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Harold's Old Time Radio
Christmas Story - Christmas Present - Maeve Binchy
00:13:41
Christmas Story - Christmas Present - Maeve Binchy
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Christmas was coming. The lights had gone up everywhere, Santas appeared in the shops and the threatening notices about ordering turkeys in advance had appeared in every butcher's window. Ma' Am had ordered theirs. Joe checked several times. Oh Joe, if you ask me again I'll get into the oven and base myself. On Christmas Day of course I've ordered one and whatever it is it'll be wrong. She was right, Joe agreed resignedly. On Christmas Eve his granny and his grandfather came and somehow the day went downhill. The moment they arrived. They weren't married to each other, these grandparents. They didn't even like each other. Granny was Mam's mother and seemed to think Mam would have lived in a smarter house in a classier way if she hadn't married dad. And Grandfather was Dad's father and he was bad tempered about everything and said that people's values had changed and the world wasn't what it used to be. Joe's mum and dad even started to fight with each other, which they didn't do for the rest of the year. Each year they thought it was going to be fine, but then a couple of days before the rot would set in. Joe was only 10 and he could see it coming. His parents were very old. Why couldn't they spot it like a black cloud on the horizon? Its getting grand and Christmassy. Mum, he said about three days before you'd know it was your father started singing that song again. Her mouth was in a grim line. The song was a send up of White Christmas that his dad had heard on the radio. Joe thought it was great. His mum didn't. She loved Bing Crosby and what's more her mother loved Bing Crosby and this was making a mock and a jeer of everything that was important. Dad bought paper napkins with jokes on them. They might liven up the night of the living Dead around our table, he'd said. Mum said that her mother thought her that a Christmas meal without linen napkins was more or less like sitting down and eating chips out of a newspaper. Something you and I did a lot of when we were caught in. And you loved me, dad said. I still love you, you big fool, Mum said, but her heart wasn't in it. It was like being on automatic pilot. Joe asked his friend Thomas if it was the same in his house. It wasn't. There were so many of them in Thomas's house, dozens of them. There were never enough presents and people were always giving things for the wrong ages, even the wrong sexes. Thomas got a nightdress case Shaped like a crinoline lady. Once they had put it in the kennel and the dog had eaten the head off it and got sick. But do they fight? You mind Dar? Thomas thought about it. Are they raw? He said. But not more than usual. That wasn't much help. Joe wished that Grandfather and Granny wouldn't come. They were the cause of the whole thing. If it were just themselves, they'd have a great time. If his grandparents weren't there, they could watch what they liked on television and maybe he could go round to Thomas's house or Thomas could come to his and Mam and Dad would sit and laugh and say, do you remember this? And do you remember that? And they always seemed to remember good things. Grandfather remembered times when people had heart and Granny remembered the style and the quality that used to come to their house years ago when things were different. And both memories seemed to cast everyone into gloom. What would you like best for Christmas? Not a present, not a million pounds, but just. Just for something to happen. Joe asked his mum. Id like your father to quit singing that send up of White Christmas. She said. What would you like best, dad? I'd like your mother to stop play acting with decanters and put in name places on the table for five people and call on a jug, a sauce boat, he said. Joe's fears were confirmed. The Christmas hostility had settled. What was the worst thing about their coming? The complaints, the snide remarks, the things they saw and heard that displeased them. He couldn't put sticky paper over their mouths. What a pity they had to hear and see so much. Granny did most of the seeing. I see you've plastic flower tubs, she would say. What a pity. What a great pity. And she would sigh, a sigh that went to the very fibre of her being. And everyone would get downcast over the huge descent in standards that had come over the family since Mam had married dad and gone down to the level of plastic flower pots. Grandfather said that the music nowadays was intolerable, that there was never a tune in anything like there was in the old days. Just fellows shouting and straining and no talent at all. If he had a voice he would sing the songs of the old days. But he hadn't. The company somehow felt to blame because Grandfather didn't have a voice to sing with. And as for that mad dog of theirs barking and yelping, or the studio audiences in any funny show cackling inanely, it was a wonder Grandfather wore a hearing aid. If he didn't like what he heard. And Granny wore those pebbly glasses to see things she didn't like. An idea came to Joe. They arrived on Christmas Eve. Everything was wrong, of course, as it always was. Granny talked about the journey to this part of the world, as if where they lived was some kind of penal settlement, far from civilization as she knew it. Grandfather said he'd come in a train full of alcoholic louts with cans of lager, shouting and singing and playing huge record players at a high volume. Joe couldn't put his plan into practice yet, so he endured Christmas Eve night as he always had. The settling in. Grandfather finding the fact that there was traffic on the road a grave setback. Granny