‘Did you dress the fairy?’ I called through to Mama who was doing something with stuffing in the kitchen.
‘Partly,’ she replied, and I knew why only partly, because Jacqueline had done the rest. The almost invisible stitches on the wings, the sequinned pattern had been done by my mother’s hand. I stroked the fairy with my finger, and blew the dust from her hair. She had a serene smile upon her face, and her eyes with their painted spot of blue gazed mysteriously past me into the distance. I carefully replaced her in the box to await her moment.
‘I think I’ll go for a walk,’ I said, going into the kitchen.
‘Get me some bacon would you? Streaky,’ Mama said, nodding towards her purse on the table. ‘And get yourself a bottle of pop if you’d like some.’
I took some money from the purse and then went back and looked at the decorations. I was thinking of Johnny alone in the church. I picked up a few of the lesser baubles, they would never be missed, and I pulled a handful of Lametta from its box and stuffed it all in my satchel. I took a copy of my poem and folded it inside a Christmas card.
‘See you later,’ I called.
‘Don’t be too long, Ja … Jennifer,’ Mama called. ‘We’ve still got to ice the cake, remember.’ I went out, pulling a face, imaging Mama flinching in the kitchen at the old slip.
I walked past the shops, gazing into the windows. They were almost all decorated: lights winked, snowmen and Father Christmas grinned. It was a grey, undistinguished day with not a hint of snow. It wasn’t even cold. I crossed the main road and went towards the cemetery the back way, up the narrow path. I more often walked along the road now, which was longer, but in the daylight I still used the pathway. The ground was damp and slippery, and there was a broken cider bottle on the ground, and piles of rubbish. A cat licked a discarded chop bone. I looked out for the little white cat. I had not seen it since the first time when it had led me to the playground. I feared it might be dead, it had looked so thin and neglected.
When I reached the cemetery, I broke a branch off the yew tree and decorated it with the baubles and Lametta. It looked pretty, but out of place amongst the damp gravestones. I knocked on Johnny’s door. There was no reply immediately, but after I’d knocked again, I heard his voice and I opened the door and went in holding the decorated branch before me. As usual, I could not see him.
‘I’ve brought you a present,’ I said.
There was quiet for a moment, and then a woman’s voice said, ‘Who the hell?’
‘It’s perfectly all right. Hello, Jacqueline,’ Johnny said as he stood up. His hair was dishevelled and his face was flushed. ‘It’s my young friend,’ he explained to the woman beside him, who was gradually becoming distinguishable from the shadows.
‘Jacqueline meet Mary, Mary, Jacqueline,’ he said, as if he were at a dinner party. I could not shake hands for she was still crumpled into the shadows and my hands were full of the branch. I felt silly. ‘Mary’s an old friend,’ he said to me.
‘Not so much of the old, if you don’t mind,’ she said.
Johnny came forward and took the branch from me. ‘Happy Christmas,’ I said, foolishly.
‘Benevolence personified,’ he said, and I could not tell whether mockery was intended. The woman stood up. Her hair was dark and short and standing on end. She was slightly taller than Johnny, and she held his arm very firmly.
‘Well, I’d better be going,’ I said. ‘I only wanted to say …’
‘Happy Christmas.’ Johnny smiled, and forced me to look into his eyes.
‘Yes. Well, goodbye.’ I started to go, my face burning with embarrassment.
‘No, no, no,’ he said, ‘you can’t go yet. Stay for a drink, a Christmas toast. She must stay, mustn’t she, Mary.’ I could tell by his voice that he’d had several Christmas toasts already.
Mary, quite plainly, was not so sure, but she shrugged good-naturedly.
‘Look, I’ll put this here.’ He propped the branch against the wall. ‘Doesn’t it look splendid? Pulchritudinous in the extreme.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Don’t worry about him, darling. He’s swallowed the bleeding dictionary,’ Mary said, and then turned to Johnny. ‘Isn’t she a bit young?’
‘For what?’
‘For a drink.’
‘A little drop never harmed anyone.’ Johnny took three glasses that I’d never seen before from his case and poured some whisky into each.
‘You should be flattered,’ Mary said. ‘We’ve been drinking from the bottle until you came along.’
