A Christmas Lunch (Apologies to Dylan Thomas)
The winter sun crept apathetically above the horizon, bringing a weak and insipid light to the grey and sleeping town. The clatter and clink of milk bottles in their crates and the hobnailed steps of the milkman and the clip clop of his horse on the cobbled street were the dawn chorus that drew the people from their beds.
Mr and Mrs Pugh had been married for as long as neither liked to remember. They were childless, loveless and friendless and occupied a charmless shabby cottage on the outskirts of Llareggub. Their wedding night, all those years ago, had been a total failure, and their one and only attempt at consumation was so disagreeable to them both that they never tried it again. After that, their relationship had gone rapidly downhill and where there had once been a degree of tolerance of each other, there was only a thinly disguised, and very sincere, antipathy.
At first light they both crawled out of bed and dressed ready for the day. Mr Pugh in his blacker than black worn out suit that he wore every day of the year, and Mrs Pugh in her spinsterly and tired dark blue frock and wrinkled lisle stockings that had been repaired so many times there was more repair than stocking. Her black and moth eaten shawl was her only salty to winter. They ate their porridge in silence, Mrs Pugh reading a worn out copy of the People’s friend, tut tutting at the contents, while Mr Pugh looked at his wife with a loathing that was more tangible than his porridge.
“It is Christmas eve Mrs Pugh” He said after a long silence.
Mrs Pugh regarded him over the tops of her half moon spectacles. “I know what day it is Mr Pugh” she replied venomously. Hatred hung in the dining room like an icicle.
There was a rat a tat at the front door, which spoiled the moment. Mr Pugh swallowed a lump of porridge and left the table. He opened the front door to see Willy Nilly the postman standing and holding out two envelopes. Mr Pugh took them, ignored the other hand held out by the postman, who hoped in vain for a christmas tip, and slammed the door without a word.
One envelope was addressed to him and the other to his wife. He laid it on the table in front of her, hurried back to his end of the table and sat down to his cold and meagre breakfast. He slit open the envelope with a grubby thumbnail feigning surprise at the contents. He withdrew the christmas card with flourish and read the greeting inside. “To Mr Pugh from Mr Pugh” it read. He smiled. “Aren’t you going to open yours dear” he said.
“No Mr Pugh, I know what is in it. I’ll keep it until next year.” “Again” she added without a smile.
Breakfast over, Mr Pugh donned his mole black bowler hat and set out down the hill. He was the dreaded schoolmaster, and also the chapel warden in Llareggub, a post that he had held for a decade, even though no-one used the church other than for sleeping off a night at the Sailor’s Arms, or for their last and permanent sleep. The residents of the town had long ago lost any use for god, a mutual arrangement that suited both parties. In school holidays Mr Pugh went to the chapel each day, mostly to escape from Mrs Pugh. He would exchange greetings with the rueful and rudderless Reverend Eli Jenkins, dust and sweep and generally pretend that he was doing something useful, pottering slowly until it was time to trudge up the hill to his refrigerated and soulless home.
The sun sank with a sigh of relief and the town began its slide into velvet darkness once more.
It was getting dark as he passed the Sailor’s Arms, already there were the sounds of singing, fuelled by weak Welsh beer, flooding out into the street and bright light oozed from the dirty windows. Part of him yearned to join the revellers and share their evening journey into oblivion, but he knew that if he weakened his life would be even less worth living than it was already. So Mr Pugh walked on.
They were sitting in the freezing dining room, lit by a single candle, as they did every day, drinking a thin soup that Mr Pugh slurped noisily and Mrs Pugh slowly sipped from her spoon whilst glaring at Mr Pugh across the table. The only sound other than Mr Pugh’s slurping was the steady ticking of an ancient grandfather clock that had suffered the toxicity of the Pughs for generations, and yet still continued to function.
“You are a pig Mr Pugh.” said Mrs Pugh as she wiped a spot of soup from her withered and puckered lips with the edge of the table cloth. She drummed her taloned fingers on the bare table as she glared at him.
