Chapter 76

I went home mainly to see my grandparents as, for the first time in my life, I wouldn't be with them on Christmas Day. I suppose it is one of the big life moments when you don't spend the family festival with your birth family, but with your girlfriend and her family. It's as serious a step as taking your girlfriend to a family wedding was in those days, a clear statement to your relatives that somebody else is now important in your life.

(Call me an old fogie, if you like, but the modern habit of taking the 'partner of the moment' to a close family wedding, if the two of you aren't contemplating matrimony yourselves, seems foolish in the extreme. One of my colleagues had the last ever photo of him and his mother, taken at his sister's wedding, blighted by the fact that the girl next to him dumped him painfully a few weeks later, not long before his mother popped her clogs. He certainly regrets inviting her, because every time he sees that photo in its frame on his wall, he's reminded of that.)

Mum had also told me in no uncertain terms that she wanted to inspect me, to check that I had indeed fully recovered from my appendicitis, and that I was eating properly. Yeah, of course I told her I was 'in the pink', but what mother ever believes her teenage son when he tells her that he's absolutely fine and not to fuss? It's like a red rag to a bull! She just got even more determined, so I had to put Julie on the phone to reassure her. Luckily, she trusts Julie, so at least she was prepared to wait until the Christmas break before seeing for herself.

I was also very pleased to be able to see my sister, and catch up with her. Sadly, she was off games, so we were a little thwarted in our mutual ambition to get some love-making in – not that we got much of a chance to be alone together anyway, because Mum had a long list of jobs for us to do, including having an early but proper Christmas Dinner with ALL the trimmings on Sunday 22^nd with our grandparents.

Friday morning saw us headed for the greengrocers to pick up the Christmas Tree; even though the house would be empty for the actual day, Mum had put her foot down when Dad suggested that they didn't need one this year – she said that it was all part of the run up to Christmas, and it would be miserable to come back from Bristol to an undecorated house. So we had a tree as usual, and, as expected, I then spent a happy hour looking to find out exactly which bulb of the light string had come loose or broken while stored in the attic.

Mum and Jen nipped into Peterborough first thing on the Saturday to do some posh shopping; they told us that they were almost first through the doors when the shop opened at 8.30, and were safely home before eleven – but they said that it showed every sign of being a manic day, and that if they'd been much later the place would have been packed out. (This was of course several years before the construction of the new Queensgate Shopping Centre with its John Lewis store – Mum was hugely chuffed when that opened almost opposite the railway station, I can tell you! Not so sure that Dad was – he reckoned that they'd already got everything they needed... )

Mum had asked us for suggestions of what they should take for their hosts; I knew that Alastair received many more tins of chocolates than he could easily dispose of, so I suggested a decent single malt for him and something upmarket in the food line for Catriona – they ended up buying some very posh coloured marzipan fruits from Austria, and a box of Belgian liqueur chocolates (which oddly enough contained that great Scottish favourite, Drambuie).

She said that she'd also ordered from the butcher a couple of pork pies, some boiling sausages, and a Lincolnshire Haslet to take down, just in case Jen and Hamish wanted a midnight snack! Luckily Jen wasn't with us at that moment, because a vision of what my sister really DID enjoy swallowing in the middle of the night flashed through my brain, and Mum wouldn't have been impressed, despite its alleged high protein value!

While Mum and Dad were upstairs starting on their packing, and the two of us were sitting in the kitchen preparing the vegetables for lunch, Jen told me that she had arranged to borrow the spare key to the Clifton flat from Sheila; she and Hamish hoped to be able to say they were going for a long walk across the Downs, but actually spend a couple of afternoons there, so that they could make mad passionate love without worrying about the noise they were making. She giggled when I told her that Julie and I could always pop up on the train for the day if they needed any help.

(I heard later that, after being cooped up with both sets of parents and having to restrain their usual exuberance and noisiness while making love, the freedom and excitement of being alone together again spurred them on to some exhausting sessions, and they were both extremely grateful to Sheila for the loan of the flat. You would have thought that Mum would have spotted the 'just been thoroughly well fucked' look on Jen's face, but apparently they went straight up to Hamish's room when they got back from their 'walk', and blamed the cold wind for their flushed faces.)

As we were polishing the brass on the Saturday afternoon, and being reminded to get the coal in before it got dark, and to close all the curtains to keep the heat in, and asked for the umpteenth time if we had brought home any more washing that needed doing, Jen tried to tease Mum.

