...continued
This means that we must all be on duty in the kitchen, paying attention, galley slaves, doing exactly as we’re told, which is difficult when Daughter and I are fairly headstrong and hate being bossed about. We must be up at first light to peel the chestnuts, then clean the turkey. And how my mother hates all this: the stubby bits of feather, the pale corpse, the bloody giblets, sewing in the stuffing.
And the turkey cooking is a gruelling and dangerous performance. Deep in her heart my mother knows that we are helpless without her. She must supervise our every move, because although I am fifty-eight, I am still her child – an incompetent, unable to safely carry a pan of hot fat about. I must be closely supervised. Imagine my mother’s terror, and it’s heightened by thoughts of next year Then what will we do? When she isn’t here anymore?
Soon the kitchen will be a boiler house and my mother on full red alert. Will the turkey burst, the beloved stuffing ooze out and be drenched in fat? Last year it did, on the Sixth Last Christmas. We were in uproar. We operated on the turkey in the sweltering kitchen, my mother screaming instructions, Daughter and I slaved away with big spoons and bits of foil. We saved it, more or less. Only a tiny bit of the stuffing was lost. A reprieve.
But my mother was done for. The heat, the fear, the effort, the ghastly preparations, had been too much and she needed to lie on the sofa during the carving period and recover her strength. She sat slumped and sweating, fanning herself, while dinner was served. Pudding was postponed. "I’m never doing this again," she moans. "I won’t be here next year anyway, thank God. This is my Last Christmas!"
But it wasn’t. We have another chance. Possibly another Last One. Will we make it?
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