Stephanie Percival
The making of the advent crown was the highlight of our year. Mother and I worked in relative companionship. She’d actually smile, pursed lips unfurled for an hour or so. Mother twisted four wire coat hangers together, saying, “I’ll do this, Ruth. You’re all fingers and thumbs.” She wouldn’t buy tinsel but I was sent to collect ivy and holly from the garden for decoration. She’d grab the greenery from me, winding it round bare wires. One year she splashed out on baubles, they were reused every year. Our cassette tape of Christmas carols played, Mother trilling along.
The candles were never lit. “Too dangerous, with a clumsy girl in the house.”
The maxim, ‘don’t work with animals or children,’ also springs to mind. Mother didn’t like animals. I wanted a pet. A dog like Shep with warm fur and waggy tail; a faithful friend who wouldn’t judge me. In response to my pleas, Mother commented, “A scatterbrain like you, couldn’t manage a dog.”
Mother wasn’t a fan of children either, unless you were one of the four Lambert girls, with glossy ringleted hair and ‘voices like angels’, visions of virtue and obedience; their mouths little round ‘O’s’ as they sang in the church choir.
I wanted to watch Magpie which was considered a cooler show by all the friends I didn’t have. Mother thought it was ungodly, immoral. We abided by the ten commandments, which were scripted on a tapestry that Mother embroidered as a child. It hung as a warning on the sitting room wall. In red thread, ‘Honour thy Father and Mother,’ stood out. As I didn’t have a father, Mother demanded double obedience. There weren’t any photos of their wedding day. “Too distressing,” she’d once told me. When we kneeled to pray in the pew on Sunday, chilly wind blowing around our legs; I should have been squeezing my eyes shut, but would sneak a look round at everybody else. Mother would be twisting her gold wedding ring as we recited the Lord’s prayer. I imagined she was thinking of my daddy.
Following the example of Blue Peter, I did get to make pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. I ignored orders barked by Mother about how to make the batter. I recalled how the Blue Peter presenter did it. Unlike us, they always had fun. I’d take a deep breath before tossing the pancake, gripping the frying pan handle in my skinny hands. When the pancake flipped over in a perfect arc, Mother’s mouth opened and closed, rebukes of, ‘Stupid girl. You’re so clumsy,’ silenced.
The batter was sweet and lemony, dangerously succulent in my mouth. Of course, the treat heralded a bleak forty days as Lent beckoned its empty arms.
Other Blue Peter makes were failures, I blamed lack of sticky-back plastic. On reflection Mother was ahead of her time in not using plastic to excess. Otherwise, she remained in the dark ages. Grace before eating, Sunday best and not being vain. “Pride go’eth before a fall,” she’d repeat, if I ever mentioned I’d got an A for my school work or scored a goal in hockey. So, when I won a Blue Peter badge and Mother framed and displayed it, I was baffled. It hung in the front hall where it was reflected a million times in the mirror, and would be the first topic of conversation when guests came round for Bible study.
I still watched Blue Peter up to my sixteenth birthday; absorbing the technological advances they demonstrated. “Women can’t be scientists,” Mother stated. Her words made me more determined.
I lied to my classmates that I watched Top of the Pops, feeding the untruth by secretly listening to the top twenty countdown on a tinny transistor radio. Beneath bedclothes, I’d mis-hear words, so when other girls sang pop songs at school they’d snigger and nudge elbows when I got it wrong. I’d blush, knowing I’d never fit in here.
Life improved when I escaped to university and then went travelling. I returned occasionally, to find Mother unchanged. In 1987 on a visit before I emigrated, Mother’s mouth made an ugly Cornish pasty crimp as she said, “I hope you’re not watching Blue Peter still. That presenter girl. So young, unmarried and pregnant. Flaunting her disgrace. What is the world coming to.”
I had no polite response. I was twenty-six. Who besides Mother, watched Blue Peter as an adult?
*
A wall of stale air hits me as I fumble open the front door. I cough, the atmosphere clogged and loaded with the dust of memories.
The Blue Peter badge winks in mirrored reflection.
Mother had been prepared. Documents neat and tidy, funeral wishes sealed along with her will. Everything left to me, except a gift to the church.
I tidy downstairs before heading to the loft. There isn’t much here.
Opening a shoe box, I find postcards. There are more than I remember writing. As I flicker through them a sound like wind rattling winter trees echoes. I’d scribbled an occasional card when travelling. After settling in America, I’d sent letters. They’re all here. Rushed spidery marks webbing pages. Mother sent me monthly airmail letters, delicate as butterflies. I’d skim read them, unmoved by church activities, marriages of the Lambert girls. I’d discarded the letters without thought.
In another box I find my birth certificate. It’s brownish and creased. Perhaps I’ve seen it before, thought nothing of it. Now, question marks flit in my temples like moths disturbed. Answered by the light of the obvious truth. My father’s name. A name which didn’t match ours. No marriage certificate anywhere.
Lastly, there’s a gift box. Beneath layers of tissue paper the advent crown nestles. As I lift it out, rustling matches my whispered breath. The wires are rusting, tiny flakes dust my fingers. My face becomes wet as I think of Mother’s hands, gold ring glinting, twisting ivy round these wires.
It is the one thing I take with me when I leave.
Author: Stephanie enjoys writing in different styles and genres, and has been short and long-listed and won several writing competitions. Her novel ‘All the Trees in the Wood’ has recently been published. She is currently working on a collection of short stories to be published in 2023.
Stpehanie’s advent calendar prize is feedback on 2000 words.