February must be the most boring month of winter -- well, of the year
really. Apart from pancakes and the tedious leap-year thing
In the second of a series of special essays for Weekender,Marcella
Evaristi finds herself alone on a winter's day in a deep and dark
December.
NOVEMBER 1960
LAST night was Guy Fawkes night and I was very excited, unlike my dog
who was very scared and shivered under the kitchen table. I found this
very strange because he is normally brave and once tried to bite an
Alsatian's bottom. He is a poodle.
All my aunties and uncles and cousins came over to our house and
brought more fireworks. There were stripey rockets with scrunchy blue
paper and loads of my favourites -- the ones that look like wee
upside-down pokey hats. And even bangers which we don't normally get,
but some of my cousins are boys and I've got no brothers so I expect my
parents couldn't be rude.
Before we started Mamma handed out mugs of tomato soup and sausages
and a huge tray as big as a table without any legs. The tray was for her
toffee apples. These are a million times nicer than the red ones you get
in the shops. The Cellophane stuff always takes half the crusty red
toffee off of those, but I like them, too. But her toffee is the actual
colour of toffee. And it's chewy and it not only goes round the apple
but makes a little plate of toffee at the bottom as well.
Other people's fireworks were scooting up already and there was a
lovely smell like matches and coal and frost all mixed up. Daddy went
off to get a hammer for the Catherine Wheels and then everything
happened very quickly and slowly at the same time. First of all my
cousin, Silvio, ran backwards from the box, then Mamma grabbed the hood
of my duffel coat and pulled me.
The box crackled and made little bangs at first, then it went lopsided
and blew up. It wasn't like a cartoon bomb. Colours started fizzing out
and then we were all watching from the kitchen. My auntie was screaming
at Silvio and my dog was barking and then everything went quiet again
apart from a purple bang from the end of next door's garden.
Silvio had dropped a match inside the box and looked really trembly.
He wasn't crying although he was holding his chin up very high.
My Dad said it was an accident and began to laugh. I felt sorry for
Silvio and said at some much worse accidents children went blind,
because I had seen the Guy Fawkes advertisements to be careful on the
television. Mamma stared at the burnt box and said: ''That went as
quickly as the year''.
I don't know what she meant because after November the fifth there's
nothing to look forward to until Christmas and that takes ages and ages.
DECEMBER, BOXING DAY, 1968.
HAVE received a tape recorder for my Christmas and I am beginning to
record my reminiscences. It starts with me saying ''It is my sixteenth
birthday to heaven'' like in the Dylan Thomas poem and then I go on
about my early vivid experiences. Like in the wintertime of my youth
when I was taken to the pantomime and my Mum and Dad knew a lot of
people in the cast cos their Alhambra Cafe was across from the Alhambra
theatre and I was only about five or something.
Larry Marshall came on stage dressed as a nurse in this hospital
sketch and Rikki Fulton in the character of Matron looked across and
said, ''Hey, if it's no' Nurse Marcellina!'' I couldn't believe that my
name (couldn't be a coincidence -- not with my name!!!) was spoken from
a professional stage. The same night I was taken backstage and met Lenny
the Lion who covered his long eyelashes with his paw and said, ''Isn't
she pretty?''
I am convinced these two memories, omens even, have informed my
desperation to try for a career in the theatre.
Everyone has gone for a walk but I feel like being solitary here in my
room with my Paul Simon Songbook. I am playing ''A winter's day -- in a
deep and dark December -- I am alone''. Strange that a stranger can
truly understand you.
I realise I can't remember exactly which pantomime included a hospital
sketch and Lenny the Lion. How quickly one can forget the details. Am
glad I plumped for the tape recorder and not Being and Nothingness by
Jean-Paul Sartre. Though I've heard that it's amazing. Since the
minutiae of our existence can so quickly fade from our consciousness I
will describe my bedroom for posterity. Whenever my parents redecorate I
have to look at my Citizens' Theatre posters. I nearly lost A Day in the
Death of Joe Egg under poppy wallpaper earlier in the year. I will also
recite my favourite sayings that I've got written on my Quotations
Board. Such as ''Love is the sweet delinquesence of the bowels'' penned
by the writer Kingsley Amis.
From my window I can see snow-laden trees, the MacDonalds Hotel and
some youths throwing snowballs. Realise I recognise them. The youths, I
mean. Perhaps some fresh air would be a useful hiatus. Over and out.
DECEMBER 1994
THE MINISTER AND THE CHRISTMAS TREE
AND a certain minister's speech was reported in the press, and thus it
was known how he railed at the godless and atheistic and improper
transformation of this pious time. ''For verily commercialism in all its
aspects has undermined this festival into a carnival of More and
Spend.''
