Short story

Another Christmas

William Trevor

You always looked back, she thought. You looked back at other years, other Christmas cards arriving, the children younger. There was the year Patrick had cried, disliking the holly she was decorating the living-room with. There Was the year Bridget had got a speck of coke in her eye on Christmas Eve and had to be taken to the hospital at Hammersmith in the mindle of the night. There was the first year of their marriage, when she and Dermot were still in Waterford. And ever since they'd come to London there was the presence on Christmas Day of their landlord, Mr Joyce, a man whom they had watched becoming elderly.

She was middle-aged now, with touches of grey in her fluffy black hair, easy in her Cheerfulness, running a bit to fat. Her husband was the opposite: thin and seeming ascetic, With more than a hint of the priest in him, a good man. "Will we get married, Norah?" he'd said one night in the Tara Ballroom in Waterford, November 6, 1949. The proposal had astonished her. It was his brother Ned, bulky and fresh-faced, a different kettle of fish altogether, whom she'd been expecting to make It.

Patiently he held a chair for her while she strung paper-chains across the room, from one Picture-rail to another. He warned her to be

careful about attaching anything to the electric light, and still held the chair while she put

Sprigs of holly behind the pictures. He was cautious by nature and alarmed by little things, Particularly anxious in case she fell off chairs. He'd never mount a chair himself, to put up decorations or anything else: he'd be useless at it in his opinion and it was his opinion that mattered. He'd never been able to do a thing about the house but it didn't matter because since the boys had grown up they'd been able to attend to whatever she couldn't manage, herself. You wouldn't dream of remarking on it: he was the way he was, considerate and thoughtful in what he did do, teetotal, clever, full of fondness for herself and for the family they'd reared, full of respect for her also.

"Isn't it remarkable how quick it comes round, Norah?" he said, both hands still griPping the back of the chair. "Isn't it no time since last year?"

"No time at all."

"Though a lot happened in the year, Norah." "An awful lot happened." Two of the pictures she decorated were scenes of Waterford: the quays, and a man driving sheep past the Bank of Ireland. Her mother had given them to her, taking them down from the hall of the farmhouse. There was a gilt-framed picture of the Virgin and Child and other, smaller pictures. She placed her last sprig of holly, a piece with berries on it, above the Virgin's halo. "I'll make a cup of tea," she said, descending from the chair and smiling at him. "A cup of tea'd be great, Norah."

The living-room contained three brown armchairs and a mahogany table with upright chairs around it, and a sideboard with a lelevision set on it. It was crowded by this turniture and seemed even smaller than it was cause of the decorations that had been

added. On the mantelpiece, above a built-in gas fire, Christmas cards were arrayed on either side of a green clock, ornate in a nineteenthirties style. The house was in a terrace in Fulham. It had always been too small for the family, but now that Patrick and Brendan no longer lived there things were easier. Patrick had married a girl called Pearl six months ago, almost as soon as his period of training with the Midland Bank had ended. Brendan was training in Liverpool, with a firm of computer manufacturers. The three remaining children were still at school, Bridget at the nearby convent, Cathal and Tom at the Sacred Heart Primary. When Patrick and Brendan had moved out, the room they'd always shared had become Bridget's. Until then Bridget had slept in her parents' room and she'd have to return there this Christmas because Brendan would be back for three nights. Patrick and Pearl would just come for Christmas Day. They'd be going to Pearl's people, in Croydon, on Boxing Day — St Stephen's Day, as Norah and Dermot always called it, in the Irish manner.

"It'll be great, having them all," he said. "A family again, Norah."

"And Pearl."

"She's part of us now, Norah." "Will you have biscuits with your tea? I have a packet of Nice." He said he would, thanking her. He was a meter-reader with North Thames Gas, a position he had held for twenty-five years, ever since he'd emigrated. In Waterford he'd worked as a clerk in the Customs, not earning very much and not much caring for the stuffy, smoke-laden office he shared with half-a-dozen other clerks. He had come to England because Norah had thought it was a good idea, because she'd always wanted to work in a London shop. She'd been given a job in Dickens and Jones, in the dress materials' department, and he'd begun the life of a meter-reader, cycling from door to door, remembering the different houses and where the meters were situated in each, being agreeable to householders: all of it suited him from the start. He devoted time to thought while he rode about, and in particular to thought about religious matters.

