THE SHOW MUST GO ON…

Two weeks before Christmas I was soaking up all that festive cheer, sauntering in the streets and stopping in front of shop windows and admiring the season’s apparel on skinny, long-legged, small-waisted manikins. They were wrapped in clothes of emerald green, the ones that glide over your body as you slink past with a flute of champagne in the hand in a hall of party-goers…or dresses of brocade in gold and russet that rustle like sweet wrappers as you swish past. Yes, I get a little carried away sometimes and forget that I’m that many years old. So what I usually settle for is makeup that can blur the years and give the illusion of…dare I say a bit of…GLAMOUR.

So I stepped into Sephora’s and came away holding, close to my chest, these precious tubes in glowing golden bronze, of Charlotte Tilbury’s Highlighter. The girl at the counter said to smudge a little along the cheekbones and a little on the bow of the upper lip. I did so and on Saturday night at the Spanish restaurant with the lights low and the music…Spanish rendition of Doris Day’s… Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps…I slipped into the suggestive tone of the music, into some lost bygone years and imagined I glowed…well, not with youth but some…how can I put it….mature radiance…and never mind if it came from a tube. I presented my Saturday night friend with the extra tube that I had bought her and she was thrilled. The two smart boys wanted to know what our gushing excitement was all about and when they learnt it was makeup, they gave us some withering looks as if to say…` For God’s sake, get serious! There are events rattling up the world like wars and crushing crashing economies etc etc.’…Well, the only thing I can say in our defence is…vanity is so uplifting. A few days later I received a Christmas hamper from my friend…and snuggled up against the bottles of wine and Christmas treats in scrunchy golden wrappers, was…a tube of…Clarin’s Face Primer and Highlighter.

On the morning of the 23rd of December, the sun tumbled out of a grey wet sky and graced our little town with its glorious golden sunshine. So on this day, my friends, I decided to go out with a blast. I applied the Clarins highlighter under my foundation and then a smidgen and a smudgen of Tilbury’s here and there and walked out to town for my last minute Christmas shopping. If it had been night, I would have been glowing in the dark like a glowworm. But it was morning and I was competing with the sun…so I can’t really tell you how I looked. Anyway, I was too afraid to take a good look in the mirror.

As I approached the town centre, something else took over…loud pounding music. Every street corner had speakers, DJs, clowns blowing soap bubbles scintillating in the sunshine, children in gay apparel and painted Rudolph noses and people gathering in pools, which grew into throngs, tapping to the vibes of All I Want For Christmas Is You, Last Christmas, Feliz Navidad and all those numbers, fast and racy that put a dance in your step, a smile on your face and a send a surge of joy to your heart. Even if Christmas is commercialised, as most people say…what does it really matter if it melts away the heaviness we carry on our shoulders…with all this bombardment of unending wars and imminent woes…and exposes the bare bones of joy, of people coming together and celebrating life.

Christmas came and went and Yiannis and I were still all wound up with anticipation. At six in the evening on 29 December we were at the airport eagerly awaiting the arrival of the family from Brussels and especially Louise. The last time we saw her was in August.

Me: Do you think she’ll remember us?

He: Uhh…We’ll know soon enough. There they are!

Lo and behold! There was Louise walking ahead with her father, a head full of sandy locks, a little toddler almost 2 years old, walking steadily and sending us flying kisses. We were the luckiest grandparents in the world and we would get to enjoy her company and that of her parents’ for 6 whole days. The first thing Louise did when we got home was to stand in front of the Christmas tree with its twinkling lights and look in utter awe at the dancing angels, golden and silver balls and glass baubles of ruby red and clear crystal with the lights glinting off them. But it didn’t stay like that for long. Later on when no one was watching she unhinged those shining balls. We caught her, a ball in each hand, walking past quicky, trying to avoid our gaze.

The next day, which was 30 December, Annie and I talked about how we were going to celebrate the New Year. She had been scouring some recipe books and wanted to whip up an elaborate spread for the New Year Eve meal. We would be inviting Yiannis’ sister’s family and my drinking buddy and her son who was visiting from the States. He was a former student of mine in those days of yore and I was eager to meet up with him. There was a lot of food shopping to do which Annie and Laurent went out to get. Miss Loulou and I were given a shorter list for a couple of items from the grocer’s. So off we went hand in hand. At the grocer’s she was welcomed with delight.

