This has been a recurring memory from her childhood. Afamily joke. Her father would pick up his glass of wine (always red) and go outside with it, telling them he was going to thank the gods. He usually walked across the garden to the stone wall that marked the border to his first field. Sometimes he would climb over the wall and head up to the large oak tree that grew between the field and a small brook.
As she grew older, Jo began to think this act was a signal that he wanted some time on his own; perhaps a bit of peace from her mum who could, and would, talk for the both of them.
Her father keeps driving, like he hasn’t heard her.
‘I used to think it was to get away from Mum,’ she prompts.
‘Could be,’ he says, briefly.
‘But then I saw that you tip wine onto the earth. What’s that about, Dad?’
‘Aah,’ is all he says.
They are now turning into the farm track that leads to the house. ‘Why the wine?’
Her father slows the car, bringing it to a halt just before the open gateway that is the entrance to the yard in front of the house. The farmhouse that both Jo and her father grew up in.
‘I don’t believe in Almighty God. And when you’re dead, you’re dead. Seen too much death to think different. But you can’t spend as long as I have out on the hills without thinking there’s more to it. From sunrise to sunset.’ His voice drops. ‘Still takes my breath away, JoJo.’ He falls silent, then turns to look at her. ‘So, call me an old fool if you like, but I thank whatever’s out there by pouring good wine on the earth.’ He nods towards the house. ‘And when one of you is in trouble’ – Jo knows he is thinking of his wife – ‘I ask the gods for a bit of help.’
He doesn’t wait for a response but puts the car in gear and accelerates towards the house. He pulls up abruptly, leaping out to get her bags. Her father has said all that he intends to. And for him, it was a lot.
The door to the house is open before she has undone her seatbelt. In a rush Jo heads for the tall bulk of her mother. She grabs as much of her as she can, and her mother folds her large arms about her and pulls her close.
It is the smell of her that makes Jo cry. She remembers when she caught the whiff of her mother’s perfume in the air when she was in London, and followed a perfect stranger into a shoe shop.
Jo had every intention of comforting her mum, of being the one helping her. But she finds herself crying like a little girl, her mother murmuring into her hair, ‘Oh, my Jo, it’s all right.’
She thinks of her family nickname, ‘Average Jo’. She whispers, ‘I’m not just Average Jo, am I, Mum?’
Her mother catches her words, and pushes her daughter away slightly, so she can see her face. ‘Now whoever told you that?’
Jo wants to sayyou all did, but she thinks, the truth is –I did.
Jo is doing everything she can think of to help her mother. Shefeels guilty that on arriving at the farm, she broke down, rather than being the one comforting her mum. It is clear that her mum is shaken by her brother’s death. So Jo has helped with the cooking, phoned family members, spoken to the undertaker, the florist and the printers. As it is only a few days until Christmas, the funeral is set to take place after the New Year. Uncle Wilbur is going to be cremated, and her mum will travel to the Lake District in the spring to scatter his ashes by the edge of Ullswater. Jo has promised to join her. In the evenings, her mum talks about her childhood with Wilbur, and as she unfolds and smooths out these old memories in front of them, Jo sees her settle back into her old self. Sad, but coping.
A day after her arrival, her father drags a Christmas tree he has cut into the sitting room, and her mum and she spend the evening decorating it. Her brothers call in, but they are awkward guests, having clearly decided to put their usual one-upmanship on hold for their mother. The falsely grating bonhomie is worse than the bickering.
More than anything, Jo wants to see Lucy, but her best friend is visiting some of Sanjeev’s family in Hertfordshire. Still, she will see her on Christmas Eve. She is due to meet Lucy and Sanjeev in one of their favourite pubs for lunch, and she will stay with them over Christmas. Her parents are spending time with her brothers (on separate days) and Jo will pop in, but her mother has assured her she doesn’t need to be there for the whole time. Her dad has her old car filled with fuel, oil and screen-wash, ready and waiting in the barn nearest the house.
Of Ruth and Malcolm, she has heard very little. She is the one who texts more often than not. Their replies communicate little beyond that they are okay and thinking of her.
It is now three days before Christmas, and Jo is lying on her childhood bed, looking up at the window. The curtains are drawn back and she is staring up at grey sky, mottled purple in places, like a great bruise. Her thoughts are of Ruth and Malcolm and of the ghosts whose stories and conversations they wove together.
She glances at the notebook by her bed. It is almost full, and she will send it to Malcolm soon. Well, as soon as she knows where he is. So far, the promised letter has not materialized.
The idea was a result of her last visit to Highgate Cemetery. Hidden behind the more ornate tombs she discovered gravestones that clearly dated from the First and Second World Wars. She looked them up online to discover that there were hundreds of servicemen and -women buried in the cemetery. Their graves were often obscured from view as many families wanted the plots to be in the more private spots. These men and women had not perished when fighting abroad, but had often died months and sometimes years later of their wounds. Jo searched for evidence of someone, preferably a woman, from the ATA who was buried there – but with no luck. So in the end she researched airmen who would have flown the planes that Malcolm’s mother and her friends would have delivered.
She has been writing these stories for Malcolm in one of the notebooks from Uncle Wilbur’s shop. She will send this to him for Christmas.
Underneath her notebook for Malcolm is a poetry book that she has borrowed from her dad. She thinks it is the only poetry book in the house, and it fell open at the Louis MacNeice poem, “Meeting Point”. Flicking through the rest of the pristine book, she doubts her dad has read any of the other poems.
It is the fifth verse that makes her think of her parents, who had met in Skegness, out of season, in the late autumn. Two farming families, taking a break when the farms were quiet. Her mother has often told her that, after bumping into each other in the bed and breakfast’s dining room, they spent their days in a coffee shop looking out over a rainswept seafront, drinking tea and talking. So her father did once find the right words. She thinks her mother must have made quite an impression on him.
She rereads the verse, picturing them holding hands across the table.
Time was away and somewhere else,
The waiter did not come, the clock
