John was a young bachelor who for several years occupied my Doll’s Flat. One Christmas his mother sent him a plum pudding from England. It travelled in a white stone-ware basin, a perfect monster of a pudding.
“Look at the thing!” John twirled it by its stained tie-down cloth. “Cost her six shillings for postage! Me out of work, needing underwear, socks! And wanting books, books, lots of books. Take the thing–three months solid eating.”
He handed me the pudding. I shook my head. With a final twirl of the cloth he landed the pudding on the drain-board. The boy had told me of the book hints he had given Mother–of his hopes of what Christmas might bring.
“Orphanage, Salvation Army, both eat, I s’pose,” he said. “I’ll give ’em the dough. Want the crock? Do to feed the dogs in.”
“It would not be quite fair to your mother, John. Let’s give a party–feed the party pudding.”
“How stomach-achey–nothing else? Who’d come?”
“Widows, spinsters, orphans. I’ll get a turkey.”
Lower East housed a new widow, Lower West an old widow, also her widowed daughter with a young son. My religious sister and my scholastic sister were invited, John asked his girl. All accepted. The house bubbled with activity and good smells.
We joined three tables which left just enough space for the guests to squeeze into their places. John and I sat near the kitchen door to be handy for toting dishes. There were red candles on the table, holly and apples from the garden. My monkey, dressed in her best scarlet apron, sat warming her toes before the studio fire, all “pepped up,” aware that something was going to happen. As the guests poured through the door the monkey squealed at the widows and the widows at the monkey.
The turkey had blushed his nakedness to a rosy brown and was set cross-legged and blase in the oven doorway, a boat of gravy beside him.
When the heart of the haughty English pudding in the solid masonry of her basin had been warmed and softened by the wooing of Canadian steam, when every last thing was ready, the widows in black silk rustled into the dining-room, also my two spinster sisters with an orphan or two from the school, and John’s girl.
Because of the newness of her widowhood, the East flat widow had brought for the feast a few tears as well as a dish of “foamy rolls”–“My late husband’s favourites”… sniff! She rushed the rolls into my hands so that she could use her hankie. The seasoned widow brought loganberry wine of her own brew. The young widow brought her young son who ate too much and got sick. My religious sister brought walnuts from her own tree, and the schoolmarm a home-made loaf and her three orphan boarders with all diet restrictions removed for the day. John’s girl was shy and talked to everybody except John. My little dogs sat on their tails–their snub noses wiggled in anticipation.
When all had trooped into the dining-room, leaving the monkey alone, she raged and jabbered. The guests poured like liquid along the narrow path into their seats, talking vivaciously about nothing, pretending they were not thinking of gone Christmases.
The turkey cut like a dream, juice trickled out as the sharp knife sliced the white breast–pink ham, turkey stuffing, green peas, potatoes mashed smooth as cream, cranberry sauce not a mite too tart. The widow’s rolls melted in our mouths.
When the queenly pudding came in, attended by brandy sauce and mounted on a blue platter, she looked like the dome of the Parliament Buildings riding the sky. Her richness oozed deliciously, spicy, fragrant, ample. The steam of her rose in superb coils as if desirous of reaching the nostrils of the widows’ dead husbands. Each plated slice slid down the table, followed by a dish of brandy-sugar sauce. Everyone praised the pudding. John thought with deep affection of his mother.
When appetites were satisfied, John uncorked the widow’s wine and solemnly filled all glasses, except that of my “teetotal” sister who shook her head and took her glass to the kitchen tap. We all stood up, raised our glasses to the light, admired the beauty of the wine, its clearness, its colour. We complimented the maker, yet no one drank. All seemed waiting for somebody to say something, but nobody did. Each blinked at his wine, each was thinking-the widows of their “had-beens,” we spinsters of our “never materialized.” John and his girl smiled their hopes into each other’s eyes. We others were relics–a party of scraps and left-overs, nobody intensely related. The people of one suite shared no memories in common with those in any other.
Somebody ventured “The King.” We all sipped. My “teetotal” sister choked on one of her own walnuts. The widows darted forward with kindly intended thumps.
“Water!” she spluttered, and everyone put down his wineglass to rush a water tumbler up to the choke.
“My Mother!” John raised his glass and everyone drank. “The pudding!” I said solemnly; everyone drank again. The monkey’s patience was entirely at an end. Clank, clank, clank–the iron poker being beaten against the side of the stove. Shriek upon shriek of monkey rage!
We drank what was left of the wine quickly, put the small remnant of pudding on a tin plate, took it in to the waiting monkey and watched her eat, plum by plum, the last of John’s pudding.
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