The christmas guest, p.1
The Christmas Guest, page 1
PETER
SWANSON
•
THE
CHRISTMAS
GUEST
For two aunts—
Pearl Taylor Moynihan, who disliked Christmas,
and for Sue Ellis Swasey,
who doesn’t particularly like it either
“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost.
charles dickens
A Christmas Carol
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
PART 1
PART 2
Now read the first chapter of The Kind Worth Killing
By the Same Author
About the Author
Copyright
Since I have no family of my own, I am yearly asked by friends and colleagues to their homes for the Christmas holidays. I always say no, pleading my case that I am perfectly content to be alone for a week. And mostly I am. I read a good book, maybe rewatch some of my favorite films. On Christmas Day I roast a chicken and eat it with crispy potatoes and Brussels sprouts. My cat, Elspeth, likes a bit of roast chicken too, and I let her sit on the kitchen counter as a special treat. In the afternoon I often clean my apartment or reorganize my bookshelves. Sometimes, if the weather is nice, I’ll take a walk across Manhattan, see if there is a movie playing that looks interesting.
I am not completely alone. The doorman Howard and I usually find time for a glass of whiskey, and I have a close friend, also without family, who often drops by, although she hasn’t for the past couple of years.
This year Christmas Day has arrived on the heels of a wet, sleety nor’easter that rattles the windows of my apartment, so after my roast chicken I decide to skip the walk and tackle my closet. I am lucky enough to live in a two-bedroom apartment, and I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I’ve turned the second bedroom into a walk-in closet. But I work in fundraising, and sometimes I feel as though half my life is spent at galas and cocktail parties. I need a lot of dresses and a lot of shoes.
The closet in my bedroom has become my default storage space, filled with boxes containing mementoes of my past lives, all that bric-a-brac that is impossible to throw away, and yet completely useless. I open the door gingerly, expecting an avalanche of photo albums and souvenirs to tumble out. That would make for quite a New York story: lonely single woman crushed to death while cleaning closet on Christmas Day—cat kept alive by remaining roast chicken dinner. But the boxes stay aloft long enough for me to remove them from the closet one by one and place them on the floor. My goal is to throw away maybe a quarter of what I’ve kept. I start with a box that I must have filled during my first few years in New York City. I find a packet of photographs that chronicle a New Year’s Eve party in the East Village (worth keeping), and a DVD box set of Seinfeld Seasons One and Two that goes directly in the trash. I tell myself this is going to be easier than I thought.
By the time I’ve turned on the lamps in my apartment I’ve been through almost all of the boxes and filled two small trash bags. I’m working on the oldest boxes now, including one that smells like mothballs and contains my grandmother’s purse and another that has a childhood doll I’m loath, for some reason, to throw out. Underneath my birth certificate and my cancelled passports, I find an immediately recognizable diary, white moleskin with a ribbon bookmark, and pick it up, scooching backwards along the Persian rug to rest against my bed. I flip through the pages, arriving at an entry from December 1989. Exactly thirty years ago. I decide to take a look, not entirely sure that I’m prepared to go back in time to that annus horribilis, that murderous year, but also knowing that once I start to read I won’t be able to stop.
There is a famous quote, the first line from L. P. Hartley’s The Go-Between, a book about remembering (although every book is a book about remembering, isn’t it?). “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” In my case the past really is a foreign country. And, yes, they do things very differently there.
December 17
Emma Chapman, the one that looks like me, has invited me to her house for Christmas! I tried to be cool and paused for five seconds pretending to consider my options but I don’t think I fooled her. So I just went ahead and accepted, and she looked pleased. She told me that it would be her parents, who were Satan’s spawn, her twin brother, who was basically nice, plus a host of friends and endless cousins. Not too many, she said.