“Yes my dear.” Wheedled Mr Pugh, as he finished his meagre meal. He picked up the dishes and carried them to the scullery where he rinsed them in cold water, dried them on a greasy tea towel and placed them into the cupboard that held two cracked cups, one saucer, and two unmatched plates.
He sighed deeply and returned to the dining room to snuff out the candle leaving Mrs Pugh in darknesss. “Thankyou pig” she hissed.
“You are welcome my dear.”Mr Pugh wheedled and shuffled off to bed. He shivered as he lit the bedside candle, undressed and put on his grey flannel nightshirt and climbed between the cold grey sheets. He heard the heavy tread of Mrs Pughs large feet as she climbed the stairs to her own bedroom.
There had once been mice in the house but they, unlike Mrs Pugh, had voluntarily eaten the poison put down for them, death being preferable to life with the Pughs.
He picked up a dog eared book and began to read. The life of Doctor Crippen was the only book that he owned and he had read it so many times that he almost knew it by heart. He read a chapter before his eyelids drooped and the book fell to the floor. He forced his eyes open, blew out the candle and fell into a deep sleep.
Mrs Pugh let down her hair from its tightly packed snowball bun and and put on her cold and starched nightdress that came down to her ankles, climbed into bed without a shiver and fell asleep almost immediately.
Mr Pugh dreamed that he was murdering Mrs Pugh as he did every night, and each morning woke up feeling disappointed.
Mrs Pugh lay on her back and dreamed her own puritanical dreams, her mittened hands outside the bedclothes.
Mr Pugh woke with the Christmas Day dawn to the sound of the cracked bell of the chapel, and, left the house as usual. He walked down the hill into the town and was ignored by the women on their knees, scrubbing the worn front doorsteps eroded by time and elbow grease.
The few shops were closed for the day and the fishing boats were harboured and empty, bobbing gently on the grey and oily water.
His refuge, the chapel, was open and the Reverend was there on his knees, talking to a god that he had long ago abandoned and who had abandoned him. Mr Pugh sat and listened as Eli Jenkins continued to complain about his lot and cursing the godless town.
The day went by, no-one came; eventually the reverend, sloughed off his vestments and vanished, leaving Mr Pugh dozing and alone. Clouds of breath vented from the still solitary figure and the at last the cold seeped in waking him. It was time to go; he locked the church door and wandered slowly back up the damp cobbled street, passing warmly lit houses disgorging sounds of jollity and high spirits. The air was thick with the smell of coal fires but that faded along with the sounds of laughter and children.
Mrs Pugh was there, ready seated at the dining table, having prepared their evening meal. In the centre of the table was a saucepan contains some overcooked potatoes and scrawny roasted chicken that looked as if it had starved itself to death. A small and smoky coal fire burned in the grate, its flames too shy or too scared to dance.
There was very little meat to share, but Mr Pugh made an effort to strip the carcass of every morsel. His grip on the knife tightened as he regarded his harridan of a wife; enjoying the thought of impaling her. Instead he served her the potatoes and tiny portion of dry white meat and as a final insult drowned the poor offering in a thin brackish gravy.
He poured them each a small glass of sherry from a bottle that had been in the cupboard for a number of years, and raised his drink as a toast. “Merry Christmas Mrs Pugh.” he said, almost sincerely, and drank his stale sherry in one gulp..
Mrs Pugh’s stony face broke into a scowl and she sipped her drink with the disdain that she held for everything and everyone. She said nothing.
They ate their meal in silence, he, eating hungrily while she pecked at her meal like a sick bird, and as they did every night of their sad little lives, went to their separate beds, hoping to dream of better things.
“Goodnight my dear”
“Goodnight Pig”
The Sailors Arms emptied, the drunken men and women tottered out and sang all the way to their homes. Their voices thinned out as they went their merry ways. The lights in the houses flickered out one by one, and as the darkness enveloped the town, and it, along with the Pughs, drifted slowly into sleep.
