Ruth's First Christmas Tree (3 page)

‘I know. Thank you.’

Ruth can hear her mother’s sigh all the way from Eltham. It’s not easy having a daughter who’s an unmarried mother, an atheist unmarried mother at that. Ruth feels sorry for her parents, but not sorry enough to shack up with any of the chinless Christians regularly presented for her inspection.

‘Kate’s really looking forward to Christmas,’ she says, to placate her mother who, despite everything, adores her granddaughter.

‘I’m sure she is. She’d love the crib at our church. We’ve got life-size cows.’

‘Life-size cows. Wow. Look Mum, I’d better go. I’ve got masses to do.’

‘Give little Katie a kiss from her grandma.’ Like Nelson, Ruth’s mother can never call Kate by her plain, unadorned name. It drives Ruth mad.

‘Of course I will. Bye Mum.’

Kate is in the kitchen attempting to pick up the tree. Flint is watching from the window ledge.

‘No, Kate. Leave it. We’ll have a tree next year, I promise. And life-size cows if you want.’

She makes lunch, tidies the kitchen and embarks on a futile hunt for wrapping paper. When Cathbad arrives at six he finds Ruth wrapping presents in brown paper. ‘I think it looks chic,’ she says defiantly.

‘And very ecologically friendly,’ says Cathbad. ‘I make all my own presents out of recycled driftwood.’

Ruth can believe this, having, over the years, received several dream-catchers made from shells, wood and pebbles. But this year, though Cathbad has delivered a large present for Kate, there doesn’t seem to be anything for her, recycled or not.

‘When are you leaving?’ asks Cathbad.

‘In half an hour,’ says Ruth. ‘Shona said to get there for seven.’ She looks doubtfully at her daughter, sitting happily on the floor surrounded by brown paper. ‘I’m sure Kate will be tired soon.’

‘Don’t worry,’ says Cathbad. ‘I’m good at getting her to sleep.’

This is true. Cathbad’s Celtic lullabies have an almost narcotic quality. Ruth feels pretty tired herself. How soon can she leave the party?

‘I won’t be late back,’ she says.

‘Be as late as you like,’ says Cathbad. ‘Enjoy yourself. It’s Christmas.’

As soon as Ruth arrives at the party, she realizes that enjoying herself is out of the question. For a start, Shona, who begged her to arrive early ‘so I’ll have someone to talk to’, is already at the centre of a laughing, champagne-swilling crowd and hardly has time to acknowledge Ruth’s presence. ‘Get yourself a drink, Ruth. You know where it is.’ Grimly, Ruth pours herself some orange juice. She can’t afford even one drink if she has to negotiate the Saltmarsh road in the dark. And more snow is forecast.

Shona’s house is decorated in a style that Ruth recognizes as post-modern Christmas. This includes a vast black tree in the sitting room, adorned with white tinsel. Avoiding its baleful branches, Ruth looks round for someone to talk to. She recognizes a lot of faces from the university but most people have brought their partners. She can’t just insert herself into a circle and disrupt the cosy couples’ chat about schools and house prices. Besides, Shona’s friends from the English Department are all so glamorous and theatrical. On Ruth’s left a beautiful Indian woman is holding forth on ritual and symbolism in the plays of Edward Bond. Wasn’t Bond the one who wrote a play where they stone a baby to death? Hardly very Christmassy. Maybe Ruth should butt in and talk about Tiny Tonderai.

‘Hi Ruth.’ Ruth turns in relief and sees Bob Bullmore, a colleague in the Archaeology Department, reassuringly scruffy in jeans and an unravelling grey jumper.

‘Hi Bob. Enjoying the party?’

‘I’m not really one for the beautiful people,’ says Bob. ‘I don’t even like champagne. I brought some home-made cider but Phil looked as though I was trying to poison him.’

Ruth laughs. The pretensions of the Head of the Department are a continual source of entertainment to his team.

‘He’s joined the arts crowd now,’ says Ruth. ‘He’s even wearing a velvet jacket.’

‘I know,’ says Bob in awe. ‘Sybil thought he was wearing lifts. I’m sure he’s a good few inches taller than he used to be.’

They look across the room to where Phil is laughing heartily with two arty types dressed entirely in black. He is certainly walking tall these days. Maybe it’s the joy of impending fatherhood, maybe it’s pride at having the beautiful Shona as his partner. Or maybe it’s heels after all.

‘Where’s Sybil?’

‘She got trapped in the kitchen talking about phonics. She didn’t really want to come tonight. Thought it would be disloyal to Sue.’

