Page 17 of Salvaging Christmas

Winter Wonderland

Round two began ominously.

Trevor sensed Mrs M’s coolness the moment she marched back into the kitchen and began carving up the chicken and leek pie. He wanted to say something, to apologise for caving in and allowing Karl to come, and for the inconvenience Mary would cause her, but he could see she was in no mood to talk. Instead he helped out by laying the table in silence, placing down baskets of freshly baked rolls and taking an occasional tug from his bottle of designer beer. Cheryl came in and helped him partway through, still a little red-eyed, but smiling as she snatched the bottle from him and took a swig.

Eventually, people began to trail into the kitchen, each of them selecting drinks from the fridge and their places around the table. Within a matter of minutes, sides had been drawn. Mrs M held court at the end, with Johnny and Frank next to her, across from each other. Trevor and Cheryl also sat opposite each other, inadvertently providing a no-man’s-land in the middle. Jessica and Antoni, oblivious to the earlier heated words, took seats next to each of them. Karl and Mary sat at the far end.

Blatantly ignoring the tension in the room—something all of them must have felt by the unusually subdued chatter—Mrs M remained seated but called for silence while she kicked off proceedings.

“Welcome everyone, old friends and new. I trust we’ve all settled in. Before we start eating, it’s customary for me to say a few words and lay down some ground rules for the holiday. I’ll start with meals because that’s my domain. Breakfast buffet and dinner will be prepared by me and I will write the day’s choices of both vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals on the kitchen blackboard. Unless otherwise instructed—such as Christmas lunch—each of you will be left to fend for yourselves for lunch. But if you want to use any kitchen equipment, please make sure everything is washed up after use or placed in the dishwasher, and all surfaces cleared and cleaned before three in the afternoon, when I begin dinner preparations. If there are no questions, I’m sure you’re all hungry so I’ll start dinner. Frank, give me a hand.”

“Vegetarian?” whispered Jessica, sitting next to Cheryl but loud enough for Trevor to hear. “Does your mother think I don’t eat meat?”

“Not you, Jessica. Mary at the end. Don’t worry. Mum had already pre-prepared a batch of meat-free dishes for Hannah,” Cheryl whispered back. “Pies, quiches, bean casserole. Brought them anyway, rather than waste the food. They just need heating up. But don’t tell her ladyship.”

“Her ladyship?” asked Jessica, before following Trevor’s gaze to the end of the table where Mrs M handed Mary a plate with a large Brie and sun-dried tomato tart and a selection of vegetables. “Oh. I see.”

“And one final thing,” continued Mrs M, back her seat. “Especially for the newer and younger guests joining us. Mobile phones are a necessary evil in this day and age. While we’re happy for you to take photos of the food or decorations or the rooms, no photos of people should be posted on social media without their express permission. And that includes videos. Isn’t that right, Frank?”

Drinking from a beer bottle, Johnny began to choke.

“Fair do’s. Point taken, Mrs M,” said Frank, about to stuff a piece of bread roll into his mouth.

Two years ago, during a Christmas break in Wiltshire, Frank had recorded and posted an after-lunch video of Mrs M and Monica sat next to each other on the sofa, their heads tilted back, fast asleep, snoring at the ceiling. He had called the post ‘the Christmas Snorus Chorus’. Monica had been furious and despite it having over four hundred likes, they had pressured him into taking the post down.

After Mrs M’s final pronouncement, the meal proper began. Compared to the relatively lively affair of the cobbled-together meal the night before, conversations took place in lowered voices. Apart from the occasional whispered word to each other, Karl and Mary scarcely spoke throughout and Trevor assumed they had either decided to play along or were planning to escape in the morning. If he managed to get Karl alone at any point, which seemed unlikely, he vowed to get the truth out of him. For the time being, he was grateful Mary had drawn in her claws.

Between dinner and dessert, Antoni had asked Trevor about the origins of their seasonal escape and had been given an account of the first year. At the end, after a lull, Mary finally took the opportunity to wade in.

“If I’m going to be honest, I find this whole members-only tradition not only antiquated but slightly offensive. Strikes me as its own form of discrimination. Yes, I understand from my husband the argument about privacy with like-minded people, but isn’t there the counterargument of equality and inclusion, and that by creating this private members club, you are guilty of the very thing you’ve been fighting against for years. As a vegetarian I don’t see the need to lock myself away with other vegetarians. Nor would I want to. And we are ostracised and marginalised in much the same way as members of the LGBTQ plus community—”

“Oh, come on. You can’t compare the two,” said Johnny with disgust. “They’re hardly the same—”

“They’re exactly the same. You don’t hear me refusing to share the table with meat eaters—”

“I wish you would—” muttered Cheryl, next to Trevor.

“Although I do expect them to respect my life choices—”

“How the hell can you compare them?” said Frank, thumping his chair back down from the two legs he had balanced on, his face drained of colour. “How many vegetarians do you know who have been scared shitless of telling their family, their father and mother and siblings, about their food choices because of the repercussions? Did they have to keep copies of specialist food magazines carefully hidden away for fear of being found out and screamed at, or worst still, punched and kicked until they had to be taken to hospital? Were they thrown out of their homes and forced to sleep rough on the streets? Or packed off to conversion therapy retreats to force them into becoming what their family or faith considered normal? I have no doubt some of your community have had to deal with hostile situations, but for every one I can show you a thousand gay or lesbian kids who have suffered a hundred times worse.”

“Calm down, Frank,” said Trevor.

“No, Johnny. Mary needs to hear this,” said Frank. “We mix with other people the whole year round, in our jobs, in our social interactions and out in the world—some of us more than others. We have to put up with the veiled homophobic asides or jokes in the workplace or threats on the street, and listen to ignorant politicians who are still intent on nailing us back in the closet. So if we decide to enjoy the company of like-minded people over Christmas, in a safe place where we don’t have to filter what we say, where we can be ourselves, then that’s our freedom of choice. The people we choose to holiday with share our values. None of us have to be on best behaviour in case we get judged for saying something to offend bigoted people’s homophobic sensibilities.”

“That sounds rather holier than thou, don’t you think?” said Mary. “Are you trying to tell me people in the gay community don’t judge?”

“Of course we judge,” replied Frank. “We’re still human. But our judgement is not expressed with hatred and violence. Within our own community, we criticise each other plenty. Although with our friends, it’s usually more of a gentle ribbing, done in a lighthearted way.”

“Karl,” said Johnny, “feel free to wade in any time you want.”

“I don’t understand,” said Antoni calmly. “Surely who we love or what we eat should be our choice alone. Nobody should dictate either. As long as we’re not hurting anyone else. Isn’t that the whole point of a free society? Honestly, my friends and I are sick of labels. One day, I hope we won’t bother with them anymore. When you can love who you want, irrespective of race or orientation or religion, and eat what you want, without being ridiculed, because nobody will care.”

Everybody sat quietly after Antoni’s words.

“Amen to that,” said Mrs M. “If only everyone thought like you, Antoni, then perhaps one day we might enjoy a brave new world. But for now, I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

Even Jessica tuned in to the tension, because after a few moments of awkward silence, she distracted Mary with chit-chat about her older sister’s recent pregnancy, offering advice on water births, best-buy nappies, breast milk pumps and postnatal depression. Trevor tried his best not to listen in. At one point he glanced up and caught Karl’s eye, receiving a warm smile that he refused to return and which soon dissolved.

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