A Tale of Two Christmases

I didn't try for a photo. Richie would be embarrassed. The Pardoes could keep their odd rituals private. It made their welcome of us more touching.

More wine, and adjourning to the living room. "How do you go about opening presents?" I asked Richie.

Startled, he told me, "Someone passes you one with your name on it, you unwrap it and sound politely thankful whether you like it or not. How else?"

How indeed. Richie sat on the floor passing round items.

The Pardoe family gifts tended to the practical. The huge cylinder for Richie's mother turned out to be two cans of Dulux Weathershield paint. "You said the front door needed repainting and you wanted a brighter colour. So there's undercoat and red. That one's primer," Richie added as his mother struggled with a smaller round gift.

"Red front door? Are you sure?"

The siblings considered. "Easy to see in the dark," Suze concluded.

"Make it easy for people doing deliveries," Steve decided. "Yeah, go on, Rich."

"I'm not painting today! It's dark! And I'm drunk!" Laughter all round, not just because we were drunk.

Mrs Pardoe seemed charmed with her chocolates. Like Richie, I suspected she'd have no problem saying if she didn't like them. I liked her. She might have her own rigid quirks, but she clearly tried to keep her trio happy.

"I don't have much for you to unwrap," she apologised, handing out envelopes of cash to the three of them. "You'll have to go shopping in the Sales."

"That's all right, Mum. We only really want money, anyway." Steve was blunt, but accurate.

"Things will be cheaper after Christmas. Great idea," Mum, Richie said.

"Less crowded," Suze said. "Or I can shop online."

It turned into a new tradition, as for many families with adult children. Token gifts on the day, a shopping spree later in the holidays.

Suze and Ritchie were already curled up with their new (second-hand) books. I'd thought Richie bent himself into weird positions, but Suze was hanging upside down off the end of the sofa!

"Are you comfortable there?" I asked.

"Obviously. Or I'd move." Fair point.

Andy went out for a smoke, and returned to find all of us reading. "What's the plan for the rest of the day?"

"Leftovers for dinner. And cheese. You know where the microwave is," Richie said.

Steve asked, "Monopoly before, or after?"

"I'll need an early night," their mum warned. "No bedtime stories after ten."

I assumed the stories were rhetorical, but Suze counted on her fingers. "So we need to finish by about nine?"

"Best start now," Steve concluded.

Richie was already tugging the familiar red-and-white box out of the sideboard. I cleared the coffee table of excess paper and such.

Andy reached for a token. I pulled his arm back. "I bet they all have their favoured pieces."

As if on cue, Richie remarked, "Here's your hat, Steve. Dog for you, Suze. My boot. Mum, are you playing?"

"Yes, why not?"

"Iron, then. That's funny, seeing as you never do any."

Steve put his metal hat over the dog's head. "There. Horrible dog."

"Dogs are lovely! They don't like you because they're sensible," Suze protested.

"Now, now. Behave, children," Andy switched instantly to supervisor mode, deterring fights before they could start.

"Battleship and racing car for you two, then." I let Andy have the car. "There's the rules to read. None of this going round the board first, nothing on Free Parking, if you don't buy what you land on it gets auctioned -- but you can still join in the auction. Worry about mortgages and interest payments later. Eight. You roll to see who goes first."

The first couple rounds went normally, with people buying up brown, blue and pink properties and a station. Then Steve landed on a red.

"Nah, you can auction it off."

Suze had taken on the role of banker, and, now, auctioneer. "Two-twenty for this desirable property in London's Fleet Street. Hobnob with all the finest journalists! Hang out in their local pubs! Just down from the Old Bailey and the High Court! Two-twenty am I bid? No? Two-hundred then? One eighty?"

I would have just bought it, myself, but waited to see what happened. At one-twenty, Steve cracked and nodded.

"One-twenty, to myself at one-forty. Any advance on one-forty? One-sixty Steve."

"One-eighty," I said.

"Two hundred," Steve replied.

I didn't want to go over the asking price. I shook my head. "To Steve then, for two hundred, going, going, gone!" She slapped the table.

"All that, to save twenty quid?" Andy asked.

"It's a fair bit, when you only have £1500 to start with," he defended himself. "OK, one and a third percent, but it adds up." Impressive mental arithmetic skills.

"It's all about adding up," Suze agreed. "Especially with six players."

"Average of five properties each, we'll get. So every one counts."

On the next circuit of the board, I realised Steve was right. Competition to get a set of colours was going to be fiendish. Bond Street, classy dark green, went to Mrs Pardoe for seven hundred pounds, in the end. I couldn't compete, having spent over five hundred on a yellow and then been hit by Income Tax.