In her small kitchen she made the tea and carried it on a tray into the living-room. She'd

been late this year with the decorations. She always liked to get them up a week in advance .because they set the mood, making everyone feel right for Christmas. She'd been busy with stuff for a stall Father Malley had asked her to run for his Christmas Sale. A fashion stall he'd called it, but not quite knowing what he meant she'd just asked people for any old clothes they had, jumble really. Because of the time it had taken she hadn't had a minute to see to the decorations until this afternoon, two days before Christmas Eve, But that, as it turned out,' had been all for the best. Bridget and Cathal and Tom had gone over to Hammersmith to the pictures, Dermot didn't work on a Monday afternoon: it was convenient that they'd have an hour or two alone together because there was the matter of Mr Joyce to bring up. Not that she wanted to bring it up, but it couldn't be just left there.

"The cup that cheers," he said, breaking a biscuit in half. Deliberately she put off raising a subject that was unpleasant. She watched him nibbling the biscuit and then dropping three heaped spoons of sugar into his tea and stirring it. He loved tea. The first time he'd taken her out, to the Savoy in Waterford, they'd had tea afterwards in the cinema café and they'd talked about the film and about people they knew. He'd come to live in Waterford from the country, from the farm his brother had inherited, quite close to her father's farm. He reckoned he'd settled, he told her that night: Waterford wasn't sensational, but it suited him in a lot of ways. If he hadn't married her he'd still be there, working eight hours a day in the Customs and not caring for it, yet managing to get by because he had his religion to assist him.

"Did we get a card from Father Jack yet?" he enquired, referring to a distant cousin, a priest in Chicago.

"Not yet. But it's always on the late side, Father Jack's. It was February last year."

She sipped her tea, sitting in one of the other brown armchairs, on the other side of the gas fire. It was pleasant being alone with him in the decorated room, the green clock ticking on the mantelpiece, the Christmas cards, dusk gathering outside. She smiled and laughed, taking another biscuit while he lit a cigarette. "Isn't this great?" she said. "A bit of peace for ourselves?"

Solemnly he nodded.

"Peace comes dropping slow," he said, and she knew he was quoting from some book or other. Quite often he said things she didn't understand. "Peace and goodwill," he added, and she understood that all right.

He tapped the ash from his cigarette into an ashtray which was kept for his use, beside the gas fire. All his movements were slow. He was a slow thinker, even though he was clever. He arrived at a conclusion, having thought long and carefully; he balanced everything in his mind. "We must think about that, Norah," he'd said that day, twenty-five years ago, when she'd suggested that they should move to England. A week later he'd said that if she really wanted to he'd agree.

They talked about Bridget and Cathal and Tom. When they came in from the cinema they'd only just have time to change their clothes before setting out again for the Christmas party at Bridget's convent. "It's a big day for them. Let them lie in in the morning, Norah."

"They could lie in for ever." She laughed, in case there might seem to be harshness in this recommendation. With Christmas excitement running high the less she heard from them the better, she said, laughing again.

"Did you get Cathal the gadgets he wanted?" "Chemistry stuff. A set in a box."

"You're great the way you manage, Norah." She denied that. She poured more tea for both of them. She said, as casually as she could: "Mr Joyce won't come. I'm not counting him in for Christmas Day."

"He hasn't failed us yet, Norah."

"He won't come this year." She smiled through the gloom at him. "I think we'd best warn the children about it."

"Where would he go if he didn't come here? Where'd he get his dinner?"

"Lyons used to be open in the old days." "He'd never do that."

"The Bulrush Café has a turkey dinner advertised. There's a lot of people go in for that now. If you have a mother doing a job maybe she hasn't the time for the cooking. They go out to a hotel or a café, three or four pounds a head . . ."

"Mr Joyce wouldn't go to a café. No one could go into a cafe on their own on a Christmas Day."

"He won't come here, dear."

It had to be said: it was no good just pretending, laying a place for the old man on an assumption that had no basis to it. Mr Joyce would not come because Mr Joyce, last August, had ceased to visit them. Every Friday night he used to come, for a cup of tea and a chat, to watch the nine o'clock news with them. Every Christmas Day he'd brought carefully chosen presents for the children, and chocolates and nuts and cigarettes. He'd given Patrick and Pearl a radio as a wedding present.

"I think he'll come all right. I think maybe he hasn't been too well. God help him, it's a great age, Norah."

