“It’s a bit early for Christmas decorations, isn’t it?” my mother asks.
The last time I looked she was napping on the sofa, head tilted, frizzy white curls hanging like corkscrews across her cheek. Now she’s awake and scowling. The pink of her sweat suit matches her scalp, clearly visible through her thin hair. She’s all pink and white, except for her eyes, which are brown and rheumy. “Back in the land of the living, are you? I’m decorating.”
I plunk a thick strand of gold tinsel across the mantelpiece, and Christmas cards flutter to the floor in a sparkle of red and green. “There,” I say. “ It’s Christmas.”
“Mum! Where’s your spirit?” Lissa, lying on her stomach on the rug, stops texting on her phone and collects the fallen cards. Her cheeks are pink and her short black hair shines like something synthetic.
I raise my glass of Chardonnay. “Here,” I rejoin and take a slug. If I were a complainer, I’d add, “Spirit? What spirit? Women don’t have the luxury of Christmas spirit. Women buy presents, worry about the cost, wrap everything, feel guilty if they’re wrong, then cook, clean and generally work like a dog to make Christmas ‘magical’ and IF we have enough energy by Christmas Day, then we have the privilege of cooking a roast lunch with all the trimmings and most likely cleaning it up, too. A lot like the rest of the year, actually.”
But I’m not a complainer, and Lissa’s only 19, so why spoil her fun?
“The word ‘tinsel’,” Lissa says reprovingly, “is from the Old French word estincele, meaning to sparkle. We learned about it in art today. It was invented in the 1600s in Germany, and was used to represent the starry sky over a nativity scene.”
“Well, I’m glad it’s got a pedigree because that’s the extent of my decorating this year.”
Logs in the fireplace shift and spit sparks like tiny fireworks. Individual metallic strands shudder and twist, reflecting the flames as the heat reaches them.
“Where’s the tree then?” Mother chimes in.
“We haven’t got it yet,” Lissa notes, replacing the cards on the mantelpiece.
“Oh…” Mum glances toward the ceiling. “Len can do the paper chains. Tell him to get the ladder and he can put them up.”
Lissa and I exchange a glance. Lissa pats her grandmother’s bony knee and gently explains, “Grandpa Len’s been gone years now, Grams.”
I tug the tinsel on one side to make it hang evenly, and the cards fall off again.
“Oh,” Mum says. “So he has. Oh, dear.” She presses her lips together and a wobbling circle the size of an old penny appears on her chin.
“Look at this, Mum.” I open a small cardboard box. “It’s Dad’s nativity scene — the three kings and the animals. Remember?” The wood feels rough and warm. I hand her the manger so she can see it up close.
“Look at that,” she says, squinting. “He could carve, your dad, couldn’t he? Where’s the baby Jesus?”
“I don’t know.” I rummage through, but the box is empty. The baby Jesus is missing. Lost. Of course He is. Of course we won’t find Him, the display will be incomplete, it won’t be the way we want it, any more than Christmas will because this is real life with its lost years and abandoned dreams and unearned hurts and real life doesn’t work that way.
I slump down next to Mum on the sofa.
Lissa jumps up. “I’m going to Zumba. At the church hall.” She shoves a flyer with the instructor’s photo under our noses.
“What’s this?” my mother says. “Teacher looks gay, doesn’t he?”
“Grandma!”
“What?”
Lissa, exasperated, tries to take the flyer. “You can’t just say things like that.”
I hold onto it. “’For those just starting to exercise and the active older person.’ Hmm.” I rub the spare tires around my belly. “Not me then.”
Lissa flounces out.
“He looks like Elton John, but skinny. You know, the singer.” She presses her fingers to her forehead and closes her eyes. “Oh, I’ve got such a headache all of a sudden.”
And that’s when I remember: This is what happened 18 months ago. A sudden headache, a bleed in her left eye, and then during the night, a stroke. Dear God, no. Please no.
“I’ll get the Paracetemol.”
Five minutes later, she’s taken two tablets with a glass of water and is napping again.
Lissa pokes her head round the door. “I’m off to class.”
“OK. See you in a while.” I blow her a kiss, and she’s gone. No need to worry her. She’s just a kid. She should have kid-troubles, not middle-aged troubles.
The skin on Mother’s face, wrinkled and age-spotted, looks clammy. I wonder what’s happening inside her brain, if a blockage has occurred, if there’s bleeding going on at this very moment. I wish I could lift her eyelids to see if there’s a bleed but don’t want to wake her up or scare her. But this could be it. The doctor said one more stroke could be it. I could call 911, but what would I tell them? She’s got a headache?
I stand up. I can’t sit still. I put a log, and then another, on the fire. The flames spurt and leap and the tinsel ripples like underwater coral.
I pick up the empty cardboard box and pull out the tissue paper. It smells moldy, like the potting shed. I screw it into a ball, throw it on the fire, and watch it burn.
I’ll let her sleep for a while. Let the Paracetemol take effect. I turn on the telly and hit the mute button. An old Top of the Pops is playing, a 1970s Christmas episode with Slade. The famous Noddy Holder, the good-hearted, eccentric lead singer, is strutting across the stage in all his glorious crazy beardedness.
I go into the kitchen, rinse off the dishes, load the dishwasher as quietly as I can and fill it with lemon-scented liquid.
Back on the sofa, Mother is still sleeping. I sit next to her, and she stirs.
I wait for her to open her eyes and look at me. “Back in the land of the living, are you?”
She blinks. Her eyes are clear. No bleed.
“How do you feel?”
She raises her eyebrows. She’s forgotten that she even had a headache.
“Fine. Must have dropped off.”
I turn the volume up on the telly. “It’s a Christmas sing-a-long. You ready?”
Sir Noddy Holder, as he is now called, is about to sing. The sight of him is at once familiar and disconcerting. Words float across the screen: ‘Noddy Holder M.B.E., Sir Noddington, the Very Great Noddy Holder’. I turn the volume up and bump Mother’s shoulder gently with my own. “Ready?” and I sing, “And here’s to you, merry Christmas, everybody’s having fun. Look to the future now, its only just begun-un-un.”
Mother bobs her head and claps along to the music.
Just a headache. That was all.
Then, on the floor, behind the leg of the sofa, I spy a small oval shape, pick it up and hand it to her. I remember, almost a decade ago, before Dad’s first heart attack, I’d sat next to him on this sofa, not long after Hubby Number Two had bitten the dust and I had come home. I was grading essays, and Dad put down his carving knife and held the malformed baby Jesus up in the air. “Can’t quite get the head right,” he said. “Well, never mind. It’ll do.”
Now, happily, Mother places the baby Jesus in the manger. “Lovely, isn’t it?” she says.
I pour her a small glass of Chardonnay, put it carefully in her hand and tap my half-full glass against hers. I hold it up to the light, admiring the way the flames look through the liquid, distorted and leaping, and I silently thank God for her, and for Lissa, and for all of this.
“It’ll do, Mum” I say. “It’ll do.”
Tessa Smith McGovern is an English writer who has published short stories here and abroad. To read more, visit www.tessasmithmcgovern.com.
