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 4
Yori's house was huge, and everything about it seemed huge. We had a room with two king-sized beds, which Garret said that he and Riku had occupied in their younger days. It could certainly accommodate our entire family.
On Thursday morning I awoke to the strains of a well-known Grieg piano concerto. I rose and showered and then tiptoed downstairs. Beyond the entrance hall was a drawing room and beyond that was what was obviously intended for a music room. On a large concert-grand a naked ten-year old boy was performing Grieg. He was performing it flawlessly - particularly since I'd no reason to believe that he had ever heard it before. I sat on one of the sofas that lined the perimeter of the room and leaned back to enjoy the performance. The fact that Barry was naked in Yori's home didn't give rise to anxiety. Years ago, Yori had given a home to his nephew Riku, so he was not likely to be easily shocked.
Barry came to the end of the piece. He folded his music then, sliding from the piano stool, lifted the lid and put the music inside. He was thumbing through the rest of the contents when I said,
"That was lovely Barry. Very well done. Now you need to shower and get dressed."
He said not a word but, with a nod of his head, he turned and trotted out.
I rose and left the room, passing through the drawing room and crossing the hall in the direction of the delicious smell that accompanied a sizzling noise. I found the Master of the House, wearing a striped apron and attending to a huge frying pan over a large gas range.
"Need any help?" I inquired.
Yori turned.
"Simon, I am not a cook and I only eat a light breakfast, but my boys were raised as Americans and I know what they like."
"Well, you won't get any argument from our boys," I said. "What would you like me to do?"
"I am going to make toast next but, if you can make tea...."
"I can do both Yori. You keep frying."
It was roughly ten minutes before the stampede began and, by that time, we were ready for them.
"Do you never see anything of Jake and the boys?" I asked between mouthfuls of bacon.
"Liam," replied Yori. "I see Liam. He lives in Ware now and has family, but still I see sometimes. There is nobody at the farm now. There was a family there for a while after Jake and Kori went to New Haven, but they are gone and the farm is empty. I need to see Liam. I have Christmas presents for their boys."
"It would be great to see them again."
"I ring and see if they are home this morning. If is OK we will drive out there."
"Where did you say he is living?"
"Yes, Ware."
"I don't know. I thought you did."
"It's about an hour from here. They moved there because it's nearer to Boston. Abby teaches in Boston. I make phone call."
With that he was gone.
I looked at Garret.
"Did you make any sense of that?"
"Yes, but then, I was raised in Massachusetts. I know where Ware is."
"Don't you start. He married Abby?"
"Yes, they have two kids. Honestly Simon - keep up."
"How do you know all this?"
A shrug was all the reply I got. Obviously the conversation had wearied him.
By ten o clock we were all strapped into Yori's huge people-mover. He set out on the Ma 116. For some reason Massachusetts was more beautiful than I remember it being. Admittedly we had never been here at this time of the year before. The roads look less like a green tunnel. Other colours put in an appearance and the sky is visible through bare branches. There are even small clearings between the road and the woodland - I hadn't noticed those before. Alright, this may not be a route I'd travelled before, or - knowing my record - if I had, I'd slept through it. Occasionally the lively little South River runs alongside the road. Through historic Conway, the boys grew excited. They grew even more excited when we crossed the mighty Connecticutt River at South Deerfield. Alright, it's not as mighty as the Mississipi, and I've seen the Hudson, but the boys thought it was fairly mighty. Certainly it's on a par with the West London reaches of the Thames. As we left Sunderland behind and got into Amherst I began to feel glad that Yori was driving. I should certainly have got lost. What added to my confusion was the schizophrenic road numbering. On English roads I am used to numbered highways suddenly assuming street names, but these roads, even when numbered, can't keep the same number for long. Watching for the place to turn from the Ma116 onto the Ma9, you suddenly discover that the Ma116 has become the Ma9. Then it assumes a street name for a bit so you don't notice that you've got back on the 116 again. You drive on named streets for a good while before joining the Ma9 which quietly becomes the 116 without telling you. It didn't matter. Yori knew where he was going.