‘Ah well, Jacqueline’s a poet,’ Johnny said.
‘I’m not really …’
‘What’s that got to do …’ objected Mary and I together.
‘Here’s to us all. Season’s greetings,’ said Johnny and lifted his glass. He swallowed his drink all in one go but my throat closed at the hot strength of it. I’d preferred it diluted in a cup of tea. It made me choke and sputter.
‘Give her some water in it, for Jesus’ sake,’ said Mary.
Johnny did as she advised, and they both watched me while I got myself under control. My face was burning hot and I was thankful for the shadows.
‘Mary’s come to give me my Christmas present,’ Johnny said.
‘Oh, what’s that?’ I asked politely.
‘A good screw,’ Johnny said. Mary blurted out a laugh, but I didn’t know what he meant.
‘And a pair of boots,’ Mary said. ‘Show her, Ray.’
‘Not so elegant, but good quality. Mary’s no scrimshanks.’ Johnny did a little dance, lifting them up in turn for me to see. They were the sort of boots that builders wear.
‘They look nice and strong,’ I said. ‘Is Ray another name for you?’
‘Ha!’ Mary said. ‘What did he tell you he called himself?’
‘Johnny,’ I said.
She laughed. ‘Well, that’s original. I’ll give him that. Johnny, for Jesus’ sake!’
‘What’s in a name?’ Johnny objected. ‘The concept of the name …’
‘Oh bugger your concepts,’ Mary said. ‘I wouldn’t give you tuppence for your concepts. All hot air he is,’ she said to me. ‘All hot air and verbal diarrhoea.’ She sat down on the pile of blankets with her legs drawn up so that I could see the blue-white glimmer of the inside of her thighs. ‘Sit down.’ I sat obediently on the box. ‘How did you come to know Raymond … Johnny.’ She grinned and ran her hand through her hair. She had a mischievous face, a lot younger than Johnny’s.
‘I heard him whistling,’ I said, ‘I looked in …’
‘Hmmm. Fancy a rum truffle?’ She rummaged under the blankets and brought out a paper bag and took from it a sweet the size of a golf ball covered in chocolate vermicelli. I bit into it and the vermicelli pattered to the ground.
‘Well just you watch out for him,’ Mary said, as if he wasn’t there. ‘A nice girl like you. How old are you?’
‘Thirteen,’ I said, and she sighed.
Johnny took a swig from the bottle and grinned at me. ‘You might as well use your glass now you’ve dirtied it,’ Mary said. She leant towards me. ‘The places I’ve been, the places I’ve had to go to catch up with him,’ she complained.
‘How do you find him?’
‘He sends a card now and then … thinks I’ll drop everything and come running.’
‘Which you do,’ Johnny said, and staggered.
‘Sit down, for Jesus’ sake,’ Marry said. ‘Which I do, sometimes. When I’m not otherwise engaged.’
‘Are you married?’ I asked. ‘To each other, I mean.’ The question sounded impertinent even to me.
‘Married!’ Mary hooted. ‘Marry this old sod?’
‘She’d do it in an instant if I asked her,’ Johnny said.
‘Not if you went down on your bended knees,’ Mary said.
Johnny knelt unsteadily before her. ‘I hereby solemnly request your hand in the holy estate of matrimony,’ he said. ‘Or the estate of holy matrimony.’<
br />
Mary pushed him over with her toe. ‘Sod off,’ she said, and though she smiled, she looked upset.
‘Are you staying here for Christmas?’ I asked Mary, to change the subject.
‘No fear. I’m just passing. I’m staying with family, for a proper Christmas. I’m taking Raymond with me for a day or two,’ she said.
I looked at Johnny, surprised, but he just sat up and shrugged as if it was out of his hands.
‘Has he told you what he’s up to here?’ Mary said. She gestured at the wings.
‘Flying,’ I said.
‘Flying?’ She laughed. ‘Flying! That’s rich!’
