A Time For Family

By the time the smoke had cleared, literally and metaphorically, the dining table looked like a spillage in a matchstick factory. It was hard to tell where the cranberry sauce ended and the blood began. I was trying to sit up and look around the place, but I must have broken some ribs and every time I moved, pain ravaged my chest.

Across the room, in the doorway, I could see something. Something I recognized. Someone. I wiped my face, blinked tears from my eyes.

Mum was standing there, her arms folded, looking over the carnage. She shook her head slowly and rolled her eyes, then disappeared into the hall. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back.

        When I opened them again, maybe a minute had passed. Maybe more. Maybe I slept. It was impossible to know. The pain in my ribs seemed to have dulled, but then I tried to move and it shot back through me. I swore and then I heard a voice close by.

        “Easy there,” said mum.

        I turned my head to see her, in her apron, rubber gloves on, dustpan in one hand, brush in the other, cloths and cans of spray and scrubbing brushes sticking out of the apron pocket. She surveyed the damage and sighed.

        “I don’t know why I bother,” she said.

**

Uncle Gerry had been needling dad all night. It was what he did. He couldn’t help himself after a few drinks, especially if he had an audience. The fact that he was both older and balder than dad didn’t stop him commenting on my father.

        For his part, dad tried to ignore it. He hadn’t gotten along with Uncle Gerry for years. Apparently they were best of friends when they were younger. Inseparable, mum says when I asked her about it, but dad says she’s misremembering. He says Uncle Gerry’s always been unbearable. Only he uses less charitable language. He’s my uncle though, and I like my cousins, so I try to not get involved.

        Madeline had brought her boyfriend again. She brought a different boyfriend to every family gathering. Mum had even specifically told everyone it was spouses only this year. “Real family,” as she put it. Madeline always seems to think they’ll last. Maybe this one will. Tom. Seems a bit dim to me. Madeline’s going to walk all over him.

As is tradition, dinner was late and people grew restless. A few too many drinks were had by some. But then, as is also tradition, when it was time for us all to sit down at the table, the spread was more than impressive.

        There was a little scuffling for seats. People want to get near the pigs in blanket usually. Or the gravy.  

Dad took his carving knife and fork and held them both, blade up, beside him, pointing upwards. This was his usual ceremonial gesture. “It is time for turkey,” he intoned in a deep voice, before pushing the two-pronged carving fork deep into the back of the turkey.

        The turkey screamed and bucked wildly. Its head unfolded from beneath it and thrashed from side to side as it fumbled with its crispy wings for the handle of the fork.

        Dad was frozen in place, the carving knife still poised ready to strike. His eyes were wide and his lips moved slowly, silently. He really did look like he was conducting a ceremony now.

        “For the love of god,” Uncle Gerry shouted. “Stab that thing.”

        It was at this point that the first potato exploded. Creamy puffs of fluffy potato flew in all directions like molten clouds erupting from a vegetable volcano. Madeline screamed as a piece stuck to the side of her face.

We’d barely had time to register what had happened when others started to go off in the potato bowls at either end of the table.

        I leaned back and ducked a little, covering my face with my hands. I could hear Uncle Gerry bellowing. “Hell no!” he shouted, and something crashed down hard on the table. I think it was his plate.

The turkey had reared back, golden brown and shimmering, its wings spread wide, talons ripping at my cousin Barry, who was holding his plate up like a shield between them, slapping it in the direction of the frenzied bird.

Bacon uncurled from around sausages and twisted snakelike across the table, hissing and spitting fat. Sprouts launched themselves into the air and rained down like stinky green meteorites.

Madeline’s boyfriend, whatever his name was, was helping her from her chair, retreating towards the door, as carrots shot into his side. Madeline looked to be unconscious in his arms, her head thrown back, a potato mask plastered across half her face.

The twins were yelping and laughing, swinging cutlery and glasses. “Look at that,” yelled Davey gleefully, a piece of broccoli speared on the end of his fork. Billy threw a glass at a sausage as it jumped up onto its end and bent, pointing towards him.

The turkey had managed to free itself from the fork in its back and turned now on dad, who was still holding the carving knife and brandished it towards the roasted bird as it let out a blood curdling squawk and leaped towards him, wings flapping, tearing with talons and beak. Dad stepped backwards and tripped on his chair leg and the bird was upon him.

I ducked under the table and found my cousin Bernadette cowering under there, crying and shaking uncontrollably. I had to leave her though. I had to help dad.

I crawled to the head of the table and picked up the broken off stem of a wine glass that was lying nearby. I thrust myself forwards, low and hard and fast, digging the broken end into the back of the turkey. It screamed and bucked, twisted, and clawed at my face. I got my hand up just in time for it to slash a deep gash across my wrist. I fell backwards and to the side and rolled onto my back in time to see the bird, wings wide, coming down on me from above. For a moment, it was all I could see, an inevitable darkness. I raised my arms and screamed.

A second passed.

I could see the ceiling.

Billy stood over me, leaning back, cheering with a mixture of glee and rage, fists raised up to the sky like he’d just put one between the posts at Twickenham. He hurdled me before I could think of what to say and dived at the bird as it turned towards him.

I turned and rolled, and that was when the table came over and the edge landed on my chest.

I fought on both sides, pushing with my hands, kicking with my feet, as a rasher of bacon slapped across the side of my face, coiling backwards and striking again and again. Something sharp stabbed into my ankle. I was pinned and starting to panic blindly. Then I heard my name.

“Give me you hand.”

Dad took hold of me and pulled backwards, falling to the floor as I finally came free. I don’t know who, if anyone, lifted the table or what happened, but I was free. Gravy whipped the wall above my head. I saw Uncle Gerry swinging a chair at what appeared to be a gaping mouth formed out of stuffing. He looked across at me and shouted my name. That’s the last thing I remember.

**

And so that’s how I got to be here, and now mum’s leaning over me, dabbing at the gravy on the wall, tutting. “It’s not going to come out,” she says.

        I reach up and take hold of her apron. “Where’s dad?” I ask.

        “He’s asleep in his chair,” she tells me. “You don’t think he’ll help with this?”

        “Mum,” I say to her, feeling that I want to sleep again, but that I also have something important to say or to ask.

        “Just one Christmas without incident,” she’s saying to herself, giving up on the gravy and pushing herself up to her full height. “Is that too much to ask?”