"What did your last slave die of?"

The retort was instant.

"Idleness, lethargy and boredom, so I shan't be making THAT mistake again!"

Dad cracked up from the corner where he was carefully sharpening the kitchen knives on his old oilstone; he hated carving the turkey with anything less than a razor-sharp carving knife, and Mum had muttered about the state of her chopping blade, so he was doing the lot.

"You walked right into that one, Jen!"

"I did, didn't I! Okay, I'll put the kettle on! I know when I'm beaten!"

"Wise idea!"

We started the Christmas Cake then; Mum normally saved it for tea on Christmas Day, but as we wouldn't be here, she thought we might as well enjoy it now. As usual she had made it eight weeks earlier, pricked it all over with a cocktail stick, wrapped it in tin foil, and fed it a double-tablespoon of brandy once a week. She and Jen had covered it with apricot jam and marzipan the evening Jen had got back from Reading, before icing it the afternoon before I arrived. It was, as always, a real treat, and we told Mum so. She'd made a smaller one for Dad's parents, and was going to give her Mum (Grandma Shaw) a quarter of the big one, which would keep her going for a fortnight.

Dad had bought one of these new-fangled electrical time switches so that the Christmas Tree lights would turn on and off while we were away. There wasn't a lot of crime in our town, but he reckoned it would be better than having no lights at all on in the house. His parents had volunteered to come over twice a day to check the house and draw the curtains, but he didn't want them visiting in the dark in case one of them fell over.

God, that switch was fiddly! It was essentially a clock with a moving dial, and it had an outer face made up of forty-eight small slices of plastic. If you pulled one out a little, the power would be on for that period, but with my pork sausage fingers it was tricky to move just one. In the end, we pulled them all out, and then pushed back the ones we didn't want. We set it to come on about three and go off at eleven, turned it round so the current time was against the little pointer arrow, and plugged it in. The lights remained stubbornly unlit. Cue some cursing; and an assumption that we'd fused one of the bulbs. Luckily, before we started checking them (which is a LOT harder when they're actually on the tree), Dad re-read the instructions and noticed that there was a manual over-ride, which one of us must have accidentally knocked as we crawled under the tree to reach the socket.

Hey presto, and we had lights again. Now, as Dad said, for the acid test – would they switch off as planned?

Mum and Jen had been baking and preparing the turkey while we were fiddling around with the lights; it was slightly smaller than usual on the grounds that we wouldn't be here to pick at it, although any leftovers would be welcomed by our grandparents. Because they had been cooking, we happily settled for scrambled eggs and toast for supper – with a couple of freshly baked mince pies to follow.

My sister popped in to my bedroom for a quick cuddle that night after our parents had gone to bed; sadly that was all we got. I had rather fancied the idea of lying back on my pillow and watching as she leaned away from me with her hands behind her, just enjoying the sight and exquisite sensations of Gustav being engulfed and released by her talented vagina. It was not to be; but I did mention what I'd had in mind, and she promised to make it up to me sometime! Two very frustrated siblings fell asleep in their own beds, because Jen had learned the hard way that the only place for sex while she was on the rag was a nice warm shower which washed away the yucky stuff!

Okay, she did offer to 'deep throat' me, but I felt that it was unfair that she wouldn't get off, so I nobly and stupidly declined her kind suggestion.

God, I missed waking up in the mornings with a soft warm body cuddled up to me! Jen agreed; she'd got used to having Hamish in the bed beside her, and her childhood teddy no longer met her new expectations of a bed companion. Still, it was only for a few days...

I didn't hear Mum go downstairs at four o'clock to put the turkey in the oven; she brought me a cup of tea at half past seven with a reminder not to use all the hot water when I had my shower, as she wanted one later. It was just as well Jen hadn't snuggled down beside me, because we would have been caught fast asleep again!

I asked Mum if the tree lights had been off when she went downstairs, she smiled and told me that they had. I then got volunteered to crawl under the tree and use the manual override so that the lights would be on at lunchtime.

Our grandparents were delighted to see us, and made a real fuss of us. It was well worth being home to see the pleasure on their faces as we told them (some) of our doings; they were all especially interested in my description of my trip down the Abernant Coal Mine a couple of weeks earlier. Granddad chuckled as we told him about our struggles with the electrical time-switch; he thought it was a brilliant idea but he didn't want one of they contraptions, thank you very much!

