THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 339, 21 December 1945, Page 16

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST

A SHORT STORY Written for "The Listener" by

A. P.

GASKELL

| HRISTMAS, before the War, was always something to look forward to. Not that we ever did anything very startling, but it made a sort of finish to the year; and with Christmas cards and presents and one thing and another, we thought of people we had forgotten for a time, so there was a kind of continuity about it too. And of course Maude always insisted on the boys being home for Christmas. "I don’t care where you go the rest of the year," she would say, "but I’m going to have my family around me at Christmas." So there we were. Les would come home from his country school in the Waikato and tell us how slow Invercargill seemed after the North Island towns. Syd would rise to-the bait and say how solid the mercantile firms in the Crescent were, compared with the North Island "boom-and-bust outfits." The expression is his. It was rather funny really. Young Syd is only an office boy, and he’s never been past Christchurch, but with his usual bounce and confidence he doesn’t mind acting as spokesman for local business. The two boys got on well together. I suppose that lately they had seen so little of each other that they hadn’t time to become bored. Les, as I said, had been nearly two years in the Waikato, and even when he was home on holiday Syd would be at work all day, and most week-ends he was away gallivanting around the countryside in an old car that his gang owned on a community basis. He wasn’t home much at all. I don’t know what methods Maude used to keep them home over Christmas. I’m sure they wouldn’t have done it for me. Anyway, there we were on this particular occasion I’m thinking of. It was a beautifully fine Boxing Day, and we were going off for a picnic to Fortrose. FoORTROSE had been my choice. I had been brought up beside the sea, and I always like to go back and have another look at it. I knew that if I suggested Bluff or Riverton I would see that rather patronising look appear un the boys’ faces-it surprises me at times how paltry they find my suggestionsso this time I was careful not to name a place too close at hand. Syd, of course, with his wanderlust and grandiose ideas, had wanted to "do" Eglinton Valley; Maude said she didn’t care where she went "as long as I get away from this backyard for a while," and Les supposed it would be all right there at Fortrose on the cliffs, | . So it was to be Fortrose. . Before we set off, there was the usual argument about who was to drive. Syd was first in: behind the wheel. "Pack in, folks," he said, "and I’ll have you there in under the hour." Les stood looking at him in his tall, rather embarrassed fashion. It evidently surprised him a good deal to see Syd

Sl i growing up and taking over his position as the young’ despot df the car. I’m not keen on driving, so Les always used to take us. : "What about me?" he said. "You have the car here all the time, whereas I don’t get a drive nowadays from one year’s end to another." "Bad luck, my boy, bad luck. You'll be out of practice. I’d better take her." I don’t know where Syd gets that cocky manner. All his gang are the same, offhand about everything, whether they take it or leave it. Probably there’s no harm in it, but I don’t like it. And as for treating me with any respect! "For goodness sake stop arguing and let’s get started," said Maude. "One of you can drive there, and the other can drive home. Now Les, you get in." It’s wonderful how she speaks to them, and they take it without a murmur. If I adopt that sharp tone towards them they’re bristling up aggressively at once. Evidently I’ve done something wrong when they were younger, according to those books on child psychology. VELL, Maude sat beside Syd and kept an eye on the speedometer, so that it was an hour-and-a-half later when we swung down the final hill and curved along the Mataura. I enjoyed the ride out. I liked the only half-tamed look of the countryside, and Les said that the tree skeletons reminded him of the King Country. He went on a good deal about burning the forests and erosion. They had told him at Training College that erosion was New Zealand’s Problem No. 1. "What about the Labour Government?" asked Syd over his shoulder. "You ask the cockies what they think of that problem." "You watch the road," said Maude, "or it won’t matter to us whether the Government’s Labour or anything else." I like the country around Fortrose on a fine day. There’s the river-mouth, the sea, the sandhills and scrub on the other side, and those smooth rounded hills on the left, and lots of sky and seagulls, and that old red shed, a few boats, and a skeleton wharf. If you like to think of it, there are the old timber days when the river-mouth was navigable and the place was a port; and further back still there are the whaling days, and sixteen whales taken just offshore. I can amuse myself for hours rooting around these old places. We pulled in beside the red shed, and ‘Les and Syd went off to find a spot among the lupins where we could have 7 lunch, +