In fact, within two more rounds, it was clear Mrs Pardoe, Richie and Steve were the key contenders. I was short of money even to pay rent.

"You'll have to sell a property," Richie said, mock-sadly. "I can give you a fair price of £250 for that station."

His mother offered me three hundred for Euston Road. The blue was valued at one hundred. On the other hand, Andy might then sell me Old Kent Road, the cheapest square on the board, at a discount...

I passed my title deed to their mum.

"Thank you. I'll just buy two houses for each of them, for now."

"Eek." Richie squeaked, Suze too.

"Is ninety pounds rent so bad?"

"It's not. Two-seventy for three houses is, though."

"She never buys more than three houses. Unless she's running down the stock so other people can't have any."

"Don't you just use paper or something?"

"No, no! Creating a shortage of houses is the whole point! Stop other people making money."

To that end, having made an exchange with Andy, I put two houses on my browns, mortgaging the Electric Company to do so.

Of course, the two browns brought in less income than the three blues. I was holding on to a single yellow and pink, at least stopping anyone building there.

It kept me in the game, until I landed on Steve's reds with a house on each. Literally reds -- the Strand was OK, £90 down the drain, but rolling a three dumped me on Trafalgar Square, for another £100. I'd mortgaged Piccadilly already. Northumberland Avenue might be the most expensive pink, but only netted me £80 from a mortgage. What were my chances of reaching Go for £200, without incurring any costs along the way?

Zilch. I landed on Mrs Pardoe's Oxford Street. Nearly £400 required. "All right. Who wants to buy Northumberland Avenue?"

Steve owned the other two. Knowing that, Richie bid valiantly, but decided it wasn't worth £800. Or was it? Steve now had almost no cash...

Andy bowed out, his stations being snapped up by Richie. "They're good to mortgage, seeing as you can't build on them."

I basically had a cash flow problem. Not enough money coming in each round to cover likely rent. I went bankrupt in two more turns. Suze lasted another two, before Mayfair was bought with Mrs Pardoe's entire cash plus mortgaging two cards.

Mrs Pardoe and her sons faced each other grimly.

"Pour some more port," Suze said. "This is where it gets fun."

Pink and red and blue to Steve. Orange and yellow and brown to Richie. The entire expensive side to their mother. Almost balanced. The game was on.

Steve bought three more houses at £50 each. Then he considered, and bought the final four in the box for £100 each.

"Ah, fuck," Richie said. He only had two houses on most of his properties. Steve now owned half of the green plastic things.

"Not on my radar for today," his mother replied, deadpan.

"I think they disapprove of such things in hospitals," Suze added.

Andy caught on, snorting with laughter.

Mrs Pardoe's voice was sweet and calm. "What do you think the curtains round the hospital beds are for?"

"Mother!" Steve did not want to think about his parents' sex life.

"You should be glad your parents are setting a good example, of still having a satisfying sex life in their sixties," Richie said primly. "And fifties," he added hastily, remembering his mother's age.

"Easy for you to say. You don't have to share a bedroom wall with them! I thought it was supposed to be us teenagers who were inconsiderately noisy..." I remembered Suze and Steve were, technically, still teenagers.

"No-one's stopping you, Suze. Where's that bloke of yours?" Richie asked.

"Spain, with his family."

"Well, have your revenge when he gets back!"

"No, thank you. I don't want you listening in, and I definitely don't want Mum and Dad hearing! You know Dad. He'd probably give me marks out of ten for performance and artistry, afterwards."

Steve put his hands over his face, groaning. "I don't want to think about any of you having sex!"

"It's a perfectly normal part of life," his mother told him briskly. "Get over it. It's a small house. Just don't keep me awake, is all I ask." She glared at Richie, presumably as the most likely culprit, then realised what that would mean accusing me of, and downed the rest of her glass rather rapidly.

"Are you two fucking?" Suze asked, addressing me and Richie.

Andy had a coughing fit. He felt the need to go outside for another smoke.

Richie glanced at me. In a rare fit of tact, he said, "Say what you like." Though anything other than denial would be taken as a yes.

I tried to sound as casual as Mrs Pardoe. "It's been known."

Steve made gagging noises behind his hands.

"Oh, shut it," Richie told him. "Just because you're a slow developer and only discovered wanking last year."

"Roll the dice, wanker," Steve ordered his brother.

Richie landed on the first pink property, Pall Mall. "Fuck."

