PANTO: By Stephen Doyle
FRANKLY I think me and the sister get a raw deal. I mean to say, if it had been me, I wouldn’t have made such a skivvy out of myself. She could have left home anyway. The Fairy Godmother would have bailed her out anytime. All she ever had to do was whip up a storm and the Good Fairy would have arrived pronto. But no. She had to string it out. Snivel and moan and lick the ashes. Get the crowd real sorry for her. Ready to lambast us to any pole.
Did you ever wonder where you’d be without us to act out the shadow side? And all before Jung even got a whiff of it. I mean to say, if she’s not going to act downright mean then she’s going to attract it to her.
Right? But there she is on her knees in the scullery owning all her goodness.
Instead of learning fast, she acts stupid, eats as much ash as she can stomach, wallows in the stuff. Me and the sister had a terrible time getting her to the point of spiritual crisis. The girl’s capacity for insult and injury was awesome. Another day of it and I’d have wept with her in the ashes myself. But, thank God, she turned to a little creative visualisation and manifested herself a Godmother.
I was quite enjoying that ball until she turned up doe-eyed, dimple flashing, lid-lowering and whipped PC out from under my nose.
And then the dramatic exit! As if the universe isn’t bountiful! I mean do you really believe the fairy would have put a time on it? No, I reckon she got one of her self-doubt bouts. Lost confidence, lost face and don’t forget the shoe! Very convenient that.
As for that slipper fitting scene! Do you really think I wanted to squeeze my G size into that skimpy little excuse for a shoe that had done the rounds of the kingdom. And risk verruca, corns and God knows what? And then to watch her creep out of the cinders and slip her pygmy footsie into the golden slipper. And then, jack rabbit, out with the other one from beneath her pinnie. It’s all gush and pink flush forever and ever now. As if! She’ll make a doormat out of herself no matter what. There’ll be a few more shadows to play out. A few more spiritual crises to be had. She hasn’t learnt the lesson yet.
But as for me, I’ve done with them. Make me the fairest of them all next time and let herself do a little shadow acting.
A CHRISTMAS CARD FROM BANAGHER
By Adam Trodd
PATSY LOOSENED his belt, tugging on the end until the buckle popped and hung rattling open. He undid the zipper in his slacks and stood, legs comfortably apart. Two hours was far too long to sleep for in the middle of the day. The toilet smelled sweet, he had just put some fresh green stuff in it that ran in a thick tidal wave down the porcelain before meeting the clear water. He bent his right arm and put a fist on his hip, sweeping back his coat with his elbow. Pursing his lips and frowning at the small sea-blue tiles on the wall, he wondered if Shay had finished clearing the garden yet. If it wasn’t snowing in the morning he might dig a few drills himself. Maybe, he’d wait and see. The uniformity of the tiles began to help him daydream. Through the bathroom window, miles away it seemed, he could hear Shay gathering up the spade and the fork with a prongy clang and the heavy damp thump of him stamping muck from his boots before he stood in the porch. The muffled sounds, the endless blue of the tiles, the cold, still, soap smelling quiet of the bathroom all contributed to his stupor.
His bladder relaxed and loosed warmly into the bowl below. He tilted his head back slowly and sighed.
Outside, Shay lit a cigarette and pulled on it suck-cheeked, slow and long.
The sun was dipping below the snow-pocked hill and a robin landed on the spade handle.
“Ha! I thought they only did that on Christmas cards!” Patsy shouted.
Shay stepped out of the porch and looked up at his old, grey, spike-stubbled face wedged sideways through the top part of the bathroom window, trying to get a view of the garden. He must have been standing on the toilet bowl.
The bird flew away.
THE CHRISTMAS SEWING
By Betty Gleeson
I HAVE a clear vision of her moving to the light of the window on a grey December day. She had a better view there. Holding up the needle, wetting the thread on the tip of her tongue and the steady threading; the light was starting to fade but was still brighter than beside the kitchen table.
On the coloured oilcloth lay the plump- breasted turkey, footless, with its backside ready for more surgery.
“Hold it steady,” she commanded, as she set about deftly pulling the skin back together. My mother’s hospital kitchen experience was coming in handy now.
“Run out and get in more firewood.”
The chimney had been cleaned and the range was ready and waiting.
As I gathered an armful of sticks in the shed I heard a few remaining turkeys “gullduring” close to each other in the haggard. It never occurred to me to pity them.
Newborn from the hatchery, the yellow bundles were put near the range until they gained strength.
Thereafter they were just part of everyday farm life, the noise of them round the place denoting the time of year, a period of grey skies, bare trees beyond the outhouses and warm fires indoors.
Yesterday I ordered the turkey in the butcher’s shop.
