Blaming (Virago Modern Classics) by Elizabeth Taylor

Author:Elizabeth Taylor [Taylor, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780748131020
Publisher: Hachette Littlehampton
Published: 2011-07-07T06:00:00+00:00

11

“You will come to us for Christmas?” James asked, as he drove Amy back from her ordeal.

“But you always come to us.”

His hands tightened on the steering-wheel as he tried to think of something to say.

“And Ernie and I have already made the pudding. He would be quite put out if we were not to have our proper Christmas.” Like many unreligious people, she laid great store by her Christmas. “And Gareth’s coming.”

The pudding might be taken from one place to another, but James could see that Gareth and Ernie could not. Now that his father was dead, he and Maggie had rather hoped for Christmas in their own home. No obstacles to that from Maggie’s side, whose parents were in Malta for their retirement and tax-evasion. It was just one party after another for them there, so they were no trouble to anyone’s conscience. And now poor James would have to go home to break the news of another Christmas at Laurel House, and she would resent it.

Amy’s ‘proper’ Christmas, having nothing to do with religion, had very much to do with prettiness – a beautiful garland on the front door, a tinselled tree, tangerines arranged on frosted magnolia leaves, petits fours in ribboned goblets. It was the meal of the year at which Ernie was always present as part of the family, wearing the black corduroy jazz-club jacket and a pink bow tie. Having brought in the turkey and set it before James, he whipped off a fancy apron and stood by to pass plates and vegetables. The sausages were in one long string and draped about the bird like a coronet. James, whose father had always done the carving, was annoyed by all this cluttering up of his job. He tried to lift the sausages away, but with a knife blade-side up, so that they lay scattered all over the carpet. Dora laughed quietly, with her eyes shut, her lips pressed together. Isobel was furious.

Amy, clearing up the mess, wondered if her son were drunk. . Perhaps all that home-made wine had rendered him unfit for ordinary drinking.

Ernie felt that he had every right to glow with triumph – the bird so moist and tender, the cranberry sauce so brilliant, the Brussels sprouts so green. Crackers were pulled and he put on a sort of mauve tarbush. The little girls ate steadily, with their thoughts on the pudding, as if they were on the very edge of bankruptcy.

“You should be doing this, Gareth,” James said. “More in your line.”

“I’m not a surgeon. Take the stuffing out for you, if you like.”

“Will you pull my cracker with me?” Dora asked Amy. “I always think old, wrinkled hands get a better grip.”

When the pudding came, James found himself once more busy at the sideboard. His father had always manoeuvred the coin-finding, so that the little girls should discover something – in fact the only thing to do with the pudding that they cared for. James realised that this year the matter had been overlooked.

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