"Not again," Suze groaned. "We don't want to know all about your sex life."

Richie mortgaged another two properties, and handed over all his money to his grinning brother, who was thrusting middle fingers up at him. A quieter version of "ner-ner na ner-ner". "My sex life is satisfactory, thank you. I think that's quite enough detail for anyone not involved."

"As long as it only involves consenting adults, that's all I care about, dear," his mother informed him.

"Oh, yes," Richie confirmed, po-faced as ever. "Enthusiastically consenting!"

I couldn't help laughing, falling back on my chair weakly as Steve grimaced and made puking noises behind his hands again.

"Stop it," Suze squeaked.

"Stephen. Go upstairs if you're going to make such noises. You aren't seven any more," his mother told him.

"Acts like," Richie muttered.

"Just let me win this game, and I'm going!"

"Oh yeah? That's fighting talk," his mother informed him. "Go on, run my gauntlet of green and dark blue."

Steve had to pay a huge rent on Park Lane, but having acquired most of the other property in the game, it was a temporary setback. Within ten minutes, his mum conceded defeat.

"Oh yeah! Behold the king of capitalism!"

"Uh-huh. Now do that with real money. Seriously, your electrics course pays you, doesn't it?" Richie refused to let his brother's smugness bother him.

"Not much."

"More than being a student, I tell you!" Suze concurred. She was at Warwick, having wanted to stay close to home. I got the impression she was horribly anxious, especially away from her family. Her father's illness wouldn't have helped. They explained that Richie had done well enough in school that his 'attitude problem' had been overlooked; Steve's tendency to lash out had led to being requested not to return for A-levels, despite his sporting talent. In any case, he was more keen on starting his own business, and had decided electrician training would be the best start.

"Anyway, that's nice," Mrs Pardoe said to me. Oh god, she was back talking about sex. "What was your name again?"

I lost it, and was weakly giggling in the cushions, when Andy wandered back in. "What did I miss?"

I couldn't say anything.

"Apparently Richie's been shagging Laura," Suze explained. "And Steve's won the game. So do you shag Laura too?"

Andy said nothing. Another gentleman, letting me answer.

I coughed. "He's my father figure! Yes, I know he's only ten years older, but he's what I've got."

Not a lie. Andy's shoulders un-tensed, Richie made no reaction at all. There were limits to what I was willing to share even with the most accepting family. I just prayed Richie wouldn't mention my ex-girlfriends. Or kink.

What he said was, "Six o'clock. Tea time."

"Bloody hell," Suze said. "I don't think I can eat for a week!"

"Excellent, more cheese for me," Steve took her literally.

"Don't you dare hog it all," Richie warned, also taking him at face value.

"I'm going for that nap now. Wake me at nine if you want bedtime stories."

"See you, Ma," Steve said. The other two waved and did thumbs-up.

"Right. Can we change the subject from sex, now?"

"God, please!" Steve begged.

"Just because you're a virgin," Richie told him. "Surely some advice would be helpful?"

"Like what?" I asked. "Apart from getting enthusiastic agreement from the object of your affections, how can you actually advise someone?"

"Carry condoms." Richie counted on his fingers. "Be obliging, go down on them, before asking for a blow job or sex. Makes them much more likely to agree to a repeat. Chill out about what sex someone is. Or age, or whatever."

"Assuming they're an adult, of course."

Richie stared at Andy. "Of course. Duh." He shook himself. "What else? Remember where you put your clothes, don't be so fucking wasted you puke, don't be so fucking wasted you can't remember it, remember the person's name if they've found out yours."

"Think about whether anyone can hear you, and be quiet enough they don't," Andy added.

"None of my housemates have ever complained," Richie replied, slightly offended. "Get permission from anyone else in the room, I suppose."

"That's quite enough! Shut up and stop implying you've been having threesomes or more," Suze told him sternly.

Unfortunately, I'd had a third glass of the very good tawny port. Andy and I couldn't stop laughing at that point.

"Oh, god," groaned Suze, clawing at her hair. "My psycho brother's turned into a sex symbol!"

"Oi! Why am I the psycho brother? I never got suspended from school for punching anyone!"

"Only because they never saw you," Steve grumbled. "And they wanted your exam results to boast about."

"Jeez, just one fight..." Richie inspected his fingernails. "I didn't smash any windows. Or lab equipment, neither."

"I didn't destroy any doors. Or teachers' sanity. OK, maybe a couple..."

Richie let a faint smile appear on his face. He held up his wine glass. "To us, fighting the system from within!"