"He hasn't been ill, Dermot."

Every Friday Mr Joyce had sat there in the third of the brown armchairs, watching the television, his bald head inclined so that his good ear was closer to the screen. He was tallish, rather bent now, frail and bony, with a modest white moustache. In his time he'd been a builder, which was how he had come to own property in Fulham, a self-made man who'd never married. That evening in August he had been quite as usual. Bridget had kissed him good-night because for as long as she could remember she'd always done that when he came to sit in the living-room. He'd asked Cathal how he was getting on with his afternoon paper round.

There had never been any difficulties over the house. They considered that he was fair in his dealings with them; they were his tenants and his friends. When the Irish bombed English people to death in Birmingham and Guildford he did not cease to arrive on Friday evenings and on Christmas Day. The bombings were discussed after the news, the Tower of London bomb, the bomb in the bus, and all the others. "Maniacs," Mr Joyce said and nobody contradicted him.

"He would never forget the children, Norah. Not at Christmastime."

His voice addressed her from the shadows. She felt the warmth of the gas fire reflected in her face and knew if she looked in a mirror she'd see that she was quite flushed. Dermot's face never reddened. Even though he was nervy, he never displayed emotion. On all occasions his face retained its paleness, his eyes acquired no glimmer of passion. No wife could have a better husband, yet in the matter of Mr Joyce he was so wrong it almost frightened her.

"Is it tomorrow I call in for the turkey?" he said.

She nodded, hoping he'd ask her if anything was the matter because as a rule she never just nodded in reply to a question. But he didn't say anything. He stubbed his cigarette out. He asked if there was another cup of tea in the pot.

"Dermot, would you take something round to Mr Joyce?"

"A message, is it?"

"I have a tartan tie for him."

"Wouldn't you give it to him on the day, Norah? Like you always do." He spoke softly, Still insisting. She shook her head.

It was all her fault. If she hadn't said they Should go to England, if she hadn't wanted to work in a London shop, they wouldn't be caught in the trap they'd made for themselves. Their children spoke with London accents. Patrick and Brendan worked for English firms and would make their homes in England. Patrick had married an English girl. They were Catholics and they had Irish names, yet home for them was not Waterford.

"Could you make it up with Mr Joyce, Dermot? Could you go round with the tie and say you were sorry?"

"Sorry?"

"You know what I mean." In spite of herself her voice had acquired a trace of impatience, an edginess that was unusual in it. She did not ever speak to him like that. It was the way she occasionally spoke to the children.

"What would I say I was sorry for, Norah?"

"For what you said that night." She smiled, calming her agitation. He lit another cigarette, the flame of the match briefly illuminating his face. Nothing had changed in his face. He said: "I don't think Mr Joyce and I had any disagreement, Norah."

"I know, Dermot. You didn't mean any_ thing —."

"There was no disagreement, girl."

There had been no disagreement, but on that evening in August something else had happened. On the nine o'clock news there had been a report of another outrage and afterwards, when Dermot had turned the television off, there'd been the familiar comment on it. He couldn't understand the mentality of people like that, Mr Joyce had yet again remarked, people killing just anyone, destroying life for no reason. Dermot had shaken his head over it, she herself had said it was uncivilised. Then Dermot had added that they mustn't of course forget what the Catholics in the North had suffered. The bombs were a crime but it didn't do to forget that the crime would not be there if generations of Catholics in the North had not been treated as animals. There'd been a silence then, a difficult kind of silence that she'd broken herself. All that was in the past, she'd said hastily, in a rush. Nothing in the past or the present, nothing at all, could justify the killing of innocent people. Even so, Dermot had added, it didn't do to avoid the truth. Mr Joyce had not said anything.

"I'd say there was no need to go round with he tie, Norah. I'd say he'd make the effort on Christmas Day."

"Of course he won't." Her voice was raised, with more than impatience in it now. But her anger was controlled. "Of course he won't come."

"It's a time for goodwill, Norah. Another Christmas: to remind us."

He spoke slowly, the words prompted by some interpretation of 'God's voice in answer to ap prayer: she recognised that in his deliberate tone.

