Unreliable Memories

I wrote this jeu d'esprit for the Write Brockley reading on 14 December 2019 which was held at Crofton Park Community Library and billed as a Christmas special. Because of printer problems, I read it from my iPhone. It amused some people. The title is a nod to Clive James who died a few weeks before.

1. I am nine years old and still living at home with my mother and father. It's Christmas Day in the morning and I push open the bathroom door to see three yellow ducks sailing towards me across the linoleum floor. They look happy. Their eyes are joyful and triumphant, full of the Christmas spirit, but they're sailing across the floor. Water is pouring from the tap, flowing over the edge of the bath and gently lapping at my toes. I scream.

My mother and father come running. What's the matter? Oh! My father is not happy. So not happy he uses words I've never heard before, though I have lived a sheltered life. My mother confesses. It's a fair cop, fam she says. I did it. Turned the tap on, meant to go back, had problems with the turkey, forgot all about it. But it's hardly surprising, is it? I have to do everything round here... My father takes no notice. Everything's against him. Life, work, bills, haemorrhoids, the central heating system - now this. I've never seen his hair so white. In fact, if he'd just grow a white beard...no, forget that.

He turns the tap off, empties the bath and starts to clear up. It takes him two hours. Finally, we eat Christmas dinner with the radio on to disguise the lack of Christmas cheer. Luckily, the BBC Light Programme brings us Two Way Family Favourites with Judith Chalmers. I pull a cracker with my mother but it doesn't crack. Neither of us dare offer one to my father who doesn't speak for the rest of the day as if struck dumb by trauma. My mother wafts around under the crown of martyrdom. I play with my new train set and keep schtum. It's very peaceful.

2. It's Christmas Day in the morning again, but in the squat where nine of us are living, it's just another day. Christmas? Humbug. We don't believe in Christmas. Christmas is a capitalist conspiracy. We believe in the red revolution and power to the people with just a hint of love and peace. For my comrades, love is a four letter word. But I really am in love. I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love with a wonderful girl. And when we sit in a circle chewing our vegetarian chow, the wonderful girl is right next to me.

Out comes the beer and wine. The capitalists have brought society to a halt for two days, says our leader Red Ed. So let's celebrate just as Marx and Engels would have done. They were pub crawlers, advocates of the hop, devotees of the vine. The Communist Manifesto was written in a pub. That's enough for us. Well, it's enough for me. I drink five glasses, then turn to the wonderful girl beside me and profess my love. She howls with laughter and uses words I'm all too familiar with by now. I drink another five glasses to drown my sorrows, wake up on Boxing Day and spend a lot of time occupying the bathroom.

Early next morning when the trains are running, I sneak out of the house and go home. My parents are watching Top of the Pops when I get there. 'You've missed Eric and Ernie,' says my mother. 'Here, have a hazlenut whirl.' After two days of TV, turkey rolls, Toblerone and tiddlywinks, I sneak out of the house early and go back to London. The squat is almost empty. The comrades have all followed my example and gone back to their bourgeois homes, except for Red Ed. There's no alcohol left but he gets the samovar out, makes some tea and reads to me from Lenin's Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism. I sleep for sixteen hours straight.

3. It's Christmas Day in the afternoon just for a change. I've grown up now and live in a terraced house with a semi-detached wife. My parents are resting in peace. The squat has been privatised and the red revolution has turned pink in the wash. Tony is in Downing Street, Bill is in the White House and Boris Yeltsin is in the Kremlin. 

 All's well with the world and all's well in our little terraced house. After so many years of trying, the ordinary miracle has happened to us. A child has appeared and is sitting in a high chair at the table. He wasn't born on Christmas Day, thank God. He was born in the spring. But he's healthy and happy and smiling at me while smearing puréed turkey down his Baby's First Christmas bib. Yes, it's all going to happen all over again. But never mind. Here in our little terraced house in London SE13, it's a Happy Christmas. For now...