Steve relaxed and clinked glasses. "You should have rebelled too," he told Suze. "Instead of getting horribly upset every time they called you a weirdo."

She shrugged. "I got the grades I wanted, good references and that. Don't have to see any of them any more. Some of the teachers were OK. Others, it was guilt by association." She made a guilty smile. "Then there was all the stuff I never got caught doing. All those computers which started singing mid-lesson? Ammonia leak in Mr Brent's boring Chemistry lesson..."

"That was you?" Richie sounded admiring.

"Mm. He was really nasty to this girl who hadn't done her homework because her family was kicked out of their house and stuff. He deserved it. Especially the second time, when it somehow only affected his nice cosy office -- what an amazing coincidence..."

"I figured that was sabotage. Never guessed that was you!" Richie was all proud brother, now.

"I've got the rest of the bottle upstairs. So you two had better be very nice to me..."

Small respectful nods from both brothers.

"Anyway," Steve said. "Nosh!"

I enjoyed my second plateful of roast dinner even more than the first, eating it casually on the sofa, no worries about whether it was meeting expectations. The others had some leftovers plus cheese and biscuits, bringing the grapes and putting them in the middle of the table. A fruit garnish made Christmas food healthy, right?

"Triv?" Suze asked, her mouth full of turkey.

Richie shrugged. "Could do. Or Scotland Yard?"

"Mr X always wins," Steve objected.

"No, he doesn't! Especially with four detectives," Richie contradicted.

"Betcha."

The brothers shook hands. The rest of us put our tokens on the board, and began moving towards various locations to enable rapid travel when Mr X revealed himself.

Richie and I analysed the board. "Andy, you cover that tube station, stop him escaping. We'll force him into the back roads."

Steve's Mr X took a bus route, then short taxi rides.

Gah! He'd snuck through our cordon before we could pounce. But he was running out of long-distance tickets...

By move 20 of thirty, Steve was sounding smug. By 25, he realised he could only move one place at a time. We knew where he had to be. The four detectives moved in.

"Bugger," said Steve, revealing his location.

"You're doing the washing-up, then."

"I never said I would!"

"You lost." Richie spoke in a quiet monotone; Steve was becoming shrill.

"You lost Monopoly!"

"So?"

"OK, OK," I tried to calm them down. "Let's all clear up. And not wake your mum."

"She won't be asleep really," Suze said. "She'll be reading and chilling out. Just had enough of us. Needs alone time."

"Like we all do, sometimes." That was Steve.

"Doesn't everyone?" Andy asked.

"Not like us."

"Too much people being..." Suze waved her hand in a circle. "People."

Steve grunted. "Yeah. People. Eek. See ya." He stomped upstairs.

"Is he OK," I asked.

Richie was surprised. "Him? Sure, he does that a couple times a day, usually. I used to, more, but people at college are less annoying than school. Not getting in my face all the time."

I supposed it was true -- we let Richie be a silent presence in the background, much of the time. He spoke when he had something to say. One on one, or with two, three people max, he might get quite chatty, but it took a while. Andy, also a silent type, was an exception -- they'd got on well from the off, despite using very few words.

"I'm gonna have story time with Mum. Night." Suze headed upstairs."

"Do you really have bedtime stories?" I asked curiously.

"Sometimes," Richie said, defensively. "Mum's good at reading Shakespeare and stuff. Dad does Pratchett and historicals. But usually we just chat, nowadays. Play chess with Dad, sometimes. It's nice. Getting time with them."

I said nothing. I was too envious of Richie's family.

Suze reappeared half an hour later, in warm pyjamas and slippers. Richie went up, then returned. "Steve's there now. You could have said."

"Oh. Didn't think."

We sat quietly, flicking through our new books. After twenty minutes, we heard Steve yell, "Oi, Rich! You're up!"

Richie went up to his mum. Steve didn't return. Suze was engrossed in her new historical novel. Andy went out for a rare third cigarette of the day. It was Christmas, after all.

I gazed tipsily at the shining Christmas tree, its lights fading from one colour into another, making the various decorations glow. Several decorations must have been made by the Pardoe children when younger, their cack-handed artistic creations valued by their parents and, even now, each other.

I sighed. Last Christmas had been great, with Ali and Andy as ersatz parents as well as lovers, but this one, seeing a happy family, its members confident among each other with their various quirks and foibles, was really rather special. It was a real privilege to get to see such an intimate celebration. If Mrs Pardoe thanked me yet again for the food and cooking, I'd tell her so.