Grocer’s daughter and husband: Ohh look how she’s grown since summer!

Miss Loulou: Smiling and sending flying kisses in all directions.

Customers at the shop: What a sociable child!.

Then Miss Loulou got tired of all the adulation and decided to walk out towards the vegetables and fruit.

Grocer’s son-in-law: Don’t go there! ( He was afraid she was going to exit the shop ).

A small commotion followed with a couple of adults looking at the floor.

Grocer’s son-in-law: Viola come and see!

I rushed to the scene and what did I see. Miss Congeniality, dressed in the lovely new knitted dress and matching tights I had got her, was lying face down on the not so clean floor, still and silent and people milling around and asking me if she was alright. Well this is what Miss Loulou does when you say no to her. I picked her up and escorted her out but not before she turned around and blew a bunch of kisses to her admirers and to their utter amusement.

At home Miss Loulou was given her lunch of bite pieces of chicken and rice. She spooned them in her mouth with a great big spoon, chewed some, swallowed some, spat some out and sprinkled the rest around the floor. In the meantime, Annie and I were thrashing out the details of the menu. Just then the back door opened and Yiannis walked in looking all shivery.

Annie and I: What’s wrong?

Yiannis: I’ve got Covid.

Deathly silence followed. Then all our grand plans came crashing down. Yiannis went into isolation and our invitees were told to keep away.

On New Year’s Eve, we decided that the show must go on. Annie got started on her elaborate dishes, roping in Laurent and myself as sous chefs. He did all the peeling, cutting and chopping and I was a… `get me this get me that’… person and then gradually reduced to a plongeur, the lowest in the pecking order, the washer of greasy and caramelized pots and pans, tumbling mountains of them in the sink. I scrubbed and soaped and rinsed to the beat of Baa Baa Black Sheep and Blue Sheep etc playing loudly on Cocomelon in the TV room for the entertainment of Miss Loulou, to keep her quiet while the grown-ups got on with the task at hand.

So as the  stars twinkled in the night sky on New Year’s Eve, we set the long dining table for the revéillon …white table cloth embroidered by Yiannis grandmother, heavy silver cutlery that slip out of the drawer to grace our table once a year, crystal wine glasses that catch the lights from the ceiling and sparkle like a million diamonds. We got all dressed up and I dabbed in extra glow on cheeks and chin and forehead. Yiannis came down looking less shivery and was placed at the far end of the table. Miss Cocomelon was given her meal of spaghetti, meatballs and sauce much earlier. She had forked in strings of pasta dripping with sauce into her mouth and whatever dangled from her chin was shoved in with her free hand.

The show began with a smooth velvety vegetable soup and as we slurped it we nodded our approval, even our Covid afflicted patient. Then came chicken cooked in orange sauce and things that go beyond my knowledge. It was served with potato wedges with a sprinkling of paprika and blanched carrot batons. For in-between bites, there were also tiny little meatballs rolled up with parsley from the garden. To cleanse our palates and explore the layers of flavours, we swirled and swished mouthfuls of white wine. All this while , Miss Loulou sat next to her mother in her high chair and helped herself to her mother’s food. She talked all the way in a diction for toddlers that had no pauses. The finalé was a crème brulée, lusciously creamy and warm with a thin layer of caramelized sugar. When the clock struck 12 we raised our glasses of Greek bubbly to the New Year as fireworks exploded in the darkness outside and blotted out the stars in the sky.

On New Year’s day we had the leftovers and the next day…I came down with Covid. I curled up like a withered ball, all shivery and woozy-headed, wilting and…glowless. On Thursday morning the kids left. Yiannis, though well, was still tested positive and so his brother-in-law had to drive the family to the airport. He said that Miss Cocomelon sang all the way there.

Well, that’s life for you my friends. But never mind we still had great moments and as Tennyson says:

Ring out the old, ring in the new, ring happy bells across the snow, the year is going, let him go, ring out the false, ring in the true. So cheers and have a great 2024