Tis the season.....

Some of you know, others may not- I wrote a book a while ago- This is Where We Live. It was published, a complex experience, maybe one day I will write about that, about publishing and being published, entrenched class ridden hierarchical systems are complicated things eh? Gate keepers can be buggers. Capitalism is a fucker and does terrible things to art and expression and to peoples ways of handling it…etc etc. But this is not that post. The book was a story of a young single mum raising a child alone whilst also coping with her own mental health- she loves her child with all her being but is also convinced she may be the main thing that her child needs protecting from. It was also a story of patriarchy and its impact on parenting- it’s a complex little book that some of have thanked me for writing and told me they thought it was all about “love” whilst others, on reading it, have looked at me like they want to lock me in a box and bury me far far away along with my little book which they describe as being “so angry”. Some seem to think the things in it have to be said, others appear to think those things must never be said. Mothers and mothering is controversial territory and you stray into the field of that subject at your peril. I still can’t work out whether I should have written it. But there is one chapter about Christmas and as I ride the seasonal waves this week- those waves of loving my paper garland made of chubby robins who flutter manically in the heat that rises from my radiator or my mince pie lunches, or counting the hours to my adult child’s arrival or making my own wonky wreath for our front door (which covers our doorbell and so makes the endless deliveries of things I have forgotten I’ve ordered even harder for the people whose work is to deliver- sorry!!) - and whilst also riding the waves of familial scars and absences, of broken dynamics that no amount of twinkle seems to fix, of feeling grotesque for all we buy and consume whilst there are people still being bombed in their own homes or living in tents or surviving day to day on far less than a human needs in order to have peace and comfort or the fact that I know there are people going through all this and yet I can still genuinely panic that we don’t have enough brandy cream! As I have been riding all those waves….I woke this morning and thought of the chapter from my little confusing book and thought I’d put it on here.

There is a disclaimer at the start of the book and so here it goes: this is a work of fiction. All the characters, organisations and events portrayed are either products of the authors imagination or used fictionally.

There are also trigger warnings: So here goes with them : Self harm, single parenting, angry women, absent dads and…Christmas.

Much love, ride those waves.

The Chapter:

I was happy the day they found out Father Christmas didn’t exist.

It was a couple of years ago. A boy at school had gone around telling all the other kids that Father Christmas was just a made-up story. “He doesn’t exist, it’s just your parents.”

My child had corrected the boy straight away - they told me later. “What if you don’t have parents, what if you just have one parent?”

“Then it’s just them. It’s your mum or whatever. It’s all shit. He’s not a real thing. And if you think it is – then you’re an idiot.”

I remember the look on their face when they came home. Our tree was up, stocking hanging at the end of their bed. Two is a small number to fill a Christmas so I always tried hard to make it right, even though I couldn’t always control what happened and sometimes it went very wrong.

They walked in the door eyes squinting, looking straight at me, examining me, as if they’d caught me mid-crime.

I asked how their day was. They ignored the question, dumped their bag on the floor, walked to the table, pulled back a chair and sat, arms folded, as if ready to interview someone who was well known for lying.

“Who is Father Christmas?” The question flew towards me like a javelin.

To be the child of a mum like me is to have the expected safety and comfort of childhood poked and prodded and sometimes quite simply ripped away from you. So when we could, we’d cling at its edges the way you do when someone you share the bed with is stealing all the blanket and you have to hold on tight or feel the cold.

If I answered this question truthfully another huge part of their childhood would be over, ruined never to be retrieved.

I’d been a good Father Christmas.

I’d made reindeer hoof prints over our carpet by holding three fingers in the shape I imagine reindeer toes look from underneath, licking my fingers and then dipping them in talcum powder for snow and dabbing them all the way through the flat.

I’d nibbled the carrot in a convincing reindeer-bite way, I’d written notes of thanks from him and his mouse. (In our home he had a mouse with him.)

I’d waited up late into the night to make sure they were properly asleep before I filled the stocking, my eyes drifting shut and my body aching for rest. I’d always remembered that Father Christmas’s wrapping paper must be different from the paper that parents use, and I’d nearly ripped their own father’s throat out when he turned up one Christmas eve to drop off his contribution to presents with both his and the ones from “Father Christmas” wrapped in the same paper.

“You can’t fucking do that! Father Christmas doesn’t have the same paper as us!” I hissed at him while our child’s back was turned.

I remember he shrugged at me with the disdain he so often used when talking to me, as if just being who I was meant he didn’t have to listen to a word I said, even when I was right.

