In a few days, we’re flying off to spend the holidays in Brazil. For the first time in forever, the family will not be subjected to the bizarre (to them) Christmas traditions of my English upbringing. Before I leave, I’m casting a long look back to tell a childhood story.
The Nativity scene figures were much handled and a little grubby: cut-outs of plywood with colored pictures of all the usual suspects pasted on, and a block of wood at the base to keep them upright. Joseph had a red-blond beard and shoulder length hair. You couldn’t tell Mary’s hair color under her blue veil, but her complexion was definitely Anglo-Saxon. Baby Jesus and his manger formed a single piece. No scrawny, red-faced new-born, this Jesus was a plump pink-and-white cherub. The shepherds looked like West Country rustics straight out of a Thomas Hardy novel. Even the Wise Men, with their exotic headgear and richly colored robes, looked Southern European at most.
When we were living in Leeds in the fifties, my mother set out the Nativity scene on the table just inside the front door about two weeks before Christmas. There the figures sat, next to the squat black bakelite telephone, until Twelfth Night, when they were placed back into a large cardboard box, along with our crepe paper streamers, threadbare tinsel and assorted Christmas Tree ornaments. Although our decorations were tawdry, the house always looked bare and cheerless after they were put away. Christmas was the apex of our year. We had little money, but at Christmas there always seemed lavish quantities of good food, and we took endless pains in selecting and wrapping presents for each other. The postman brought parcels from distant uncles and aunts, as well as greeting cards that we strung on ribbon across the chimney breast, adding festive color to the room.
In 1954, we shared Christmas Day with a stranger. The rector at St. Aidan’s had appealed to the congregation to offer hospitality to an overseas student. Daddy signed us up. When we heard the front door open upon my father’s return from picking up our guest at his lodgings—the trams didn’t run on Christmas Day—we all crushed into the narrow hallway to look at him.
Mac was a big man, very black, and surprisingly old for a student. My mother stepped forward to shake Mac’s hand. “It’s lovely to have you. Let me take your coat.” Then in a hissed aside to us, “Children, close your mouths!”
Mac struggled out of his too-small raincoat and unwound a hand-knitted scarf from his neck. His black suit was shiny with wear, and the grey-white shirt was frayed at the cuffs and collar points. He wore no tie. Strangest of all was the fact that on his feet he had—not shoes—but brown leather sandals over thick blue socks. As we took all this in, Mac looked around, his glance resting for a long moment on the Nativity scene. Then he spoke, his deep voice sounding like warm chocolate. “I thank you so much. You are all so kind, so kind.”
“Right! Now we can eat!” My father rubbed his hands together jovially and hustled us into the dining room.
My mother always excelled herself at Christmas. The roast turkey, the smell of which had been driving us mad all morning, was perfection, with stuffing in one end and sausage in the other. My father carved with the delicacy of a surgeon, sending each plate with its allotment of wafer-thin slices of breast down to Mum’s end of the table for Brussels sprouts, mashed and roast potatoes, bread sauce and gravy, before it found its ultimate eager recipient.
“Mac, would you say Grace?” I blushed with mortification. We never said Grace before meals. Dad was putting our guest on the spot. Who knew if Mac was even a Christian?
“Yes, sir. I’m happy to.” And Mac didn’t just say Grace; he sang it, in a warm emphatic bass that filled the room. “Thank you for the food we eat; thank you for the world so sweet; thank you for the birds that sing; thank you, God, for everything!”
“Right! Now, tuck in, everyone! Happy Christmas!” Dad led by example.
“Happy Christmas!” We all chorused back.
“Mac, do you have enough gravy? Stuffing?” My mother fussed over our guest.
“Thank you, I have everything in abundance and so delicious! I’ve never seen so much food!”
There was silence for a while, except for the sound of silverware on plates.
“Mac, I’d love to know more about your life. How did you end up at Leeds University?” Mum asked.
Mac chewed thoughtfully before he responded. “I was chosen for a scheme to train Nigerians to take over when independence comes. The colonial government decided I must come here to qualify as an engineer, so I can help build roads and bridges. So here I am.”
“Well, independence is a long way off, surely!” my father declared. “Rushing it would be a disaster—just look what happened in India!”
“Tom, please, let’s not talk politics on Christmas Day. Go on, Mac. How did you come to be chosen?”
