, and with the carriage doors open, most of us relaxed, chatting, on the floor. We breathed in the soft night air as our engine pulled us onwards into Boxing Day and to a new destination. No presents, no tree or streamers – but it was a wonderful Christmas.

  You’ll Never Know Just

  How Much I Love You

  Pam Weaver

  Anita . . . Anita . . . he couldn’t stop saying her name. It wasn’t on his lips, he didn’t dare say it out loud, but it was in his head all the time. Anita. She was like a film star. She was better than a film star, better than Betty Grable, lovelier than Carole Lombard, and she had prettier hair than Veronica Lake.

  With a sigh, John glanced up at the clock. Three forty-six. It seemed like an age since he’d last looked, but the hands stubbornly refused to move. Their last customer had come in at around two o’clock and that was only to bring in a card for his employer, Mrs Stephens. It was obvious that no one else was going to come into the post office now and even if they did, since it was Christmas Eve, they hadn’t got a hope of getting a card or a letter delivered by the next day. In fact, even though there was a war on, there would be no post for the next two days.

  He was bored and frustrated but Mrs Stephens hadn’t let him remain idle. He’d cleaned the windows and updated the meagre displays. He’d replaced the outdated forms with new government issues. He’d tidied the stationery cupboard and filled up the coal scuttle to keep the pot-bellied stove going. The weather outside was deteriorating all the time. There was no sign of snow but the wind had got up and it was raining. He wished he could leave before it got any worse, but as Mrs Stephens reminded him, the post office hours were 9.00 to 5.30 and he was honour-bound to stay. ‘As our only telegram boy,’ she’d said firmly, ‘you have a responsibility, dear.’

  The post office at Goring-by-Sea was an imposing building with a 1930s mock-Georgian front, and the entrance was up a series of steps. The telephone exchange was next door and the sorting office was at the back. They’d closed at noon, lucky devils. John sighed again. They must be the only place in Worthing still open for business, he thought bitterly.

  At seventeen, he’d been lucky to get this job with the GPO. ‘A job for life,’ his mother had told him, but John wasn’t so sure he wanted that. It was 1943 and the war was still going strong, even though they’d said it would all be over by that first Christmas. The whole country was war-weary. As soon as he was old enough, John planned to join up and finish the job his father had started. He was destined for better things than being a general dogsbody and telegram boy for the GPO. He would send old Hitler and his lot packing, and when he came back home a hero he would marry Anita Barton.

  Uncle Jack said that he was too young to know about such things as love and marriage, but whenever he thought of Anita he had a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach, and every time he saw her his heart would race. She would smile at him, but until he had proved himself he was afraid to tell her how he felt. Then his sister, Margie, had told him Anita and her best friend were both stepping out with some Canadians. That drove him to despair. What chance did he have against some chap with plenty of money and a pretty uniform?

  ‘You look miles away,’ said Mrs Stephens, bringing him back to the here and now. ‘Are you doing anything special for Christmas?’

  ‘Not really,’ said John, ‘just me, Mum and my sister.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Mrs Stephens, glancing up. She had been checking the stamps in the big book. ‘Let’s have a cup of tea, shall we?’

  A minute later he heard her in the kitchen pouring water into the tin kettle.

  As Mrs Stephens brought in two cups of tea and put them on the counter, the telegraph machine burst into life. Putting her glasses back on, Mrs Stephens sat at the desk as the tape came through.

  John picked up his cup and sipped the dark, scalding liquid. Judging by the way the rain was coming down, he was in for a wet ride on his bicycle to deliver the message. He hoped it wasn’t too far.

  Mrs Stephens busied herself sticking the taped message onto the buff-coloured form. ‘You’d better get ready, John,’ she said dully. ‘This has to go straight away.’

  He didn’t need her to tell him what sort of message it was. Her expression told him it wasn’t good news. What a bugger . . . giving someone bad news on Christmas Eve. He pulled on his coat quickly, muffling his mouth with his scarf. The wind whistled around the corner of the building. He’d have a job keeping his cap on in this weather.

  ‘Go carefully,’ said Mrs Stephens, seeing him to the door. ‘I’ll pop in to your mother on the way home and tell her where you are. When you’ve delivered it, go straight home. Have a nice Christmas, dear.’

  ‘You too, Mrs Stephens,’he said. ‘See you on W
ednesday.’

  She handed him the telegram.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Keeper’s Cottage in Titnore Lane,’ she said. ‘It’s for Mrs Barton.’

  John’s heart sank. That was Anita’s place. Something dreadful must have happened to her brother.

  Anita was putting the finishing touches to the Christmas cake while her mother told her little brother and sister a bedtime story upstairs. This was her first attempt to do the cake on her own, and she was proud of her achievement. Everyone was determined to have a better Christmas than last year, although it was still impossible to make the festivities as exciting as they had been before her father’s death from TB in 1939. And that hadn’t been the end of their troubles. Her brother Paul was called up as soon as the war started, and shortly after they’d waved him goodbye, he was posted missing in action. Anita’s mother had aged overnight.

  Balancing a tired-looking and chipped Father Christmas in the middle of the cake, she pushed a tendril of russet-coloured hair away from her eyes and stepped back to admire her handiwork. The cake was made with reconstituted eggs, and covered with mock marzipan. The recipe had said sixteen ounces of dried fruit but she had only managed to get hold of three-quarters of a pound. Luckily the twins were too young to remember the cakes they’d baked before the war, so she was sure they’d love it.

  Putting the cake in the pantry, Anita wiped the dropdown pastry board on the kitchen cupboard and closed it up. She wanted to be helpful, but there was another reason for her activity. She was missing Freda dreadfully and this would be her first Christmas without her. She and her best friend had been inseparable. They’d sat next to each other at school, and enjoyed going to the pictures, swimming off the jetty at Goring and biking out in the country. They were both fifteen when the war came, and when they left school they both became typists. Anita went to work for the police while Freda took a temporary job in Ferring. Both girls planned to join the WAAFs as soon as they were old enough. They’d met up regularly at dances, but then Freda began to date someone. As a result, they’d seen less and less of each other and it was some time before Anita found out what had happened to Freda. She shook away the memory and decided to put out the Christmas fare.