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Yearly Archives: 2019
The Bog Man
My Grandpa’s a bog man. Hundreds of years from now some archaeologist is going to dig him up and study him and imagine all sorts of things about his life, but they won’t know for sure. I think we should write a journal about Grandpa’s life and leave it in the bog with him, but Mam says that’s enough putting things into the bog and sure it’s a terrible thing her Da is in there and the least said about it to anybody the better.
He wasn’t supposed to be in the bog. He was supposed to be buried in the family plot beside my Grandma, all proper like, but the funeral people were on strike, so we had to do it ourselves.
“It’s a terrible thing, not being able to bury my own Da, just because those people want more money,” Mam said. “And who are they going to get it from? Dying is expensive enough already.”
That worried me. When things were too expensive, you can’t afford to buy them, but if dying was too expensive then would that stop you from dying? I guess it hadn’t stopped Grandpa from dying, although technically he died before the strike, so Mam had to go and fetch him back.
“We’ll bury him ourselves,” said Da. “I’ll get a few of the lads to help, and we’ll have him in the ground in no time. You get Father to come along and say the prayers.”
So Da rounded up his friends, and they stopped in the pub for a quick drink along the way and then another for the road, so that they were quite jolly when they finally showed up to bury Grandpa.
“Seamus, bring the barrow round to the front, will you?” Da asked one of his friends, and he went inside and threw Grandpa’s body over his shoulder as if he was a rolled-up carpet.
“Be careful of my Da!” shouted Mam. “What are you doing with him? Why can’t you take him in the car?”
“Can’t get the car through the cemetery gates,” mumbled Da. “The main gate’s shut ’cause of the strike, so it’s foot access only.”
Da dumped Grandpa into the barrow, and Ma rearranged his suit, which looked way too big for him, then we all set off up the road, with Da pushing the barrow, Ma and Aunty Mary sniffling behind him, Seamus and Da’s other friends marching as if they were in a wobbly parade, and us children following in a straggly row.
“If you go via the moor, the way is shorter,” said Seamus, when we all got to the crossroads.
“Yes, but there’s a hill,” puffed Da.
“Only a small one, and we’ll all help,” said Seamus.
So Da turned the barrow towards the moor, and Seamus, Paddy and Mikey all helped to push it over the ruts in the road. They had just reached the top of the hill and had paused to wait for Ma and Aunt Mary and the rest of us to catch up, when one of the men fell over and crashed into the barrow.
The barrow overturned, and Grandpa fell out and went rolling like a sausage all the way down the hill until he landed with a smulch sort of sound in the peat bog at the bottom.
For a moment we all just stood there, then Seamus started laughing, Aunt Mary started wailing, and Ma started scolding the men at the top of her voice.
“Now look at what you’ve gone and done!”
Some of the men slid down the slope and poked in the bog, but Grandpa was either buried too deep or the bog held on to him too tightly, so they clambered back up to us, shaking their heads.
“Ach no, that’s not consecrated ground,” said the priest, who had just appeared, which set Ma off on another fit of wailing.
“Well, Father, I think we’re going to have to leave him there until the spring,” said Da, “so perhaps you could say a few prayers to comfort the wife.”
So the priest muttered something about eternal life and the end of days, and Ma threw her posy of flowers down the hill onto the bog, then Da and his friends went back to the pub while Ma and Aunt Mary and us children went home and ate the sandwiches Ma had prepared for the funeral.
Spring came and went, and nobody dug up Grandpa, so I think he’s going to be in there forever and turn into a bog man. I wonder if that makes me a bog child?
Christmas Relations
“I think we should invite my mother for Christmas this year,” my husband said last August. “Everybody else is busy, and she might end up spending Christmas on her own, which would be awful.”
“You mean we’d never hear the end of it,” I muttered under my breath.
“Maybe, but it still would be awful to be alone at Christmas, while everybody else is off celebrating.”
So I agreed, but I had no illusions that it would be an easy visit. My mother-in-law likes things done her way, and has multiple ways to remind you of it. I remember her last visit, two summers ago, and the day I was trying to prepare dinner in a hurry, so that my son could go off to his soccer practice.
“Would you like me to warm the plates?” she had asked, even though it was the middle of summer and we were only having pasta.
“No, don’t worry; they’ll be fine once the food is on them,” I said.
“Well, the food stays warmer longer if the plates are heated,” she said.” You don’t have a warming cupboard do you? They are so useful.”
I looked around my crowded kitchen at the piles of schoolwork and cookbooks, the lunch bags that still needed emptying and the dirty dishes from the afternoon snack and vaguely waved a hand to show that I did not know where a warming cupboard would go, hoping she would understand that it was number nine thousand and something on my wish list.
