The Forget-Me-Not Sonata(116)

‘Me next, me next!’ Alicia cried, jumping from one foot to the other. ‘I want to learn how to play. Why don’t I take lessons at school like Leo?’

‘Because you didn’t want to,’ her mother replied.

‘Well, I do now. Will Louis be here all holiday?’ she asked hopefully.

‘I don’t know, you’ll have to ask him.’

‘Will you?’

‘If you want me to,’ he said and chuckled.

‘Only if you teach me to play the piano,’ she said seriously.

‘It’s a deal then. If your parents don’t mind me sharing the Christmas pudding.’ Audrey laughed lightly, Cecil stiffened but Leonora and Alicia were enchanted.

‘Aunt Cicely made the pudding for us and the mince pies. It’ll be a proper English Christmas,’ said Leonora excitedly. ‘Father Christmas comes all the way out here, you know.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Louis replied. ‘Have you written your wish list?’

‘Wish list?’ the twins replied in unison.

‘Well, you have to write a list and burn it up the chimney, that way Father Christmas’s little helpers receive it and make sure they get you the presents you want. Only if you’ve been very good. Have you?’

‘Oh yes!’ they replied. Alicia knew she hadn’t been very good, but if Father Christmas was like everyone else she had met, he would bring her presents all the same.

‘Well, don’t hang around, go and get pencils and paper and let’s do it now. There’s no time to waste,’ he instructed urgently. The two girls rushed off upstairs and Louis caught Audrey’s eye. She was looking at him tenderly. The way she should have been looking at Cecil. But she hadn’t looked at Cecil in that way for a long long time.

Mercedes studied the black ball called Christmas pudding and knitted her thick eyebrows together. It didn’t look like anything she had ever seen before. It was heavy too. Like a cannon ball. Would do about as much damage as a cannon ball, she thought, dropping it onto the sideboard with a loud thud. Loro squawked in his cage, ‘Te quiero, te adoro, te amo . . .’ then tried as best he could to imitate a heavy pant. That was when Mercedes lost her temper. She could cope with Oscar’s declarations of love because they were touching.

They reminded her of her youth when she had lain underneath the weighty body of a handsome sailor or the skinny one of a delivery boy, listening to their hollow promises, delivered with eyes closed between shallow breaths, and believing them. Now she listened to them but she didn’t believe; she was too old and too cynical for love. But there was nothing romantic or touching about the panting. It was too carnal, too bestial and this time Loro had gone too far.

She strode purposefully over to the cage where Loro was hopping about in a state of post-coital exhaustion. ‘Ahhhhh . . .’ he gurgled.

‘Loro, I’ve had quite enough of you!’ she cried, opening the cage. ‘I’ll pluck you and cook you alive, you’ll see.’ Loro resisted as her brown hand reached in and grabbed him about his scrawny neck. Alicia’s mirror idea had worked for now his feathery coat was thick and glossy again. Not that Mercedes cared; she was going to get rid of him once and for all.

There was a pot of boiling water on the stove and Mercedes dangled the terrified bird above it so that the steam engulfed him. He let out a strangled gasp, fixed her with eyes that reflected her own cruel expression and waited for death. But Mercedes was a soft-hearted woman underneath and was unable to inflict pain on another living creature, however exasperating. She dropped her shoulders in defeat and pulled him out of the steam. ‘You are an idiotic creature. It’s not right to punish you for being stupid. God created you that way. But what He was thinking at that moment, only He knows. Still, all God’s work is divine, even you.’ And she put him back in his cage where he shook out his feathers and sulked in the corner, trembling still.

She returned to the black cannon ball and recalled Señora Forrester’s instructions. Tomorrow was Christmas and this was what they were going to eat for their pudding.

Alicia and Leonora awoke at dawn to the delicious sensation of weighty stockings sitting expectantly on the end of their beds. Leonora sat up with Saggy Rabbit and dragged the large woollen stocking up to where she could have a better look at it. Stuffed with presents all neatly wrapped up in tissue paper, it was irresistible. Alicia emptied the whole lot onto the bed then proceeded to unwrap one. ‘You mustn’t open them now!’ Leonora exclaimed in horror. ‘We must open them on Mummy and Daddy’s bed.’