Party Frock

Blown out into the yard is the smell of sausages, bacon, black pudding and fried bread. It cuts through the smog in the London air. The little girl shivers and folds her arms over the Coronation picture, a blue queen in a diamond crown, and a coronation coach and horses. It was bought by her Uncle and Aunt who don't shout at each other but speak politely to each other, in soft voices. Would you like a cup of tea Patrick? Are you comfortable Maureen? Would you like a blanket to keep yourself warm? I'm tired and going up to bed, are you coming with me?

The little girl's breath turns to smoke in the air. She stamps her feet but doesn't want to leave the sight of the plucking. The dead turkey's head lying sideways on the slab, the pink bits lame, damp, somehow disgusting. Its claws like Great Auntie Nellie's fingers over the candlewick bedspread in hospital.

'Jesus, May and Joseph we'll having nothing to eat on Christmas Day. In God's name why did you buy a cheap turkey? From a market! Don't you know they're all crooks? Or was he a drinking crony?'

The shouts and the clatter from the kitchen emerge with her red faced, sweating mother, waving a fish slice as she's been basting an egg. She swishes it in the air as she gives him a tongue lashing. The youngest brother is hanging on to the skirt of her blue cotton shirt-waister dress.

'Jesus, I'm just trying to make Christmas nice. You think nothing I do is any good, you sour woman. I should've married your sister. '

In the sitting room Dennis is lying in front of the fire in his long grey woollen shorts watching the football results, cheering for Liverpool. There are bits of pieces of a monopoly game that's lasted for days with lots of IOUs written on sheets of paper.

'Get in here Patty' shouts her mother from the kitchen 'You'll catch your death of cold our there without a coat.'

The kitchen is full of burning fat and over her eggs and bacon the little girl tries to catch her mother's time in between the shouting from yard to kitchen. The older children come in for their dinner in between the twisted coloured crepe paperhanging down from the ceiling in the dark and dingy hall.

'Mum, do you think I'll get the dress I want? The pink one with the frills and bow from Father Christmas. Will I?'

'Want doesn't get' says her mother basting another egg as the eldest girl slumps into a wooden chair waiting for her dinner.

'No runny yolk' says Eileen.

'No runny yolk, indeed. You should be glad of the food on your plate and eat it up. Have you polished the brass upstairs?'

'Yes Mum'

'Well I'll try and get your hair in rags to make ringlets before Midnight mass, if I have time.'

Dad brings the pockmarked turkey into the kitchen. There are still a few small feathers around the ankle.

'That thing stinks' she says to him.

He rolls his eyes at Patty

' It'll be great when it's cooked. Bit of salt and pepper, herbs and gravy and stuffing, sausage meat. Stop complaining woman and get on with it.'

'You'll be complaining when we sit down to eat our Christmas dinner without any meat. You get what you pay for. What did you swap to get this stinking turkey? A hot tip at the bookies? Some whiskey off the back of a lorry?'

She stomps off in a whirl of dress and pinny to put the milk bottles outside. He rubs his moustache, yellowed by nicotine and then spears a piece of bacon with a fork onto the breadboard, peels off two slices of white bread from their grease proof wrapper and rolls the bacon into a sandwich, heading off towards the football results.

The dress is softest pink with two layers of frills around the hem, a peter pan collar and puffed sleeves. The waist has two ribbon streamers that tie in a bow at the back. Patty saw it in a shop window when she went with her mother to help with the shopping. It's a dress you'd expect a fairy to wear, pink as blossom, a cloud, a stick of rock, a smile, and a wand. She'll be able to swirl around. The skirt will spin around her like a cloud of pinkness. It will be the most beautiful dress in the street. It will shimmer in the wardrobe waiting to be worn, danced, sung. The desire for the dress is eating her alive. It burns in her like a fever. She doesn't notice the smell of the going off turkey in the kitchen, but bites into the crisp fat on the bacon a dreamy look on her face.

'What's up my fairy elephant? You look as if you're seeing an apparition?'

'Dad, it's the pink dress. The one I told you about. I want to know if Father Christmas will bring it.'

'Life's full of surprises, Patty, maybe he will, maybe he won't.'

With that he's gone, like an apparition himself, shouting into the kitchen
'I said I'd meet Brendan for a pint, I'll be back in time for Mass.'

'Maybe he'll be back for Midnight Mass, maybe he won't' says her mother clattering up the plates into the deep white sink.

Eileen leans her scrawny arms into the sink to scour the dishes with a rag and Patty stands, plumper, beside her to wipe them and lay them on the table, an array of patterns, ladies in grey crinolines with pink bonnets, blue lovers escaping over Chinese bridges, multi coloured flowers and chipped white plates with blue and white stripes around the rim.

'Have you ever had a frilly dress Eileen?'

