by Alan Jansen
Pop was put off by Uncle’s haughty statement, a vexed expression on his face. He had been really looking forward to chopping old Gobble’s head off, seeing how poorly he and the turkey got along for multiple reasons, but the offer of a lifetime Christmas turkey supply – and that from the most prestigious shop at Rothwell – made him forget his ‘bloody’ plans.
‘Oh, all right then, all right, if it means so much to you, Cheroot. Can’t see why you want to spare the blighter, though. I suppose he can live here on the farm as long as he wants. He’s pretty old anyway and may kick the bucket soon. I’ll keep him on till then.’ He anxiously added, ‘You better place that order at the Rothwell store as soon as possible. It’s quite close to Christmas, and they may run out.’
‘Good man,’ Uncle responded, completely losing his severe tone and throwing an appreciative look at Pop.
True to Uncle’s word, from that Christmas onwards the best slaughtered turkey from the supermarket at Rothwell was delivered to our doorstep.
Uncle’s insistence that Pop swear on the Bible that he would spare Gobble’s life wasn’t founded on any excess religious overtones but was just a convenient psychological weapon he knew would be effective against Pop. Pop had an almighty fear of the Good Book and always made both Ben and me swear on his much-thumbed Bible whenever we had done something particularly naughty that we would never repeat the offences. He had tried the same tactic on Mom too, but Mom was far too much a free spirit to adhere to such drastic actions. She coldly and firmly declined. Mom was a true liberal, a champion of social rights, well-read, and a very intelligent woman. Although she did attend, and genuinely liked attending, Sunday church services, she wasn’t a true believer like Pop was. It sounds strange even today, but in spite of the enormous cultural and other differences between my parents, Mom really cared for Pop despite his sexual virility having long since flown through the window. Mom’s feelings towards Pop were reciprocated, but my father knew deep within him that Uncle Cheroot was Mom’s true love and had been even in the past.
Pop did swear as he was instructed, and Gobble’s life was spared. That evening after Uncle Cheroot had strolled through the garden and ‘spoken’ yet again to Gobble, the bird gave off a series of loud and shrill throaty turkey calls that lasted nigh on a half hour. What was most striking was that the bird danced all around Pop that whole week whenever he spotted the latter in the garden. It was a sort of superior dance, as if to say in an overwhelming manner, ‘Huh, you old farming goat! You can’t touch me now!’ His mannerisms were not unlike those of a Red Indian dancing around a victim tied to a totem pole.
Pop was incensed at first, but he calmed down gradually, talking philosophically so even we others could hear. ‘You can dance all you like, you damn rascal, but we’ll see who dances last! I’ll dance on your grave, you stupid damn bird. Bloody busybody, that damn blasted Cheroot. Always has to interfere as though he owns the place, that bloody man.’
One night shortly after Christmas Day, I awoke again as I usually do in the middle of my slumber. I looked at my alarm clock on the small table beside my bed, noticing that the time was nearly two in the morning. Through my bedroom window, a full moon was clearly visible in the clear night sky. I continued to look at the well-rounded moon, this time standing very close to the window. The moon was quite large that night, floating majestically in the cloudless sky. As I looked sleepily outside through the large windowpanes, I saw a remarkable and frightening figure standing motionless behind the front gate of the farm, as though wary of entering. Our huge oak tree – a magnificent specimen with an impressive girth – grew just by the side the gate, and the figure seemed to be sizing it in some strange yet fearsome fashion. Much puzzled, and putting aside my terror, I opened the window to facilitate a better look. Although the gate was a good distance away from my window and the farmhouse, I could clearly see the scene enacted before me as though I were in a proscenium arch of a theatre. The creature had hands, feet, and a head, but any comparison to a human stopped there. It was a head taller than any human I knew and was covered in tiny golden glistening scales that sparkled in various rainbow-like colours as it changed its rigid pose and started moving about in an agitated manner. I had glimpses of a well-formed powerful chest that grew out of the scales on its upper body. Its hair was as black as soot, iridescent and shimmering like its scaly body. I yearned to see the creature’s face, but it was partly hidden by long tresses of black hair that fell down to its waist. Whatever it was, it was diabolical. Suddenly it shifted its gaze towards the lawn, where I observed another figure, Uncle Cheroot, standing still in a challenging position, as if to say, ‘Beware, creature! Do not enter here.’ I kept hearing my uncle repeating a name, Drakenwund, seemingly ordering the entity in a stern tone of voice to leave at once. Uncle spoke in a language I couldn’t make out at all. The frightening yet alluring figure looked on despairingly at the great oak by the gate, and then at Uncle, before it shook a fist menacingly, showing talon-like ‘fingers’ just as it ran, or rather glided, away into the nearby trees outside the farmhouse. I shivered in fear at the apparition – if apparition it was – wondering just what hellish power had conjured its appearance. I quickly ran over to Mom’s bedroom to confirm if it was indeed Uncle that I saw on the lawn. Mom was sleeping peacefully, but there was no sign of Uncle. I tiptoed over to Uncle’s room and, opening the unlocked door, saw that the bed hadn’t been slept in. There was nobody there. I checked out Ben’s room similarly at the end of the landing, and then went downstairs to check up on Pop. I found both Pop and Ben sleeping soundly. I was too afraid to go out to the lawn to check if Uncle was still there or not …
Returning to my room, I went back to bed, Inky settling once again by my feet. Luckily, Inky hadn’t seen the figure or sensed it, for otherwise he would have brought the whole house down with his loud barking. Even his super-sensitive nose couldn’t detect the smell of the phantom that had stood near the farm gate – probably the distance too far outside his canine smelling range. I lay awake for a good fifteen minutes before falling asleep again, my young mind in turmoil. Who was the mysterious and frightful figure at the gate? How could anyone have gold and shiny scales and run or glide away like that in a flash? In the occult storybooks I borrowed from the library and loved to read, only ghosts or vampires were described as being able to glide like that. And anyway, why was Uncle out on the lawn, and why had the creature been afraid of entering the farmhouse? What had impeded its progress? It seemed apprehensive of the oak, but then an oak was just what it was – an oak – a tree! It all seemed so very eerie and surreal.
Awaking the following morning, I was unsure if I had actually seen what I had seen or had dreamt it all up. Things always looked different in the reality of daylight and a fresh morning. Even the worst of nightmares, so frightening in one’s dreams, kind of fade away into oblivion when one awakens. I did not have the courage to immediately explore the area near the gate or to go a bit into the woods behind. Breakfast and some strong tea gave me new spunk, however. And although I still feared going into the woods, I looked over the gravel outside the gate carefully for signs of tracks – unsuccessfully, as it turned out. It hadn’t snowed for some time, and the old snow was frozen stiff – hardly a terrain to leave an imprint upon. My thoughts were ambivalent. Had I really experienced a supernatural visitation, or was it all a dream? True, Uncle hadn’t been in Mom’s bedroom when I looked in, but then he could have been in the bathroom, which I did not check. I gave myself the benefit of the doubt and concluded it was all a dream. In retrospect, I thought to myself that I really ought not to read so many of the horror story novels that I borrowed gleefully from our village library and the immense library at Rothwell, especially just before bedtime …
That was the first incident that made me somewhat apprehensive of my relative for many years afterwards. True, Uncle appealed to us as no other relative, friend, or acquaintance ever had. He was all sorts of personalitie
s rolled into one. He could be impish, even jovial, especially when Mom was around, but I came to realize as I got to know him better that there was a Mephistophelian aspect to his character. I liked him well enough, but in the weeks and months that followed his visit, I gradually came to the conclusion that there was something else to him – something that frightened me on and off. He was handsome, even charming at times, and never or rarely raised his voice in anger, but I couldn’t shake off my feelings – why, I didn’t know. … Maybe he just touched some hidden chord or nerve in me, or maybe I just wasn’t used to visitors on the farm. This was, however, the first week of his visit, and I didn’t have any other feelings for Uncle other than love and a sense of gratefulness that he had brightened up our Christmas celebrations. I was also happy that he had brought so much joy into Mom’s life. I loved Mom to pieces and was grateful to anyone who brought some sunshine into the otherwise dreary sort of life she led with Pop. Anyone who made Mom happy was all right in my book.