I know I’ve mentioned Emma to you, Dear Diary. Met her during orientation week. Wears cashmere and jewelry that looks like stuff I’ll never in my lifetime be able to afford. Sounds posh, or at least that’s what other students say. Every time we talk I say something stupid that I end up repeating in my head over and over, and then there was that time when she told me that she liked Stuart Montgomery and I forgot about it and hooked up with him and felt awful. In other words, I just assumed she hated my guts. I mean she was always friendly but I thought she was just being English. But now that she’s invited me to her house for Christmas, who knows? Am I her best friend? Ha ha.
I asked her how big her house was and she said, don’t worry, I’d have my own room.
I had so many questions but she invited me between classes and there wasn’t time to ask them. She said she was chuffed I could come, and that she’d be at the pub in the union tomorrow night and if I met her there she’d give me all the details.
I’m EXCITED (chuffed, I guess is the correct word), and even though I’d prepared myself to be alone in London over Christmas, part of me even looking forward to it, I am now so happy that I’m going to be with people. Nervous, too, though. What will the family be like? Are my clothes nice enough? Will they expect me to go grouse hunting? Do I need to bring presents? I guess I’ll find out everything tomorrow.
December 18
Today was not a good day. I pretty much know that I flunked my British Landscapes exam. My brain was frozen all during it, and afterwards I double-checked and I’d misidentified a Turner painting as a Constable. So there was that. I went back to my flat in the afternoon and Jody had left all her breakfast dishes on the table. I considered moving them to her bedroom but decided against it. She’s gone in two days and I’ll never see her again so what difference does it really make? Still, it put me in a foul mood.
Then I went to the pub, expecting to see Emma, and I figured if anything could cheer me up it would be that. I couldn’t wait to hear more about our Christmas holidays. But I sat at a table by myself for an hour and she didn’t show. I was about to leave when Tom, that kid from Florida who always wears a baseball cap, showed up and I had a few drinks with him, told him how I wasn’t going back to America for the Christmas break and he just kept asking me why, and finally, probably because I’d had about six ciders, I told him that my mom was dead and I didn’t know who my father was, so I was basically an orphan. I hadn’t wanted to tell him because I thought he’d be full of pity and I wasn’t in the mood for it, but it turned out he was pretty rude about my orphan status, saying something like, You must have friends, though, right? I told him I had friends, thinking of Michelle, so in love now with her college boyfriend that I barely hear from her (WAAH!).
I did let him walk me back to my flat, and he reminded me about that party back in September when we’d fooled around, and I said that I’d grown up a lot since then. Ha ha, he said and tried to kiss me anyway, but honestly, I wasn’t in the mood. I had a pretty decent memory of the time we’d fooled around and it hadn’t exactly been pleasant (neck-licker, for one, and his shirt smelled). I went up to my flat, where I could hear Jody fucking that professor from her program and I clopped as loudly as I could into the kitchen, ate a bowl of leftover mashed potatoes and, while I didn’t wash the dishes she’d left on the table, I gritted my teeth and put them into the sink to soak in warm water. Then I got into bed and wrote to you, Dearest Diary.
December 19
It’s morning and I’m still under the covers. All I have to do today is turn in the essay I’ve already written on art in Weimar Germany and then meet with my adviser Nicola. It’s occurred to me that I could try to find Emma—I’m pretty sure that she’ll be taking her last exam today in Somerset House and I could skulk around outside and hope to run into her. But maybe she’s decided she doesn’t want me to come home with her for Christmas after all and if that’s the case then it’ll just be embarrassing for both of us. I was resigned to being alone in London already, so I’ll just have to become resigned again. I’ll go to all the museums I haven’t gone to yet. I’ll do the student standby thing and go to the theatre. And if it’s not too cold I’ll try to start running again. Michelle told me I would gain about twenty pounds when I lived in London and honestly she wasn’t that far from the truth. Less cider, no more potatoes, more running! Go back to Leighton House and pay attention this time. Eat at that Indian place with the blue walls again.
