An argument between my wife and I invariably precedes our traditional family expedition in search of the perfect Christmas tree. Actually, the argument is the only traditional part - the purchase itself is usually a deeply unfestive transaction that I undertake in the presence of whichever of my children was unfortunate enough to cross my path that day, and whose only role is to approve my choice with the words, “Yeah, fine, whatever.”
The dispute is about timing: I worry about buying a tree too early; my wife’s anxieties revolve around leaving it too late. Saturday seems as good a day to start the argument as any.
“Obviously this weekend is too soon,” I say. “But next weekend would be cutting it fine. I think Wednesday is probably our target.”
“I’ve ordered a tree already,” she says. “It’s being delivered.”
“Delivered?” I say.
“It should be here by 11,” she says.
At 11 the tree arrives. By 11.20 it’s standing in the sitting room with its lights on.
“Nice, isn’t it?” my wife says.
“Huh,” I say.
I retreat to my shed. Four days of seasonal bickering have suddenly been excised from my schedule, and I am at a loss. I make a list of outstanding professional chores, and begin to divide them into obligations that must be discharged before Christmas, and jobs that might simply evaporate if ignored assiduously enough. My phone pings: it’s a text from my brother in America, which says simply: “Skype?”
At first I think this might herald a family emergency, but I decide my brother, who has three small children, is probably casting across time zones in search of someone else who is awake.
I take my laptop into the sitting room and call him. His pixellated face appears, flanked by the heads of two blond twins in pyjamas.
“So we’ve been up for hours,” my brother says.
“It’s nearly lunchtime here,” I say, “and all my children are still asleep.”
“We’re four,” one of the twins says.
“Yeah, we’re four,” the other one says. Their older brother leans in and pulls a face. The twins leave the frame. My brother catches me up on things, pausing frequently to issue weary admonishments.
“It’s a struggle,” he says. “Anyway, we’re— Hey, don’t kick him!”
“Did you get snow?” I say.
“Here he comes,” my brother says, spinning his phone round to show my 98-year-old father entering the room with a cup of coffee in one hand. He steps over a prone twin and sits down in his chair. My brother’s phone closes in on my father’s face until it’s silhouetted against the bright windows behind.
“I don’t speak before 11,” the silhouette says.
“Does somebody need a timeout?” my brother shouts.
“Are you talking to me?” I say.
“I mean, there was some snow,” he says, turning the phone back to his own face. “But it wasn’t like… uh-oh.”
The world spins, and I am offered juddering glimpses of my dad’s kitchen as my brother makes his way across it. A dog runs ahead of him. An open door revealing a child sitting on a toilet flashes past.
The phone is deposited somewhere – possibly the fruit bowl – and I am left on my own with a view of a corner of the ceiling and the edge of a chair.
“Hang on, I got ya, buddy!” my brother says, somewhere off camera. There is a brief silence. A twin’s head looms into view.
“I’m John,” it says.
“Hi John,” I say. “Are you…”
“Bye,” says John.
A moment later the phone is snatched up. I catch a sideways view of the staircase before my brother sits down in the living room and offers me an establishing shot of the layout.
“So we finally got a new couch for over there,” he says.
“I’m not sure I remember the old one,” I say.
“Hey!” he shouts. “You can’t fight in here!” He turns the phone back towards himself, leaning forward to rub his eyes. For a moment neither of us says anything.
“Did you get a tree yet?” I say.
“No,” he says. “That ain’t gonna happen today.”
