At this stage, she remembered that she owed me money from when she was sick and I paid her window-cleaner and bought, as she put it, ‘sundries’, and she began pressing cash upon me.
‘No, Mam,’ I shouted, ‘no!’
‘Yes, Marian,’ she shouted, ‘yes!’
‘No, Mam,’ I shouted, ‘no!’
‘Yes, Marian,’ she shouted, ‘yes!’
I don’t know why, it’s just the way we carry on. None of us can ever accept money from any of the rest of us. So myself and Mam, we wrestled our way around the room for some minutes, both of us shouting. Then she played her trump card.
‘Yes, Marian, yes!!’ she shouted. ‘I had pneumonia and I had to go to hospital and I nearly DIED. TAKE THE MONEY!!!!’
At that point, I had lost the moral high ground, so I took the money.
‘Buy yourself something nice with it,’ she said. And, with a flash of her old spirit, she elbowed me and said with a little wink, ‘Buy yourself new boots …’
mariankeyes.com, March 2013.
WHAT WOULD SCROOGE DO?
* * *
Driving Home for Christmas
19 December 1986. London to Dublin.
Oh, it was all very different back then – flights costing £1.27 weren’t even a twinkle in Michael O’Leary’s eye. Aer Lingus and British Airways straddled the Irish Sea like massive costly colossi, rendering air travel far too expensive for the likes of me (twenty-three, a waitress, albeit one who had a law degree, and spending every penny I earnt on drink and clothes). If I wanted to get from London to Dublin, I had to step back into the 1950s and go by train and boat.
On the appointed hour (10 p.m.) I was seen off from Euston station by a small rowdy group of gay friends, one of them my flatmate Conor, who was too skint to even afford the boat-and-train combo so was staying in London for the festive season. The lads fluttered around me, making little adjustments here and there to my clothing, until it was decreed that I was fabulous enough to board the train. And yes, in a floor-length black sealskin coat, an indecently short black Lycra dress, shiny black tights, red suede gladiator stilettos and a strange little red tricorn hat (made by Conor), I was indeed fabulous. Yes, my dears, in the olden days we dressed up to travel. We made an effort.
I even had matching luggage: a brown canvas zippy yoke that my parents had got free with petrol vouchers, and an identical brown canvas zippy yoke that Conor’s parents had got free with petrol vouchers. The handles were coming loose on one of the bags and the seams were slowly disintegrating on the other. It never even occurred to me to be ashamed.
All around me beaten-looking elderly men carrying cardboard suitcases were boarding the train. I climbed on and bumped my way down the carriage, hoping – like I always did – that when I found my seat the man of my dreams would be sitting opposite me. We’d fall into chat, we’d click instantly, we’d fashion plans to meet up when we returned to London …
Alas, no such luck. Across from me was a granite-faced man chomping on home-made corned-beef sandwiches the thickness of a phonebook. Seated next to him was a mild-faced woman with the nail-scissors haircut of the off-duty nun. Mr Corned Beef appeared too ground down by thirty years of manual labour to even look at me, but Off-Duty Nun gave a meek, God-bless-you-my-child-even-if-you-do-have-a-most-peculiar-hat smile which I returned with a cold stare. I had a strict No Conversation policy with any religious types. Or corned-beef men.
As the clock inched towards ten o’clock and the off, the seat next to me remained unoccupied and I began to imagine the unimaginable – an empty seat beside me; I could lie down and sleep! (Those in the know slept with their head on their handbag, to avoid their handbag being stolen. And with their feet towards the window, in case their shoes got stolen. And as shoes went, mine were eminently stealable.)
But seconds before the whistle blew, a young man jumped aboard. Every other seat in the entire train was occupied: this had to be my companion. Initially I was hopeful – he was almost late and I liked late men, the more unreliable the better; in fact, I’d have preferred if he had missed the train entirely. However, he was pleasant and cheery – I preferred tortured and surly – and had the curly-haired, meaty-framed air of a rugby-playing jock. (Strangely, his cheery, friendly demeanour seemed to waver slightly when he focused on my lovely home-made hat.)