I remember how I saw the start of the question they were now hurling at me beginning to form when they woke the next morning and noticed straight away that their dad and Father Christmas had used the same wrapping paper. But back then they weren’t ready for the undoing of it all, they wanted a story to hold onto and so I made one up about how Father Christmas and normal fathers often did the same things—like it was a “father” sort of thing—which I could tell they weren’t quite sure about but decided to swallow the way you do a vegetable that you hate the taste of but have been told is healthy. I hated myself for my stupid story as it made dads “closer” to Father Christmas just because they hadn’t bothered to think ahead or predict disappointment and it left mums out all together and it came to me way too easily without question.

I also hated myself because I couldn’t bring myself to have re wrapped his presents. A part of me— the bleeding wounded part—must have wanted my child to notice how shit their dad was being compared to me, even if it meant blowing apart their innocence and joy. I was prepared to hurt them to be acknowledged.

“Mum, who is Father Christmas? It’s you, isn’t it? You better tell me; I’ll get bullied if you lie to me.”

My child has chewed on and swallowed so many truths: your mother is capable of terrible things and sometimes your safety is the last thing on her mind, your granny is dead - she chose to die, your dad sends money instead of time and now he hardly calls, we don’t have a home that we will always stay in like those other kids - sometimes we just have to up in the night and move and start all over again. They’ve chewed and they’ve swallowed, and they still manage to be kind and to tell me they love me, and to say - “It’s OK” and “I don’t mind” and to genuinely laugh at my jokes.

They’ve faced a lot of truth. And now they were asking for more. “Mum, I’m not a baby. Tell me. Is it you?”

But there was something in the heart of this truth that I did want them to know. Yes, I can rip heads clean off necks with my bare teeth and at times have to sedate myself so that I don’t. Yes, I wear my guilt like a blood-soaked cape, and I beg of you a forgiveness that I have no right to ask for. Yes, you have scars that were caused by me. Yes, you have every right to hate me, and when you grow up you have every right to move far far away and to never speak to me again and to say “I don’t talk about her” when people ask about your mother. All those things are true, but this is true too - it was me, all the time, all the years. That was me.

I am the bad woman, I am the bad mother, but I am also that man. I am Father Christmas.

“Mum. Is it you?”

I answered - yes.

They said nothing, just nodded, stood and walked into their bedroom and shut the door. The flat went silent. The air full of another undoable moment.

I sat on the floor. Curled my knees up to my chest and bit into the fat of my palm until my mouth filled with blood and my teeth scraped the bone.

About an hour went past. Then the door opened, and they came out and asked what we were having to eat. I stood, surprised by their composure and the lightness in their voice. They saw the blood on my hand. Went to the sink, wet some kitchen towel, came back to me, told me to stand up and held the damp tissue to the wound. “You shouldn’t do this to yourself,” they said.

Then they walked away, chucked the bloodied tissue in the bin and asked again, “What are we eating?”

“Baked potatoes?”

“Cool,” they said. “Call me when they’re done.” And with that they went back into their room shutting the door behind them again.

I made dinner, all the time preparing myself for the tears and the pain they would inevitably have to express. When the food was cooked, I knocked on their door and called to them, “It’s ready, love.”

They came back out and as I was getting the potatoes out of the oven they asked if they could help. This wasn’t totally usual.

“I’ll set the table Mum,” they said, already getting knives and forks from the drawer. Once they had done that they asked if I needed them to grate cheese.

“Wow…” I said. “OK, yes, please, but mind your fingers.”

I watched as they grated. Something new, something changed. “You OK?” I asked.

They stopped grating, lumped a big pile of cheese onto a nearby plate and put it on the table. “I’m fine,” they answered, plonking themselves down in a chair and patting the one next to them gesturing for me to also sit. “You should eat Mum,” they said, forking a potato onto the plate laid for me.

I sat. Said thanks and stared at them. They caught me staring.

“I think I knew he didn’t exist. I’ve known for a while I think, like since a few years ago probably.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, that year Dad used the same wrapping paper. I kind of guessed then, but you seemed like you really needed me to not know so I didn’t say anything.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean of course I wasn’t sure, but like I did sort of know.”

“And how do you feel now?” I don’t always ask my child this question, in case I can’t bear to hear their answer, but this time I did. Just straight like that, “How do you feel now?”

“You did a lot,” they said. “You did it all, for years. Reindeer paw prints and all that stuff. It’s pretty impressive, Mum. Thank you.”

They pushed the cheese towards me.

“You’re welcome,” I said, filling up with a feeling I rarely allow myself to have.

End of Chapter.

( And here is an image of a card I saw in the post office just a few days ago… nice. )