Christmas Day might have started at Larkhall at the usual time for unlock but the other side of the prison walls, it sometimes started much earlier.
Josh and Crystal had collapsed into bed late last night and were dead to the world very soon after a frantic burst of last minute activity. They had battled their way through the slow moving packed in crowds round the supermarkets, dealt with the very excited children. Crystal's time was really cut out these days as Daniel had learnt to walk by now and while he didn't know what Christmas was, he picked up on the atmosphere of excitement. They did their best to do the normal chores until they cajoled them to go to bed. Finally, they removed the presents from where they had stashed them in a large top cupboard and crouched on the floor to feverishly wrap the assortment of presents in garishly coloured wrapping paper.
"I'm sure we've forgotten to get something, Josh. I know it"
"Well, what is it?" Josh enquired, his forehead crinkled up with lack of comprehension.
"If I knew what it was, I wouldn't be asking you"
"This don't make any sense, Crystal. If you remember tomorrow, I'll find somewhere open and I'll get it"
Crystal looked blankly through Josh. Maybe it was nothing, only that nagging desire to make Christmas as perfect as possible because of the fact that there wasn't that much to go round the rest of the year. She mentally pictured everything that had been gathered in from Brussel sprouts to more garlands for the front room. She shrugged her shoulders and gave up and wearily trudged up the steep flight of steps to their bedroom. At five in the morning, all was black and quiet in Josh and Crystal's upstairs bedroom.
"Mummy, daddy, it's Christmas Day" piped an excited little voice from out of nowhere and clicked on the bedroom light. The effect of the light alone on two zombies, feeling dead to the world, felt equivalent to being very painfully mugged. The light was dazzling and stripped away what was left of their senses and neither could move off the bed as much as fly.
"Father Christmas has come. I heard him sliding down the chimney and leaving us all our presents. That shows we've all been good or else he wouldn't have come. It's exciting"
"What about Daniel?" Crystal mumbled sleepily, a flicker of reasoning power coming back to her.
"I'll wake him up"
"No don't, Zandra." Crystal replied hurriedly." He's only little and we must let him sleep. Let's just keep the secret to ourselves till when he wakes"
"Yeah, that's right." Mumbled Josh from underneath the duvet.
"But it's so exciting"
"Tell you what. You lie in bed with us till Daniel wakes up. He'll be much happier that way and so will Father Christmas. He'll be looking down on us. Believe me"
"All right." Zandra conceded to Crystal's hasty improvising. Crystal reasoned to herself that the Lord God would overlook this bit of creative thinking as after all, it was in a good cause. Zandra slipped sideways into the bed but she was still turning and twisting with suppressed excitement. Crystal and Josh reflected ruefully and blearily that innocent childlike belief in Santa Claus was a double-edged gift.
The run up to Christmas had been a totally different affair at Cassie and Roisin's house. This had all started from the increasingly difficult process of advance negotiation as to what presents would be appropriate and affordable for their children.
"Mum," came that suspiciously casual aside from Michael one day." If you were wondering what you're buying me for Christmas, I'd love to have a mobile phone. "
Roisin drew in a sharp intake of breath and paused before she committed herself to any course of action. Instinct taught her that she needed more information. Cassie' sharp ears had picked up on the conversation and she slid into the room from the hall.
"Why a mobile phone, Michael? You've never mentioned this before."
"That doesn't mean I've never wanted one."
"There's more to this one than meets the eye." Roisin demanded with an edge of sternness behind her outwardly reasonable manner. She didn't mind Michael coming up with a suggestion for Christmas as he was getting to the age when it was becoming increasingly hard to keep up with what he liked and disliked. A series of warning bells were ringing in her ears of the implications of this idea.
"All my friends are getting them and we can keep in touch with each other and you can do all sorts of things with them"
"Like running up big phone bills." Cut in Cassie from behind Michael, making him jump.
"I would have thought that you would have kept up with fashion when you were growing up, Cassie." Came Michael's lightning quick response to her.
"You're right, Michael. I did." Cassie cut back in deliberate tones." There are quite a few things I've done in my life that if I had the chance to do differently, I would. For a start, you don't have to follow what everyone else does. You have to decide things for yourself"
"All my friends' parents are buying mobile phones for them this year but I suppose I'll have to go on being the odd one out"
"Listen, Michael, you haven't given us any good reason why you should have a mobile phone and if you can't even think what's going to happen about the bills, what if you're out somewhere and it gets lost or stolen, then we can't think that there's any good reason why you should have one. Cassie and I are not going to be pushed into doing something against our better judgement just because other parents are being foolish enough into being talked into handing out money for something which you don't need and, in our opinion, is not appropriate. We do things differently around here."
