Anne Woodward

The snow lay deeper that year than for decades, everywhere sparkly and Christmas card perfect. But it hid the grim reality of life with intermittent power, fuel and food shortages, and a government hell-bent on making its citizens miserable.

We were used to adapting by then; everyone in the neighbourhood who’d managed to procure a turkey cooked it on Christmas Eve, when the power was guaranteed for more than an hour or two. Christmas Day, the government pronounced, was a holiday: people should stay at home. That was the justification for the day-long power cut, despite protests about how it would affect the cooking of Christmas dinner. Just an hour, they said, so everyone had the opportunity to watch the King’s speech.

In our house, we refused to watch out of principle, and spent the afternoon playing board games instead. We laughed so much. And we looked forward to cold turkey served with hot veg cooked on the camping stove – a piece of equipment everyone tried to own.

During our games, my family and I mucked in to prepare the dinner. With four gas rings available, we knew how lucky we were. And the trifle for pudding kept fresh on the doorstep. We wore cracker crowns while we worked, played charades in the kitchen and messed about, all determined not to let the outside world ruin our Christmas.

Just as I was about to serve the meal, our neighbours arrived. Sheila carried a pan containing a small Christmas pudding in steaming water. Their gas had fizzled out midway through cooking, she said, and could they finish it off on our cooker? She looked so forlorn, and Jim, her husband so cold, I invited them in. Their pudding cooked while I dished out our dinner, Sheila and Jim joined us in a toast, sat at our table with us and chatted as we ate. By the time their pudding was ready for eating, we’d finished our dinner and were sitting round the table reading our cracker jokes, which were awful. As ever.

Sheila thanked us for helping out. ‘Clarice and Ron will be everso grateful.’

Her face reddened, her hand flew to cover her mouth but it was too late.

‘Sheila?’

‘It’s not our pudding. We had ours long since. Clarice and Ron’s gas ran out and they asked us if we’d cook it – and then ours ran out, too. They’ll be livid if they find out we’ve come to you.’

Clarice and Ron had never treated us with anything other than unpleasantness, as incomers to the village. They made their dislike clear at every opportunity. How could Sheila have duped us? But, it was Christmas, and Sheila was a lovely woman with a good heart.

‘We’ll say nothing.’ I looked out of the window. ‘But I think the game’s up. Ron’s at your front door.’

Sheila blushed, the pan with the pudding wobbled in her hand. ‘Now, there’ll be trouble.’

‘I warned you…’ Jim muttered, going on tiptoes to stare over his wife’s shoulder. ‘We’ll never hear the last of it.’

The pair of them stood helpless in the face of how wretched Ron and carping Clarice might react to their trying to make the best of the Christmas pudding problem.

‘Go and sit down. Ed? Pour Sheila and Jim another sherry – no, don’t argue… and put that pudding back on the stove.’

I pulled on my jacket, thrust my feet into my wellies and marched through the whiteout towards Ron. If you couldn’t make amends at Christmas, when could you? Granted, we’d never done anything to upset them, apart from move in, but I’d be lying if I said we never said cruel things about them in the safety of our own home.

‘Ron,’ I shouted through the snow. ‘Your pudding’s on our stove and it’s ready. Let’s get Clarice and you inside so’s you can enjoy it in the warmth.’ I stomped through the ankle-deep snow until I stood opposite his and Clarice’s front door. What possessed me, I have no idea, but I rapped loudly on their door and took a step back. ‘I’m keeping your pud hostage until you come.’

Clarice, wrapped in a duvet and wearing a knitted hat pulled over her ears, opened the door a moment later. I swear the flakes around me blew back into the maelstrom, so bitter was the air from inside.

‘Sheila and Jim had the same problem as you with their gas and they’re at ours. Your pudding’s ready. Why don’t you join us? It’s warmer with lots of people, too.’

Clarice stared towards her husband who remained, arms folded, standing on Sheila and Jim’s doorstep. She shook her head.

‘He’ll never come. Too proud.’

‘But you’re freezing. Why don’t you come? He’ll not stop at home alone with no light and heating, will he?’

She pulled the duvet tighter round her with blue, bony fingers. ‘Wouldn’t put it past him.’

This was a ridiculous situation. They’d both freeze to death if we didn’t take them in. I took Clarice firmly by the elbow.

