Nativity

"Morning Mrs. M!" I called out as I was crossing the street. Terry's mum looked up, she'd been pushing her wheeled shopping basket up on to the curb, and waved. I hurried over, nearly slipping on a patch of ice, then nearly tripping over a paving stone that the days of freezing and thawing had lifted. "Need a hand, Mrs. M?" I said, skidding to a halt.
"Oh thank-you dear, you can push the trolley. We're just waiting for Terry, now."
"Oh, is he with you?" I had mixed feelings about seeing Terry again; shortly after the exchange student had left he'd asked me if I liked manacles, and I really hadn't liked the suggestive tone the conversation had taken.
"He will be shortly dear, he's just picking some things up for the church."
That startled me a little, neither Terry nor his mum were particularly religious as far as I knew.
"Oh, are you helping out this year then?" I tried for diplomatically neutral, but even to my ears I sounded nosey. Terry's mum kindly answered anyway.
"Well, it wasn't my idea," she said, pointing to the bench at the bus-stop and indicating that she intended to sit down. "Agnes down at the WI has been mithering me for weeks now to do something to give back to the community. I've told her, over and over again, that I do plenty for the community but that it goes unnoticed."
I wasn't sure that bombing crack-dens and forcing talk-radio presenters into nervous breakdowns actually went unnoticed for all they gave back to the community, but I wasn't about to interrupt Terry's mum when she was explaining.
"So when she brought the new vicar in to pester me as well, I felt I'd better step up and do my bit."
She smiled at me, doing her twinkly-white-haired-old-granny-how-lovable routine and not fooling me for an instant. The new vicar probably hadn't had anyone warn him what a bad idea it was to involve Terry's mum with projects, and wouldn't have heard about her relic-collecting trip to Italy that's still causing international incidents every three or four months.
"So what are you helping out with then?" I said, looking around for Terry.
"The nativity scene in front of the church."
I saw Terry. Walking quite quickly, looking very nervous, holding a baby. He checked the road and hurried across, spotting us at the bus-stop. He looked relieved to see his mother, and turned white a sheet when he saw me. He kept on coming though.
"Mum," he said, holding the baby out like it was red-hot.
"Put it in the trolley, dear," said Terry's mum. "Did you get the right gender this time?"
"This time?" I couldn't help myself, the words just escaped from my lips.
"Oh yes, the last two he's picked up have both been girls. Fancy, as if baby Jesus was a girl! I told him, if he gets it wrong this time I'll take him down to the maternity ward and make him pick one out from there instead."
"Mrs. M, isn't this... isn't this, well, kidnapping?"
"No." She stood up and started pushing the trolley away. "Kidnapping would require me sending a ransom note, or never returning the child. I'm just borrowing it, for Christmas, and starring it in a nativity scene. If anything, this is just movie-making."
Terry tugged my arm, so that he and I fell slightly behind his mother.
"She's had me steal reindeers from the zoo, too," he whispered. "And there's three confused old men from the local shelter in the living room."
"Terry, you can't let her steal babies!" I was trying to whisper, but I was getting worked up. He shushed me.
"She isn't really. The baby'll go into the nativity scene this evening, just before the carol service, and then I've got to tip the police off. It'll be back with it's parents before the end of the day, and the new vicar will be doing all the explaining."
I stared, first at Terry, then at his mother.
"Your mother's a wonderful woman," I said heavily. "I'm sure there's a good reason for everything she does, and I'm so glad it rarely involves me."

A day at the zoo

I looked around the zoo cafeteria while I sipped my coffee. The coffee was actually nice, there was a decent depth of flavour to it and it hadn't been boiled or microwaved to death. I sighed, very quietly, to myself with pleasure, and watched the small queue snake its way through the pasta bakes and packaged sandwich chillers to the till.
Terry sat down opposite me with a much louder sigh and a styrofoam cup of instant coffee he'd coaxed out of a vending machine. He looked at me, and his usually sad face looked slightly more miserable than normal.
"The penguins are loose," he said, staring into his little styrofoam cup. "They're all over the zoo."
"How did that happen then?"
"I don't know, but I bet it's got something to do with mum."
"What's got something to do with me?" Terry's mum bustled up holding a plastic cafeteria tray in both hands. On the tray was a china cup of tea, a small metal jug of milk and a baby penguin.
"That's a penguin, Mrs. Mossbrook," I said, pointing at it.
"Yes dear, it is. And it's outrageous too, they didn't have a button for it on the cash register so they said they couldn't let me have it! I said, 'Well, if you've not got a button for it then it must be free.' They didn't like that one bit."
"You're not going to eat it, are you mum?" Terry looked horrified.
"Of course not, but I thought it'd make a nice souvenir from the zoo. We can put it in the bath to begin with, and then set the paddling pool up outside and put it in there eventually. It's only one little penguin after all, and I believe it'll make a good little guard-dog."
"I thought penguins prefer cold climates?" I said, almost as though I were talking to myself. I knew better than to upset Terry's mum.
"We'll use ice water for the swimming pool, dear, don't you worry about that. And I think Gladys at the WI has some contacts in the fishmongers, so I can probably get the fish quite cheap too."
Terry had reached over and was stroking the penguin with a far-away look in his eyes.
"See?" said Terry's mum to me. "It'll be good for him to have a pet. He's been moping around ever since we lost that exchange student."
"Er... lost?" I said, not knowing what to think.
"Yes, he passed away quite unexpectedly. A great shame, and I don't know how Terry's going to tell the student's mother. Especially since she doesn't speak any English."
"Right, right you are Mrs. Mossbrook," I said sitting back and wondering for the first time if I'd been blind to all these machinations when Terry and I were just kids.
"It's quite alright dear, now be a love and go and close the cafeteria doors."
I looked at her quizzically.
"There are penguins everywhere," she said. "I let the tigers out to clean them up."

