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“Oh, damn, I missed that. Yeah, I’ll go to your house. Maggie, my sister, is picking me up in a bit. I can ask her to swing by there before taking me home. I’ll give Ash a call if I find anything.”

“Really, you don’t mind? I feel awful putting you out when you’ve already done enough for me. If I didn’t have this nagging, right here…” He touched a hand to his stomach. “Something isn’t right.”

“Sounds ominous. I’m in. Now, eat your Dodgers and cheer up, birthday boy.”

1968

CHRISTMAS MIRACLES

Time ticked by; the months after Mum had gone, and the weeks after losing Pyg. Our grandmother remained convalescing in hospital, recovering from the fall and the burns she’d effectively inflicted upon herself. And we settled into a quiet, ordinary routine with Ms Bray — or Ruth, as she eventually relented to us calling her.

Whilst the loss of the studio, along with all our treasured possessions, had been traumatic, with Ruth at least there was less of a need to retreat. Unlike Grandmother, Ruth didn’t seem to mind when Bernard and I sat at the kitchen table to do our homework. Neither did she mind us chatting quietly between ourselves. From time to time, she even joined in. Her company wasn’t entirely discordant, at least when she wasn’t quoting biblical verses, which seemed to spill out of her randomly, like a pot bubbling over.

Ruth was the polar opposite of our mother. She appeared to be around the same age, but unlike Mum, she was an austere woman of the church, dowdy in cardigans and thick brown stockings that bunched around her ankles. If Mum was a gloriously sunny afternoon in May, Ruth was a dreary grey morning in January. Despite all that, she wasn’t cold-hearted; her kindness could be measured in small gestures — the sprinkling of sugar on our porridge, or the occasional hand on the shoulder or pat on the head. Lukewarm, but warm nonetheless. And infinitely better than living with Grandmother.

The only remarkable thing that happened in the weeks that passed was an alarming sight I glimpsed one morning on my way downstairs. On hearing a gasp and noticing Ruth’s bedroom door ajar, I’d been unable to resist the urge to peer through the gap. There she stood with her long black skirt hitched high and one leg up on the bed. She sucked air through her teeth and yanked tight a chain-link belt around her upper thigh. It looked like a medieval torture device.

What the?—

She spun around, and I darted away from the door and had the good sense not to ask her about it. But, unable to shake the mental image of either the spikes cutting into her flesh, or her bare leg exposed, I hadn’t been able to look Ruth in the eye for a good week afterwards.

Our first Christmas without Mum looked to be a sombre affair. Bernard and I chopped down a small spruce and between us, we dragged it inside and propped it up in the drawing room. We rifled in a box under the stairs and pulled out a string of fairy lights and a few dusty baubles. Without Mum’s artistic flair and her handcrafted decorations, the tree looked a sorry state. But still, it was more festive than no tree.

Christmas Eve started with a forced visit to our grandmother in hospital. Scrubbed and in our Sunday best, we stood by the old woman’s bedside for thirty minutes listening to her moan about her ills and chastise us for our sins. All the while, I seethed with indignation and Bernard stared down at his polished shoes. The hospital visit was followed by the second of our mandatory obligations for the day, church. We attended mass and listened to Father Sutherland preach about the ills of the world and condemn the congregation for their sins. Once again, I seethed, and Bernard stared at his shoes.

For supper, Ruth served a watery parsnip and potato soup and even though it was lumpy and tasteless, my stomach rumbled for more. Then she permitted us to sit by the tree. It’d been one of our Christmas Eve traditions, except it used to take place in the studio. We’d pull up cushions and huddle around our little tree, sip from mugs of cocoa and munch homemade biscuits, whilst reading each other Christmas stories from a heavy old book, which Mum had told us was her most treasured possession.

The book had been burned, along with so many of the things we loved, so we sat by the tree, watery mugs of cocoa in hand, and I hummed a Christmas song I’d learned from the older boys at school. Quite a lot of the lyrics were inappropriate, so I mumbled those, but Bernard giggled because he knew the words.

“Why not sing a nice carol, boys?” Ruth sat in our grandmother’s wing-backed chair, the low-light casting sinister shadows on her face and her eyes closed behind her glasses. “O Come All Ye Faithful, perhaps? OrAway in a Manger?”

Bernard looked at me and scrunched up his nose. But we indulged her with our finest rendition ofSilent Night. She smiled on, tapping her foot like a metronome, and after the second refrain puffy snores emanated from her beaky little nose.

“I, er… I’ve got something for you, Georgie,” Bernard whispered. He got up and scurried out of the room, then returned with a parcel crudely wrapped in brown paper. He retook his place on the rug and presented the package to me.

“Don’t get mad at me, alright?”

I frowned. “Why would I be mad?”

“You just might. But don’t be because I was careful.”

As I tentatively pulled at the corners of the brown paper, a bitter burnt scent wafted from the package. I peeled the paper away, revealing a book, its spine and cover charred and blackened. I looked from the book to my brother.

“I told you not to go in there. It isn’t safe.”

Bernard held up his hands. “I know what you said, but when Bill came to clean the gutters because of that leak, I asked him to help me. I wanted to see if there was anything worth saving.”

“You could’ve come across anything in there. What if… what if you’d seen Pyg?”

“Well, I didn’t see Pyg. But I did find this.” Bernard touched his hand to the book in my lap. “I cleaned it up as best I could. I couldn’t save the cover, but I think it protected the inside a little bit.” Bernard’s eyes shone with enthusiasm. “Well, go on, open it. You’ll see.”

I carefully opened the cover. The spine creaked and black flecks chipped off onto the floor. Water lines rippled down the page, but there inside the cover, intact and legible, were our years of Christmas messages. Tears prickled my eyes as I ran my finger down the decades of words, a sort-of scrawled family timeline.

1935. Dearest Eleanor, Merry Christmas. All my love, Papa x

1937. I think you’re starting to enjoy these stories, darling! You giggled at the ghosts. Or maybe it was my silly voices for them? Papa x

1940. It isn’t Christmas without you. Wish you were here. Eleanor x