Mrs Bennett’s Christmas Party

I’m not enjoying this Christmas dinner. The food is good. In fact, the food is very good, and plentiful, too plentiful for my taste, but I’m not enjoying the surroundings or the company. All the same, I’m glad to be here.

I look at the food on my plate: the inevitable turkey, but also a slice of ham, roast potatoes, golden with slightly frazzled corners, parsnips and a variety of other vegetables. There is really more there than I want. I prefer a less fully loaded plate. If I want more I can ask for it. 

I only really know one person here, my Father. He’s content, he enjoys the company and that is a good thing.

The people round the table can be divided into two groups: the carers and the “cared-for”. Looked at like that, my Father is “cared for”.

They say that “birds of a feather flock together” and that is what has happened here. Three unrelated families have combined together to address their common need. Each family has someone who could not manage alone. Each family has people missing, partners or parents who died or could not stand the strain and ran away, or brothers and sisters who are always too busy with their own concerns.

Despite being by far the oldest here, my father is not the least able, no, not by a long way. The worst I have to cope with is getting him to and fro. Of course, that means I cannot drink, but that’s not such a high price to pay for a Christmas dinner and a little distraction.

Mrs Bennett is acting as host. Her daughter Claire is 30 and has cerebral palsy. Although it pains me to think it, she is the classic “spastic”. Her legs will barely support her, her hands move jerkily and unpredictably and her head droops to one side. She has to be fed, and her eyes have a vacant look most of the time, though her face does brighten sometimes, particularly when she looks at the Christmas tree. There is someone home, at least some of the time. Mrs Bennett has another daughter. She was injured in a car accident and hobbles around on crutches which limits how much she can share the fetching and carrying.

The remaining two men are brothers. They are both late middle aged, I suppose the older one is in his fifties and his brother is a few years younger. I don’t know what is wrong with the younger brother. It isn’t obvious at first, but he doesn’t speak, he walks with a shambling gait and all his movements are clumsy. He seems happy enough, in a withdrawn sort-of way, but his brother looks care-worn and drained. Not only is his hair grey, but his face seems grey too. Maybe he is younger than he looks. I suppose that he was left looking after his disabled sibling when he parents passed away or became too frail to cope. Like me, he is the loser in a tragic game of pass-the-parcel.

So there you have it: four men and three women sharing a Christmas dinner. We take comfort, if not pleasure, in the company. We go through the motions. The elderly and the disabled have no choice and the carers have a choice but find the alternatives unacceptable.

There will be no witty conversation around this table. There will be little laughter, except when we watch, dutifully, whatever light entertainment Mrs Bennett chooses on the TV. Love, guilt and resentment make a bitter-sweet cocktail. There is a plentiful supply of all of those here this afternoon.

When the guests depart we will go our separate ways. All of this seems inevitable or predetermined. Lives on fixed paths, like railway tracks or lives suspended and put on hold. Unless something changes in the meanwhile we will return, next year, to Mrs Bennett’s Christmas Party.

(12th December 2016 – 652 words)

I'm pleased to say, this is fiction.