CHAPTER 15
“You need a hat in His house, Annie!”

“I am not playing Saburo in some bloody milliner’s nightmare, Merry! It’s a meal for crumblies and a carol service, not a royal garden party”

“And these crumblies as you call them, they will have traditions, isn’t it? They will be expecting to see proper respect shown to the Lord on the celebration of His birth?”

“Miriam, you can be a right sod, you know? Just be grateful that this year we are not camping, aye? ERIC! NEED HELP!”

We had been ‘booked’ that Christmas for the carol service, so we would be a very mixed band again. Two fiddles, a flute, various stringed musical instruments as well as a banjo, plus melodeon, whistles, drum and so forth. Mark was going to do a solo session of tunes partway through, but we anticipated a much quieter evening, musically, than we usually had. It would have been young Dennis Adam’s first outing, but it was too cold to risk the health of such a young child.

It was going to be one of those family evenings I had grown accustomed to, the Woods and Woodruffs together with McDuffs, Armitages and my girls. Loneliness…how could I ever have let myself drown so deeply in despair and hopelessness when all of these people had been there for me, all the time, if I had only had the sense, the intelligence, to open my eyes and recognise their love?

Merry was still bustling, perhaps eager to see her potential Young Man, but she was smug with it. Merry has always been my favourite, with good reason, of all my family, but she has always had difficulty in hiding her plotting. Then again---I looked over to where Jessica sat with Tabby, and thought.

I was dressing down, no LBD this year, but a mid-calf wool skirt over flat boots matched with a white blouse and fitted jacket. That led me down a number of blind alleys, as I looked at Merry’s idea of appropriate headgear, and then the idea rose up from somewhere in my old musical silliness days. I found the necessary, and confronted her.

“Well?”

“Oh dear, dear me, you look like Benny Hill!”

“What is wrong with a beret?”

“Ych, no time for such disputes, my dear, coat and bag and house keys, aye? There are elderly folk who want feeding and the name of our Lord to magnify in song!”

“Merry, my love, you do know I am not really, you know…”

She smiled, a little sadly. “I know, my dear cuz, as I also know what is troubling you”

“Eh?”

“Annie, cariad, am I intruding if I ask if Kirsty has suggested what I believe she did?”

Shit. One thing I did my best to avoid discussing too deeply with Merry was religion, for obvious reasons.

“Aye, she suggested godparent as a job”

Merry smiled, and this time it was a lot warmer. “That is not true, is it? Not completely?”

I had to concede that one. “Godmother, aye. But how can I do that when I am not, you know…”

“A woman, or Godly? You are the first, and anyone who cannot see that is blind or stupid, or wilful.”

I remembered small hands, kneading at my breast…Merry continued.

“As for Godly, you will be there to see that the child is safe, and lead him into the paths of righteousness. Our Master’s house has many mansions, Annie, and even the Jews in their clinging to the old beliefs have a phrase for that: the righteous gentile. Will you lead him on those paths, Annie? Will you serve the child’s welfare, yet leave them free to follow whatever faith they may find?”

“Well, of course, that must be their own choice, their own conscience, aye?”

The smile was truly warm now. “Then what better woman to discharge that duty?”

Trapped…what could I do but smile and kiss her?

The church hall was full of elderly people of various stripes and levels of fitness, and we bustled around serving teas and soups, sandwiches and cake, and my heart, already fragile, melted when I saw Chantelle in apron laughing as she served both women and men. She would never be free of her past, that was a dreadful certainty, but more and more, with the aid of two women and a boy she was coming to live in the present. I stood for a while, and watched as my family-plus moved through the tables. Geoff and his elegant wife, the Woods, all the rest of the Woodruffs, Kelly dancing attendance, almost literally, on her lover, and that was now the only word that truly fitted. Jimmy caught my gaze, and winked at me, and two words sat there at the front of my mind.

Happiness.
Love.

So much love, so freely given, and as I looked round I saw my two gorgeous men, Eric and Darren, doubling up at some silly joke or other, and there was only one thing I could do. Saburo slotted together as smoothly as ever, and I started to send silky notes out over the chatter of the diners. I played Nat King Cole and ‘Mairzy Dotes’, “White Cliffs’ and “We’ll Meet Again’, ‘Pretty Flamingo’ and ‘Paint it Black’, which led to ‘Ruby Tuesday’ and ‘Clear White Light’, and Simon was at my shoulder.

“Time for the big band, Annie”

We settled into the space before the altar, spotlights dazzling so that we couldn’t see much of the congregation, which was at capacity, wheelchairs down the sides of the pews. Simon was in full vicar suit, which tickled My Man Darren, and he started to whisper something about crossdressing before suddenly stopping and turning pink, with a shamed look at me. I leant over.

“It’s OK, Daz, I’m not a crossdresser, am I?”

His grin showed his understanding.

“Dearly beloved, and you are, you know? You are in His house, the house of someone who is Love in His essence, someone who was born, this day, literally love incarnate, born to suffer for our sins, born to show us that there are better ways to live. Yes, I know there are all sorts of issues behind the date, and the year, and adoption of old festivals, but that is not important.

“Really, truly, it isn’t. What is important is our Lord’s message, which is love, and tolerance, and forgiveness, and acceptance. That doesn’t mean blind acceptance, for one must never accept wrong, never use clever words to allow evil to flourish on the basis of some polished and specious argument. Know your enemy, but recognise that the man or woman who offends you is not your enemy, but the act, the thought, they are your foes.

“A human being is a glorious thing, made in His glorious image, but the thoughts, the actions, do not always match that. So one must separate the two. Restrain the sin, redeem the sinner. That is love, that is agape, brotherly, sisterly love, the love of parent and family. That is Christ incarnate, Christ within us all, and isn’t it so, so much easier to forgive that sin when you know that the sinner, the person in front of you, the human being, is part of the Godhead, is one of the beloved of our Lord and Saviour?

“Never, ever, tolerate sin, though. By sin, I do not mean eating flesh on a Friday, or women coming to His house bareheaded. There is a fundamental difference between piety, between worthiness, and bookkeeping. He knows what is in our hearts, and we should be the honest strivers, those whose intentions might not manage to scale the heights but still do their best.

“This, then, is Christmas. This is when we give, we give gifts, and ourselves to our friends, and our neighbours, and our neighbours are all of humanity. Let us pray “

There was a sequence of call-and-response prayers and blessings, and then Simon looked at us.

“Our little orchestra will now lead us into ‘Guide Us Oh Thou Great Jehovah’ “

Bill set out the introduction, and as we started the glorious tune I heard the congregation begin the first verse, and I nearly stopped playing in surprise. There was a huge surge of power to their voices, and then harmonies started to play around the upper register, female voices and male, and as the chorus soared to the rafters I caught Merry’s grin through the glare of Simon’s spotlights. He caught her eye, and dimmed them, and there they were, faces rapt as they sang their praises to their God, and it was Tom and Twm, James and John, Arthur, Arwel, Hywel, Vanny, Leah and dear Aunty Esther, wives and all, and I had to stop playing because I couldn’t tongue the notes through my sobs.

That Christmas was a time for families, and it was the time for mine.