“I use my warming cupboard all the time,” she continued. “It’s a pity you don’t have room for one.”
I smiled and warmed the plates in the microwave, showing her that I could manage perfectly well with what I had.
So, in the weeks before Christmas I made lists of all the things she could possibly want that I would have to procure: napkin rings for the table, even though we never used napkins unless she was visiting; mince pies from a bake table, so that I could pretend I had made them; eggnog and champagne; ingredients for mulled wine; two varieties of cheese and fair trade coffee beans.
“Yay, Granny’s coming for Christmas,” the children sang.
“Is she going to come to my concert?”
“No, she’s coming to my ballet recital.”
“Will Santa bring her a present to this house?”
And they bounced on the guest bed to soften it up, leaving muddy footprints on the carpet.
The dragon arrived on the appointed day and complained about the journey and the other travellers, then she produced small gifts for the children which turned them into whirling dervishes, a book for my husband, a box of chocolates for me and a fruitcake for Christmas.
“I made it myself,” she said, “as I knew you wouldn’t have time to make one. It’s very rich, as it has a lot of brandy in it.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking the cake which was heavier than a brick. “That’s very kind of you. The children are full of gingerbread at the moment.”
“Hmm, well of course they do new things at school these days, but a Christmas cake is traditional, so I thought they should have one.”
I smiled and nodded and took her to her room, then raced to hide the sponge cake which the children had begged me to buy.
The next couple of days passed in a blur as Granny was dragged from one performance or sports game to the next, while my husband suddenly found lots of extra work to do. Finally Christmas Eve arrived, and the children sat before the fire, faces scrubbed, stockings in hand, discussing the best way for Santa to come down the chimney.
“What day do you normally have the ham?” Granny asked.
Ham? My mind went blank. Had I bought a ham? If so, where had I put it? Not at the bottom of the closet with the secret gifts, please, I hoped. Well, at worst I could buy one on Boxing Day, when surely they would all be marked down.
“Oh, after Christmas,” I said, “there’s way too much food to get through first, especially with the wonderful gifts you brought.”
My mother-in-law sniffed, and took another sip of her wine. I ushered the children upstairs, assuring them that the chimney would soon be ready for Santa, then I bade my mother-in-law a goodnight.
“Yes, you should go to bed now, you’ll want to be up early to stuff the turkey,” she said.
I did not point out that we’d all be up early once the children woke and found their stockings, and instead I went to the kitchen and lined up a few baking trays on the oven to show that I knew what I was doing.
I survived the early morning bed romp with children already high on sugar from their stockings, I remembered to put the turkey in the oven on time, I hid the packaging from the store-bought stuffing, and I was washing the vegetables when disaster struck.
“Have you made the brandy butter?” my mother-in-law asked.
“No, we don’t bother; it’s too rich for the children, so we just usually have cream,” I said.
“What? No brandy butter? That’s a tradition with the Christmas pudding. Here, let me make some; it won’t take long at all, and then the children can have a little taste.”
I mentally rolled my eyes, but graciously accepted and found some butter and a dish. It was only when I returned to the sink that the realisation hit me. I had forgotten to buy the Christmas pudding. I stood in horror looking down at the half-peeled potato wondering how I could get out of this disaster. Should I cut a large slice of her cake and squash it into an old pudding bowl? Should I own up to the fact that nobody liked Christmas pudding, or should I pretend I had left it in the pantry and the dog had eaten it?
I looked over at the dog lying on his bed and decided he would not make a good villain.
There was nothing for it. I would have to improvise.
Once the potatoes were in the oven, I gathered the ingredients for a skillet cookie, made up the dough and put it in the fridge. There would be time to put it in the oven once the turkey had come out, and brandy butter would melt nicely on a warm cookie.
“That’s an interesting way to carve a turkey,” my mother-in-law said, as I cut half the breast off and quickly sliced chunks onto the children’s plates. “Don’t you carve thin slices from the top?”
“No time,” I said, “we don’t want the plates to go cold.”
She felt her warm plate and nodded; finally I had got something right.
The children’s chattering drowned out any other comments, and I was able to slip the skillet cookie into the oven while they argued about the cracker prizes. When the turkey plates had been cleaned away, I looked at them and said, “And what do think we’re having next? It’s a skillet cookie!”
“Hooray!” they shouted. “Really? You’re the best, Mum. I hate that fruity pudding thing we usually have. Granny, you’re going to love this!”
“Brandy butter will go perfectly with the cookie,” I said, and smiled at my mother-in-law.