We all went round to their places after lunch to do the chores, like bringing in all the fuel they were likely to need for a week, and checking things like the lagging on the cold water tanks, so that there wouldn't be any problems if there was a cold snap while Mum and Dad were out of town. Dad had taken a whole lot of meat off the turkey carcase and they both had a Tupperware container to go at; we also gave them their cakes and a tin of mince pies. Mum had told us that they didn't eat as much these days, but liked to have a little something to pick at when they felt peckish.

We'd all had it by the time we got home – the Christmas Tree lights were on again, so Dad and I shared a satisfied look. Supper was ham and fried potatoes, and none of us stayed up late.

On Monday, Mum took me with her down to Mr Johnson the butcher, so that I could carry the shopping home for her. As usual, he had bought the prizewinning beef steer from the local show, and its awards and rosettes were displayed in the window, while after hanging for more than 28 days, its carefully butchered joints were on display on the counter. No, there weren't any sweetbreads, it had lost those long ago, but there was an amazing amount of meat from just the one animal. The blatant advertising clearly did his reputation as a quality family butcher no harm; he had opened up the shop at seven that morning, and his wife said that it had been packed out with customers collecting their orders ever since.

There were four of them behind the counter, his school-age daughter handing out the orders being collected and crossing them off in the book, and Mr Johnson himself and an assistant serving those customers who hadn't ordered in advance, or who had been tempted by the display and decided on the spur of the moment that maybe another small joint in the fridge might help them get through the Christmas holiday period without starvation setting in.

Mum decided that the four of us might as well have boiled sausage for lunch, so she bought another two pounds or twelve links; it was always good to have the peppery soggy toast that we had so much enjoyed as children.

"You wouldn't have any spare pork pies, would you, Mrs Johnson?"

She chuckled.

"I know, two hungry youngsters and Mr Baker at home for the holiday?"

"Almost – something extra for lunch tomorrow! The gannets have been at the cold meat!"

"Well, we did make an extra two trays yesterday, so you're in luck. This tradition they have in Nottingham of eating pork pie for breakfast on Boxing Day seems to be catching on round here, and you're about the eighth person already today to want another one! We'll still run out, but at least fewer people will be disappointed."

"Thanks! Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas to you too!"

The boiled sausage hot lunch went down really well – as soon as I got back, Dad had made Jen and I help him check the car over ready for its long journey, and it was pretty chilly as we dipped the oil, inflated the tyres to the correct pressure with his old foot pump, switched on the lights to check they were all working, drew out some radiator coolant to check for sufficient anti-freeze, and tested the tension on the fanbelt and alternator to ensure that the battery was charging. It was all good experience, but our fingers were tingling with cold as we went back indoors. Dad offered to let us do a bit of the driving if the roads were okay, as neither of us had any Motorway experience. We decided that we'd let him drive; there would be quite enough inexperienced drivers on the road over Christmas.

After one of Mum's winter cooked breakfasts, with fried bread, I hitched a lift to Bristol with Mum, Dad and Jen first thing on Christmas Eve, being able to hold my sister's hand under the car rug most of the way. The roads actually weren't too busy, most sensible people having taken the Monday and Tuesday off work, and departed for their destination the previous Friday. We drove through Corby and Market Harborough, enjoying the prettiness of the Welland Valley (if you discounted the modern atrocity that British Steel had built at the front of the older Stewarts and Lloyds steel works, which at least were still wearing some of their wartime camouflage paint).

Just south of Lutterworth, at the A5 roundabout on our way to join the M6 at junction 1, we got cut up by some pig-ignorant git in his new N-registration Rover; Dad had been driving cautiously anyway, but muttered a bad word as part of a sentence which also included 'road', 'shouldn't' and 'be on'. Mum contented herself by commenting that 'they're all out today!' I was just glad that I wasn't driving; I probably wouldn't have noticed the berk trying to use a second lane that wasn't there on the roundabout, just to get past one car.

We didn't stop until we were past Birmingham; although it made our lunch a little late, Dad was keen to get past any possible choke points before the Brummies clogged them up.

