I was hoping for the twelve days of Christmas, but only got to nine. You'll be relieved to hear.
When I Believed
I
Father Christmases are a flurry of moments
that compact together to a single snowdrift memory,
as fresh and as deep.
It is not snowing, though, for Dad’s ritual,
pre-lunch, post present-frenzy and fry-up,
was to hose down the top yard, the middle yard
and the bottom yard: cleanliness being
next to godliness in the slaughterhouse,
and this was the godliest day of the year.
We never killed on Christmas Day,
even if it was a Sunday.
Eid came parlous close one year,
but the crescent moon waxed,
just before our star stopped.
II
From those credulous years, I can only remember
three sleigh-delivered presents,
and one of those my younger brother’s -
the shaking wrist doll who threw a dice
like a Vegas high roller;
for Robert could not but cheat at games,
else wail on losing.
The doll, like any good gambler, took losing in good part,
always came back for more, and never cottoned on
to the fact the dice was loaded.
III
My first, firmest remembered is Mousy,
and whilst I recall his arrival,
suspect the reason he nested in my mind
has more to do with my leaving him once
with Uncle Edwin in Abergavenny.
Yes, we left, three decks fully laden
Yes, we got a fair way home,
Yes, I screamed the cab down,
Yes, sheep, lorry and Dad turned round.
I think Mousy finally bought the farm in Knightsbridge,
sacrificed during a spree at The Scotch House,
and mother never so malleable.
IV
The last of the three, the typewriter that didn’t come:
I had dreamed its keys, my expertise, for a month.
Having descended to the present room,
Santa had been, but not, bad girl, for me.
Shock; horror; guilt; tantrum; tears,
until laughing parents made bigger brothers
take me back upstairs, to behind the curtains
of the half-way landing windowsill.
There sat the steel-grey typewriter,
waiting for me to strike it.
I think we specialised, at our house,
in cruelty as entertainment.
V
There was a year it did snow,
and after dark we were all out
skidding standing on tea trays.
Mum joined in. Mum fell.
Mum snapped her wrist.
Snow silence, then how we laughed,
and anyway, said Dad, look on the bright side
the hospital’s across the road.
Next day, she cooked Christmas dinner
for the usual twelve, for who else?
VI
My top bunk gave the bird’s eye view
of the junction of South Street and Oldchurch Rd,
and better, of Jock and Vi’s house,
which was our house, only they stayed there.
Jock slaughtered, Vi sold the station flowers,
both drank, neither washed much.
Most nights something came flying
out their door, followed by Jock,
or vice versa, for he was a little man.
One year a sideways-sloping Christmas tree
in the front window (they didn’t do curtains)
was secured at star height to the vacant rail
with a pair of tan tights, stretched out
so the gusset hung down.
I laughed because we all did,
but even I got the joke when Vi
ran the flashing lights along the tights as well.
VII
Rows at Christmas were the best all year,
a whole day in the house together,
the turkey tension palpable.
Were it not perfect, my father’s plate
would hit the ceiling, sometimes sticking,
dependent on gravy to bread sauce ratio,
for a whole minute; by which time
there was no table for it to land on,
for he had turned that over too.
We’d run, hide, I’d read aloud,
very loud, to Robert,
and by the time we got to bickering
one of the big boys had come to find us.
The table got righted, we got fed
on mis-matched plates, but best of all
the brussels could never be saved.
VIII
Come the evening, our ranks would swell
with drunk Uncles, Aunts and not-Aunts,
who would all be shepherded to that massive table,
and twenty of us sat for “Stop the Cab”,
the greatest card game ever invented.
We innocents always won,
yet I never wondered why,
so certain of my own superiority
and Robert’s ability to cheat.
The final hand of the night, stakes raised
from copper pennies to silver tanners,
and either he or I got three Kings,
shouted “Stop the Cab!”, and collected the pot.
I can’t recall what I enjoyed more as winner:
the chink of the money in my hands
or his uncomfortable wailing.
IX
Christmas gave you confidence back then
that no matter how bad things got
things would be as they always were.
But times change, and no one rows properly anymore.
We forgave each other easier in those days,
closer to Jesus, perhaps, than you might think.
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