Author’s Notes:
This story takes place within the “Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World” universe I’m
creating over at The Other Side. To catch up, Jim has been teaching at a private
boys’ school in London since July 1995. Unfortunately, he has only been back to
Sleepyside once in the last 18 months... More after the story.
The song used is “I’ll be Home for Christmas” (I have no idea who it
belongs to!).
Many thanks to Meagan for her editing prowess and for generally brainstorming with me
across the office when we should have been working!
Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful Christmas
by Janette
Christmas Day, 1996
6.15 pm
Jim Frayne could almost convince himself that he wasn't alone again. Almost believe that his childhood friends would come tumbling through the doorway, singing and laughing as they had done in the past. The problem was, reality kept getting in his way. He was most definitely alone on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
Jim sighed and stopped pretending to read the Charles Dickens given to him by his senior History students on the last day of school before Christmas. Footsteps thumped across the floorboards outside his room, paused at the doorway, then carried on. Jim hauled himself out of the armchair by the window and retrieved the folded paper that had been slid under his door.
It was an invitation for all boarding house 'orphans' to join with the Housemaster on Boxing Day for lunch. Jim had originally thought that the day after Christmas was going to involve sweaty men with broken noses until one of his fellow assistant masters had explained.
Isn't it ironic, Jim thought, that the adopted child is now a Christmas orphan? Nowhere to go on Christmas Day. Nothing to do except wait for it to be over.
Jim sighed as he looked down at the deserted courtyard, picking up the phone to call home. One of the boys had left his hockey stick leaning on the park bench next to Ryan Freeman's soccer ball. The rain didn't even hit the window ledge as it fell past Jim's reflection. Straight down from the sky, onto the cobblestones and the toys, with little splashbacks sending out ripples that were cancelled by other ripples. No matter how many drops fell, it didn't really make a difference.
Just like my teaching, Jim reflected morosely. What use is American history to rich English kids? No wonder they can’t tell the difference between the Washington brothers, George and Denzel.
He hung up on the busy signal. He'd been trying to call all day, and kept getting the recorded 'all international lines are busy' message. Jim wandered aimlessly across the living room he shared with the other two assistant boarding housemasters. Richard had left for Christmas with his family in York barely two hours after the students had cleared the front gate, while Darren had stayed to share a festive drink with Jim before spending the weekend with his girlfriend.
Flicking on the radio, Jim stared framed scene on the wall. All the Bob-Whites in their Atlantis costumes, gathered around Diana, who reclined regally across the chaise lounge, her mermaid tail in mid-flap as the photo was taken. Trixie in her electric blue starfish costume, hair streaked with blue hair mascara. Honey somehow squeezed into the diver's costume that highlighted every svelte feature. The jaunty angle of Mart's Admiral's cap almost obscuring the parrot perched on pirate Dan's shoulder. Brian grinning from beneath his gold crown, the most relaxed he'd been since the start of his ER rotation. The red devil's pitchfork looked out of place, but Brian barely had time to change into his loincloth, let alone finish making his trident. And Jim, standing in the midst of them, rubber arms of his octopus costume draped over them all. Sure, he'd been smiling, but at the exact instant of the photo, he'd been distracted, looking away to the right.
How prophetic, the last time we were all together, and I was already looking away, looking out for myself, Jim sighed inwardly.
I’ll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me.
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents under the tree.
Jim debated whether or not to hurl the Darren's radio out of the window, to join the ever-present rain, but decided not to risk infuriating the seven-foot basketball champion. Instead, he picked up Dickens again, and tried to immerse himself in mid-19th century London.
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love-light gleams.
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.
The lights were blazing in the windows of the Manor House. Honey, wearing a tight black sheath dress, laughed as she stood aside to let the twins scamper up the steps and through the doorway ahead of Mart and Diana Belden. Her grinning husband, Brian, took their coats, and ushered them towards the rest of the gathering family. Helen and Peter were entertaining the grandchildren, wrying regretting Matthew and Madeleine's last minute escape to Paris. Trixie, blonde curls streaked with blue paint, and her husband, Sean, poured glasses of punch for Bob and his new fiancée. Children chattered, giggled and wondered, occasionally warned by the nearest adult not to touch the tree or presents stacked underneath until after dinner.
"Well, I want to know if I got an Elmo! Can't we have dinner now? I’m hungry!" Eddie Belden wasn't old enough to appreciate his family's uproar of laughter at his remark, and hid behind his father, who'd passed on the legendary appetite.
"We still have to wait for Uncle Jim, son," Mart explained to his five year old. From under the brim of his sailor's cap, he shot his sister-in-law a questioning glance.
