What's Missing?

Cathy couldn’t work it out.

This was her third attempt, one each Christmas for three years since…

She paused and smiled. This was the first time she could do this without sadness. Instead, she remembered her Gran, who had raised Cathy after her mother died, with tremendous love and gratitude.

Granny’s Magic Christmas Pudding was supposed to be a tribute to the grand old lady. Cathy squinted at the spidery scrawl. She was doing everything exactly as the family favourite recipe instructed, using the utensils she had inherited, but once again, the finished article lacked -- something. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it; it seemed buried in her subconscious, more a feeling than a fact. What she had made would be perfectly edible but it just wasn’t Granny’s Magic Christmas Pudding.

Cathy sighed. Perhaps Gran was the only person who could make this mysterious delicacy properly. Or perhaps it was only magical in Cathy’s memory.

*

She recalled being enthralled by this whole ritual as a little girl. A dozen pots of colourful, carefully measured ingredients. The wooden spoon with the star on its handle, that was only ever used on this one occasion, and the huge earthenware mixing bowl. Cathy stirred while Gran added the ingredients and they sang carols to get into the spirit. For Cathy, this was Christmas, much more so than the turkey, the tree or even the presents.

Bobo, Gran’s ancient one-eyed dog, sat under the scarred wooden table and waited for any scraps to fall. Cathy remember being scolded one year for finding things to feed him. “If it hits the ground, it goes to the hound,” Gran said, “but it doesn’t need any help.” This was true. Making the Magical Christmas Pudding was a wonderfully messy affair; clouds of flour, smears of butter and splashes of brandy all over the table, the flagstones and the cooks themselves. When it was finished, Cathy was rewarded with the ceremonial licking of the spoon and Gran would treat herself to “just a wee nip” of the brandy before putting it back on the top shelf of the pantry.

*

Right, Cathy chided herself, I can do this. How hard can it be?

She placed the pudding she had made earlier into a box, deciding that she would give it to her elderly neighbour. He always said that he hadn’t had a proper Christmas pudding since his wife died and shop-bought ones weren’t the same. Cathy hoped this would make a suitable substitute. She cleared the table and started again. Measuring all the ingredients into the little pots was the start of the ritual. As they were added to the bowl and stirred with the star spoon, Cathy realised that each one reflected a facet of her grandmother.

Like the flour, Gran was a staple of life that could adapt itself to a plethora of purposes. However, despite her dependability, she certainly wasn’t whiter-than-white. In common with the mixed spice, she had a distinctly zesty side to her. Cathy remembered being told off at school for repeating one of Gran’s favourite fart jokes, causing her classmates to collapse in helpless giggles. Gran’s tongue could be sharp at times but her honesty was refreshing. Cathy always knew where she stood with her grandmother and that brought a great deal of stability to the life of the anxious orphan.

The pot of sugar was poured into the bowl with a dark curl of black treacle on top. Gran was definitely very sweet. Her patient kindness had allowed Cathy the time she needed to come to terms with her mother’s death. While mourning for her own daughter, Gran had showed Cathy that it was okay to be sad, to be angry, to do whatever you needed to do to heal. Some nights they would both sit in the rocking chair and cry. Other times they laughed at old family stories about Mum. Everything, all of it, for as long as it took, was okay.

The butter and suet caused Cathy to smirk. Gran was a ‘larger lady’, believing that at least a little of what you fancy does you good. Cathy remembered the flesh that wobbled beneath Gran’s arms but she also remembered how tightly those arms held her against that big, soft body. Nobody else on earth hugged as well as Gran. And, like those ‘unhealthy’ ingredients, Gran was was both authentic and proudly old-fashioned.. Nothing else (like margarine, that was actually banned from Gran’s larder) even came close.

Cathy beat the eggs into the bowl. Gran, too, had a heart of gold even if it was sometimes protected by a hard shell. As the girl got older, she realised that Gran had had to fight for custody against her previously absent father. Gran argued that, unlike him, she had been around for the whole of Cathy’s life and could be trusted to be in future. It hadn’t been an easy battle but if Gran wanted something enough, she usually got it.

The succulent mixed fruits that plopped into the bowl with a satisfying thud, reminded Cathy not only of her grandmother’s cherry red cheeks but also the delicate peach fuzz that covered her cheeks and chin. Fascinated by the fact that the freckled skin on the back of Gran’s hands stayed tented after pinching, Cathy had once asked the old lady if she was afraid of dying. Gran had just smiled. “I’ve had a long, full life,” she said, “full of some of the greatest joys.” She tapped her grandchild on the nose. “But this old body is gradually giving up the ghost. So, no, death is not something to be afraid of but I am looking forward to seeing what, or who, is waiting for me on the other side.”

She was as fiery as the brandy that drenched her pudding but like that spirit, Gran would warm your heart. And, in Cathy’s case, she had definitely been a lifesaver.

Finally was Gran nuts? At least a little bit Cathy laughed as she added the last ingredient to the substantial mix.

So would this be it? Would Granny’s Magic Christmas Pudding be reborn at last? Before she put the sweet, sticky mix into the basin to be steamed, Cathy turned Gran’s cooking box upside down, just to make sure that there wasn’t anything lurking in the bottom of the box that should be in the bowl.

Nothing.

Cathy gave the box a shake.

Out fell a silver sixpence.

Of course! Gran’s traditional symbol of festive love and luck that she would kiss before adding to the final mix. This practice had become something of a rarity in the days of Health and Safety. As if Gran cared about any of that “new fangled nonsense.”

Kissing the sixpence herself now, Cathy added it to the pudding, tipped the mix into a basin and put it on for a long, slow steam.

In the cot in the corner, the baby woke. Cathy gathered her up in her arms. “One day, you’ll be able to help me with this, darling. Who knows, perhaps in time, you’ll have a little girl of your own and the tradition will go on and on.”

The smell of the pudding began to permeate the room.

Cathy smiled. “Merry Christmas, Gran.”