taste the fumes, lead and diesel and petrol. Where’s the cordite …? He should be able to smell the cordite. But he’s not there, he’s here. ‘Jesus Christ, help me,’ he prays silently. He’s not a religious man, but any port in a storm … Christ, can’t you get out of the bloody way and let me park. His anger is rising. He needs to hit something. In a moment he’s just going to put his bloody foot down and ram that bloody bastard idiot in front of him and just get him out of the bloody way. He winds the window down. Thick smoke, lead, diesel and petrol filling his lungs. He screams: ‘Get out of the fucking way before I fucking kill you …’ But his words are lost in the petrol-thick, frost-heavy air and the car in front moves slowly forward and Alex finds a parking space and then he turns off the car engine and leans his head upon his hands on the steering wheel and for just a few moments he sobs like a child.
* * * * *
‘Got them working yet?’ Alex is sitting on the floor with a red plastic light bulb tester patiently – seemingly – checking each tiny bulb. It’s the same every year that Alex has been home. The times Juliet’s been on ‘put away’ duty after Christmas she’s either fixed them or chucked them, so that she doesn’t have to go through this whole effing palaver on Christmas Eve. And the times Alex has been away she’s got the tree a whole two weeks before Christmas. So what if it was almost bare by the time Christmas came around;
it was just the joy of doing something her way.
‘I can’t decorate the tree until we’ve got the lights on. We should have bought some more. They’re so cheap these days. The time you’re spending trying to fix them –’
‘Juliet, could you do me one small favour …’
She raises her eyebrows, anticipating what he’s about to say.
‘Just shut the fuck up.’
‘Language, Alex.’ Geraldine has brought in a tray of tea.
‘Thanks, Geraldine. You’ve just arrived in time for the light show – or lack of it …’
‘Oh look, well done, darling …’
‘Oh, well done, darling …’ Juliet echoes.
‘Well done, Daddy,’ Ben comes jumping into the room and bounces onto the sofa. Can I put them on the tree, please?’
‘Let Mummy put them on and then you can start putting the balls on.’
‘’K, Mummy.’
‘I expect Granny would like to help, too.’
Geraldine is not a difficult guest. Juliet is fond of her because she feels an affinity, and an understanding. But she hates her weakness, even though she understands the source of it. Women were supposedly different in those days. Of course they weren’t really different at all, they were just subjugated and brainwashed into being domestic slaves. At least that’s what Juliet thinks. And here’s Geraldine, a living example. Alex is much nicer to his mother than he is to Juliet. He would never, for instance, call her a ‘fucking bitch’ or variations on the same theme. He is able to control his outbursts in front of his mother, but then she is wealthy and they depended on her largesse. There she goes, being cynical again.
Alex’s sister, Lucinda, lives mostly in Scotland, having married an impoverished Scottish earl on some godforsaken, impossible- to-get-to, midge-infested island, with her four obnoxious children, and so, not surprisingly, Geraldine wasn’t that keen on travelling there alone. Alex’s father had, much to everyone’s relief, dropped dead of a stroke at the age of sixty-nine. Geraldine had been of independent wealth before she married, and so once her husband died it finally meant she could get her hands back on her own money. It was ironic that Geraldine was the one with means but was timid and retiring while Deborah, Juliet’s mother, was the flamboyant socialite. She and SF (stepfather or Sad Fuck as Juliet called him) were spending their Christmas with ‘friends’ in Gstaad. A great opportunity for Deborah to parade
* * * * *
‘Got them working yet?’ Alex is sitting on the floor with a red plastic light bulb tester patiently – seemingly – checking each tiny bulb. It’s the same every year that Alex has been home. The times Juliet’s been on ‘put away’ duty after Christmas she’s either fixed them or chucked them, so that she doesn’t have to go through this whole effing palaver on Christmas Eve. And the times Alex has been away she’s got the tree a whole two weeks before Christmas. So what if it was almost bare by the time Christmas came around;
it was just the joy of doing something her way.
‘I can’t decorate the tree until we’ve got the lights on. We should have bought some more. They’re so cheap these days. The time you’re spending trying to fix them –’
‘Juliet, could you do me one small favour …’
She raises her eyebrows, anticipating what he’s about to say.
‘Just shut the fuck up.’
‘Language, Alex.’ Geraldine has brought in a tray of tea.
‘Thanks, Geraldine. You’ve just arrived in time for the light show – or lack of it …’
‘Oh look, well done, darling …’
‘Oh, well done, darling …’ Juliet echoes.
‘Well done, Daddy,’ Ben comes jumping into the room and bounces onto the sofa. Can I put them on the tree, please?’
‘Let Mummy put them on and then you can start putting the balls on.’
‘’K, Mummy.’
‘I expect Granny would like to help, too.’
Geraldine is not a difficult guest. Juliet is fond of her because she feels an affinity, and an understanding. But she hates her weakness, even though she understands the source of it. Women were supposedly different in those days. Of course they weren’t really different at all, they were just subjugated and brainwashed into being domestic slaves. At least that’s what Juliet thinks. And here’s Geraldine, a living example. Alex is much nicer to his mother than he is to Juliet. He would never, for instance, call her a ‘fucking bitch’ or variations on the same theme. He is able to control his outbursts in front of his mother, but then she is wealthy and they depended on her largesse. There she goes, being cynical again.
Alex’s sister, Lucinda, lives mostly in Scotland, having married an impoverished Scottish earl on some godforsaken, impossible- to-get-to, midge-infested island, with her four obnoxious children, and so, not surprisingly, Geraldine wasn’t that keen on travelling there alone. Alex’s father had, much to everyone’s relief, dropped dead of a stroke at the age of sixty-nine. Geraldine had been of independent wealth before she married, and so once her husband died it finally meant she could get her hands back on her own money. It was ironic that Geraldine was the one with means but was timid and retiring while Deborah, Juliet’s mother, was the flamboyant socialite. She and SF (stepfather or Sad Fuck as Juliet called him) were spending their Christmas with ‘friends’ in Gstaad. A great opportunity for Deborah to parade
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