Honey shrugged. For the past fifteen years, nobody really knew if Jim was actually going to show up for Christmas or not. He hadn't been the same Jim they'd grown up with since returning from London. Honey couldn't even remember the last time she'd talked with the real Jim.
"Well, why don't we get the children settled around the table?" Diana suggested, standing up carefully to avoid treading on any fingers of the three young girls who'd been playing with the sparkly silken material of her skirt. Trixie lead her daughter into the dining room, as her husband helped Hallie scoop up her little Melanie. As parents settled their children around the extended dining table, Brian signalled to the kitchen staff to bring out the children's plates. The front doorbell chimed, and Honey hurried as gracefully as she could to answer it.
A minute or two later, following a hissed conversation in the foyer, Honey and Jim entered the dining room. Trixie looked up from cutting her daughter's food to see Jim's drawn face staring into hers. Trixie steeled herself not to look away from those fading green eyes, hollow with loneliness.
"Sorry I'm late," he mumbled, taking his seat at the far end of the table. The remaining adults seated themselves around the children before Brian rose and said grace. Staff brought platter after platter of food from the kitchen, and there was chattering, laughing, and whispered thoughts of presents from the children. The adults, Trixie in particular, tried to pretend that there was no tension around the table, emanating from the dark figure at the end.
Jim was quiet in his misery. He used to love the warmth and cheer that enveloped his adopted family around the holidays. But now, he was on the outer. The one they tolerated, but didn't quite know anymore. He was a lonely man, washed up even before middle age, living only for his school. And when the students left for holidays, so did any spark of happiness he held inside.
He looked over at Trixie, so radiant as she juggled being a successful investigator, wife, and mother. He had once believed that Fate had brought them together at Ten Acres. Perhaps it was that reckless acceptance that made him complacent, and he'd lost her.
And what had he lost? The one glancing brush he'd had with happiness. So naïve, he'd been, imagining that she'd wait for him while he pleased himself in London. But she hadn't. She'd fallen in love and married a stranger. Sean. Who was he? Back then, a criminal psychology student she'd shared classes with, now a profiler for the FBI, and yet still a stranger to Jim.
Jim studied them all, gathered together. Honey and Brian with two thoughtful and considerate children. Hallie and Ben, fussing over little Melanie. Diana and Mart, who couldn't escape genetics, having twins a year after Trixie's firstborn. Bob whispering in the ear of his Adeline, the two of them wrapped in their own world. Helen and Peter, aging now, but serene in the knowledge that more than blood united this brood.
All of them loving, and loved in return. Except him. Except James Winthrop Frayne II, who carried the legacy of his great uncle. Alone. Loveless, and for all intents and purposes, lifeless. How had it come to this? When did he become the echo of that haunted shell of a man?
The sharp rapping on the door to the living room startled him out of his dream. Or was it nightmare of Christmas to come? After uncurling himself from the depths of the chair, Jim swung the door open hesitantly.
"Sorry, Jim. The office staff still can't read properly. This is for you." The Housemaster, Jeremy Vincent Faye, chuckled at the ongoing joke of the mail system as he handed over the small package. "See you tomorrow for lunch?"
"Yeah." Jim mentally kicked himself for being so rude. "Thank you, Jeremy, I'd love to join you."
"Great. And Merry Christmas, Jim." Faye disappeared down the stairs as Jim absently closed the door, staring at the handwriting on the package.
Mr J. W. Frayne
Duxton House
Raleigh School
London, England
As normal, the office staff hadn't looked carefully enough to distinguish his name from Jeremy's. No matter.
Jim carefully slit the parcel open. A deluxe tartan Christmas card from his parents, along with an expensively wrapped present. Another, smaller envelope containing cream and gold parchment, his name elaborately inked on the front, and inside, doves kissed across the invitation to Honey's long-anticipated wedding to Dr Brian Belden. Jim smiled, a thread of cheer penetrating his gloomy afternoon.
As he placed the invitation on the bookshelf above his desk and moved to throw out the packaging material, Jim saw a small corner of blue paper sticking out. He retrieved it. What he read made his whole spirit lift, making him ignore the rain, the silence in the boarding house. Every neuron and fibre in his body was singing from it's respective rooftop - I've been given another chance!
Jim
It's been a long time, and I miss you so much..
Please come home soon. We need to talk.
Christmas isn't the same without you.
Yours, Trixie.
More author's notes:
For those following the "Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World" storyline that's being
developed, you can regard this story as a kind of chapter 1.5 as it occurs in between the
1995 action of the prologue and chapter 1 and the 1999-2000 setting of chapter 2.
And if it gives you a clue as to who wrote the letter... well, oops! I did it again!
*g*