And, who knows, maybe get a head start on my coursework for next semester. That would be amazing. The more I think about it, the more I think it’s best that I’m alone over Christmas. It’ll be good for me.
*
Well, I’m back, and I’m just a little bit drunk, and I’ve spent all night with Emma, and not only am I going to her family’s house in the Catswolds!!! but I’m going tomorrow!
After I met with Nicola and she assured me that I had definitely not flunked british landscapes I went straight to the Dragon, which was packed of course because it was last day of term. Debbie and Tom and t hat other American girl whose name I can never remember were all there and I had drinks with them, and then I saw Emma up at the bar and I didn’t know what to do, but she turned and saw me and ran over to tell me how sorry she was that she didn’t make it the night before and how she realized she didn’t have my number or anything.
Short story long she told me that it was all settled for me to come to her house but that she couldn’t give me a ride. She was totally embarrassed I think but her brother was driving her home tonight—he lives in London too—and she would have invited me to go with them but my room wasn’t ready yet and “Mummy” had said no visitors till Wednesday, and etcetera, etcetera, and would I mind taking the train tomorrow afternoon and she’d pick me up at the station. I told her that I’d love to take the train and she hugged me and got my number at the flat and told me she’d call me in the morning with the train time and all that. I kept asking her questions about what I should wear and what I should bring, and she kept laughing and told me to wear whatever I want and don’t bring anything, which wasn’t helpful. Then she put her hand on my cheek and stared into my eyes and told me how excited she was that I’d be there for Christmas and I realized she was pretty drunk, too.
Hopefully she’ll actually call tomorrow.
December 20
I’m on the train to Clevemoor! It hasn’t moved yet so I’m still at Paddington Station but I can’t believe I’m actually going to an English country house for Christmas! It sounds like the beginning of a romance novel, or else maybe a murder mystery. Either one is far better than staying in London and getting lonely and depressed.
Emma called me in the morning. She said she was calling from Starvewood Hall, and I said, Your house has a name! and she laughed and told me that most houses in the country had a name and not to be too impressed. She had looked up train times and told me that I could catch a 1:35 from Paddington that would go direct. She said that she’d either pick me up herself or she’d send her brother. I asked her again what to bring and she said nothing. Still, this morning, I went on a manic shopping spree, buying two new pairs of tights, a white cable-knit sweater, a new headband that doesn’t smell as though I haven’t taken it off for two months, and some new underwear because you never know. Then I went to the Body Shop and bought foot creams and lotions to give to Emma and maybe her mum, then I panicked about the brother and her father and wound up going to a liquor store and spending practically all the money I have in the world on a bottle of scotch that the man in the shop told me was gift-worthy, and on a bottle of port that had a pretty label.
My bag weighs a ton but I’m on the train and it has actually started moving. Except for the Tube I haven’t been on a train while living here and I thought I might be in one of those cabins you see in the movie with a glass door, everyone smoking. But I’m on an upholstered two-seater facing the wrong way, and the man next to me smells like onion soup. The fabric on the seats is the crazy pattern of blues and golds. The oniony man has fallen asleep, his shoulder pressed up against mine.
The train has cleared London and while there’s no actual blue showing in the sky it isn’t raining or snowing, and five minutes ago I saw a flock of sheep on the side of a hill. I can’t quite believe this is my life. A year ago I was in California, probably about to take the bus to my cousin’s house in Carbondale, feeling sorry for myself, feeling like my life was never going to change. But it did change, and I’m on this train, and Emma said I should stay a whole week at least, that there was the dearest country pub walking distance from the house and that at least one of her cousins was semi-cute. I asked her what everyone did during the week, and she told me that what she did all day was read books or take country walks. She said it rather more charmingly, something like, Oh, be lazy, get fat, walk to the end of the garden and back, start drinking at lunch.
I can feel my mind beginning to race with fantasies about what might happen this week. Slow down, mind! Just let it happen. Maybe it will be horrible and awkward and Emma will turn out to be the cold snob that I first thought she was when we met back in September. If that’s the case then at least I’ll have a story to tell. That’s what my mom always used to say.