Johnny seemed to wink at me and then he rubbed his face vigorously with his long sharp fingers. He needed a shave. I wished Mary would go away, and that he would shave so that I could watch him, and hear the sudsy scraping, and smell the soap. I wanted to be alone with him so that I could give him my poem. I couldn’t possibly with Mary there. She would laugh in the same way she laughed at Johnny’s grand ideas which were nothing but a joke to her, a folly. She was a woman without imagination, I could see that. I thought I understood Johnny better than her, that she didn’t appreciate him. And Raymond was quite the wrong name for him, it didn’t suit him at all.
‘It might work,’ I said.
‘Ha, he’ll no more fly than I will.’
‘I don’t see how he’s going to get the wings out,’ I admitted. ‘But I’m sure he will.’
‘All will be revealed,’ said Johnny patiently.
It was cold in the church, there wasn’t the cosiness that sometimes surrounded Johnny and me when there was just the two of us. The whisky hadn’t warmed me. I felt blundery and huge, my fingers like bananas. I took my cigarettes out of my pocket and offered Mary one. Johnny tutted.
‘You’re never smoking at your age?’ Mary said, helping herself from the packet. ‘Filthy habit. If you were mine I’d smack your arse.’
‘I’ve only just taken it up,’ I said, ‘but I don’t like it much. I’ll probably be giving up when I’ve finished the packet. Might as well use them up.’
‘Give them here,’ Johnny demanded. I handed him the box. He held it in his hand for a moment and whispered a word of the abracadabra sort, and passed it behind his back, and returned it to me. I looked inside. The cigarettes were gone.
‘But where?’ I said. I couldn’t believe it. There had definitely been two cigarettes inside a moment before, and now there were none. Nothing but tobacco smell and a couple of ginger flecks.
‘Ah ha,’ he said.
‘Conjuring tricks,’ said Mary disparagingly, lighting her own cigarette. She breathed the smoke deep into her lungs and then opened and closed her mouth like a fish, letting the smoke out in rings.
I watched the rings grow pale and loose and finally dissolve as they rose into the darkness. ‘I’d better go,’ I said, standing up. I felt dizzy and huge, towering over them. Neither replied. ‘Happy Christmas, then,’ I said. ‘Will I see you after?’
‘You mind out for him,’ Mary advised. ‘Can’t trust him as far as you can throw him.’
Johnny winked. ‘Compliments of the season,’ he murmured. I left them both on the floor beside the Christmas branch and went outside to find that it had started to rain. The whisky burned inside me and made me clumsy and liable to stumble. Before I left the cemetery I stopped beside the angel. There were greenish bird droppings dribbled over one of its eyes. ‘Happy Christmas,’ I whispered, feeling foolish. There was no glimmer of a reply, just the rain dripping steadily off the stone scallops of the wings. I was glad that the cigarettes had gone, even the taste of Mary’s smoke had got inside my mouth and made me feel wretched, but I did wonder how Johnny had done it, and whether he would make them reappear later as a present for Mary. I put my hand in my bag and felt the envelope with the poem inside still there. I’d have to wait until after Christmas to give it to him, when we were once again alone.
I left the cemetery to walk along the road rather than the slimy pathway in the rain, and I heard the clatter of running feet behind me. Mary caught me up. I waited while she leant against a wall to get her breath back. She pressed one hand into her side. ‘Stitch,’ she gasped. Her hair was wet and there was orange make-up on her face, I could see in the daylight, and a smear of darkness under her eyes. ‘Stay away,’ she said when she’d recovered. ‘I’m telling you, seriously, he’s not one to mess with. I don’t know … I’m not sure or even I wouldn’t be here, but we’ve been through thick and thin together, Ray and I. Years. I’ve never been sure.’
‘Of what?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
She sighed. ‘Nor do I, darling, that’s the trouble. But look, better safe than sorry, eh? I wouldn’t bother only you’re a nice kid.’
‘But what …’
‘I’m off,’ she said. ‘I’m bleeding drowning out here. Remember …’ and she hurried away, head down against the rain, wobbling in her high-heeled shoes, her bare legs spattered with mud.
On the way home, I remembered Mama’s bacon and I stopped at the butchers and joined the queue that stretched right outside under the dripping awning. In the butcher’s window, between the birds and the slabs of steak, was a flock-covered Father Christmas faded to the colour of dried blood. People came out with huge turkeys under their arms, and the dimply white of the turkey skin reminded me of Mary’s thighs, and I thought that she was jealous of me, that’s why she warned me to keep away, and the thought made me grin.