Miserably she said, not wishing to say it: "It isn't just another Christmas. It's an awful kind of Christmas. It's a Christmas to be ashamed on and you're making it worse, Dermot," Her lips were trembling in a way that was uncomfortable. If she tried to calm herself she'd become jittery instead, she might even begin to cry. Mr Joyce had been generous and tactful, she said loudly. It made no difference to Mr Joyce that they were Irish people, that their children went to school with the children of IRA men. Yet his generosity and his tact had been thrown back in his face. Everyone knew that the Catholics in the North had suffered, that generations of injustice had been twisted into the shape of a cause. But you couldn't say it to an old man who had hardly been outside Fulham in his life. You couldn't say it because when you did it sounded like an excuse for murder.

"You have to state the truth, Norah. It's there to be told."

"I never yet cared for a North of Ireland person, Catholic or Protestant. Let them fight it out and not bother us."

"You shouldn't say that, Norah."

"It's more of your truth for you."

He didn't reply. There was the gleam of his face for a moment as he drew on his cigarette. In all their married life they had never had a quarrel that was in any way serious, yet she felt herself now in the presence of a seriousness that was too much for her. She had told him that whenever a new bombing took place she prayed it might be the work of the Angry Brigade, or any group that wasn't Irish. She'd told him that in shops she'd begun to feel embarrassed because of her Waterford accent. He'd said she must have courage, and she realised now that he had drawn on courage, himself when he'd made the remark to Mr Joyce. He would have prayed and considered before making it. He would have seen it in the end as his Catholic duty.

"He thinks you don't condemn people being killed." She spoke quietly even though she felt a wildness inside her. She felt she should be out on the streets, shouting in her Waterford accent, violently stating that the bombers were more despicable with every breath they drew, that hatred and death were all they deserved. She saw herself on Fulham Broadway, haranguing the passers-by, her greying hair blown in the wind, her voice more passionate than it had ever been before. But none of it was the kind of thing she could do because she was not that kind of woman. She hadn't the courage, any more than she had the courage to urge her anger to explode in their living-room. For all the years of her marriage there had never been the need of such courage before: she was aware of that, but found no consolation in it.

"I think maybe he's seen it by now," he said, "how one thing leads to another."

She felt insulted by the words. She willed on herself the strength to shout, to pour out a torrent of fury at him, but the strength did not come. Standing up, she stumbled in the gloom and felt a piece of holly under the sole of her shoe. She turned the light on.

"I'll pray that Mr Joyce will come," he said.

She looked at him, pale and thin, with his priestly face. For the first time since he had asked her to marry him in the Tara Ballroom she did not love him. He was cleverer than she 'was, yet he seemed half-blind. He was good, yet' he seemed hard in his goodness, as though he'd be better without it. Up to the very last moment on Christmas Day there would be the pretence that their landlord might arrive, that God would answer a prayer because His truth had been honoured. She considered it hypocrisy, unable to help herself in that opinion.

He talked but she did not listen. He spoke of keeping faith with their own, of being a Catholic. Crime begot crime, he said: God, wanted it to be known that one evil led to another. She continued to look at him while he spoke, pretending to listen but wondering instead if in twelve months' time, when another Christmas came, he would still be cycling from house to house to read gas meters. Or would people have objected, requesting a meterreader who was not Irish? An objection to a • man with an Irish accent was down-to-earth and ordinary. It didn't belong in the same grand category as crime begetting crime or God wanting something to be known, or in the category of truth and conscience. In the present circumstances the objection would be understandable and fair. It seemed even right that it should be made, for it was a man with an Irish accent in whom the worst had been brought out by the troubles that had come, who was guilty of a cruelty no one would have believed him capable of. Their harmless elderly landlord might die in the course of that same twelve months, a friendship he had valued not made up, his last Christmas lonely. Grand though it might seem in one way, all of it was petty.

Once, as a girl, she would have cried, but her contented marriage had caused her to lose that ,habit. She cleared up the tea things, reflecting that the bombers would be pleased if they could note the victory they'd scored in a living-room in Fulham. And on Christmas Day, when a family sat down to a conventional meal, the victory would be greater. There would be 'crackers and chatter and excitement, the, Queen and the Pope would deliver speeches. Dermot would discuss these Christmas messages with Patrick and Brendan, as he'd discussed them in the past with Mr Joyce. He would be as kind as ever. He would console Bridget and Cathal and Tom by saying that Mr Joyce hadn't been up to the journey. And whenever she looked at him she would remember the Christmases of the past. She would feel ashamed of him, and of herself.