'Frilly? Mmm I had a lovely long dress and a veil for my first holy communion and I've got cousin Moira's velvet dress for best. It has a white lace collar. I suppose Mum'll make me wear it on outings and social dos at the Church. But you can't run in either of them. It's so boring.'

'But doesn't it make you feel exciting to have such a dress Eileen?'

'Are you mad or what Patty? You'd get it torn in no time at all and then you'd be for it and where would you wear it? Are you intending to call in on the new Queen?'

She flicks her on top of the head with the wet rag.

James is called down from his reading to get the fire going. He rolls up bits of the News of the World and fetches kindling sticks from the shed in the yard. The turkey feathers are gently floating around in the smog settled in the yard, almost making it look like something on a farm, a place where some animals might be kept, patiently waiting for something to happen. In the back room he places the sticks on top of the paper, then shovels in a pile of coal. It catches a blaze and the four older children get out the cards and have a game of rummy half watching the variety show on television, their sides or backs glowing with the heat of the fire. In its flickering flames Patty sees a pink dress shimmering and swishing in a dance. She sees the Toppers kicking their legs and swirling round in their sparkly outfits.

'That's it 'she thinks ' if only I had a swirly dress I'd be able to dance like that. I'd dance my way to America, or to Greenland. I'd be like the girl with the red shoes. They'd have to cut the dress off me to stop me dancing.'

The youngest boy is asleep on his mother's knee as she watches the Toppers dance their routines, drawing on a cigarette with unusual concentration and stillness.
A lock of dyed black hair falls over her forehead, where quite deep lines are marked.

'Well it's a terrible night to be walking to Midnight Mass if your father doesn't make it home from the pub. What time does the priest want you at church to get ready for serving, James?'

'11 o'clock mum'

'Well, maybe we should all walk down together and if we get there earlier we could say the rosary till the Mass begins. When the show finishes all of you get upstairs and wash your hands and faces, and for God's sake Eileen brush that hair of yours, it looks like a bird's nest and James clean your shoes, they're filthy and Patty get Eileen to replait your hair. Dennis get off your back side and put all the cards and counters away, comb your hair before going.'

The house echoes with the sound of shoes running up and down the stairs, shouting and quarrelling as the children get in and out the bathroom, splashing their faces, licking down their wiry hair. At last with school coats on they're ready in the hall to go, their mother pulling on her bread coloured wool coat and putting on red lipstick, unsmiling, in the geometric shape of the hall mirror, a slight smudge on the skin around the narrow upper lip.

'What a useless husband' she shouts into the dark house as she locks the door, as if somehow its gloomy rooms where responsible for transforming a man who could tell wonderful jokes into a taskmaster who had sentenced her to a life of bitter drudgery.

It is bitterly cold and their breath transforms into smoke melting into the filthy smog of the night.

'I've got black in my nose' says Patty, shivering, as she pulls tight the raincoat around her.

'Don't pull it too tight' says her mother 'You'll look like a sack of potatoes tied in the middle.'

She and Eileen jump over any cracked paving stones they can see as they walk, for you can never tell what bad luck they might bring you in the future.

'What if Father Christmas comes while we're at Mass?' asks Patty.

'He won't - he has to get to Mass himself' says James.

'What church does he go to?'

'Rome, for sure, the Pope himself will give him communion'

'Is it far from Rome to here? Will he have time to bring the presents?'

Patty thinks about the novenas her mother often does. Praying to turn your father into a sensible man, she would say. Perhaps she should have said a novena too, for the pink dress. Has she prayed hard enough? Has she been good enough? She's been with her mother to many early morning masses. Won't that be enough? But it doesn't seem to make their father do the things he's supposed to do.

The freezing smog makes their voices echo as they pass along the roads of terraced houses and onto the main street where you can see the traffic lights glimmering like fireflies.

'You see, I told you I'd get to mass'

Her father looms out of the nothingness and swirls Patty round dropping her down suddenly onto her sturdy feet. He reaches out to put an arm round his wife.

'God, you smell of drink. What will Father Murphy say?'

'Oh woman, give it a rest. It's Christmas Eve and I've managed to get a few of the other things you wanted.'

Patty notices he's carrying a large canvas bag on his back.

'Are you serving tonight James?' he asks.

'I always do'

'Well don't be smirking to the other altar boys tonight. Let's be proud to have a boy on the altar on Christmas Eve.'

James says nothing. He can smell the alcohol through the pores of his father's skin.

His voice at the carol singing seems to be louder than anyone else's and he won't stick to the tune, making his tenor slide up and down around the main notes of the song. Dennis tries to catch James's eye on the altar for a smirk but his older brother seems to be unusually contemplative on the altar. He must have had a tongue lashing from Father Murphy for some misdemeanor, thinks Dennis. The church is packed and the volume of body heat drives the smog and ice out of people's hearts as the priest whizzes through the service at breakneck speed, Father Murphy being one of those priests who prides himself on the speed of his Latin.

