I volunteered, that’s what really burns. And she let me. Knowing I was Lyndon B. Johnson entering Vietnam. Knowing I was Candide stepping naively into the gumbo of spite Voltaire had cooked up for him.“You make the pudding this year,” I said. “I’ll do the seating plan.” She stifled a smile. “Oh, great, yeah, ’cause women just love to cook.” As if she were getting the worst of it.
There are 38 of us coming – fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins and their partners, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles. What fun – the clan Cameron at their Christmas lunch. We’re going to host it with all our tables conjoined, like railway cars making a train.
The first call I took was from cousin Caz, who said, “Hey, Ansy, I hear you’re doing the table. I can’t be sat within axe swing of either Heather or Kent with an E.”
“Oh, why not?”
“Mists of time. But we don’t speak.”
“OK. No problem. Lots of us. Plenty of room to hide.”
I’d drawn a rectangle on a sheet of paper and written names around it. Once I got off the phone I put a line through Caz and replaced her with Don and put Caz where Don had been.
Credit: Robin Cowcher
Next day I took a call from Don saying since the old man died, and the snide scramble for loot that followed … well, he and Emily don’t speak to any of his brothers any more. OK, a line through Don. A line through Emily. She goes where Nathan was, between Martin and Asta. Don goes up the south end between Rachel and Steph. Though, doesn’t Don think Steph’s a woke wanker? And isn’t Steph always bristling to denounce Don as sexist, racist and transphobic? Don migrates further north towards Bea and Maddy … who, come to think of it, are in love with the same meth dealer, so one of them must be moved. Mine seems not to be a family tree so much as a bouquet of grudges.
Another phone call, another, more difficult, reshuffle. To date I have taken five calls from guests alerting me to rifts that require no-go zones and DMZs, and the seating plan for our Christmas lunch has become a confounding puzzle. These people are fractious to an astounding degree. Given Christmas is a celebration of family and love, this seems like shuffling deckchairs on the RMS Ironic.
