Home For Christmas

Contributed by Nicolas Papaconstantinou on 25/12/09

His first time overseas, his first time spending Christmas with somebody else’s family.

Come to that, he realises, this is the first time he has experienced her driving. Of the three experiences, this one is the most immediate and life-altering. The girl can barely walk to the bathroom without tripping, and gets aggravated when he tries to talk to her during Friends reruns or when she’s reading.

Behind the wheel, she is talkative and assertive. He likes the self-confidence, but he’d rather she left more room between their hire-car and the other vehicles on the frozen, winding rural roads.

“There’s no need to be nervous, darling…” She says, turning to look at him mid-overtake. “…My family won’t swallow you up.”

“I’m just not really used to the…” He stops, barely suppressing a gasp as she pulls them in too close to oncoming traffic. “Uh, just not really used to the big family Christmas. Also, the big family.”

“Oh, don’t worry. They will barely notice you. Once my grandfather starts drinking heavy, he and my father will start singing, and then start arguing.”

“Okay.” He looks out of the passenger-side window. The countryside is crisp and alien and beautiful to his imperial eyes. He takes a breath and lets it out slowly. He suddenly realises that he is totally relaxed. He is sure he has been at other times, he just hasn’t really noticed it before. “Hang on. They ‘won’t swallow you up’?”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Think something may have been lost in translation.”

“Heh. The problem with you English is you don’t know the right words for anything!”

“What!? Outrageous! We invented words!”

“Ha!” She laughs, and he isn’t sure if it’s at his comment or at the cyclist she just almost ran into the verge.

He can’t form an argument against her assertion, as it goes. Certainly, his experience of his own language is of something more concerned with rules and boundaries than of able expression. Anything complicated in more than a sentence or metaphor involves cheating – assimilation of foreign words or terms, or cultural assumption to describe feelings that should be second nature.

Or probably, it’s just him. If Eskimos have so many words for snow, he finds it strange that he has to cast about so wildly to find ways of explaining anything that isn’t work or meaningless.

The car is slowing down, though they are miles away from any signs of habitation. Remembering what she told him earlier, he figures they should be on the road for at least another ten, twenty minutes.

“Why are we pulling in to a field?” He asks.

“Well, you are so cute when you get all British. And nobody ever comes out here.” She grins at him. “We will have no privacy once we get there, so, you know… I thought we could sit for awhile.”

“My god, woman, what are you suggesting?” He says, mirroring her smile. “In broad daylight? And it’s bloody freezing!”

“Not for long.” She winks, and kisses him.

He hadn’t known his language limited him so, until he met her.