Christmas 1990

There were some times of year that it was impossible to avoid family and in Lawrence’s family Christmas has always been one of them. He hated spending time with his father and siblings but there was simply no way out of it this end of the year, he’d be stuck at his house with all of the family around him and no way to get out of it.

In preparation for the arrival of the whole bloody family, Lars had been moved into the bedroom Lawrence shared normally with Leif and things were far more cramped than usual. This bothered Lawrence who was very sensitive to chaos and loud noises. He’d stopped throwing tantrums about those things a few years ago but the desire to still surged up in him when he found himself feeling overwhelmed and cornered. This was rather often with Leif around. The older boy was at an age where he wanted to listen to music and watch football and considered his younger sibling a burden and completely strange. He resented sharing his space with Lawrence and wasn’t hesitant to let him know this frequently, and yet in spite of it all his father refused point blank to give him a separate room, citing that maybe living with his brother would teach him how to be normal as an excuse. He hated it, well aware that they had two rooms he could have been living in but which were used for storing items from the shop and his brother’s bikes respectively. His mother just let it happen, always avoidant of conflict and arguments, simply reassuring him in the face of injustice rather than fighting against it. Following her lead, he’d learned to avoid conflict himself, simply finding other ways to get back at those who had wronged him, and there were many, many people who did.

“Don’t you listen to music Larry?” he’d been asked the day before by Leif who was sprawled on his bed in a Manchester United shirt. He’d been playing music all day and Lawrence had been enduring it. He knew the question was bait and that no answer he could give would be good enough for the resentful teenager, there was only a year or two between them both but hormones had not been kind to the older boy, brimming with pent up anger and a sense that the whole world owed him something and willing to use Lawrence as a stand in for all of that. Lawrence nodded mutely. “You don’t.” he said. “You hate it.” He didn’t answer that he enjoyed some music, that sometimes when Leif was asleep he stole his headphones and listened to the classical radio stations as admitting such a thing would earn him a very round thrashing. Instead he simply repeated what Leif had just said, in exactly his tone of voice, this earned him a bit of violence but not quite as much as the taller boy lobbed a heavy pillow at him yelling “STOP THAT. LARS HE’S DOING IT AGAIN.”

With a heavy sigh the oldest of the three brothers came into the room. Lars positively towered over his siblings but moved as if he was apologetic for taking up so much space in the world, shoulders hunched and expression humble. He didn’t like fighting much if at all and had stepped up only a few times that Lawrence could ever remember, one of these few times being in defence of Lawrence himself against a gang of local bullies who had decided he was their sport that day. This time he gave Leif an exasperated expression but looked over at Lawrence. “Don’t upset your brother please Larry.” He said “You remember what mum said about repeating people, it’s not good for you or your development, you were doing really well.” Lawrence sighed shallowly and mumbled. “Sorry.”

“And Leif, stop winding him up lad. You know it’s not fair.” Leif, who didn’t respect anyone other than his big brother grumbled irritably and rolled over on his side on the bed to face away from Lars. Lawrence went back to his book, rereading the pages for what felt like the hundredth time knowing it was going to be a very long Christmas.

Luke was a proud man and liked to show off his success and versatility through how he decorated his home. In his younger days he’d worked in the shipyards but had been in an accident he didn’t like to talk about which had left him unable to do the tough labour work he’d been accustomed to. Rather than give up he’d used his savings to purchase a shop and now had worked his way up as a rather successful wholesaler with several premises. This had left them able to afford a better house than the modest one they’d used to live in and the means to host their family over the festive season. However, in spite of moving up a little in the world, he still valued nothing more than salt of the earth hard work from his sons and daughter and resented laziness in any form.

As his laziest child Lawrence took the brunt of this along with all the weight of disappointment which his unspecified “condition” elicited. This, like everything else was heightened at Christmas as his father went into overdrive, preparing the house for visitors, forcibly enlisting even his mother to the task as she tried very carefully to prevent him giving himself a heart attack from sheer overwork. Lawrence had been made to string bunting decorations along the walls with a small stepladder and now the stairs were all strung with tinsel and several rooms had Christmas trees, the largest of these – a white artificial affair - taking pride of place in the living room, everything bright and garish with overkill being the name of the game. Lawrence thought it was all too much, too much tacky, too much colour, but like always he said nothing about it. Lars had even gotten them all woolly jumpers to wear. Susan had gotten earrings which lit up in various colours and played tinny songs when a button was pressed. It was awful.

His mother, in addition to playing supervisor to his father’s industrial level of decorating the house was in charge of cooking dinner and the strange smells of stuffing, of chicken and of all manner of boiled vegetables drifted through the house. She’d even fixed some more traditional pickled herring and other treats. She was a good cook and Lawrence liked to help in the kitchen, enjoying mixing things, chopping things and generally being a quiet and intent helper. Cooking was something he enjoyed and it was partially why he’d taken so well to chemistry and biology, both subjects feeling almost like a natural extension of the things he was familiar with. The fact that his father hated him having anything to do with something he deemed as effeminate as cooking only made it all the sweeter and his psychologist had agreed that any sort of social engagement was beneficial to his development. For this reason, his father was shooed away from interfering with at least this facet of his life and for that reason it was his sanctuary.

So that year the very best part of Lawrence’s Christmas eve was spent helpfully working away in the kitchen in the company of his mother while family arrived in dribs and drabs to the house, children and gifts in tow. Lars was really happy to see his cousins and lavished big hearty hugs on everyone.