Chapter Thirty Nine

Apologies

Links to previous chapters: Ch1 Ch2 Ch3 Ch4 Ch5 Ch6 Ch7 Ch8 Ch9 Ch10 Ch11 Ch12 Ch13 Ch14 Ch15 Ch16 Ch17Ch18 Ch19 Ch20 Ch21 Ch22 Ch23 Ch24 Ch25 Ch26 Ch27 Ch28 Ch29 Ch30 Ch31 Ch32 Ch33 Ch34 Ch35 Ch36

For Mother, Christmas is all about presents and gifts. I think that a childhood during WWII and its accompanying frugality has made the possibility of plentiful gifts seem very attractive to her. Things were scarce then, and she has always had difficulty throwing anything away. It was a nightmare moving her into her retirement village. The concept that gifts were meant to be used, and not kept ‘for best’ stored in their wrappings, never made its way into her consciousness. I must admit though that she did like to share and gave many things to those in need in my father’s parish.

Julia loves Christmas food, and the rituals associated with Santa Claus and the silly season. She loves Christmas music, as does Michelle, who will even consent to listen to Michael Buble!

I just like being in the company of others at Christmas. The love and good will, that can exist at this time of year always warms my heart. This year I will actually be with family. Even though I’ve always had congregation members and Mrs Hobson around, I’ve often felt lonely – not being able to travel to family because of church duties. It was going to be a very different kettle of fish (or tub of turkey) this year, I thought. I love Christmas music too, but prefer carols and hymns. I can become moved to the point of belief in holy deities at times! The recent Blackheath Phoenix Choir Christmas concert had moved me to tears. They sang Rheinberger’s ‘The Star of Bethlehem’ along with ‘Hark the Herald’ and ‘Come All Ye Faithful’ so beautiful! Such a good Choir!

These were the thoughts that ran through my mind on my way to pick Mother up on Christmas Eve. I had left the girls to happily prepare for the big day and set off on my own, down to Long Reef Retirement Village.

I apologise for my rabbiting on. It’s lovely to be able to set down my thoughts in this lovely Journal that Santa seems to have brought down the chimney for me. Hero was even remembered with a brand-new dog bowl and some chew toys.

We eventually arrived back at the rectory in good time for lunch. We unloaded all Mother’s luggage and her mysterious parcels from the car, installing her in Mrs Hobson’s room. She declared it to be perfectly adequate. (A good start).

We had no trouble getting Little Horatio to sleep. He is only two years old so hasn’t learnt to work up to a frenzy of excitement as yet. He was intrigued that we should leave Christmas cake and milk for Santa and tried to feed the Reindeer’s carrots to Hero. Hero would have been quite happy to eat them given half a chance. After dinner, Horatio eventually consented to sit on Mother’s lap for a Christmas photo, but insisted that Sebastian the Cat should have his photo taken too… with tinsel.

It was strangely quiet on Christmas morning. Julia and I looked at the clock, it was already 8 o’clock and we hadn’t heard a peep from anyone. I tiptoed past Horatio’s room, into the lounge room. No sign of anyone! No one in the kitchen either. I looked in at Michelle. She was fast asleep! Unheard of at this hour with a toddler in the house. Where was Horatio? Where was Hero? Come to think of it, where was Sebastian the cat? I continued through the house and heard sounds coming from Mother’s room. I knocked. “Come in!”, said mother. “M in!”, said Horatio. “Woof!”, said Hero. I opened the door and there was Mother, sitting up in bed with a cup of tea. Beside her was Horatio, smeared with Vegemite toast. On the floor beside the bed was Hero with favourite toy rabbit. Sebastian was washing his whiskers on the dressing table.

“Oh, there you are Horace dear.”, said mother. “He’s such a lovely little boy, isn’t he?”

“He is!”, I replied. “I think it’s time to see if Santa’s been.”

“Come on ‘Raish! Let’s go wake mummy up and see if Santa’s been!”

“Mummy! Mummy!”, he yelled. “Santa!”

Michelle arrived at the same time as everyone else, at the foot of the Christmas tree. It was piled with more presents than had ever been seen before in this house. I knew that I had put some of them there but not this many! Have we been guilty of rampant western consumerism?

We passed presents, reading the labels with fascination. ‘To Horatio from Santa’ To Mummy from Horatio’ To Horace from Mother’ ‘To Julia from Horace’ ‘To Horatio from Step-Grandmama xxx’ ‘To Julia from Violet’ ‘To Mother from Horace and Julia’ etc etc etc.

We watched as Horatio tore the paper jubilantly from his presents. Santa had brought a train set that I was very keen to ‘help’ set up and play with. Sebastian the cat made himself at home in the emptied boxes and played with the paper and ribbons. Hero was happy to make a nuisance of himself with the same old ball as always.

I’ll give you a rundown of the gift inventory at a later stage (my word count approaches 1000). We were all chattering, exclaiming and laughing. I’ve never seen Mother so animated in all my life. Michelle had gone over to the Bluetooth speaker to turn on some Christmas music to add to the hubbub when suddenly she stopped and turned. She grabbed Horatio and ran out of the room, yelling, “Rev! Mum! Look under the window!”

We turned our heads and looked. There, under the open window, was a parcel wrapped in black paper and ratty string. It had a card attached. We stared. No one moved. “Don’t touch it!”, I said. Hero went over to it and sniffed. He let out a low menacing growl. “Let’s leave it, get out and call the police!”, said Julia hurriedly. “What nonsense!”, said Mother tapping her way over to it with her walking stick. She poked at it. We all jumped. She picked it up and tore off the card. Handing it to me she said, “Let’s not panic dears!”

It was too late we were already panicking. Mother had no idea what we had been through this year. This was not paranoia. I tore the envelope open carefully, aware that it may hold fingerprints. “There was a dirty looking Christmas card inside. I opened it. It read “MERRY FINAL CHRISTMAS AND NO NEW YEAR” in smudged shaky black letters.

Hours later, when the bomb squad had finally given the okay to open the parcel, we all trooped back into the house to watch. Sergeant Sahota, summoned from his family Christmas lunch, carefully unwrapped the black paper, placing it in an evidence bag, dislodging the powder that had been used to dust for prints. We stared at the revealed “gift”.

Lying in the bottom of a shoebox was a large yellow plastic hand grenade, obviously a toy. Stuck to the side of it was a label which read, “BANG!!!”