With much jerking and slopping of flasks of tea, we were off! Jock-boy transpired to be on his way home from Paris, which elicited oohs of delight from Nun-Woman. They fell into passionate chat about petty pans o’shockolahhhh, trying to outdo each other with atrocious French accents.
I decided I hated him.
Despite the cold, the windows steamed up within moments. We rattled through the night, wedged shoulder to shoulder with our fellow passengers, sleeping with our eyes open. There was a distinct smell, a fug of old damp overcoats, of fried breakfasts, of decades of grinding poverty.
I was in the lucky position of having a window seat and occasionally I nodded off and when the train took a corner too sharply I was woken by my skull being cracked smartly against the glass.
Once or twice a trolley came round, trying to tempt us to cough up for tea and sandwiches, but everyone had brought their own. (I hadn’t brought sandwiches because for reasons I don’t fully understand now, I thought sandwiches were ‘silly’. I had a Bounty, a Lion bar and a Twix – that was food enough for me.)
At about 2.30 a.m., amid whistles and hisses of steam, the delights of Holyhead were unleashed upon us. We descended from the train into the perishing night. I hoicked one hefty petrol bag over my shoulder and dragged the other along behind me. The bags felt like they were packed with lead because I’d brought every item of clothing I owned, to dazzle the eyes out of the heads of those back home, but I refused to get a trolley. I had a ‘thing’ about trollies. In the same way that I had a ‘thing’ about sandwiches. I thought – I’m afraid this is the best explanation I can come up with – that they were a sign of weakness.
In those days, Holyhead port was grim, grim, grim. A bare, wretched place. No expense had been spent on gussying it up – Irish people weren’t too popular in Britain in the 1980s. Handy enough if you wanted a road dug, but you don’t want them getting notions. Like cattle at a mart, heads bowed with resignation, armies of smelly-overcoated, bacon-and-cabbage men trudged up the bleak ramps towards the ship.
I trudged along with them, pausing from time to time when I caught the heel of my shoes in the hem of my coat and almost toppled over on to my face. The price, of course, of being fabulous.
Once on the ship, the idea was to find a place as far away as possible from anyone else in order to get a few hours’ sleep before the ship docked. There were rows and rows of upright chairs but they were ring-fenced with fruit machines which emitted a constant racket of pings and crunches. I’d go mad. I found a small bare patch of floor and laid down my bags, but a Scouser – the ship was always staffed with Scousers – tried to convey, first with his magical but baffling accent and then by shouting, that I was blocking an emergency exit. Like a refugee, I got to my feet and, dragging all my earthly possessions, moved on to another spot. Also, an emergency exit. In the end I took my rightful place amid the fruit machines.
Rumours reached me of a lounge, an enchanted realm of couches and free coffee. But it cost a fiver – an astronomical sum – to get into. I went to see if it could possibly be real – and sure enough it was. I gazed in through the glass and to my astonishment caught sight of Mr Petty Pan O’Shockolahhhh, who was in there with the nun, the pair of them reclining like pashas, guzzling enough
free coffee to float a boat. My bitterness overflowed.
Around 6 a.m. we docked in Dublin, the ship stopping itself by – or so it seemed – driving at high speed at the land. Once we’d picked ourselves up from the floor, we streamed out like ghosts into the frozen Irish dawn where, conveniently, public transport didn’t start for another two hours. Through the mist the outline of a man waiting at the exit slowly revealed itself to me. It was my dad. He’d come to pick me up. We hadn’t seen each other in nine months. He gazed upon me and demanded, ‘What in the name of God have you got on your head?’ I was home.
First published in Travel, December 2007.
