Guy Vanderhaeghe - Homesick

In some fashion, Vera felt herself to be a pioneer, a trailblazer. Stanley brought no Christmas baggage with him, so it fell to her, the one with experience, to invent a family tradition, to set the tone for all the Christmases that they and their children would celebrate in all the years to come. Santa Claus but no Jesus, Vera decided, turning over the pages of the cookbook. A bowl of eggnog standing near to hand when the tree was trimmed. Gifts opened Christmas Eve, not Christmas morning, so everybody could get a decent night’s sleep. Turkey for dinner, not goose, because Stanley preferred white meat.

In the end, Christmas turned out perfectly, exactly as Vera had planned. The candlelight flickered on her mother-in-law’s pieces of crystal and silver, Stanley praised every bite he took, her cheeks flushed warmly with wine and pride.

After the steamed pudding, at Stanley’s suggestion they went into the living room to listen to music as he liked to, in a completely darkened room. He even unplugged the Christmas tree lights.

The record he chose was Mahler’s Symphony No. 4. Stanley settled in his armchair, the special blend of Irish tobacco Vera had bought him glowing red in the bowl of his new pipe and wafting its aroma to where she sat on the sofa holding the pearl earrings he had given her, one in each hand. Stanley hadn’t realized her ears weren’t pierced.

When the haunting music commenced, Vera felt the child stir within her. With each measure, these movements grew stronger and stronger until the ferocity of them came near to frightening her. Of course, the baby had kicked before, but never like this.

Before she knew it, Vera had called out to Stanley. “Come here,” she said.

He crossed the room to the sofa. At once Vera felt foolish. Really, it was nothing after all.

“What do you think of this?” she asked, fumbling for his hand in the dark, pressing it to her belly.

For a time neither of them spoke.

“I believe he’s conducting,” said Stanley, breaking their silence.

“What?” Vera had not caught his meaning.

“Conducting.” In the meagre light she could just make him out, illustrating what he meant, flailing his arm about more or less in time with the music.

At that moment she could not stop herself from reaching out and seizing the hand moulding and carving the dim, shadowy air, carrying it to her mouth and kissing it passionately.

“Why, Vera,” said Stanley, surprised. She was not given to such displays, even in darkness.

“Never mind,” said Vera, recovering. “Go on back to your music.”

That, she told herself, had been a proper Christmas. Not this. This was Hallowe’en, a Grey Cup drunk, an all-night poker game rolled into one, but it sure as hell wasn’t Christmas. Where had decency, gentleness, kindness gone? Sometimes she doubted she could stop here any longer in this desert, in this absence of love.

It was December 22, nine-thirty in the morning, and Vera was struggling to raise the tree she had bought and carted home herself the day before. Flushed and tight-lipped with determination she battled to hold the spruce upright while attempting to tighten the screws in the stand to lock it into position. In the kitchen her father was hosting the day’s first arrivals, Huff Driesen, the McIlwraith brothers, Adolf Romanski. Daniel was finishing his breakfast, lounging against the kitchen counter with his plate under his chin. The visitors had begun the morning with coffee and rummy, a warm-up for beer and poker by eleven o’clock. Right at the moment, the first argument of the day was in full spate. Whose turn was it to deal?

The tree swayed, toppled. Vera sprang off her haunches, caught it with a jerk, shaking loose a shower of dry needles into her hair and down onto the floor. The evidence of earlier crashes lay thickly all about her, crackling under the soles of her shoes, and making her feet skid with every step she took. She had been wrestling the tree unassisted for the past half-hour but had no intention of planting the suggestion that she needed help.

Just then her father eased into the living room and, blind to her difficulties, inquired whether she had noticed his spectacles lying around.

“No,” said Vera, teeth clenched as she shoved the tree upright in the stand again.

“I can’t think where they could’ve got to,” he said helplessly, looking about vaguely. When it became clear she had no intention of joining the search he wandered off, with a forlorn, neglected air.

Five minutes later he was back. The tree was now standing, or rather leaning, in the corner of the room, and Vera was asking herself why she hadn’t thought to attach the star to its tip before she got it completely vertical. Now she was going to have to risk her neck standing on a chair, fending off branches as she leaned out precariously to fix the star.

The missing glasses had made Monkman as peevish and frustrated as his daughter. “I’ve lost my reading glasses,” he announced in a loud, slightly belligerent voice. “I can’t find them anywhere.”

Vera kept her eyes fastened on the top of the tree, like a bird judging a perch. “So what’ve you got to read that can’t wait?” she said. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I’m busy here.”

“It’s not reading. It’s for Huff. He wants his sugar diabetes shot and I can’t do it without my glasses. It’s close work.”

“It’s just about time you stopped babying Huff Driesen. He’s a big boy. Let him do it himself.”

“Vera, you know he can’t. He’s squeamish about needles.”

“So let one of his other bosom buddies in the kitchen do it. If he hurries he can get one while they’re still sober.”

“He don’t trust them,” said her father, dropping his voice.

“Neither do J,” Vera whispered back theatrically.

Her sarcasm appeared to be lost on her father, who hesitated before revealing his proposal. Still speaking in an undertone, he said: “As a matter of fact, Huff was wondering if I didn’t find my glasses… could you maybe do it, Vera?”

Vera laughed in his face. “Driesen’s got to be out of his mind. Not a chance.”

“It isn’t hard,” said her father. “Really it isn’t. Huff’ll load the needle for you. All you got to do is stick it in and push down the plunger.”

“Dream on. Push down the plunger. You make it sound like the French Resistance blowing up bridges in the movies. If I could blow that old sonofabitch sky high, then I’d press down the plunger.”

“Now don’t make jokes, Vera. This is serious business. He’s got to have his shot. And if you won’t do it, I’ll have to get Daniel to.”

Vera was aghast. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t ask Daniel to give him a needle.”

“I did already. He says, ‘If Mom can’t do it – I will.’ ”

“Use your head. Where’s your sense? Nobody lets twelve-year-old kids give old men needles. It’s just not proper.”

“Well, maybe it isn’t,” said Alec, feeling she was ready to give ground, “but if there’s nobody else to do it, what can I do?”

“Oh, Christ!” cried Vera. “All right, all right, I’ll give him his bloody needle. Get him in here and let’s get it over with. Jesus.”

Moments later her father returned, escorting a shuffling, grinning Huff. For the sake of privacy, Vera led him off to her bedroom. The notion of administering a needle made her feel slightly queasy and she was afraid that an audience might cause her to botch the job completely.

Once inside the bedroom Huff sniffed the air appreciatively. “Smells all perfumy,” he remarked. “Smells like a garden.”

Vera had no time for pleasantries. She wanted this done with, before she lost any more of her nerve. “Okay, okay,” she said brusquely, “let’s get this show on the road. That thing loaded?” she asked, pointing to the syringe in Driesen’s left hand. In his right he clutched a bottle of alcohol and some cotton balls.