Chapter 2
The Christmas Hamper Adventure
On the days preceding Christmas Day, Mom had a whale of a time wearing the superb dresses, silk stockings, and other garments Uncle Cheroot had bought her. She wore new outfits at home and whenever she drove to town, even wearing stockings at home most of the time, a definite luxury for a farmer’s wife. She set about in earnest with her oil paintings too, often spending an assiduous hour or two in the evenings at the orchard, painting our bare apple trees, which were delicately covered in light snow that had fallen recently. Nobody, not least Mom, knew then that she would one day, in her own lifetime, be recognized as one of Britain’s best landscape and still-life painters. I say nobody with an exception, as I know today in my metamorphosed state that Uncle Cheroot knew Mom would be famous one day. Uncle was a patron of the arts, an art expert who could measure up to any contemporary peer, besides having an excellent eye for spotting budding artists’ talent or their lack of any. It was why he had shrewdly and conscientiously gifted the oil-painting equipment to Mom in the first place.
Mom transformed into an avatar whenever Uncle visited, sexually fulfilled, amiable to everyone around her, and extremely ecstatic. Not that she wasn’t amiable or gregarious otherwise, but Uncle’s visit, and all his subsequent visits thereafter, always brought out the best in her. Uncle’s generosity towards Mom didn’t stop with the clothes and the oil-painting equipment. Several cases of French Taittinger pink champagne, which Mom positively adored, were cheerfully drunk before dinner in the evenings, even Pop joining in, although he didn’t really like champagne and probably wished it was black stout instead that he was drinking. Pop loved stout, always buying and stocking a few dozen bottles from the village wine and spirit stores, but equally often running out. In retrospect, many years later, I see that Uncle’s choice of the Taittinger champagne was either prophetic or a confirmation of his excellent taste. I remember distinctly that he addressed Mom a few days before he placed the order with the French company selling the alcohol.
‘I know you love champagne, Julia. I tried this new brand some time back in France and thought it was just perfect. I think I shall order a few cases for us to tide over Christmas and the New Year.’
‘Really, Cheroot, cases! Are we going to drown in the stuff?’
‘Drown? Fiddlesticks, Julia! There’s nothing like a glass of chilled champagne in the morning to start the day off. And you like it in the morning, too! Gets your mojo working, eh? Admit that, old girl!’
‘You’re a bounder, Cheroot. That’s what you are.’ Mom giggled. ‘Buy the stuff then. Buy as many as you want. Jim won’t drink much of it, so it’s going to be just you and me who’s going to finish it all off.’
‘Yes, dear,’ Uncle said, looking devilishly at me, a comatose witness to that particular conversation, ‘we’ll do just that.’
Uncle’s ‘devilish’ look was not unlike that strange ambivalent smile of his. When he looked that way, he reminded me of a front-cover illustration in a paperback book I had borrowed from the library showing a plethoric Count Dracula looking upon a helpless victim before he was about to suck the latter’s blood.
A week before Christmas, a big lorry belonging to Fashion Furniture, the largest furniture shop in our village, drove up the driveway to deliver a brand-new set of living room furniture. A three-seat black leather sofa and two large leather armchairs, spotlessly gleaming and smelling of new leather, were unloaded in front of an astonished Mom and a disapproving Pop, who looked on, incredulity written all over his face. There was even a black coffee table to match. Pop’s antipathy was really a manifestation of his bad conscience and skinflint ways where procuring housing paraphernalia was concerned, knowing deep within him that he should have bought Mom new furniture a long time ago. Pop didn’t go empty-handed, either. Uncle bought him an expensive new leather apron for butchering pigs and curing bacon and stuff, and a new set of stainless steel knives, including a formidable chopper. Pop was pleased as punch over his gift, and set off immediately to the meat-smoking room to cut away strips of cured bacon and packet them. Pop had a bacon-slicing machine installed some years ago, but he seldom used it, preferring to slice away by hand, other than when the demand for his bacon was at its zenith during the festive season, when the machine proved useful and imperative.
Uncle had wanted to buy us icing-covered Christmas cake, cashew caramels, toffee bonbons, fudge, chocolate truffles, Christmas pudding, peanut brittle, fruit jellies, and other mouth-watering Yuletide stuff, but Mom put her foot down, protesting vigorously with a cross expression on her face …
‘My dear Cheroot, we don’t buy cake and sweets and stuff from shops for Christmas. I make everything at home.’ (She elongated the ‘everything’ to firmly drive home her point.) ‘That’s how things were done in my family for generations. It’s tradition, you know, and tradition shouldn’t be broken. You can buy anything else in the way of food that you fancy, but even that’s unnecessary. Jim produces so much fresh pork, sausages, bacon, mince, and stuff during the season that we have loads of it even after he sells plenty to the general store and to our regular customers. Just no cakes and sweets, Cheroot. Remember that, Cheroot!’
