The Christmas goose

Glenlivet time. Tom poured himself a shot of whisky, as he did every evening shortly before 10pm, and sipped it slowly to the strains of Satie’s Gymnopédie No.1.

His wife waited until the squat little glass was empty and enough time had passed for the drink’s amber magic to mellow his mood. Then she broached the tricky subject: a change to their traditional Christmas routine.

“Goose rather than turkey?” Tom frowned. “They’re very fatty, you know. Oily, even.”

“Well he’s said he’s bringing one,” said Louise. “Said the new girlfriend’s getting it. It’s really very kind of her, when you think of it. Though she might have checked with us first, I admit.”

The new girlfriend. Both parents brooded on the imminent arrival of this fourth - and unknown - element into their COVID tier 2 Christmas bubble.

Louise thought back to the previous Christmas: an eternity of a year ago, with both their children and no attendant partners. An aching image of her eldest daughter now stuck alone in her tiny tier 4 London flat nagged at her. Emma wouldn’t be coming home this year. Louise imagined a dark, shadowy figure sitting in her place at their Christmas dinner-table: Adrian had sent them no photos of this girl, Chloë. Well of course she might be very nice, and she would be worried about meeting her boyfriend’s parents. Louise determined to welcome her with open arms.

“Sad business about Minty Sanderson, isn’t it?” said Tom. “Thought she’d hang on for a final Christmas...”

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At 8.20 pm, Christmas Eve - over two hours later than promised - the prodigal son finally returned to his parents’ home, which had once been his own.

Louise flung wide the door, sucking a vortex of cold, new air which rushed like a Viking invader into their cosy house. God, the lad was taller than ever! And a ridiculous little goatee beard of some sort? She blinked back tears as she hugged him close. Then took a deep breath again and stepped back. The girlfriend was much smaller, tiny really, and huddled over a lot of bulky luggage.

“Goodness! Come in, come in! What a lot of stuff you’ve got for just one weekend. Lovely to -”

“HONK. HONK HONK.”

Louise broke off, in stunned amazement. There was a live goose in a cage by her feet. She caught a brief glimpse of parted orange beak, pale watery blue eyes and snowy plumage. Then a strong, rancid smell caught her by the throat.

“Hello, Mrs Brackley. So pleased to meet you.” A thin, punkish looking girl waved a pale bony hand at her and pulled her black mask back more tightly across her face. Greenish strands of hair straggled from beneath a shabby grey hoodie at least three sizes too big for her diminutive form.

“HONK. HONK HONK. HONK HONK.”

The girl laughed. Adrian, non-masked, smiled at his mother pleadingly and she looked at him with mute reproach. How on earth were they expected to dispatch this bird at this late hour before Christmas? She’d have to call someone - but who? How really thoughtless of this bloody girl and why on earth hadn’t Adrian thought to warn her? His idea of a joke? Or was he proposing to carry out the deed himself? He’d been handy with an air-rifle as a lad, but there were no guns in the house now. Axe? Yes, of course. In the cellar. But what a mess, what a palaver. There’d be blood everywhere. And who would be plucking out all the feathers?

All these thoughts raced through her head in the nanoseconds it took her to usher the two new arrivals into the house.

“Meet Sarah!” Chloë was still laughing as she hauled the big cage over the threshold, leaving a trail of dark-green slime over the terracotta tiling in the porch. “She’s so funny. As soon as anyone else makes a noise, she starts up! She’s a real character. It’s so nice of you to agree to give her a home. I decided to call her Sarah. She just looks like a Sarah, don’t you think?”

Tom, hovering in the corridor, was just in time to catch this last comment, as the bird started another loud and plaintive honking. His eyes above his Santa mask opened like doors into a dark void and his bristly eyebrows shot up vertiginously. But breeding and good manners prevailed.

“Chloë!” he croaked, after the briefest of pauses. “How very nice to meet you! Ade, lad, give your old man a hug. Then pour us both a large whisky!”

---------------------------

“Mum, I warned you Chlo was a vegan. Do you never read my messages?” protested Adrian, when his mother urgently pulled him aside later that evening to discuss a revamped Christmas dinner.

“Oh God, why can’t you stick to emails? It’s so much simpler. I can’t keep up with all the other stuff, full of endless Christmas videos. Well what am I going to feed her on? There’s no -”

Louise hastily fell quiet as Chloë appeared in the doorway. Unmasked (“You’ve tested negative haven’t you, dear? Then please, there’s no need”) and shorn of her hoodie, her sudden beauty shocked the older woman. A pale, fine-boned city beauty hinting at late-night parties, drugs, a lack of fresh country air, and of course a completely inadequate diet. But nevertheless a class above her son’s healthy, honest good looks.

“So I’ve given Sarah some porridge oats,” said the girl, speaking softly, but with her customary complete assurance. “And let her settle down in the cellar on your old mattress. I think it’s best if we keep her in tonight. Then tomorrow we can let her out by the lake and hopefully she’ll join the other geese and swim across to the island with them at night. This place sounds really ideal for her.”