“I suppose I was chosen a long time ago. When I was sixteen, I went to work for an officer in the colonial government in Lagos. He was an engineer. I was just a houseboy to start with, but he was very kind. He taught me how to use a slide rule and how to draw—blueprints, plans, things of that sort. When my engineer was called back to England to serve in the army during the War, he recommended me for a job as a draftsman in his department. So I worked and worked. I got a house. I got married. My children were born. I was very happy. I didn’t want to come, but they say it is a great honor. I must come for my country’s sake.”
There was an awkward pause.
“All right, who else wants to ask Mac a question?” Mum looked brightly round the table.
“What are your children’s names?” I whispered.
Mac leaned down towards me. “Tandy is my eldest. She is nine years old. Then Shandra, seven years old. Then my youngest, Mary. I think she might be about your age. How old are you?”
“I’m five.”
“Mary is five too! Isn’t that wonderful! And her name is like yours—Mary, Marian. Yes, very similar!” Mac’s smile stretched his face.
After Christmas pudding, we pulled crackers, with me hunting under the table for the tiny charms and corny jokes that spilled out. Mac followed our example, good naturedly donning his paper hat and chuckling softly at all these weird English traditions. At three o’clock with the light already fading, we turned on the radio for the Queen’s speech. That year, as we listened reverently to Her Majesty’s tinny voice, the reference to “all my subjects in the countries of the Commonwealth” rang with new immediacy. We turned to stare at Mac, our very own Commonwealth subject.
Once we had raised our glasses in the Loyal Toast, we moved into the sitting room to lounge in sated stupor while waiting for the energy to tackle the washing up. Dad snored in his armchair, a paper crown rakishly tilted over one eye. My mother dozed in her chair on the other side of the fireplace. My brother and sister wandered off upstairs to examine the gifts they had received, and it seemed completely natural for me to climb up on Mac’s lap and nestle against his expansive chest. I picked up one of his large hands and turned it over. I was fascinated to note that the back was dark brown, almost black, but the palm was much lighter. Not as pale as my skin, but still quite a contrast. I squirmed around to reach for his face. I’m ashamed to say that, in my ignorance, I wanted to see if the color rubbed off. But as I touched his cheek, I froze. Two fat shiny tears were balanced on his lower lashes, and, as I watched, they slowly trailed down his cheeks.
We sat there in solemn stillness as the midwinter afternoon darkened into night. Eventually, at the summit of a snore, Dad jerked awake, blinked rapidly three times, and announced, “Time to do the washing up!”
We all pitched in to help with the dishes until Mum expelled us from the tiny kitchen. “It’s quicker if I do it myself – and safer!”
Then it was time for tea: mince pies and Christmas cake, a rich, dark and alcoholic fruit cake with a layer of marzipan on top and a shell of hard white icing. I proudly pointed out to Mac that I had been responsible for placing the tiny silver balls that spelled out “Merry Christmas” in a wavering line across the top.
All too soon, it was time for Daddy to take Mac back to his residence hall. We grouped again in the hall, replaying his arrival like a film running backwards. As Mac wrapped his scarf twice around his neck, his gaze swung over each of our faces and rested again on the Nativity figures on the table.
“Thank you so much. I will always remember your kindness.” And, lifting his arm in a salute that nearly brought down the streamers criss-crossing the ceiling, he was gone.
Boxing Day was more of an anticlimax than ever. The presents we had ripped into so avidly the morning before seemed commonplace; the cold turkey and left-over vegetables, unappetizing. I wandered around the house looking for something to do. Finally, I started playing idly with the Nativity figures, inventing dialogues for the characters as I moved them around.
“Joseph, go and see if the innkeeper has a room yet. The baby’s getting cold.” Joseph dutifully trotted off behind the telephone. I noticed that the paper was separating from the plywood on the Jesus and manger figure. I worked at it absentmindedly, with the same compulsion that left my cuticles in shreds, and exposed pink skin under peeling shoulders in the summer.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” My father’s voice thundered from the stairs above me. He was on his way down, looking over the banister. My eyes went from his face to the object in my hand. Jesus’ head was gone, as well as most of his fat little torso. The words came out of my mouth without thinking.
“I wanted to see if he was the same color underneath.”
