Chri mas with Pamela Browne
A seasonal story by Deirdre Purcell
Right now, in Pamela Browne’s kitchen, the dominant sound is that of the kettle gearing up towards full boil. Pamela herself is sitting at her small dining table, staring at two white velvet poinsettia blossoms in a bud vase. They have been centred, precisely, between two identical place settings, each mirroring the other with china plates, soup bowls and bone-handled silverware with white napery. On a nearby serving trolley, a bottle of prosecco and another of San Pellegrino stand sentry.
It’s just after noon on Christmas Eve but there are no shreds of wrapping paper, coloured ribbons or sticky tape marring the deep black shine of the kitchen island’s marble, no crumbs or scraps of vegetable peelings on the white-tiled floor. Apart from the table settings, imminent Christmas is present only in the three Christmas cards – one a “corporate” from Transg, the IT multinational in the Dublin Docklands where Pamela works as a receptionist, gaudily belying the kitchen’s blackand white unities. But somewhat incongruously, so does the plasticised apron, too big for her slight frame that she wears over her house robe; it sports a huge cartoon of a red, grinning reindeer, baubles dangling from his antlers. “Bill, my husband, gave it to me”, she had said to Emily Hamilton, her work supervisor, who, on arrival, had commented on its gaiety.
Right now, Emily is staring into an open drawer where cutlery sits in rows, knife blades facing in the same direction, forks, soup and dessert spoons nested in sixes: “I can’t see any teaspoons, honey?” Emily, American, big body, big hair, big spectacles with bright red frames, calls everyone “honey”, regardless of age or gender. A widow, she lives with her son, Drake, in a duplex near UCD where he’s studying archaeology. “In the jar beside the kettle”, Pamela’s voice is faint.
“Great” – the American, relieved that the woman has stopped crying, closes the drawer and bustles around the tea-making. At Transg, she oversees workflows but also acts as a bridge between staff, management and HR; in that context, she is on first-name terms with her charges, her cell number available to all.
She had been astonished, though, to receive Pamela Browne’s call, during which, after the first, blurted: “I’m so sorry to bother you, Emily
– I – Bill…” she had become unintelligible, voice dissolving in tears and sending Emily’s brain into overdrive: Work issue? Bullying? She is hyperalert to that but there’d been no warning signs: Personal? Has someone died? Jeez, another
Irish funeral I’ll have to go to – but she had immediately recanted this as unworthy because this was clearly serious and couldn’t be managed within a phone call.
While rapidly computing what was left to do of her own Christmas preparations, by raising her voice she had managed to break through the tearstorm: “Hold everything, honey, I’ll be right there. What’s your Eircode?”
Now, bearing teacups for them both, she pulls the second chair to sit near her colleague and to assimilate the situation.
Chez Pamela and her husband, everything, apparently, had been going to plan that morning. Then Pamela had asked Bill to go to the local
Spar to buy avocados. “All I said, Emily, was to squeeze them, and not to take any of the green ones, that if he did, he’d have to take them back. And I reminded him to re-hang the shopping basket back on the proper hook in the hall. That’s the whole thing I said to him, Emily. Honestly. That was all. Nothing else. But he mutters something about ‘the last straw’ and then he raced upstairs, down again a few seconds later and next thing, the front door slammed.’ She weeps.
“You’re taking this too seriously, hon,” Emily reaches over to pat her colleague’s shoulder. “Can’t you call him? I’m sure he’s not gone for ever, everyone gets frazzled around Christmas, people say things…”
“I did ring him”, Pamela attempts to wipe her eyes with the hem of the plastic apron. “It rang in the drawer of his bedside table. He’s never put it there before. There was a note saying “Sorry.”’
There follows silence, Pamela hiccupping a little, both women gazing into their cups. Then Emily, barely believing what she’s about to say, breaks it: “Listen, hon, you can’t stay here. You’re coming with me, doll, we do Christmas on Christmas Eve…it’s leftovers tomorrow. Drake won’t be there until dinnertime, he’s bringing a few orphans of the storm with him, foreign kids who can’t get home.
“You need to be busy, Pamela…get your coat, but keep your apron, OK? You’re gonna need it.”
At two that afternoon, while Pamela Dysons the stairs, in her kitchen/diner/living area, Emily pauses to survey her décor, gold-adorned tree in one corner, balloons and Santas in the other, garlands heaped along the mantel over the faux fireplace. Six small pillar candles, one for each diner (she has included Pamela), sit at each place setting between randomly scattered acorns and around the centrepiece of red roses sits a circle of chocolate coins in gold foil.
“I’ve finished the stairs, where should I put the hoover?” Pamela stands in the doorway.
“Give it here, hon”, Emily takes the machine and hefts it towards her ‘utility area.’ It takes some time to detach its wands and accessories, store them and then snag the body into its charging holder on the wall.
When she gets back into the main room, she finds her guest standing over the table – coins now in straight rows on one side, candles, in phalanx, lined shoulder to shoulder on the other. “What are you doing, Pamela?”
Pamela, busily scooping acorns into her apron, ready for mass redeployment, doesn’t pause. “I’m making the table nice for you.”