This is a snapshot of a Christmas from my past - party dress and handmade hat creation on, proudly clutching my Tiny Tears doll alongside my brother, laughing away in his cowboy outfit. A simpler time perhaps but still valuing the same as today - family, fun and togetherness. In the background of this picture my Mum and Grandad sit either side of the silver artificial tree that took centre stage in the lounge for years. I can't see them in the picture but I do have recollections of making paper chains to hang up and of strings pinned to the wall that had little green and red pegs to attach to the cards, as they arrived to spread their wishes of a Merry Christmas.
It is thoughts and memories like these that circled around my head when putting together the writing excerpt that is revealed by window number 7 today. I cannot deny that my own family experiences and tales told to me by older relatives, all fed into my writing process when completing my novella 'Unravelling.' Though it is a work of fiction, little pieces of an author's own life and personality surely always find their way onto the pages don't they? A flavour of this book is today's Advent treat - a chapter set in the past, a simple 1960s Christmas with friends and family very much as its theme. I hope you enjoy reading it.
Chapter 11 - Christmas Eve
It was a Christmas of firsts. Most notably, the first one as a family of three. Andrew was almost eight months old by the time Will and Doris were hanging up paper chains in their front room and balancing a handmade angel on top of their little artificial tree. They both doted on Andrew and so too did the stream of visitors who popped in to coo at him in the cot and comment upon how much he had grown. The couple were grateful for the support and attention from family, friends and neighbours and were always willing to give guests their time and cups of tea as they welcomed them into their home. However much this was true, there was one visitor that Doris really wished could be there - her mother, Daisy.
She felt her loss more acutely during the first few months of being a mother herself and she craved the advice that is usually passed down from one generation to the next. Grief always shows its face more openly at such significant dates and times over the years and Doris reflected upon how cruel a twist of fate it had been for her mother to have caught that winter flu, when she had managed to make such a recovery from the tuberculosis. There had been just too many odds stacked against her. Doris sighed deeply, telling herself to focus upon the here and now and started peeling the potatoes for dinner as she listened to the Beatles playing on Radio Caroline.
This Christmas was also the first one that Doris would not be sharing with Lillian. She stood by the sink drainer with her peeler at the ready, picturing how the two of them would have been dancing together in her kitchen, had Lillian been there. Instead, many miles distance lay between the two sisters this Christmas Eve, two sisters who had been inseparable for most of their lives. Shortly after Andrew’s birth, Lillian had announced her travel plans and within weeks was off to catch the boat train from Victoria to Paris.
Lillian had squirrelled away savings ever since she first had any earnings, helping out on a local market stall. After leaving school, she had taken any work she could until she had accrued a modest amount of money. This was her travelling fund and now she was ready to use it to set off on all the adventures that she had always wanted to have. She planned to work her way from one place to another, wherever fate may take her.
Doris might have understood the reasons behind Lillian’s decision and had every faith that Lillian would make a success of it but she was always going to worry about her ‘little sister.’ In reality, that had been her role for many years. All that was swirling in her head as she stood beside Lillian on the platform that evening, Doris had determined to put on a brave face but many tears were shed when it was time to wave Lillian on her way, with her hopes and dreams packed alongside her clothes in her suitcase.
Doris admired her sister’s adventurous spirit and had always known that Lillian could not be contained in one place for it would be like pinning a butterfly by its wing. Now, Doris had her own life story unfolding with her little family in Brewer Street. Serving up a simple dinner of cold meat and boiled potatoes, surrounded by the love of a happy home. Doris thought how lucky she and her sister had been to have kind people in their lives. She watched Andrew kicking his legs in his carry cot and she wondered what his future would look like, then chided herself for getting all sentimental.
“Penny for ‘em?” Will asked.
“Uh, sorry love. Thoughts running away with me, that’s all,” she replied.
“Lillian?”
“Yes. I hope she’s alright, Will.”
