A Yule-Tide Spirit

It was just as Clare was receiving her cheese sandwich from the waitress that two women approached their table; they carried numerous bags and hard weary faces and trailed an unmistakeable aura of poverty. The older woman, about fifty years of age, wore a blue wool coat which sagged and drooped down to the front of her boots while the back rode high above her knees. She glanced at Eileen’s upturned face and cast an oily smile,

‘’Scuse me dears, but could we share your table’? Her manner was one of overly sugary supplication.

‘Of course’ hurried Eileen, aware for the first time just how busy and crowded the small tea room had become with all the festive shoppers.

Clare hastened to remove her own modest purchases from the neighbouring chair. The second woman, who was younger and of a blond blousy sort, sank down heavily and sullenly. Her dark red bottom lip curled petulantly. She ignored Clare and Eileen and it was left to the older woman to acknowledge their generosity.

‘Busy ain’t it?’ she grinned and nodded to them.

Eileen and Clare returned the nods but the older woman had already shifted in her chair and narrowed her eyes to scan the room for the waitress. The room seemed a moving mass of woollen coats and bags and the windows had begun to take on the ugliness of condensation. Satisfied that service would soon appear, the older woman fished in her worn velvet bag and brought out a small packet of cigarettes.

‘D’you mind if we smoke’? she asked as she pulled out a slender white stick.

Not pausing for a reply, she was midway in searching for her matches and her head was inclined down towards her lumpy bag when Eileen’s clear voice rang out,

‘Yes’.

The woman hesitated then looked up sharply, a steely glint in her eye. She fixed Eileen a questioning glance as if she couldn’t believe she had heard her correctly. The younger of the women shifted her gaze from Eileen to her companion with a look which spoke, now we’re in for some fun.

‘Yes,’ repeated Eileen. And then in a quieter voice, ‘we do mind’.

Clare’s eyes scrutinised her sister’s hot reddening face; she saw Eileen’s lips working in an attempt to prevent the nervous gulp of a swallow which threatened to expose her as a novice at such audacity. Eileen’s heart throbbed and pounded in her ears. There had been a second between the two yeses when she could yet have withdrawn, capitulated and demurred to the old woman’s request, but the moment she heard herself utter that second yes she knew she was done for. Clare assumed, like the woman, that Eileen had meant yes as in yes of course you may smoke. Clare had taken it for granted that Eileen would acquiesce to the woman’s perfunctory request, the alternative was unthinkable. But Eileen had forestalled any misunderstanding with that we do mind.

The woman’s look had now changed from one of distracted confusion to one of overt belligerence. She drew back her lips to reveal malnourished and crooked teeth, smoker’s teeth.

‘Well now. That’s just too bad. I’ve ‘ad a busy day and I’m goin’ to smoke’.

Her eyes flew to the younger woman who smirked with unfettered glee and sat forward in readiness to enjoy the spectacle. This seemed to fortify the older woman and she struck her match decisively, lit her wand and blew out a large cloud of smoke, her bottom lip thrust out to indulge the act.

‘In that case’, replied Eileen, ‘why did you bother to ask our permission’?

The logic of the question hung in the air. Eileen could scarce believe her own boldness but, frightening and strange though it was, she felt she now had no option but to continue to stand up to the older woman. The latter narrowed her eyes,

‘I was being polite. Too bad if you don’t like it. I’m goin' to smoke’.

She puffed at the cigarette determinedly once again, although Clare felt sure she wasn’t actually enjoying it; all the anticipated pleasure had been destroyed by the forthrightness of the young woman sitting next to her.

‘My sister, as you can see, has ordered a meal. You might at least wait until she has finished eating’, observed Eileen.

This last bit she instantly regretted for it implied that the women had license to smoke as long as no one was eating and hinted at a chink in Eileen’s erstwhile conviction. The woman mumbled something to her companion whose eyes continued to sparkle and dart back and forth between Eileen and the older woman. The waitress appeared and Eileen considered appealing to her but knew she ran the likely risk of the waitress taking the side of the smoker and really, what could the waitress do? Shades of the manager being summoned, shrill voices and all the tumult that would ensue caused Eileen to stay silent whilst the women ordered grilled chops. The woman continued to puff and force out little bursts of feigned laughter but all four of the women knew that they were all thoroughly rattled and there was no prospect of natural intercourse.

Eileen could feel sharp bristles of malevolence radiating from the woman’s elbow which sat so close to her own. Why did everything become so nasty at Christmas, she thought, and why was it rarely a season of good will to all men? Mother would find alcohol, she knew, and despite all their efforts she would drink herself into a rancorous stew of bitterness which she would pour onto the memory of Eileen and Clare’s late father: all he had never done and all he had never been good for. And the three of them, Albert included, would suffer, in mute silence, all the slings and arrows of their mother’s misplaced frustrations and regrets. One by one they would slink off to their rooms leaving her by the fire, her face an ugly contortion of all that was misguided and malignant.

But now Clare had finished and was pleading to Eileen with her eyes, a look that spake, let’s go. Eileen hated to appear callow and harassed lest the older woman feel any triumph in their departure. So she yawned and stretched her arms and summoned as much nonchalance as she could.

‘Think I’ll have another tea’ she mused.

Clare’s eyes widened and Eileen felt her foot being pressed. She relented.

‘Gracious, is that the time? We’d better rush, what can we have been thinking of to dally so long’?

She laced the question with a heavy sarcastic emphasis and then carefully gathered her bag and purchases while Clare stood clutching hers with both hands.

At the cash register Eileen’s heart pounded afresh now that she was released from the epicentre of the skirmish. She paid their bill and noticed the pound notes shaking in her hand. Clare turned to make her way out and then it happened again. Eileen found herself swivelling and marching purposely back to their table! The older woman looked up just as Eileen was upon them and Eileen had the satisfaction of staring down upon the other’s eyes and noting a brief but definite flicker of fear...and was that a slight but perceptible cower? The woman’s eyes darted nervously to her companion as if to check whether her fear had been registered there. Eileen lowered her face close to the woman’s who now shrank back as if she expected Eileen to strike her. The companion started as she recognised Eileen and looked in horror at the older woman’s cringing.

‘I just want to point out’, said Eileen in a soft gentle voice, ‘that you are a very very rude lady’.

The woman, realising that words were all Eileen intended to convey, attempted to rectify her recoiling posture. She fixed her eyes determinedly on her companion and tried a conspirator wink. Straightening, she emitted a harsh sucking of breath but kept her cigarette well away from Eileen. Eileen felt certain that the sentiment had been worse that any blow she could have inflicted on the other woman; for Eileen’s obvious youth alloyed with her unblemished moral superiority had stung the woman painfully and there was no doubt that she had severely reduced her standing in the eyes of her young compatriot.

Eileen swung back away from the woman to the front of the shop and walked towards the door, her ears registering only a muffled sound of the busy room for her blood was still coursing strongly through her head; she confronted herself: where had that come from? What was coming over her? She squeezed her hands around her packages. Really, this spontaneous spirit was alarming but rather gratifying!