17
For the first time I noticed the female smell of the stocking Mama gave me to put on the end of my bed. It was a cast-off of her own. It lay across my bedspread like a sloughed snake skin. I kept my face turned to the wall when Bob crept in. My mouth was dry and my head pounded. Mama had allowed me a tiny glass of sherry after we’d decorated the tree, when I was not yet thoroughly over the whisky. I heard the rustling creak of the packed stocking as Bob replaced the empty one, and I breathed as smoothly and easily as a sleeping person. He stood still for a moment, watching me, and I even stirred slightly as if in a dream.
When he’d gone and closed my door, I turned and looked at the luminous face of my alarm clock. It was half-past twelve. I reached for the stocking, and in the tiny amount of light that seeped round the edges of my door from the landing, I pulled everything out. There was a chocolate snowman just like the one Susan had won for her poem; a new toothbrush; a flannel and a bar of soap; three pairs of knickers; some chocolate money and a tangerine. They were all, but for the chocolates, things they would have bought me anyway. I prised open a few chocolate coins and ate them, feeling obscurely cheated. And then I pushed everything to the end of my bed, lay down and slept soundly until morning.
After breakfast, Bob, fully clothed and looking uncomfortably festive in a new red tie, went out to telephone for a taxi, in order to collect Auntie May. I helped Mama wash the breakfast things, and then, while she peeled the potatoes and put the turkey in the oven, I went and stood by the Christmas tree. I switched on the lights. Bob had tinkered with them late into the night and now they twinkled obediently, reflecting themselves in the glass baubles and the shimmering Lametta. I put my face close to a large green bauble and saw my tiny contorted face receding from a huge blunt snout. It opened its mouth to me, like some monstrosity rising through water. I stood quickly back.
The tree looked perfect, like a picture on a Christmas card. It was dark green and healthy, bristling with life. Bob had planted it in a red bucket, and then we’d draped it in its finery so that every branch dripped with sparkles. The fairy was tied to the pointed branch at the top. Bob had arranged the lights so that a red one was behind her and made her wings glow a rosy pink. She gazed serenely across the room like a person in her element. I sent a thought to Jacqueline then, wherever she was, celebrating Christmas somewhere in the world with her own finely stitched fairy on the top of her own tree.
Under the tree were the presents that we’d open when Auntie May
arrived. They were all wrapped in the same garish paper. The rest of the room was crammed with paper angels and stars. They crowded the windowsills, jostled with Christmas cards on the mantelpiece and dangled from the ceiling on bits of black cotton. On a low table was Mama’s nativity scene, crumpled donkey and all. It was absurd. It was sweet. It was beautiful in its own way. My own feelings jostled inside me. I could not bear the frailty of all that paper folded with such maddening care, or the fragility of the whole festivity. I wanted to stamp on it and smash it and scorn it – and I wanted to believe in and be a part of it. I wanted to swallow it all in one great gullible gulp.
Bob carried Auntie May into the sitting room and settled her down in his own armchair. Just as I had grown bigger during the year, she had grown smaller, and her feet dangled in the air. She regarded me brightly with her sunken hooded eyes. The dry little nut of her skull was visible through her sparse puff of colourless hair. Her eyebrows were reduced to three or four hairs each, but these were long and stuck out like twisted wires. Round her mouth were whiskers. She had no teeth left in her mouth, which had shrunk to nothing but a little moist bud.
‘Hello, Auntie May. Happy Christmas,’ I said, bending to kiss her cheek. Bob was pulling a face and screwing his finger into the side of his head to Mama, who ignored him.
‘Auntie May …’ Mama sat on the arm of the chair and hugged her with quite genuine love.
Auntie May stared at me. ‘The girl’s changed.’ She squeezed the words out in her rustling distant voice.
‘Thirteen now. A teenager,’ Mama said. She turned her face to May as she spoke so that May could read her lips, for she had grown very deaf.
‘Now. Let the festivities commence,’ Bob said, rubbing his hands. ‘Sherry, Lilian? May? A glass of pop, Jenny?’
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