Someone's Wife by Linda Burgess

Author:Linda Burgess
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2019-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

12.

TEN

CHRISTMASES

In which I really do wonder about Christmas

ONE

It’s meant to be in winter. From when you’re tiny, when in picture books little rabbits throw snowballs, and when Santa travels in a sleigh, and when scarlet-cheeked girls with hands tucked inside covetable fur muffs sing carols to old folk, you know it’s wrong having it in summer.

The day before Christmas, Dad goes out to a friend’s farm with someone who has a truck and comes back with a Christmas tree. But it’s not. Christmas trees are a perfect triangle, but this has been a branch before it was sawn off, and it slouches like an awkward teenager who has grown too quickly, rammed in a bucket with Christmas paper sellotaped around it, with its leg held in place by stones and bits of brick, its shoulder against the wall.

Mum has, in a noncommittal way, got religion. In this town, in this neighbourhood, in this decade, people go to church. So with the exception of Dad, and probably our big brother, we walk to the Presbyterian church. We spend 20 minutes or so in the church itself, which is the boring bit, then all the children troop off to the hall at the back where middle-aged women stick people and animals cut out of felt onto a big felt board and they tell us stories. One is about opening your heart to Jesus and there’s a red felt heart with a door in it. At night I lie in the dark knowing that when that door shuts you die, and I can feel my door inching callously towards closure. At the end of the service, we go back to the church and everybody sings Amen … amen … and then they get to a-a-ha-ha … mennnn … and invariably my big sister Wendy and I are in hysterics.

The Sunday-school children put on a festive show, directed by my mother, and we dress up in simple gowns made from old sheets with two side-seams run up on Singer sewing machines. A rope tied around our waists, and a tea towel on our heads, and we sing about being away in a manger on a silent holy night. We three kings from Orient are, we sing, and it’s years till I realise that Orientar is not a place. Three of us are singled out for a verse each. Wendy, who’s naturally musical, is one. And me! Myrrh is mine, I sing, its bitter perfume. The director and her cohorts murmur among themselves. The other two Kings will join me in singing my verse.

There are all six of us then. Mum, Dad, four kids. Michael is tall enough to be leaving school soon, and he has an eye for design and does the tree. Mum has a different hiding place each year for our presents. I search, I search. Grandma always sends me a manicure set. Aunty June sends something because she is Mum’s only sister. Often stationery, which we use for our thank-you letters. Granny doesn’t send us anything.

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