Notwithstanding Read Free Page A

blonde girl.
    ‘There’s no point,’ says the lanky boy, ‘she just turns off the lights as soon as she hears us coming. Every year it’s the same, don’t you remember? She’s an old ratbag.’
    ‘Mum told us not to leave her out,’ says the blonde.
    ‘Who’s going to tell Mum?’ demands her brother. ‘Let’s go and do the Armstrongs.’
    Mrs Griffiths sits on her wooden chair and hears ‘Silent Night’ coming from next door. At first she feels a livid pang of anger, and one or two of those vehement forbidden words spring to her mind, but not to her lips. She is indignant, and thinks, ‘How dare they miss me out. They always come here. Why am I the one to miss out?’ She looks at her inviting heap of mince pies and her steaming bowl of punch, and thinks, ‘I did all this for them.’ She wants to go outside and shout insults at them, but she cannot think of anything that would not sound ridiculous and undignified.
    Alongside her anger and frustration, Mrs Griffiths abruptly feels more tired and forlorn than she has ever felt in her life, and she begins to cry for the first time since she was a child. She is surprised by large tears that well up in her eyes and slide down the sides of her nose, rolling down her hands and wrists, and into her sleeves. She had not remembered that tears could be so warm. She tastes one, in order to be reminded of their saltiness, and finds it comforting. She thinks, ‘Perhaps I should get a cat,’ and fetches some kitchen roll so that she can blow her nose.
    Mrs Griffiths begins to write her cards. One for the vicar, one for the doctor, one for the people in the mansion, one for the Conservative councillor. She gets up from her chair and, without really thinking about it, eats a mince pie and takes a glass of punch. She had forgotten how good they can be, and she feels the punch igniting her insides. The sensuality of it shocks and seduces her, and she takes another glass.
    Mrs Griffiths cries some more, but this time it is partly for pleasure, for the pleasure of the hot briny water, and the sheer self-indulgence. A rebellious whim creeps up on her. She glances around as if to check that she is truly alone in the house, and then she stands up and shouts, ‘Bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody.’ She adds, ‘Bloody children, bloody bloody.’ She attempts ‘bollocks’ but merely embarrasses herself and tries ‘bugger’ instead. She drinks more punch and says, ‘Bloody bugger.’ She writes a card to the gypsies who own the scrapyard, and to the water-board man who had an illegitimate child by a Swedish barmaid, and to the people who own the pub and vote Labour. She eats two mince pies at once, cramming them into her mouth, one on top of the other, and the crumbs and the sugar settle on to the front of her cardigan. She fetches a biscuit tin, and puts into it six of the remaining pies. She presses down the lid and ventures out into the night.
    When she returns she finishes off the punch, and then heaves herself upstairs with the aid of the banisters.
    She is beginning to feel distinctly ill, and heads for her bed with the unconscious but unswerving instinct of a homing pigeon. She reminds herself to draw the curtains so that no one will be able to pry and spy, and then she undresses with difficulty, and throws her clothes on to the floor with all the perverse but justified devilment of one who has been brought up not to, and has never tried it before. She extinguishes the light and crawls into bed, but every time that she closes her eyes she begins to feel seasick. Her eyes glitter in the dark like those of a small girl, the years are briefly annulled, and she remembers how to feel frightened when an owl hoots outside.
    At eleven thirty, fetid Jack Oak opens his front door to put the cat out and spots a biscuit tin by the door scraper. He picks it up, curious, and takes it back inside. ‘Look what some’un left,’ he says to his daughter, who is just as unkempt as he