Christmas at Marian’s
I’ve always wished I could be one of those women who can cook complicated dinners for twenty people at the drop of a hat, while remaining cheerful, fragrant and unshiny. Those fabulous creatures who can receive flowers, offer drinks, stir an oxtail jus and turn down the oven all at the same time.
My lovely mother-in-law, Shirley, is one such woman – she is fabulously capable and makes it look so easy.
I’m convinced this ability is a gift you’re either born with or you’re not, and sadly I wasn’t. I’m not entirely useless – I’m good at crosswords and I’m unusually skilled at untangling delicate gold chains – but I’m afraid I fall down at the hospitality-and-catering interface.
I like having people over and feeding them – I think cooking for someone is a very loving thing to do – but the highest number I’d ever prepared dinner for was … four. And the highest number of different foodstuffs I’d managed to have ready to serve at the same time was three (potatoes, chicken, cauliflower, for what it’s worth).
Then suddenly, a few years ago – and I’m still at a loss as to how it actually happened – I somehow managed to invite thirteen members of my family, including Shirley, to my house for Christmas Day. Through an appalling mix-up, I’d mistaken myself for a grown-up.
I admit I had my own house. I even had my own kitchen, but my style of cooking was to throw everything in one big casserole and feck it in the oven on a low heat for eight hours. I had quite literally no idea where to start cooking a Christmas dinner. I was afraid of turkeys, I didn’t like the way they looked so dead, and the thought of having to put my hand into the innards of one of them made me shudder.
It was early summer, probably May or June, when I issued my ill-thought-out invitation, so I dealt with it, like I deal with all challenging situations, by putting it to the back of my mind and telling myself that it hadn’t really happened. I couldn’t possibly have told my siblings and extended family that I’d cook Christmas dinner. And even if I had, they’d forget.
But they didn’t forget … Oh no, they were excited.
Somewhere around October, I realized it really was going to happen and then I was seized by genuine panic. So much so that (I’m ashamed about this, don’t think I’m not) I decided I’d have to get an outside caterer in. But not a chance. All the outside caterers were fully booked – had been, in fact, since the previous January.
So there was nothing for it: I told everyone that there would be no turkey or roast parsnips or suchlike this year. We were going to break with tradition and I was going to make my Special Bean Stew.
Well, there was UPROAR. I was quite upset – I’d thought everyone liked my Special Bean Stew, they’d certainly said they did at the time. But there was widespread insistence on turkey. Even those who didn’t like turkey said we had to have it.
My siblings swore blind that they’d help on the day – but I knew they wouldn’t. I know what they’re like: too busy lying on the couch, watching It’s a Wonderful Life and eating cheese straws to come and stir the gravy. (Of course Shirley would have been able to do the whole thing in her sleep, but I wouldn’t let myself ask her – after all, she was a guest in my home, I had some pride.)
So this is what I did: I bought everything pre-prepared. I mean everything. A pre-prepared turkey, already boned (and stuffed, so no need for me to put my hand into its innards), pre-prepared roast potatoes, stuffing, parsnips, bread sauce, sprouts, trifles … everything.
But I was still waking in the middle of the night, genuinely overwhelmed. I knew this was too big for me, so – and this is where I stop being able to take any credit – I turned it all over to Himself, who ran the entire operation like a military campaign.
He constructed a detailed schedule: every single thing, right down to the humble chipolata, had a time slot. Because we have only one smallish oven, my dad’s beloved hostess trolley was called into action and on Christmas morning Himself closeted himself in the kitchen and began clattering baking trays.
Rita-Anne and Caitríona were commandeered to help, but I was ordered to stay well away, in case my anxiety was infectious. Instead I was placed on cheese-straw detail (i.e. passing them around). Now and again an extra body would be summoned to help in the kitchen and the door would open and steam would billow out ominously and I’d bite my bottom lip and worry …
Then, all of a sudden, it was three o’clock – the appointed hour – and bowls of food were being ferried to the table.
