sea of Duplicity - new novel coming soon
PRESENTS OF MINE
“Even at four I’d started to question how Santa could read a note that caught fire as it rose in the chimney. My dad said it was magic because the writing still showed and Santa had a special way to read it. I remember dad wrote ‘Nicholas’ on a piece of paper then burnt it to show me it was still possible to read my name. That pacified me for a while but because the burnt paper was so fragile I soon started asking questions again, but each time dad had an answer ready.
This particular Christmas morning I’d opened my presents in my room but the big tricycle, I’d asked Father Christmas for, clearly wasn’t among them. This set me thinking about how Santa carted the bigger things around and got them into the houses. Briefly the tears welled-up as I thought maybe Santa hadn’t brought my trike, even though I’d tried my best to be good. Maybe even his magic couldn’t get it down the chimney and he’d taken it away again.
Anyway, just before the trickle of tears turned into a flood, my dad shouted for me to come downstairs. I ran down, dressing gown flapping, and here in this very dining room was the red trike, I wanted, in the fireplace.
The trike’s front wheel sat in the grate that still contained the previous night’s embers, its handlebars flush with the patterned tile frontage below the mantelpiece and its two rear wheels rested on the raised edge of the tiled hearth, which once came out to here,” I said, slapping my foot down well in front of the panelling.
“So you were happy after all,“ said Nadine, “Saint Nicholas had managed to deliver your present.”
“I already knew all about the tricycle I wanted, I’d seen them in the shops; no, what interested me was how those two wide back wheels had been squeezed through the gap where the fire normally sat behind two bronze knights in helmets and armour. After dad lifted the trike onto the floor, all I wanted to do was look up the chimney and wonder about the fantasy I’d been spun. From that day onwards I knew the presents must already be in the house and the following year I set about finding them with total success until I was nine. Eventually I realised the ritual was kept alive because the parents’ Christmas present was watching the child’s enjoyment.”
This particular Christmas morning I’d opened my presents in my room but the big tricycle, I’d asked Father Christmas for, clearly wasn’t among them. This set me thinking about how Santa carted the bigger things around and got them into the houses. Briefly the tears welled-up as I thought maybe Santa hadn’t brought my trike, even though I’d tried my best to be good. Maybe even his magic couldn’t get it down the chimney and he’d taken it away again.
Anyway, just before the trickle of tears turned into a flood, my dad shouted for me to come downstairs. I ran down, dressing gown flapping, and here in this very dining room was the red trike, I wanted, in the fireplace.
The trike’s front wheel sat in the grate that still contained the previous night’s embers, its handlebars flush with the patterned tile frontage below the mantelpiece and its two rear wheels rested on the raised edge of the tiled hearth, which once came out to here,” I said, slapping my foot down well in front of the panelling.
“So you were happy after all,“ said Nadine, “Saint Nicholas had managed to deliver your present.”
“I already knew all about the tricycle I wanted, I’d seen them in the shops; no, what interested me was how those two wide back wheels had been squeezed through the gap where the fire normally sat behind two bronze knights in helmets and armour. After dad lifted the trike onto the floor, all I wanted to do was look up the chimney and wonder about the fantasy I’d been spun. From that day onwards I knew the presents must already be in the house and the following year I set about finding them with total success until I was nine. Eventually I realised the ritual was kept alive because the parents’ Christmas present was watching the child’s enjoyment.”
cupboard love
Although teaching us Greek, Nadine was really our housekeeper. At first I wondered if she might be the spinster from the embassy using a different name so I asked her outright one day if she was my real mother. She laughed at me and the expression on her face was enough but she felt the need to comfort me, “No Niko, I have no children but if I did I would have been proud to have one as handsome and bright as you.”
It was really just as well she cleared that up because I was feeling dreadfully guilty about the thoughts of her I was having. As a pre-adolescent youngster whose sexual awareness came mostly from playing doctors and nurses in the long grass, I sensed Nadine radiated some mouth-watering attraction that confused me.
This magnetism, I determined to explore furtively. Unluckily, one day she caught me peeping at her from inside her wardrobe where I had lain in wait, “You little malakas,” she shouted, pushing the door shut and turning the key, “if you like it so much in my wardrobe, you can stay there until your father comes home.”
I had sobbed for ages, “Please don’t tell him, I promise to stop being a Peeping Tom...let me out, I won’t do it again.”
“All right you little toe-rag...I won’t tell your father this time but if I ever catch you spying on me again I will, after I squeeze you where it hurts, katalaveneis?
“Nai, katalava, I understand...never again, I swear.”
I felt ashamed, as if there was something evil about me; but, as promised, she did not tell my father. Yet as puberty hit me with a greater vengeance she always appeared totally innocent when her towel slipped or an ill-bolted bathroom door swung open to reveal her slender, heavy breasted olive-skinned body.
It was really just as well she cleared that up because I was feeling dreadfully guilty about the thoughts of her I was having. As a pre-adolescent youngster whose sexual awareness came mostly from playing doctors and nurses in the long grass, I sensed Nadine radiated some mouth-watering attraction that confused me.
This magnetism, I determined to explore furtively. Unluckily, one day she caught me peeping at her from inside her wardrobe where I had lain in wait, “You little malakas,” she shouted, pushing the door shut and turning the key, “if you like it so much in my wardrobe, you can stay there until your father comes home.”
I had sobbed for ages, “Please don’t tell him, I promise to stop being a Peeping Tom...let me out, I won’t do it again.”
“All right you little toe-rag...I won’t tell your father this time but if I ever catch you spying on me again I will, after I squeeze you where it hurts, katalaveneis?
“Nai, katalava, I understand...never again, I swear.”
I felt ashamed, as if there was something evil about me; but, as promised, she did not tell my father. Yet as puberty hit me with a greater vengeance she always appeared totally innocent when her towel slipped or an ill-bolted bathroom door swung open to reveal her slender, heavy breasted olive-skinned body.