None of us, not Pop, Ben, or I, ever understood the ‘tradition’ part Mom insisted upon. When just a little girl, I thought Mom’s efforts were marvellous – that she was a magical being then, a queen of cake-land and toffee-land – but then schooling changed all that. The large tuck shop at school sold all manner of cakes, sweets, chocolates, and other mouth-watering stuff that made Mom’s efforts pale in comparison. Well, anyway, except for money matters (Pop’s domain), Mom ruled the roost at home, and her word was law in the kitchen, including all culinary matters. She allowed champagne, wines, whisky, and other alcohol to be bought, and very little else. Actually, Mom wasn’t a bad cook at all. She was great whenever roasts and heavy farm food came in to play, even a passable jam and pickle maker, but she was really out of her depth where traditional Christmas sweetmeats, cakes, and stuff like that was concerned. I knew Uncle was itching to buy the sweet stuff, but he didn’t like to go against Mom’s wishes. Although Uncle didn’t seem to eat much, he simply loved all things that had to do with Christmas, and traditional Yuletide cakes and other such baked goods weren’t an exception. Together with the rest of us, Uncle knew that Mom, apart from the solid farm food she conjured up, wasn’t a master cook in any sense of the word – at least where confectionary was concerned. Mom knew deep within her that she wasn’t either, but that didn’t stop her from making everything herself. What she usually turned out were dull and absolutely shapeless affairs – lacking in aesthetic beauty, though reasonably tasty. For instance, her Christmas cake was unusually soft and had gooey insides; the sweets, although well-blended with vanilla and almond flavours, were positively rock-hard; and the biscuits she baked didn’t rise in her baking oven and didn’t melt in the mouth like those sold in the shops. We all loved Mom to pieces and neve
r complained, but Ben, Pop, and I always looked wistfully at the window displays of the smaller sweet shops in the village and at the shelves of Christmas cakes and sweetmeats at the village superstore whenever we accompanied Mom on her shopping expeditions. We would especially linger a long while at the Fortnum and Mason shelves, where superbly frosted Christmas cakes, sweet minced pies, wonderfully wrapped toffees and chocolates, brilliantly painted tins of biscuits, and much more made Ben and me stare in awe, until Mom marched us briskly away, annoyed at our obvious adoration. None of us knew why Mom remained so pig-headed in her insistence that Christmas cake and assorted sweetmeats should never be bought from shops. It was a Christmas enigma, a rather unpleasant Christmas enigma, for the rest of the family. At times like these, I wished a Christmas ghost – vis-à-vis the kind that haunted old Scrooge – would appear before Mom and fly her around the entire country, showing her the wonderful stuff that was sold in shops and sternly talking her into her senses!
This year around, Uncle too joined the sad trio of Pop, Ben, and me in gazing wistfully at the window displays when all of us went on a Christmas shopping expedition, making Mom even more aggravated. It was an extraordinary thing, really – Mom’s insistence on making Christmas sweetmeats at home. True, she said it was ‘traditional’ and all that bunkum, but it really must have been so very tiring and time-consuming for her to turn out what she did. If she weren’t so stubborn, we could easily buy the whole lot from the general store in just ten minutes of shopping.
During one shopping expedition, Uncle looked upon the mouth-watering display meditatively before whispering conspiratorially in my ear, ‘Shall we take a punt and buy some, Turtle?’ He asked this softly, completely out of Mom’s hearing. He didn’t whisper out of fear (he feared nobody) but out of genuine concern that Mom would lock him out of the bedroom they shared. ‘I know Julia has put her foot down and forbidden Jim and me from buying confections from outside, but maybe we can buy some anyway? Surely she wouldn’t make a fuss. After all, it’s Christmas, isn’t it? It’s the season of good cheer and all that. Nobody should have ill feelings or act all grouchy-like at Christmas! Should they?’