ODP DP DPD PPP PDD AD PDD DS "I hope Syd’s not going to be as tall as Les," said Maude, as we watched these two strangers going off. "But it’s his big ambition," I said. "Don’t you remember a couple of years ago he wrote away for a booklet on ‘How to increase your height,’ and the chap kept pestering him for months to take the course." "T ‘know. It’s nice to be tall. But not too tall. Les thinks he’s too tall. It makes him awkward and shy. He thinks everybody’s looking at him." Of course he had always been tall. We always used to have trouble over his fare on trams and trains until he was old enough to pay full fare. I remember how he sometimes begged me to pay full price for him because he was so embarrassed by the way the conductor looked at him. Syd was a good deal slighter in build. I didn’t think he would be as tall, HE two of them came back laughing. They had found an old hat and Syd was wearing it. "I only wear this hat when I’m tiger-huntin’ or feedin’ swans," he was saying. "Syd, you take that old thing off this instant," said Maude. "You don’t know who’s had it." "Or Buyin’ a raffle ticket,’ prompted Les. "Tiger-huntin’ or feedin’ swans or buyin’ a raffle ticket," said Syd. He threw the hat over the bushes, "What’s all that silly nonsense about swans." "Aw Mom, your memory is cracking: up. Don’t you remember I made you listen to that, the other day? It’s Harry Tate, ‘Motoring down to Portsmouth’." "Oh, I can’t remember half the silly rot, you call me in to hear. Did you find a place?" So it was one of those wireless comedians. Les and Syd had a kind of private store of humour, culled from wireless, films and American magazines. They were liable to shoot bits of it across to each other at any moment, and if their cue were taken, they would laugh and choke together in a fashion that left Maude and me standing outside and feeling old. I often felt like an outsider. I couldn’t see a great deal to laugh at in their foolery. It made me feel that. my generation was a thing of the past. When I was young and laughed a lot more than I do now, we used to find practically all our fun in local affairs, but these boys ranged the world for their Nibabiesias: The spot they found was sheltered and not far off the road, and Syd was able to back the car in. The boys went off to have a look around. s (continued on next page)

~. continued from previous page) "Be back in half-an-hour," Maude falled after them. ‘ ‘Okay." BY the time I had a fire going, Maude had most of. the things out on the grass. I took the billy and went along to one of the houses for water. "How do you think it will all end?" the old chap asked me as he handed me the billy. "What's that?" "This Munich business. Now that the Germans have marched into CzechoSlovakia." He shook his head. "I could see it coming. I could see it all coming." He kept me talking there for some time. "You’ve been a long time," Maude said when I got back. She had a cloth spread out and everything ready. "We'll be ready as soon as the billy boils." "The old chap back there thinks we're in for a war," I said. We looked at each other. There was no need to say any more, That worried look came in her eyes again. "I’m not going to think of it," she said at last. "We'll enjoy this Christmas at any rate. Will you go and get the boys?" HEY were down on the beach, skip- '" ping stones across the river. They both threw casually and skilfully with a flick at the end of the swing. I couldn’t help thinking how fit and athletic they looked. Les had been a footballer and a long-distance runner at Training College, and Syd, during the winter, was always saying to us on Saturdays, "Come along to the Park and get a load of me this afternoon. Best loose forward in Southland." In the summer, he called himself "Ace" McKenzie, the terror of the courts, because of his tennis service. If the others in his gang were about, they would pretend to hold a microphone up before him, and say, "Just a few words into the mike, Ace. What do you think of Bill Perry?" "Who’s Bill Perry?" he would ask in a loud confident voice. Or "Who’s Joe Louis?" or "Who’s Walter Lindrum?" It was the stock reply. They were fooling like that when I approached them across the grass. Evidently Les had thrown a very successful "skipper." "Phee-nomenal, phee-nomenal," Syd was saying, "Never, in all my born days » "It’s the famous McKenzie flattened trajectory," said Les. "I’ve just invented it. It utilises the surface tension of the water." "My friends," said Syd, wagging his head and intoning his words like President Roosevelt, "you have just witnessed in this mighty nation — Oh, hello Pop. Have a throw." He tossed me a stone. "In my youth," I said, "no birds flew within a hundred yards of our house." "Attaboy, Pop." I threw the stone, but for the rest of the afternoon, I felt as though my arm had gone with it. AFTER lunch, we skirted the shallow estuary and walked over the hills. Each rounded spur ended in a cliff. We went up to the edge — not too near, Maude saw to that — and looked out across a thousand miles of ocean. It swelled in with long blue lines of shadow, and burst around the cliffs.

