A Little Stranger Read Online Free Page B
Author: Candia McWilliam
place in the refrigerator, unseductive and plain.
Our farm produced meat, the garden vegetables, we had milk and eggs and the cook made bread. I wondered sometimes whether these things were too physical for Margaret to bear.
In my pregnancy, I grew fatter at the waist and continued to eat, as I always had, fresh, clean food, pickled and salted to an alerting brackishness.
Chapter 6
Christmas consolidated the happiness in the house. I stopped worrying about our felicity and settled to getting and spending.
We had two Christmas trees that year, one for ourselves and one for John and Margaret. He had decorated their tree with baubles and tinsel, which Margaret had chosen. Their tree was gayer than our own. They had spent a morning in the local town choosing frosty globes enclosing Bambis, and clip-on birds with smooth glass-fibre brushes for tails. She had painted a crib-set and given the eaves of the stable glitterdust for snow. The manger had a nicely sewn duvet of straw-coloured cloth, the size of a pictorial rather than simply monarchist stamp.
‘I’m baby-minded,’ said Margaret, placing the infant Jesus.
She was to spend Christmas at her home.
‘We shall all miss you,’ I said, as we handed over our presents the evening before Christmas Eve. She had done more than she need to prepare things for us and was now driving off to help her parents with their celebrations. It was a strenuous time for her but she loved it. She had left a list for me, of outstanding preparations which could not be done too far in advance.
After we had said goodbye, John with kisses and my husband and I with boxed dainties and loud voices, I took out the list, which was written on her now-familiar paper. She dotted her ‘i’s with circles like birds’ eyes.
‘I wouldn’t lose her for all the world,’ said my husband, and he stretched and looked as self-satisfied as a painted paterfamilias.
I told him this. He was pleased and announced, ‘I’m looking forward to this Christmas more than to any other so far.’
I agreed.
I took Margaret’s list upstairs, where I went to turn off the tiny lights on John’s small tree, now he was asleep. The sense of suspended sweetness in the new dark was like a songbird covered with its dark night-time cloth.
The list read:
24th Dec. Remember to rest for baby. Feet up. Cook off. 8 pm, peel potatoes and put under water, Brussels peeled and x’d? 10 pm, Johnny’s stocking in my second drawer down. 11 pm, bird in slow oven of Aga. 12 pm, midnight mass. Say a prayer for Margaret!!
25th Dec. Bird in hot oven (did you take it out after mass?) at 10 am. 11 am, church. J.’s British warm airing in boiler room, shoes etc. ready. Collection in glove. 1 pm, eat a good dinner. No bread sauce. Onion bad for baby – and Mummy. 3 pm, John’s and my gift to you in nursery kitchen pan cupboard. 4 pm, no more than two (2) mince pies for J. No brandy butter. Custard ready in fridge. Does not eat skin. 6 pm, drinks tray for villagers ready, except ice.
26th Dec., ‘Boxing Day’. M. back. PHEW!
At the bottom, with the two ducks and their duckling, she had drawn a turkey, recognisable by his clerical wattles, uncooked, alive, raising his right drumstick in an avian – and presumably cannibalistic – grace.
I could not imagine what we would do without her.
Chapter 7
Asked about her own Christmas with her family, Margaret gave little away. It was as though her own home life did not enter the third dimension. She did not speak of her parents in the round. She appeared to have no childhood memories. When she released details, they were flat and lifeless as details from an instruction leaflet. It was as though she described self-assembly furniture. None the less, she wrote frequently to her family and to her boyfriend. She left her letters with mine, for the postman to pick up. My letters were to old friends, when they did not contain cheques.
I had also taken to writing enthusiastic letters
Our farm produced meat, the garden vegetables, we had milk and eggs and the cook made bread. I wondered sometimes whether these things were too physical for Margaret to bear.
In my pregnancy, I grew fatter at the waist and continued to eat, as I always had, fresh, clean food, pickled and salted to an alerting brackishness.
Chapter 6
Christmas consolidated the happiness in the house. I stopped worrying about our felicity and settled to getting and spending.
We had two Christmas trees that year, one for ourselves and one for John and Margaret. He had decorated their tree with baubles and tinsel, which Margaret had chosen. Their tree was gayer than our own. They had spent a morning in the local town choosing frosty globes enclosing Bambis, and clip-on birds with smooth glass-fibre brushes for tails. She had painted a crib-set and given the eaves of the stable glitterdust for snow. The manger had a nicely sewn duvet of straw-coloured cloth, the size of a pictorial rather than simply monarchist stamp.
‘I’m baby-minded,’ said Margaret, placing the infant Jesus.
She was to spend Christmas at her home.
‘We shall all miss you,’ I said, as we handed over our presents the evening before Christmas Eve. She had done more than she need to prepare things for us and was now driving off to help her parents with their celebrations. It was a strenuous time for her but she loved it. She had left a list for me, of outstanding preparations which could not be done too far in advance.
After we had said goodbye, John with kisses and my husband and I with boxed dainties and loud voices, I took out the list, which was written on her now-familiar paper. She dotted her ‘i’s with circles like birds’ eyes.
‘I wouldn’t lose her for all the world,’ said my husband, and he stretched and looked as self-satisfied as a painted paterfamilias.
I told him this. He was pleased and announced, ‘I’m looking forward to this Christmas more than to any other so far.’
I agreed.
I took Margaret’s list upstairs, where I went to turn off the tiny lights on John’s small tree, now he was asleep. The sense of suspended sweetness in the new dark was like a songbird covered with its dark night-time cloth.
The list read:
24th Dec. Remember to rest for baby. Feet up. Cook off. 8 pm, peel potatoes and put under water, Brussels peeled and x’d? 10 pm, Johnny’s stocking in my second drawer down. 11 pm, bird in slow oven of Aga. 12 pm, midnight mass. Say a prayer for Margaret!!
25th Dec. Bird in hot oven (did you take it out after mass?) at 10 am. 11 am, church. J.’s British warm airing in boiler room, shoes etc. ready. Collection in glove. 1 pm, eat a good dinner. No bread sauce. Onion bad for baby – and Mummy. 3 pm, John’s and my gift to you in nursery kitchen pan cupboard. 4 pm, no more than two (2) mince pies for J. No brandy butter. Custard ready in fridge. Does not eat skin. 6 pm, drinks tray for villagers ready, except ice.
26th Dec., ‘Boxing Day’. M. back. PHEW!
At the bottom, with the two ducks and their duckling, she had drawn a turkey, recognisable by his clerical wattles, uncooked, alive, raising his right drumstick in an avian – and presumably cannibalistic – grace.
I could not imagine what we would do without her.
Chapter 7
Asked about her own Christmas with her family, Margaret gave little away. It was as though her own home life did not enter the third dimension. She did not speak of her parents in the round. She appeared to have no childhood memories. When she released details, they were flat and lifeless as details from an instruction leaflet. It was as though she described self-assembly furniture. None the less, she wrote frequently to her family and to her boyfriend. She left her letters with mine, for the postman to pick up. My letters were to old friends, when they did not contain cheques.
I had also taken to writing enthusiastic letters
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