Sue is Phil’s ex-wife, with whom he already has two children. Ruth never really liked Sue but she does feel that it’s slightly sinister, the way she’s been completely erased from the picture. Phil talks about the coming child as if he’s never known parenthood before and the years with Sue have vanished as if they have never been. It’s not a good sign when an archaeologist starts to rewrite the past.

‘Does Sybil still see Sue?’ she asks. She likes Sybil, a cheerful primary school teacher (hence the phonics discussion), and can’t really see that she has much in common with Sue, whose main topic of conversation seemed to be aromatherapy oils.

‘Sometimes,’ says Bob, trying to eat a falafel and balance his glass at the same time. ‘Sue’s still really bitter about . . .’ He inclines his head towards Phil, now throwing his head back in riotous mirth.

‘I’m not surprised,’ says Ruth. She thinks of Michelle and Nelson. If Nelson ever left Michelle for her, the guilt would be unbearable. But Nelson would never leave his wife and that, too, sometimes feels unbearable.

‘How’s Kate?’ asks Bob. ‘She must be growing up quickly.’

‘She’s just over a year old.’ Ruth is grateful for the change of subject. ‘How’s . . .’ She can’t remember the names of Bob’s children. Luckily, he can.

‘Sam’s in sixth form. Becca’s at Sussex, reading sociology. Libby’s in her last year at Sheffield.’

‘Do any of them want to be archaeologists?’

‘God, I hope not.’ Bob looks almost guiltily round the room. ‘Why would anyone do a backbreaking job that pays hardly any money?’

Why indeed, thinks Ruth. She just knows that, despite the lack of money and the days spent digging in the freezing cold, she would never do anything else.

‘How’s your friend?’ asks Bob. ‘The warlock in the chemistry department.’

‘Cathbad? He’s babysitting.’

Bob looks suitably discomfited. Ruth takes pity on him. ‘Cathbad’s Kate’s godfather. He’s really good with her.’

Bob is obviously trying to think of something to say and is saved by the appearance of Shona, a vision in a gold smock and lots of dangly jewellery.

‘Ruth! So this is where you’ve been hiding.’

A remark which, like many of Shona’s comments, combines to make Ruth feel both childlike and stupid. She hasn’t been hiding, she is simply chatting with a workmate, and it was Shona who ignored her in the first place. Still, she knows that there’s no point in saying any of this.

‘Hi Shona. You look great.’

‘Thanks. I feel like a whale. A great big golden whale. Did you feel like this in the last months?’

I feel like that all the time, Ruth wants to tell her. Instead she says, brightly, ‘Not long now. Are you all prepared?’

‘Almost. Do you want to see the baby’s room?’

Before Ruth can answer, Shona has dragged her away without a word to Bob. Ruth mouths ‘’Bye’ over her shoulder.

The hallway and the stairs are now full of people. Ruth sees Liam, Shona’s ex-lover, as well as Freya, a druid friend of Cathbad’s, and several graduate students. For a lunatic moment, she almost thinks that she sees Erik, though he has been dead almost two years. But it’s just another man with long grey hair and a faintly piratical expression. Shona weaves her way through the crowd, kissing cheeks and pressing hands. Ruth plods in her wake, nodding and smiling at people she knows. Surely she can go home soon.

Shona opens the door on a little room at the top of the stairs. ‘We were going to use the spare room but Phil needs that for his office. Anyway, this is plenty big enough for a baby. What do you think?’

‘Babies have a way of spreading,’ says Ruth, but she has to admit that the room is beautiful, pale yellow with a frieze of sun, moon and stars. A mobile of glittering birds hangs from the ceiling.

‘It’s lovely,’ says Ruth. ‘Perfect for a boy or a girl.’

‘Oh, we don’t want to know,’ says Shona, sinking onto a blue velvet chair. ‘That would spoil the surprise.’

For Ruth there was enough surprise in getting pregnant in the first place. But thinking of her miracle daughter makes her feel warm towards Shona.

‘It’s so exciting,’ she says. ‘Are you excited?’

‘Ish,’ says Shona. ‘I can’t really imagine life with a baby. But let’s talk about you. Is Max arriving tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s wonderful. Your first Christmas together. Must mean that it’s serious.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ says Ruth. ‘We don’t want to rush things.’

Shona laughs. ‘You’re so cautious. Phil and I knew immediately that we were meant for each other.’

Even though Phil was married to someone else, thinks Ruth. Suddenly she doesn’t want to discuss Max and, more than anything, she doesn’t want to go back downstairs into the glamorous, chattering throng.

