Harriet Evans - Going Home

‘These are beautiful, Suzy,’ she’d say, picking at a crumb of roast potato.

‘Mmm,’ my mother would answer, as her nearest and dearest guzzled, pausing only to open another bottle of wine. conversation broke out. I must say we were rather knocking back the wine but as they say, Christmas comes but once a year, and it is the season to be merry. It was probably nearing teatime but, just as at weddings, where one has nothing to eat for hours and then lunch at 6pm, we’d lost all sense of time.

After the pudding and mince pies, we had toasts where – yes! – we all propose toasts. When we were younger we found the adults desperately tedious by this stage: they were clearly drunk, found the oddest things hilarious, and would hug us, breathing fume-laden declarations of affection into our faces.

‘Lizzy goes first,’ said Chin, giving me a shove.

‘I’d like to toast Mr and Mrs Franks, and Tommy the dog,’ I said, getting up and downing the rest of my wine.

‘Hurray!’ said the others, except Gibbo and Rosalie.

‘They live in the village in Norfolk where we go on holidays. They’re gorgeous,’ said Chin. ‘You’ll meet them there this summer. It’s wonderful.’

Gibbo and Rosalie, bound together by fear of the unknown and the solidarity of the outsider, shot each other a look of trepidation.

‘Jess, you next!’ Tom yelled, prodding her in the thigh.

‘I want to toast Mr and Mrs Franks too,’ said Jess, determinedly.

‘You can’t,’ I said. ‘That was my idea. Think of someone else.’

‘I miss them,’ said Jess, her lower lip wobbling. Jess cries more easily than anyone I know, especially after wine.

‘Me too,’ said Chin, gazing into her glass. ‘I hope Mr Franks’s hip is OK.’

‘My turn,’ said Mike, standing up straight and holding his glass high in the air. ‘To…to Mr and Mrs Franks and Tommy the dog.’

We all fell about laughing, except Jess. ‘Mike! Be serious.’ She glared at him.

‘I stand by my toast,’ said Mike. ‘I send waves of love and vibes of massage to them, especially Mr Franks and his hip.’

‘Oh, Mike,’ said Jess, ‘don’t take the p-piss. You are mean.’

‘Sorry, darling,’ said Mike. ‘I change my toast. To my lovely new wife.’

‘To Mike’s lovely new wife,’ we all chorused. Rosalie beamed up at him.

Mum got up next. ‘I would like to toast Kate,’ she said quietly. ‘It was thirty-three years ago this week that Tony met her and we always remember him today, but I want Kate to know we all…Anyway, we do. To Kate.’

‘To Kate,’ we echoed, and Kate looked embarrassed and buried her face in her glass.

Mike opened another bottle as Dad stood up. ‘To the district council and their planning department,’ he said darkly, and drained his glass.

Jess and I rolled our eyes. Dad is always embroiled in some dispute over the field next to our little orchard, which is owned by the local council. They’re always threatening to chop down the trees opposite the house, or remove the lovely old hedgerow that flanks it and similarly stupid things.

‘The district council,’ came the weary reply.

It was Tom’s turn. He stood up slowly and surveyed the room. I noticed then, with a sense of unease, that he had a red wine smile: the corners of his mouth were stained with Sainsbury’s Cabernet Sauvignon. ‘The time has come…’ he began, and stopped. He swayed a little, and fell backwards into his seat. We all roared with laughter and raised our glasses to him. Somehow he got up again. ‘The time has come,’ he repeated, glazed eyes sweeping the room. ‘I want to tell you all something. I want to be honest with you.’

Kate looked alarmed. ‘What is it, darling?’ she asked, balling her napkin in one hand.

Tom waved his arm in a grandiloquent gesture. ‘You all think you know me, yes? You don’. None of you. Why don’t we tell the truth here? I’m not Tom.’

‘What’s he talking about?’ Rosalie whispered, horrified, to Mike. He shushed her.

‘I’m not the Tom you think I am, that Tom,’ said Tom, and licked his lips. ‘None of us tells the truth. Listen to me. Please.’

And this time we did.

‘I want to tell you all. You should know now. Listen, happy Christmas. But you should know, I can’t lie any more to you.’

‘Tom,’ I said, as the cold light of realisation broke over me and I suddenly saw what he’d been going on about. ‘Tom, tell us.’

‘I don’t think we’re honest with each other,’ he went on. ‘None of us. I think we should all tell each other the truth more. So I’m going to start. I’m gay. I’m Tom. I’m gay.’

The old clock on the wall behind him ticked loudly, erratically, as it must have done for over a hundred years. I gazed into my lap, then looked up to find everyone else doing the same. Someone had to say something, but I didn’t know what.

Then, from beside my father, Rosalie spoke: ‘Honey, is that all?’ she asked, reaching for a cracker. ‘You doll. I knew that the moment I laid eyes on you.’

Another silence.

‘Well, come on,’ said Rosalie. ‘Did any of you guys really not know?’

Kate cleared her throat and pouted. Tom was staring at her, with what seemed to be terror in his eyes. ‘I have to say I’ve always thought you might be, darling,’ she said. She reached across the table for his hand.

‘Er…me too,’ said Chin, and my mother nodded.

‘And me,’ Jess added, her lip wobbling again. ‘I love you, Tom.’

‘Oh, do be quiet, you fantastically wet girl,’ said Tom. A tear plopped on to Jess’s plate.

‘Good on you, mate,’ said Gibbo.

‘Come on, Mike,’ Rosalie appealed to her husband. ‘Didn’t you wonder?’

‘I must say I did,’ muttered Dad, which says it all, really. If Kate and Dad – people who think ‘friend of Dorothy’ refers to someone who is acquainted with Maisie Laughton’s sister in the next village – can be aware of Tom’s sexuality, then who had he thought he was kidding?

Tom looked discomfited. It must be awful to get seriously drunk and reveal your darkest secret to your family, only to discover that they knew it already.

‘What about you, Lizzy?’ said Tom. ‘Didn’t you wonder why I never talked about girls? Or boys?’

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I just thought you might be and you’d tell me if you wanted to.’

Mike agreed. ‘I always wondered, Tom, you know. You asked for that velvet eye-mask for your twenty-first. I wondered then whether you were going through a Maurice phase. Jolly brave of you, must have been nerve-racking telling us today. I cancel my toast to Rosalie. Stand up, everyone.’

Our chairs scraped on the old floorboards. ‘To Tom,’ he said. ‘You know…we’re proud of you. Er. You know. For being your way. Here’s to Tom.’

‘You’re proud of me for being my way?’ said Tom, incredulously. ‘Good grief! This is like being on Oprah. ’

‘Shut up, Tom,’ I said. We raised our glasses and intoned, ‘To Tom,’ and sat down again.

‘Well,’ said my mother. ‘Does anyone have room for another mince pie?’

By the time you’ve finished Christmas lunch, it’s incredibly late, and even though you’re stuffed you have to have tea with Christmas cake and Bavarian stollen , made by my mother, and by about nine p.m. you’re starving – the huge amount you have ingested over the last four hours has stretched your stomach, which is now empty and needs to be filled again. So you have the traditional Christmas ham, accompanied by the equally traditional Vegetable Roger, which is what Tom called it once when he was little, and which is Brusselsproutscarrotsroastpotatoescabbagestuffingand-breadsauce but not necessarily in that order, all whizzed up in the food-processor, then served with melted cheese on top. I console myself with the thought that this was what kept Mrs Miniver going through times of stress.