Three Things You Need to Know About Rockets

by Jessica Fox

  As if my thoughts were amplified by the old medieval stone walls, the host of the evening, a widow in her late sixties, silver-haired in a long black dress, came slinking through the crowd. She smiled when she saw Euan returning with drinks, and intercepted him accordingly.

  “Euan, dear, I’ve been meaning to talk to you all night.” She pushed past a cluster of Euan’s friends, ignoring them completely, and stood on tiptoes, kissing Euan on both cheeks.

  Euan smiled politely. “Fiona, I’d like you to meet Jessica, my girlfriend.” Euan looked at me and I smiled.

  Fiona’s eyes flickered over me for a second. “You must come and have a look at my library one of these days,” she continued, turning her attention back to Euan. “I’ve been doing some winter cleaning of my late husband’s books and it could all be junk, but I’ll leave it to you to figure out what’s what.” Fiona put her arm through Euan’s and laughed as if she had made a joke.

  “I’d be glad to,” Euan said as he unhooked his arm to grab another glass of wine passing by on a silver tray.

  I looked at Fiona, and said, “Thank you so much for inviting us.”

  Fiona hadn’t yet made eye contact with me and I could practically feel icicles forming in the air between us. The reason for her instant dislike for me wasn’t obvious, however, and it made me more curious than offended.

  She smiled coldly.

  “I’ve never been in such a beautiful home before,” I continued with complete honesty, having decided to either melt her disdain for me with sincerity or kill her with American enthusiasm. “Actually, the night is full of firsts because I’ve never been Highland dancing either.”

  Fiona’s smile quickly turned to a scowl but I had succeeded in getting her attention. She hooked me with her gaze. “Where are you from exactly?”

  “Originally? Boston.”

  “Oh Boston, lovely city.” Her smile forced its way back. “Where did you go to school?”

  “The local high school in my town. My mother was the art teacher there.” Fiona waited for more. It then occurred to me that her dislike hadn’t stemmed from the fact that I was Euan’s girlfriend, rather that I was an American from an as yet unknown background. In other words, she couldn’t tell if I was posh enough for her social empathy. “Christmas sounds exciting. Will you celebrate here, Fiona?”

  “What do you mean, ‘sounds exciting’?”

  When I told her I had little experience with Christmas, she said nothing, but slowly stepped back as if to distance herself from whatever foreign disease I might carry.

  Before I could continue, she waltzed away to speak to other guests and I turned to Euan.

  “I don’t think she liked me.”

  Euan shook his head. “You’re too sensitive, Jessy. Of course she liked you.”

  It was a relief when it was announced that dinner was ready. Apart from Fiona, who had values as ancient as the furniture that surrounded us, everyone was lovely, generous and very accepting. I especially loved seeing two couples, Euan’s friends, whom I had met during the festival. After dinner they were determined to teach me Highland dancing, dragging me onto the floor before anyone was sufficiently drunk, which was why I was now sitting on one of the most expensive chairs I had seen outside of a museum, rubbing my aching feet.

  The music started up again. The ballroom, though grand, was so filled with people that there were many half-drunk collisions. The dancers switched formations, from rows of six to circles of eight people holding hands.

  Though not as quick-witted, or light on my toes as one of my period-drama heroines, the child in me, who had spent every Wednesday night enraptured with the BBC, started to glow in flushed delight. Perhaps not everything was as it should be; I had a dithering Darcy and a chilly echo from Fiona’s frosty reception, but I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt – I was in her debt after all for including me in this experience. Social hiccups aside, I had actually been dancing in a castle.

  Across the room, I could see Euan dancing next to Fiona. As they held hands, the circle changed directions, then collapsed in on itself, and expanded again, like a living, breathing organism. Euan had a near miss with the circle behind him, and he caught my gaze, smiling. Next to him, in the corner of the room danced Euan’s friends, who when they saw me sitting, started yelling at me to join. I could hear their shouts over the music and my heart swelled. Like the brass bell, which rang so sweetly in front of the Bookshop, a little ring of recognition sounded within me. Despite a day full of sadists and ice queens, there was an abundance of kindred spirits in Galloway, and I was now lucky enough to call them friends.

