“You’ve what?” she asked, startled.
“Ever since the electricity went out. I don’t sleep in these clothes, as you might imagine. Here’s what you came for.” He handed her an unlit candle.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Daldry,” she said sheepishly. “I’ll be sure to buy some more and make it up to you.”
“I don’t expect you will, Miss Pendelbury.”
“You can call me Alice, you know.”
“Good night then, Alice.”
Daldry closed his door, and Alice went back to her flat.
A moment later there was a knock, and Alice opened the door to find Daldry standing there with a box of matches.
“I suppose you’ll be needing these too? You didn’t have any matches last time, and since I’m going to bed now, I thought I’d make sure.” Alice said nothing, but it was true that she had just used her last match. Daldry lit the wick of the candle he had given her. “Did I say something that offended you?” he said.
“Why do you ask?”
“You look so serious.”
“I’m sure it’s just the shadows, Mr. Daldry.”
“If I’m to call you Alice, you also should know my Christian name. I’m Ethan.”
“Very well. I’ll call you Ethan,” said Alice with a smile.
“Shadows or not, you look upset.”
“I’m just tired from a long day.”
“Then I’ll leave you to sleep. Good night, Alice.”
“Good night, Ethan.”
2
Sunday, December 24, 1950
Alice went out to do some shopping, but all the shops in her neighborhood were closed, so she took the bus to a local market.
She stopped at a grocer’s stall and decided she would buy the makings of a holiday meal. She chose a fresh egg and forgot about her resolution to save money at the sight of two strips of bacon. A baker’s stall just a little farther down the road was full of small but delicious-smelling cakes, so she treated herself to a fruitcake and a little pot of honey.
That evening she would have dinner in bed with a good book. A sound night’s sleep and she knew she would feel ready to work again. Alice tended to feel gloomy when she hadn’t got enough sleep, and she’d been spending too much time at her worktable over the past few weeks.
A bouquet of old-fashioned roses in the window of a florist’s shop caught her eye. It wasn’t very thrifty of her, but it was Christmas. Besides, she could let them dry and use the petals for her fragrances. She went into the shop, spent two shillings, and left with the flowers in the crook of her arm and her heart singing. Farther down the street, she came to a perfume shop. A CLOSED sign hung in the window, but when she approached to peer through the glass, she could see one of her creations on a shelf among the lines of bottles. She waved, as though waving to a friend, and headed back to the bus stop.
Back at home, she put away her shopping, put the roses in a vase, and decided to go for a walk in the park. On her way out, she ran into Mr. Daldry on the street. He also seemed to be just coming home from the market.
“Christmastime,” he said, visibly embarrassed to be seen holding such a well-filled shopping basket.
“Christmastime indeed,” said Alice. “Do you have guests this evening?”
“God, no. I hate that sort of thing,” he whispered, aware it was blasphemous to admit as much.
“You too?”
“Don’t even get me started on New Year’s Eve—it’s even worse. How can you decide ahead of time whether or not it’s going to be a day worth celebrating? Who knows until they get up that morning whether they’ll even be in the mood to have a party? I think it’s phony to force oneself to be jolly just because it happens to be marked on the calendar.”
“I suppose celebrations are nice for children though.”
“I don’t have any. All the more reason to give up playtime. And that whole business of making them believe in Father Christmas—say what you like, but I think it’s rather nasty. One day you’ll have to tell them the truth, so what’s the use? It’s so cruel. The slow ones wait for him for weeks, thinking he’s on the way, only to feel betrayed when their parents confess the rotten truth. The smart ones have to hold their tongues and play along, which is just as bad. Is your family coming then?”
“No.” She paused. “I don’t really have one.”
“A good reason not to invite them over.”
Alice laughed at this, but Daldry still blushed violent purple. “I’m sorry, that was horribly clumsy of me, wasn’t it?”
“No. A very sensible observation.”
“I do have one. A family, I mean. A father, a mother, a brother, a sister, and a dreadful nephew.”
“And you’re not spending Christmas with them?”
“No. I haven’t for years. We don’t get along.”
“Another good reason to stay home.”
“I’ve tried for years, but every family celebration has always been a disaster. My father and I agree on nothing. He thinks it’s ridiculous that I’m a painter, and I think his business is ghastly dull. We can’t stand each other. Have you had breakfast?”
“How did we go from your father to breakfast?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, since you asked, no, I haven’t.”
“The café on the corner serves a winning porridge. If you’ll just give me a minute to put this decidedly feminine but very useful shopping basket in my flat, I’ll take you there.”
“I was just about to go for a walk in Regent’s Park.”
“On an empty stomach in this cold? Very bad idea. Let’s go eat, and then we’ll feed the ducks. The nice thing about ducks is that you don’t have to dress up like Father Christmas to make them happy.”
Alice smiled and acquiesced. “All right. Take your things upstairs and then we’ll go and have some of your porridge and give the ducks Christmas dinner.”
“Marvelous,” said Daldry, already on his way up the stairs. “I’ll just be a minute.”
A few moments later he reappeared, winded from having hurried and doing his best to hide it.
At the café, they took a table next to the window, looking out on the street. Daldry ordered a tea for Alice and a coffee for himself. The waitress brought them two bowls of porridge, and Daldry asked for some bread. Instead of eating it, he slipped it into his pocket when the waitress wasn’t looking, much to Alice’s amusement.
“What kind of landscapes do you paint?”
“Oh, I only paint utterly useless things. I know some people go crazy over the countryside or the sea or the forest, but I just paint intersections.”
“Intersections?”
“Yes, street intersections. Junctions. You can’t beat the amount of life and activity at a junction. There are thousands of details. Some people are in a hurry, others are trying to find their way. There are all sorts of modes of transportation and so much movement—buses, automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles, people on foot, deliverymen with their carts. Men and women from all walks of life cross paths, bother each other, meet each other, ignore each other, run into each other, get into arguments with each other. An intersection is a fascinating place!”