Mum had sliced the pork pie into eight pieces, giving each of them, and eight cold chipolata sausages, a generous coating of Colman's English Mustard, and she passed around the Tupperware container as we sat in the car park at the fairly-newly opened M5 motorway services at Michaelwood in Gloucestershire. We'd all gone in for a pee and to wash our hands; the place was bedlam, and we were very glad that Mum had bothered to pack a picnic lunch; the queue outside the 'restaurant' was not moving very quickly at all. She'd also filled the two tartan Thermos pint flasks with coffee, and we shared the plastic cups.

We had to wait quite a while at the petrol station before a pump became free; Dad muttered darkly about the captive market when he saw the price per gallon, and he most certainly didn't fill up the tank to the top. They didn't do Green Shield Stamps, either!

There was no doubt that traffic on the motorway was heavier, but still moving freely when we rejoined it; Mum commented that we still seemed to be ahead of the worst of it. There were a couple of broken-down cars on the hard shoulder, one with an A.A. van attending as steam billowed out from under the bonnet. I pitied the people who had mechanical problems on their way to their Christmas holiday, probably with children, pets and a pile of belongings inside. I understood again why Dad always insisted on checking the car over before a long journey; many of the older cars on the roads had been designed in the days before motorways, so simply didn't have the cooling systems necessary for a prolonged run at a sustained high speed.

When we got into Bristol, they dropped me off at the station; I was impressed with how they knew their way around the road network, and said so.

"You've probably forgotten, but our son had appendicitis a couple of months ago?"

I slapped myself on the top of my head for my stupidity. Of course they'd been to Bristol before – to see me in hospital! That was when they'd met Alastair and Catriona!

"Yeah, sorry Dad, I had forgotten you'd driven down."

I didn't need to say that I really appreciated them having rushed down to see me, they could tell that from my expression. But I said it anyway.

Dad drove into the drop-off area to let me out. There was no parking, because of the IRA bombing campaign, and there was a line of yellow police cones along the pavement. There was a copper at the entrance to the station who gave us a quick look-over and then went back to studying the pedestrians.

I shook Dad's hand, kissed Mum and Jen (chastely!), and wished them all a merry Christmas as I grabbed my rucksack from the boot. From the glint in her eyes, I could tell that Jen was anticipating a very happy and joyous reunion with her boyfriend in the next few minutes.

It was a very different story in Exeter. Julie didn't get the slightest chance to have her wicked way with me.

From Temple Meads, I took the (very crowded) train down to Devon. I had taken a bottle of whisky and a big box of Milk Tray for Julie's parents, but from the moment I arrived, I didn't feel that I was really welcome. It didn't help that they kept the television on the whole evening, even during supper, and my hosts all had at least one eye and one ear on the screen – okay, Dick Emery was fine, but, seriously, who on earth really wants to watch 'Ice Station Zebra' yet again?

Another pain was that Julie's parents were heavy smokers; the air was stale and cigarette smoke was wafting around the room, pushed by the various draughts from the doors, windows and open coal fire.

It felt to me as if I was being just about tolerated because I was a friend of Julie's; the unspoken assumption being that once we finished at Cardiff she would return home and I would be history. Her parents were doting on their grandchildren, and virtually ignoring us, but there was no doubt that they were indeed keeping a close eye and ear on us, especially our bedroom doors and any nocturnal movements. We went out for a couple of long walks in the midwinter twilight, but we had nowhere to go to be private together.

The television was awful - looking back today at what was on the box on Christmas Day is actually quite frightening, given 20/20 hindsight.

The line-up included 'A Stocking Full of Stars' from the National Children's Home, co-presented by Rolf Harris (since jailed for child abuse); 'Top of the Pops', co-presented by Jimmy Savile (who is dead, otherwise he'd be in jail too); Billy Smart's Circus, with performing lions, elephants etc. (now pretty much banned); Laurel and Hardy's 'Way out West', 'True Grit' and various other old films; Bruce Forsyth and Anthea Bedfun with yet another 'Generation Game' (OK, some things never do change) and highlights of old Morecambe and Wise shows (ditto); though at least there were Christmas Specials of 'Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em' and the 'Mike Yarwood Show'.

Then we had to sit through 'Bridge on the River Kwai' for the umpteenth time, which ruined whatever Christmas spirit I had left. The only good thing about that film is the use of the tune 'Colonel Bogey' in the sound track, though even that is misused. I was not a happy camper as I went up to bed, despite having sneaked a goodnight kiss from Julie as we washed up the teacups.