  Fiona’s dog, a friendly chocolate Labrador wearing a Highland hat, secured by elastic around his chin, lazily wandered over to me. He looked as dazed as I felt. Perhaps he was also overwhelmed by the swarm of people, the increasing heat of the ballroom and the constant music. Looking at me, he opened his purple jaw and yawned. I smiled. If Fiona was not an attentive host, her dog seemed to be. His lean front legs stretched out in front of him, and he arched his back into a perfect downward dog.

  Chapter 33

  “The country here is very special and very picturesque, everything speaks, as it were, and is full of character… one sees blackthorn hedges around the gardens, fields and meadows here. Lately, with the snow, the effect is that of the black lettering on white paper, like pages of the Gospel.” – Vincent van Gogh, DEAR THEO: Correspondence section, gallery, first bookshelf on the left.

  Snow dusted the rooftops of Wigtown, and through the dark window I could see the frosty marsh extending to a silvery, white-capped sea. The morning light had hardly reached the bedroom and I stood, my teeth chattering, looking at the familiar grey sky. The days, as we reached late December, had become unbearably cold. The Bookshop’s thick stone walls acted like a giant refrigerator, and I was surprised to find it was often colder inside than it was outside.

  It had been especially hard to get out of bed this morning. The thick duvet, electric blanket and Euan kept me toasty warm until the alarm rang. On waking, I noticed my face was stiff from cold and it was hard to yawn. My breath puffed out before me and I watched it like a warning of what I would soon be contending with outside the covers. It wasn’t that the cold was worse in Wigtown than in New England, which boasted harsher weather and conditions. However, I had been used to 24-hour heating in Boston, blasting through the snowy winter, keeping the house roasting and the cold outside.

  As usual, Euan got out of bed without complaint or hesitation; years of boarding school had made him hardy, and he met the painful exit into the cold morning like he did most other unpleasant tasks: he just did it. I’d clutch his arm, hoping he’d be uncharacteristically lazy and lie back down in bed. The struggle would only last a minute, with him leaning over me, kissing me on the forehead and laughing, telling me that he had to open the shop.

  With Euan gone, I would flash out of bed, hopping from one bare foot to another on the frozen floor, and throw on whatever I could find. It didn’t matter how I dressed, for it would soon be a base layer on top of which would be piled jumpers and jackets.

  I had tried, for a while, to stay fabulous and wear dresses with tights, or more form-fitting clothes, but there was nothing sexy about being cold. After sporting blue lips for a couple of days, I reluctantly retired my Los Angeles shirts and dresses into a box and tucked them away under the bed. I could almost feel Rose’s look of disapproval, so I had tried long skirts to still feel feminine and keep the chill at bay. Nothing worked except for wearing three pairs of trousers at a time, layered with two shirts and a massive jumper and my heavy hiking boots with thick socks. My only fashion accessory was my white ghostly breath, which followed me wherever I went.

  Wigtown was more beautiful than ever, though, the hills and fields, still surprisingly green, often covered in a delicate blue frost. The orange winter light cast long shadows as the sun stayed low, no matter the time of day, on the horizon. Though it got dark increasingly e
arly, when the sun was out, hanging low in the sky, it was constantly magic hour; the time of day that filmmakers lived for, where each view, whether it was the sea, mountains, the town or farmland, was a picture-perfect, frozen postcard.

  There was a romance about this time of year, which kept the depressing aspects of it at bay. The colder weather meant Euan was diligent about lighting the fire in the snug, a small carpeted sitting room at the back of the house where I had set up a little desk. Every morning he would silently carry a basket full of logs up the spiral staircase and I would watch as he knelt by the stove, carefully sliding in one log at a time until there was a roaring fire. He was my knight in shining armour brandishing baskets of wood, taking it upon himself, like a sacred duty, to keep me warm.