‘I can’t stay long,’ she says. ‘Kate had a bit of a temperature when I left.’ She crosses her fingers behind her back.

Shona immediately looks concerned. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Do you want to ring to see how she is? You can use the phone in Phil’s study. It’s hard to get a signal here sometimes.’

The spare room, where Ruth has spent many a night, has also been completely transformed. It is now painted dark red with bookshelves on two of the walls and a serious-looking desk in the centre of the room. Shona backs out tactfully but Ruth feels that she is still honour-bound to make the phone call. She sits in Phil’s swivel chair and picks up the receiver. The desk is very tidy, a pile of letters under a paperweight, a blotter, a collection of pens in a silver tankard. No archaeology journals or exam scripts, no ‘to do’ list. Ruth suppresses the ignoble thought that Phil doesn’t do any real work in here.

Cathbad answers quickly. ‘Hi Ruth. What’s up?’

‘Hi. Just wondered how Kate was.’

‘She’s fine,’ says Cathbad. ‘Fast asleep. Go back and enjoy the party.’

Ruth thinks that she can hear noises in the background. She wonders if Kate really is asleep. ‘I won’t be late back,’ she says.

Putting down the phone, she thinks that she will make her excuses and leave. She pulls aside the expensive-looking brocade curtain and sees that the snow has started again. The last thing she wants is to get snowed in with Shona and Phil for Christmas. She is just about to leave the room when something makes her look back at the desk. Blotter, pens, phone, letters, paperweight. She moves closer. She sees that what she had taken for an ornamental paperweight is, in fact, a small lump of wood – oak, rounded by immersion in water, with a definite square hole where a linchpin would have fitted.

The drive home is a nightmare. The snow is falling heavily now and her windscreen wipers struggle to keep even a patch of clear window. Ruth leans forward, hands tense on the wheel, peering into the night. Her headlights seem only to reflect more snow, the flakes whirling in a funnel of watery light. It’s not so bad in King’s Lynn, where there are streetlights and other vehicles, buses and taxis looming up with terrifying suddenness, but as soon as she hits the A148, it’s a complete whiteout. Back and forth go the gallant little wipers, buckling under the weight of snow. Ruth leans even further forward, she can’t see any signs or landmarks. She turns on Radio 4 to give her courage but someone is reading Jo Nesbø’s
The Snowman,
which only makes her more frightened. Surely she must be near the Hunstanton turn-off by now? There is something mesmeric about the swirling snow; she imagines herself driving along this road for ever, Norfolk’s answer to the Flying Dutchman, endlessly circling her destination, never again to reach the comfort of home. Only yesterday she bought one of those snow globes for Kate and had enjoyed seeing the child’s face light up when the globe was agitated and the little plastic scene disappeared under the ensuing blizzard. Now it’s as if she herself is trapped inside the glass toy, invisible behind the snowstorm. Her nose is almost touching the windscreen now. She’s sure that she’s missed the turning.

No. Thank God. There it is, mercifully illuminated. Ruth takes the turning wide and continues her painfully slow progress. How does that song go? Driving home for Christmas. Ruth sings a few bars and realizes that she is almost crying. She so badly wants to be back in her little cottage with Kate beside her. Why did she ever go to that stupid party? But beside her, buried in the depths of her organizer handbag, is a piece of wood that, she is almost sure, comes from a Bronze Age henge. Why had Phil taken it? To have a souvenir of the most famous find in Norfolk’s history? To say that his correspondence was weighed down by a three-thousand-year-old axle? Whatever the reason, Phil had no idea of the importance of the object, not only to the museum but to its elderly custodian, now lying dangerously ill in hospital. Ruth must get the wood back to Cathbad.

Then, suddenly, there’s the Saltmarsh roundabout. Ruth drives round it twice before she finds her exit. Nearly there. But this is the most dangerous part of the journey. The road is raised up over the marshes; one false turn of the wheel and Ruth will be in the ditch, where she could well freeze to death and be found years later, like Ötzi the iceman, the five-thousand-year-old body found on the Italian–Austrian border. Ruth the ice woman. Frosty the snowman. Nearly there. Driving home for Christmas. Ruth is singing almost manically now. I’m coming, Kate. Mummy’s almost home. Christmas time. Mistletoe and wine. In the bleak midwinter. Now she can see the light from her cottage, its flickering glow like a beacon in the darkness. Flickering? Why the hell is it flickering? Ruth feels a new panic overtaking her as she parks by the gate. There is definitely something odd about the light. What’s happening in her house?