The Mask

She was the kind of girl who always wore a mask, slipped it on carefully over her make-up first thing every morning and topped it up religiously throughout the day. Her mask was well constructed to exactly fit her face, a perfect match that smoothed out all the worry wrinkles and all the fearful frowns.

The mask enhanced her smile, giving her a hint of one at all times though she never really smiled behind it at all. The mask gave her a brightness of appearance too, one that wasn’t real at all. She looked quite gloomy in reality truth be told. Not that anyone much ever saw the reality, the true face behind the mask, the one that was went to bed with in the evening and woke up with in the morning.

The mask was powerful it must be said. It took her places she’d never have dreamed of going to otherwise, places like boardroom presentations and functions of one kind or another like Christmas party nights like these. The mask was doing its duty tonight, staying securely in place all through the mulled wine and mice pie starters, the buffet meal and the disco afters. It never flinched for even a fraction of a second no matter who she was waving at or talking to or dancing with.

She was in the bathroom now double checking that it was still in place, her reflection looking lovely in the mirror if only she could see it, pleading with her to remove the mask and face it head on, to finally see how fabulous she really was, to forget the nonsense in her head telling her that she wasn’t as good as the others, convincing her that she hadn’t a hope without the mask.

But she wasn’t listening to her soft spoken reflection. She never listened to that, choosing instead to pay heed to the terrible taunting voices that mocked her mercilessly any chance they got. Their names were low and self and esteem and they had her for their prisoner for as long as anyone could remember. Her real reflection hated them for the damage they were doing her, was planning to put out a call for help for her sake in the New Year. This mask nonsense had to stop before it was too late. It really did….

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Paradise

Mary was pleased when she got there because Paradise was just what she expected it to be – a road leading into a new dawn, literally. It was early when she arrived, a summer’s morning, the steam rising off the dewy grass, spiders weaving the last of their nightime webs and birds picking up the thread of a song.

She stopped for a minute to take in the scene, noting how her canvas shoes were all scuffed with dust from the dry roads she’d just travelled. She didn’t care about the shoes. They looked better now if anything, a worn-in comfort about them. She didn’t care about her good gingham dress either, the crumples down the front or the tear in the sleeve, and she certainly didn’t care that her plait had come loose. Truth be told she felt better than she had done in years and was more light-hearted too. It was the first day in a long long time that she had no worries or  pains or aches, only a feeling of eternal optimism at the sight before her eyes.

Although she had no memory of ever being here before, she recognised this place from somewhere deep inside, remembered it from her dreams maybe, or from the very beginning of time. Whatever her connection with the place was, she had no fear of it at all, no anxieties about what lay beyond the wide open welcoming gates.

She knew exactly what to expect, not streets paved with gold as some would have it, or angels in full flight or cherubic choirs in chorus, no trumpets either or saints or spirits. Her Paradise was a country road built as a long ago right of way, a road with grassy verges sprinkled with wildflowers – budding daisies, pale primroses, shy little violets and steady old dandelions – and flanked on either side with woodland – horse chesnuts, sycamores, blackthorns and briars.

A motley crew of birds, some more melodic than others sang off in the distance announcing her arrival. There was a lovely energy about them all whether they crowed or cawed or chanted. A gentle westerly wind kept everything lively, endowing her with a natural spring in her step as she rounded bend after bend lighting upon one surprise after another – an apple tree up ahead, a great old-fashioned swing hanging out of it, a chesnut mare in the next field, a rose garden down the way.

And then out of nowhere the sight of the sea, a sight that she ran directly towards, straight into the arms of the waiting waves. She knew she was finally home when she embraced that sea, its lullaby language calling out to her, reassuring her that everything was exactly as it should be now, that she was back in the place where she truly belonged. ‘Welcome’ the gushing gulls seemed to say ’a hundred thousand welcomes’.

 

Auntie Pat

One of my earliest memories of Christmas is your card arriving almost always late, the card with the English postmark, Derbyshire if I remember right and the stamp with the crown on it. Your cards weren’t holy at all and there never had any people on them. They weren’t a bit like any of the others on the mantelpiece at home. They depicted picture postcard snow scenes, tasteful country cottages, tall stately lamp-posts and solid stone walls. They were always printed on good quality paper and wrapped in rich cream envelopes, arriving in a package that promised so much, but delivered so little, never more than three words hastily scratched inside – Best wishes, Pat.

We saw the disappointment on our mother’s face every time she read those three short words, mystified that you had managed to leave so much blank white space around the page, space that she herself would have filled up with all sorts of scribbles, given the chance, thanking God and pleasing God and being grateful to God that things were going as well as they were. You’d think she’d have realised over the years that Christmas or no Christmas, you weren’t going to change. But no, it seemed like every year she’d build herself up to wish for more and be disappointed all over again when it didn’t happen.

‘Oh well’ she’d end up saying not necessarily straightaway but sometime over the holidays ‘she’ll probably come home in the summer’. As time went on and you didn’t come even this consolation failed her. ‘You never know, she might just make it this year’ we heard that over and over, but later when even she knew better, she started to wonder aloud if she’d ever see you again. We hushed her at the time, saying what about it, hadn’t she all of us, what matter if your paths never crossed again. She didn’t want to hear that at all. We left her alone with her meanderings in the end, always sure you’d send a card every Christmas, always hoping you’d come over in the summer.

The year the card didn’t come, we knew you were gone. We got a solicitor’s letter instead – same posh envelope, same English postmark, same stamp with the crown on it, but with a different message this time. It made our mother cry. To tell you the truth, we all felt kind of sad. It was the end of the empty promises. None of us had any choice now but to give up on you at last, to draw a final line under the mysterious auntie who sent us her best wishes, nothing more, nothing less every Christmas.