Eva admitted, ‘I can’t tune a digital radio. I gave up after a day with my smartphone. On my computer the Microsoft wouldn’t engage with the internet, and neither could I. I couldn’t watch a film on an iPad – and why should I, when there’s a cinema half a mile away? I should have been born a hundred years ago. I can’t download on my MP3 machine. Why do people keep buying me these gadgets? I’d be happier with a simple radio, a television with knobs on the front, a Dansette record player and a phone like we had when I was a child. Something important that stood on the hall table. It rang so loudly that we could hear it all over the house and garden. And it only rang when there was something important to say. Somebody was ill. An arrangement had to be changed. Or the person who had been ill had died. People ring now to say that they’ve arrived in McDonald’s and are about to order a cheeseburger and fries.’
Alexander laughed. ‘You’re a technophobe like me, Eva. We’re happier with a simpler way of life. I should go back to Tobago.’
Eva said, vehemently, ‘No! You can’t!’
He laughed again. ‘Take it easy, Eva. I’m going nowhere. It costs a lot of money to have a slower pace of life, and I had my one shot at that.’
She asked, ‘Do you ever talk about your wife?’
‘No. Never. If the kids ask, I lie and say she’s gone to heaven. My children believe that she is up there in the arms of Jesus, and I ain’t gonna disabuse them of that comforting picture.’
‘Was your wife beautiful?’ Eva said, quietly.
‘No, not beautiful. Pretty, elegant – and she looked after herself. Her clothes were always good, she had her own style. Other women were a bit afraid of her. She never wore a tracksuit, didn’t own a pair of trainers. She didn’t do casual.’
Eva glanced at her ragged nails and slid them under the duvet.
The door opened abruptly, and Brianne said, ‘Oh, Alex, I didn’t know you were here. Would you like a cup of tea, or a drink perhaps? It is nearly Christmas, after all.’
‘Thank you, but I have to work and drive.’
Eva said, ‘I’d love a cup of tea.’
Brianne’s expression changed when she looked at her mother. Well, I am busy, but I’ll try to bring you one up.’
There were a few moments of awkwardness between the three of them.
Brianne said to Alexander, ‘Bye then. See you downstairs?’
He said, ‘Maybe,’ and turned back to the window ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea, Eva, when I’ve finished this.’
There was an uneasy atmosphere in the house over the next week.
There were silences and whisperings and slammed doors. The women circled around each other. Eva tried to interest them in decorating the house and stringing up the fairy lights, and they would agree with her that it should be done – however, nobody actually did anything.
Poppy had made her base in the sitting room. She had commandeered every item of furniture for her possessions and clothes, so the Beavers had taken to sitting in the kitchen. Whenever Brian and Poppy met accidentally in the house, they managed to touch each other briefly, and both enjoyed the conspiracy. Brian particularly relished the contact – especially on the nights when Titania was waiting for him in the shed.
On the evening of the 19th of December, Brian asked Eva, What are we doing for Christmas?’
Eva said, ‘I’ll be doing nothing at all.’
Brian was shocked. ‘So, you’re expecting me to do Christmas?’ He rose from the soup chair and walked up and down the room, looking like a prisoner on Death Row waiting for the dawn.
Eva forced herself to stay silent as Brian faced the awful fact that he might have to be responsible for Christmas, the Becher’s Brook of family festivals. Many good women, and a few men, have fallen due to the weight of expectation that rests on their shoulders.
‘I don’t even know where you keep Christmas,’ he said, as though in previous years Eva had deposited Christmas inside a locked container at an out-of-town storage depot, and all she had to do was pick Christmas up and take it home before December the 25th.
‘Do you want me to tell you how to do Christmas, Brian?’
‘I suppose so.’
Eva advised him, ‘You may want to take notes.’
Brian took out of his pocket the little black notebook with moleskin covers that Eva had bought for him as compensation for fading his motorcycle exam. (He had argued with the examiner over the precise meaning of the phrase ‘full throttle’.) He unclipped his fountain pen (a school prize) and waited.
‘OK,’ said Eva. ‘I’m going to talk you through. Stop me at any time.’
Brian sat back down in the soup chair with his pen poised above his notebook.
Eva took a breath and started.
‘You’ll find the Christmas card list in the bureau in the sitting room, together with stamps and unused cards. Write them tonight, before you go to bed. After work tomorrow, drive around garden centres and garage forecourts looking at Christmas trees. In your mind’s eye you are seeing a perfect tree, lushly green and aromatic, rounded at the bottom and rising in ever-decreasing circles until topped with a single branch. However, there are no such trees. You drive around all week and fail to find one. At nine p.m. the day before Christmas Eve, just as Homebase is closing, you will panic and push through the doors and snatch at the nearest tree. Do not be too disappointed when you end up with a tree a social worker would describe as “fading to thrive”.’
Brian said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Eva, stick to the bloody list!’
Eva closed her eyes and tried to discipline herself to keep to the bare facts of how she had prepared for Christmas 2010.
‘Tree decorations in box marked “TD”. Fairy lights for tree in box marked “FLFT”. Fairy lights for sitting room, kitchen, dining room, hall stairs, outdoor porch in box named “FL General”. Do not throw horrible papier-mâché bells or similar cack-handed ornaments away. Brian Junior and Brianne made them in infants school before they fully discovered maths. NB – box of extension leads and multiple plug sockets in box marked “Christmas Electricals”. Note – spare bulbs for FLs in here. All boxes to be found in attic next to wooden giraffe. Stepladder in cellar. Buy firelighters, kindling and logs from Farm Shop in Charnwood Forest. Pick three bags of coal up from BP garage. Buy candles for candlesticks – open bracket, check widths, close bracket.
‘Drive into countryside for mistletoe, ivy, pine cones, branches and seed heads. Dry out on radiators. Buy silver and gold spray paint. Spray dried-out foliage, et cetera. Clear out fridge – use disparate leftovers to make strange little meals, flavours disguised by chilli flakes and garlic. Go to local butcher, order a turkey. Watch him laugh in your face. Go to supermarket, try to order a turkey. Leave to the sound of laughter from the poultry department. Buy ten tins of Quality Street for fifty quid. Queue for an hour and ten minutes to pay for them. Decide how much to spend on distant or near relations, trawl round shops, ignore present list and make ludicrous impulse buys. Arrive home, unload presents, immediately suffer from buyer’s remorse. Take everything back the following day and buy twenty-seven pairs of red fleece socks with reindeer motif. Go online, order latest technical must-have gadget for Brian and twins, find that there are none left in the country, go to Currys and get told by youth that a container ship has just docked at Harwich and lorry is due to deliver on 23rd December. Ask if you can order three of the latest must-haves. Currys youth advises you to join queue at five thirty a.m. as this will be your only chance.’
Brian said, ‘Eva, that was last Christmas! I need to focus on this year! Half of your advice is redundant!’
But Eva was reliving the nightmare of Christmas 2010. ‘Go late-night shopping for Christmas outfit for self, to prevent row like last year’s when Brian said, “Eva, you can’t wear jeans on Christmas day.” Make impulse buy of red sequinned cardigan and black lace skirt. In Marks, buy twins pyjamas and dressing gowns, ditto Brian. In food hall, buy ingredients for Christmas dinner for six, plus cakes, biscuits, flans, mince pies, sliced bread for sandwiches, salmon, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera -Brian interjected, panicking now, ‘How can one person possibly deal with all those different components?’