Open Writing

I couldn’t think what to give her for Christmas. Her husband had, after all, won the lottery a few years before, and it had proved to be the worst possible thing that could have happened. For her, that is. Not for him; he had no problem with investing the money, spending it, and trying to avoid giving his wife much of it at all. She had stopped working, lost her friends, and two years later had a complete breakdown.

Now her old dog was ready to die and her husband was tired of her: you could say a split down the middle would have been the best idea, but I doubt whether your average lottery winner is prepared to give up half his winnings. This one wasn’t, so they stayed together and the quality of her life faded to a murky grey.

In previous years, since the breakdown, the usual gifts had been acceptable: plants, chocolates, hand cream and soft toys, and last year I gave her a little fat cushion filled with cherry stones. They were sold in my local health food shop as being the latest thing to put behind a painful back, once they had been in the microwave for a few minutes. She showed little interest, and I doubt whether it ever came out of its box.

I’ve watched the coming and going of so much brass, so many crystal animals; there are so many dreamcatchers hanging from above, the colours of their dyed feathers gently muted by the dust. I was at a complete loss to know what to give this year. When someone no longer has the will to unseat the Black Dog curled so snugly and securely round the shoulders, giving becomes difficult, even impossible.

I decided to take a bowl of up-and-coming daffodils, and because this seemed not very much, I hunted round for something else. I found a pretty china ashtray in a drawer. It was brightly painted with a phoenix, an appropriate decoration, I thought, for a heavy smoker to see as one stub after another was laid to rest. I wrapped it in Christmas paper and set off to deliver my two presents.

This is a story about a Christmas gift, not about the slow death of a personality. I sat carefully at the edge of the sofa, saddened to see what had become of my friend. The bowl of daffodils was invisible, it seemed, and I was just going to make a jokey comment about the ashtray when I saw her new one. The old one, solid green glass with ‘Carlsberg’ in gold letters round the edge, held only one shake of ash. Next to it, and nearest to the flick of an index finger, was a grey pottery bowl, full to the brim. Encircling the bowl was a tight ring of skulls, each one joined to its neighbour, teeth clenched, leering out into the room. “The Killing Field”, I thought. I said nothing, and my friend put out a hand to deliver one more gift to the pile. She didn’t see the thin breath of foreboding as it slowly rose from every skull.

It was dark in the corner by the sofa, so I carried my offerings into the kitchen where the daffodils could have some light. There were other plants there, unseen, unreleased from their cellophane. Perhaps my young daffodils had no chance either. It seemed the right time to go, so I returned to the living room to say my goodbye.

“Try and have a good Christmas, I’ll see you soon.”

I gave her a hug, as I always do. She began to cry, like a lost child, the next cigarette already in her fingers, waiting for a light.