Quick list, not that I’ll follow any of it:
Don’t keep telling English people how quaint they are.
When in doubt, ask the person you’re talking to what they’ve read recently, and if they’ve seen any good films.
Check teeth after lunch for embedded foodstuff.
It is not your job to fill any silence that lasts more than three seconds.
Wine is a sipping beverage.
Finish a book. Any book.
A quick jot to say that I’m at the house. How do I describe it? It’s a huge stone manor down a long gravel driveway. It’s both kind of amazing and kind of rundown at the same time. There are endless rooms and the ceilings have beams across them and there are actual stained-glass windows in the parlor, which is what I would call the living room. The furniture is a little ragtag and all the rugs are so bare that in some places there’s only half a rug left. My room is to the back of the house just at the top of a dark, narrow stairwell that leads up from the kitchen.
Servants’ quarters? I said to Emma, who was giving me the tour, and thank God she laughed, then she said, Yes, although we haven’t been able to afford a servant for five years. I laughed at that, thinking she was making a joke, but I don’t think she was.
My room is cold as Canada but the window looks over the back garden, all rose bushes, some holding on to withered white flowers, all leading down to a little stone hut on the edge of a murky pond. Emma told me that there’d be drinks at six-ish in the parlor but that I could emerge before then and wander around. I’m happy, though, to sit at the little child’s desk that’s in this room and write to you, dearest, until it’s time to go down and meet the family. I do think (no, I know!) that I’ve been braver here in England than I’ve ever been in my life but I’m not brave enough to wander around introducing myself to random family members in a country house.
It is time to talk about Adam, the brother. When I got off the train at the tiny station (pale stone, like everything around here), he was waiting for me through the archway that led to the parking lot. He was leaning against his sporty car wearing a long tweedy coat over a threadbare polo shirt and smoking a cigarette. I spotted him first because he was staring at the back of his hand and this really is like the beginning of some Gothic romance (or mystery movie!) because he’s beautiful. Emma is beautiful too but in a way that isn’t surprising. Honey hair, rosy cheeks, probably looks good naked. Her brother has the honey hair and the rosy cheeks as well but this kind of incredible roman nose and very wide shoulders so that his body narrows all the way down. And I realized that he was standing in contrapposto pose, one hip cocked, one knee bent, just like Michelangelo’s David. He flicked his cigarette away and looked up and saw me, opening the trunk of his car for my bag but not offering to put it in for me. He did however offer me a cigarette and I said yes even though I’m only really a party smoker, but he was so aloof that I wanted to impress him. In the car I thanked him about a hundred times for picking me up so that eventually he had to tell me to stop thanking him. I stopped talking and figured that I’d already destroyed our love affair before it ever started. But then he said, Mind if we swing by this pub I know for a quick drink before heading back? I’m desperate.
I told him I didn’t mind and he whipped the car onto a lane that I assumed was one way but cars kept coming from the other direction and I thought I was going to die about three times. I started saying BE COOL to myself, alternating it with NO MORE THANK YOUS and we made it to the destination, me acting like I was squired by handsome boys to country pubs all the time, and that it was NO BIG DEAL.
Inside he asked me what I wanted and I forced myself to not say either Whatever’s easiest or Whatever you’re having, and asked for a cider instead. I was glad I didn’t ask for what he was having because he got a double whiskey without ice. My cider was particularly good and we sat at a corner table by a fire that smelled like burning tar. The ceiling was incredibly low and there was a shaggy dog asleep by the fireplace and I had just assumed that all pubs in England were like pubs in London, but this was different. I feel as though I’ve gone back in time, the way I felt that first week in London when all the new students were taken on that architectural walk and we wound up at the Old Bell, a pub that Wren had designed, and if you squinted your eyes it was like you were there three hundred years ago.