Her voice was completely accentless, almost like a foreigner’s. Louise somehow suspected that the shabby clothes and green hair hid an upper-class background than she was trying to hide.

The ring-tone of the girl’s mobile suddenly sounded like a clarion.

“Sorry! This one’s urgent.” Chloë turned away, ear to her phone as she left the room.

“Goodness. I hope it’s not bad news,” said Louise.

“Oh, it’ll be Rob,” sighed Adrian. “This guy that’s head of her animal group. He’s a frigging control freak. Always calling up his slaves. Thinks he’s such a big-shot just because he’s got a zillion followers on whatever boring channel it is.”

“Animal group? She’s not one of these militant vegans I hope?”

“Well, yeah, slightly. That’s how we got Sarah. Broke into one of these places breeding geese for Christmas.”

“WE? WE??” His mother was appalled. “What were YOU doing -”

“Relax, ma. I wasn’t involved. But you know, I support what she’s doing, I -”

“You WHAT?” cried Louise. “You support criminal activity? And the hypocrisy of it. You’re from the countryside: you know that these farmers are just trying to make a living. Those geese wouldn’t even be there if it wasn’t for them. And I don’t see you turning down the meat on your table.”

She broke off, something in her son’s face warning her.

“Oh God, don’t tell me you’ve gone vegan as well? Please don’t completely ruin ALL my Christmas preparations.”

Her only son looked sheepish.

“Mum, listen. You’ve seen Chlo, right? I mean she’s hot isn’t she? She’s like the most beautiful girl in the whole of Bristol Uni. She’s been out with loads of guys. But she’s got this, like, thing. She won’t sleep with anyone unless they’ve been vegan for at least a fortnight. Says she’s made a lot of converts that way.”

“Oh, I’ll bet,” said Louise bitterly. “And how long does their veganism last after they’ve got into her knickers? For God’s sake, are you entirely driven by your hormones or have you got any kind of mind of your own?”

Adrian considered the question carefully.

“Think the hormones have it, ma,” he replied after a while. “In her case, at least. It’s been thirteen days now and she’s promised me a Christmas present that will blow my mind.” He was smiling involuntarily as he spoke.

Louise cuffed him over the head, although she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Well, I wish you’d gone through this bloody phase and got her out your system before ever inflicting her company on us, that’s all I can say.”

Chloë came back into the room, her attitude briskly imperious.

“I’m terribly sorry. That was Rob. I’m afraid I have to leave tonight and go back to Bristol.”

-------------------------------------------------

“Well good bloody riddance to the girl. What a bitch!” announced Tom the next morning when Louise informed him that they would after all be only three sitting down to lunch on Christmas day. He’d gone to bed early and slept through the fraught and emotional leave-takings of the previous night.

“Poor Adey,” said Louise again. She left her husband to his crossword and went into the kitchen, wondering whether it was too early to take her son a cup of tea in bed. Yes: eight-thirty was the earliest safe time after a late - or in this case bad - night.

A distant honking reminded her of their other guest.

“Oh, bloody hell!”

She opened the cellar door and went downstairs.

The goose was sitting quite calmly on its mattress, by a pile of dirtied newspaper. It didn’t seem nervous, but watched her with keen attention. Beside it was a big plastic washing-up bowl nearly full of water and a tin dog-bowl, empty save for a rim of hardened porridge oats.

“Well, what are we going to do with you, Gertrude?” asked Louise.

The bird honked as soon as she started speaking. A nasal questioning sound. Making her mind up, Louise walked past it and opened the door to the garden, then shooed it outside. It could fend for itself out there and eat some grass rather than make any more mess in her cellar.

She returned to the kitchen and started rootling around in search of substitute Christmas dinner ingredients. Emma was supposed to be zooming at 11am. She would have to rouse Ade if he didn’t show any signs of waking before then.

“Never mind, ma. I knew she was out of my class,” Adrian had said the previous night. “She’s an alpha female I know that. And I’m just a beta-minus type of guy...” Remembering her son’s sad resignation, Louise was angry again on his behalf.

A sudden loud tapping on the conservatory window startled her. She looked round to see the goose standing close up against the window and watching her: its head gleamingly white in the weak winter sunshine. Having gained her attention it then tapped its beak against the glass again.

“Tom!” she shouted - because why did she have to deal with all life’s problems? “What are we going to do with this goose?”

After a while, her husband came through and stared speechlessly at the bird for a long moment. Then a smile dawned on his face and broadened into a crocodile grin.

“What do you think?” he asked. “The vegan’s gone. And she’s left us with our Christmas dinner AND a way to pay her back for breaking our poor lad’s heart!”

He strode towards the conservatory door and opened it. The goose stumbled briefly over the threshold - not very stable on its scaly bright orange legs - but then regained its balance and came into the room quite confidently.

“It’s perfectly tame. Grab hold of it and hang onto it,” said her husband. “I’ll just get some of those dust sheets for the blood,” and he reached for the sharpest of their carving-knives.

The bird was perfectly tame. Louise caught hold of it easily enough and held it like a soft, plump pillow beneath her arm as Tom ferreted in the back of the lean-to for the dust sheets.

