Our resident artist Mr Dadd has made hundreds of figures from tin and coloured paper for the attendants to decorate the asylum’s central hall. They are mysterious, beautiful things: pyramids; winged eyes and camels.
‘I rode a camel to Bethlehem, once,’ Mr Dadd says, his eyes fixed on the corner of the room. ‘And the mighty god Osiris came to me and revealed many secrets.’
‘Yes, yes,’ I say, cutting him off. I already know the story: sketchbooks on the Grand Tour; strange voices in the desert; his father’s body found choked to death in a field; the asylum. I suppose the camels are appropriate enough. As for the rest, I doubt anyone will look too closely.
When I return to dine with my family I find the house similarly festooned with holly and coloured paper.
‘This new fashion for Christmas cheer is another kind of mania,’ I say. ‘Highly contagious.’
‘Papa you are such a Scrooge,’ says Ethel.
I do not like to ask her what that means.
In the evening we go to the asylum’s Christmas party. My wife sits tense and upright on the bench beside me. Mr Dadd’s decorations glitter in the candlelight. The stage curtains lift and the staff’s children traipse onto the stage, Ethel amongst them. They sing ‘Silent Night.’ The patients’ faces are scrubbed clean and shining, upturned as though receiving grace, and for a moment I am reminded of my childhood, the way the congregation looked up to my father as he led us in prayer. I take my wife’s hand and squeeze. When I promised her I would better myself and become a professional man, more than just a non-conformist preacher’s son, I know this is not what she had in mind. Last year she was furious to discover that one of the patients had been writing love letters to Ethel. ‘A lunatic arsonist, asking her to marry him! How could you let this happen?’ she hissed. She wishes Ethel to be a gentleman’s wife, far away from here. I said I would be more vigilant. Still, she squeezes my hand back.
Outside, the first flakes of snow have started to fall. In the morning sane and mad alike will awake to a clean, white world, blanketed in snow. I will make my rounds, as usual. There will be the usual clink, clink of keys, the usual grind and scrape as every door is unlocked and relocked. But tomorrow the scent of plum pudding will drift above the smells of soiled bedding and laundry soap. I will hand out oranges and sweets and wish my patients a ‘Merry Christmas.’ I fear the words will be as unfamiliar in my mouth as a set of false teeth. I will practise them, tonight. As soon as the concert ends I will wish my wife a ‘Merry Christmas.’ I will make them proud of me yet.
Kate Tyte was born in Bath, England. She worked as an archivist for over ten years, before moving to Lisbon where she works as an English teacher. Her non-fiction has appeared in various British history and genealogy magazines. Her essays have appeared in Slightly Foxed, and her fiction and poetry in STORGY, Riggwelter, Idle Ink, The Fiction Pool, Press Pause Press and the anthologies Ghastly Gastronomy; Strange Spring: Stories We Wrote in Self-Isolation; Living, Loving, Longing: Lisbon; and on the podcast The Other Stories. She is a book reviewer for STORGY and The Short Story.
Photo by Anna Popović on Unsplash.
An evocative and beautifully written story