Having firmly reassured her we were both absolutely fine, I told her I was going to phone Carl again later on.
‘Well, that’s something, dear. But it’s not the same, is it?’ she said mournfully. ‘Not the same as you being with him at Christmas. I can’t help feeling it’s not right, dear, especially at Christmas.’
Gritting my teeth slightly, I decided enough was enough. ‘Mum, I’ve got to go now, I’m afraid. Duty calls.Give Dad my love, won’t you?’
‘Dad?’ she echoed as if she’d no idea who I meant. ‘Oh, your father. He’s wandered off somewhere. He said he was going bird-watching.’
‘Bird-watching?’ My father’s never watched a bird in his life. I doubt he could identify a sparrow. ‘Are you sure that’s what he said?’
‘Yes, of course I’m sure,’ my mother said tetchily.
‘How very peculiar.’
‘Quite.’ I heard her draw a deep breath. ‘However, peculiar or not, whatever he’s doing, it’s better than him threatening to jump ship all the time and high-tail it back to England.’
‘Oh dear. Is he really?’
‘Afraid so. In fact, it’s as much as I can do to keep him from doing a midnight flit to the airport.’
‘The meze isn’tthatbad, surely?’ I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.
‘Oh, it’s not just that, of course. Although I have to say you can have too much of a good thing.’ There followed a pregnant little pause during which I knew what was coming. ‘No, he missesyou… and Carl. He misses Carl most of all. He’s likes the twins, of course; he loves them. But it’s Carl he needs. He wants to be with Carl.’
We were both silent for a moment. ‘Well, I can’t do anything about that,’ I said at last, trying not to sound churlish. ‘If Dad were at home, Carl wouldn’t be there anyway.’
‘No.’
‘Look, maybe I’ll ring him later.’
A mirthless chuckle came down the line. ‘Good luckwith that.’
‘Don’t forget to give him my love anyway when he wanders back.’
‘I won’t. And don’t you forget to ring Carl either.’
I finished the call and sat there holding the phone in my hand for a moment. What is it about parents always making you feel guilty? And why am I asking? I should know, I’m a parent myself. But I’m sure I don’t lay guilt trips on Carl. At least I don’t think I do. Maybe it’s an age thing: parents get too old and worn-down to control their feelings. Yet I’m not complaining, I know how incredibly lucky I am to have such lovely parents. They’ve always bent over backwards to support me in every possible way. It’s just you can’t help thinking of the immortal lines of Philip Larkin: ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad.’ Personally, I’ve never subscribed to that. But probably only because I’ve never had any reason to.
Actually, this latest ‘bad mother’ business was not really like my mother. As a general rule she’s pretty easy-going. And then I got it. It wasn’t my taking off to Nice, my refusing to go to Cyprus with them; it wasn’t my being apart from Carl even. And it wasn’t even my dad missing Carl. It was Christmas,Christmas. That’s what had got to Mum. It was Christmas and therefore all the family should be – must be – together.
My mother uses Christmas as a sort of prop. Not in a religious or spiritual sense, but like the central pole of a circus tent holding up the sagging marquee of life. For as long as I can remember, or at least from when I first became old enough to notice it, she has always insisted on our family spending Christmas all together, no excusesbrooked. It has ever been the one time in the year when she could guarantee her offspring would be there, her husband, of course, and whatever sundry relations she deemed to be in need. It might be something to do with being married to a soldier and the chronically peripatetic existence that entails, with your children away at boarding school, your husband off for months at a time, the sheer disruption of constantly being on the move – or expecting to be. Goodness knows how, given his was not a career that afforded special privileges, but somehow my father always managed to accede to Mum’s edict and be home for Christmas. Perhaps he just got lucky or maybe he realised this was the one principle his wife would not sacrifice. Whatever. Until this year, as kids, throughout our teens, twenties and into our thirties, through having our own children and, for David, marriage, my brother and I have always accepted as an immutable law that we would all be going to Mum and Dad’s for Christmas. It’s an imperative. And now I’d blown it.
Chucking the phone aside and lying down on the bed, I thought about this. In reality, in the last few years, discounting the Covid threat to Christmas which was all calmed down at the last minute anyway, just when my mother was nagging my father to get hold of an army tent for the garden, Christmas with my parents had not been too successful. David’s wife, Sally, had plainly and completely understandably – although to her credit she had tried hard to disguise it – resented never being allowed to go to her own family or for that matter host her own festivities. This had made David uncharacteristically disgruntled. Their twins in any event are what you might kindly call ahandful and therefore better off in their own space. Even Carl, who adores his gran and grandpa, had been hard put when it came to whole-hearted enthusiasm, the problem being my mother wants Christmas to be exactly as it was when David and I were small. This means not just a whacking great turkey and ‘all the trimmings’, which is nice enough (although Sally’s vegetarian) but stockings on the end of your bed, paper hats, crackers with groan-provoking jokes, watching the late queen’s and now King Charles’s speechat the time it is broadcast, followed by an evening spent sitting round the dining table playing cards: pontoon – it has to be pontoon. You’re not even permitted to collapse in front of the box and watch a film, unless it’sThe Sound of Music. I had noticed last year, although, like Sally, he was striving to conceal it, how bored Carl was, his surreptitious little yawns behind his hand, forgetting when to say ‘twist’ in pontoon. It was obvious he would have infinitely preferred to be left to his own devices, literally, and play with whatever latest noisy techno game Santa Claus had given him.
Oddly enough, however, understanding all this made me feel better. I wasn’t a selfish, uncaring mother abandoning my son. Everything I’d done was perfectly normal and acceptable. My son was simply spending time with his father. Closing my eyes, I relaxed. I’d phone him in a minute…
‘You said you were going to call me at five o’clock. At five o’clock French time precisely, you said.’
‘Jesus! Is that the time?’ Sitting up I glanced at my watch. ‘I know I did, darling, and I’m so sorry.’ It wasnearly half past five and a bloody good job Carl had taken it upon himself to phone me otherwise I’d probably still be out for the count and none of tonight’s guests would have got their meat and two veg. ‘I fell asleep, love. I lay down on my bed for a bit and must have conked out.’
There was a little silence. Then he asked, ‘Are you okay, Mum?’ The mildly reproachful note in Carl’s voice had been replaced by concern.
‘Yes, of course I am. Why do you ask?’
‘It’s not like you to crash in the afternoon.’
‘No, well, I didn’t get much sleep last night. Strange place and all that. But I’m absolutely fine. What’s more to the point is how are you? How’s it all going?’
‘Oh, Mum,’ he sounded awed, ‘it’s all fab-u-lous!’