‘Come on, you’re coming home with me. We’ve eaten, so have Sheila and Jim, so your pud’ll be wasted if you don’t have it.’

She let me haul her through the snow without a murmur. I looked back as I opened our front door. Ron was still standing on the doorstep. Once Clarice was safely indoors, I trudged back towards where he remained, like he were already frozen. Ron would be much more difficult to persuade, but I had to try.

‘I’ve got your pudding and your wife now. You going to join us? Or are you going to stand on that doorstep and ignore me? Hope I’ll go away?’

Ron peered through the falling snow, towards our house where candlelight flickered at the windows. The picture verged on romantic, but for the knowledge we were without power and the candles were a necessity, not a seasonal affectation.

‘Ron?’

‘We can manage without your help.’

‘How is ours any different from Sheila’s? You’d rather go back to an empty house and freeze to death, would you?’

He shuffled from the doorstep to his own front door, grabbed the handle and heaved it open. Snow cascaded onto the ground from the windowsill, so fiercely did he slam closed the door. I stood for a minute or two, letting the silence fall upon me, flake by flake. How could I abandon him, cantankerous though he was?

‘Ron, Ron,’ I called through the letterbox. ‘Please come. Clarice will be worried about you.’ The devil got behind me then. ‘I don’t care if you die alone, freezing, while we enjoy your Christmas pud, but I’m sure Clarice will have something to say about it.’

Silence.

‘Please yourself. Being out in the cold has given my appetite a second wind. I’m off to share your pudding with your widow.’

I know it was cruel, but the old man annoyed me with his ‘We can manage’ codswallop. I prayed my tactics would work as I headed home.

Once I’d divested myself of my sodden coat and boots, I joined the rest of the family and our guests to sit at the kitchen table. Someone had served Clarice with a bowlful of her Christmas pudding and spooned a dollop of brandy cream on the top. She sat between Sheila and Jim, quietly relishing each mouthful. Her hands had lost their blue tinge; the empty sherry glass probably had something to do with that.

I grabbed the bottle from the middle of the table and poured myself a large one.

‘Clarice? More sherry?’

‘I told you he wouldn’t come. Always been stubborn, that one. More sherry? Mm, please.’

Perhaps Clarice and Ron had lost the first flush of love; they were both in their nineties. But it saddened me to imagine them in a loveless relationship after so many years together. She didn’t show any signs of concern that she’d abandoned her husband on Christmas Day, or that he might not be alive when she returned home. Would I be blamed if she did? Would the papers be filled with stories of the merciless neighbour who shunned the frail geriatric on this day of all days? I drained my glass and poured another.

‘Clarice, I’m going back for him. We cannot allow him to be alone in these conditions.’

‘He’ll probably go to bed. That’s where we go to get warm.’ She took a sip of her sherry and grinned at me. ‘Not like that, cheeky.’

Everyone else laughed, the candles’ flames bounced and wobbled; a perfect Christmas scene. I had black dread in my heart.

I drank the second glass in one gulp, swayed to where my boots sat, melting snow seeping into the carpet, and pulled them on. The sleeves of my jacket fought back as I struggled to push my arms into them.

Warmed by the sherry, and probably with the extra courage it provided, I marched to Ron and Clarice’s house. At their front door, I hammered on the knocker and pressed my thumb on the doorbell. Stupid. It wasn’t going to work without power, was it? I hammered again and kept hammering. The thud of the lion’s head on the brass plate sounded muted, out there in the snow and I began to lose hope. My confidence evaporated. He wasn’t going to answer.

I gave the knocker one final hammering, stuck my freezing hands in my pockets and turned for home.

‘What? What now?’

Ron stood at the half-opened door, glowering at me like a modern-day Scrooge.

I took a step towards him. ‘I need your help.’

‘Eh?’

‘In the brief time I was out here talking to you, your Clarice has downed enough sherry to sink a liner and she’s now carousing in my kitchen like a twenty-year-old. I need you to come and restore some order, before she does herself some mischief.’

‘Sherry?’ He tutted. ‘Always goes straight to her head. Wait on.’

He closed the door. I waited on. After what seemed like an eternity, he emerged wrapped in a sleeping bag.

‘Take me to ‘er.’