Syd stood looking out to the south. He waved. "Hiyah, Byrd," he called. "He’s not still there, is he?" qgviaude asked. "One of these days I'll buy me a plane and fly down there and see. Or maybe I'll buy me a boat. That’s a lot of water." The boys both had their shirts off, and their shoulders looked clean and brown against the sea. It was wonderful there really, with all that air to breathe and all that sea and sky to look at. It made the office seem like a gaol. "There’s Ruapuke." I pointed to the low flat mass anchored out in front of us. I told them the little I knew about Tuhawaiki and the Tuturau raid, "Where did you learn all that, Dad?" asked Maude. "You’ve never told us that before." "Good for you, old-timer," said Syd. "He probably lived through it all," he explained to his mother, There are times when they make me feel as old as that. Not so much with Les, he’s quieter and more serious by nature. Look at him not telling Maude about the Maoris in the Waikato. But this Syd. When I think of how little I have-in common with him I sometimes become afraid. It seems unnatural for a father and son to be like this. His conversation is continually larded with Americanisms and obscure references. He bursts into the house at meal times with, "When do we eat around here?" Then he says, "Tanks a million for the meal, Mom. That was swell.’ And then he’s away out with that gang of his, camping, tennis, swimming, and swing records. We see very little of him. And yet his boss tells me he’s doing very well at work. He seems to have grown up and away from us so suddenly that Maude and I are left far behind. I sometimes wonder if this generation knows instinctively what wars and horrors lie ahead of it, and so they must live as rapidly and feverishly as possible before the crash. Les is quieter, and more at home in the country, but this Syd! "Your drive, brother," he said as we set out for home. "Seeing you're so rusty, I’ll be noivious if I sit beside you, so I’ll park in the back with Pop." So he sat in the back with Pop and sang to us-strange nervously unsettled things about Mood Indigo, and I Was Doing All Right, and This Year’s Crop of Kisses. As we went home, we were driving into the setting sun with all the dust showing on the windscreen, and he sat there with his eyes shut singing nearly all the way. TILL, as Maude said when we got home, it had been a nice change, and had given us all a breath of fresh air. I felt much better for it. I like the sea and the feeling of air and space over the cliffs. We were sunburned too, and sleepy after the day in the open. "Well, Christmas is over once again," said Maude, as she and I sat in the kitchen over a cup of tea. "It’s been nice to-day, hasn’t it?" "I enjoyed it,’ I said. "As long as the boys weren’t too bored." "Bored? Why on earth should they be bored?" "Well... 2? It was rather hard to explain. "I suppose we’re rather dull company for them." (continued on next page)

SHORT STORY (continued from previous page) "What a strange idea. Did you find your parents dull company?" I didn’t know. I don’t think the idea of their being company for us had ever arisen, so I suppose we had made some progress. "It’s nice to have them both home," said Maude. "Let’s hope we'll have many more Christmases just as good." * te ® AT was just an ordinary sort of picnic before the war, and a very ordinary Christmas, but we'll never. see another like it.

Ne eee Never again. Les is back home with us now after three years as P.O.W. He has an injured leg’ and hardly ever talks. We reach out to him, but ,he seems to live in a world of his own where we have no place. And Syd was shot down over the North Sea two years ago. At least, they think that’s what must have happened. They can’t say for sure. Wherever he is we'll be thinking of him this Christmas. That’s what I mean when I say that Christmas won’t be the same. None .of us are the same. Naturally it has all made a great difference to Maude, and to me too. That’s why, just now, I was thinking back over those: Christmases before the war.