"Yeah, everything about this family is different. I've learnt that much"
Don't rise to it, Roisin, Cassie silently urged Roisin. Michael's dying for you to mention the one thing that's really bothering him these days, that he is getting more and more self conscious that he has two mums bringing him up. Why else does he go out to his friends' houses but they never come back here? There is a time to deal with this one properly but now is not the time.
"Well, since we're agreed on at least one thing, Michael, what about having a music system for Christmas"
"I don't want a music system, mum. If you don't mind, I'm going out"
With that sulky retort, Michael slunk out of the house and was gone, leaving Roisin open mouthed.
"That boy is becoming impossible. Well, thank heaven, Niamh is sensible."Roisin exclaimed passionately.
"Don't kid yourself, Roash, we may run into the same thing with Niamh in a few years time, Roash and it may be harder. Girls can think quicker than boys and have more of the gift of the gab. I know because I used to lead my parents a right dance when I was in my teens"
"As you know, I was well behaved when I was young. Sometimes, I find it hard to deal with Michael when he's badly behaved. I talk to him about what I was like when I was his age and I sound like something out of the last century. At least the children might be able to relate to you rather than me sometimes….except they'll be rapidly ceasing to be children."
"That's true,"Cassie answered thoughtfully, slipping her arm round Roisin to reassure both of them." but there is a downside. I can see myself more and more telling the kids to do what we say, not as I did. We just have to stick to our guns, that's all."
The process of negotiating with Michael and Niamh carried on and eventually, Michael was grudgingly reconciled to the situation and, as chance would have it, teenage fashion of the moment suddenly veered sharply towards music systems and Michael found his street credibility vastly enhanced without having to do anything. Then a curious process happened where, on Christmas Eve, he was temporarily removed from the peer pressure of his friends inside and outside school. Suddenly he became something like the cheerful boy that he used to be and actively asking for all the favourite children's cartoons like Wallace and Gromit. He had at least temporarily stopped being simultaneously self-conscious, over sensitive, like a fish out of water. He looked around him and his sister, Niamh, was suddenly there around him, just like she always had been. He smiled and chatted away to her without thinking all the time what others might think of him. All four of them were gathered together in the front room in peace and tranquillity, Cassie and Roisin having broken up for work and temporarily casting loose the cares of work on the other side of the twenty four hour shift of their daytime jobs.
"You won't wake up too soon in the morning, children." Roisin asked unthinkingly. Michael was hardly a child these days.
"Don't worry, mum. The chocolates and presents will wait for Niamh and me and you don't have to tiptoe into our bedrooms any more and pretend to be Father Christmas or something." Came Michael's cheerful reply. It touched Roisin deeply that Michael was making an extra special effort to be nice.
Cassie and Roisin lay naked in bed under the duvet, curled up against each other. The run up to Christmas had so focussed them onto others that, so that it was only when they had finally got to bed when Cassie turned towards Roisin and ran her fingertips gently down the side of her face that Roisin remembered that that fair haired tower of strength was also her lover. There was no daily grind of getting the children to school and off to work. They were free to show their love for each other. They exchanged long lingering kisses while they shed their nighties and explored each other's bodies for hours in the heat of the night. It was then that their bedroom belonged exclusively for their own pleasure before they drifted peacefully off to sleep. In the morning, the bright winter sunshine gradually woke them up satisfied, reborn. They lay where they were and silently let the time drift past until they were ready to make a move.
"OK children, time to get up for Christmas." Roisin proclaimed from the landing, dressed in her respectable mum like nightie and dressing gown.
"Must we?" came two moaning childish voices from different corners of the upstairs landing."It's not time for The Jungle Book"
"Kids. No stamina." Laughed Cassie, leaning up in bed and smirking through the crack in the bedroom door through to a self satisfied Roisin. Trust the kids to have mapped out Christmas television.
"It could be worse. Remember when the kids used to wake us up at four in the morning telling us that Father Christmas had come, yes even Michael." Roisin commented cheerfully, turning to Cassie.
The other woman's faint smile was frozen on her face as she was taken aback for a second. What Roisin was talking about was before her time but a split second later, her smile broadened. No, she wasn't there at the time but she might as well have been there and some imaginary memory told her she very nearly was.