‘My dear! Just like the Little Lord Jesus!’
‘Harriet! Remember what I told you? We don’t talk about that at home, we don’t say Little Lord Jesus. Because of Daddy. Remember?’
‘Away in a manger,’ begins my sister, singing in a dreamy voice, fluttering her lashes.
This is one of the two hit tunes everyone in our convent learns from the very first year. These are the two hits. 1) ‘Silent Night’. 2) ‘Away in a Manger’. In the first year, or Preparatory as it is called by nuns, or Babies as it is known to girls, tune one or two is played on the wind-up music box on the mantelpiece every single day ten minutes or so before lunch. Dining-room Nun, who is also Babies Nun, cranks it up and says, Now put your heads down, whereupon you fold your arms on top of your desk and rest your head there, sleepy or not. Why these tunes? In song number one, there are the words silent and night. It’s a hint. OK. In song number two, there is a line that goes: The Little Lord Jesus lays down his sweet head. Nuns think this is very persuasive to little kids who may be too old to take naps in the middle of the day but are going to want to do like Jesus, no matter what, because Jesus is the best who ever lived. I hate to say it, but frankly, being a baby and sleeping is nothing special, it is not a remarkable Jesus activity in my opinion. As I see it, babies are always dozing off, lolling about in pushchairs or out for the count on blankets spread out in the shade, like just getting here, birth itself, is going to take a lot of recovery time.
Harriet sings all the way to the gates where I get serious with her, assuming a grave expression the way my dad does when he wants to warn me that if I do not read enough I will end up stupid and have to work in a soup kitchen or the shmatte trade. What is a soup kitchen? What is the shmatte trade? Is he talking about slaves? I do not ask, as it is hard to reason with my dad on a day it slips his mind I am not quite eight and have plenty of reading years ahead of me and furthermore, I read all the time, goddammit.
I lay my hands on Harriet’s shoulders and swivel her round to face me and she goes all googly-eyed like she has completely lost her balance. I try to stay serious.
‘Now. What did I say?’
‘Little Lord Jesus, don’t say it.’
‘Right. And no singing it. Away in a manger.’
‘Where is Amanger?’
‘It’s not a country, Harriet! It’s a shed or something.’
‘Spider shed!’
Harriet is thinking of the shed in our back garden, the shed of fear for most Weiss kids who are not keen to ferret about in there when Dad says, Bring me a hoe! A rake! Or Mum asks for twine, meaning gardening string. The shed is always dark for a start, especially when it is super bright outside and you are blinded and helpless as you step within, and at a disadvantage, knowing anything you go for, in any part of the shed, you have to grab and scoot away with, slamming the door after you, because there will be some huge spider rushing straight for you on all occasions. Why do they do that? Why can’t a spider pause and merely move elsewhere in a seemly manner? Everyone is an enemy to a spider, like for shell-shocked soldiers in World War I, so used to scrambling out of trenches, going over the top, as Jude says, and roaring into the dark, guns blazing, they just don’t know how to stay cool any more, even in the face of nurses and doctors and so on. There are enemies everywhere. For Jude, the shed is not a problem, so we all make him go for tools and stuff. He may take some time, which drives Dad wild, Where’s my hoe?! Where’s my rake?! but this is not a problem for Jude either.
In a minute, Dad, says Jude.
And then we all say it. In a minute Dad, in a minute Dad, in a minute Dad, whereupon Dad turns on the hose and nobody is safe from ablutions except Mum, of course, and Gus, who is too young for torture.
We don’t get a lot of gardening done, but it’s not a bad time.
‘OK then. Don’t say the manger or the Little Lord thing. Got that?’
Harriet salutes me and slaps her heels together smartish. This is the only thing she knows about soldiers, the only thing. War is not her subject.
‘I’ll see you later. Right here, Harriet. At the gates.’ I swivel her back around and give her a bitty push in the shoulder area and she flies forward like she has been shot from a cannon as in that famous circus act.
‘When Harriet is FREEEE!’ she says, running towards the little kids’ entrance, and that is how it is for Harriet as she enters the gates in a little uniform she has to wear just so with different rules for different seasons, and special times to work and eat and lay her head down to the sound of tunes chosen by nuns, it’s not quite right, like a bird in a cage, not prison and hard labour exactly but not quite right, not until ten to four in the afternoon when she flaps free and meets me at the gates. My sister needs a lot of air and open spaces, that’s how it is.
When Harriet’s time is up and it is my turn to take my first peep at Gustavus, Gus, I tug at her green jumper twice, meaning, move along, your time is up, it’s my go, and as she steps past me, I can tell she has something to say.
‘Don’t say manger or the Little Lord thing,’ she whispers.
I roll my eyes and move in close, and the funny thing is, I think about it, the manger situation and how with Jude and Ben behind me, we are like the three kings, I can’t help thinking it. I have been in three Nativity plays so far at my convent, the Nativity being the only play the nuns know how to do, I guess, and my dad is OK with this as long as I have the low-down.
‘It’s just a story, you know,’ he says, all serious, a bit gruff, leaning up against the kitchen counter where Mum is cooking, crowding her a little, it’s a habit of his.
‘Right, Dad,’ I say in a patient but busy voice. I am trying to finish my homework before supper so I can play Action Man with Jude afterwards. Also, my dad tells me this every December, how the Nativity business is just a story, and God can’t have sons who are also God, etc., and I know what’s coming next.
‘Jesus Christ was a Jew. A rabbi. Don’t forget that. OK, Jem?’
‘A rabbi. Jewish. Not God. Got it,’ I reply, and my dad yanks my hair three times, which is his way of saying, I am not mad at you, although I sound mad at you. I know, Dad. No worries, Dad.
I have just about had it with Nativity. The fact is, I don’t want to be in any kind of play, it’s so embarrassing, but I am especially fed up with Nativity ones because of shepherding, quite a vexing role, though not too bad compared to Drummer Boy.
One year I was tried out as the Drummer Boy. I was fairly keen, due to having no words to speak and due to the military aspect and the bravery of drummer boys in military history but what I do not understand is how he comes into the Nativity story. What is he doing here? Does he think there is a war on? Or is he just wild for parades and processions? Never mind. My one job was to do drum rolls on a tin drum looped around my neck and head up the parade to the Baby Jesus while the girls sing that depressing song about the Little Drummer Boy and his drum, ra ta ta tum, but I lost my job and was switched to Shepherd because I was pathetic at drum rolls. My effort at drum rolls was deeply frustrating and induced palpitations in me, and a feeling close to terror, what with Music Nun glaring at me in that horrible manner. It was a horrible experience all in all and definitely a relief to be shepherding flocks again.
A shepherd has two jobs only. 1) Lurk about a fire at night in a shepherdly fashion, at the end of a long day