  The winter also afforded sledging. Euan and I would go out at night, under a full moon, to the golf course down the road and slide down the hill beneath the shadowy trees, drinking in the sharp, clear cold air. Winter was the season of hot Winter Pimms, warm stews, evenings curled up on the sofa in front of the fire, a quiet bookshop, time to write and dangerously delicious mince pies – with brandy butter, of course. Though the cold and I were at odds, Euan and I had developed a blissfully happy rhythm together.

  Winter also brought Christmas. I faced the prospect with intense pleasure and a healthy dose of Jewish guilt. Celebrating Christmas in my own home was an exciting new adventure. No matter how much I tried to justify that Christmas was a pagan tradition, I was keenly conscious that I was throwing away generations of Jewish tradition and joining in for what was essentially Jesus’s birthday party.

  I knew a lot about Christmas. I knew some of the carols from school. I knew about the presents, candy canes and Santa, and I knew that Jesus was actually meant to have been born in the spring, but during medieval times, priests had moved the holiday to coincide with the pagan winter solstice. Many cultures, including my own, had a festival of light at the darkest time of year. The common ritual seemed to be a glorified distraction from the lack of vitamin D, the cold and dwindling food resources, and it worked. As the days were getting shorter, instead of feeling depressed, there was an excitement and buzz in the air for the impending celebrations and I was swept away by it.

  Deirdre had kindly dropped off Christmas decorations, which I carefully put up around the shop. To add to the growing collection, Euan and I had foraged for holly and other foliage to create wreathes during one of our free Sunday afternoons. It had been a joy to my starved winter eyes to see the greenery indoors. The Bookshop looked like a cosy Christmas wonderland.

  “Euan,” I said as I shuffled into the front of the Bookshop, wrapped in a blanket and sporting hair that hadn’t been washed in three days. “Aren’t you excited? Christmas is only two weeks away.”

  Euan shook his head like Eeyore. “Everyone gets to enjoy Christmas, while I still have to work.”

  “It’s not all bad, you know?” I replied. As I was throwing myself into the Christmas spirit with gusto, Euan was growing increasingly despondent and grumpy. “At least the shop is busy.” A handful of customers, as if on cue, entered the shop. The familiar sound of the bell jingled with what to me seemed like holiday cheer. Christmas was a rare, much-needed retail window in an otherwise slow, quiet winter in Wigtown.

  “You should have gone to Ireland to celebrate with my evil cousin. Eve would have loved having you there.” Euan glared at one of the customers who dropped a tissue onto the ground and left it there. “She wrote to me saying something about a Catholic getting extra God points for getting a Jew to go to mass and eat bacon at Christmas.”

  I laughed. “Euan, seriously. It’s my first Scottish Christmas. You could make some effort.”

  Euan shrugged and sipped on his tea. “Like what?”

  “Maybe you could do a holiday window?”

  “I never do a holiday window.” Euan turned back to his computer. It was his not-so-subtle hint that he wanted to be left alone.

  That night, Euan cleared out the larger window display, and hung a single “humbug” sweetie from the ceiling.

  *

  Euan was asked to play Wigtown’s Santa at the annual Christmas Fayre and, when he politely declined, I volunteered in his stead. Surprised that they agreed, I practised continually and Euan’s reaction filled me with dread. He would double over in tears of laughter as I rehearsed cloaking my high voice in low “ho ho hos”. The rehearsing did little to prepare me as I was still unsure of what Santa’s voice sounded like or what he said. My hope was that the children’s unshakable belief in Santa would blind them to the fact that I was Wigtown’s first Jewish, American, cross-dressing Father Christmas.

  I arrived five minutes early for my post, equipped with a massive duvet. The Santa on the shift before mine, a middle-aged gentleman with a generous tummy, sauntered out of the coat closet, which apparently doubled as the Christmas changing-room.

  “There are a lot of them out there,” he said, looking exhausted, and handed me the now sweat-drenched, red-and-white Santa suit.

