Carols in the Park

Victoria Park is a place I used to take Jack when he was very small aund helpless.  It’s quiet,with only a distant  hum of traffic on the Parramatta Road.  There’s a pond with ducks and moorhens and big fig trees to sit under. In the beginning he just lay there.  I pitied him for the struggle it was to move his arms and legs.   Later he liked to finger the grass and pop bits of bark in his mouth.  I always knew when there was something in there because of the tight lipped smirk on his face. There was a bit of guarding for me to do, but by and large the park was a safe place.  An everyday place.  Even when it is galvanised once a year by  something like Fair Day – a preliminary to the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras it seems safe with coiffed dogs that had their own cafe and couples holding hands happily.

So when Rachel asked me to go with her to Carols in the Park I was unpeturbed and happy to oblige.  She’s a singer and had been asked to do a number on the stage that night and I was going to be on duty while she was performing.  Jacob was about six months then, sitting but not crawling and minding him would be easy.

There was a slightly wild feeling about the park when we got there.  Kids streaking about,  groups staking out spaces with blankets.  We chose a space way back from the  stage which had a huge noise coming from it  Warming up I supposed.  I was thinking protectively from Jacob’s point of view – so different from his usual placid baby life.  He was still such easy prey and I was wary.

I was doubly disconcerted by an ex-girlfriend of my son Miles, Jack’s father, appearing in a Santa hat selling song sheets and candles with little ruffs to catch the wax.  She’d married, by a peculiar coincidence, an ex-boyfriend of Rachel’s.  It was all more than OK but complicated to respond to.

I have long since stopped liking carols.   For the most part hey have become just jingles in shopping malls and right now the crazy invocation of  mid winter on  a hot Sydney night  adds an air of madness to the evenng.  A row of portaloos and a barbecue manned by Miles  are on the right flank of the park.  On the left is a no go zone where fireworks have been set up.  We’ve all bought our candles   and groups borrow fire from one another as not many of us carry lighters now that hardly anyone smokes.  Jack eyes it all with equanimity and I wish I could too.  He’s passed from one church person to another and while I am proud of him I also wish he would just stay with me.  He’s so portable.  I tell myself these are all good people and I don’t have sole rights to Jack do I.

Rachel says she needs to go to the loo before her performance and I say no worries.

Now for a while up on stage,  in between the carols, there has been a running gag  going on.  Two little girls dressed as angels have been going up to the master of ceremonies and one says

“We’ve found the baby Jesus”

“How do you know it’s the baby Jesus?

“Look”

And the first angel would draw back and the other child would be hanging on to a baby.

“But that’s a girl” said the MC.

“Oh” and the angels would go away whilst another carol was revved up.  It was all good fun I suppose but the joke had a dark feeling too.  There was a whiff of sacrifice in the offering of the babies and a hint of rejection in their dismissal.  Were they being spared the knife or shut out of paradise?

I was musing on all this when the inevitable happened.  The two winged girls came bounding up to my blanket.

“Can we borrow your baby?”

“No” I said immediately “His mum’s not here.”

The  angels looked longingly at Jack.  He was just the right size for their purpose.  But Rachel was still at the portaloos and I was strongly on duty.  Then up came the angels’ minder, the minister who had actually married Rachel and Miles.  “Rachel won’t mind” she said.

“Won’t it be noisy?” I parried “I’ll block his ears” she said.

And so I let him go out of my sight through the candles and the horrible racket.  After what seemed a very long time I heard the little voices excitedly announcing

“We’ve found the baby Jesus”

“How do you know it’s Jesus?”

After a pause – and then in a tone of deep awe,

“Because of his eyes’

I had to smile.  He does have unusual eyes. Very dark with a little bit of gold.  When I described him on the phone to my sister Sal in England she said,

“ Hmph Rachel hasn’t been going to any witches' Sabbaths lately.”

  “Don’t tell her I said that” she added hastily.  She’s a midwife and knows all about the sensitivities of young mothers.

Well, Jack failed as a baby Jesus look alike just like the others and was back on my blanket before long.  I wondered what he had thought of it all but he wasn’t crying which was the main thing. Rachel arrived back flustered but not entirely displeased at being chatted up by a man in the portaloo queue. 

“I told him I was married” she said “but it made no difference”

I recounted the story of Jack’s abduction by the angels and she laughed and said she was sorry to have missed his stage debut.

Rachel sang her carol.  Miles came back from barbecuing and said he didn’t care if he never saw another sausage in his life and we fled  the park with the crackle and bang of the fireworks like a small war behind us.

Not exactly a silent night, holy night, I mused, but a reminder of the dark side that makes one own personal family candle burn well.  I was glad I’d gone.