Christmas in New England By Jonah
This is a work of fiction so be aware that every character herein is also fictitious. If you think you recognise yourself, or somebody else in here - you don't. Some places, and some institutions in here are real, but the people attached to those institutions in the story are not. Most characters are my own creations, but some are the creations of another author. I want to thank Jacob Lion, in the USA, for his permission to use his characters in my stories.
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Chapter 2
Linda Knight, our Social Services Case Worker, assured me that we didn't need a court order to take Barry out of the country - only the written permission of Social Services, which she was sure that Mrs. Jenkins, her director, would be happy to sign for us. I asked her to arrange that, then I got Garret to phone his father again. By the time I arrived home from work on Friday, it was all arranged. We would be flying out to Boston on the nineteenth and would be picked up by Yori. He would drive us to Ashfield. We would be in the States throughout Christmas, travelling back to Norwich on the twenty-seventh. Taking flying time into account, Yori would suffer his grandchildren for roughly a week.
That gave us three weeks to be ready. The biggest complication was that, while we had already obtained passports for Lloyd and Philip, we could not apply for one for Barry. That had to be applied for by Social Services since he was only fostered. I took Barry for an interview with Mrs. Jenkins and we filled in an interminable form. Then it was a question of waiting while the passport office in Peterborough deliberated on her request. It was clear that we would only discover at the last hour whether or not the trip could go ahead.
Mrs. Jenkins - bless her little frilly nightie - suggested that, if the worst came to the worst, she could try to get Barry housed at the Eastwold Children's Home, over Christmas, so that the rest of us could go. I have to confess to being a trifle ascerbic in turning down that offer. I could not believe that she had made it with Barry within earshot. She couldn't believe it either and her apologies were profuse.
We had, it seemed, To hope for the best - and plan for the worst.
There was a plan B. Garret had told his father about all this and Yori had immediately offered a solution. If we could not go to him, he would get on an airplane and come to us. The man is in his eighties and we would not hear of that. The man is also Yori - he didn't care whether or not we would hear of it. We finally left it that we would plan to fly to the States but, if the passport office scuppered our plans, Yori would fly to England.
"So, are you planning a Christmas party for your form?" Garret asked.
"We're a CTC, not a school. You wouldn't think it IS Christmas. I'm surprised they're shutting the place on Christmas Day."
"It's just as well that they are. You're coming with us."
"Yes, if we go."
"Are you at the concert tommorrow night?"
"My lover is singing , my son is singing - what do you think?"
"I think it's bedtime."
"I haven't heard a sound from up there for a little while now."
"Not for them - for us. Come on"
Saturday the 15th of December was a cold one. The wind blew and would have whipped up the dead leaves around our feet, it they had not been too wet to be whipped up. The cloud was low, but scuds of panis managed to scurry by even lower. The rain came down, eventually. I mean - the rain was pretty much continuous, but it couldn't have descended very fast at that angle of descent. It wasn't so much "coming down" as "losing height".
My windscreen wipers fought a losing battle with the deluge as I drove Lloyd into Norwich. He needed a new pair of shoes, to go with his best school uniform, for the concert.
"Said the shepherd boy to the little lamb....."
Lloyd did have a beautiful singing voice and I wasn't going to tell him to shut up. Besides, I approved of his being excited.
On our return home, armed with the new shoes (actually, in a house full of young boys, it's not a good idea to think of shoes as armaments), we found dinner on the table. I certainly approved of Garret's choice of beef stew on a day like this. Garret was going to be out all afternoon. We had not yet reached a decision on whether he was taking Lloyd with him, or whether I was going to go early and take the boy with me. Eventually, as Garret was about to leave, Lloyd made the decision for us. He arrived at the front door, in shorts and anorak, with his school clothes in a plastic carrier-bag.
That left me to keep Philip and Barry occupied on a wet December afternoon.
We had an early tea and at six o' clock I was parking my mini in the St Andrew's Car Park. The rain had stopped, but we were glad of our warm coats as we walked brisky down Duke St. and then passed the old Church of St. John Maddermarket. The wind seemed to be perpetually in our faces as we walked down Dove St. to the Market Place. The city was ablaze with Christmas lights as we walked round by the City Hall to the huge Church of St Peter Mancroft. It was just twenty past six, but we would need to be early to find seats.
We found seats where the boys would be able to see everything and sat quietly as we watched the place fill up. St. Peter Mancroft is the largest parish Church in Norwich, and one of the oldest. It is a beautiful mediaeval building built in a style known as perpendicular (I remember Jonah once telling me that there used to be a lot of perpendicular buildings in London, until the Luftwaffe took exception to them being perpendicular - I didn't get that at the time).
At seven o clock the Male voice choir filed in and sat in the choir stalls. The junior choir, in their school uniforms, sat on smaller chairs at the front, with the exception of Lloyd. He stood in the centre of the altar steps and waited for everybody to finish moving about. My feelings were torn between concern, that a ten year old was having to face this alone, and pride, that Lloyd was standing there and, seemingly, in command.
"Once in Royal David's city stood a lowly cattle shed."
The pride took over one hundred per cent. Lloyd had nailed this. He was unaccompanied and, presumably, at the end of the verse the organ would open up and we'd all find out whether he had pitched it correctly, but I had no doubt. I had no doubt because Lloyd had no doubt. If it had ever crossed his mind to wonder whether he was on pitch, he showed no sign of it. His beautiful soprano voice commanded silence and attentiveness, and he got it.
"Jesus Christ , her little child:"
The pause was less than a beat. You couldn't have fitted a demisemiquaver in the gap before the organ struck up, but you could sense that every soul in the building was straining for that first chord from the organ - waiting to match the treble note to Lloyd's G natural. It never happened. The organist started us off on a D natural and left Lloyd's notes alone. No wonder the boy had been so confident. That's one of the things that makes this carol a good choice for an unaccompanied solo on the first verse.
Off we went with the massive pipe organ now in command;
"He came down to Earth from Heaven,"
The sound was magnificent, and it got better.
The male voice choir were up next with "O' Holy Night," and "Past Three a clock", then Frank Loughlin did a solo with "The Carol Singers" which was hilarious. The choir finished off their first bit with an American version of "The Holly and the Ivy" or, at least, it sounded American.
The junior choir then performed and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. All in all, we had a fine evening's entertainment and I had three happy boys to take home to Newton.
They were in bed by the time Garret got back and, I'm pretty sure, they were asleep.