-----------------------

Adrian came galloping down the stairs shortly after nine - much earlier than expected. Louise heard him run along the corridor and then down into the cellar, before he galloped back and burst into the kitchen.

“Where’s the goose?” he shouted. “WHERE’S THE GOOSE, mum?”

Her gaze flicked involuntarily to the oven door and Adrian gave a howl of anguish.

“Nooooooooooooo!” He threw the door open.

“No! Don’t worry,” Louise reassured him. “That’s what your father wanted but I wasn’t sure it was what you wanted. So I drove the bird down to the lake ten minutes ago and let her go there...”

She watched her son worriedly. He looked rough: red-eyed and unkempt. But he breathed a loud, whistling sigh of relief at her words.

“Thank God,” said Adrian. “You did right, mum. You did the right thing.”

“I really don’t know if I did...”

Louise saw in her mind’s eye the tame white goose standing cold and solitary by the water’s edge while the local Canada and greylag geese milled obliviously on the water. The poor bird had never known freedom. Never had to forage for itself. Probably it would starve to death or be eaten by foxes. Maybe it would have been kinder to cut its throat as Tom had wanted. As she had driven away Louise thought she had heard a mournful honking.

Adrian turned slowly away and started back up the stairs. He paused halfway and then came back.

“Mum, I didn’t sleep much. Don’t feel too good now. Not hungry.”

She waited for what she sensed was coming next.

“Do you mind if I skip lunch? I think I can get some kip now if I put my head down.”

“What about Emma? Don’t you want to talk to your sister?”

“Oh, I can touch base with her later, when I wake up.”

“Your father will be disappointed...”

“Why do you always do that, ma?”

“What?”

“Never say that YOU will be disappointed?”

Why didn’t she? She couldn’t say.

Tom took it philosophically: “So no daughter, no turkey, no substitute goose and now no son at the Christmas luncheon table. Still, look on the bright side: at least the bitch left a veggie-burger in the fridge for us!”

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Late afternoon, and Louise walked to the lake with her son. The soft grey sky lightened to rose where the setting sun gilded the water.

“You seem chirpier? Did you get a chat with Em?”

“Yeah. She’s a wise, witchy woman sometimes.” Adrian smiled reflectively.

“It’s nice that she’s having lunch with that poor Chinese student, isn’t it? Poor girl though: separated from her baby since September. Not seeing her again before she goes back to Beijing in June.” Louise shook her head at the memory.

They heard the honking before they reached the lake. A loud and confidently strident noise.

“Sounds like our Sarah!”

The geese were being fed, despite strict notices forbidding this activity. A man with a push-chair broke off crusts and handed them to a toddler who dropped them haphazardly at the water’s edge. The Canada and greylag geese circled, pecking and flapping. In their midst, and confidently integrated, the white goose held her own, barging her way through the alien throng and snatching greedily at the bread.

“Well, she looks ok, doesn’t she? Chloë would be pleased.” Louise dropped the girl’s name into the conversation for the first time, to try to gauge Adrian’s reaction. He blanked her.

They walked on and did the tour of the lake. On the way back, with darkness already falling, the geese - now calm - had left the shore and headed out to the island for the night. Sarah’s white body gleamed amidst the darker birds.

 “You know I had a weird dream when I dozed off earlier,” said Adrian. “I dreamed I was back here by the lake. It was spring. Lovely day. No more masks or COVID shit -”

“Oh, look,” cried Louise. “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s poor Bill Sanderson and Libby. You know Minty died last week. She’d been ill for ages, some sort of cancer. I must say something to them. He doesn’t look well either, does he?”

“That’s Libby? Old Libby “four-eyes” from primary school who used to come round with those bunches of sunflowers for me? She’s changed hasn’t she?”

They merged paths with the greying old father and his bright flame-haired daughter in her plum-coloured velvet coat.

“All my condolences Bill. It must be so hard, particularly at this time of year.”

“Ah, Louise, thank you, bless you. But it was a blessing at the end, you know? And I’ve got the dearest girl in the world to see me through.”

His mouth voiced platitudes, his dim, narrow eyes told a more harrowing tale. No need to voice that tale to those, like Louise, who had already learned it. She returned banalities almost on autopilot, while keeping a keener attention on the more interesting conversation developing between Adrian and Libby walking behind them.

“...and had a really weird dream about that white goose. I was back here in the spring and that same goose had a Canada goose mate and a whole family of the most weird looking cross-bred chicks.”

“Well, that happens, you know,” his mother heard Libby saying in her sweetly serious voice. “You can get these hybrids. There used to be a couple of them here for quite a while.”

“But that’s not all,” Adrian’s voice sunk lower, and his mother had to strain to hear more. “That’s not all. I was with someone. A girl I recognised and seemed to remember from so long ago. It was like some part of me had never left her and been with her ever since then, just waiting for -”

And here her son’s voice sank to inaudibility. A soft, sweet laugh came from the girl.

“In the midst of death, we are in life,” thought Louise.