Airs and Graces

"You look very smart," said Terry's mum, straightening my tie and flicking at some invisible speck of dust on my lapels. I was wearing my only suit, the one I'd last worn to a funeral, and it seemed rather more strained than smart to me, as it had clearly shrunk while hanging in the wardrobe. Terry, stood next me so that we formed an abbreviated police line-up, was also wearing a suit, but his looked as though it fit, and was very definitely smart. His expression suggested he'd rather be upstairs looking after the exchange student manacled to the bedroom wall however.
"Thank-you again for coming with me," said Terry's mum, "it's very good of you boys to give up an evening to chaperone me." Her eyes twinkled mischievously, and she turned in a swirl of silk and taffeta and picked her sequined handbag up from the kitchen table, and led the way out to the car.
"Do you think mum's overdone it a bit?" asked Terry in a low voice. "A bit of a... well, a painted jezebel?"
I dug him in the ribs and heard the fabric on my suit stretch warningly. "No, Terry," I whispered back. "And let her have her fun, it's a society ball. How often do we get invites to things like this?"
"Mum gets them all the time," he said, still sotto voce. "Normally she just sends something inappropriate back, like a Get Well Soon card."
I shrugged, and hurried forwards to hold the car door open for his mother.

The society ball was being held at Foxworth Hall, 'a stately pile' as Terry's mum described it, not far from Richmond. Terry was driving, and being chivvied on by his mum who felt that he wasn't being aggressive enough on the road. I'd found it funny until she'd grabbed the steering wheel to swerve the car close enough to a cyclist to force them off the road and into a ditch. She turned round in her seat to look at me, and said,
"One of those bastards nearly ran me down during the war!"
"That's a long time to hold a grudge, Mrs. M," I replied.
Terry drew up the gravelled drive too fast, with sprays of gravel flying out from under the wheels and onto the manicured lawns, and had to execute a hand-brake turn in the turning circle at the end of the drive. Gravel spattered against stained glass windows and antique brickwork, and Terry's mum giggled girlishly. A slightly startled looking footman in brick-red livery with gold and silver frogging approached the car cautiously, his hand held protectively in front of his face, and opened the door for Mrs. M. She got out, somehow contrived to take his arm, and marched him back up to the Hall and the grand entrance. Terry and I followed, a valet appearing from out of nowhere to take the keys and park the car somewhere out of sight.

The ball appeared to be in full swing when we entered; the room was full of elderly gentlemen and ladies of a certain demeanour. The tall, saturnine gentlemen at the doors announced us as "Mrs. Mossbrook and gigolos" which made me double over with laughter and Terry's jaw drop as far as his knees, and then we were in and expected to be socialising.
I worked my way slowly around the room; at the far end was a seven-piece band at the side of an inlaid dance-floor (to distinguish it from the expensive parquet of the main floor). A few couples were dancing slowly to a rhumba. Just far away enough from the band to be tempting but still out of reach were the long buffet tables laden with appetisers, and amuse-bouche. A couple of ice-sculptures slowly melted, and a couple of butter sculptures melted faster in the middle of the dishes. I laid some vol-au-vents and cocktail sausages on a small bone-china plate and used this an excuse to refuse to dance with anyone. After the buffet table was the bar, with a couple of red-liveried barmen mixing cocktails to order, and on the other side of the room were some small tables and high-backed chairs, mostly filled by the most elderly of the guests.