  Joy, a tall, silver-haired and appropriately named volunteer, helped me into my costume. The duvet worked a treat, providing me with a rotund, if lumpy, belly, which a black belt held in place. My feet easily slipped into the large Santa boots but I shivered when the damp, sweat-soaked hat was placed on my head. The beard was the tricky part, my head’s circumference being smaller than the lineage of Santas before me. Joy, who was talented with safety pins, secured it to my hat in such a way that, if I held my chin low, the beard would stay in place.

  “You look great,” she said, patting me on the shoulder.

  Her calming presence allowed my confidence to grow, but I squirmed, feeling the wet hair around my mouth, imagining all the germs crawling in the hat and dripping off the hairy beard. Just don’t breathe, I reassured myself, and you’ll be fine.

  Sitting in the winter throne, surrounded by my elves, candy canes and presents, I felt like I imagine Santa would have felt: important and itchy. After countless children on my lap, I was growing uncomfortably warm, and the duvet, plus the Santa suit, which I now felt certain hadn’t been washed in generations of use, were scratching my skin.

  There were two big baskets of presents next to me, one filled with boys’ toys and one for girls. Blinded by my extra-large hat and beard, I couldn’t see which was which. One boy, on being given a girl’s gift, had walked away crying. When I ran after him, dragging my lopsided belly with me and clutching a gift from the other basket, he cried harder.

  The children of Wigtown stared at me; some in horror, some with adoring faces that would have made the iciest of hearts melt and some with cool indifference. One nine-year-old, who had found out the whole thing was a hoax but knew he’d get presents anyway, sat po-faced as I did my best with belly laughs and baritone “have you been a good girl/boy this year”, and photo-smiles through my sweaty whiskers. Joy, ever present, would quickly adjust the plastic albino beard as soon as she saw it going awry.

  The only time I was close to being outed was when one clever six-year-old girl asked her mother in a piercing voice the whole room could hear, “Why does Santa have woman hands?”

  Joy leaned down and whispered, “Next year, we’ll have to get you gloves.”

  All in all, no one seemed bothered by the American accent, the ever-roaming beard or my small head. My Santa shift passed quickly and I soon found myself taking off the soaked costume and handing it back to Joy. I emerged from the coat closet, having shed half my weight, and felt not only ten degrees cooler, but renewed.

  The elderly man for the next Santa shift after mine arrived.

  “There’s a lot of them out there,” I said and happily handed the sweat-soaked costume over to him, relieved that it was now all over.

  Perhaps embodying Santa had filled me with delusions of grandeur, or an abundance of festive cheer, but if Euan couldn’t get excited about the holiday, I thought perhaps I could teach him about the spirit of Christmas. From the Christmas Fayre,
I went to the post office and bought three colours of twine, a handful of his favourite chocolate bars and a book on cycling routes around Galloway. I found the nicest bottle of red wine that I could afford at the Co-op, and went home with my bundle of treasure.

  *

  “I have a surprise for you,” I said to Euan just as he closed the shop.

  Euan moaned. “Oh God. Have you cooked?”

  I rolled my eyes and put my hands on my hips. Sometimes I wished I had the witty words to throw back at him. “No, it’s not food, come on – follow me.”

  “God, you’re so bossy.” Euan reluctantly followed me up the stairs.

  The sitting-room door was closed, with a piece of paper taped to it which read “Christmas Treasure Hunt”.

  Euan sighed and then opened the door to see his period sitting room transformed into a maze of colour. I had hidden each gift, and to it attached a long piece of coloured string, which I had wound like an intricate web around the room.

  “Jesus!” Euan looked horrified. “What the hell have you done to my sitting room, Fox?”

  This was not the reaction I was going for. I stepped into the room and tried to demonstrate. “See, you follow the colour, until it leads you to a prize. I thought it might be silly fun – you know, for Christmas.”

  Euan tried to smile and I watched as he carefully followed the blue string around chairs, window shutters and door handles. His back was so stiff that he struggled to lift his legs even five inches off the ground over the maze. Poor Euan threw himself into it with as much heart as I had put in to playing my role as Santa. Better than the Christmas spirit, Euan was showing his love for me by enduring quite considerable amounts of pain as he traversed my coloured web, clambering around his priceless furniture and antiques.