Patty can see her father beginning to fall asleep during the sermon and the terror of embarrassment makes her pull at his hand to jerk him awake. He leans forward resting his head on both hands.

The hundreds of people wishing each other a Happy Christmas as they leave the church is deafening, like a roar at a football match. In the excitement their father snatches a kiss from his wife.

'Wish me happy Christmas, Maureen.'

She sighs and rests her head against the lapels of his tight fitting woollen jacket. He puts little'un on his shoulders and James carries the rucksack, sharing out a bag of sweets given to him by Father Murphy. And so, breathing in smog and sucking on mints, they make their way through the enveloping cloud unable to see stars or moon, wiping the tiny particles of grime from their mouths. Back in the house their father pours them all a glass of sherry and they drink the sweet glistening liquid before going to bed and putting empty pillowcases on the floor by the beds.

Dawn comes as a blast of winter sunshine through the windows dirtied with smog.

'Wake up, Eileen, wake up. Father Christmas has been' she pushes at her sleeping sister watching the misshapen pillow cases at the end of the old double bed.

Eileen ignores her and rolls over the other way to carry on sleeping. Patty pulls back the nylon sheets and tip toes over to the sack. She puts her hand in to see what she can feel. Two oranges and a pomegranate come tumbling out. A bag of sweets crumples. There's something hard like a book, a comic annual probably and then there's a much bigger rectangle. She looks; it's a cardboard box. There's no sign of anything soft or pink. She blinks back a tear. She pulls out the cardboard box. It's not sealed down so she pulls back the top flap and there inside white tissue she sees pink cloud, melting and shiny. She pulls it out. The tissue flutters to the floor. She holds it against her self, smoothing it against her chest. She buries her head in its smell of newness and happiness, pleasure and being a girl. She spins, holding it to her. She doesn't dare put it on yet. Some terrible superstition warns her that if she does that it might disappear. She gets back into bed chewing a sweet but spreads the dress over the eiderdown above her.

'It's here, Eileen, Father Christmas brought the dress. It's lovely. It's so lovely'

'That's wonderful, I'm glad he has - you'll be able to go and say hello to Prince Charles, now, but try and get some sleep now Patty. I can't hear anyone up yet.'

Patty puts her dress on for Christmas dinner. She shimmers floating down the stairs. She's the princess off the tree. She's Grace Kelly, Rita Hayworth, Gina Lollabrigida, who met the Pope wearing a black veil, - all the beautiful women she's ever heard of.

'Give us a twirl in it now, my fairy elephant' says her father. She leaps around the room on her strong legs, attempting a few Television Toppers kicks and just missing the tower built by Dennis with his new Meccano set.

'Oh it's lovely Dad, it's lovely but it doesn't make me fly."

'Mind you spill gravy down it, now' says her mother ' I shouldn't be letting you wear it to dinner, but, well, just this once.'

They all help set the table out with bowls of sprouts, parsnips and carrots, a big jug of gravy, stuffing, sausage meat and thin red crackers made from crepe paper laid next to each knife and fork. Then Mum carries in the roast turkey on a platter, amber colored and shiny.

'There you go Maureen, I told you it'd be fine. A real country turkey that. A bit over rich I admit but that's the taste of the country as I remember from my boyhood'

Despite the funny smell coming from their plates, they all pick at the vegetables and take a bite or two of the dark meat put on their plates.

'Mother of God' says their mother after tasting a piece. 'Don't eat this children. The meat is off. You'll all be sick. I'll scrape the meat off your plate. You can eat the rest of the dinner.'

'Nothing wrong with this' says their father, continuing to chew the turkey till he spits it out on his plate.

James and Eileen watch their mother closely. They can see she's beginning to cry. May be one small tear falls down the strong bones of her face. Maybe it doesn't. In later years they won't remember accurately whether she cried the Christmas with the rotten turkey or not.

'Michael Byrne, you're an idiot' she sips her Babycham watching him from beneath her dark brows, her hazel eyes like candle flames.

'Yes, but I'm a good looking idiot, am I not.' He blows her a kiss from the end of the table, running his hands through the slight quiff of his hair 'And we certainly won't be hungry with the Christmas pudding and mountain of mince pies the girls have been building in the kitchen.'

And Patty won't remember the rotten turkey at all. She'll remember the Christmas of feathers in the yard and the smoke of her floating skirt pink and orange in the firelight.

Biography

Pauline Plummer is a poet with three collections (Demon Straightening, Iron Press, is the most recent). Short stories are a new venture. She is an Irish/Welsh mixture from Liverpool and currently teaches on MA Creative Writing, Northumbria University.