The Coming of Age. December Part 3.

22nd December. Get a card from Poppy. She says. ‘I have been working hard on the Count’s drawing room floor. His wife has left him and Vincenzo is very jealous but I told him, the Count wouldn’t be interested in me I am only a pedestrian. Have a wonderful Christmas.’

Val is off to Birmingham to her daughter’s. Julia is going to spend the Christmas with her ‘old codger’ for the first time. Val and I think she is weakening.

24th December. The Actuary gives me a nicely wrapped squashy package with much diffidence. ‘It’s not the sort of thing you usually wear.’

I am very good at Christmas. I do not open presents before The Day so I hide it in my bedroom.

Sarah, Roland and the children arrive in the afternoon with Alex plus crate of Veuve Clicquot, some Napoleon brandy, a side of organic smoked wild salmon and a free-range bronze turkey. These put my Mrs Beeton’s An Economical Mincemeat in the shade rather. As soon as there is a spare moment, I slip into the kitchen and pour half the bottle of brandy into the mincemeat, hoping to raise its status.

25th December. I open my present from The Actuary secretly first thing in the morning thinking it might possibly be some item of nightwear that I do not want my children to see.

It is a splendid sweater. It is not the sort of thing I normally wear but then it’s not the sort of thing I can normally afford. I am trying it on when Sarah comes in with Letitia.

‘Say Happy Christmas to Granny’, she commands.

She looks at me. ‘That’s a nice jumper. Who gave you that?’ She has seen the wrapping paper scattered over my bed.

‘Er, er, um, The Actuary,’ I say.

She looks suspicious. ‘That’s a very personal present’ she comments severely. ‘It must have been quite expensive.’

I feel just like I felt when Mother found me being kissed by Michael Wallace outside the front door when I was sixteen. Thank goodness I hadn’t been caught trying on black lace underwear.

Sarah goes on, ‘Actually Mum, Roland and I aren’t feeling well. We’ll get up for breakfast and have the presents and then, is it all right if I go back to bed? Roland will help with the lunch.’

There are groans from the other spare room. Alex emerges looking distinctly groggy. He too has some sort of fluey thing.

Everybody makes a great effort over breakfast and it is surprisingly cheerful. The sitting room is soon a heap of wrapping paper. Harriet gives me a tube of shimmering bodygel which says on the tube ‘Wow, instant iridescence. The perfect way to show off a décolletage in a revealing dress.’

Sarah gives me a ‘Write Your Own Will’ form. Find this a bit disconcerting until I discover that she has given one to her husband as well. He too is looking a little uneasy but that could be the flu. I also get a book on how to be a good grandmother.

I think of The Actuary’s delicious behind and smirk to myself. If only she knew.

‘I’m glad you like it’ she says, thinking I am smiling sweetly at the picture of Whistler’s mother. Ha ha.

Alex has a present from Martin. I expect the others do too but Sarah probably left them behind in London so as to spare my feelings. Alex’s gift is a copy of The Kama Sutra. Roland perks up. Alex is disdainful. I am 27 he says. It’s not as if I was 17. For once he does not seem to think this is cool. Letitia looks at it with interest. She is very fond of books, particularly ones with pictures. ‘Read a story Uncle Alex.’ Sarah grabs the book and says ‘Roland, put this away at once.’

Sarah disappears back to bed. Alex stretches out on one settee and Roland asks if he can do anything to help. Not yet I say. I’ll call you in a minute. I disappear to the calm of the kitchen and a repeat of The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.

Letitia comes out to join me. I stuff the turkey, and put the pudding on to steam. I turn round and fall over some potatoes and apples, which are rolling round the floor. Letitia, whose interest in her new toys has quickly palled, has discovered the vegetable rack and has taken bites out of every apple and potato stored there. I think it is time to enlist the help of Roland so I go back into the sitting room.

Alex is laid out on one settee and Roland is asleep on the other. There is a funny smell. Alice is nowhere to be found. There are screams from the kitchen. Letitia has pulled the vegetable rack down on her head so I go and pick her up, along with assorted onions, leeks, celery and parsnips. Dare I comfort her with some chocolate? There is plenty around today but she’s not supposed to have sweets.

