The Blurt of Richard Davies

Chapter Twenty Five

Christmas Day.

The morning is already well under way when I wake. Dad is up already, seemingly unaffected by last night's session and busy preparing some goat's milk porridge; it's just what I need. He's also made a start on preparing the Christmas dinner. The electricity can't always be relied upon here; as part of the harassing of the residents to leave the supply is often reduced or arbitrarily cut off, but only for as long as it takes for the geriatric rascals to work out an illegal way of getting around it. The Park's renewable sources are depleted so Dad is forced to use his gas oven to roast the gammon. Again I get the impression he's been economising, saving it for now, and I feel another guilty pang. Those cylinders are expensive, and not so easy to get refilled these days.

After a cup of coffee it's our turn to go out and move the goats along to some new pasture, before checking on the Park's chicken coop. That too is as mobile as the goat pen, so it can be rolled along for the birds to peck at fresh ground.

Back inside with the dinner on the go we exchange presents. Dad gives me some of his best sloe gin, and I give him a bottle of proper Zone whisky as well as two pictures of Mum I had printed onto a near-indestructible scroll of plastic the last time I went to London.

"You shouldn't have!" He says, looking as if he's trying to fight back tears. "You've already brought plenty with you!" I demonstrate how to unroll it and make it stay flat, then how it can snap back into a tube. "Just in case... It'll hardly take up any space in your Ready Bag." Dad nods an understanding.

For all their determined resistance the Parkies know one day the sea will have its way; the only questions are when, and for how long te inevitable may be delayed. When it happens there may not be much time to evacuate; maybe not even enough time for Dad to take down the large portrait of Mum from the living room wall; perhaps barely time to grab the Ready Bag kept in a cupboard by the door before fleeing for his life. Though he's got the family album as well as his records digitised and backed-up on chip along with copies lodged with me, I hope having some palpable thing he can keep with him will reassure him; hopefully stopping any foolish last minute delay or return to salvage something.

As we wait for the dinner to cook we flick around the streams to see what is happening. As ever there are the usual Christmas Day church services. The Church of England as it is still known is very subdued these days; riven by schism and unable to take a stand on anything for fear of alienating any faction of its remaining flock. It doesn't help that the latest Archbishop of Canterbury is a cowed little sniveller, hoping if he stays uncontroversial and out of the way the church won't get the sort of hassle the Redemptionists suffered; ignoring the fact the Redemptionists are actually winning converts as a result of their social engagement.

The mass in St Peter's Square is live on another stream, and the new Pope, settling in to his papacy, is made of sterner stuff. His homily about the rights of man is bound to ruffle some Connie feathers, and his blessing in which he mentions the people struggling with poverty in the world, specifically mentioning the Federation, will hit a raw nerve. Not there's much the Connies can do about it; they've enough on their hands in the run-up to the election without picking another fight.

After our dinner we watch the traditional Royal Christmas message. As usual the majority of it is spoken by the Regent. His father, obviously given a cocktail of drugs to animate him for the occasion, mumbles a couple of subtitled sentences. It's all very sad. I don't think the poor sod should be put through it; but that's the way it is. His Majesty is apparently compos mentis enough to indicate He doesn't want to abdicate; such is His sense of duty to see His reign through to its conclusion, at whatever the cost to Himself

The rest of the day drags slowly by, as Christmas always seems to do, until it's time for another party in the Social Club. It seems we weren't the only ones to turn up early in an attempt to escape the boredom of the day; the other Parkies are already here, hanging up their aged outerwear to reveal their best suits and dresses, long out of style and aired only on special occasions such as these.