Amazingly, everything was ready at the same time. Even more amazingly, it tasted lovely and I was so happy and relieved that, as I was looking around the table at thirteen happy faces, I had a wild notion: maybe we should do it all again next year.
First published in Waitrose Kitchen, December 2009.
What Would Scrooge Do?
Every year it seems to start earlier and earlier. No sooner is Halloween out of the way than it begins: the bellyaching about Christmas. It’s the only topic of conversation and wherever I turn I’m faced with people whingeing that they’d rather gnaw their own ear off than go to their office party. That they wish they could take off to a desert island until the whole wretched thing is over. That there’s nothing in the shops but horrible spangly red dresses made-to-order for work parties – i.e. suitable to be torn, puked on, jived in and at the end of the night thrown in a shamefaced ball in the bottom of a wardrobe, never to be worn again.
On and on go the complaints – the expense, the crowds, the family get-togethers, the hangovers … It’s all such a cliché. However – and mark me closely here – just because it’s a cliché doesn’t mean that it’s not true.
For the record, Christmas is awful. It’s official: more marriages break up around Christmas than at any other time of the year. That and summer holidays, of course. The unbearable workload coupled with unmeetable expectations is what does for most people.
The first sign that the dreadfulness is nigh is when Himself disappears up into the attic and re-emerges with his beloved Rudy. Rudy is a four-foot-high, light-festooned reindeer and for the past five years he has spent the month of December positioned over our front pouch, for all and sundry to see.
It’s as if some esteemed visitor has come to stay. Himself watches the weather forecast with edge-of-his-seat anxiety and the words ‘high winds’ fill him with dread. If we go out for the evening he can’t relax, and if it starts raining he insists on an early departure, so he can check that Rudy is all right.
Rudy was a big enough responsibility, but two years ago a life-size Santa was added to the menagerie, then last December I spent one miserable afternoon holding on to Himself’s legs as he leant out of a bedroom window, stringing red ‘berry’ lights from a tree.
It’s mortifying. Our house is lurid enough at the best of times due to a misunderstanding with our paint – the patch test looked like a soft, pretty lilac but writ large the colour has somehow mutated into a gaudy, dayglo mauve,
which means our home functions as a local navigational landmark (‘Turn right at the horrible purple house …).
The funny thing is that normally Himself has a great terror of tackiness, but I suspect that if he had his way we’d be adorned and bedecked with Christmas lights and climbing Santas all year round. We’d be like one of those houses that gets on local telly, which people actually make pilgrimages to.
Left to my own devices I’d be quite happy not to put up even a sprig of tinsel – at least then the carol singers might leave me alone. But at the moment, as soon as they clock Rudy on his lofty perch, they mistakenly assume that our household is awash with seasonal cheer. ‘This lot will give us a couple of bob,’ they think. ‘This lot won’t turn the lights off and creep around on all fours, pretending they’re not in.’
And it’s not that I begrudge them the money, it’s the standing at the front door in the perishing cold as they sing three verses of ‘Away in a Manger’ that I can’t take. The problem is that I have no idea how to behave – should I tap my foot and move my head jauntily, like I’m humming along? Or should I stare wistfully over their head as if their lyrics have stirred deep thoughts in me?
Instead I’m frozen in a rictus of embarrassment, desperate not to make eye-contact, repeating over and over in my head, Don’t sing another verse, please stop now, oh please God, don’t let them sing another verse …
The only way I can cope with Christmas is to ask myself, WWSD – What Would Scrooge Do? He wouldn’t go to his office party, that’s for sure, and at least now that I’m self-employed it’s one thing I don’t have to endure. God, it used to be awful – the drunken declarations of dislike, the tears, the lost shoes. I was a disgrace.
Nor would Scrooge send Christmas cards. So neither do I. The first year I thought the guilt would kill me, but it’s got easier. Maybe it’s like committing murder: the first one is the hardest.