Terry appeared at my elbow, looking a little dishevelled.
"Have you seen mum anywhere?" he said.
I frowned, and scanned the room. I couldn't see her anywhere. "She was talking to the bloke with the walrus moustache," I said, and then pointed. "But he's over there now. And before that she was with a tall bloke with black trousers--"
Terry sighed, as most of the men there were wearing black trousers, and only a handful were noticeably short.
"Every time I see her," he said, "she's leaving the room with another bloke on her arm. I don't know what she's up to."
I almost asked him if it mattered, and then I realised that it might just, especially if we had to leave in a hurry.
"You look a bit scruffier than when you arrived," I said instead. Terry looked harried all of a sudden.
"Yes," he said. "This ghastly woman keeps pursuing me and trying to show me the guest bedrooms. Apparantly they're just through that door over there." He pointed, just as the door opened and Terry's mum came in, with a short, military man limping behind her.
"Good grief," said Terry.
"Quite!" I said. "Isn't that Viscount Finchley?"
"Oh dear gods, what is she up to?"
"I don't know," I said, watching as she abandoned the luckless Viscount and swept up another man, this one wearing a sparkling white jacket, "but unless I'm seeing things, she's just managed to pick up Lord Fullhame."
The crowd moved and swirled like smoke in a gentle breeze and Terry's mum and the Lord disappeared from our view again. Terry suddenly looked panicked and managed to disappear himself, and a tall woman that made me think of a Great Dane strode past me with a determined set to her jaw. I smiled to myself, and wandered back to the bar for another Pink Lady.

"Nobody is to leave this room!" announced a stentorian voice suddenly, and a Rottweiler the size of a sheep pushed past me and raced to the buffet table. At the entrance to the hall stood a tall man wearing a police uniform, with a shorter, attractive woman at his side.
"Miss Flava will be taking your details from you, and no-one will be leaving until they have spoken to her."
The man was clearly Inspector Playfair, but what on earth was he doing here?

The room erupted into motion, with ladies screaming genteely and fainting wherever they could be sure of being caught. Some of the men were clearly more worried about the presence of the police, and so more than a couple of the ladies ended up on the floor, their saviours having already headed for the bedrooms and the toilets to lose the incriminating evidence.
"There's a bear at the buffet table," brayed a young man with Oscar Wilde hair, pointing at the Rottweiler.
"A bear? Where?" yelled an older man with a silver goatee and a slight shake that made me think he had Parkinson's. "Fetch me my gun, there's ladies in the room!"
"Anyone who shoots Calamity will be answering to me!" shouted Playfair, but only the people closest to him could hear him over the noise. Meanwhile, silver goatee had found a couple of kebab skewers and a toasting fork on the buffet table and was arming himself ready to tackle the dog.
Miss Flava stalked across the parquet floor, her three-inch stiletto heels stabbing down into the wood leaving expensive holes, and seized silver goatee by his neck and pinned him against an ice sculpture.

"Time to go, dear," said Terry's mum at my elbow. "There's a back way out, through the butler's pantry."
We hustled through, Terry's mum in front of me, pushing Terry along, having found him somehow as we crossed the ballroom, and found ourselves in the gravelled car park at the back of the hall.
"What the hell?" I managed as we piled into the car, and Terry started it.
"Oh, it's like that every year," said Terry's mum happily. "But I think I've had my fill of Heirs and Graces now."
Terry drove off, and I pretended I couldn't see the tears in his eyes.

Keepin' it real

Terry's mother came into the kitchen and dumped three plastic carrier bags on the kitchen table. They thudded heavily and hollowly, as though there was something wooden in there. I was sat at the table, drinking microwaved Nescafe again, wishing I had the courage to tell Terry how revolting it was, while Terry was busy upstairs with a power drill. Every so often I'd hear the whine of the drill as he made holes in the bedroom wall.

"It's nice to see you again, dear," said his mother, opening the cupboard under the sink and pulling out what seemed to be a heavy bag, one of the 5kg bags of potting compost according to the bright green label on the front.

"And you too, Mrs. M," I said taking another sip of the coffee and wishing I hadn't. "Have you got plants in there then?" I tapped one of the carrier bags.

"Oh goodness, no!" she said, and laughed, a little redness coming into her cheeks almost as though she were embarrassed. This was the woman who'd effectively stolen relics from all the biggest churches in Italy, so I knew she didn't embarrass easily. "Those are elf-heads, I've just been down to Santa's Ghetto and beheaded all the elves I could find."

I had the sensation that the conversation was starting to slip away from me, which happens disturbingly often around Terry's mother. Occasionally I wonder if microwaving the Nescafe produces hallucinogenic compounds in it, which would explain a lot, but I've had a food-scientist friend check this out for me, and she swears it only produces carcinogenic compounds.

"Don't you mean Santa's Grotto?" I said hesitantly, still unsure if I shouldn't beat a hasty retreat and help Terry install the manacles.

"Those were the days," she said, sighing. "No, it's Santa's Ghetto now. He didn't pay the dealers in time, and they've moved in. Apparantly it's a bit nicer than your typical crack-house, and Santa's little helpers are now Santa's little whores."

"Dealers?" I said, mystified. "Why does Santa need dealers? Is this a distribution thing?"

