My Name is Stab

Chapter Fifteen - Christmas

And so the two weeks of quarantine passed.

A couple of days later, it was Christmas. Surprisingly, in spite of everything, we had a good time.

The little ones were sent off to bed early then the rest of us set to work decorating the place. Sampson casually carried a huge tree into the living room and I set to work on it, hanging decorations. Ashley had made a beautiful star and I was trying to hang it up but, even when I was standing on a chair, I couldn't quite reach. Suddenly a pair of powerful black hands grabbed me round the waist and propelled me up towards the ceiling. I suppose I should have objected or panicked or something but I was so shocked, I didn't think to do anything but hang up the star.

When he was done he gently lowered me down and gave me his enormous, toothy grin. "Merry Christmas, lil' white girl!" he said.

"Merry Christmas, big black man!" I replied.

He laughed enormously at that.

The next day, there was even a present for me - a beautifully wrapped chocolate bar. I had not seen chocolate since 'the day'. I went and thanked Phil and Susan. Though nothing had ever formally been said, the two of them seem to have unofficially adopted me as they seemed to have adopted all the other strays the farm had picked up. I never quite worked out who were their real children. I would have offered them a piece of the chocolate but I had been beaten to it by James and Ron.

I still felt the need to share my good fortune with somebody so I went across to Sampson and gave him a piece. "Thank you, lil' white girl," he said. He took my two hands in his enormous paws, reached down and planted a gentle kiss on my cheek. I simply froze, torn between the need to run away from human contact and the need to hug him.

Lunch was fun and, though there wasn't vast amounts of food, the cooks had tried to make the meal special. There was even a bottle of champagne on the table - left over from Phil and Susan's wedding - and I was given a tiny glass.

After the meal, Susan took me up to one of the bedrooms and began unpacking clothes from piles of cardboard boxes. She was starting to look significantly pregnant so I insisted that I move the boxes for her. "Mike used to own an army surplus store," she explained, "and they managed to bring a fair bit of the stock with them. We should be able to find something here for you."

"But I can't..."

"This isn't really a present. You want to join our militia, don't you?"

I nodded.

"Then you need to be in uniform... or, at least, as close as we can manage. Mike asked me to sort this out for you."

I'm not exactly a normal sort of shape for a soldier so we had to spend a couple of hours adjusting the uniform. The only thing that really fitted was a pair of high-tech combat boots. Fortunately, I had a fair grasp of needlework from St Agnes's Northern Academy for Young Ladies - though I don't imagine that Miss Emms, the domestic science teacher, would have ever envisaged that I would be using the skills she taught me to take in a pair of combat trousers for myself.

As Susan was hunting through her sewing basket for some heavy-duty needles, she came across a bundle of photographs. She tried to push them to one side but I could see she really wanted to look at them so I told her that it would be OK. It was almost true.

So, as we were sewing, we looked at the photos and soon we were talking about her family and friends and college days and I accidentally ended up telling her something about Theodora's life and family before 'the day'.

I was surprised how little it hurt.

At the end of the two hours, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I almost looked like a proper soldier - though I was still much too skinny, of course.

Then I had to force myself to go and thank Mike. He was a strange, remote and, in a way, frightening figure but there was something about him that I found... I think the word is captivating... something about him kept grabbing my attention. However, the people here seemed to treat him with complete trust and respect so I suppose he had to be OK. He had just come off duty with Sampson and they were sitting at the table, eating the share of Christmas dinner that had been saved for them. I noticed that they both had glasses of whisky and I vaguely wondered where that had come from.

Of course, Sampson laughed uproariously when he saw me and immediately came out with, "Lil' white squaddy girl!" which made even Mike smile and did a lot to take the tension out of the meeting.

When I thanked Mike for the clothes he replied, "Don't worry, you're going to be paying for them starting first thing tomorrow. I've put you down on the guard rota with James and me. You'll be learning on the job."

"OK."

"That's, 'Yes, Sarge!' when you're in uniform, lil' white squaddy girl," Sampson corrected me in a firm but friendly manner.

I dutifully repeated the phrase and Mike gave a half-hearted salute of acknowledgement.

So Christmas was fun.