saying that the house was so small it was amazing they didn't all fall over each other. Christmas morning they all went to church and oh dear, that had all changed, like so many things for the worse. Then they came home and had breakfast. Joe's mum and dad were beginning to get edgy with each other as they did every year. Dad was humming White Christmas under his breath. If you sing, I'll use the carving knife for a purpose which its makers didn't intend, mam said through gritted teeth. Joe watched his grandparents like a hawk. He had to be ready to make his move when an opportunity presented itself. It happened when they were opening presents. Granny got some awful handkerchief sashie sent to her by a friend who was called the Honourable Something. Granny was overcome by the generosity of this ridiculous presentation. She stroked it and eventually took off her glasses to wipe her eyes at the emotion of such a tasteful and aristocratic gift. Joe plunged quickly. He knocked her glasses from the table where she'd placed them so they fell behind her. Then he engineered that. She leaned forward for a moment to look at some antic of the dog. She looked without much interest or pleasure or indeed vision. And then she sat back heavily and crunched her glasses to little pieces. There was an enormous fuss. Dustpans and brushes were got. Granny was consoled. New glasses could be got, but not, of course, until after the holidays, not until opticians went back to work. There was much sympathy and huge confusion. How had this happened? I'm normal is so careful, granny said. Joe was sympathetic, polite. Out in the kitchen, he heard Father say, well, she won't be able to turn the plates upside down and see if they're bone china this year. Joe's mother said. She's still got a hearing. She'll hear if you sing that song about White Christmas. But there wasn't the same bad temper as usual. Joe watched his grandfather. Sometimes he took his hearing aid out, often to look at it, to turn it up or down. Why wasn't he doing it now? Switch, the big lovable near Labrador, usually lay stretched happily in front of the fire. But at Christmas he always absented himself, so Joe had to keep dragging him back into the sitting room. Grandfather got an alarm clock for a Christmas present. He listened for the tick and couldn't hear it properly. So, as he often did, he removed his hearing aid to test it. Get it, boy, Joe said, and the dog snapped at the little bit of plastic. He chewed it happily, delighted with the new toy, and mangled it out of any recognisable shape. In an attempt to retrieve it, Joe made sure that all the wires were wrenched from it. Grandfather was astounded. He hadn't heard his grandson's cry of encouragement. Neither had anyone else, or if they had, it wasn't mentioned. The Christmas lunch appeared on the table. As always, it seemed great to Joe. Dish after dish appeared. His grandmother didn't pick them up to read what was written underneath. Mm, mm, that smells very nice, she said instead. Joe's mirm nearly dropped the turkey. Every other year there had been sorrowful reminiscences of the times when Christmas was Christmas and the bird had been brought in on a silver salver. Now, since she couldn't see the plate it was resting on, there was nothing to trigger off a trip down memory lane. From the other room came the sounds of the chieftains belting out their numbers. Everyone's foot was tapping, including Granny's. It had been a good choice. It sort of spanned the generations. Grandfather didn't hear it at all, nor did he hear Switch yowling in time to the music. There was a marvellous film on television on Christmas night. Dad had said they wouldn't be able to have it because his father would say that the values were all wrong. Fellows not fighting for their country like fellows should, and language that would make a soldier blush. Granny would say that that sort of thing was fine in its place, but not on Christmas Day, when everyone had eaten a good dinner. But this year, maybe. Joe looked at his parents hopefully. Given a lash, said his father with good humoured enthusiasm. The skies can't fall on us, said Joe's ma' am as they watched the film. Grandfather looked for a while, pleased at the images and understanding nothing at all. Then he dropped off to sleep peacefully. Granny sat in her chair, seeing only a blur, but she liked the music and thought she followed the plot. Then she too went to sleep. On the day after Christmas, Mam and dad always used to have people in for a drink. The neighbours would come and say that their heads were splitting and it had been the final blight on the festive season. Granny used to sniff and say that people of this sort had been the salt of the earth in their own place. But of course their own place had been at the back door. Grandfather used to say that these people talked about money and drink and horses and football and had no values like people of old who talked of nationhood and identity. This year his grandfather and grandmother sat benignly when the guests arrived. Drinks were handed to them. Clasps of goodwill were exchanged. Joe saw his dad giving his mum a bit of a squeeze in the kitchen as they went in to take more mince pies out of the oven. Granny couldn't see the paper plates and plain paper napkins. It might not be like this every Christmas, his father said as the departure came the next day. No indeed, said Joe. He was sure he couldn't get away with it again. Not both of them, anyway. His mam said she never knew, did she? Her eyes were bright. Of course he couldn't immobilise both of them again. But somehow the memory of them seeing nothing and hearing nothing had been a touching one. It made them less of the ogres they had been. They would never be able to threaten his Christmas again.