"No!" said Terry's mother. "It was the reindeer. They couldn't keep up that kind of speed for his deliveries after he cut the rounds down to just one night a year, so he started buying in speed in bulk to keep them going. That was all fine until McDonald's started taking market share away from him with the free toys they gave out with their unHappy Meals; once they'd got a core base of kids who believed in Ronald McDonald but not Santa it all snowballed, and suddenly Santa's all short of hard currency, and his dealers want paying for the last 50kg of speed."

"...you're saying that McDonald's have disenfranchised Santa?" I was staring at her in shock; I hadn't blinked for the last thirty seconds and my eyes were starting to prickle, and my jaw had dropped open of its own volition.

"Not really, dear, that's a bit simplistic. Bad business decisions did for Santa in the end, but McDonald's did their bit too. You have to admire them really, they're selling meat that's come from animals forced to eat corn that they can't digest and don't want to eat to people who really don't want to eat what they've just bought. Somehow they're managing to make money from poisoning both sides of their food chain!"

I gulped my Nescafe, and the bitter taste helped restore me. I gagged a little, and peered into the nearest carrier bag, expecting to see a bleeding, severed head. Instead, I saw a hollow wooden painted head, and realised that these were from the wooden elves that lined the entrance to Santa's ghetto/grotto.

"What are you doing with these, Mrs. M? Are you going to turn them into plant-pots?"

"No dear, I'm filling them with gunpowder --" she tapped the bag of what I'd thought was potting compost -- "and shrapnel. I'll replace them later on this evening, after I've put the radio detonators in."

"Uh, pardon?"

"The dealers are on my turf, dear. The ladies from the WI are getting nervous about them, and they've all started carrying."

"Carrying?" This conversation had definitely gotten away from me again.

"Knives mostly, but Gladys, who's 81 next month, has got nunchucks strapped to her zimmer frame, and a couple of rice flails in her handbag, and Doris, who does some very dubious things to her sponge cakes to get them to rise has been saying that her nephew can tool her up a treat. It can't go on like this, so I'm dealing with the dealers. So to speak." She chuckled quietly, in just the way that mad old ladies planning on bombing a crack-house don't in the movies.

"Where's Terry, dear?" she said, after taking the first elf-head out and starting to shovel gunpowder into it.

"Upstairs, in the bedroom I think," I said, as the power drill whined again. "Putting in manacles."

"Oh good," said Mrs. M. meaningfully. "I'm sure they'll come in very useful."

Terry's mother

Terry had invited me round for coffee, so I was sat at the breakfast counter drinking a microwaved Nescafe very slowly when his mother came in clutching a Louis Vuitton suitcase and some carrier bags that rattled.

"How was your holiday, mum?" asked Terry. He put down his cup of coffee and went to hug her. She pushed the suitcase into his arms, and I took advantage of being ignored to pour the coffee into the nearby biscuit jar. Terry's idea of coffee had apparantly been acquired during a stay at Guantanamo Bay.

"Well, it was nice," said his mother, sighing. She's in her early eighties now, a little bit under five foot, and has fever-bright eyes that never seem to miss anything going on around her. She's also very competetive and hates to lose at anything. She's been banned from all of the local Bingo Halls. They usually say she's too aggressive a player and makes the other patrons feel nervous. She says that she's just a little outspoken about infractions of the rules. We're not sure: there have been a large number of stabbings at Bingo Halls she's been too, and we think it's a little suspicious that all of these little old ladies just happen to have fallen awkwardly onto their knitting.

"Where did you go, Mrs. Mossbrook?" I said. Terry hadn't mentioned that his mother had gone on holiay.

"Italy," she said. "It was a tour of churches, a religious thing I think. Lots and lots of saints. It wasn't my idea of course, but Agnes from number 30 didn't want to go on her own so I said I'd go."

Terry had put the suitcase by the washing machine ready for unloading later and was picking up the carrier bags. They clacked and rattled in an oddly familiar way.

"What's in here, mum?" he said, opening one. I saw what looked like a human leg bone fall out onto the table, little crumbs of dried mud falling off it.

"Oh, that Agnes," she said. "Every church we went in she had to get herself a little scraping of earth from the grave of whatever saint was buried there."

I started to grin, and Terry turned pale.

"Of course, I couldn't let her win," continued his mother looking as smug as the cat that found the cream, "so I collected relics from each church."

"Relics?" said Terry, and I knew he was hoping that these would turn out to be gift-shop souvenir replicas.

"Yes," said his mother. "I've got a bone from every saint. The carrier bag at the bottom has the one I got from some church in the Vatican; that one was a bugger to get out, I can tell you. Finally I shopped Agnes and let the swiss guard take her away while I got out of there."

Terry sat down heavily in a chair, his head in his hands; I started laughing; and his mother bustled over to the coffee-jar to microwave some more Nescafe.