Yori pulled up in the driveway of a small house on Main Street, Ware - small, that is, by comparison with some of the other houses in Ware. It had an bit of unkempt garden at the back and a smaller bit of unkempt lawn at the front. We followed him to the side-door and entered without so much as a by-your-leave.
"YORI!" cried Abby as soon as she saw him.
The boys and I followed him in with Garret bringing up the rear.
I barely recognised the gangling youth who clattered down the stairs to greet us. The two of them, I knew, would be in their mid-twenties, whereas the twin toddlers appeared to be a little shy of two.
To prevent anybody tripping over them, Liam collected a child under each arm but Abby relieved him of them.
"Give them here dear," she said. "You go and put the kettle on." She'd obviously remembered that we were English.
Garret and the boys settled on the sofa while Yori claimed his favourite armchair. Clearly he was a frequent enough visitor to know his way around. The twins were soon on the carpet where our boys joined them. Both twins were pretty well fully mobile (and then some), but neither had mastered articulate speech yet. Admittedly, neither needed speech to make it quite clear what they wanted.
I followed Liam into the kitchen - a surprisingly large one for a small house, but it incorporated a dining area too.
"You still at uni then Liam?" I asked, mainly because he looked as if he was.
"Yes," he replied. "Abby's the breadwinner around here for the moment. She teaches in Boston."
"And you're at Yale?"
He shook his head.
"Harvard," he said. "Sociology. I'm not decided yet whether to teach or go into local government. To be honest, I'd like to be helping people make their lives better."
"I can understand that mate," I told him. "Jake did a fair bit of that."
"Yeah, well, him and Kori sure turned my life around. Payback time's got to come sooner or later."
"I should think he considers himself pretty well repaid. All he ever wanted to do was to see you happy. Do you still see anything of him?"
He nodded.
"Yup! They live at New Haven. Jake's a full blown professor now and Kori has a Doctorate. They both Lecture at Yale. We keep in touch and sometimes go on holidays together, though I've a couple of sea-anchors to keep me here at the moment. He seems to have taken to being a Grampappy."
Tea was mashed and taken through to the other room.
"Lloyd says you drive engines Simon," said Abby. I noted that she had said "engines" and not "trains" as the uninitiated often do.
"North Norfolk Railway, Abby."
"What do you drive?"
I remembered that she was probably familiar with most British engines.
"B12, J15, 9F, Standard 4, Austerity 2-8-0, 08 diesel, and a few tank engines. Lloyd drives engines too, but a bit smaller."
I fished a picture of Lloyd driving the Baby Deltic from my inside pocket.
"Five inch?" said Abby in some surprise. "my daddy builds five inch, but he's never had a railway to run them on."
"We've got a railway," said Lloyd, "And a diesel, and a steam engine and signals."
"I can see," said Abby to her husband, "that, as soon as the twins are old enough, a trip to England is going to be called for."
"You know you'll be welcome," said Garret.
Yori, in the meantime had been helping Liam to locate some additional parcels under the Christmas tree.
"When you finish tea," he told us, "we hit road. Have dinner on way home."
"You'll do no such thing Yori," Abby protested. "Liam and me are only having chicken and fries, but there's plenty for you. You'll stay to dinner." So THAT was decided upon.
Well, dinner was a merry affair. The twins had their own food, which Lloyd and Philip, aided and abetted by Barry, fed to them. By three o clock, as the sun looked like setting, the twins were asleep and it seemed like an opportune time to make a quiet exit.
The journey home was - well I couldn't exactly say what it was. I remember us climbing out of Ware onto the road round by the huge Quabbin reservoir and I distinctly remember Yori saying that we were nearly home. You'd have to ask one of the others what happened in between.
It was dark when we disembarked in Ashfield, and after tea, and a rendition or two by Barry on the piano, a very tired English contingent retired for the night.