been to stop Carole from looking as if she was alone when she went for walks on Fethering Beach. She couldn’t be seen to be walking because she had nothing else to do; she was walking to exercise Gulliver. No one could pity her for that.
They could pity her, though, if they knew that she had spent the last few Christmases completely on her own.
Not that it had been too bad, from her point of view. Each year she had stocked up with nice food. Not turkey and all the trimmings, but slightly more lavish fare than what she usually ate. A bit of wine, too – the amount she drank increased each year, a direct result of her developing friendship with Jude. That, together with a good book from the library and the Christmas Eve
The only moment when she made any reference to Christmas was when she rang her son Stephen at eleven o’clock sharp to wish him the compliments of the season. Neither asked the other how they were celebrating, both perhaps afraid of truthful answers, but the required politesse – and even a degree of cheeriness – was maintained.
Then Boxing Day dawned; the major stress was over for another year. And on the few occasions when she was asked about her Christmas, Carole could say with complete veracity what so many people said: “Oh, you know, quiet.”
This year, however, things would be different. Not only was there Jude’s open house to negotiate, but also Stephen, Gaby and Lily were going to come to High Tor for Christmas Day. Carole Seddon faced the prospect with apprehension, leavened by occasional flashes of excitement.
¦
Stephen had rung on Thursday the eighteenth of December, exactly a week before Christmas Day, to confirm arrangements. Sometimes Carole found his mannerisms distressingly like those of his father. David, despite being a control freak in many ways, had never been good at making arrangements. With him each detail of a plan had to be tested from every angle before he would commit himself to it. And in that morning’s phone call Stephen behaved in exactly the same way.
“Mother, I thought I’d better just run through the timetable for Christmas Day,” he said, his voice echoing David’s nervous pomposity. His calling her ‘Mother’ was a bad sign. When he was relaxed – which he had been, increasingly, since marriage and fatherhood – he called her ‘Mum’.
“I thought we’d got it agreed,” Carole responded. “I talked to Gaby about everything. Have any of the arrangements changed?”
“No, not really, but obviously the whole schedule is kind of predicated on when Lily sleeps.” There were office noises in the background. Phoning his mother from work showed how much importance Stephen attached to the call.
“Yes, Gaby told me. She said Lily’s usual pattern these days is having her morning sleep around half past ten, so if you leave Fulham then she can sleep in the car…Fulham to Fethering an hour and a half, maybe two…you’ll be with me between twelve and twelve-thirty, which will be perfect.”
“Yes.” Her son’s silence reminded Carole uncomfortably of her ex-husband assessing a plan for flaws. “Did Gaby talk to you about food for Lily?”
“Yes, she gave me a list. I’ve got lots of milk and yoghurts, Ready Brek, Weetabix, sweetcorn, frozen peas. I can assure you, Stephen, your daughter will not starve during her stay at High Tor.”
“No, no, I didn’t think she would.” But Stephen still sounded troubled. “Did you talk to Gaby about the turkey?”
“What about the turkey?”
“Well…erm…”
Oh no, the ‘erm’ was one of David’s favourite mannerisms. Carole was not being allowed to forget her ex- husband.
“Stephen, if you mean whether or not Lily is given any turkey to eat, yes, Gaby and I have discussed it. I will puree some and put a little on a plate for her. If she likes it, she can eat it. If she doesn’t, fine. I won’t be insulted by Lily turning her nose up at my turkey.”
“Oh, good.” Still he sounded hesitant. There was something he wanted to say to her, something awkward, something he knew she wouldn’t like.
Just before Stephen put it into words, Carole realized, with a sickening sense of recognition, what it would be.
“Mother…I…erm…spoke to Dad last night…”
“Oh yes?” Now she knew what was coming, Carole’s defences were quickly in place.
“He hasn’t, in fact, finalized his own plans for Christmas.”
“That’s no surprise to me. Your father was never great at committing himself to arrangements about anything.”
“No. He has had an invitation to have Christmas lunch with some friends locally…you know, in Swiss Cottage.”
“Good.”
“But they’re not people he knows very well. He’s not sure whether he’ll be an imposition on them.”
“Well, that’s for him to decide, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” There was another long silence from Stephen’s end. Knowing exactly what he was about to say, Carole had to restrain herself from hissing out, “Oh, get on with it.”
“The fact is, Mum…” He was trying to soft-soap her now. “…I was just wondering…erm…whether, since we’re all going to be together on Christmas Day – ”
“No, Stephen.”
“I mean, it’s not as if you and Dad are at each other’s throats these days, like you used to be. You were fine at our wedding and – ”
“No, Stephen.”
“Why not?”
She wasn’t about to quantify the reasons why having David in High Tor on Christmas Day would be such undiluted agony, so she restricted herself to a third “No, Stephen.”
“I was thinking from Lily’s point of view, Mum. I mean, she wasn’t born when you and Dad divorced, so why should she get involved in all that grief?”
“She will not be aware of any grief,” said Carole firmly. “Christmas Day at High Tor with just you, Gaby and me will be a very pleasant experience for her. Whereas spending Christmas Day with her grandfather also present would be an unmitigated disaster.”
“Lily wouldn’t be aware of that.”
“But I would!”
“Then she’d have memories of a nice, happy Christmas Day with all the family together.”
“Stephen – A, she is far too young to remember anything from this Christmas, and B, where do you get all this stuff about ‘a nice, happy Christmas with all the family together’? Is that how you recollect your childhood Christmases?”
He was embarrassed into silence, but Carole had by now got the bit between her teeth. “And from what Gaby’s told me of her family background, I can’t imagine that her family Christmases were much cheerier either.”
“But we don’t want Lily to grow up in an atmosphere that might cause her problems in later life.”
“Lily will survive. She will not notice her grandfather’s absence on Christmas Day. And she’s much more likely to develop problems in later life if she’s brought up in an atmosphere of lies. Yes, a happy nuclear family is a lovely idea, and some people are fortunate enough to grow up in one. But you didn’t and I didn’t, so let’s drop the pretence, shall we, Stephen?”
Carole had said more than she wanted to. Actually to admit to having had an unhappy childhood, and to suggest that Stephen had had the same, went against all her middle-class principles of reticence. What was worse,