Later as I sewed curtains’ hems and moved to the light to thread the needle, I was transported back to that Christmas long ago in my mother’s kitchen. The window is bigger but the light is the very same and it occurs to me that I seem to have moved into her space.
’TIS A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE
By Catherine Cox
“YOU HOLD these socks for me. They won’t fit into the basket. You’re a great helper aren’t you?” No answer just an acknowledging smile.
“Come on so, we’re off to the garage. Are you still holding those two white socks?”
“Yes Granny.”
“Good girl yourself. Mind the step down. I’ll tell Mammy that you were a great help.”
“Joseph’s not able to go down steps.”
“That’s right. You’re a big girl.”
“Joseph’s just a baby. I’m a big girl.”
“Now, we’ll open the door of the machine. You throw your socks in first. Good girl, you had two, where’s the other one?”
“He got lost.”
“Already? That was fast.”
“Will I find him?”
“No, no you just stay with me and help me put all these clothes into the machine.”
“Look. Granny there’s the red bike I asked Santa for.”
“What?. . .” Jesus Christ.
“Look Granny. It’s over there.”
“That’s another girl’s bike. I’m just minding it for her.”
“Why?”
“Because she had no space in her garage.” “What’s her name?”
“Clarissa.”
“I don’t know that girl.”
“No. You don’t.”
“Where’s her house?”
“She lives on a different road.”
“On a different road?” Utterly puzzled. No doubt wondering why Clarissa would choose to store her beautiful, untouched bike in this inaccessible garage.
I wish they would tell me things. Saying it to John and assuming that he will tell me is evidently not enough. This won’t knock a feather out of him, of course. He’ll be in the room peering over the top of the paper every so often. It will be all my fault. He’ll wave them off at the door like last Tuesday.
“Call us anytime. We love having them over,” he’ll shout after them. I could kill him. I’ve ruined it on her.
“Granny, will I put more in the machine?” “No. We’ll leave this basket here. Let’s go into Grandad.” I put the kettle on and whittle the day away worrying. At last the door bell.
“Now you go into Grandad. I’ll talk to Daddy for a minute,” I say as I open the door, and try to nudge her into the sitting room.
“Daddy,” she announces. “I don’t want a red bike from Santa. I want a pink one.”
“Oh.”
He looks at me, he knows. Does she?
CHRISTMAS IN LOWRY’S BAR
By Eamonn Kelly
ON CHRISTMAS Eve, Jarlath “the Cowboy” Conroy came into Lowry’s bar with a live turkey tethered by the neck to a short stretch of blue nylon rope.
Jarlath was looking for expert advice on quick ways to kill the thing.
Peter Gaynor, sitting in his usual place at the L of the bar, suggested hitting it over the head with something. “A hurley, maybe.” Mick Lowry came around the bar, grabbed the turkey by the neck, twisted it to a snap and dropped the bird twitching dead on the floor. Jarlath froze, still holding the tether, astonished to see his turkey so abruptly transformed into a corpse.
"Now," said Mick. "That's my bit done for Christmas. You can pluck it yourself." So Jarlath the Cowboy rolled up his shirtsleeves and started into the turkey there and then. Soon there were feathers floating around the place like snowflakes, inspiring Mick Lowry to a bar of White Christmas.
It was early into Christmas morning before the turkey finally lay bare and gutted on the bar. Jarlath fell exhausted into a chair, his arms covered in slime and feathers, a basin full of grisly innards at his feet. He turned glazed eyes on the turkey and remarked, “I’m not even particularly fond of turkey”. It turned out that Jarlath the Cowboy preferred the ham on Christmas Day.
This led into a discussion on the difficulties of killing a pig and extracting a ham; Mick making it known that if Jarlath had turned up with a pig instead of a turkey he would have been on his own trying to kill it.
“I’d kill a turkey in the bar alright,” said Mick. “But I wouldn’t chance a pig.” Peter examined the unfeathered bird. “You’d want to be planning towards cooking him now,” he said. “That’s a whole other ball game.” According to Peter there were any number of ways of poisoning yourself with a turkey. Cook it too high and you’d leave the centre raw to poison you. Cook it too low and you could be there all week and all of it raw to poison you.
“And sometimes they explode,” said Peter. “No one knows why. It’s a mystery.” Mick and Jarlath eyed the turkey with deepening scepticism.
“Well we can’t be worrying about everything,” said Mick. “We’ll stuff it in the oven and see what happens.” A cooking time and temperature was established, based primarily on Peter’s memories of once roasting a Sunday chicken, and the turkey was finally slammed into the oven in Mick’s back kitchen. The men retired to the bar to await developments.
Soon the homey aroma of roast meat came wafting from the kitchen. Mouths grown rich on fine seasonal brandies now watered in anticipation of a feed.
“Told you I’d cook my own turkey,” muttered Jarlath the Cowboy to no one in particular.