My Stepmother Remained as Evil as Ever
I bet you think that when a story ends with the words, “And they all lived happily ever after,” that the people in the story do just that, dancing in the rose garden every day, holding hands, staring dreamily into each other’s eyes while the dishes wash themselves and the harvest jumps out of the fields and into the oven. In reality, life goes on much as it did before, only now you’re married and live in a different house. At least, that’s what happened to me after Prince Charming put the glass slipper back on my foot and led me to the altar as his bride.
When Char sent the carriage round to our house to collect my things—even though I’d told him I had barely anything to my name, and most of that was rags—my stepmother sent it back empty to the palace, saying that as she had lost a servant, she was entitled to another one.
“What do you mean she’s lost a servant?” asked Char, who really was clueless. “Are you bringing a maid with you? There’s no need, for we’ve plenty in the palace household, so your mother can keep hers.”
“Stepmother,” I corrected, “as in ‘wicked’. And no, I’m not bringing a servant with me—I’m the servant she’s referring to. I used to clean out the hearth, boil the water, wash the clothes, sweep the floor, peel the potatoes-”
Char interrupted my list with a kiss. I would have gone on, as there was tons more that I used to do, but he clearly didn’t understand domestic tasks.
“Well then, we’ll just send a palace servant to your mother’s house, and then all will be fine,” he said.
“Stepmother,” I muttered, feeling sure that all would not be fine.
Nor was it. Barely a week later, my stepmother marched up to the palace gates, demanding to see the king, saying that his servant was a no-good, idle, useless lazybones who was eating them out of house and home.
I was sitting outside by the lily pond, savouring a flaky croissant and watching the gardeners prune the roses while Char cantered his horse up and down the paths, so I heard all the commotion at the gates, and couldn’t really refuse to see her, the old bat. She was led over to my table, her eyes wide with jealousy, and before I could even offer her a seat, she launched her tirade at me.
“Just because you’ve moved in here, there’s no need to forget your father and your real family. Did you ever stop to think whether he’s getting enough to eat while you sit here and gorge yourself on these pastries? No, I bet you don’t spare a thought for those less fortunate, even though we’re your family, your own flesh and blood!”
I was about to point out that she had ample flesh of her own to worry about and not a drop of her blood belonged to me, but Char rode up at that moment and caught the bit about family, so he flashed his most handsome smile and made the most stupid suggestion.
“Cinders, why don’t you invite your family to move into the palace? There are plenty of spare rooms, and then you can see them every day.”
I shook my head and frowned, frantically signalling that this was the worst idea ever, but of course my beloved husband didn’t see me, and my stepmother immediately began to babble in her most obsequious tone, so in the wink of an eye, there I was, back where I had started, only in a bigger house.
Don’t worry; I didn’t have to clean out the grates, but Lucretia and Griselda still treated me like their personal slave, asking me to find them ribbons and help them try on the dresses they found in the palace wardrobes, and then they would flounce down to breakfast looking like a pair of flannel haystacks. The palace staff, who had begun by pitying me and being friendly, now treated me as if I’d brought a plague of locusts into the house, which I suppose was a good comparison as those two ugly sisters never stopped eating.
It was only when I noticed my stepmother looking through the book of royal guests that I realised what her plan was. She wanted to marry her daughters off to visiting royalty, and to that end, she kept suggesting we hold an elaborate ball every time a foreign delegation came to visit. Char would have agreed to it all, so empty-headed was he, but at least his father, the king, had a better hold of the royal purse strings, and so my stepmother had to be content with a series of banquets.
I fell ill just before the visit of the Carthenians, so I missed all the commotion when Lucretia overturned a soup tureen in the ambassador’s lap, and I was indisposed again when the Northerners came to the palace and Griselda fell off a horse. When I became unwell the day before the Islanders were due to arrive, I began to suspect my stepmother of deliberately poisoning me to keep me out of the way—presumably so that her daughters would be the only females under fifty in the same room as the foreign delegates.
“Char, you have to do something about her,” I pleaded when he came to my room bringing some foul-tasting broth, which I suspected my stepmother of preparing.
“She’ll make our life a misery, and those two will scare away all of your friends.”
“Don’t worry darling,” he said, patting my hand. “I have the perfect solution. We’re going to send them on a cruise around the southern ocean, only we’ll tell the captain to stay away from all shores for at least two years.”
“What about the poor crew?”
“We’ll give them ear plugs and tell them to always look busy, coiling ropes and stuff.”
So my stepmother and her two daughters went on an extended holiday while Char and I got on with living happily ever after.
Lucretia and Griselda came back three years later, with sailor husbands, and they all seemed to be very happy. As for my stepmother, they left her on an island inhabited by penguins, so she immediately declared herself their queen, and I suppose she is still as evil as ever.
A Penguin Comes to Tea 