“She’ll be fine, Dot, I’m sure. Reckon she’ll be raising a glass somewhere and chatting ten to the dozen.”
Will always knew instinctively what Doris was thinking and more importantly, what to say to make her feel better.
“I’ll clear this lot, they’ll be in from next door soon.”
“Thanks, love. I’ll take this little man up to his room.”
She took Andrew upstairs whilst Will started clearing away the dinner things. Both jobs done, they each returned to the front room. Maggie and 'Irish Mary' were joining them for a drink before they went on to midnight mass later. Will had invited them for a festive sherry and thought that it would be nice for Doris, as he had guessed she would be missing Lillian. Doris knew that she really could not have found a more generous and thoughtful man and was looking forward to joining his family the next day for what promised to be quite the festive feast. Although she would be helping out in the kitchen of course, along with Will’s mother and sister, Polly, she was quietly relieved not to be hosting the Christmas dinner as there would definitely not have been room for all his family in their little two up, two down.
Maggie burst into the room with her usual vibrancy but turned up a notch, if that were possible, by virtue of the fact that it was Christmas Eve.
“Isn’t this just lovely? So nice of you to invite us.” Maggie was triumphant in her announcement of their presence as she and Mary took off their coats.
“Let me take those, Maggie.” Will hung the coats up as Maggie continued.
“Thank you. We’ll certainly need those later, bound to freeze on our way to Mass, eh Mam?” Maggie’s smile beamed across the room as Mary nodded in reply, anticipating that Maggie would not be pausing for any further response to her comment and made herself comfortable in one of the armchairs.
“I love Christmas Eve, don’t you, Dottie? Mam and I get all dressed up in our church best and now we get to share it with you, well isn’t that just the cherry on the cake? And it looks so pretty in here.”
“Yes, Maggie. ‘Tis grand, for sure,” said Irish Mary, taking in the details of the decorated room from her vantage point in the corner.
Will and Doris exchanged a glance and both smiled earnestly. Will managed to chip in quick, as Maggie took a breath to look around the room, “Sherry, ladies?”
“Yes please,” gushed Maggie, “and for you, Mam?”
“Oh yes, that’ll hit the spot.”
Will was already opening the bottle from the sideboard ready to pour into the little sherry glasses, each one a different colour, each one catching the light to cast its own glow. He put down the Harvey’s Bristol Cream bottle and passed around the glasses.
“Cheers everyone.”
A chorus echoing the cheers followed and then Mary added “May Santa put something good in your stocking!”
They all started laughing at this remark, until baby Andrew’s cries signalled that he was in need of a little more attention before he would settle for the night. Doris went upstairs and her soft lullaby floated down to the sherry drinkers below. It did not take too long for him to settle. Too young to sense the festive excitement of gifts to come on Christmas Day, there would be plenty of times ahead for that.
When Doris returned to the front room, Maggie was in full flow again, chatting away to explain that she and her Mam had brought them round a tin of Rowntree’s toffees as a little appreciation for being such fine neighbours.
“We’ll just have to open that now then and share a few,” said Doris, “thank you, it’s such a pretty tin.”
She passed the tin around and the conversation paused for long enough for each of them to chew on their chosen toffee and wash it down with a few sips of sherry. It was a cosy scene, one of neighbours who had become firm friends. They sat together beneath the paper chains with the smell of mince pies wafting through from the oven and talked of Christmas plans and absent friends.
***
Somewhere, in a small Parisian loft room, Lillian was spending her first Christmas abroad in the company of new friends over a bottle of red wine, whilst snow flurries swirled outside the window. Thrilled to be free of expectations and pleased to be making her way in her new life, Lillian thought how much better it would be if she could share some of it with her sister. Those gathered in the room raised a glass to a ‘Joyeux Noel’ as Lillian whispered a wish towards her frosty window pane.
“Happy Christmas, Dottie.”
Karen Honnor - 'Unravelling: A Tale of Strength, Love and Dementia.' 2020
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