I remember that I don’t know where Alice is. What can she be doing? It is very quiet.

I find her under the stairs playing with my box of shoe cleaning equipment. She shows me proudly all the opened jars and tins. I had forgotten she had learnt to unscrew lids about six months ago.

She leads me into the sitting room and points out a bottle, sans lid, spreading its contents over the settee just by Daddy’s head. Letitia thinks Daddy should wake up, so she tries to prise his eyes open. Nothing happens. I look at the bottle. It is some sort of solvent for removing polish from shoes prior to recolouring them. I don't think I've ever used it but it is now almost empty. That is the source of the funny smell. Roland, breathing deeply, is out for the count. Even two little girls trying to lift his eyelids up has no effect.

There is another funny smell. This time it is burning. The turkey giblets on the stove have dried out and are beginning to carbonise.

I give the girls a box of chocolates which they start to fight over, then I remember that they have each been given something organically correct for Christmas from Great Grandma via Lakeland: American jelly beans made with fresh fruit juice. That should be OK. I give them a box each; there are 300 in 20 different flavours. That should keep them quiet. I then switch on the television. Rolf Harris is doing something. As they are not usually allowed to watch television they are instantly entranced even by Rolf Harris and sit quietly before it for the rest of the morning eating their way through the jellybeans. If Sarah tells me off, I shall sniff the solvent and pass out too.

26th December. On Boxing Day Alex and Roland are much better, in fact quite able to go and watch Lesser Barbarians play Greater Barbarians at rugby. Sarah and I take the girls to watch the local hunt, which meets in the high street. Half the town will be milling around, eighty percent of them to enjoy the spectacle, the other twenty per cent to protest.

Sarah puts on a scarf and some dark glasses. Is she pretending to be a film star trying to be incognito? I wonder.

Then I remember that she was once a Hunt Saboteur and a Vegan. Of course, she does not wish to be recognised by old friends who have remained true to the cause. If only one knew how one’s teenagers would grow up, what a lot of angst it would save.

Everyone goes home. I am having lunch with The Actuary, who returned home yesterday from a Festive Season filled with nephews and nieces, daughters, sisters, brothers and two great nephews but not his son who is still in America.
He has cooked a pheasant and we have some wine. After a quiet and leisurely lunch we retire to his sofa, he puts his arm round me and we both fall asleep. As Goethe said, I think it was Goethe, it might have been Woody Allen, the essence of life is in its contrasts.

Then we wake up and decide that we might as well repair to the bedroom. It is lovely being old. We should keep it a secret.

Later, The Actuary tells me that I probably am referring to Sigmund Freud and then quotes verbatim ‘We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment from a contrast and very little from the state of things.’ which is more or less what I meant. I was convinced it was Goethe. I still am. The Actuary knows a lot but he doesn’t know everything.

30th December. The local paper comes out with banner headlines, ‘Disgraceful Scenes in the Season of Peace and Goodwill. Mindless Yobbos attack Santa Claus.’ If anything really awful happened in the town, I do not think the editor would be able to find a font large enough.

31st December. It is New Year’s Eve. Harriet and Russell arrive with baby Jake, all smiley and chubby.

Jean, a friend of hers, The Actuary and two more friends, whom I rarely see except each New Year’s Eve, are coming for dinner. I shall not be able to drink very much as Harriet and Russell will be sure to count every glass and The Actuary will not be able to stay the night. I have to keep my privacy somehow. Harriet is always asking ‘And are you just good friends?’ in a meaningful way and I reply ‘He’s very old you know.’ And like the young do, she assumes we are all past it. Which she is meant to do.

1st January. I ring up Mother to wish her a happy new year and to say what I have decided must at last be said. It is my only Resolution this year.

I take a deep breath and say, ‘Martin and I have separated…’

‘I knew it would never last.’ Mother says. ‘Someone was having a party last night. They made such a racket I didn’t sleep a wink.’

The End