And he railed at the tinsel which glittered like the lure of borrowed
gold. And he spat -- metaphorically -- on that bold, that brazen pagan
artefact the Christmas -- how unaptly named -- the Christmas Tree.
Now it happened that the children of the village heard of his disdain,
and knew as well their parents half agreed.
(Mostly their Mums and Dads had just concurred that this season coiled
them into huge expenditure. But the damage had been done.)
The children, quite exaggerating what they'd eavesdropped, panicked --
and as weans do, they formed a plan.
And so it was on Christmas Eve that night the little ones sneaked out
and each child carried a branch cut from their own trees. What a motley
Birnam wood waved through the snow in a line towards that minister's
abode.
Some brought silver artificial branches with red velvet bows. Some
held pine with baubles -- every type of seasonal dark conifer or plastic
twig that you have ever seen bobbled and swayed as the children made
their way along the road.
When at last they arrived in the minister's front garden you might
have thought a circus troupe had come to town. Like acrobats they jumped
up on each others' shoulders, the strongest on the ground and the
smallest toddler like a fairy wobbling on the top.
For yes, you've guessed it, that Baby Birnam had become a beautiful
tall tree, and unknownst to them, from a nearby roof, a gentleman in red
was watching every swaying move.
''Ho, ho, how wonderful!'' said Santa with a grin. ''When most kiddies
are cuddled up excited waiting with bated breath for me -- these wee
ones brought some old pensioner a tree! You have lifted my heart,'' he
said, with sentimental tear, ''your gorgeous tree has everything but
presents -- here!'' (And threw one down.)
Just then a window opened and a head popped out. ''We wish you Merry
Christmas!'' was the children's shout.
The minister was silent.
Then with trembling voice said ''Would this be mine?''
And now he wears green boxer shorts, signed Calvin Klein.
JANUARY
I HAVE finally located my 1995 diary; it was hiding from me under a
Home Farm set. On the cover of the box there's a farmhouse and fences, a
farmer, a windmill, and a long wall; there's geese and a cockerel,
rabbits, ponies, ducks, and all the animals you would expect. Inside
there's a small transparent plastic bag with two cows, a pig, and
three-quarters of a pen. A colostomy of disappointment. On the side of
the box you can see, with the help of a microscope, the words Colours
and contents may vary from picture shown.
I curl up on the carpet with my diary and settle down to symbolically
begin my New Year. It is the seventh of January. Pine needles have
porcupined my foot. I wait a little, But when no prince appears to
remove them with his perfect teeth, I am not dismayed. I am resilient,
hopeful, and practical.
Under Things to Remember I write Get Hoover fixed. But the resolutions
have to wait until I fill in my personal details. Name, yes, address,
yes, home number, yes. Under business number I write my home number out
again. But in brisker, sort of affluent lettering.
Then my pen hovers above National Insurance number, moves south over
National Health number and passport number, then, stopping briefly over
driving licence number, moves decisively back to Things to Remember and
writes Learn to drive.
I briskly move to my desk and look out of the window. There's been no
snow this year, so the playful boys on the street have been reduced to
throwing stones wrapped round with nothing but their own young fingers.
The man who arrived with his machine to spray away the cockroaches has
been and gone, so under January fourth I write, Phoned hygiene
department.
I notice that Wednesday the first of February, subject to the sighting
of the moon, is the First Day of Ramadan, that Monday the sixth is
Waiting Day in New Zealand, but there's no mention of St Valentine's Day
on the fourteenth.
I rather disapprove of this because what if there's no moon on the
first and you're not giving it what-for in Wellington on the sixth, then
you might forget the only mildly interesting day of the whole month.
Because February must be the most boring month of winter -- well, of the
year really. Apart from pancakes and the tedious leap-year thing. (There
was always a boring old bastard, some acquaintance of your parents,
betting you a 10 shilling note he really was 11.)
Beside February thirteenth, I write Remember ST VD seven thirty am
tomorrow in squashed-up handwriting so that it will look, should anyone
glance at my diary beside the phone, as if I had breakfast business
meetings whilst self-deluding lovelorn women listened out for postie
from behind their own front doors.
Suddenly I realise that I am being winked at. Under hygiene department
I write, At least four hours a day no stinting no matter what, and
putting down my pen I move to the flickering word processor and press
the button for Create A New Document. I type the title, On Princes and
Disclaimers, then, after a small hiatus, I put Paul Simon on and light a
fag.
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